Muteking the Dancing Hero was on my radar this season mainly because it looked like an odd duck.  There’s a lot that’s weird about this series, not least that the 78 year-old chief director is only the second-oldest director working on it, and it’s based on a 41 year-old show which I had absolutely no idea existed.  It’s set in “Neo San Francisco“, features a dancing superhero, and by appearances doesn’t remotely resemble anything in anime these days.  None of that said it was going to be any good, but it’s at least a calling card.

Despite what you might expect, this is a late-night anime – the look is definitely that of a kid’s show, but I’m not yet sure about the content.  And considering how much of a wild card it looked like, in the end Muteking was fairly close to what I expected.  It’s goofy, cheerfully juvenile, colorful, and sort of fun.  It’s loaded with bad Engrish and semi-fantastical views of San Francisco, though on the whole I’d say they got enough right to tell me someone on the key staff has lived in the city (I did, for a decade).  The protagonist’s grandma lives in the Mt. Tamalpais observatory, Fog City Diner makes an appearance, and there’s even clam chowder in sourdough bread bowls in the ED.

This is an interesting mix of Japanese tourist SF cliches and slightly local knowledge, and as a former resident that’s amusing to see.  The premise here is that the hero, Muteki, shows up in Neo SF to visit his grandmother but gets rather sidetracked along the way.  He appears to be about 14 and seems to have some interest in music and dance to begin with, but for whatever reason the annoyingly genki DJ aka DJ seems to know him (or at least his name – possibly a reference to the 1980 series here).  There’s also a billionaire entrepreneur named Theo who may be an alien, and a cute waitress at the diner who brings everyone an ice cream soda no matter what they order.

All in all I found this pretty enjoyable.  Muteking is a likeable kid, and there are some clever touches (like the head-bob from the robo-clerk at “Tacos Tacos”).  Frankly I didn’t see anything here to justify why this series airs at 1:26 AM rather than in the morning, where what seems like should be its main target audience would have an easier time finding it.  Dancing 14 year-old and aliens is the same basic premise that Tribe Cool Crew used, and I would be thrilled if Muteking the Dancing Hero would up providing as much entertainment as that underrated show did.  Basically no one in the West will watch it of course, but that’s to be expected.