Fans of Cowboy Bebop Another science fiction work by author Shinichiro Watanabe, Dandy SpaceIt may surprise you to know that there is something amazing journey between the stars The reference is packed into every episode of the series, but only for those who have watched the original Japanese version. Unfortunately, translating this joke is impossible for a variety of reasons, but it's still fun to learn about.
Space Dandy is a 2014 science fiction series by Shinichiro Watanabe that is primarily a comedy, in contrast to the often dark and dramatic tone of Cowboy Bebop. It follows Dandy and his crew, including a cat-like alien, Meow, and a robot, QT, as they attempt to encounter undiscovered alien species and turn them over for profit. The show has a heavy 1970s-era theme, with disco music playing a major role and an anachronistic futuristic aesthetic that looks like it was taken from the 1950s.
To further cement the series' sci-fi credibility and emphasize its '70s theme, Watanabe made a casting joke in the Japanese version by including Captain Kirk himself in the film.
The original dub of Space Dandy featured a Japanese Captain Kirk.
Watanabe gave Kirk a Japanese accent in a pivotal role.
In an interview with Shinichiro Watanabe, held on Forbes, Watanabe addressed his casting joke, saying, “…The guy we hired to do the narrator in Space Dandy was actually the Japanese voice of Captain Kirk in the original Star Trek.. So all the Japanese fans can recognize him just by hearing his voice. For the English version, I don't know if they'll do something similar.” According to IMDB, that would be Masaaki Yajima, who also had a narration role in another Watanabe work, Samurai Champloo, albeit only in a single episode.
Unfortunately, the English dub fails to replicate this reference; obviously, getting William Shatner to voice an anime would be an impossible task, although there are other Star Trek actors who could have taken on the role. Instead, the English dub is narrated by R. Bruce Elliot, a truly excellent voice actor, best known for his roles as Makarov and Faust in Fairy Tail, and as the voice of Captain Ginyu since Dragon Ball Z Kai.
Listening to the narration, it has a bit of a Star Trek “Captain’s Log” feel to it, though the narrator is a separate character from Dandy and his crew. If the role was actually designed for Masaaki Yajima’s Kirk, that would make perfect sense, and would make the casting all the more difficult, cementing the joke for Japanese fans.
It's unfortunate that these types of jokes are often difficult to mimic in dubbing, and some of them are extremely easy to miss without a lot of knowledge of Japanese media. It's entirely possible that the voice directors for Space Dandy had no idea what this joke was, and thus never even had the option to consider mimicking it in some way in the English dub. Dandy Space is a chapter filled with jokes and metaphors, so it's probably understandable that some of them will be overlooked.