Trivia / Di Gi Charat

• Adaptation Overdosed: The original Di Gi Charat incarnation was in a comic strip published by GAMERS in 1998. From there, it got an anime franchise, that got many animated alternate continuities over the following 8 years, many manga series that either followed suit or ignored them, a Visual Novel game... then it got rebooted again in the 10th anniversary of the franchise (with a cast change), that was lastly forgotten when the 15th anniversary happened, in 2013. A 25th Anniversary season aired in 2023.
• Breakaway Advertisement: These days, the anime is better known than the advertising campaign Dejiko was part of.
• Cash-Cow Franchise: Di Gi Charat was one of Broccoli's flagship brands in the earlier 2000s, more than just being the advertising mascot of their GAMERS store. It had several anime and manga series, it got lots of Image Songs releases, the DUP and PKO units were incredibly popular (PKO got some separate concerts from the usual BROCCOLI THE LIVE concerts, compared to DUP's presentations), and merchandise was almost everywhere.
• Cast the Runner-Up: Miyuki Sawashiro originally auditioned for the title character in Di Gi Charat, but lost to Asami Sanada. She was later cast as Puchiko.
• Channel Hop: The original 1999 Wonderful shorts and the TV specials aired on TBS, but then Panyo Panyo and nyo! aired on TV Tokyo before Winter Garden circled its way back to TBS.
  • Happened again with Reiwa no Di Gi Charat airing on Tokyo MX and BS Nippon TV ^note  Nippon TV's satelllite network as well as streaming on YouTube, TBS is however credited under "special thanks".
• Cross-Dressing Voice:
  • Gema is voiced by Yoshiko Kamei, who mostly specializes in voicing young male roles.
  • Omi Minami as Minataku in the original anime, and later as Kiyoshi Omocha in Di Gi Charat Nyo!.
    • Ditto for the Synch-Point dub where Minataku is voiced by Dorothy Elias-Fahn, though averted for Kiyoshi Omocha in Blue Water's dub of Nyo! where he's voiced by Sean Broadhurst.
  • Coo Erhard is voiced by Tomo Saeki, but guessing on her voice (and live appearances with Kosuke Toriumi and Chihiro Suzuki, from the PKO live performances), she could have easily passed as a teenage boy.
  • In the Synch-Point dub, Gema and Coo are voiced by Stephanie Sheh and Wendee Lee respectively, averted in the Blue Water dub of Nyo! where they're voiced by Lucas Gilbertson and Cole Howard respectively. However this still apples to Gema in ADV's dub of Panyo Panyo where he's voiced by Tiffany Grant.
• He Also Did: Bushiroad-no-Mikoto's voice actress, Ayasa Itō previously voiced Maira Tsukishima in Mewkledreamy and Lico in '"The Demon Girl Next Door'', both of which were also directed by Hiroaki Sakurai.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes:
  • For a long time, all the anime series were out of print in the U.S. due to their licensors (Broccoli USA, Synch-Point, Bandai Entertainment, and ADV Films) going under, making it difficult and/or nigh impossible to buy them. Fortunately, Sentai Filmworks picked up the rights of the original anime (Specials and omakes included) and Winter Garden, to release them in 2013. There hasn't been an official word for relicensing for the others ever since. Although Panyo Panyo was originally released in its entirety, and copies of the entire collection in DVD may surface online, Nyo! was only released up until episode 72, out of 104.
  • All the manga series that were brought up to the U.S. are out-of-print ever since Broccoli Books, a subsidiary of Broccoli USA, closed operations in 2008. Second-hand copies can surface online at cheaper prices, though.
• Milestone Celebration:
  • For the 10th anniversary of the franchise, in 2008, the DUP unit got recast and the girls' designs suffered a redesign. This was ultimately left behind in 2013, for the 15th anniversary.
  • For the 20th anniversary of the GAMERS store chain, in 2016, the Akihabara store opened a memorial museum dedicated to Di Gi Charat during the Summer season, with many of the original merchandise in display. New pictures autographed by Koge-Donbo* were also added to the expo, and new merchandise based on the franchise could be bought as souvenirs. The event was officially opened by Asami Sanada, Dejiko's voice actress.
  • Reiwa was released to celebrate the 24th anniversary anniversary of the franchise.
• Multiple Languages, Same Voice Actor: Miyuki Sawashiro reprised her role as Puchiko in the Leave It To Piyoko-Pyo! English dub, with the exception of the final two episodes.
• No Dub for You: The Sentai Filmworks releases of the TV specials and Winter Garden are sub-only. Averted with their release of the original series as it utilizes Synch-Point's preexisting dub.
• No Export for You:
  • Broccoli Books originally announced that they were going to release volumes 2 and 3 of Dejiko's Adventure, and the second volume of the Leave it to Piyoko! series in 2005... but then, they were on hold for three years until Broccoli USA ceased operations in 2008, leaving the series unfinished in the U.S.
  • The Movie based on the original Wonderful continuity, A Trip To The Planet, was announced for a DVD release in the US by Synch-Point in 2003. The release ended up being cancelled after it was put on hold for five years when Synch-Point ceased operations.
  • Di Gi Charat Nyo! only had 72 episodes out of 104 released in the U.S., leaving the series unfinished, but also on limbo since Bandai Entertainment closed operations in the late 2000s.
  • Many of the official merchandise, such as the music albums, videogames, and live performances DVDs remain exclusive to Japan. Only an official English version of "Welcome!" and other songs were officially released overseas.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Zig-zagged. In 2008, the original DUP unit were replaced by new voice actresses, Satomi Akesaka (Dejiko), Nao Sakamoto (Puchiko) and Rieka Yazawa (Rabi~En~Rose). However, Rieka Yazawa retired from voice acting altogether back in 2012 and in the girls' more recent appearances they were voiced by the original unit's voice actresses when the characters had appeared in games such as Super Heroine Chronicle and Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory^note ("Broccoli" is based on Puchiko's design). In typical Di Gi Charat fashion, this was acknowledged in a comic created for the 15th Anniversary of the franchise.
  • Each series was licensed by different companies (the original series and Leave It To Piyoko-Pyo! by Synch-Point, Panyo Panyo by ADV Films, and Nyo! by Bandai Entertainment), which led to each series having different voice actors due to each company's dubs being recorded in different areas (the Synch-Point dub in Los Angeles, the ADV dub in Houston, and the Bandai dub by Blue Water ^note  Ocean's non-union studio that they like to use whenever their main Vancouver studio is too expensive in Calgary).
  • In the English dub of Leave It To Piyoko-Pyo!, Miyuki Sawashiro dubbed her own dialogue for Puchiko in English for most of the series. Because of scheduling conflicts, she could not dub the last two episodes, so Karen Strassman (who played Puchiko in the original series' dub) took over.
  • In the trailers for the Leave It To Piyoko-Pyo! and (ultimately never released) A Trip To The Planet US DVD releases, Stephanie Sheh played Dejiko as she narrated instead of her regular Synch-Point actress, Jessica Gee-George.
  • For their cameo appearances in Galaxy Angel, Dejiko and Puchiko were voiced in that show's English dub by Anna Cummer ^note  who was already voicing Vanilla and Jillian Michaels respectively.
• Official Fan-Submitted Content: Rabi~En~Rose got her name (and her civilian identity's, "Hikaru Usada") from a fan-submitted competition offered by GAMERS. The winner was a Yutaka-san, unnemployed and 32 years old (at the time), who suggested the name seemingly based on the rabbit idol-cosplay suit that Rabi~En~Rose uses. Their prize was also a cameo in the Gema Gema comic strip.
• Recast as a Regular: Satomi Akesaka briefly took over the role of Dejiko back in 2008 for the franchise's 10th anniversary, however when Broccoli reinstated the original cast for the 15th Anniversary, Akesaka would end up voicing Broccodess and as mentioned above, the series itself would address this in typical fashion as Broccodess subbing in for Dejiko while she was away from Earth.
• Star-Making Role: Miyuki Sawashiro as Puchiko and Asami Sanada as Dejiko (their debut roles).
• Those Two Actors:
  • Omi Minami and Yuji Ueda, who have shared some credits in other comedy anime as well, got married somewhere along the line in the mid 2000s.
  • Di Gi Charat is not the first time that Ryo Naitou and Norihisa Mori have voiced a couple of friends and/or have interacted with each other's roles. That would be Rurouni Kenshin, as Sanosuke (also voiced by Yuji Ueda)'s friends, and many extras. They also shared credits as hosts in a Japanese anime-themed radio program in the late 90s.
  • The English dub of Leave It To Piyoko! marked one of the earliest times Stephanie Sheh and Michael Sinterniklaas worked together.
  • Coo, Usada and Gema make up the female members of the SOS Brigade.
• Unfinished Dub: The Bandai Entertainment/Blue Water dub of Nyo! was cut short after 72 of the show's 104 episodes had been dubbed.
• What Could Have Been: Before the series was dubbed in any capacity, Broccoli had initially cast Karrie Shirou, Cristina Vee and Stephanie Yanez as Dejiko, Puchiko and Usada's respective English voices however the only thing that really came out of that was this commercial that ran on ABC Family's "Made In Japan" block back in the early 2000s.

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