YMMV / Jackie Chan Adventures

• Accidental Innuendo: In an early episode, Jade gives Jackie the nickname "Jackinator."
• Adaptation Displacement: An odd case for this kind of show is that Jackie Chan was only marginally popular with most of the young kids who watched JCA. The result was that many of them would watch his live-action movies and wonder where Jade, Uncle, and all of the cool magic was.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Some may view the constant bickering between Uncle and Tohru's mother as their way of expressing their secret affection towards each other.
  • After his Heel–Face Turn, Tohru changes from The Brute into a Gentle Giant rather quickly. Did he undergo a real personality change or was he just donning a Jerkass façade all along in order to manage with the Dark Hand and decided to shed it after leaving them? The fact that his mother never knew he was a criminal suggests that at the least he wasn't entirely proud of his time with the Dark Hand even before he left.
  • It's been suggested that Shendu refused to honor his end of the bargain with Valmont because Valmont already betrayed Shendu once in "Bullies" by keeping the dragon talisman all to himself in order to commit robberies. After all, why would Shendu honor his bargain with somebody who'd already proven himself disloyal?
  • Did Shendu intend to leave his siblings imprisoned in another dimension and take over the world himself, or did he simply want to re-establish his own power base before freeing them and was destroyed before getting that far?
• Alternative Joke Interpretation: In "The Eighth Door", Tso Lan quips, "Age before beauty" towards Po Kong when the Demon Sorcerers are fighting over each other to escape through the Demon Portal. This can be read one of two ways: it can be read as indicating he deserves to get ahead of Po Kong because he's older than her specifically, or it can be read as him indicating he deserves to be the sole demon who escapes through the portal because he's the oldest of all the imprisoned demon siblings.
• Angst? What Angst?: Jade develops a strong friendship with Tohru after his Heel–Face Turn, despite the time he tried to cut her stomach open to get a talisman.
• Awesome Ego: Jade, with her being the The Münchausen in her classroom and a Badbutt.
• Base-Breaking Character: Is Jade secretly The Hero to Jackie's Decoy Protagonist, a pretty good Lancer, a forgettable Kid-Appeal Character, a regrettable scrappy, or Creator's Pet who takes the entire show from good to painful? You decide!
• Complete Monster: "Into the Mouth of Evil": Mr. Jumba is a museum curator who plots with his associates, Portia Martindale and Dr. Weber, to destroy the Ganges River to excavate the treasures therein. "Accidentally" injuring Jackie's tooth, Jumba cons him into an appointment with Weber, who inserts a tiny magical artifact, the Sutras of Raktajiba, into Jackie's filling. Arranging for Jackie to unwittingly smuggle the Sutras into India, Jumba then has Weber painfully extract them and reveals his plan to use them to dry up the Ganges with their power. When Jackie informs them that this would result in drought and famine for millions, the three villains simply mock him for being "sentimental" before trying to kill him and his niece Jade.
• Die for Our Ship: Paco is often the victim of this by fans who want to pair Jade up with someone other than him (despite the fact that it's implied that at most he has an unrequited crush on her).
• Draco in Leather Pants: Shippers like to romanticize evil demon sorcerers such as Drago and Hsi Wu and even Shendu himself, somehow thinking they're a great match for Jade or another girl.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • The Demon Sorcerers are very popular antagonists. It helps that despite having only a few episodes each (save Shendu), they all have distinct personalities and decent characterization. Several are generally more popular than others, but they all seem to have some kind of individual fanbase.
  • Of the Demon Sorcerer family, Hsi Wu is rather inexplicably popular among certain fangirls, despite being a demonic creature who is far from being (conventionally) attractive. He doesn't even have the similarly popular Drago's advantage of being a solo Arc Villain and appearing in many episodes.
  • Jade's Superpowered Evil Side, the Queen of the Shadowkhan, only appeared in a filler episode in Season 2, and was referenced a couple times in Season 4, yet she's incredibly popular. There are plenty of fanart of her and many fanfics where Jade turns again into the Queen (or was never restored back to normal).
  • Super Moose, due to his simple concept of being a toy brought to life while being an effective ally.
  • Origami, a One-Shot Character who only appeared in his only self-titled episode was well-liked for staying one step ahead of the heroes, and his cool ability set. It's often lamented that he never showed up again.
• Fan Nickname:
  • "Jackiezilla", for when Jade used the Book of Ages to turn Jackie into a giant to beat down Shendu and the other Demon Sorcerers during "Demon World (Part 2)".
  • The varieties of Shadowkhan are never named on-screen, but are known in fandom as the Ninja Khan, Bat Khan, Sumo Khan, Leech Khan, Samurai Khan, Squid Khan, Razor Khan, Crab Khan, and the Mantis Khan.
• Fashion-Victim Villain: Valmont is forced to wear a sorcerer's robe by Shendu, which he calls a dress. Its ridiculousness is pointed out in-universe.
• First Installment Wins: While each of the seasons has their fans, most unanimously agree the original hunt for the Talismans is the best of the series.
• Foe Yay Shipping:
  • Hsi Wu the Sky Demon, because of how he pretended^note emphasis on that word to be Jade's friend / love interest in one episode.
  • There's also a lot of pairing with Jade and Drago. It's based on the bickering between him and future-Jade. It almost sounds like something between jilted lovers. He also singles out present-Jade quite a bit during the last season.
  • Jackie/Valmont fic is probably second in popularity after that couple. Followed by Jackie/Viper, Jackie/Finn, Valmont/Finn, and Valmont/Jade (with either child Valmont or adult Jade).
• Genius Bonus: While much of the mythology is often exaggerated for the show, it will occasionally throw a bone of wisdom.
  • Qin Shi Huangdi was a real person, more specifically the first emperor of China.
  • The Eight Immortals are real figures in Chinese mythology and Taoism.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • The relationship between Shendu and Drago and the final scene of the series with them wrestling in the Netherworld may be seen as unfunny after the real Jackie Chan's relationship with his own son Jaycee became strained following Jaycee's arrest on drug charges and temporarily being disinherited from Chan's worth, along with The Reveal of a daughter he had from an affair.
  • Jackie's relationship with Jade, and possibly Shendu's relationship with his siblings, may fall under the same category for the same reasons.
  • Lo Pei's statue giving a thumbs up after he returns to being a statue is rather cringe-worthy after an incident where a tourist broke off and stole a terracotta soldier's thumb.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • A meta example. Jackie Chan and Julian Sands would later go on to play opposing characters in The Medallion, to the point where several reviewers called it a live action version of the show.
  • Also, a minor yet memorable recurring villain was this show's version of Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, who was a Joker trickster that caused a lot of pain. Chan himself would voice Master Monkey in the Kung Fu Panda movies (with his son Jaycee voicing the younger Monkey and his stand in actor, Chow/Shendu voice James Sie, voicing Monkey in KFP's TV series), who has traits of Sun Wukong in his backstory and has a brother who is like Wukong. Chan also starred in The Forbidden Kingdom which featured the Monkey King as a character. Speaking of monkeys, Tso Lan asks Shendu if a chimpanzee in an astronaut suit is Jackie Chan. Again, Chan and James Sie would eventually voice a monkey.
  • The Season 2 filler episode "Agent Tag" involved a James Bond-style secret agent getting incapacitated by Jackie, who, along with Jade, then had to deal with the Blofeld-type Villain of the Week and his plans. 15 years later, Chan is Playing Against Type in Martin Campbell's The Foreigner opposite former Bond Pierce Brosnan, who is working with Campbell again after Goldeneye (Campbell also did Daniel Craig's first Bond film Casino Royale (2006) the year after JCA ended.)
  • In "Shanghai Moon", when Chow is upset about how the Tso Lan's demon portal is located in space he asks "Why couldn't it be the earth demon?" Guess who the next Demon Sorcerer is?
  • In "Shell Game", Jade sees a news report of an aquarium acquiring a tortoise named Aesop and sees the rabbit talisman stuck in his shell. Jade calls for Jackie, but the report ends and shows a dog food commercial. Jackie tells her "No, we are not getting a dog." In Season 3, the Chans get a stray dog since it inherited the destroyed Dog Talisman's immortality power and Jackie wholeheartedly lets Jade keep the puppy at the end of the season.
  • In "The Mask Of El Toro Fuerte", Jackie is looking for the ox talisman in a Mexican temple. Before the Dark Hand enforcers follow him in, one mook proposes waiting till Jackie gets the talisman, then taking it from him, but Finn overrules that, saying "We don't know what power this ox talisman has. Chan might coming busting out of there 50 feet tall with laser eyes...", which persuades the mook. In "The Dog And Piggy Show", we find out that laser eyes are actually the power in the pig talisman.
  • Fans of Super Robot Wars Judgment, which came out three months after this series ended, can spot a similarity between Great Zeorymer taking the powers of the Hau Dragon robots and Drago absorbing the Demon Chi of his aunts and uncles in this show's Grand Finale. In both cases, the eight Elemental Powers represented are Sky, Water, Fire, Thunder, Wind, Moon, Mountain, and Earth.
  • Shendu is not the first villain who tried to use a Book of Ages for evil, nor was he the last.
  • Also not the first time where there are supernatural happenings thanks to the characters of the series.
  • The episode "Origami" is not the last time we would see Jackie Chan fight a villian on the Eiffel Tower.
  • Viper, who's strongly implied to be Israeli, is voiced by Susan Eisenberg, previously best known for her role as Wonder Woman. Over a decade later, Wonder Woman would be played by Gal Gadot, who actually is Israeli.
• Ho Yay:
  • Uncle beats himself up over letting Tohru be taken by Shadowkhan and is willing to let himself be engulfed by dark magic to save him, as well as (in another episode) swallow his pride and call a psychic for help when he can't find the ingredient that will wake Tohru up.
  Uncle (in front of phone): *casts Tohru wistful look* "For you...my apprentice."
  • Likewise, Tohru is very protective of Uncle and hates to see Uncle upset. And when Uncle returns to the team in "Samurai Ratso", he's positively elated and cries touched tears. In the same sense, Uncle has their blowfish kiss to share the magic.
  • Uncle and Daolon Wong have a bit of this too. In one episode, after Daolon tries to extract information on where the ox talisman's power is hidden from Uncle's spiritual head. One of the visions Uncle trolls his archenemy with, is Uncle spanking Daolon. When Daolon questions what he's looking at, Uncle replies with "Your destiny, evil one."
  • Finn, Ratso and Chow have a very close three-way dynamic. They're never apart, never show any interest in anyone outside their trio, always look out for each other...heck, when Finn decides to quit The Dark Hand and start his own crime syndicate, Ratso and Chow immediately quit too so they can keep working with him.
  Ratso: "After you quit, we told Valmont he'd better give us raises, or we quit too!"
  Finn (thrilled): "And now you guys wanna work for me? That is so c-I mean, that's cool."
  • Paco's starry-eyed devotion to El Toro seems a bit over-the-top. The fact that he seems to not have any parents and even travels with him doesn't help. On the other end, El Toro also does not help by referring to Paco so affectionately all the time. "Mi Pacito", indeed.
  • Jackie sees red and loses his cool only when Captain Black has been injured by the bad guys. Then he recklessly goes out for revenge.
• Jerkass Woobie: The Dark Hand gang as a whole. Their life of crime never pays, they rarely (if ever) win any fights against the heroes, and they keep getting conscripted or enslaved by evil wizards and demons. Eventually by Season 5, they've gotten tired of all these humiliating criminal/supernatural misadventures, so they decide to settle back into boring yet normal lives.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Pick a character - ANY character. Chances are that Jade's been paired up with him/her in the fandom at some point or another. The most common being either Hsi Wu or Drago.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Uncle is perhaps best known for his constant use of ONE MOOOOOOORE THING!
  • During the peak of its popularity in the Philippines in The 2000s, some kids would pick up dead lizards (not hard to find in houses and classrooms) or any other thing they can dangle and utter Uncle's chant^note The Filipino dub at that time sounds closer to "Go Mo Go Kyo Pan Ji Taw" instead of "Yu Mo Gui Gwai Fai Di Zao" from the original.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • When Shendu refuses to pay what he promised to the Dark Hand after they restore him to his true form, Valmont orders Tohru to attack the dragon demon despite it being obvious he can't win. After Tohru is thrown into his apparent death, Valmont shows no remorse for sacrificing his loyal top enforcer who has endured his boss' beratings for the whole first season.
  • The main villain in "Pleasure Cruise" nearly sunk the ship when he ordered his men to blow open the vault.
• No Problem with Licensed Games: Both the PS2 and GBA games are rather fun beat-em-ups that have received anywhere from average to favorable reviews.
• Retroactive Recognition: The animated Jackie is voiced by James Sie, the future voice of Hojo.
  • Kate Higgins made her voice acting debut as Simone in "Return of the Pussycat".
• Ron the Death Eater: Jade is an interesting case, in that it's not actually her haters that do this to her, but rather she has a lot of fans who really liked her as the evil Queen of the Shadowkhan. There's a lot of fan fiction that have her change back permanently.
• The Scrappy:
  • Paco is seen as an Ethnic Scrappy, his dialog is mostly either Character Shilling for El Toro or mindless bickering with Jade. His crush on her has not earned him many fans either...
  • Of the seasons' big bads, Daolon Wong is generally considered the weakest. Initially built up as an all powerful evil sorcerer who had beaten Uncle's old teacher, he quickly proves to be little more than an annoyance as he is easily bested by Uncle nearly every time they fight each other. And unlike the seasons' other villains, he never makes any significant gains in his plans (he had managed to steal only two of the twelve talisman's powers, and even then never achieves any real victory over the heroes). In fact, he is superseded by the much more threatening Shendu as the main villain in the season's Grand Finale, having by that point become little more than a Big Bad Wannabe.
  • The Ice Crew was not well-received by viewers, especially when they replaced Finn, Ratso, and Chow in the last season. Ice probably gets it the worst because of the way he talks.
• Seasonal Rot:
  • Season 2, which ran for a whopping 39 episodes, was criticized for having a large amount of Filler episodes, which took up as much as two-thirds of the season (including some which clearly take place during the events of the first season, likely due to the episodes having been holdovers from season 1). The main Story Arc, which had the Ensemble Dark Horse villains the Demon Sorcerers, was generally well received, but suffered from an underwhelming two-part finale that was riddled with Plot Holes (Shendu escapes Demon World and rewrites history so that Demons rule the world. Um...why is this plan B? And how could the symbols used to banish the demons still exist if they were NEVER BANISHED in this rewritten history?) and Villain Decay on the part of the sorcerers.
  • Season 3 is derided somewhat for its underwhelming Big Bad, Daolon Wong, although its finale, which featured the return of fan-favorite villain Shendu, was very well received.
  • While very few fans think it's truly bad, most fans agree that the fifth (and final) season is the weakest. Reasons include: having the misfortune of airing after the extremely well received fourth season; its plot being a rehash of the second season, but without one of the elements that made said season so memorable (the Demon Sorcerers); having the beloved Enforcers replaced with the much less liked Ice Crew; Drago not being as great as a villain as Shendu, Tarakudo, or the Demon Sorcerers (he's still considered better than Daolon Wong); and recurring allies Viper and El Toro being Out of Focus. Still, the two-part Grand Finale won back a lot of fans by bringing back the Enforcers (this time with an actual Heel–Face Turn that wasn't undone at the end of the episode), Viper and El Toro, having Drago become much more threatening, an incredibly epic final battle, and overall ending the series on a satisfying conclusion.
• Spiritual Adaptation:
  • JCA is a more kid-friendly successor to Armor of God, while that film and its sequel in turn are Spiritual Successors to Indiana Jones. It's even given a Shout-Out in the title of the Season 2 episode "Armor of the Gods."
  • Comes full circle with CZ12 or Chineze Zodiac released in 2012, which is in the same franchise as Armor of God and has Jackie seeking to complete the twelve bronze heads of the animals of the Eastern Zodiac.
• That One Boss: The GBA video game is a pretty standard beat 'em up, except for the Demon Sorcerer boss fights at the end of stages 6 and 8 (Moon Demon Tso Lan and Water Demon Bai Tza, respectively). In these fights, running in just attacking won't work, and the bosses can summon Shadowkhan for backup.
  • Tso Lan is difficult due to a cryptic clue involving the background. The player needs to wait until the Moon is covered in clouds (the GBA screen darkens when this happens) before they can attack Tso Lan.
  • Bai Tza will float away from the player when they advance, and pursuing her too vigorously will lead to them walking off the other side of the pier you're on and into the moat below (Chan can't swim in this game; water counts as a Bottomless Pit).
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Tchang Zu, the Thunder Demon. Despite being one of the most vocal about his loathing of Shendu initially, he is later reduced to being The Voiceless and the demon with the least amount of focus.
  • The nine Oni Generals. Out of all of them, we are only given the name of one of them (Ikazuki), and next to nothing is known about their personalities.
  • Five of them. In a filler episode of the last season, one of the B-list villains of the show, Bartholomew Chang, assembled an Evil Counterpart team to the J-Team, which he dubbed the Chang Gang. The members of the gang were Philip Crane, Bob "the Bopper" Halfcock, Helga Sorensen and "Little" Tony Chung. Each member was individually at least as skilled as their good counterparts. However, the episode involving them is about Jade screwing up a magic spell and turning everybody into children. After this episode, the gang is never seen again and there is no indication that they or Chang were turned back.
  • Drew believes in Jade's stories in "Animal Crackers." He could have stopped teasing Jade and become her friend, and maybe a helpful ally during the rest of the series.
  • Likewise with Miss Hartman. She ended up being possessed by the Sky Demon Chi and helped fight off Drago while protecting Jade and assuring her that she doesn't hate her. Unfortunately, the Chans convince Miss Hartman that she was merely imagining the events.
  • Mama Tohru was a very interesting character but disappears after Season 3. You'd think she would've been active in the season after that — what with Onis, Japanese folklore and her son playing an active role but the only reference to her is a line in Season 5 about why Tohru has one of her compacts.
  • Viper's only solo appearance with Jackie was in "Origami". After that, she only appeared when the J-Team was called together, unlike El Toro who had numerous guest appearances.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • At the end of his namesake episode, the villain Origami swears revenge on Jackie Chan. But he never appears again.
  • In the Season 3 finale, Daolon Wong revives Shendu in exchange for Shendu's power of combustion. Shendu cheats Wong by absorbing the power himself and also steals Wong's powers of Levitation and Eye Beams. Wong then summons Finn, Ratso, Chow, and Hak Foo, gives them battle armor and tells them to attack Shendu for backing out of his promise. It seems like we'll see either a 3 way fight between Jackie, Shendu and Daolon Wong, or at least a battle between Shendu and Daolon Wong, only for Uncle and Tohru to turn the Dark Warriors back to normal and take away the rest of Daolon Wong's magic.
  • Tarakudo's Villain Takes an Interest moments with Jade. Though this would've been a good chance to bring back her Queen of the Shadowkhan transformation from Season 2, nothing came of it and as the season went on, Tarakudo eventually stopped bringing this up.
  • In a filler episode of Season 4, we have Finn, Ratso, and Chow turning over to the good side, after tiring of constantly being defeated by Jackie and getting enslaved by dragons, dark wizards, and floating demon heads. Unfortunately, they are back to a life of crime by the end of the episode. They would eventually make a permanent Heel–Face Turn and lend their help to the heroes later on in the series (this time joined by Hak Foo)...but this happens in the last episode, rendering any potential story ideas stemming from this a case of What Could Have Been.
  • The introduction of the Oni and Japanese folklore would have been the perfect jumping board for enemies and adventures centering on not just Japan, but other cultures and myths as well. Sadly, the writers opted for going back to adventures involving the Demon Sorcerer legends.
  • The fact that we never got to see Uncle possessed by either an Oni Mask or a Demon Chi when every other main character did was a huge waste. Special mention goes to the final Oni Mask, since no character managed to wear it before it was destroyed. Who wouldn't have loved to see a corrupted version of Uncle with his own army of Shadowkhan?
  • In Season 5, Jackie retrieves another priceless artifact, and runs into a group of his enemies from the Season 2 filler episodes, consisting of Agnus Mc Cutcheon and Haggis from Glove Story, Vanessa Barone from Scout's Honor, Peter Bailey from The Deep Freeze, and the monk from The Lotus Temple. Only for Jade to save Jackie once again, and while nothing fatal happens to them, they're never seen again.
  • After "The Return of the Pussycat" Simone could have been a new friend to Jade, being a counterpart to Drew who actually believes Jade's stories and wants to get involved in the adventures. Sadly she only ever appeared in that episode.
• Toy Ship: Jade and Paco. It doesn't help that the first time they meet, Paco calls Jade a "charming señorita."
• Values Dissonance: While the show has aged fairly well after over 20 years there are a couple aspects that haven't.
  • Uncle's signature finger slap against his nephew Jackie may seem strange to an American viewer and could be taken as a form of abuse. But in Asia this is a fairly standard and rather lenient form of discipline. Especially concerning the master and student relationship of martial arts.
  • Jade wouldn't DARE be able to sneak onboard a plane in the cargo hold in this day and age under Jackie's, let alone Section 13s nose without many TSA visits and being put on a No-Fly list. This is especially concerning when you realize the show premiered just one year shy of 9/11 and the complications season 2 went through when it began airing.
  • The depiction of Inuits as being so easily tricked into thinking a cellphone is black magic in "Danger in the Deep Freeze" would never ever be allowed to air today.
• The Woobie: "The Lotus Temple" introduces Xu Lin, a little girl who has been cursed into a monstrous form and trapped inside a lost temple in the middle of nowhere. She just wants to go back home to her family. Fortunately, Jackie and Jade do break her curse and save her.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: Probably due to Jade's haircut and clothes, some viewers who haven't been paying that much attention to the show might be surprised to realise that Jade is in fact, a girl.

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