YMMV / Monica's Gang

• Accidental Innuendo:
  • Several comics from the 70s until the 90s used the word "gozar" in their dialogue. Back then, the word had a more common meaning of "making fun of someone/something". However, since the 2000s, the word has gained a more sexual, inappropriate meaning, so it has been removed from any new stories, and younger readers tend to giggle when seeing that word being used on older comics.
  • There is another story from around the 90s where, at one point, Monica takes Jimmy to a doctor named "Doutor Pedo". The writer most likely just meant it as a Punny Name with "doutor" and "torpedo", but failed to recognize the worse implication of that name.
• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • Nutty Ned seems like a fourth wall-breaking wacko at first glance, but a substantial amount of fans believe he is actually a figment of Jimmy Five's imagination, meant to represent the boy's loosening grip on reality. Mauricio himself has displayed amusement towards this fan theory, going as far as to tell his writers to avoid having Ned interact with other characters, in order to keep fans speculating.
  • Is Monica a Tsundere Jerk with a Heart of Gold heroine that is only brute in response to someone else being a jerk to her? Or is she a selfish, Control Freak bully that the boys have good reason to want to overthrow? The Time Skip manga edges her heavily into the latter and even as a child, she has shown a lot of the latter interpretation.
  • Jimmy. A bully who enjoys tormenting Monica besides being a power-hungry kid who just wants everything for himself and enjoys trolling everyone for kicks, or Anti-Hero that wants to bring down Monica because she's pretty much terrorizing everyone in the block and trolls everyone as retribution for being picked on by the other kids?
  • Junior's dislike of eating is normally played as being part of his usual brattiness, but some stories hints it might be a psychological rejection because Maggy just doesn't shut up about food.
• Audience-Alienating Era: The second series of the Teen spin-off marked a profound decline in the franchise's popularity, due to a combination of Seasonal Rot and a significant raise in the price tag. This led to a Soft Reboot, which also revamped the art style and instated the format of three independent stories per issue, giving the writers more flexibility to conduct their own narratives. While these changes didn't quite restore the fans' goodwill, they are still seen as an improvement over the previous season.
• Audience-Alienating Premise:
  • "Turma da Mata: Muralha" is an action comic with Steampunk elements that features Thunder's gang with radically altered designs as they oppose the oppressive rule of King Lionel. Fans of the original comic were put off by the many liberties taken with the source material, whereas others weren't too interested in reading a politically-charged narrative featuring anthropomorphic animals "for children". As a result, the novel had a rather tepid reception compared to previous titles, with many reviewers pointing out that, while the work is not necessarily bad, its premise is too bizarre to leave the desired impact on the reader.
  • With "Papa-Capim: Noite Branca", Marcela Godoy makes the bold choice to write the first explicit horror story in the graphic novels brand. Unfortunately, many critics expressed that this decision came at the cost of making most characters unrecognizable compared to their counterparts from the comics, and the fact that the novel had to be appropriate for all ages led to a subdued narrative where most of its frightening elements were toned down.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Milena. Some fans think she is cute and believe her status as a prominent Black character is a solid effort to promote inclusivity. However, other readers find Milena to be boring and excessively pushed to the forefront solely to "check representation boxes", as she started to appear in almost all merchandise and promotional pictures, sometimes even stealing the spotlight from the main characters^note  Chuck Billy has pretty much disappeared from the promos despite having his own comic, and Milena has outright replaced one of the main four in this Instagram post - many comments are downright asking "where is Smudge?". This is compounded by the fact Milena was only introduced in 2019 and has barely any stories to her name, to the point she lacks defining traits other than being the daughter of the local veterinarian.
  • Teen Jimmy. Sometimes he is justified in some of his actions, such as being angry at Monica acting moody for the remainder of their date at one point simple because he glanced at another girl (proven further by Maggy) or her ever irritating hatred of Irene, but sometimes, the "Jerk" in his Jerk with a Heart of Gold can be way past tolerance.
  • Monica herself became one of these in the manga, due to Taking A Level In Jerkass. Some believe her attitude and stubbornness make her unsympathetic but others defend that these are understandable flaws and she's called out on them more often than not. Up to eleven after issue #94, in which she dumps her Understanding Boyfriend for thinking he was pushing her too far, which some found understandable, but others thought was for extremely selfish reasons.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • At one point in the first movie, when Franklin is about to explain his invention, a duck randomly flies in and starts dancing, quickly getting shooed out by Franklin. Twice, even. The third time Franklin tries to explain his invention, a worm comes out of a fruit and performs a magic trick, only to leave after getting stared at by Jimmy Five and Franklin.
  • In the "Shadows from the Future" arc from the teen spin-off, Monica is shown riding a giant bipedal jackalope for a few panels. How she was able to find and tame such a creature is not elaborated upon, its existence cannot be explained by any of the events of the comic, and it plays no role in any of the later chapters.
• Broken Base:
  • The exaggerated facial expressions, as popularized by writer Emerson Abreu and artist José Aparecido Cavalcante in the mid 2000's. Some readers adore the new art style for its memetic potential, making the characters look more expressive than before, and contributing to the narrative's dynamism. Others consider it to be a cheap gag that loses its appeal due to the sheer abundance of bizarre expressions that make the characters look downright deformed.
  • The manga version is a divisive topic for the fans, especially in Brazil. Some feel this version was created just to capitalize from the growing popularity of anime and manga (especially the latter) in Brazil, which resulted in an average manga with tons of cliché. Others don't share this point of view and think it is a nice addition to the franchise while preserving most of the original's charm.
  • Monica and Jim as a couple has always been one even before the manga. Many fans already didn't like the idea of them together (either due to Monica's temper or to Jimmy's tendency to insult her whenever he has the chance) and in the manga, those issues are highlighted since Manga#34. There are those who want them to be together and those who think they don't work as a couple anymore because of their own personal matters that interfere with the relationship, thus causing many to Abandon Ship.
  • The MonicaXNick Nope pairing, particularly after a story pulled a Cosmic Retcon on #50's distant future plot of Jim and Monica being married, even going as far as putting the cover image for the aforementioned issue and replacing Jim for Nick, angers long-time fans of MonicaXJim that wanted to see them reconcile and MonicaXNick Nope supporters that feel their pairing is being overly hyped and hurting the overall plot as a result. On the other side of the spectrum, MonicaXNick Nope shippers and Monica/Jim detractors welcome this development.
• Cliché Storm: The initial arc, covering the first four issues of the manga series, stacked every single manga cliché you can think of. Because of this, So Okay, It's Average art (especially considering the substantial Art Evolution in the subsequent issues) and bad writing, it became a source of mockery even in-universe.
• Continuity Lockout: The comics have been going since 1970, and many modern stories, particularly the Milestone Celebrations, often make references to previous events that will fly over most younger readers' heads. For example, Monica's 500th comic book, which was published in 2011, pays homage to the franchise's entire history by having Jimmy travel through time and revisit classic stories, with the Big Bad being none other than the Tenebrous Doll, an obscure villain who debuted in a 2001 Maggy comic book and only made sporadic cameos since then.
• Creator Worship:
  • Fans are very defensive of Rosana Munhoz's stories, as her scripts greatly contributed to Maggy's breakout success, introduced Denise (who would also become a Breakout Character under Emerson de Abreu's pen) and served as the main source of inspiration for the '90s animated shorts.
  • Emerson de Abreu's stories are generally considered by the fandom to be among the best ones in the series and his general interactions with the fandom only endear him to them further, particularly as he seems to be more in touch with the fandom than Maurício de Sousa Productions' direction appears to be.
  • Vitor and Lu Cafaggi's books are some of the most beloved graphic novels in the series, with "Bonds" even being adapted into a well-received live-action film in 2019.
• Cross the Line Twice:
  • Most of the stories of the ghost Penadinho involve a series of cruel jokes about the circumstances of people's deaths.
    • One story has Lady McDeath offering to cook a man his last meal before taking his soul to the afterlife. He rejects each of her (clearly tainted) dishes in a desperate attempt to keep on living, only to ultimately die of starvation.
    • The infamous "Mulher Fatal" ("Femme Fatale") story has Lady McDeath record a TV commercial to encourage depressed viewers to commit suicide.
  • Monica leaves her baby cousin at Jimmy's doorstep and tricks her friend into believing that the toddler is his son. A story about a seven-year-old trying to come to terms with fatherhood is bizarre enough, but when Ms. Five finds the baby and asks what is going on, Junior insensitively proclaims "This is Jimmy's son! Congratulations, you are now a grandmother!", causing the poor woman to faint.
  • Most jokes in "O Que Aconteceu com a Maria Cebolinha?"^Translation "Whatever Happened to Mary Angela?" are dedicated to showing how awful the Fives are at taking care of the youngest family member.
    • Jimmy's idea of babysitting Mary is placing her in the laundry basket. To add insult to injury, he walks away saying "You know the dwill. If you cwy, I'll close the lid".
    • Smudge wields a sock puppet to replace Mary after she goes missing. Surprisingly, Mr. Five is unable to distinguish the toy from his own daughter, and starts making baby noises at it. When an annoyed Smudge curses at him, the man is convinced that his baby has been possessed and runs away. He returns later on, brandishing a cross, and starts chasing the real Mary around the house in a misguided attempt to exorcise her.
    • Ms. Five goes to tuck Mary in the crib... except she also mistakes Smudge's sock for the girl, who is left cluelessly sitting at the floor as the story ends.
• Cult Classic: The first two animated films, respectively titled "The Adventures of Monica's Gang" and "The Princess and the Robot", are not as well-known due to being released in the early '80s, but have a devoted fanbase who nostalgically admire them for bringing the gang to life in the big screen. This was acknowledged in 2019, when the latter film was uploaded to Youtube as a means of celebrating the franchise's channel reaching 10 million subscribers.
• Designated Hero: Marina made drawings of Smudge bathing and freely handed out copies of them to everyone in the block without his permission. Smudge got understandably offended by it, but Marina countered with "It's just a drawing" and brought up her right to freedom of expression. He then steals her art tools as revenge, but she proceeds to fill the walls of the streets with the very same drawing as payback. So Marina gets away with not only violating Smudge's privacy, but also with vandalizing public property, yet the reader is supposed to side with her.
• Die for Our Ship: Todd and Dustine for Maggy/Smudge. In fact, the option to Pair the Spares became so popular that Maggy and Smudge started being disliked as a result. Hilariously, a plot in the Manga had a misunderstanding caused by Denise leading to Todd and Dustine breaking up with Maggy and Smudge, after which they try going out for a while. It doesn't change anything because they still have the same problems they had before. It might as well have been a Take That! to the shippers.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Manga Nick Nope is so popular that he got a entire arc involving him as a protagonist. The arc's plot also involved an Iron Man parody movie (complete with a Robert Downey Jr.-inspired character!) everyone except Nick was obsessed with.
  • Brisa, the recurring Kuudere Robot Girl from the Teen Manga. Making a strong impression in her debut for her attractive design, initial Sugar-and-Ice Personality complete with Defrosting Ice Queen, interesting overall character arc and general badassery on top of her relationship with J-5. The fandom generally agrees that she managed to have better chemistry with Jimmy in one single issue than Monica could ever manage in the series' entire run.
  • For the regular comic, the Breakout Character development of Sunny (who rose to prominence specifically because the writers liked to single him out as a "Butt-Monkey secondary") and Denise (who got a new personality as a Fun Personified Deadpan Snarker) made them evolve into fan favorites.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Smudge x Maggy is a much more popular pairing than the canon Smudge x Dustine and Maggy x Toddy. This is because Dustine is usually portrayed as a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing, while Toddy is generally considered quite bland as a character. The writers are aware of this and tease a mutual attraction on occasion, even going as far as having Monica tell the two that the readers have been dreaming of seeing them as a couple for decades.
• Fridge Horror: A story deconstructs how following the beatings, the boys are usually with a Bandaged Face and such. First there is a Hand Wave that it's only to not show them injured. Then the final panel has Angel and his buddies applying bandages to the boys, implying they do get maimed, but it's better not to see that.
• Genius Bonus: The sentence "For the Hammer and the Pyre" is the mental trigger that seals away Maggy's magic powers. This is a reference to two elements associated with the witch-hunts: The Malleus Maleficarum and the practice of condemning those who were accused of witchcraft to death by burning.
• Growing the Beard: The first five issues of the teen spin-off were met with mixed to negative reviews by both fans and critics, who were put off by its cliched narrative, mediocre art and the belief that the comics were trying too hard to be "edgy". Once Marcelo Cassaro and Petra Leão took over as the main writers, reception improved remarkably and a solid fanbase was assembled.
• Harsher in Hindsight: After the Teen Gang issue #34 where Jim reveals that he feels absolutely worthless in comparison to Monica and that becoming Monica's equal is the reason he tries so hard to do achieve a position of superiority, every instance in the manga where Jim's plans to achieve superiority and his friends put him down or make fun of him, or do things to strike down his ego before and after issue #34 becomes this.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Nimbus being a Chick Magnet, when his real life inspiration, Mauro Takeda Sousa, came out as gay.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Porra, Maurício! (something like "WTF, Maurício!"), a Tumblr which takes panels and sees malice in them (though sometimes even out of context◊ it's◊ weird◊ enough◊). Maurício (and his daughter, who posted "WTF, dad!" on her twitter) approved it.invoked
  • By 2021, the fandom started to highlight the "Old Testament Mauricio", namely politically incorrect things - including many of the Crosses the Line Twice Bug-a-booo strips - that would never fly in the 2000's safe-bordering-on-neutered comic.
  • An edited panel with Jimmy's father declaring he's "big on debauchery" and other crass jokes. Nobody's quite sure where the gag originated from.
  • One comic cover with Monica on her PC has become a meme format (the original change being the screen changed to "ata" - akin to "o(h)right, usually with the Sarcasm Mode on). One variation of the meme recolors her as Monika.
  • A panel with a panicking Mr. Five, Smudge and Fluffy◊ ("What's happening? What's happening?" "I don't know! I don't know!") has become a reaction picture for moments of confusion. Even the comic's social media has used it, such as this post with Makes Just as Much Sense in Context animated clips.
  • "Okay, but did you know that Milena's mother is a veterinarian?"^Explanation One of Milena's catchphrases is "My mother is a veterinarian", which she says in nearly every story she stars in. The repetition soon grated on many fans, who began posting the meme in response to any announcement or trivia post regarding Monica's Gang as a joke.
  • "Lawyers, get ready!"^Explanation The franchise tends to feature gratuitous cameos of copyrighted characters, though the writers are able to get away with it due to the parodies falling under fair use. Regardless, fans joke about an imminent copyright strike, warning Mauricio to assemble his lawyers.
  • Avengers: Endgame is a rip-off of Monica's Gang: An Adventure in Time^Explanation Following the announcement of Endgame, some Monica's Gang fans began joking that Marvel was copying Mauricio de Sousa's ideas, since both films have a protagonist in red clothes (Iron Man and Monica, respectively) travelling in time to retrieve powerful artifacts (the Infinity Stones and the Four Elements) in the past. As time went on, the joke mutated to the point fans made increasingly exaggerated comparisons, such as by pointing out how both films have bald antagonists (Thanos and Cabeleira Negra) or by juxtaposing pictures of Captain America's Mirror Match to the scene where Monica gets into a fight with her baby self
• Memetic Psychopath: While Jimmy has always been ambitious, some fans like to exaggerate this trait as a joke. A recurring meme is to call him either a criminal in the making or the world's youngest loan shark.
• Nausea Fuel:
  • In "O Mapa dos Piratas" ("The Pirates' Map"), Monica and Jimmy think they have found the location of a buried treasure. Monica strikes the ground with a pickaxe, causing a viscous black liquid to shoot upwards. Driven by greed, Jimmy showers in the fluid while happily singing that they have found petroleum, but Monica then tells him that she actually punctured a sewage pipe.
  • Captain Fray's minions prepare a surprise birthday party for him, but one of them gets wet in the process and reverts to his inanimate form, a pile of manure. When Captain Fray shows up, he mistakes the ex-minion for a chocolate cake and takes a bite out of him.
• Overshadowed by Controversy:
  • The animated short "O Mônico" became notorious for subjecting Jimmy Five to Male Frontal Nudity. While the depiction of naked children in Brazilian media was not controversial when the episodes were produced, modern viewers are unlikely to see things in the same light. As a result, the comic the episode was based on has never been reprinted, and the episode no longer aired on TV and has also been deleted from the official YouTube channel.
  • The manga #94 in Brazil. At some point of the story, the characters are arguing about Monica using braces. Monica gets angry and says ”My body, my rules”. The "My body, my rules" part^note this is a famous phrase used by feminists angered some right-wing conservative groups, as well some anti-feminist groups too, which accused the manga of promoting feminism and left-wing ideologies. One of the writers of the story was harassed in her Facebook page and these groups started campaigns for her getting fired. The official Brazilian Monica’s Gang page in Facebook showed the pages of the story explaining the controversy:
  Statement: What happened? In the Manga #94, Monica’s best friends are giving their opinions about Monica using or not braces. However, this is a Monica’s decision and her friends understand and respect it because they like her in the way she is. For more than 50 years, the comics from Mauricio de Sousa Produções are make for fun and entertainment, but for raise health discussion too, always with respect for all.
• The Scrappy:
  • Bloggy is one of the most disliked children due to his unusual speech pattern, which consists of internet slangs, hashtags, abbreviations and outdated memes. Though this is meant to make his dialogue resemble the common speech pattern during early 2000s internet, it often ends up making his lines incomprehensible, as well as making most of his earlier appearances very outdated. He is also considered quite bland as a character, given that his only trait, being good with computers, makes him redundant compared to the much more popular Franklin.
  • Rosie Lee is disliked by many for her Bitch in Sheep's Clothing moments and how she's prone to dump Chuck for other boys, usually Gene, whenever she's upset at Chuck, sometimes out of pure spite, and then getting angry at Chuck if he so much as looks at another girl, even when Chuck constantly shows his loyalty to her.
  • In a rare example of a character with a minor appearance getting a huge amount of detractors, we have the unnamed baby in Monica's Teen Gang #100 for the Ass Pull nature of its appearance ^note A runaway spirit from a Realm of Possibilities that was never established until this point and never mentioned again in future stories. and the fact it was a character created only to push Monica and J to be a couple again for the #100 milestone, only 4 issues after Monica's breakup with Nick Nope that ended in her stating to J that she wanted to give time to herself and then look for someone else, thus invalidating Monica's resolve and robbing her of a good opportunity for Character Development.
• Seasonal Rot:
  • It's generally agreed that the comics suffered a steep drop in quality during The New '10s, due to what's perceived as less inspired plotlines, lower-quality writing devoid of witty dialogue, and the protagonists losing their most noteworthy traits and becoming Flat Characters; which overall made the work much less appealing to older readers. (who sum up by saying the Multiple Demographic Appeal was dropped to make a comic aimed solely at young children) Said older readers also think the creative team is doing a reverse Art Evolution, as the digital art is mostly low-effort and some stories seem to give a Wild Take to the characters for no reason every other panel.
  • The general consensus is that the second series of Monica's Teen Gang suffers badly from this, from Off-Model artwork to utterly ridiculous plotlines and moments that completely invalidate all Character Development characters went through in the first series or outright contradicting established character traits. The worst offender is "The Other Side of the Coin", for its utterly irresponsible portrayal of depression, the hamfisted message of always looking at the other perspective of things, the terrible artwork and the horrid aesop at the end of the story. It is also agreed that it wouldn't be so bad if it were not for the high price tag for what is deemed as a low-quality product.
• Sequelitis: The first Astronaut graphic novel was well-received for delving into the protagonist's psyche, exploring his loneliness and expanding on his backstory. However, the sequels were met with mixed reviews, as they were seen as fairly generic sci-fi stories with predictable endings.
• Squick:
  • The 1997 short "Ser Criança" ("To Be a Child") ends with Frank marrying a human woman and becoming a father. Though it's intended to be a heartwarming conclusion where the protagonist finally finds happiness, many older viewers have expressed distaste for it due to the implications of a green, undead monster impregnating a Ms. Fanservice.
  • Teenage Smudge's first appearance shows him spending hours locked in the bathroom, after which he shakes his father's hand. The older man feels a sticky substance dripping from his son's palm and recoils. Though Smudge later clarifies it's just hair gel, which he must apply in copious amounts every day to keep his hairdo under control, the fact that the manga opens up with a masturbation joke left many readers feeling uncomfortable.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: An Adventure in Time is widely regarded as one of Monica's best films, with review scores that are only surpassed by the live action adaptations. It was the franchise's first animated film since Cine Gibi, which received mediocre reviews due to the poor quality of the animation, voice acting and storyline.
• Tainted by the Preview: Reflexos do Medo, the first live-action adaptation of the manga spin-off, was met with negative reception from the moment the project was unveiled to the public. The initial complaints included the fact the film's production had been outsourced to a different company than the one that produced the beloved adaptations of Bonds and Lessons, as well as the fact the film was supposed to focus on teenage drama and horror elements yet was being directed by someone who was mostly known for directing a couple of critically-panned children's movies. As time went on and trailers were released, the criticisms piled up and were aimed at the performers' wooden acting, the clichéd dialogue, the amateurish cinematography and the underwhelming special effects. All of this, coupled with negative word of mouth once the film was released, led to it becoming one of the franchise's biggest failures and a massive Box Office Bomb that couldn't make a third of its budget back.
• Take That, Scrappy!: Fans' complaints about Milena being a forgettable character are acknowledged in a 2020 comic, in which she teams up with Maggy and Junior to find the boy's pet goat. A Running Gag involves the main duo forgetting who she is and calling her by the wrong name, prompting Milena to inform them that she's been around for over an year.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Reprints of older comics have been widely derided for changing panels and dialogue to conform with politically correct ideals, leading to many jokes losing their impact^Example Maggy wanting to eat an ostrich is changed to her simply wondering how big its egg is or stories being rendered nonsensical.^Example A mobster drawing his Tommy gun on Monica is changed to him threatening her with a random lobster
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Dustine, Smudge's girlfriend. In the original comic, she's a Satellite Character who's only there to be Smudge's girlfriend. The manga initially presents her as a loving, supportive girlfriend to Smudge who is not above tough love from time to time and a later story showed her concerns about her grades and finding a career for herself, but Characterization Marches On kicked in hard and she was Flanderized into a harsh and demanding Fetishized Abuser towards Smudge who always complains about him and their relationship but doesn't bother to break up despite her clearly not being happy in the relationship anymore. When Annie and Bucky broke up, she started wondering if she was just Smudge's Girlfriend, but unlike Annie, the writers never really explore that side of her. As a result of that combined with the aforementioned Flanderization, she ultimately is stuck as this overly nagging grump.
  • Toddy. During the Marina's Birthday 3-parter in the manga, he showed ambition to study Gastronomy overseas, which he thinks about again a couple of issues later when Annie and Bucky break up for good and is further explored in #45, but that was the peak for his character arc. Beyond that, his appearances were all focused on his strained relationship with Maggy and he ultimately falls under the same Satellite Character status as Dustine.
  • Ramona, Viviane's daughter, is introduced during Marina's birthday story... and appears again for a grand total of ONE issue afterwards where she hardly participated. Although Season 3 would mark her long-awaited return as a major character during the "A Light Goes Out" arc, said story would culminate in her being killed off.
  • Future Smudge is featured prominently in the cover art for "Shadows from the Future" and has a lot of plot potential due to being a corrupted version of the hero, but only appears in a single panel in the actual story.
• Ugly Cute: The teenage version of Sofia is a chubby, somewhat brutish girl. Despite lacking the other characters' conventionally attractive attributes, she endeared fans with her kind personality, surprisingly sad backstory and fierce loyalty to her new friends.
• Uncertain Audience: Tina had her own magazine from 2009 to 2011, when it was cancelled due to weak sales. It used to feature comics and columns that didn't exactly appeal to kids, but were also deemed too childish to grab the attention of older readers.
• Unconvincingly Unpopular Character: Despite Sunny's status as an unremarkable supporting character, he's surprisingly level-headed and shown to be pretty good at surfing, making some fans question why exactly he's a Butt-Monkey.
• Unintentional Uncanny Valley: The mascot costumes of Monica and co., as featured in live-action stage shows and Parque da Mônica, can be rather unsettling to look at. They feature skin tight suits that the actors wear, similar to animegao kigurumi costumes in Japan. The only difference is that the mascot heads are very big for the bodies of the costumes. And they can blink. The fact that the actors are able to talk while in the costumes unlike mascots in places such as the Disney Theme Parks doesn’t help either; the mouths of the heads don’t move, and the impressions that the actors do of the characters are lackluster at best. A redesign of the costumes in 2013 softened the features of the heads and reduced the sheen of the skin suits, but it doesn’t take the weirdness away.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: One story had Angel getting fed up with the children asking his help for shallow or selfish reasons (Monica asking Angel to carry her home because she didn't want to ruin her new sandals and Smudge asking Angel to pull back his kite because he was too lazy to reel the line in) and then distributing a sheet with instructions for the children in regards to thinking twice before asking for his help and only doing so if it is an actual emergency. The children move on to another person to ask for help because they thought Angel's instructions were too complicated and when Angel tells them they got it all wrong, he gets a letter from higher up telling him to stop being moody and complicating things and Angel is back to helping children even with the mundanest of tasks. The story is presented so that Angel is wrong, but it is very easy to sympathize with him wanting the children to not abuse his aid or become spoiled from it. The story effectively ends on a note that validates the children's laziness and overdependence on Angel.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Monica in Issue #94 of the manga. While her insecurities about her teeth and wearing braces are understandable, her rampant stubborness in avoiding seeing a dentist and get treatment for her headache simply because she doesn't want to acknowledge her teeth might be defective makes it a bit difficulty to feel for her. The way she lashes out at anyone remotely suggesting the possibility out of concern for her health doesn't do her any favors either. While the cause of her headache turned out to be her wisdom teeth and not her buckteeth, this actually makes the whole thing worse as the whole conflict of Issue #94 could have been avoided had Monica just sit still and hear the whole explanation from the doctor instead of running away from his room at the mere suggestion of wearing braces, which is merely a common suggestion the doctor makes for every patient. There is also the fact that after many stories of Monica wanting to be seen as more than the bossy girl from her childhood and seen for her strength and personality, she essentially reduces her identity to little more than her buckteeth.
  • Anytime a character tries to hide a snack from Maggy in order to not have to share it, they're supposed to be seen as selfish and usually end up having to share it with her anyway. It would be easier to side with Maggy if she didn't have a well-founded fame for eating other people's whole snacks when she's supposed to take a bite, or trying to eat it all up before someone else comes just so she won't have to share. In one specific comic, Maggy cuts ties with the rest of the gang because she overhears them having a picnic on their own without inviting her. The story clearly paints them as selfish, since they apologize in the end. Except that during said picnic they actually explain that it’s simply the kind of outing they couldn't invite Maggy to, since she would eat it all without giving them a chance, and they all recall times where they were justifiably embarrassed and/or upset by her gluttony. In Smudge's case, it was the time when Maggy ate his entire birthday cake during his own birthday party. Granted, lying to her face about it wasn't the nicest thing to do, but you can't blame the kids for wanting to enjoy their snacks for once without having them all gobbled up in seconds.
  • Another comic shows all the friends breaking ties with Maggy because she always devours everyone's food. Then her mother grounded her for breaking the cookie jar and Maggy also mistakenly thinks that her mother is against her. Even her cat sticks its tongue out at her for stealing her milk. Then Maggy falls into a depression and ends up running away from home. It's very easy to feel sorry for her, but at no point does she regret her misbehavior, as if only others were wrong and she wasn't.
  • One comic has Monica inviting Maggy to play with her, but Maggy can't because she's going to watch a play with Denise. Monica ends up jealous when Denise calls Maggy her best friend. Jimmy later explains that Denise is also Maggy's friend and deserves her attention as much as Monica, but what caught many fans' attention was that when Monica got excited and wanted to watch the play with the two of them, Maggy's response was "Wait, who said you are coming?". While Jimmy is right that Monica should respect that Maggy has other friends, fans argue that Maggy's words ring as unnecessarily hurtful (even if it wasn't her intention).
• Values Dissonance:
  • In an interview, writer Flávio Teixeira recounted that one of his scripts published in the 1990s consisted entirely of jokes about Lady McDeath encouraging a man to kill himself. He then admits that said story would never have been approved after the turn of the millennium, since awareness about depression and suicide would make the concept too distasteful. ^note Other stories from this era show Lady McDeath discouraging potential suicides, but this type of story would also be rejected today.
  • There is one story from the 80's where the girls hold a beauty contest between all the boys, which throw boos and insults at every other boy participating in the contest other than themselves. During Jimmy's turn, the other boys repeatedly call him "bicha", which is a homophobic slur in Portuguese. A later republishing of the story changed their insult to "troca-letras" (letter-swapper).
  • A story from the 1990s shows Lady McDeath listening to the story of a boy named Amasio, who died after doing everything to win a girl, only to find out that she had a boyfriend. In the end, Lady McDeath cries, feels sorry for Amasio and paints the girl as selfish. But today, it's not hard to see how sick Amasio's obsession with winning over a girl who had no obligation to reciprocate his feelings. By the way, she probably already had a boyfriend since the beginning of the story, making Amasio's pain even more ridiculous.
  • A story from the 1990s shows Frank deciding to remove the scars to appear more attractive to flesh-and-blood women. As a result, Penadinho and his other friends reject him for not looking scary, the kids who loved playing with him treat him like a stranger, and the women are still scared of him. Then he gets tired and reinserts the scars, and the friends and kids take him back. Certainly they are incapable of loving Frank the way he is, which makes their friendship totally invalid.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: Many non-Brazilian fans have confused Monica to be a boy due to her short haircut and the lack of any Tertiary Sexual Characteristics in her design. The fact that her dress looks like an oversized t-shirt doesn't help either.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: Despite the comics as a whole being aimed at children, several older stories were written specifically with an adult audience in mind. One of the most blatant examples is the 2005 story "Uma Comprinha Complicada" ("A Complicated Purchase"), which revolves entirely around Curly trying to buy a pack of condoms. Hilarity Ensues as he finds his girlfriend's father in the same pharmacy.
• Woolseyism: Jimmy Five's Speech Impediment is slightly changed in the Japanese dub of the animated series. Having him mispronounce his "R"s doesn't really translate well to Japanese (many Japanese speakers swap "R" with "L" on the regular), so he instead so he instead swaps "s" for "sh" and "tsu" for "chu".

---