YMMV / Onyx Equinox

• Americans Hate Tingle: Whether you like this show seems to be based on which side of the frontier you come from. The show has been very popular in Latin America and even Japan, among both indigenous and mestiso audiences. In the USA people hate it for a variety of reasons.
• Awesome Music: Most of the soundtrack is frankly divine, but particular attention can be given to the intro, which is bombastic and energetic, and the outro, which is a depressing lullaby. The former is sang in Yucatec Maya and the latter in Nahuatl.
• Complete Monster: Tezcatlipoca is a celestial god intent on wiping out humanity. Seeking yearly sacrifices of great warriors in order for them to become his heralds, when the goddess Mictecacihuatl falls in love with Yaotl, Tezcatlipoca has Yaotl's memories erased and promises to destroy him in Mictecacihuatl ever speaks of their affair. He makes a bet with Quetzalcoatl about the fate of humanity, with the winner getting all of the loser's sacrifices. Tezcatlipoca sends Yaotl to monitor Izel, Quetzalcoatl's chosen champion. Summoned by Izel alongside Quetzalcoatl, Tezcatlipoca tries to use every loophole to win the bet and kill Izel. Ultimately winning, Tezcatlipoca expresses joy at watching Quetzalcoatl slowly wither away before turning Yaotl into a normal jaguar and starting the slaughter of humanity. Cruel, petty, and vain, Tezcatlipoca proves himself to be the worst of the setting's Jerkass Gods.
• Creepy Cute: K'i'ik is a knife with a bottomless thirst for blood and whose only spoken words are an unending cry for "K'i'ik! (Blood!)", but its base form has a rather cute voice and expressions.
• Dancing Bear: While opinions on the show are divided, almost everyone can agree it's a very well-researched and humanized depiction of pre-colonial indigenous Mesoamericans.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Due to the small but significant Ho Yay they receive, Yun/Izel has become the show's most popular ship.
• Friendly Fandoms: Oddly enough with Amphibia, since both creators are friends in real life (Matt Braly even being one of the very few content creators in the animation industry to give a shout out to the series).
• Genius Bonus:
  • When Tezcatlipoca possesses the body of a man in episode 2, one of its feet loses its flesh and muscle, which represents in mythology the time he sacrificed his foot to attract and kill the beast Cipactli in order to create Earth from its body. When he appears in his true form, his foot remains the same.
  • Why were the Tzitzimimeh so gentle with the newborn Mictecacihuatl? In myths, the tzitzimime were female deities associated with fertility, worshipped by midwives and parturient (birth giving) women.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: According to Crunchyroll's analytics, this series was one of the most popular in Japan for 2020.
• Ho Yay: After the Healer fixes Yun's leg, she leaves Izel and Yun alone and the two have a heartfelt conversation, Izel telling him about Nelli while holding his leg and the two end up apologizing at the same time for what happened to the other. The two then stare at each other until Yun tells him that he can let go of his leg and Izel turns his face and blushes.
  • The Ho Yay continues in episode 9 when Yun hugs and comforts Izel after the latter begins to doubt himself. Yun is also shown blushing after Izel compliments him.
• Minority Show Ghetto: A rather interesting example of such given that Crunchyroll is primarily known for translated Japanese shows while many of their Originals were based on Korean properties. However, most of the Crunchyroll Originals were some variant of science-fiction, urban fantasy, or European flavored fantasy. Onyx Equinox was unapologetic in its use of Mesoamerican culture, received mixed-to-positive reviews with a 7.1 score on IMDB, but was also the least successful release of theirs to date. After a few weeks, Crunchyroll elected to release the entire produced series the day after Christmas 2020 to finish their commitment to it. Not even the critically lambasted EX-ARM faced that treatment.
• Uncertain Audience: The aesthetic similarities to children's shows such as Avatar: The Last Airbender clash dramatically with the show's frequent use of heavy, bloody violence (including the on-screen portrayal of ritual sacrifice), foul language, and sexual content. While the core story and character arcs are similar to many successful children's shows of the past, possibly turning off adult viewers, the content ensures that the show is not for children. The fact the show's creator is of Latino origin, and the fact the original English voice acting was criticized, compared with the Latin American Spanish dub made many people think which audience the series was targeted to.^note This became more apparent when other western-made Crunchyroll Originals, like High Guardian Spice and FreakAngels, also lacked dubs in any languages other than English.
• Win Back the Crowd: In spite of its Uncertain Audience, the show generally received much better audience responses than the more controversially-received and Development Hell-stricken High Guardian Spice, owed in part to better marketing that more accurately conveyed the intended focus of the series, helping diffuse much of the initial skepticism towards the idea of Crunchyroll making in-house original programming.