WesternAnimation Another failure by the Disney Channel.
As many fans of animation know, cartoons have been stuck in a rut since the mid-2000's that continues to deteriorate and manifest itself. "Amphibia" is not an exception.
It's probably the worst cartoon put out by the network. Say what you will about "The Buzz on Maggie" or "Shorty Mc Short Shorts". At least they had redeeming factors to them.
This has next to nothing. The only half-decent thing to come out of it is the backgrounds, but even they could use some work and refining.
It has more of the random, cynical humor seen in the previously mentioned shows — characters saying outdated slang, selfies, poorly drawn expressions, elements seen in other recent bad animated shows, like the "Powerpuff Girls" reboot.
I sat down and watched the entirety of the first episode, which was uploaded to You Tube early by the Disney Chanel themselves.
Almost the entire time, I was either shaking my head at how bad the jokes were, or sighing heavily at the blatant animation mistakes. Sometimes a combination of both.
Not only are selfies terribly outdated, but they have no business being in a cartoon. That's one of the things I hate about many recent cartoons — they try to be hip and with the times by haphazardly shoving as many of these social media scenes as they possibly can. It's just awful, one of the worst things you can do in a cartoon.
The characters feel like ones that we've already seen in previous animated sitcoms. Anne is a bland teenage girl stereotype. Sprig is an overly-optimistic adventurer who cracks terrible jokes along the way. Hop Pop is just the terribly-overused Grumpy Old Man seen in hundreds of cartoons. Almost nothing new is brought to the table with him.
This review only covers my opinion the first episode, as that's the only available episode as of this writing. I might update this review once further episodes are released, though I can't make any promises.
From what I have seen, though, "Amphibia" is nothing new. It's a waste of space. Terrible humor, terrible characters, terrible everything. Definitely one of Disney Channel's worst productions.
WesternAnimation Finding Your Frog Legs
It's kind of hard to recommend Amphibia in a way that gets across what I personally like about it, because the show doesn't demonstrate any of those qualities for a long time. Now don't get me wrong- the first few episodes of the show are good fun. The show plays its cards close to its chest, keeping the real implications of what's happening in the background buried for a good half of the first season. The audience may find it hard to see what all the hubbub is about under all the slapstick and Black Comedy gags, since animation has so many dime-a-dozen comedies these days. What makes this show stand out beyond the others?
Then Amphibia plays one of those cards, and its a real doozy.
Underneath all the humor, Amphibia is a solid action-adventure show with excellent animation and some fantastic Character Development. While the show never fully loses its comedic edge, the story slowly grows more serious over time until the final episodes are an all-out Animesque final battle. Strong worldbuilding, consistently great animation, great character designs and wonderful voice acting continually push the show forward through the three seasons before wrapping everything up in a great Grand Finale. Special note goes to the development of the main character Anne and her friends, who change subtly but consistently throughout the show.
If there's anything to criticize about the show, its that it tends to pull its punches. Amphibia will often allude to darker content than it is really willing to show or implement into the story. Granted... this is a kid's show, so I'm not expecting anything *that* dark, but the willingness of the show to have some pretty damn brutal/horrific shit happen only to walk it back feels a little disingenuous. The show will also often undercut the awful stuff that happens with humor, but that tends to be par for the course in a Black Comedy aimed at kids.
DisneyXD is really knocking it out of the park for children's animation these days. Between Gravity Falls, Tangled: The Series, and this show, kids are absolutely feasting on some good-ass cartoons. I really enjoyed watching this show for pretty much its entire run time, and I won't be surprised if viewers declare it a modern classic.
WesternAnimation Slow but promising, but tries to hard to be the next Gravity Falls
Another Disney shows that tries to follow the footsteps of Cult Classic Gravity Falls, but this time more directly.
It's an Another World/Isekai story revolving around a human girl named Anne trapped in a different dimension where intelligent Amphibians are the dominant(?) Race. There she befriends a frog family composed of a cranky old frog named Hop Pop and his two grandchildren (I think): the naive and adventurous Sprig, and the cynical and aggressive Polly, who is a baby. While in Amphibia, Anne learns about the culture of the frogs and how to survive the dangerous wildlife which is mostly composed of giant insects.
The mystery hook is that Anne's two emotionally abusive humans friends where also transported to Amphibia and one of them is a prisoner of the yet-unrevealed Big Bad of the season.
The Opening and its theme song screams Gravity Falls with an opening that shows mystery, adventure and funny antics but with a more epic feel.
I recommend waiting until season one is close to finishing or when it finishes as the show is still stuck on more simple adventure-of-the-day episodes and that may bore some potential viewers but I predict that the series will become serialized once season two starts.
WesternAnimation Creative? Absolutely! Funny? Hilarious! Deconstructive? Err…
When getting recommended Amphibia I often heard it described as “the show that deconstructs the isekai”. Now having watched all of it from beginning to end, my opinion is that… this is reading into it too much. Amphibia is a fun show with a memorable setting, lovable cast, and a sharp sense of humor. But though the story sometimes pokes at mature themes, it seems unwilling to actually commit to them and, worse, will sometimes undermine them in order to get back to light adventure.
In an early episode, Anne encounters a fuzzy cat-like critter and, missing home, decides to raise it like a kitten. This backfires when it turns out to be a ravenous wild beast with no domestication, and Anne learns a harsh but essential lesson about not chasing the past. But then in Season 3 she goes back to chasing that same wild animal, with nothing more than a good feeling, and it totally works this time, just because. This encapsulates the whole series, prone to portraying something shocking and then casually undoing it later.
Oh no, Sasha betrayed Anne’s trust again! Anne vows to end their friendship for good… and then forgives her literally the next time they meet. Oh no, Marcy selfishly stranded her friends! She feels guilty about this! And now she’s mortally wounded and had her mind controlled! She… only feels briefly upset about these then once free goes back into “woo yeah, anime fantasy mode”. Oh no! Anne has been betrayed by Sasha, by Andrias, by Marcy! She’s afraid she can’t trust anyone! …but that’s just her own paranoia, she can totally trust this random stranger scientist just because they’re quirky even though the last quirky scientist she met messed up her life. Oh no! Someone might die for real to end the calamity for once and for all! Never mind, God is Ruby and a cat and just has to Word document copy+paste.
The cartoon shows that I appreciate the most were willing to let consequences stick and linger. When Steven Universe revealed the truth about Pink Diamond, it spent four episodes ruminating on the effects and how the cast felt about all the repercussions dumped on them. When the She-Ra reboot had Catra cross a line too far for Adora’s tolerance, it kept them at odds for a whole season until Catra fully digested how toxic she was and showed proof of her change. And when it had a significant death with seemingly an easy out, it didn’t take that out and let the impact of the loss change the characters. The Owl House also has truthfully demonstrated how forgiveness takes time, with Luz and Amity, and Amity and Willow, and Amity and her father all taking it slow in mending their relationships. Amphibia felt to me like it was eager to open a can of worms for shock value, then just do that again and again without actually doing much about the implications. And in the end there’s a whole lot of worms.
If the genuinely engaging setting had just stuck to being funny, I wouldn’t fault it for knowing its strengths. But trying to do more and then not committing makes me long for what could be.