Miraculous, les aventures de Ladybug et Chat Noir / Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir / Miraculous Ladybug: saison 2

Something about the first season of Ladybug hooked me in. There were a lot of things I found fault with - I liked the character designs for the main characters and the antagonist, but a lot of the minor characters looked iffy and generally the show's movements are still in that floaty, clunky area so common in weekly computer animation. The villain-of-the-week plotting got tedious and the 'Lucky Charm' gimmick removed quite a bit of tension from the set-ups. Yet still I found myself wanting to watch more and more. And I spelled it out in my impressions of season 1 - what kept me coming back was the slow-burning but adorable romance where our heroine is in love with the boy in her class, but he is in love with her superhero form, and neither knows the other's secret identity. Marinette and Adrien are absolutely one of the cutest pairs I can ever remember being in Western animation, and I really do want to know how it all unfolds. 

So this was the problem the writers have for season 2 - people are coming back to look for developments in that relationship drama, which is absolutely the heart and soul of this show. But if they just outright jump forward to the pair finding out they're in love with one another in different forms, there's not much else to keep the show going. And goodness knows having that kind of drama actually play out often backfires - having Aang and Katara actually get together in Avatar or Yuugo confess to Amalia even though he's stuck in a body that never ages just ended up sloppy. And yes, this relationship drama is much more natural than those were and there can't be many fans of the show at this point hoping those two don't get together (even if I personally could totally buy both of them realizing they actually prefer their own gender in the end, in the Korra vein), but essentially the writers had two choices - bring the relationship drama to a head while setting up a more epic and all-consuming plotline that would keep people coming back for more no matter what the relationship is doing (the route the aforementioned shows took) or to slowly, slowly tease out more nuggets of intrigue in the relationship story while sticking with the villain-of-the-week format. 

They went for the latter route, and it just about works. Just about. But certainly at times things get stretched thin. A lot of the villains of the week are insipid, and it's only at the very end that Papillon mixes things up and almost wins after trying the same old nonsense way too many times. I couldn't bring myself to care about the heroes getting new powers like being able to operate underwater or on ice, nor about their friends getting to try out being superpowered for a while. 

The way every single minor character, from the rock musician's assistant to the brothers and sisters of tritagonists, has to get a villain form gets a bit silly, and I guess at some point we have to find out why the akumatisations happen only in the vicinity of the heroes, even in their supposedly hidden identities. The fact that the accidental transformation of a baby actually makes for one of the show's more memorable villains this season just speaks to how uninteresting most of them are. 

So the show lives and dies on the strength of that central relationship. Does it work? Just about. By the skin of the writer's teeth, there's enough for me to say this season was a success. But it really is just barely short of being too much filler with far too little killer. 

Yes, it’s worth sitting through an episode where the manservant becomes a teddy bear if there’s a slow dance between everyone’s OTP. Sure, it’s worth a battle with a stupid ice cream giant when you can have an adorable scene where Chat Noir prepares a candlelit dinner for Ladybug, gets stood up and then unloads to Marinette. An episode about the headmaster trying to be an owl-themed superhero becomes genuinely exciting when the two superheroes are forced to turn back into their regular selves right in front of one another, only their shared trust stopping them from finding out who their counterpart is. Sure, the monster of the week being the henchman turning into a King Kong type with a name that seems embarrassingly not to realise the name ‘Godzilla’ already came from the word ‘Gorilla’ (plus ‘Kujira’, whale), but look – Marinette and Adrien basically dating and watching a movie that’s super-important to Adrien! Plus Papillon’s idea that Adrien might be Chat Noir gets shut down.

Some episodes are just good concepts with good villains and fun relationship drama together, usually when the writers play with the formula a little. The season opener where Gabriel cleverly gets himself akumatized to throw the scent off him is both clever and humanising for the antagonist, whose somewhat Nox-like motivations are becoming clearer as the show goes on. While the villain of the week being a random TV host was a bit of a stretch, confronting the two heroes with scandalous pictures really ramped up the shipping drama for a very enjoyable episode. Similarly, Adrien and Marinette just happening to end up having to portray Chat Noir and Ladybug for a TV show was a whole lot of fun. The season finale, while perhaps not pushing things quite as far as I’d hoped, at least showed Papillon and his sidekick-assistant try something new when the same plan had failed several dozen times in a row. I also really liked the introduction of Marc, an adorable and very feminine boy (going by synopses, at least – the character could well be revealed not to identify as male) and how the show seems quite happy to have a gay couple and a lesbian couple in the school, even if it’s only in the background. It’s also fun that the show enjoys having its characters act contrary to their usual selves, be it evil Ladybug, scardey Chat Noir, weird horror movie twitching nightmare Adrien or sensitive, vulnerable Chloe. Oh, and, uh, if you wanna see Chat Noir tied up cruciform, blindfolded, scared and with a round object in his mouth for no reason at all (it could totally have been in his hand), yeaaah, the show has you covered there too.  

Typically, there’s also a love rival introduced for both characters. I didn’t much like Luka but I could see why Marinette would, and Kagami is a likeable character and it’s amusing they’re hinting at Adrien having yellow fever, but they’re both basically being set up to fail and their episodes weren’t the strongest, including when they were brought together for skating. It’s a nice touch of realism that the characters might have other possible love interests instead of only one true soulmate 4eva, but at least for now they just feel like plot elements rather than actual characters.

Once again, the show was released in a wild schedule all around the world. Fans found and posted the episodes where possible, but I don’t think the whole season has aired anywhere in the world yet. Some episodes came out first in France, others England, Canada, Spain, Switzerland, even Brazil! It’s a bit bizarre but I suppose it means we got episodes early, even if I had to watch some dubbed!

I am still hooked on this show and definitely want more. Preferably more episodes where there’s a solid plot and the monster just appears peripherally while proper plot development builds. I don’t need more sidekicks or superhero versions of classmates. I’d much prefer a sustained storyline where the emotional content can keep building. But in all honestly, I’ll lap up whatever I get. Well, weird dialogue-free chibi-style mini-episodes don’t count. So bring it on – in however many years it will take for the next season to come out.

Miraculous, les aventures de Ladybug et Chat Noir / Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir / Miraculous Ladybug

What with celebrated movies like Persepolis and Les Triplettes de Belleville and weekly animation like Wakfu and the continuation of Les Mystérieuses Cités d'or, I’ve become quite a fan of French animation. Alongside the Belgians, they’ve always had a tradition of taking comics a little more seriously than Britain did, with the likes of Astérix having appeal to an older demographic way before that was fashionable worldwide. I absolutely love Wakfu and when I saw a lot of people raving about Ladybug, I thought I’d check it out.

It took a long time for me to get into. One big factor was that before it was on Netflix it was hard for me to find the French version with English subtitles, and while my French is decent enough to understand the basic gist, that’s not enough to enjoy the show. There are actually solid reasons to watch the show in other languages – by date of first airing, the Korean dub has priority; there’s quite a bit of focus on making it appeal to English audiences, including a lot of English on-screen text; and of course the creation, setting and lip-sync are centred on the French. Trying them all, it was instantly apparent that the French dub was the best-acted, matched the animation and of course made sense with the Parisian setting. So I had to make quite a bit of effort at that point to find it in French.

Moreover, at first I didn’t really get into the show. I had begun watching it in the American viewing order and they unfortunately kicked off the series with two of its weakest episodes, ‘Le Bulleur’ and ‘M. Pigeon’. I probably would have had an easier time getting into it if those particularly goofy episodes weren’t presented right from the off.

I also wasn’t that taken by the animation. This is a prevalent French style at the moment, as also seen in the recent adaptation of Le Petit Prince, in the Mystérieuses Cités sequel and in Un monstre à Paris, it’s CG animation done far cheaper than what you see from Pixar, and though individual frames tend to look great when you pause, it’s largely on the stiff, clunky, awkward-looking side in motion.

Yet I kept coming back to Ladybug, and finally binge-watched most of the first season and some of the second, and ultimately found myself fully won over by its charms. Actually, I can say quite specifically what made me go back and watch more, and it was a gif of Chat Noir looking stupidly cute talking about how black brings out the green in his eyes. The fact is what made me watch more of this than I otherwise would was the incredibly cute character designs, which are a very pleasant mixture of cool and goofy, which is a pretty tough balance to pull off. The attractiveness of the main cast is absolutely what got this show rolling and spread its influence far enough that some favourite Pixiv artists from Japan surprised me by drawing fanart of the characters.

In story terms, this is a very generic mix of classic American superhero clichés, with a healthy dash of magical girl anime, especially Shugo Chara. The kwami are little familiars very much like the shugo chara, and Adrien/Chat Noir is almost like a mash-up of the two boys from that show. The transformations of course bring to mind those of shows like Sailor Moon and the idea of people being manipulated by a magical force to turn evil was also done to way more goofy levels by Demashita! Powerpuff Girls Z. Yes, goofier than the pigeon fancier becoming a pigeon-based superhero. Thrown into this is the silly but often fun conceit that just putting on a little mask completely hides your identity so that even those close to you can’t possibly recognise you, and a luck-based superpower that basically functions like Batman’s infamous utility belt in the old days where it always held exactly what he needed to solve any problem.

A simple formula plays out over the course of the show – someone in Paris, usually happening to be in the immediate vicinity of our heroes (including every single one of their classmates) ends up in emotional distress. Sinister villain Le Papillon, who somehow is always ready to observe these events, sends out an ‘akuma’ butterfly to turn them into a supervillain, in hopes they can draw out superheroes Ladybug and Chat Noir and steal the artefacts that give them power. It never works. Towards the end, they try to get a little more creative with this, like having two separate villains as a kind of cause-and-effect, or having a villain who can summon and control the previous villains, but generally things are kept episodic. Interestingly, as a season finale (in France at least), the heroes’ origin stories are told, basically showing that normal teenager Marinette Dupain-Cheng and, well, relatively normal teenager Adrien Agreste are given their powers essentially as a reaction to the rise of Le Papillon.

There’s nothing special about the set-up or the storytelling, but what really works is the leaf taken from Shugo Chara’s book and making the show incredibly good shipping bait. It’s all about the relationships, and the cute set-up that Marinette is in love with Adrien (after, typically, a rocky start) and that Adrien is in love with Ladybug. While neither of course know that the other is the superhero they fight side-by-side with every time a new villain appears. Superficially Marinette and Adrien aren’t the most interesting characters. Marinette has the interest of being half-European and half-Chinese (like me!), but is largely an everywoman character whose main defining trait is that she’s a klutz who falls over a lot. Adrien is a super-attractive 13-year-old professional model who is an expert at fencing, languages, acting and video games which makes him pretty hard to identify with – though later we learn more about his painful past and that he’s largely so good at things because of an oppressive home life. But the role switch as superheroes is what works so well. Marinette as Ladybug becomes capable, confident and a natural leader. Chat Noir, meanwhile, is a total goofball, often the butt of jokes and constantly making terrible puns, as well as openly flirting with Ladybug and constantly getting rebuffed. It’s just so cute, and while at first I wasn’t convinced by the ship, it gets cuter and cuter and now it just seems perfect. There are various other minor characters it’s easy to ship, from canon pairings to two cute chalk-and-cheese best friends who could so easily be an adorable lesbian couple. I earnestly believe the romantic elements paired with super-attractive designs on the main duo are the key to why this show succeeded with a wider audience than I’m sure was initially anticipated. Sometimes the shipping moments are a bit overly ham-fisted, with Chat Noir constantly landing on top of Ladybug or the possibility of a relationship being constantly raised, but it’s cute enough that it doesn’t matter and it’s so sweet that the two don’t know that they’re actually in love with one another in different guises.

I’ve started the second season and they’re starting to play with the formula a bit, which is a good idea because it’s already in desperate need of innovation – though I resent them changing ‘Une ladybug!’ to ‘Miraculous!’ in the opening theme, which was almost as fun as the Wakfu opening to follow along with and taught me the term ‘porte-bonheur’. I also really liked how the show unveiled the identity of the villain neatly so that it was more and more obvious to the point that most people will have figured it out just before the show explicitly reveals it. I’m not too sure about the show turning more characters close to the main duo into superheroes, but we’ll see how things develop. The more they play with the concept, even if it’s in a goofy way, the better I think it goes. And yes, that includes all-singing evil Santa-themed Christmas specials.

Not wholly sure they should have a bunch of new superheroes in season 2, and I’m especially not so keen on Queen Bee because Chloé is amongst the most detestable characters ever created. But I’m happy to have more Alya if only because Fanny Bloc’s voice always makes me think of Yugo, even when she’s not acting as a boy.

Wakfu: season 3

After waiting years for season 3 of Wakfu, tided over by the OVAs, Aux trésors de Kerubim and the Dofus movie, I was extremely excited for these too-brief 13 episodes. Especially because making Ankama animations is expensive and if the season isn’t a big enough success, it may be the last we ever see of Yugo and co. So it was with great eagerness that I dove into the World of Twelve once again. And ultimately, I have to confess that I’m a little disappointed.

The set-up was very promising – after the previous seasons and OVAs dealt with the threats of the Eliacube, the mysterious Eliotropes and perhaps the biggest worldly threat, Ogrest. In this season, I thought we would be turning to the final, most powerful beings – the twelve gods. And while they were broached and were central to the plot, they were in no way the season’s antagonists or a tangible presence.

The other major strands to be taken care of were centred on Yugo’s interpersonal relationships. First, his shattered bonds with his brother Adamaï, teased as the season’s antagonist after growing up to look very much like Frieza. Second, his feelings for Amalia. The former actually led to a pretty roundabout and unsatisfying character arc where it seemed unlikely Adamaï should have gone down the path he chose or done the things he did to his former allies. The latter was stirred and broiled this season and provided some of the best emotive moments, but of course could not be resolved.

But ultimately all of this took a backseat to a very disappointing overarching story. The antagonist was intriguing at first but was soon revealed to be rather uninteresting with a lame plan and borrowed power. Rather worse, his plan revolved around that most tired and uninteresting of anime tropes, the floor-by-floor tournament in a big tower. Not only was his motive unconvincing – with none of what he planned for in the tower actually unfolding and it all eventually just falling apart on him – it meant most of these precious final episodes were spent on things like talking to a little girl about animals or playing a weird physical pinball game with a creepy pantie fetishist. After the Dofus movie kicked up the storytelling excitement so much I had high hopes for this season, but ended up let down to the end.

There also seemed to be a real lack of attention to detail. There’s a lot we just aren’t told. What happened to Chibi? Why were there some demigods we didn’t even get an introduction for? Who was going to replace Xelor, Hareboug? And did Harebourg and Coqueline’s animals share the fate of the pocket dimension? What happened in the Sadida kingdom after Amalia left it? Will Rubilax consider his contract filled and seek freedom, even if he of course is just a big tsundere and likes being around Pinpin? Couple all this with an unsatisfying cliffhanger ending, some obvious recycled animation that highlighted a stretched budget and way too much focus on Iop fights that really didn’t bring anything new to the adventure and there was a lot of disappointment.

Which isn’t to say it was all bad. Every episode was in some way a joy to watch and I still love Wakfu in general and was excited right until the end, even if I feel a little let down overall. If there’s more, I will absolutely be watching it. It was nice to see Yugo just a little grown up, having grown out of his weird bulgy forearms. And the kids, Elely and Flopin, were a joy – Flopin was adorably soft and caring while Elely was her father’s daughter, strong, bold and always upbeat. And even if only a little, it was nice to finally have some Ruel backstory and development.

While I miss Wakfu being a simple story of adventurers on a quest, moving it to more serious and ambitious territory was absolutely a good move. But the moment the show took everything to a tower in a pocket universe, with a vague plot about suicide bombing a dimension we know next to nothing about, there was a severe lack of emotional stakes and pretending Tristepin was going to die for the fiftieth time wasn’t going to cut it. It’s also telling that some of the most moving moments we saw were just visions inside the characters’ heads – especially inside Yugo’s, where he’s tormented by old antagonists who always were more interesting than him.

I really do want to see what happens to Yugo and the rest. I want to see Elely and Flopin and the new baby reach their potential. I’d like to see them clash with the gods and challenge them to be less complacent. I’d like to know what can become of Yugo and Amalia. I’m still hugely invested emotionally in this world and enjoy the episodes. It’s just that I had very high hopes and I feel a little let down. Not because I feel my expectations were unrealistically high. Just that I hoped Ankama would be able to at least move me as much as they did with the Dofus movie with characters that I care about more. But that wasn’t going to happen floor-by-floor in a tower in a pocket dimension. 

Dofus Livre 1: Julith / Dofus Book 1: Julith

Finally watching the Wakfu OVAs put me very much in the mood for more Wakfu. There’s no more Wakfu to watch until Season 3 begins next month, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t more from the universe I could see. I still had this to watch, the first in the Dofus films, released theatrically in France earlier this year.

France has been producing some impressive animated movies in recent years, Le Jour des corneilles being a particular favourite, and it seems fitting that Ankama got something up on the big screen. And to mark the occasion, they’ve upped their game, creating something beautifully fluid and ambitious, yet again pushing the boundaries of Flash further than anyone else. I couldn’t say this movie quite stood alone, requiring a fair bit of knowledge of Joris’ background, but parents accompanying their kids or random cinemagoers probably would have enjoyed this as a standalone piece.

The story picks up three years after the end of AuxTrésors de Kerubim. Little Joris is still little, but a slightly more rebellious 10-year-old, rather than the adoring 7-year-old of the series. He still adores his papycha Kerubim, but rebels against him a little, too, especially when it comes to seeing the Boufbowl games.

However, life around Kerubim is never simple, and when the formidable Huppermage named Julith comes for the dofus Kerubim is protecting, there’s little our heroes can do to oppose her. Joris and little Lilotte, now much closer to Joris than she was in the season, have to join forces with a young rival Huppermage named Bakara and a swaggering Boufbowl player named Khan Karkass to secure an opposing Dofus and use it against Julith before she can put her wicked and very Fullmetal Alchemist-esque plan into action. And Joris might just discover a thing or two about his real parents along the way.

Where Julith really succeeds is in not taking itself too seriously. The characters have the typical Ankama eccentricity to their designs, with Julith having a very distinctive nose, Khan Karkass being the silliest Iop design yet and Bakara looking somewhat like she belongs in The Dark Crystal. There’s some wonderful bathos to some of the rather serious moments, and the fact that underpants are instrumental to the antagonist’s plan just undercuts everything nicely. Like many French animations, it also covers territory that American family fare tends to shy away from – getting drunk, flamboyant homosexuality and explicit heterosexual desire, too. It’s also both silly and rather joyful that defeating the antagonist essentially turns into a game of Boufbowl at the end.

 

But the heart of the piece is of course Joris and he retains his extremely likeable personality from the series. He’s still a very long way from the Master Joris we saw in Wakfu, but he’s also growing and changing. And yes, as expected, we had an explanation for why Kerubim calls him ‘Father’ in the OVAs – if not yet a similar one for Atcham.

I’m excited for more Wakfu, but I have to say far more than the peaceful, fun little series that was Aux Trésors de Kerubim, this movie made me excited for more Dofus. I’m very keen to see where things will go with Livre 2. 

Wakfu OVAs

As a proud Kickstarter contributor, I got these OVAs from Ankama months ago in my nice big pack of goodies. But I put off watching them until I could find a way to watch them in French with English subtitles, because the English voices don’t sit well with me after so long watching the originals – which is also why I STILL haven’t got around to finishing the new season of Mysterious Cities of Gold.

But a few days ago Ankama E-mailed mentioning their trailer for season 3, and wanting to watch it but not wanting these three specials spoiled – which I now know they would have been had I watched – I decided it was time to figure it out. I was able to do so, and once again had the pleasure of dipping into le Monde des Douze.

And what a pleasure it was. The specials were more than I had anticipated, continuing the adventures but building on them in dramatic form. We got to see a lot more familiar faces than I had expected, which was great for fanservice but also for the expansion of the world – not only Joris helped this time, but Kerubim and Atcham too (though I’m not sure when they took to calling Joris their father – maybe something the Dofus films will explain? I should probably watch Julith sometime soon!). Goultard appears too. More interesting still are the foes we see – most brilliantly, this OVA focuses on Ogrest and all the problems he causes the world. Great to see that story concluded after all this time. There is also Remington, Ush, the intriguing future threat Lady Echo, and intriguing mind-controlled cameos for comic characters Maskemane and Percimol. Nox is of course gone for good, but it was nice to see the references to him. These appearances were a lot of fun for a fan, but mostly it was just good to see the Brotherhood back in action, especially Yugo.

The story continues with Tristepin and Evangeline’s peaceful life with their cute twin girls interrupted by the call of Otomai summoning them to the Sadida kingdom. The kingdom is in trouble, inundated by Ogrest’s tears. The time has come to deal with the absurdly powerful Ogrest, but to do that, they need the Eliotrope Dofus to counter Ogrest’s Dofus. And the Dofus have gone missing...

What follows is an enjoyable quest with lots of scraps and two mightly power-ups for our main two heroes, but more crucially contains a whole lot of very sweet and engaging interactions between beloved characters. Whether Pinpin gets the power of a god matters to me far less than whether he is a good father, or if Adamai will come to understand his brother’s rash actions or the huge efforts he went to in order to preserve the World of Twelve. 

Personally, I loved this and regret that I didn’t watch it sooner. I’m a little sad it’s still so hard to get hold of and consume Wakfu materials, because it remains a firm favourite. What I’ll make of season 3 I’m not yet sure, but I’m confident I’ll enjoy it – and whatever else Ankama put out. It’s not that they can do no wrong, and I am a little worried that after Nox, the Shushus, the Eliotropes and Ogrest himself, the Siblings and perhaps the Gods themselves are going to seem a tad underwhelming. 

But I certainly haven’t had enough of Yugo, Pinpin, Amalia, Evangeline, Ruel and the rest...so I’m certainly on board for more and willing to see just how good Ankama’s follow-ups will be!

Une Vie de Chat / A Cat’s Life / A Cat in Paris

Une Vie de Chat is an Oscar-nominated French feature film. It was notable for being one of two foreign-language films nominated (alongside Chico and Rita) in the 2012 Academy Awards – which in my view was a very weak year for Best Animated Film. The main competitors were Puss in Boots and Kung Fu Panda 2, which while enjoyable were hardly typical Oscar candidates, and the winner was inexplicably Rango. Though I don’t know if they met the eligibility criteria (being released in US cinemas etc), I’d call Osamu Tezuka’s Buddha and Leafie: A Hen Into the Wild far more deserving of the gong than any of the nominated films. But hey, let us not forget who the Academy voters are.

In principle, Une Vie de Chat is the kind of film I should enjoy – though I’m confused by the French title, which doesn’t sound quite right to me (One Life of Cat? Not La Vie d’un Chat?). It uses story-book style visuals – a little ugly but distinctive and nostalgic – and tells a fun story. At night, a cat-burglar named Nico sneaks into museums and houses to steal jewels. He is accompanied on his nightly ventures by a rather ugly cat. But the cat does not belong to him. In fact, the cat’s owner is little Zoé, a sweet young girl who has been left dumb by the trauma of the murder of her father, a police officer. Zoé’s mother Jeanne is also a police officer, and hot on the trail of her husband’s killer – the dastardly gangster Victor Costa. When Zoé overhears her babysitter and Costa’s gang plotting to steal a priceless work of art, a deadly chase kicks off – and Zoé finds an unlikely ally in the thief Nico.

It’s a fun story and rolls along well. The only thing that I really felt was omitted was some recognition that while he was a thief with a heart of gold, Nico was still a criminal and no matter how much he helps a little girl and might just contribute to a happily-ever-after ending, he should have had to pay for his crimes. I also felt a little bad about how Jeanne seemed very quick to leave behind the memory of her late husband. But there’s a nice balance here between making the characters likeable and flawed. There’s actually something a bit more sinister about a gangster who’s a bit ridiculous than a cackling evil mastermind: it really does feel like there can be characters like Costa in the world, unhinged, petty and quick to violence whenever they look foolish.

But I have to say that I have problems with the ugliness of the film. There is charm to the story-book or comic strip designs. But everyone but Zoé is so hideous that over the term of a whole film it really starts to grate. I disliked the flickering colouring made to emulate on computer the style of hand-coloured animations like The Snowman – it looked affected and fake. This story is straightforward and offers very little that is unique to animation, so really needed beauty to distinguish it. While it had its own charm, I would not call that beauty. And that keeps me at an extra step of removal from this show. It looks like a 5-minute 70s animation spun out into a feature, and it does not benefit from it.

I like quite a lot about Une Vie de Chat. The tone, the concept, the setting. But I fell in love with nothing at all...and that is a real problem. Weirder, more experimental and far more beautiful animations like Le Jour des Corneilles have much more to offer. 

Dofus: Aux Trésors de Kerubim / Dofus: The Treasures of Kerub – series 1 part 2

Indeed, as expected, the series wasn’t over when I wrote my impressions of part 1 of The Treasures of Kerub, but had a season break – just as with the Thundercats revival.

We left Papycha’s stories with the suggestion that at some point, he lost his love – Lou – forever. It was not to be, though. She lost her memories, but Kerub was determined to follow her and win her once again.

This is largely more of the same, which with a series that thrives on nostalgia and light adventure stories is no negative. There are some pleasant bits of variety: the parodies extend to detective films, horror, disco, kung-fu movies and Wacky Races, there’s a rather odd critique of getting hooked on simple things on television – presented on the television, of course – and there’s a very entertaining episode about a cursed puzzle that, if the wrong answer is given, forces the challenger to run to the centre of town and shout out their darkest secret. There’s a fun episode that shows that Kerubim’s old nemesis Indie Delagrandaventure is living in just the same way, telling his old stories to a ‘grandchild’ who hangs on every word. Indeed, their rivalry is one of the series’ most well-developed, interesting and clever elements

There’s a lot Dofus hasn’t yet revealed. Simone leaves the others’ lives – at least professionally – and opens them up to resuming their adventures, but we don’t know how this leads to Joris becoming an adventurer – and an immortal – in his own right. We don’t know why Kerubim took him in as an adoptive grandson. But that, presumably, is all for the big-screen movie announced so long ago but finally heading to big screens in 2015. I’m even considering a trip to France to see it. Well, a trip to France that will include a detour to see it. Then, of course, there will be the Kickstarter-funded translation that I gave generously to – for the high-quality blu-rays rather than for the dub, I must say. And I hope that Kerubim gets a similar treatment as well!

I’m honestly quite worried what Ankama have in store for poor little Joris. He’s so adorable in this and so grim in Wakfu – what happens to him in the interim, and will it be in line with what happened to poor Ogrest?

The online fandom for Wakfu and related properties has very much quietened down now. Ankama no longer bring a stall to the London Expo (still makes me smile that my friends and I were in their little Youtube clip of the convention), and I don’t know if they still have such a big presence at Paris’ Japan Expo.

But it could be that it’s the Dofus movie that takes Ankama into an even bigger league. If that happens, expect me to be first in line to see what they do next. In the original language, of course. Always in the original language.

Le Jour des corneilles / The Day of the Crows

Here is an example of how sad it is that we in the English-speaking world are so closed off from the idea of films in foreign languages. Here is a remarkable Western animation project that cost seven million Euros, was funded with money from France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Canada, has a roaring performance from a big name like Jean Reno, and contains many very remarkable elements that simply don't make it into American feature-length animation or, indeed, Japanese anime. Films like TekkonKinkreet can come along that stand out remarkably, but they will have a very different, far less gentle quirkiness to them. For The Day of the Crows is characteristically, recognisably French, and benefits immeasurably from that.  

And for all it's ignored by English-speaking territories - for all, very possibly, it's purposely kept that way because the French have no interest in marketing outside the lands that speak French, rather pretending that all they have to offer is Code Lyoko and Totally Spies - the best French animation is in a good place. Though I long for Kerubim to end and Wakfu to return, Ankama remain the studio doing the best things in Flash (and yes, I include Ponies in that), the lazy A Cat in Paris actually did get marketed to the US to an extent after its Oscar nomination, and though I still wish they'd chosen another animation form, I continue to enjoy the second season of The Mysterious Cities of Gold. 

But Le Jour des corneilles stands apart from even those properties. Not necessarily better, but interesting in a very different way. It is less accessible, less obvious, less immediate. More challenging, more artful, and very much my sort of thing. And - perhaps reflecting that it is less obviously marketable - it is hard to find much information about, having only a French Wikipedia page (thankfully very easy to read with my lacklustre grip of the language). I must be grateful, then, for The Internet, that merry place where people can talk about properties others may not have heard of. It was following discussions of Wakfu and Mystérieuses Cités on Plus4chan that I found out about this - and where I had previously found out about Leafie, just so we're clear it's not all based on French-language works. 

I consider Le Jour des corneilles something of a gem. It thrusts you into a barely comprehensible world at first, where we are not sure what time period the piece takes place in, or what country, or what world. A scrawny, feral boy - never named - lives with his enormous brute of a father in the forest. The boy is not strong, but is quick and skilled, easily able to hunt and to help his father, who is a forest-dweller very capable of taking care of himself. Things become even weirder as we see that the boy also speaks with mute forest spirits, unsettling beings with human bodies but animal heads, wearing fairly modern clothes - of a hundred years ago, perhaps two. One of them he calls his mother, while others help him with his problems. One day, his father is badly injured while railing at a storm, and to help him, the animal spirits lead the boy out of the forest - the 'outre-monde' where his father says people disappear never to return. 

Outside the forest is a town, and it soon becomes apparent that this is not some post-apocalyptic world or fantasy, but that the father is simply a half-mad pariah from the nearby town, and the boy is more or less feral because of no contact with civilisation. He manages to find a doctor, who treats injured soldiers - perhaps giving a firm setting I'm afraid I couldn't definitively call - and drags his father in for treatment. Here, the boy has human contact for the first time, and when the doctor ropes in his daughter to keep the boy out of the way during an operation, an unlikely bond comes about - yet a rift between father and son is created. 

Though there are some stretches - one must accept the idea of the spirits of the dead lingering, and believe that a forest boy can establish a bond with a crow that extends to it doing him favours and even speaking rather like Pichu in Les Mystérieuses Cités D'Or - but this film thrives rather brilliantly on presenting fantastical, seemingly inexplicable things and then making them rational, and fitting them into what is essentially a realistic, even stark world view. The heart of this story isn't strange animals - though they do give a very, very beautiful climactic scene to this animation that wouldn't have worked in any other medium - but the story of lovers torn apart by disapproving parents, madness, bitterness and petty small-town politics. It is sophisticated and elegant in a way few animations are - which will also no doubt have critics claiming it has no audience. 

Admittedly, it is not made to be pretty. It is not meant to be - it is making a point about outcasts and the possibility of nobility in the ugly and base. But I did have problems with the design of the main, feral boy. He looks very much out of a French comic book, like Tommy Pickles from Rugrats redrawn by Astérix artist Albert Uderzo, but I think the film would have been a better commercial prospect and more immediately accessible if a design could be found that was still wild and feral-looking while also being a bit...well, cuter. With the adults so absolutely perfectly-designed, especially the father, the wicked old woman and the doctor, it's a shame that the fils just didn't quite seem right, and the same for the little girl he befriends. 

But at the heart of this film is its story, and that is done quite brilliantly. The pacing of the revelations is pitched exactly right and the lack of easy answers is refreshing. This is a film of mature animation, with challenging ideas, strange and unique visuals and no regard for conventions of comedy or action in animation. For that reason, it will go all but ignored worldwide, and that strikes me as real shame. 

Dofus: Aux Trésors de Kerubim / Dofus: The Treasures of Kerub – series 1 part 1

 In the Wakfu series – and comics – there is a strange little man with nothing revealed under his hood but a long nose and big round eyes but who helps the heroes with his incredible fighting prowess by the name of Master Joris. When the Dofus feature film was announced, it was soon made clear that the protagonist would be that same Joris, his name now revealed to be Joris Jurgen, but his timeline a full 1000 years before the events of Wakfu, with hints of him somehow making himself immortal by transplanting his soul into a little puppet.

So fans were expecting something quite epic from the first Dofus series. But that’s not what The Treasures of Kerub is – or is meant to be. Refreshingly, and amusingly, it is a very light little comedy series about Joris’ childhood – living with the old Ecaflip treasure-hunter-turned-shop-owner Kerubim Crépin, who has adopted the future hero and takes care of him in his shop. Plus it becomes clear that Joris simply has jet-black skin rather than being hidden in shadow, in a rather Sand-People sort of way, and can even blush.

Though the action begins with a new cleaner coming into their lives to turn things upside-down, her story is really only there as a convenient introduction and the real thrust of the series is that in the short 12-minute episodes, a particular treasure is dug out of the shop and Joris asks his ‘Papycha’ to tell the story of how he came upon it – segueing into a fanciful story of when Kerubim was one of the premier heroes of the land…pretty much all of it true. He finds love and loses it, he meets gods and obtains a legendary dofus or two, he loses his best friend (but still lives opposite him and occasionally competes with him in present-day stories to break up the pace a little) and he amasses enough of a treasure collection to eventually open his shop.

It’s all very small-scale and light-hearted, which makes it not only a great compliment to Wakfu but gives a very strong basis to build a movie that gets rather darker from. I care about Joris and what happens to him, and I really don’t want his story to begin with the end of Kerubim – even if that’s quite likely to be what happens. Sometimes the pace is broken by stories in the present day, perhaps involving the heroes getting shrunk down to a tiny size, or the old gang getting back together, but all the action is tied to Kerubim’s colourful past, and more often than not stories are designed to pastiche other styles – from gambling films to kung-fu to potboilers. There’s also some brilliant experimentation where a giant woman is purposely put into the uncanny valley in some very impressive flash that’s on the realistic side, which I found very striking.  

Ankama have by now developed their Flash animation to a standard that it very much hangs together, looks distinctive and occasionally gets very, very impressive – even in a light and fluffy series like this. The old and young Kerubim are very identifiably the same character and the world is extremely well-drawn, especially with characters that are clearly the same class as some well-loved Wakfu characters without being very similar to them at all – like two hulking Iop sisters.

It’s all very cute and innocent and never challenging, but it has charm by the bucketload. More a complement to the other Ankama properties than a strong starting point, it nevertheless comes highly recommended and was a pleasure to watch every week, up to the satisfying three-part conclusion of this half-season, or possibly season. Likely there will be more before the feature film – the French wiki site says there’s going to be 52 episodes and we’ve only had 27 so far – but the time seemed ripe to write impressions, rather like with the new Thundercats. 

Un monstre à Paris / A Monster in Paris

I somewhat regret now not going to see A Monster in Paris in the cinemas. I put it off despite liking the look of the quirky trailer because it would have been in English rather than the original French, and I would much rather see the original with subtitles. As it turns out, that was a bad idea, for within a few minutes of watching in French and then switching to English to make a comparison, it became very obvious that the animation was matched to the English performances. A bit of a pity, that, especially as the main characters in particular sounded better in French, meaning that neither option was very satisfactory.

I suppose for that reason being able to watch on an aeroplane where switching language options was very simple was an advantage, but in the end I ended up giving precedent to the English version. Maybe the French version came out first and was what the creators were envisioning at conception, but the animators were clearly working with the English performances, and with something as precise as CG, that was what ended up taking precedence for me.

Anyway, this is the first solo feature from Bibo Films, the animation company of Road to El Dorado director Bibo Bergeron. In a very French sort of a story, two rather quirky friends doing a simple delivery decide to play with the mysterious chemicals made by a botanical professor and end up using a miracle growth formula and a potion for giving a beautiful voice on a tiny flea. It grows to seven feet tall and escapes onto the streets of Paris, causing panic at first but finding a place to belong when celebrated local singer Lucille (Vanessa Paradis in both French and English version) – coincidentally in a will-they-won’t-they childhood-friends relationship with one of the delivery drivers – hears his strange, pure, high-pitched voice (from M, who sang ‘Belleville Rendez-vous’ in LesTriplettes de Belleville in French and Sean Lennon in English) and takes him in. In disguise, he brings a brilliant new angle to the show. But the flea, given the name Francœur by Lucille, is a wanted creature, not least by slimy mayoral candidate Maynott – who is also after Lucille’s favours. The ensuing romp will incorporate dirigible rides, a flooded and deserted Eiffel Tower and the funicular at Montmartre.

For a non-major CGI studio, the film looks rather lovely, especially in the sweeping background shots and the musical sequences, which are rendered lovingly. There are some things that really don’t work, especially the slapstick humour and a few reaction shots of the main characters that just don’t feel correct in terms of timing, but visually it’s up there with the best and a little more irreverent with it – witness the caricatures of Steve Jobs, ‘Those Google Guys’ and John Lasseter.

On the other hand, it’s no wonder that it was a bit of a cult success while making little impact for a wider public. There are people to whom a giant singing flea is a wonderfully silly and compelling idea, and there are people who want things much more ordinary and straightforward in their animated films.

For me, it had more appeal because it was so odd. Because it had that classic nonsense of magic potions and giant sunflowers and sapient monkeys. It used chemistry onstage to make a giant insect likeable and had at its heart the importance of music. That won it major points for me.

On the other hand, the main problem was that the two central characters, Raoul and Emile, are just not very interesting or well-developed. They get progression in their romances, but that doesn’t seem to develop anything about their characters, and neither is very likeable from the start. They have their eccentricities, but that doesn’t make them charming, and ultimately they left me cold – and since they are the emotional heart of the story, that was a big problem.

Still, while it was imperfect, the film had its hooks and was well worth seeing. 

Wakfu: Season 2

It’s been a pretty long time coming – the 26 episodes of this second season were spread over more than a year, with long gaps between its bursts of releases. But it was well worth the wait, and after all I hadn’t been waiting as long as many fans: I didn’t get into the first series until after the second had already begun to air, as it was the stunning S2 intro sequence that first piqued my interest. It displayed sequences I never thought were possible for Flash animators, great characters and of course, what is for me the best cartoon theme song of the last ten years at least, ‘Sur tes pas’.

So I entered the second season unashamedly a big fan. I remain one at the end of it, though there were disappointments on the way and I felt like where season two was going to make or break the show to a wider audience, it ultimately fell short and squandered its opportunity to swell its fanbase. I’m quite fortunate – I could pick up the show’s magazine while I was in Paris (not that it was easily found), and I snapped up a Yugo figurine when Ankama were in London for the MCM Expo (complete with hilarious broken English on the box) – but where I had hoped to see the title gain a popularity up there with the new My Little Pony, sadly it was never to be and if anything, enthusiasm died as season 2 looked to be meandering and lacking in direction or a strong antagonist. And those criticisms were, I have to say, pretty valid.

Season 1 – don’t read on if you don’t wish to be spoiled - left us with the show’s driving antagonist nothing more than a pile of dust. Tristepin was also dead, and nowhere to be seen in the intro sequence. The Eliacube, the item that had sent Nox into his madness, was in the heroes’ possession, which was a politically sensitive situation. When Yugo and Adamaï decide to interact with the cube, it releases Quilby, the only other member of the Eliotrope race – who tells them the rest of the race, or at least the children, are safe but sealed away in another dimension. He sends the Brotherhood on a quest to retrieve his ‘Dofus’ so that he may be reunited with his dragon half, a step towards freeing the Eliotrope children. But all is not as it seems with Quilby, and the heroes are too trusting. Meanwhile, the demon Rushu, lord of the Shushus, yearns to be unleashed.

The elements of a great second season are there, but sadly it doesn’t work quite as well as the first season, perhaps mirroring it too closely. There are two major problems, and the first is the procrastination. Though some of season 1’s weakest episodes were when the Brotherhood diverge from their quest to help people in need, that was okay because they needed character-building and allies. Here, a point is made of how the characters are uncomfortable they are wasting time, and it just makes the overall arc feel very weak: the brilliant last three episodes in particular could have been expanded to five or more, rather than more time being spent on boufbowl or ‘wabbits’. The second problem is the lack of a great antagonist. Nox made the first season brilliant: he was sinister, iconic and yet also sympathetic. He was not defeated, except by himself, and he was always there, a driving, menacing figure with an agenda. Here, Quilby’s deception is clever but means there is little impetus until the big climax, Rushu is mostly comical until the very end and has no defined goal to be directly stopped, and generally the season lacked the impression of time running out.

For all it is inferior in story terms to season 1, though, there is much here that is brilliant. New characters are really endearing – Eva’s sister Cléophée is a great addition; Remington Smisse, though underused at the end, is an extremely interesting cad of a man, and Quilby himself is until he goes all Espada brilliantly duplicitous. The Sufokians were great for so little screentime. Some of the incidental stories are superbly-crafted and I even liked Goultard (see the specials) showing up at the end to fight alongside his student: everything was going a bit Gurren Lagann so in my view it worked superbly.

I feel Ankama were wearing their influences on their sleeves more here. The Eliotrope plot felt very derivative of Dragonball Z, and Ankama let loose with the references to other media, from a whole episode pastiching video games (with Pinpin posing like Chun Li) to Easter egg cameos from numerous anime characters: Luffy, Naruto, Mei, Muten Roshi, Ichigo…

The anime influence has always been there, of course, and it’s not as though Wakfu lost its unique flavour. And though some parts looked awkward or just lazily animated, other segments were masterful – witness all Quilby’s big fights, or the best of the boufbowl scenes. They also developed the mix of flash with traditional animation for dynamic zooms into a character, and there I felt a tingle down my spine: if this angle is developed, it could make a whole new, superb avenue of flash animation.

I’m sad that there may be no more Wakfu on the TV. Though Yugo’s arc is largely complete, there’s still so much more story to tell. Well, a Dofus feature is in the works, and purportedly one for Wakfu too. But if there’s a season 3, sign me up.

Because I can’t think of any other property that could nearly reduce me to tears by having a character take off his hat.

Les Mystérieuses Cités d'or /太陽の子エステバン / Taiyou no Ko Esteban / The Mysterious Cities of Gold

Here is a series with a very interesting production story: what I watched was the Canadian dub, commissioned by British and American companies, of a Franco-Japanese coproduction with finance from Luxembourg written primarily by a Frenchman based loosely on an American novel about Spaniards in the New World, with an enduringly popular theme song written by a very talented Israeli musician living and working in France. The scripts were written by the French but storyboarded, it seems, mostly in Japan, under a French director who had moved there. So debate has long raged about whether or not this is anime. Well, I’d say no, on the grounds that Thundercats is not regarded as anime – after all, that was entirely animated in Japan, but the creative team were Western. The only difference is that Mysterious Cities of Gold was first released in Japan, with Japanese voice acting, as Taiyou no Ko Esuteban – or Esteban, Child of the Sun. But the project’s origins are Western.

The series was a collaboration between DiC, a French company whose name was ubiquitous in 80s cartoons and made me and my brother giggle even back then, and Studio Pierrot, now probably most well-known for churning out Naruto and Bleach but back then a fledgling studio with only three productions under their belt (though including the notable smash hit Urusei Yatsura). It was developed and produced in 1981, first ran in Japan in 1982, then the slightly edited French version was aired in 1983. The English version was not aired until 1986, in both the US and the UK. My own memories of the first run, or the repeat in 1989, are limited, and certainly I don’t have the fond childhood memories of it that I have for Ulysses 31 or M.A.S.K., but that theme tune is embedded in my psyche, as well as the image of the Golden Condor in flight.

In 16th-century Barcelona, little Esteban is treated as something of a miracle child, able to call out the sun, though he doesn’t believe it is magic of any sort himself. Because of a medallion he has worn since his rescue from a shipwreck as a baby, he is drawn into a voyage to search for the Mysterious Cities of Gold. Along the way he meets Zia, a little Incan girl with a medallion of her own and the ability to read ancient scripts, and eccentric Tao, the last of the Hiva people.

The first half of the series centres on interesting struggles between different political factions in the time of conquistadors, and remains remarkably sophisticated in terms of historical detail right up until the kids stumble upon ancient technology. The crumbling temples and even the incredible solar-powered flying machine the Golden Condor all work well, but as the series goes on, it goes a little too far with its fanciful science fiction, and many of the final episodes are given over to the Olmecs, an unconvincing group of pointy-eared goblin people with advanced technology and bioengineering skills. It just goes a little too far and they look too silly, with the result that everything gets a little trivialised. I would have much rather had closer ties to reality, because the same story could have been told without the daft sci-fi excesses.

Because the first half is brilliant. The characters are very interesting – the kind-hearted and innocent children are contrasted with the adults, be they greedy and oafish like Sandro and Pedro, or morally ambiguous like Mendoza, that detail according to the creators added by the Japanese. He has to be one of the most interesting and compelling supporting characters in any animation, by turns noble and conniving, always with an agenda of his own, even if it is simply to keep the children safe.

I made a point of tracking down at least the French and Japanese versions to compare with the English dub that coloured my childhood and so I stuck with. The French is on the commercial DVDs but the Japanese is remarkably hard to find. The English dub was actually meticulously and carefully done – the DVD extras reveal a laborious process of matching plosives and fricatives, and getting strong performances out of inexperienced children. The main problem with the English dub is how often it is an info-dump, with far too much dialogue crammed into too little time, resulting in the actors garbling out long lines in a very unnatural way. There is none of this in the Japanese version – the adults in particular are much stronger, giving measured and even performances, but the children’s voices are bad…Esteban sounds cocksure and is clearly an adult woman, and Zia’s whiny voice is like nails on a blackboard. And I just can’t get over Sandro and Pedro calling Mendoza ‘Aniki’! The theme song, with its English refrain of ‘Try my best!’ is also nothing to the adapted version’s, and twee in a very different, less impressive way – though it’s a shame some of the animation got hacked out for the Western release. The French dub preceded the English, and has kids performing the main roles as well, and Sancho sounds so much like his English counterpart I actually looked up the actors to see if they were the same person in both roles (not so), but there’s much less variety in the voices, Mendoza’s voice is a little too brazen for my tastes and there’s the same problem with rushing and incidental characters overacting. I’d put it on a par with the English version – though I must say I prefer the intro having a refrain of ‘Someday we will find the Cities of Gold’ to the rather awkward and silly ‘Esteban, Zia, Tao – Les Cités d’Or’.

As a major cult hit, lots of material has been made recently available for fans, including DVDs with several documentaries, dominated by the animation director who also played Mendoza (with the somewhat suspect story of being picked from four anonymous candidates by French producers to play the role after simply recording himself to fill an empty slot – not that I mind too much as he does an excellent job). The main thrust of these is that those who took part in the production are astonished how well the title has endured. And there is always talk of a revival – in 2007 it was feature films, and now it’s three new 26-episode seasons to premiere in 2012. Having ambition and quality in animation makes it last, and though it was cheaply animated and looks dated now, the story and characters have stayed with the audience, and I for one cannot wait to see the updated version.

Le Roi et l'oiseau / The King and the Bird / The King and the Mockingbird

Le Roi et l'oiseau is widely considered a masterpiece of animation. Two things brought me to it. The first was reading about Norstein's The Overcoat, with its 20-year production time, which led to mentions of this film being in production from 1948-1980 - the project began when the studio Les Gémeaux was in a strong position, having been the only animation studio operating in occupied France during WWII, but stalled when they hit financial difficulties in 1950, with an unfinished version being released in 1952; a rights dispute ensued, stretching into the 70s, and then finally the film was finished from 1977 onwards. The second was, as with The Old Man and the Sea, the recommendations of Studio Ghibli, Miyazaki and Takahata having highly praised this animation as a great influence on them and released it in Japan as part of their Ghibli Museum Library collection.

It is a very strange, rather hallucinogenic film. It may be regarded as a classic, but there is a lot about it that is slapdash or defied explanation. On the other hand, there are also moments of great visual ingenuity, some genuinely hilarious humour and a very interesting meld of animation styles testament to the two very different periods in which it was made.

In the kingdom of Tachycardia, decadent King Charles (V+III=VIII)+VIII=XVI enjoys commissioning images in his likeness, while warring with a large bird who has his nest in the towers of his castle. The King managed to hunt and kill the bird’s wife, leaving him the single parent of four adorable chicks, but in return the sardonic bird torments him about his ugly cross-eyed face. One day the king commissions a new painting, dropping the unfortunate painter into a pit for making him cross-eyed and himself retouching it with nice normal eyes. For some reason, the works of art in the king’s bedroom come to life at night, including images of a chimneysweep and a shepherdess: here the story with its basis in Andersen comes to the fore, and these two paintings become the sympathetic lead characters of the film. They escape from their frames, but the painting of the king believes that the shepherdess ought to marry him so pursues them, on the way dropping the real king down one of his traps and taking his place. The couple evade capture for a time, with the help of the bird, until they descend to the lower city, right out of Metropolis. Here, apparently the king doesn’t care what damage he does, so he uses a giant robot to capture the heroes. The shepherdess is prepared for marriage while the sweep and the bird are forced into labour. Rebelling, they are thrown to the lions, but the bird and a blind organ-grinder from the lower city convince the lions to burst free and overcome the forces of the false king. All that remains is a climactic battle for the giant robot, and a final scene that may be quite an abrupt end to the film – but is one of its most iconic and memorable pieces of imagery.

Visually, the film recalls nothing so much as Disney and Fleischer shorts from the 20s and 30s. Many frames have been drawn, given great fluidity to every movement, but the characters move almost without weight, and their movements have odd, jerky timing or can be hard to interpret. The identical policemen in particular have expressions right out of black-and-white Mickey Mouse and those little chicks have more than a little of Snow White’s fauna in them. Meanwhile, the king’s strange, languid movements are superbly idiosyncratic, and the bird himself has some wonderful moments. It’s sometimes possible to notice the jump from 40s to 70s in a single cut, but overall the film is remarkably coherent.

There is much that will stay with me forever. Some brilliant visual gags are on display, mostly surreal: in one scene that really made me laugh, the King has to open a series of traps to catch out his chief of police, and then unexpectedly zips off when his throne is converted into a bumpercar. The appearance of the chimneysweep surprised me, an extremely feminine boy I wouldn’t think would meet any ideals as a romantic lead in either the 40s or the 70s. And one scene, in which what appears to be a concertina with eyes and feet comes along, does a dance, and then is ignored and forgotten. I really cannot make sense of that sequence at all. I can accept that the king and guards might just be persuaded not to investigate a statue made of birds even if it was awkward, but that concertina really bewilders me.

There are numerous little curios here. What do those allusions to Hitler really signify? Why gondolas? Should the concept of the painting replacing the real king not have been given more recognition? But ultimately this is a freewheeling, rather bizarre animated fantasy, and somehow it feels like it would be fruitless to question it.