Aggressive Retsuko: We Wish You a Metal Christmas

This short Christmas special was a welcome fix of this cute animal world. Now that the show is a Netflix anime, I do feel like there’s a slightly more Western feeling to it and the ways the characters interact, as though major plot points were suggested by foreign execs, but I can’t say I’m complaining. Just dipping back into this world brings a smile to my face.

The plot is in large part a way to continue from the cliffhanger of the main season but end up more or less in the same place as it started. Haida-kun has to keep on working hard and taking baby steps, which will presumably bridge into a new season that maintains the status quo a bit more than I thought it might.

One problem with having watched the original and the Netflix reboot almost on top of one another is that I forgot which parts aren’t in this continuity. For example, I had to wonder whether that hippo was ever investigated for being an international spy for a little while. And interestingly, it seemed like Washimi and Gori took a step back towards their original roles of being somewhat regular older women in the workplace who are as unlucky in love as Retsuko. They were a lot more with-it in the reboot.

There’s not much to say here. The story basically follows the tensions of what to do on Christmas Eve, a big date night in Japan. Retsuko is getting addicted to Instagram and is trying to find the perfect pic to upload for her followers. Meanwhile, Haida is hoping to pluck up the courage to ask her out. The show is now held aloft by these relationship tensions, and it is a great way to keep things intriguing. But there’s only one outburst from Retsuko’s inner metalhead and I’m starting to wonder if the show will run short of ideas in a new season.

It certainly doesn’t outstay its welcome in a half-hour Christmas special, though, and I enjoyed it start to finish.

はたらく細胞 / Hataraku Saibou / Cells at Work

I’ve mentioned it a couple of times already, but the trend of having anime about personified versions of animals, machines and objects is having a comeback. A decade or two it was all the rage, and my personal favourite version was when operating systems became the OS-tans, but let us not forget I once watched a (super cute) anime about a personified piece of charcoal.

These days we have horse girls, sword boys, bullet train mecha and, yes, cells at work. And of all of them, I have to say I think it’s the cells that work the best. Not only is it an extremely easy idea to work with (cells as people) but it provides a perfect opportunity for that classic of anime writing – starting with a happy-go-lucky concept but then letting things go dark and semi-apocalyptic for the big finale. Which I’m a total sucker for.

One of the fun things about watching Cells at Work is that there’s a doctor on YouTube who also gives analysis of the concepts raised here. He’s currently on episode 3 but I’m looking forward to watching more. He also comments on House and had a little spat with a more famous doctor in the US who did the same idea for his own YouTube channel, and it made me remember how I used to watch that show and read the blog posts from a medical doctor. It’s fun to hear an expert’s opinion, especially on a pretty silly anime show.

And this definitely isn’t the first time cells have been personified. The doctor talks about French cartoon Once Upon a Time … Life and then there’s the thematically even more similar Osmosis Jones. Plus you could argue Inside Out and other personifications of mental processes are on similar lines. But Cells At Work is definitely its own unique take on the idea, perfectly balancing cuteness, humour, action and sentimentality.

We primarily follow a particularly hapless red blood cell, whose ahoge marks her somewhat airheaded character as she tries her best but keeps getting lost. She repeatedly gets saved by a white blood cell who got his hairstyling tips from Mushishi, and the two form an unlikely friendship. The first half of the show is actually more centred on the white blood cell, a neutrophil, as his different comrades in the immune system like macrophages and killer T cells are introduced. Then we shift back to the red blood cell as she gets more responsible and finally gets a neophyte of her own to train.

The joy of the world creation here comes from the inventive ways different cells are characterised. The helper T cell is a bookish commander, the dendritic cell lives in a tree and helps other cells to develop and the cancer cells are normal cells who have undergone a mutation and started to harm the tissue around them – with a clever few that blend in with the rest.

Plus the show goes VERY heavy on cuteness. Not only is the main character pretty cute as she is, we get a flashback to her and the white blood cell as kids – though they don’t remember each other. The naïve T cells are presented as adorably lacking in confidence, a story we actually get repeated, once fighting an infection and once in a flashback sequence. And then there’s the platelets, characterised as elementary school kids who work hard repairing damage and are just ridiculously cute.

First the story develops very much like a battle manga adaptation – admittedly I’m not sure how directly this comes from the original manga, which I haven’t read – with lots of bacterial invasions being like typical monstrous anime bad guys and viruses being more like zombifying parasites. With the cancer cell it becomes a bit more complex, with the ringleader character given a remarkably sympathetic character arc even though he is quite literally meant to be cancer.

And of course, if you make your story about blood as people, the question can be raised – what happens when there’s bleeding? Or injury? That allows for the depiction of big catastrophes and the effects on characters we’ve come to know and understand in calmer situations. It’s nothing new to see the main character who’s hitherto been a clutz getting a chance to show her grit and devotion when things get really taxing, but it’s still very sweet. And the idea of a blood transfusion bringing in a bunch of new characters with strong accents was very funny.

This anime felt refreshingly old-school. It didn’t try anything startlingly new or brave but relied on its concept with familiar set-ups and ideas. There were very classically anime-style fights against monsters, romantic tension that was only hinted at, big explosions and peril, and plenty of chances for more in future. At only 13 episodes, it doesn’t even come close to overstaying its welcome, and with strong voice acting, fun music (with a theme song that, again in somewhat old-school fashion, directly references the title) and solid but stylised animation from the JoJo studio, David Production, it was great fun from beginning to end.

Adventure Time (season 10)

And so Adventure Time comes to a close with a satisfying extended finale and the dangling possibility of spin-offs if ever there’s enough demand. And even though I’d say Adventure Time overstayed its welcome, having felt the premise was wearing thin as early as season 4 and largely losing interest by season 6, it's a little sad to say goodbye to the show after it being part of my life for over a decade. I’ve said it many times giving my thoughts on the various seasons, but Adventure Time strayed a long way from the exuberant, free-wheeling, surreal pilot that made me fall for the world in the first place. And even though audience numbers have dwindled from a peak of 2.5-3.5 million US viewers during seasons 3 through 6 to season 10 never even getting close to one million, interest in the show remains high and Finn and Jake will endure as amongst the most recognisable characters for an entire generation. That’s quite an accomplishment, and absolutely the show’s humour and ambitious scope have shaped what cartoons have been able to do on kids’ networks ever since.

Aside from the finale, the rest of season 10 was no better than the last few seasons have been, and the main set-up lacked the focus of previous sagas like the voyage to find Finn’s mother or the threat of the elementals. One thread that gets worked through the season is the impending threat of Gumbald, which ultimately was totally abortive and would probably have been better left out of the story altogether or resolved ahead of the finale instead of a dumb Minecraft advert serving as the last full episode before it. Then there’s what will become of Fern, a clone of Finn who brings up some interesting existential questions and whose story reaches a brief but ultimately satisfying conclusion.

Otherwise, a lot of episodes give characters a little more resolution. Jake learns some more about his background, Flame Princess deals with her father (in a pretty stupid rap battle episode) and Tree Trunks and Mr Pig work out some kinks in their complicated relationship. Then there are some relatively random episodes, like the Minecraft one and the story of Finn trying to get a joke published in a magazine. The 13 episodes – or 16 if you consider the finale 4 separate ones – were again aired over the course of a full year, making immersion and interest exponentially harder to maintain.

One sad thing about Adventure Time is how it lost its capacity to surprise me. In the beginning there were lots of very random and hilarious things that came as a surprise, especially how episodes ended. Then I was surprised by various revelations about the past in world-building terms, especially with Simon’s background. But it’s been a long while since I’ve found anything about Adventure Time very novel. In this season, well, I’m glad they confirmed a homosexual relationship within canon which they could have just skirted around and left vaguely ambiguous, as they had since it was heavily implied back in season 3. And it blindsided me when they said they were holding Finn’s 17^th birthday party – I know the character has aged but I still saw the little blobby potato guy as about 14, maybe 15. He definitely doesn’t seem like a 17-year-old, even now. But those aren’t the kinds of surprises I was talking about. Things that made me laugh before were things like King Worm coming out of nowhere to hypnotise Finn and Jake, or Jake proudly announcing that he’s 28 in the pilot.

So it was with the finale. There were plenty of things I didn’t expect – the framework hinting at terrible things having happened to the main cast; the way Gumbald and co are basically shrugged off in favour of a bigger, better plot; Lemongrab and Lumpy Space Princess having an amusing end to their character arcs together – but none of it actively surprised me. It’s been a long time since I remember Adventure Time actually making me laugh. And to be honest, while of course one of its strengths was revealing a rich, often very dark backstory, there haven’t been any real revelations on that front for half a decade. We didn’t need to know more about Princess Bubblegum’s dark past. Simon’s story could have been neatly wrapped up at any time and the most delightful thing about it was that he had this backstory at all – which was teased in season 4 and revealed in season 5. This is all a long time ago now. It isn’t really Adventure Time’s style to go out with a real bang, and indeed it didn’t, hinting over and over again about a huge apocalyptic battle but never really having one and having the day saved by singing and the unconvincing soft-of-self-sacrifice of a very underdeveloped minor character, Betty. Perhaps worst of all, it didn't feel like Finn had much of a place in the finale, there was no sense of closure to his character development, and perhaps Penn Ward not being on the show for many years also meant Finn got left behind as a character. 

Even if this wasn’t an ideal finale, though, it was a solid end to a show that ran its course and accomplished a lot. Adventure Time was always a show with uneven quality but it’s probably made me laugh more than any other show in recent years aside from Gumball. And it managed to occasionally be deeply touching, too, with Simon’s backstory providing a show that revels in violence and slapstick with a real heart. I’m not sure I’d want to sit through the entire run again, or even recommend to someone that they need to watch every single episode like I did. But the first few seasons and certain key world-building episodes are true classics of animated television, and I will defend the show to the end against detractors who hate how popular it got. After 11 years, it's a little sad to say goodbye to Adventure Time. But it was also high time the show ended.

Bee and Puppycat: Season 1

The episodes of Bee and Puppycat trickled out between the end of the kickstarter in late 2014 and the season finale at the end of 2016. I had decided to wait for a full season to watch before seeing if the show lived up to the promise of its pilot, but 2017 was a kind of busy year and I guess it just wasn’t a priority, so I only just got around to watching the short, uneven 10-episode season.

While a lot of what was promised for the show was developed a teeny tiny amount in the last episode – in unexpected ways – I’m a little disappointed by Bee and Puppycat. Though Adventure Time staffer Natasha Allegri is still the driving force here, a lot of the spark of the original is gone, and in story, character and visual terms it just isn’t as fun as the pilot promised it would be. Plus I’m a little disappointed that instead of Puppycat being the one with the surprisingly dark past and hidden power (as hinted at in his song from the pilot), that role has instead fallen to Bee, who I felt was much more interesting as an everywoman figure.

Some of the new additions to the series are great. I absolutely love Cardamon, the little tot who’s taken it on himself to become the landlord since his mother is no longer capable, and whose final scene is the saddest and most emotionally believable in these ten episodes. The idea of a Pretty Patrick cooking show is fun, especially that Puppycat loves it and ‘Pretty Patrick’ is the only English he speaks. I really enjoyed the weirdness of some of the worlds our main duo visit, especially when they’re morally ambivalent, and many of these new characters – especially Cardamon and Moully – have the most wonderfully natural vocal performances. Especially since Cardamon’s voice actor is a child.

Other characters fall pretty flat, like the oh so random wrestling club member. 

While there’s still plenty of time for more to happen, I was a little disappointed by the direction the main characters went. Puppycat could still certainly become much more interesting in future seasons, but we had no hints of him perhaps having a dark past and saving the day with mouth lasers. Instead he remains just a grumpy, cute sort of a mascot character and there’s more of an emphasis on him being put into embarrassing situations. I’d like a balance between him being a silly pudgy cat-thing and being a hidden badass. They also did far less weird things with Oliver this time, so he mostly sounds like he’s just speaking an alien tongue rather than making lots of bizarre inhuman sounds.

Deckard, while a nice character and very well-acted, didn’t really get to do anything much. His dilemma over staying around to be with Bee and to go off to chase his dream is drawn out a bit too much, even over the course of such a short season. I want him to hurry up and talk it through with the others to reach a sensible decision.

And then there’s Bee. Not only did the animation style of the show get a lot more generic and Steven Universe-y, with Bee in particular looking very different from the pilot both in appearance and dress sense, she got markedly less interesting even as hints at a very strange past culminated in a big cliffhanger. She’s still a very strong character, natural and flawed while still very likeable, but as the series progresses she seems less empathetic to others, less rebellious and less pro-active. I want to see more of the everyday side of Bee, more of her trying to fit into the world rather than solving problems with interdimensional temp jobs.

The show still has a lot of potential and I’m keen to see more if it really does get made. But I feel like an opportunity for something really great was missed here.

Powerpuff Girls: Season 6

I didn’t finish watching Powerpuff Girls for a long while. In part, it was because it’s a shame to see the end of a classic show, but mostly it was because by season 6, it wasn’t really feeling like a classic any more.

The show had been on air for over 6 years by the time it finished, and felt like it was running short on ideas. Weird and politically incorrect Rocky and Bullwinkle parodies, returning a monster baby to its mama and poor Buttercup being told she’s got no particularly special talent over the other girls don’t feel like the playful and inventive episodes of old. The season plays out without the sparkle of inventiveness or irreverence that characterised its early run. A steampunk episode, featuring the Steamypuff Kids, is pretty fun, though.

The Powerpuff Girls have endured in a way that not many similar shows have. There was the anime spinoff, the spiritually similar early My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and now a new revival that I haven’t seen yet. The designs are enduringly popular and rewatching old episodes never fails to put a smile on my face.

But the problem is that there’s only so far you can go. Sure, you can give the little kindergarten-age heroes crushes on some boys and have them go from fist-fighting with their antagonists to going camping with them, but they’re still funny little bug-eyed kids with insane super powers. There’s nothing to discover about their pasts and no angsty teenage plot arcs they can go through. So flipping to alternate worlds of the wild west or making a whole episode in the style of the Who’s concept albums starts to feel a little like scraping the barrel.

But apparently there are enough stories to tell for a new series to come out. So I guess my Powerpuff adventure doesn’t stop here.  

Adventure Time: season 9

There was a bit of confusion in regards to where season 8 ended and where season 9 begun, but now it’s been officially determined what season goes where, and season 9 covers the multi-part saga where the elementals have taken over and transformed Ooo, then the handful of episodes in the aftermath where Jake looks weird, Finn has to deal with his rogue clone Fern and there’s one more battle with a leftover bit of the Lich.

This sets up the plotline that will dominate season 10, revolving around members of Princess Bubblegum’s family, but feels like a bit of a throwaway season. It doesn’t have a strong identity, not even having been defined as a full season until a while after it finished, and is dominated by a multi-part series that not only isn’t very exciting (Slime Princess’s episode being the most memorable but mostly for being a little disturbing) but is in the shadow of much more compelling and plot-driven multi-part arcs in the season before it. The episode with Jake and his brother Jermaine is a nice human touch in a weird series, which I say in full awareness that the characters are not humans. Otherwise, though, this season is very light on the real character development and world exploration that made Adventure Time hit compelling new heights a couple of years back.

I’ve definitely moved on somewhat from Adventure Time. Obviously it’s a long way from the silly short that kicked it off, and it’s been wildly successful especially with older stoners. But it feels like time to wrap it up, because most of the intriguing background elements that were slowly revealed have now all been shown. There’s not much more to say about Simon’s past, Finn’s parentage, the Mushroom War or the weird alternate universes, and morsels like what happened to Marceline’s mom centuries before the show begins are probably best left understated.

I’ve enjoyed Adventure Time and I’m still watching season 10, but there are better shows to watch and I hope the show gracefully comes to a close soon. Ah, I see that’s what’s planned, so that feels like good timing to me. 

The Amazing World of Gumball: season 5

Season 5 of Gumball had some of the most enjoyable episodes of the show’s run, with some of the most interesting character development, though also a couple of the show’s only duds too.

Looking back to season one, Gumball has come a long way, looks a lot better, and tends to have very slick, economical writing with good jokes, very likeable characters and that same love for animation that drew me in the first place. I don’t remember ever laughing quite as hard at a cartoon as I did at the end of The Ex.

What I really like about Gumball is that while it sometimes re-treads old, familiar cartoon plotlines – love potions, working with a hated teacher to pass a test, trying to get rid of Granny’s unwanted gifts – it’s very much a cartoon that focuses on contemporary lifestyle. A lot of cartoons these days, not counting satirical comedies for adults, try to have their characters in some weird timeless setting where people don’t use the internet or have smartphones and high school is, well, the way the writing team remember it. Maybe they have a game console that bleeps and bloops and shows some 8-bit graphics. That goes hand-in-hand with the sorts of references that are safe to use – classic movies or 80s iconography, classic rock bands with iconic looks, perhaps even some classic literature. Well, Gumball throws all that out and references internet memes like Friendship Ended with Mudasir and Yu-Gi-Oh chins, has its kids use Facebook, Instagram and Wikipedia clones, catfish their grandpa and in a truly brilliant move has an episode made in collaboration with the makers of ‘Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared’ (which is superb in its own right).

There’s also a Yelp-reviews-as-blackmail episode, but South Park already did that, and it wasn’t really a highlight of either show’s run. The show’s take on social justice also went semi-viral last year, and while it was a very intelligent commentary on it often being used (especially online) by self-righteous people not because they care about the issues they’re talking about but because they want to dominate in arguments and cover their insecurities by being the most tolerant, it was a real shame the clips that circulated didn’t show how Gumball learns that he was misguided in the way he tried to debate. The show ultimately concluded that forgiveness and genuine compassion trump argumentative self-righteousness.

Other references are more safe and straightforward, and it seems like the show is embracing the referential aspect of its comedy and running with it, sometimes a bit far. I enjoyed the Final Fantasy parody episode, and the episode where Gumball tries to befriend Ocho to get to Mario works mostly for the character humour and not the references, but for example Harry Potter references fall flat (especially when two different episodes’ references to Ron being annoying and Gumball preferring Voldemort to Harry kind of clash with each other). Other than a surprising Kyary Pamyu Pamyu skit, ‘The Singing’ was one of the show’s worst episodes, a lazy compilation of unoriginal song parodies – also breaking the unwritten rule that Gumball and Darwin will always appear at least once. It’s these kinds of clip shows that don’t really work, with ‘The News’ another example, bringing to mind the worst random episodic gag episodes of Rick and Morty.

This season again devotes time to some of the more minor characters to develop them. Even Sussie gets an episode, which ends in truly bizarre, somehow uplifting style. Rocky gets an episode too, though not much new is said about him. We also get a relationship episode for Darwin, obliquely referencing his bromance with his adoptive brother, as well as a bit more development for Gumball’s grandpa Frankie, and a nice episode where Nicole reflects on what might have happened had she never met Richard. I really enjoy episodes developing the main cast, but subversions of what’s expected – like Gumball pining for his nemesis Rob when Rob decides to move on – are the most brilliant.

References to the likes of Gremlins and Jurassic Park aren’t particularly surprising, even at the same time, but unexpected references include the chest-thumping from The Wolf of Wall Street, the scream from The Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Gumball has always been a show that throws in unexpected and amusing references, and this isn’t the first time we’ve seen obscurities from the Internet – How-To Basic was referenced last season, there was an episode about going too deep on Youtube and ending up with Rickrolls and Youtube Poop, and there have been art choices very reminiscent of the Yaranaika face and Dolan in the past, so I’m not surprised how this aspect of the show is developing. There’s a need to be cautious, though – too much and it will become unfunny or detract from the heart and soul of the show. Already Gumball’s malleable 2-D nature is becoming a bit overdone, especially when it’s ignored when he decides he’s the only kid without special powers. Still, so far the show isn’t overstepping and I’ll be watching the show into its sixth season happily.

Oh, and there’s one throw-back to the awkwardness with the Hot Dog Guy. Marvellous!

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic season 7

There's still no end in sight for MLP, with a movie just out and the show continuing into its 7th season. 

In many ways, the show's character arcs have reached their endgame, which is quite nice to see - it forces the characters to grow and develop further from there, and means the show can't just endlessly freeze itself in the same cycle of character ambitions and dreams. The Cutie Mark Crusaders have their Cutie Marks, and now set out to help others. Rainbow Dash is a wonderbolt, and has issues as part of the team rather than as a rookie. Twilight is used to being a princess now, even if still a neurotic one, and mostly imparts lessons to others. 

Trying to make Sunset Glimmer a major character isn't working that well. The show doesn't seem all that convinced of her, not even making a place for her in the intro (which still revolve around the friendship lessons that haven't had much of a place in the show for a long while). Some of her interactions with Trixie are fun, and she's at least a welcome voice of cynicism sometimes, but she's just not interesting or likeable enough to carry episodes, and there's already a large cast of characters who can lead episodes and learn the same things she does. 

On the other hand, surprisingly it's the show starting to plumb deeper depths of its lore that keeps this season interesting amongst several dud episodes about Rarity's fashion boutique or being more friendly with the dragons. Having more of an examination of Starswirl the Bearded made for a compelling cliffhanger into the finale, even if it's very awkward writing that allows Twilight not to see the obvious consequence of her spell from the beginning. 

I also loved the episode where Rumble became the focus. He was an extremely minor colt with just one speaking line before, but there was something very cute about him and how he was one of very few boy ponies to be given the same face shape as the fillies. I always liked him in fandom and with his brother Thunderlane getting featured more, it made sense for him to have an episode. He had a bad attitude and his voice evidently dropped, but he got a great song, I liked the underlying issues his attitude was copying and generally I'd enjoy seeing him featured again, questioning the things blindly accepted by pony society. 

The show also let darker elements of Scootaloo's backstory come through some more, while not being explicitly tackled. Absent parents, abandonment issues and disability make her a potentially extremely interesting character for such a light show. Because it's so light we can't count on much more than hints of an underlying sadness, but those notes are sweet when they're hit, just like finding out more about Applejack and Applebloom's parents. 

But I still have my doubts about stretching this show out too much more. With most character arcs completed, episodes with just the 'Mane 6' hold the attention less and less, and they can't keep relying on new characters or fleshing out previously minor background ponies without a feeling of scraping the barrel. I don't mind another season or two but they really need to take on a bigger scope and work towards something bigger than how well a shop runs or whether or not your friend genuinely likes the cakes you make her. If the show continues much longer, I'd like to see it try to get more serious. 

Kung-Fu Panda 3

I thought they didn't have this film on my flight, though it was on my outbound journey, but actually it was hidden away in the 'for kids' section. Not sure why it wasn't in 'family movies' this time. 

Anyway, I found it and watched it as a final relaxing film, and it fit the bill just fine. Light entertainment with some smiles, if not the big laughs of the first films, and impressive action. 

This time around, Po has to face an undead bull voiced by JK Simmons who was once the close comrade of the old turtle master Oogway. He uses Chi to enslave the various animal masters around China, turning them into chi zombies made of jade. Because Chinese-y, I guess.

Po goes on a quest to understand himself after meeting his birth father, intending to master Chi to fight this new threat. But he only learns to be a panda, obviously neglecting that being raised by a duck, that's not fully who he is. 

There's a nice big satisfying fight at the end, where for some reason the baddie doesn't use the instant-inslaving technique that worked on everyone else, There's some spectacular animation in the fights and in Po's clever idea for dealing with the baddie, and everything gets wrapped up neatly. 

The stakes just about work, though perhaps a larger scale would have been more moving. There's a very sweet gesture of help at the end, and overall the film ends as satisfying but not quite as grandiose as its predecessors - which were of course very silly in any case. 

It's obvious why this franchise worked out so well, able to encompass silliness and awesomeness together, And of course China likes it. A trilogy is neat and the idea might get tedious after too many more iterations, but I could stomach at least a couple more. 

The Amazing World of Gumball: season 4

Gumball remains my go-to show for fun and relaxation, and it's fast becoming my favourite western show currently airing. Probably Adventure Time has hit greater heights in its run, but is way less consistent and not nearly as smart. 

Gumball is quietly subversive and is remarkably up-to-the-minute. They can make all the old familiar references any cartoon can make, to Terminator or Dragonball or The Legend of Zelda, safe established nostalgic works that are obvious points of reference, but this show will also put in nods to The Last of Us or even YouTube series like How To Basic. 

One of the standouts this season was the anime homage. I was a little sad only Nicole got to have a fun humanised version for her big fight, the kids ending up as limited-animation chibis, but the Toriyama tribute was spot-on and the fight pretty entertaining. Still, it was one of the laziest episodes of the season, because it did just what you'd expect a cartoon to do when parodying anime. It's much better when they throw everything at the screen, like in the Hallowe’en special where you have the schoolkids dressed up and half a dozen references thrown at the viewer at once.

Several characters get more development. Nicole and Darwin get their pasts filled in. Anais gets to be the centre of some episodes that flesh her out, still awkwardly trying to make friends or becoming a crime scene investigator in a fun send-up of gritty detective shows. Even Richard gets a modicum of depth as his biological father enters the scene. Gumball himself, meanwhile, is intentionally shallow and doesn’t need fleshing out, but there’s something very entertaining about watching him get obsessed by stupid things like finding out why one friend doesn’t slap him affectionately on the butt like he does with his other male friends, even though they all find it intensely annoying.

My favourite two episodes were the ones with the Hot Dog Guy. Gumball tries to be random by hugging this stranger for no reason, and of course it soon spirals out of control and becomes incredibly awkward, neither of them actually wanting to spend time with one another but ending up in situations where it would be rude to refuse one another’s company as things get increasingly homoerotic. Yes, weird for a kids’ cartoon. No, not really homophobic because it’s not funny from the angle that being gay is inherently comical or disgusting, but awkward misunderstandings are both funny and adorable. Yes, weirdly adorable even though one is a little blue cat and the other is a large hotdog.

I’m definitely keen to keep watching, and with the sixth season just starting, it seems I have plenty more. 

The Amazing World of Gumball season 3

Gumball is my go-to show to watch at the moment. It’s such exuberant, silly fun with such likeable central characters and such joy in the medium of animation. Not every episode is a hit but enough of them are that I’ll always have fun in any viewing session.

The season starts in a slightly sad way as the original voice actors pass the torch to the new kids. Replacing kid actors is generally necessary in these kinds of shows, though they seem to be letting Jeremy Shada keep voicing Finn long-term since he replaced his brother in Adventure Time. In fairness, by the time the voice work for Gumball season 3 started, the boys’ voices had changed a lot, even when they weren’t exaggerating it, and it was nice to even give them a send-off rather than just making the switch behind the scenes. I’m not generally that keen on meta-humour dominating a whole episode, and the season finale where the cast contemplate selling out for money didn’t work for me, but in this case it was sweet and worked well as a pretty original concept.

Otherwise, the season is mostly more of the same. The kids get into scrapes with various classmates and family members, struggle with allergies, try to watch scary movies without Anaïs, or think up an imaginary friend. The show does a great job of taking tried-and-tested concepts and subverting them, or sometimes affectionately pastiching them. The show also does the surprise anticlimactic ending even better than Adventure Time.

But this season doesn’t just coast along doing the same old things. There’s a fair bit of character development. Some background characters get more fleshed out, with Sarah and Alan getting episodes centred on them, and one episode is even centred on ‘extras’. There’s also quite an interesting side-story where uninteresting background characters disappear into ‘The Void’, with one not only being rescued from there but another becoming a much more major player when he manages to escape.

Most significant, though, is the development of Penny. Initially Gumball’s comedy crush, the two of them have genuinely gotten closer, culminating in Penny literally coming out of her peanut shell. It’s a very interesting development and it’s sweet how the couple are still so awkward and it doesn’t end up taking over Gumball’s entire life. Perhaps more interesting is the effect it has on Darwin. He’s initially very jealous and protective of his best friend being taken away from him, and his protestations of love for Gumball get pretty ardent. It walks a nice middle ground where potentially gay kids could see him as a perfectly normal boy with a gay crush (albeit on his adoptive brother, which is a bit weird), yet it’s also completely possible to see his devotion as a ‘bromance’. Religious groups can’t go crazy about it corrupting youth but at the same time it leans towards the normalisation of if not homosexuality, then dismantling the limits of what can be portrayed on kids’ TV in terms of appropriate expression for boys.

Which is not to claim Gumball is spearheading a cultural revolution. It’s just a nice background touch to a smart, entertaining and inventive TV cartoon. Which I will certainly continue to watch.  

The Amazing World of Gumball: Season 2

In the five years since I watched the first season of Gumball, it got a lot more popular. Clips from the show occasionally pop up on Facebook, going a little viral. It’s fully incorporated into Cartoon Network promotional material like its 25^th anniversary clip. It’s won a number of awards and generally entered into public consciousness to a much greater degree. I’m pretty sure it will be remembered nostalgically in a decade just like Powerpuff Girls and Fairly Odd Parents are remembered today.

I actually watched a fair chunk of season 2 before I stopped for a few years. Back then it was hard to find anywhere to watch the show. But I absolutely loved the episode The Job, where the show’s penchant for mixing animation styles is taken to extremes. It’s a beautiful, fun episode with a whole lot of weirdness going on, and one of the most inventive episodes of a show animation-wise that can ever have aired on TV.

Broadly, though, the show continues in the same way as the first season. Short, exuberant 10-minute episodes cover things like Gumball feuding with Banana Joe over a chewed pen, going to see the simple life of a rather Amish-esque potato or getting embarrassed over a stupid video of Gumball going viral.

The Watterson parents get more fleshed out here. Richard becomes a little less irritating and more sympathetic, even doing stupid things like getting into petty quarrels with his neighbour or being too wet to kick out the partiers who take over his house. We also get an insight into how he became the way he is, with an appearance from his overbearing mother. As for Nicole, that tough-love competitive spirit of hers reaches extremes, first in how far she pushes Gumball in a paintball game, and later in her own refusal to lose, which develops into her being some incredibly strong beast more or less unbeatable in the established world.

Other characters get more exploration too. Hector becomes more than just some feet and shins. Carrie shows more of a dark side. Insane new girl Sarah gets her introduction, though only seems a little obsessive in this season – and brings with her a very amusing set of friends from another school who look and move like 70s cartoons. Another human introduced is Santa, played with aplomb by Brian Blessed, national treasure.

Then there’s Gumball and Darwin, who were pretty well-developed from the start. They remain two of the most joyful characters to watch in any cartoon – impulsive, selfish and fun-loving Gumball paired with cute, sweet-natured, caring Darwin. In one episode they explore their dynamic, Darwin wanting to take the lead instead of following as the straight guy, and it’s an interesting examination of their dynamic. They’re still totally adorable, and their relationship is still very often homoerotic and has no qualms subverting gender expectations – the boys are quite happy to dress up as girls for their fake TV show (adorably rendered in anime style by Mike Inel online), hyperventilate into one another’s mouths or comfort each other by hugging and stroking. It’s totally adorable.

And on that note, this season pushes more boundaries than ever before. What this show gets away with is considerably more surprising than Adventure Time’s ‘Get in his pants’ joke. Of course everything is only implied – double entendres like “Did you see what he did to that guy’s cherry”, or visual boundary-pushing like Gumball and the balloon boy Alan meeting in the boys’ bathroom and Gumball having to reinflate him by, well, blowing him up. And then coming out of the bathroom looking decidedly disturbed. It pushes at what’s permissible and that’s one of its strengths.

Of all the cartoons currently airing targeted at kids, it’s the one that appeals the most to me. As an animation fan, in terms of humour, in the cuteness of the characters, in the unpredictability of the episodes and in terms of subverting expectations. The last two episodes in particular poke fun at the ideas of a whole world being made of living things and how horrific that would be, and the idea of cartoons resetting after each episode without consequences.

Funny, easy to watch, cute, likeable and inventive, I’ll definitely carry on watching Gumball. 

Rick and Morty, seasons 1-3

My introduction to Rick and Morty was the long, not particularly funny couch gag on The Simpsons. Nonetheless, the show has been a huge hit and is constantly being referenced online and seems to be on track to become this generation’s South Park – so I decided to give it a go.

Honestly, the friend I was watching it with and I almost gave up after three episodes. It didn’t click. The show introduces its main characters, obviously riffing on Doc and Marty from Back to the Future, which was indeed the show’s starting point. However, going in its own direction, the show has Rick and Morty as grandfather and grandson, with Rick an alcoholic sociopath and Morty an overly naïve adolescent. Both are voiced by co-creator Justin Roiland, who I know from voicing the annoying but amusing Earl of Lemongrab in Adventure Time, and his performances take some getting used to. Morty stutters and whines, while Rick’s speech is punctuated by annoying burps.

The first episode seems to try way too hard. The humour is very adolescent, and the audience is expected to laugh at things like Morty having to shove things up his rectum and blowing up aliens in explosions of gore that probably seem edgy to kids who have never seen the likes of Superjail – with Rick having much in common with The Warden.

The Lawnmower Man with dogs subplot in the second episode amused me and made me think the show had potential – though I’d already seen the most amusing part as a clip online without knowing what show it was from – but the lazy gross-out humour of the third episode set inside a body made it seem like the show had very little to offer. But after a few friends strongly urged me to keep going, I persevered.

Now, after all the available episodes, I can say I’m a bit of an unusual case. Rick and Morty is one of those Marmite shows – either adored or reviled. People seem to think it’s either the best show ever created or utterly worthless stoner-bait liked only by the very sheeple the show likes to admonish to make itself look cleverer. But for me, I think it’s pretty good. It has some great moments and some utter dud episodes. Some of the ideas are thought-provoking, some unoriginal, and some half-baked. Sometimes we’re just supposed to laugh at butts farting green clouds. Again.

The show really gets interesting when Rick’s solution to a problem gone completely out of hand is simply to slip into another dimension and take the places of a Rick and Morty who happened to die just them. There are after all infinite universes, so if you can cross between them, why not? But this doesn’t just get left there, it becomes continuity and takes a psychological toll on Morty – and raises the question of whether Rick has done it multiple times before.

This is where the show gets interesting. Of course, like most multiple-universe sci-fi it really doesn’t begin to broach the real conception of infinity. The show indicates there are a bunch of remarkable versions of the characters from other universes, like a doofus Rick or a lizard Morty or even two Mortys who dress like the characters from Gravity Falls (in one of many references to that show, because the creator is buddies with Roiland). But of course, in infinite realities there are infinite versions of each of these, plus infinite that are not like them, with infinite universes being created in infinite fractions of time from each and every moment, so having just ‘a whole bunch including some quirky unique ones’ doesn’t really cut it – even if most of the show’s best episodes are based on taking this idea further to have, for example, an evil Rick and an Evil Morty, a ‘Citadel of Ricks’ who decided to get together and in some cases exploit the rest, and even jaded corrupt police officer Mortys showing around good-hearted rookie Ricks.

Perhaps the heart and soul of the show is trying to discover whether or not Rick has a heart and soul. He’s decidedly an antihero, perhaps one of the most reprehensible characters ever created, willing to create whole universes to power his car battery and destroy them too, drunkenly devising Saw-like games to slaughter people he doesn’t like, watching Morty writhe in pain with two broken legs with little to no interest, and subjecting his family to endless mind games and manipulations. Yet it’s very compelling for the viewer to speculate that it’s all a façade for a deeper pain and yearning, a wish to be accepted and for others to help him with his inner pain – which was at the centre of the season 2 cliffhanger and remains interesting even after he illustrates how getting caught was part of his plan. Witness one version sacrificing himself to save Morty, or a flashback about his love for his wife and daughter that it turns out he fabricates, or the close friend who reveals that his exuberant random catchphrase is actually a cry for help. He even tries to zap out his brains!

For some reason, it tends to be the show’s most uninteresting and unfunny moments that take off as the most popular, simply because they’re big, obvious moments. Rick sending Morty on a dangerous mission to get him a drug that makes him do a silly dance, or spontaneously coming up with a song called ‘Get Schwifty’, or turning himself into a pickle. These seem aimed at just making stoners laugh at how random and zany the show is, but I can’t say I find them funny at all.

I’ve seen a lot of this humour before, too. Marvin from The Hitchhiker’s Guide has a lot in common with a machine shocked that its purpose is to pass butter, perhaps with a dash of the toaster from Red Dwarf – which also has the ideas of hallucinating a whole life only to see a ‘Game Over’ screen and an alternate universe version of a cool character with a bowl cut and buck teeth. In fact, most of Rick and Morty’s humour aims to be edgy and boundary-pushing, but it’s actually all mostly very safe, on ground previously trodden by the South Parks and Family Guys of the world. Attempts to be edgy by joking about sex robots and cuckoldry and of course that ultimate edgelord button, people having traumatic memories of childhood sexual abuse, are sub-4chan attempts to shock, and the one and only time I was surprised the show ‘went there’ was when it showed drunk Rick rants about Israel – which was genuinely surprising and funny, with the point being that the most feared and respected man in the universe feels awkward and babbles excuses when it comes to the tension there. Though the most recent episode glibly suggests peace was attained there by getting high. Typical.

There’s also some episodes that are total duds. Using interdimensional cable as an excuse to just have the actors ad-lib only results in ‘You had to be there’ style moments, and those episodes were probably the show’s worst. At least the montage of memories in season 3 brings with it the interesting moral question of how many of Morty’s memories have been altered by Rick – including, endearingly, any time that Rick messes up and gets embarrassed in front of Morty.

For all the faults I found with the show, though, what I really liked was how it put its characters through cheesy sci-fi situations but actually allowed that to have a deeper impact. Morty is changed by the knowledge that there are myriad other universes and he’s expendable. Summer has the harrowing experience of a machine taking ‘keep Summer safe’ to horrifying extremes. Beth has to wonder if she’s only a clone who believes herself to be the real Beth. Jerry is the show’s punching bag but has the curious experience of being put in a position to help assassinate Rick. These people are altered by what they go through, even if it turns them into much worse people ready to commit murder almost as easily as Rick is. When Rick and Morty shines is when it raises interesting questions about existence and purpose in a multiverse where you are one of countless identical versions of yourself, if you even exist at all and can trust your beliefs.

I’ll watch all there is of Rick and Morty, but honestly I would call it hit-and-miss at best, occasionally deep and inspired, but far too often formulaic and unoriginal. I’d call it above average, but not by much. 

Adventure Time – season 8

After realising season 7 had ended some time ago, I binge-watched the rest of season 8. I have to say, it brought with it a lot of what I had hoped for in the last season. 

Yes, there were some strange throwaway episodes, like diving after a sea lard and finding a strange new world, or the return of James Baxter the horse (though I did like how he got his name). But most of the season was dominated by two much longer, more intriguing plotlines - the development of the elemental guardian plotline that reaches fruition in season 9, but more importantly, Susan Strong providing Finn with a link to find the rest of the humans - and his mother. 

This plotline leads to the final lengthy arc of this season, with its own unique introduction and a bleak portrayal of the future of humanity. Once again, we see the idea of humanity preferring life in virtual reality and getting trapped inside. But Finn's mother and the rest of the humans are part of a different society, perhaps one that works a little too well. 

Finn gets some fine emotional moments and development, and it had already been a strong season for him as we got more exploration of the idea of alternate Finns being trapped in his swords. Finding his mother and of course ending up confronting problems she'd caused before eventually having to return home provided some great emotional highs and lows. Plus Susan became a fully-fledged character too, with her own past to confront, and had a cathartic reunion in the end. 

Now that both Finn's parents are well-established and he's growing up, there aren't so many loose ends left to tie. I think the next season bring Princess Bubblegum's darkness and the loose ends that remain in Simon's stories to a head, and then I feel like we might finally come to the end of this brightly-coloured, often rather dark cartoon that from its beginning has been squarely targeted at stoners and adults. I hope it draws to a natural close before too much longer. There's no point stringing it out until it gets stale, and while this season has been very satisfying indeed, I don't think there's that much more remaining in plot terms to bring out these kind of heavy hits in future. 

Adventure Time – season 7

The last few seasons of Adventure Time have seen very sporadic release schedules. Sometimes there’s a slew of episodes all coming out in a month and sometimes there’s nothing for weeks and weeks. It’s not clear where seasons begin and end most of the time, and I was under the impression that season 7 ended with the episodes ‘Preboot’ and ‘Reboot’, mostly because they took five months to come out after the previous episodes – but now I find out that’s midway through season 8 and I should have done my season 7 impressions in the March of 2016. Oh well.

Season 7 was actually the time that the show lost me somewhat, with season 8 episodes only recently having piqued my interest again. This season’s major events include Princess Bubblegum getting deposed by the cowardly King of Ooo, a lengthy exploration of Marceline’s past and where she got her different powers, and a real visit to the surreal parallel dimension Farmworld. There are also more hints to Simon’s past, with Betty at large in the present day.

But honestly, it’s partly the unpredictable release schedule, partly the feeling that the show’s major ideas are now played out and partly a few dud episodes like trying to figure out underwater political intrigues with blowfish and porpoises. There wasn’t much badly wrong here, but a lot of momentum felt sapped by the longer storylines, which unlike those of season 8 didn’t really feel like they advanced the plot of characters very much, especially Marceline. Princess Bubblegum got a little more depth, though.

In fact, the problem with this season was that unlike the seasons surrounding it, with major arcs largely focused on Finn, there’s not enough contrast between light and shade. Marceline is all darkness, Bubblegum only treading between bright pink and grey. What defines the current Adventure Time, a very long way out from its quirky initial pilot, is that it can contrast its silliness with surprising depth and ambition. I can see that this season brought to the fore some of the cleverer elements thought up for secondary characters, but they really pale beside Finn or the Ice King’s stories. And that leaves this season a little sub-par. But certainly, it remains fun to watch.  

King of the Hill: seasons 7&8

This show began to lose its way a little by taking a show with the central premise of being believable and down-to-earth and introducing whacky and far-fetched scenarios, and that really showed in season 7.

The season had too much that was too far-fetched. Bobby got fooled into making drugs. Dale leads the gang in hunting Chuck Mangione through a megastore at night. A pork magnate tries to transform Luanne into a woman from an advertising illustration, and himself into a pig. Instead of small-town foibles and recognisable characters, the show starts dealing with people who think they’re wizards, sexy female pest exterminators, stereotyped bikers and vision quests. I guess dancing with dogs just about passes as familiar ground for middle-class America, but it’s a weird story.

There’s one great episode, though, finally filling in a pretty big gap in a show about Texas, which sees Hank embarrassed when his dog Ladybird appears to be racist. It raises some pretty important questions about this setting, previously left at ‘Are you Chinese or are you Japanese?’, so it was good to see development at last.

That aside, Season 7 mostly left me with the feeling that the show was in decline, I have to say. However, King of the Hill got back on track somewhat in the eighth season. 

Yes, there are still some parts that go a little over-the-top, like Luanne protesting from the mouth of a giant mechanical mascot, a TV star coming to stay or Hank finding himself having to decide whether or not to let part of the town flood in a downpour of rain, but the vast majority of these episodes are believable scenarios about everyday problems – like Bobby wanting to get out of showering after sports or Hank getting a bad back.

The character of Peggy is going a little too strange at this point. She was originally a very subtle character, a little too full of herself yet very slow to read between the lines, but in episodes about her getting a chance to be an artist or taking pictures of a Flat Stanley doll, she crosses the line to being outright delusional and probably psychotic. She provided the highlights of several past seasons, but now she’s just a little too much. I suppose it’s an example of Flanderisation.

There are extremely big-name guest stars in this season. Brad Pitt has a lot of fun as Boomhauer’s brother in a performance that may as well have just been Mike Judge speaking in a slightly different register. Lindsey Lohan, early in her career, plays a love interest for Bobby. And then there’s Johnny Depp hamming it up as a conceited yoga instructor. None of them get in the way of the episode or draw undue attention, and it’s pretty likely only very big fans would recognise any of them before the credits. Ben Stiller also has a role as an annoying guy who thinks he’s far funnier than he is…meta humour, there, perhaps?

Some very memorable episodes worked out well here, like Hank hiring a big rig to play at being truckers for a while, or Bill managing to be popular by pretending to be gay – which sounds like it would be offensive but of course only highlights the ridiculousness of exaggerated perceptions of minorities.

At this stage there is a slight feeling of the show being played out. I’m not sure what the remaining 5 seasons will bring to the premise. But I’m still willing to find out, and the show remains a fun, now comfortingly familiar, piece of TV.  

All Dogs Go to Heaven

I had very few memories of All Dogs Go to Heaven, even though I do remember it being very popular upon release – on the same day as The Little Mermaid. I’d seen it once before, but my memories of it were mixed up with Lady and the Tramp, another dog-centric animation I’ve not rewatched since childhood.

Well, I’m going through Don Bluth movies at the moment – slowly – and next on the list was All Dogs Go to Heaven, his follow-up to the smash hit The Land Before Time. Don Bluth’s weakness tends to be story execution, which is why it works so well when he’s teamed up with another director – like Spielberg. But he famously disliked having to give up control, and was clearly enjoying his freedom with this movie, introducing themes of gambling, decadence and seedy underworld dealings to a family flick. Unfortunately, a lack of strong theming or likeable characters drag the whole thing down.

The film centres on Charlie, a rakish German Shepherd voiced with aplomb by Burt Reynolds who sadly fails horribly as a central character on account of being incredibly hard to like. He’s got the typical character arc of being selfish, irresponsible and manipulative, only to find his heart of gold when push comes to shove, but that happens only in the very final act, leaving way too much of the film centred on his being an unlikeable boor. Fun interactions with Dom Deluise’s Itchy character and even an amusing first trip to the Pearly Gates don’t save the character, his design is bizarrely ugly and unmemorable, and Reynolds’ singing voice is atrocious.

So it falls to the little girl who can talk to animals, Anne-Marie, to be the emotional centre of the film. Adorable as her voice actress Judith Barsi was as Ducky in The Land Before Time and deeply saddening though the poor little girl’s story was in real life, unfortunately Anne-Marie just isn’t interesting. She’s like a pint-sized Snow White, but with even less personality. Her characterisation is bland and her animation is that weird, creepy coquettish-baby thing Disney used to do a long time ago but thankfully gave up well before the 80s.

On the other hand, the animation is the film’s saving grace. It’s often beautiful, inventive and much more experimental that what Disney were putting out at that point. There’s some very impressive work with cars, scenes of Hell and various races. It still looks impressive, though Bluth’s habit of rotoscoping humans often looks jarring here.

The story veers wildly here and there, and the performances, heavily ad-libbed, often confuse. Killer is particularly incomprehensible, and I’m fairly sure his laser gun was written as a regular gun but changed to appease censors.

The music is perhaps the worst of any animated movie I’ve seen, with most of the songs lacking any melody or hook and being delivered with way too many distractions from the on-screen action. ‘You Can’t Keep a Good Dog Down’ and ‘Let’s Make Music Together’ are the saving graces of the soundtrack, though the bubble effect put on Ken Page’s voice was a terrible addition, and his cameo role only made me want to go and watch The Nightmare Before Christmas instead.

Don Bluth was capable of great things, and this movie is well-remembered, but unfortunately it’s not even close to his best, and probably won’t hold up well in years to come. 

King of the Hill: season 6

While it continues to be strong, season 6 shows Kingof the Hill just starting to run out of ideas. Some held in reserve are at last dealt with, like a Boomhauer episode fleshing him out to finally give him another dimension, and Dale deciding Joseph isn’t his biological son – though of course assumes he’s half-alien.

Strong new characters include Dale’s father, who forces the gang to contemplate homosexuality – which they do in typically childish but thankfully non-vicious fashion – and a silly turn for Alan Rickman as a king at a renaissance faire. The Rickman episode is about as absurd as King of the Hill should ever get, still being in the realms of the feasible, where going to Japan to discover Hank has a half-brother, Luanne being suckered into joining a cult, Bill stealing an army tank for a drunken rampage and Hank being honoured as the token white guy in an Asian golfing country club all go a bit too far. Peggy, previously the believably self-centred yet insecure centre of the funniest episodes, has some episodes where her self-regard goes a bit ridiculous. I can accept her accidentally taking home a Mexican child, but pretending to be a nun or taking Hank to a nudist colony was just bizarre.

Some episodes stretched too far at the end, like Hank extinguishing the Olympic torch in front of news cameras but them accepting it being relit by a cigarette on Bobby’s testimony, or Peggy falling for a scam but putting together a double-bluff at the end that goes perfectly.

Bobby and Connie are probably the most believable and relatable part of the series at this stage. I still want to watch more, but the show is losing its natural edge. I hope the next season is a bit more down-to-earth, but it will need some fresh ideas. 

ユーリ!!! on ICE / Yuri!!! on Ice

Perhaps last year’s biggest anime, there was no getting away from Yuri!!! on Ice hype, especially if you have a predilection for this kind of homoerotic, overly passionate sports anime, as I do – for whatever reason. As moé fizzles out and straight male anime fans begin to tire of idol shows, this style of female-targeted anime only grows in prominence.

Certainly, homoerotic sports and games shows are nothing new. Prince of Tennis had many of the same tropes, and the underlying passionate rivalry is what made me love Hikaru no Go so much. Haikyuu!! is incredibly popular just now, and with a long list of basketball, soccer, cycling and imaginary card game-based manga and anime provide more and more fodder for the ladies of Ikebukuro Animate. Arguably, Free! brought the subgenre more to the fore, mixing atypically good art with homosexual overtones. So the path was clear for an anime like Yuri!!! on Ice.

The choice of figure skating was no surprise. Japan has for a few years now been giving a lot of attention to Hanyuu Yuzuru, a slim, pretty-faced young figure skater who won gold in Sochi. He won hearts with his optimistic attitude and love of Winnie the Pooh, and has since gone down the usual ‘talent’ road with photo books and acting appearances. While it would be a bit much to say he’s single-handedly responsible for the current prominence of figure skating over here, he’s certainly a central figure. Thus the choice of skating for last season’s homoerotic sports anime came as no surprise.

Indeed, the main problem here is that nothing was a surprise. There was a sense that this was a groundbreaking show in some way – for example, there was some fuss over a moment that was maybe-or-maybe-not a kiss. And then the main pairing exchanged rings that could have been a platonic symbol or could echo engagement. They bathed together, lived together and often drove one another to tears. And I guess there were a lot of people in the audience thinking boundaries were being pushed for a mainstream anime. After all, Free! never went this far. But for me, I kept thinking of No.6 and how much more realistically and respectfully it portrayed a gay relationship in an relatively mainstream Noitamina anime.

Not that the anime needed to be groundbreaking to be enjoyable. With good characters, compelling pacing and interesting relationships, it could have been great fun. The problem was that for me, I didn’t connect with any of the characters, find them realistic or likeable. The main character, Yuri, struck me as self-pitying, judgemental, unkind and ungrateful, which was bad since he was meant to be the heart and soul of the piece. His enigmatic mentor and love interest, Victor, did what he was meant to do, being an impetuous, compelling, often bizarre selfish genius type – he was what he was meant to be, but that doesn’t mean I like that kind of character type. Then there was the other Yuri, young Russian Yuri Plisetsky, who is a skinny, feminine, totally beautiful 15-year-old Russian boy. His appearance is cute but his personality is harsh and cruel, and though his tsundere side occasionally makes him more sympathetic, he was still a totally unlikeable brat. Most of the other characters are the kind of total oddballs that often populate sports anime, though mostly a little too exaggerated for the overall tone.

The only characters I actually liked were Phichit from Thailand, who strove to please others and whose main fault was just being dull, and Kenjirou, a chirpy younger skater who idolises Yuri, does the cutest skate of the series and then gets relegated to the cheering division for the remaining episodes.

In technical terms, the anime had some nice fluid skating animation, but often looked scrappy or made bizarre decisions in terms of camera distortion, especially when it came to Swiss Christophe’s ‘sex appeal’ skates. I can’t say I felt strongly impressed by the skating animation, and it often looked awkwardly rotoscoped.

Certainly the show was light and often funny, and some of the cross-cultural observation was insightful, and I’ll probably watch a continuation if and when it appears, but overall I have to say I felt Yuri!!! on Ice was mediocre even in the fujoshi-bait world of homoerotic sports anime.