Current animated shows everybody’s watching

General Chit Chat
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So, aside from our ride-or-die Rescue Rangers, which we all love, I figure I’d take a moment to discuss other good animated series that are out there. There’s a surprising amount of quality content across the streaming services these days. Since the pandemic started, hubby and I have binge-watched the following and REALLY enjoyed them:

Avatar: The Last Airbender
The Legend of Korra
The Dragon Prince
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power
Masters of the Universe: Revelation
Centaurworld

We’re currently still watching The Owl House which is fantastic and Kipo and the Age of the Wonderbeasts which took about two episodes to warm up to but it’s really interesting so far. Feel free to comment on/discuss any of the shows I’ve mentioned or share what you’ve been watching!

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Completely agree on She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. Fantastic series. I went into it with no real expectations after all seasons were already released, and then binge watched all of them.

Centaurworld is… Well… I can’t describe what it is. Whoever made that concept must have been on some form of very interesting drugs when they came up with it however.
It’s solidly interesting. Not one I’d call fantastic, but it’s an experience worth watching just because of how stunningly Weird it is.

The Amazing World of Gumball is another series I’d recommend. This one does not, compared to the two above, have a continuous narrative but is rather stand-alone short episodes. It’s also a supremely weird show, but has a fair bit of comedy gold and a really interesting art-style.

I guess Technically the new Sonic films are animation, haha. Good films, those.

The Duck Tales reboot is fun as well. They had excellent taste, what with getting their inspiration from Don Rosa. (And if you don’t know who That is, then I Very Strongly recommend looking up the comic series “The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck”, which is some of the best comics I’ve ever read.)

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I completely agree with you on She-Ra. I also went into it with no expectations and it wound up putting my heart in a blender. Easily one of the best love stories ever.

I would have to say that I DO think that Centaurworld is fantastic. Yes, it completely is WTF at first. But if you take a deeper look into it, you’ll realize that most, if not all of the characters are reacting to trauma. And don’t get me started on the Nowhere King and how absolutely bone-chilling he is and how deplorable both halves of his personality are. Also, the fact that Glendale does an Elizabeth Holmes impression had me rolling on the floor. And you should give all your love to Comfortable Doug. :rofl:

I will definitely keep Gumball in mind and I totally forgot about the Ducktales reboot—gotta check that one out too! Thanks!

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Been rewatching Star Wars Rebels and waiting for the next season of Bad Batch. Beyond that, just reruns of MLP, Phineas & Ferb, Tom & Jerry, and Looney Tunes.

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The Avatar series is excellent. I love the running gag where Toph is so op everyone constantly forgets she’s blind.

She-Ra was a welcome surprise. I was not a fan of the franchise before watching that show. Kind of like MLP in that respect lol. But it has everything I enjoy, a strong female protagonist, friendship overcoming adversity, redemption, comedy.

@Wiggles I have not seen Masters of the universe, I have heard it isn’t great. But I will give it a try. I keep hearing The Dragon Prince is good so I will add that to the list. I have heard nothing of Centaurworld .

As to what I have been watching.

Adventure Time: Distant Lands, a short continuation of the main series which basically caps off the main characters stories I really recommend watching if you want a complete experience. It ended very well.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars. I rewatched/caught up on this series to get some context for the other star wars series that have been coming out (mandalorian, boba fett etc.) as Ahsoka is a relevant character in the continuing story. I have mostly found it to be a chore up until the final two seasons so take that as you will.

Star vs the Forces of Evil was a fun comedic romp. I’ve been meaning to rewatch that actually as there are some elements of the story I didn’t fully understand.

All I can really think of after that is a bunch of anime but that should probably go into its own topic.

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Masters of the Universe: Revelation is excellent. We binge watched that one in two days.

The Bad Batch on Disney+ is another good one I recently watched.

I’ve been watching a few episodes of Chip ‘n’ Dale: Park Life every now and then (don’t shoot me @Wiggles)

I feel like there has to have been some other animated shows that I’ve been watching, but I’m drawing a blank. :thinking:

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I’m working my way through Avatar the Last Airbender to get the world-building background, but to be honest I wouldn’t watch it for its own sake and I can’t give it a recommend; the show’s writing and story unfortunately just isn’t doing much for me.

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I’ve been slowly watching the new DuckTales series and I’m so impressed it’s no wonder they canceled it after 3 seasons.

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Wow, really? I thought the story and characters were incredible. How much have you watched so far?

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I’m most of the way through season 2 at this point. The story feels too “safe” and it’s not delivering suspense because the writers don’t feel willing to capitalize on the many opportunities there should have been for a real sense of possibility for adversities and failures with permanent consequences. They’ll pretend, but not commit - there’s plenty of “Oh no! You madman, you actually did it, you blew up the dam and exterminated everyone in the town!” types of moments, but they’re just moments and immediately lose their teeth because they’re followed by “But! Actually we warned the town and everyone’s on high ground just watching the big wave.”

This is probably also part of why the characters mostly don’t engage me; without real adverse consequence to much of anything the characters don’t feel like they actually develop. They learn skills, but that’s not internal growth. There’s been one major exception to this so far (unsurprisingly, the only character who really has been genuinely kicked around and then kicked when they’re down), but one character’s arc won’t carry a show that has a cast like this one.
The other problem would be that I’m also kinda bored with how some of the characters slot too far into troped sets of characteristics and don’t always feel like they get enough treatment in terms of examination as a real individual as a result.

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Uh……. Hm. I guess I haven’t really been watching much animation lately

I don’t like most anime—not because I don’t like anime itself but because I think the vast majority of anime is aimed at a much younger audience and I find myself thinking “none of this would be a problem if anyone in this show acted like an adult”. There’s nothing wrong with those shows but it’s hard for me as an approaching-forty guy to identify with any of the characters or themes in them. Great shows for me were Cowboy Bebop, Hellsing, Samurai 7, and Gurren Laggan, but those are all done now… It’s rare for me to find anime that really turns my key, and nothing’s taking at the moment.

A few of the American shows mentioned have been great—loved Gumball for example—and I enjoyed some hard hitters recently like Bojack, which is one of the best shows I’ve ever watched period, let alone animated. But like anime they’re kinda past tense. At the moment… not really anything :confused: Mostly watching Marvel stuff and educational stuff on YouTube because I’m a boring old man

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There was one that caught my attention when I was browsing through Netflix because of how appealing I found the art in the preview images. I was a big JRPG fan growing up, and that’s kind of what the character design and overall art style reminded me of, and the premise also seemed like something straight out of a JRPG, so I thought I’d give it a shot.

Before the first episode had ended, it was very clear that I was not part of the target demographic.

The Seven Deadly Sins

It was obviously made for young teenage boys with how lecherous, gropy, and fan-servicey the whole thing was. It was a shame, too, because it seemed to have an overall decent story premise, and I could see myself enjoying it if it weren’t so gross and pervy. The protagonist (who looks like a child) is the embodiment of the thing I couldn’t get past: He’s written as a disturbingly gross pervert, and it’s supposed to be cute.

I know a lot of shows, including CDRR, will have a character that lusts after another, but this goes waaaaay beyond that. One reviewer described the protagonist as “a walking sex pest” who will grope a different part of the princess every chance he gets. It seems to be used as a punchline and it gets old really fast.

Oops, I really went off on a tangent there. Sorry. I guess I’d forgotten how much it bothered me that I wasn’t able to enjoy that show. :sweat_smile:

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Best example for me in recent memory was about an extremely high-stakes poker club where losers were subjected to pain, humiliation, all kinds of stuff and it looked dark and sexy and full of intrigue and I was like “oh baby I am so down for this”

And then in the first episode I learned it was a high school club. I’ve never noped out of a show harder in my life

And now I will stop hijacking the thread whoops

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That really just sounds like high school. It’s like they needed to add the other stuff about the high-stakes poker club to trick people into watching a show about a bunch of teenagers.

They got you with their trickery!

And now I too will stop hijacking the thread.

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About 99% of anime takes place in highschool or with highschool age characters. There are some great stories out there though as @arcanethewoof pointed out cowboy bebop is an example. Not a lot of the best stuff ends up on netflix though, at least not where I live.

I have no idea what would be up your alley though and as we all don’t want to hijack this thread I wont make any recommendations :stuck_out_tongue:

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Oh, on the contrary—it’s FANTASTIC. I was so skeptical. I was expecting more of the typical, old-school He-Man toxic masculinity garbage. Then, at the end of the first episode, it went in a completely different direction I didn’t expect it to go in. Kevin Smith truly did a bang-up job. Great storyline and you actually CARE about the characters. I won’t say anymore because I don’t want to spoil it. Oh, and Mark Hamill is Skeletor and Sarah Michelle Gellar is Teela. Can’t go wrong there.

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And Lena Headey as Evil-Lyn!

Cersei Lannister for the Game of Thrones fans in the back

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Ok I’m sold

well who else would play her… er i mean cool!

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I watched Masters of the Universe myself.
I wasn’t anywhere near as impressed with it as I was with She-Ra.

The problem is that Masters of the Universe feels rushed as heck.
They’re spending a single episode on travels that I felt could be explored in a full season.

It left everything extremely lacklustre.

I was never a fan of the original He-Man either, and this new version completely failed at grabbing my attention as well.

Oh, the animation itself was fantastic however. It’s just the story and characters that were… Meh.

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The Owl House is fantastic. Come on, we all knew I was gonna love it based on the title alone. I can rant for hours about how it’s getting snubbed by Disney. It’s so frustrating cus no one wants to say it’s because of homophobia… but it’s because of homophobia. To be fair, I think it’s cancellation has to do a little bit about getting caught at just the wrong time because of the rise of straming and channel restructuring, but for every justification apart from homophobia, I can find a Disney show where they managed to navigate it just fine, so it seems to me, in my non-expert opinion, that it’s a case of won’t rather than can’t.

I’v watched both Avatar and Legend of Korra, great shows. One thing I find interesting about those is they don’t seem to resonate that much with the asian cultures they are trying to depict, though most people don’t seem to think they are doing a bad job depicting those cultures per se, it’s just that you can probably find shows that are more in-depth closer to home.

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, or as me and my girlfriend got to calling it “The Catra show”, she’s the MVP in my opinion. Her, Scorpia and Entrapta all have a great dynamic, Entrapta in particular is a must-watch character for any Gadgetphile. Oh god, and Double Trouble, I got so many feelings. I’m caught somewhere between being irked that the one nonbinary character is a deceptive, near-iredeemable alien, and wishing I could get away with being that fabolous, DT is a straight-up queen.

(Between DT and Raine, it’s been a good time to be a nonbinary animation fan)

I haven’t seen the other Masters of the Universe show, it just seemed much more straight-faced and less interesting to me, I have grown addicted to color…

Centaurworld is a show that people say I’m gonna like because I like MLP, but I think maybe they got something different out of MLP than I did. It seems to me that it’s aimed more towards the Adventure Time crowd, with that cute-grotesque thing. I have watched a few eps of adventure time with my gf, but I’m only really interested in it whenever Marceline is on screen.

The ducktales reboot… I think it did Gyro Gearloose dirty, but I enjoyed it for what it is. Overall very interesting update to the show. As far as I can tell Don Rosa don’t love it as much as it seem to love Don Rosa. I think he’s mostly salty cus he’s had to spend multiple decades now sitting at cons going “no, these are not Ducktales illustrations, they are for a comic book that’s massively popular in just about every other country than the one I am in right now, you want a chili fruit?” and now he has to add a second layer to his spiel. (At least we europeans love you, Don Rosa :blush: )

Star VS is really good, binged it with girlfriend. One thing I find interesting about that show is how over the course of its run, it very much redefines what “the forces of evil” in the title refers to, going from a literal horde that’s against her to a much, much more nuanced story where Star has to face and owe up to not only what Mewni has done in the past, but her own bad impulses.

Gravity Falls… I enjoyed it as someone who has had a long-running fascination with the occult, supernatural and plain weird (not in a believer sort of sense, but in the sense of just enjoying reading about all the sightings and theories). I think the central mystery is a bit underwhelming, it’s a little like baby’s first ARG… but that’s exactly what it was intended for, so I guess I can’t complain.

A big part of what makes the mystery falls flat for me is how it only really refers to things in the show, it’s essentially just convoluted lore. But what makes a good esoteric mystery so spine-tingling is the way it brushes up against actual metaphysical ideas that at least feel real. David Lynch and Alan Moore is really good at this, to get a sense of what I’m talking about. But again, baby’s first mystery, it’s a little early to break out the ceremonial magic. (If you wanna write a mystery in a story, I highly recommend this GDC talk)

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