Okay, so if you guys follow animation much, you know that, thanks to a recent Kickstarter campaign, the 2-part animated short Bee & Puppycat is going to be a full series, and the first two episodes dropped last night courtesy of Cartoon Hangover, the YouTube branch of independent animation studio Frederator. I was a pretty huge fan of the two original shorts because they took relatable problems, sci-fi themes, and a comedy and art style that caters specifically to my 20-something demographic. It was great, and the way the ending implied a deeper meaning contributed pretty generously to my desire to see the series continue. Well, as luck would have it, it has continued. Now, Im not going to attribute the massive hit that the animation quality has taken to lack of talent because, according to all accounts, the choice to make the show look objectively worse was the creators own choice, and Im all about artistic freedom. Its a simplified, less-polished version of the original animation style rife with inconsistent character silhouettes and other deviations that are evident of the project being rushed/done by an inexperienced animation team. Im going to call it charming and move on. The music is the same dreamlike beep-boop ambiance the original shorts had, and thats awesome. Its bubbly, simple, and somewhat erratic, fitting the shows tone and fun-loving nature perfectly. Voice acting is still heartbreakingly sincere and underacted, which is a credit, again, to the shows overall freeform tone. The writing has taken a bit of a hit and, along with the animation style, has been simplified and stripped of a few defining aspects that made the original shorts shine. The shows lack of an introduction implies that its supposed to be a continuation of the two original shorts, but it fails to advance the plot in any way short of two extremely vague dream sequences that might play a role in the development of the deeper universe that the show originally began to explore with Puppycats song-poem-thing. In the end, though, the shows writing is still funny and engaging, but its missing the slowly unraveling bigger picture that made the original two shorts so interesting. All in all, I need to see where this goes, but if the next three or four episodes dont begin to explore the universal subplot, Im going to be disappointed. Its a cute little cartoon, but the original two shorts managed to be much more than that by teasing a more developed storyline, and so far, the new series hasnt shown any of that, but its too close to call right now. Definitely watch the old ones, definitely watch the new ones, and definitely watch them as they come out, because if it does begin to reach its potential, itll be worth it to see it as it comes out. Original Short (Parts 1 & 2): https://youtube/watch?v=lOG_UtLxh58&list=PL2DcNkn8HAwQLcXTiDB876bU13hT0OhsZ New Episode 1: https://youtube/watch?v=KNs9shgQ2rI New Episode 2: https://youtube/watch?v=LugwQtPdkKU
Posted on: Fri, 07 Nov 2014 17:01:39 +0000