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BlossomingCorgi
Reviews
The Prince (2021)
Whether you like or don't like the Royal Family, we can all agree this has gone too far.
Ignore all those who commented positive things about this show. It's horrible. It shouldn't have even been greenlighted or even made in the first place. Yes, I'm American, but even plenty of us Yanks despise this show just as much as the Brits across the pond.
The designs of the characters are atrocious as your usual American adult animated cartoon, and while it's clear the members have been caricatured and satirized to get laughs from people (or from what I see, it was their attempt to), at the same time the jokes are just really unfunny, too much like the typical American humor despite most of the characters and settings being British, and even the caricatures are not well-done or likable. The Queen is depicted as a sailor-mouthed jerk, Prince George with stereotypes, the now-Princess Catherine of Wales as an alcoholic, and so on.
Now not everyone likes the Royal Family, but I'm sure both people who like and don't like the royals can agree that they've crossed the line by mocking the children of the family. And now that both Her late Majesty and her beloved husband have passed away, it's a guarantee that this show's second season won't ever see the light of day.
If you want to watch a show that pokes fun at the Royal Family while at the same time being decent, go watch The Windsors.
Jöllitown (2008)
This show is... weird, to say the least.
Being half-Filipino, I do have cousins who live there. Thus, I know about the fast food place Jollibee and have eaten there numerous times before. Little did I know that it had even gotten a show. Obviously this show is meant for very young children and has a very limited budget (as many shows made in the Philippines do) but that doesn't mean do the bare minimum for the show.
I can't really critique the costumes for Jollibee, Hetty, Twirlie, Popo, and Yum here as they are also used for events and stuff outside the show but they are a bit unsettling. Especially Hetty. Her eyes are way too small and far apart, making her look even more uncanny than the other three human-like mascots. I've seen her official art and it doesn't look that bad, but clearly it does not translate well to a 3D model for a mascot suit.
There are some inconsistencies with animation and character designs I've noticed in the show. Firstly, Ding Dang Dong (the clock tower) is animated using CGI in the first season, but in Season 4, he's animated in 2D with something like Flash. Pipoy Puno's (the talking tree) design is rather inconsistent too, and in the first season Twirlie has sunglasses and her coat is longer (even though the 2008 official character reveal video shows her present-day design).
There's also the acting. When Jollibee sees a falling star, the way he exclaims "Woah" sounds more like excitement than fear because of how flat it was delivered, unlike what he was doing. The voice acting in general is rather hit-or-miss, but of course, the standards likely were pretty loose. Plus I don't really think Jollibee's voice fits him at all. He's better off with a falsetto voice a la Mickey Mouse, not only because he looks like him.
Not only this but several features of this show seem rather derivative from earlier works. The red car Jollibee and his friends use looks a lot like Noddy's car, albeit the colors inverted. And the whole flying gimmick seems to makes it inspired by Rocket from Little Einsteins too. The show also seems to be very similar to LazyTown in more ways than one, and not to mention that Jollibee wasn't the first fast food place to have a show air on television.
So overall, Jollitown is a pretty strange show for several reasons that I have mentioned above.
Honey Girls (2021)
From a longtime Honey Girls enthusiast...
So I've been a fan of Build a Bear Workshop's series The Honey Girls since 2017, and they even influenced my anthropomorphic animal art style. They were pretty unique compared to other plushies the store sold, as they sported hair (they even looked more human-like than the other BABs), had a unique style of clothes and color schemes, and was even multimedia with animated music videos and some lore as well. I was really sad when I found out they were on a hiatus, and I'm glad that 3-year hiatus is over now, but saddened to find that not only do the reboots look a lot cheaper than the originals from 2015-2017, but the movie is beyond disappointing to say the least. When I found out that the movie is going to be live action with the characters turned into humans (aside from masks and ear headbands that are a reminder of who they represent), I just knew it was going to be terrible, and indeed a marketing nightmare given that they look absolutely nothing like the plushies Build a Bear advertises.
I sat down and wasted over an hour of watching this excuse of an adaptation, and what I knew was that it's just your average run-of-the-mill teen (or preteen) drama film that's also a cash grab for people who didn't even know what the Honey Girls are in their prime. Believe me, if they knew what the HG are back in 2015-2017 and seen their MVs, then they would've been just as disappointed as I was when I watched it.
The trio, who are humanized and renamed to Alex, Charlie, and Maya for some odd reason (now keep in mind the HG are named Teegan, Risa, and Viv, and those names are even kept in the reboot plushies), audition in a competition hosted by the famous Fancy G (I'm guessing they made a reference to both Honey G and Iggy Azalea when it came to Ashanti's character), and the trio have to be under a different guise once they become famous as "The Honey Girls". Now the music and moral are...fine to say the least, but that doesn't automatically make the movie good. I've seen too many people pay attention to the moral and brush off the other factors such as the medium this movie was made with and the plot as well.
Just like what another user said, this movie would've been much better if it were CGI with the characters actually looking like the plushies sold in BABW stores and the names unchanged, along with fleshing out the characters more by giving a little bit of background info in the storyline or something like that, perhaps making the plot more interesting than just your average slice of life teen drama. But as they decided to go to the live action and human route, which would only make sense with toylines involving fashion dolls like Bratz and American Girl, this really doesn't make sense.
I really need to know the whole reason on why they thought it was a good idea to go live action as well as humanizing and renaming the characters. This is just an abysmal choice right there, especially for those who were longtime fans of the Honey Girls. And if they say that this movie is "canon" to the Honey Girls lore, I wouldn't even know what to say given how this would not make any sense whatsoever. This is not the Honey Girls we know and love.
Gekijô-ban: Zero (2014)
Sorry...
If you're a huge fan of the Fatal Frame series or a huge nerd when it comes to Japanese folk culture you would probably be just as disappointed as I am.
The Fatal Frame series always included the Camera Obscura and several vengeful spirits that have major occurring roles. This movie barely has both except for a few occasional appearances and cameos.
Also, call me biased just because I'm an ex-Catholic, but I didn't really like the fact that Christianity, more specifically Catholicism, plays a role in this film. It just seems very foreign and more akin to western horror stories that have more Abrahamic themes to them. The original game series had a dark Shinto/Buddhist motif to them, even more faithful to the traditional Japanese horror theme it always conveyed. Meanwhile this film had none of that. Not a single torii, or Buddha statue was seen, and those two are even major cornerstones of Japanese culture. Yes, this is pretty much opinionated as I like Shinto and Buddhism more than Christianity, but still.
Cuccioli cerca amici nel regno di Pocketville (2010)
It's not as bad as people say it is, but it still has its major flaws.
Looking back at this show that I used to watch as a kid, it does have its flaws. However, I must say that a lot of these reviewers are overreacting way too much about how exactly bad it is, and I'm assuming that they must have a bias towards feminine shows that aren't My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, as is the typical 2010s Brony behavior. Admittedly I did find it strange it aired on Boomerang of all channels at least in the US and UK, given that it's a channel that has reruns of old Cartoon Network and Hanna-Barbera cartoons.
Yes, the animation is not as good. While a lot of the character designs are great, being very detailed and almost anime-like, some characters and even backgrounds are lacking, especially with Flipper's uncanny design being a fish with teeth, and Steel Wool just being some random sheep with a whistle tied around his neck (he doesn't even have horns either). Some aspects like human hand-like dexterity in the paws of the animal characters, Krakia's wings on occasion looking like human hands, and a lot of the animal characters having flat teeth are rather uncanny. There are noticeable inconsistencies and blemishes with the animation itself too. They recycle animation way too much, including scenes where the characters are talking, which even use the exact same lip flaps. Not only this but there are way too many obvious errors, such as Balloon and Mela suddenly switching spots, large differences in FPS rates for no reason, and characters such as Ava being off-model in some scenes. The animation studio behind it, Studio SEK (who often works with Mondo TV, the producers of this show), is based in North Korea, so I'm sure they had a very limited budget and the animators were so overworked and underpaid, but my point still stands.
The voice acting varies from dub to dub, as some dubs are better than others (personally I think the French dub is the best out of all of them), but the US and UK English dubs are rather hit-or-miss. Stephanie Sheh, despite the excessive filler noises with her character, did well on voicing Kate in the US dub, and so did Johnny Yong Bosch with Magic. However, other characters often sound a bit too monotone (such as Princess Ava, voiced by Julie-Ann Dean), or is clearly overacted (Eva, voiced by Joanna Ruiz, being a good example). At least they got professional voice actors here, many of them known for roles in anime dubs or other children's shows, though it doesn't save this show by any means. Not only this but I've even noticed a bunch of script errors. For example, how does Ava already know Magic's name, knowing that his original name was Oristolfo, yet didn't know Kate's name yet? Not to mention they sometimes get breeds wrong, such as Leo (the dog from "In the Cove of the Cat") resembling more of a foxhound despite being described as a bloodhound, and the performers in episode "Nearly" being called chihuahuas when they're supposed to be Jack/Parson Russell Terriers. Danny is also called a Neapolitan mastiff despite resembling an English mastiff, and Toby/Tobia being described as a Maremma sheepdog although he looks like an English sheepdog, though that's in merchandise rather than the show itself.
Then there's the plot and character personalities. The plot is simple: save Princess Ava and piece the Friendship Heart back into one. However, it's near the end where things start to make no sense even more. For some odd reason, though it depends on how much time has passed, the Pet Buster is suddenly freed from prison. Pretty sure he would've spent even more time there if it was more realistic. And not only this, but aside from the other silly and petty laws the Pocket Kingdom has, there is one where all criminals are pardoned and released on a holiday, thus freeing Eva and her lackeys. I think this was all an excuse to make another switch-up happen when both of them imprisoned was already fine as it is. Unlike Zull and Gort, who have their fair share of redeeming qualities, Eva lacks in them. She even says that she "always has been evil", which is pretty unrealistic given that things considered "evil" are taught to or learned by someone, and nobody is born that way. As if Eva growling like a dog instead of a cat (except in the French dub where she makes more realistic cat noises) wasn't strange enough. It's nice that the Royal Guards each give a nod to the Four Temperaments, and the other characters (except for some of the more minor ones) having good and bad traits, though Kate is probably the only character to get proper character development, and it's too bad she and Magic get way too much screen time and voice lines compared to other characters, even the Royal Guards. And the Pet Buster, well, we don't talk about him.
One user here said that "all the characters live in one big castle". That's incorrect: only Ava and the Royal Guards do. The rest live in the town that's next to the hill Pocketville Castle is on, or further away.
So yes, Adventures in Pocketville has way too many flaws to be considered a "good" show, but it is not by any means the worst of the worst. I've seen even worse shows produced by Mondo TV and other studios, especially from Dingo Pictures and Bevanfield. Do I recommend it? Not at all, but if you want to watch this show, that's fine, but be aware that the animation and sometimes the voice acting are lacking. I definitely recommend seeing some of the fanmade works of this show, such as the Yamatoverse and Pocketville Lost Diamonds novels if you want to see "fixfics" and AUs of this show.
The Queen's Corgi (2019)
Could be better, but overall okay
A lot of people are saying this film is horrible but in my opinion, it's actually an okay movie. Minus the fact that there's extremely noticeable adult jokes. Adult jokes are okay in kids' media but don't make them to where they get too far. I also didn't like how some of the characters mention that cats are always afraid of everything, which isn't true.
The reason why I watched this movie is not because of Trump, but because it features my idol: the Queen herself. I like how the movie portrays her as a stern but caring character. I don't really care about Trump that much, unlike most people who have seen this film. I actually would rather prefer seeing the Royals with the Emperor and Empress of Japan rather than Trump and Melania, as I really love Japan as well.
I also like the design of Rex. He actually looks adorable in my opinion.
The animation and voice acting are top-notch even though the film isn't completely Hollywood, though the storyline needs some work. It's just the same old "Pet needs to get back home" story. But I did like how it features the Queen.
I would say: You can watch this movie if you can handle the adult jokes in it.