am spending three seasons Embarking on his first campaign, Vox Machina, for animation, important role The team has now expanded that focus to include its second outing, mighty nineThe show is live on Prime Video, taking on added significance due to the progress of the Actual Play campaign as the team was also crowdfunding what would become an animated Vocal The series, bringing everything full circle.
Comparison between this and Vocal are inevitable, but the general idea lags behind Neen Is it intended to serve as a darker counterpart to its more adventurous, light-hearted predecessor? Although it remains intact Vox’s The anime-like art style and generally solid animation — simple physical movements or lip fluttering when it lets loose a bit, which is never jarring — has a distinctly serious vibe to what’s going on throughout the eight-episode season. Even the bloodshed and violence, which is similar on an overall level vox, There’s a distinct feeling here due to the characters’ cruelty and their lack of joy in carrying it out. It’s a funny show, but nobody really Happen Fun, as long as it’s not at the expense of someone they don’t like.
doesn’t mean to say that mighty nine All is sorrow; There are still jokes, and most of the jokes in the show are good about when to use them. For fans of important role Or the ones that came up with the first animated series, Neen It retains the general energy that has defined the franchise over the past decade, while the creators have also clearly made an effort to make sure it can stand on its own feet. The various tweaks and remixes to the source material help, but an even bigger boon is the extended length: at 45-50 minutes each, the episodes have more time to run threads, or simply let the characters kind of breathe. Vocal Its runtime of 20-30 minutes cannot always be allowed. A few more episodes would always be appreciated, but the length feels like the right amount for this series.
The early episodes start off on the right foot by focusing on the Nins in separate groups before bringing the team together, giving them a chance to outwit each other throughout the rest of the season. The entire lead cast comfortably slips into the early days of these characters, living in them for so long that it feels as if no time has passed. (Given the Nines’ repeated appearances in the years since their campaign ended, including just a month ago, this is technically true.) For the most part, everyone’s used equally well and they’re all moments that will please longtime fans and get new ones invested in them, especially the two Nines who have been re-deployed in ways that feel right, but will undoubtedly reflect how their live show counterparts were handled. Was.
Mighty Nines The voice actors are also its creators, so moments and character beats that were often running jokes in the live show are now treated with a little more seriousness here. Seeing as how the alcoholism of ghostly rogue Knott (Sam Reagle) isn’t treated like a joke, or the conflict between novice monk Beau (Marisha Rae) and wizard Caleb (Liam O’Brien) drives the story forward, you can understand how and why the team chose to rework these characters for the new medium. No one’s really cheated by the jump to animation, and the choices made here allow for strong tonal consistency that keeps the Nine members on a slightly more equal footing, as most of the season is about them coming together.
What works less consistently is what information it reveals about these characters. One of the deviations made from the campaign is to introduce the audience to Essek (Matthew Mercer) and Trent Ichiton (Mark Strong), a pair of supporting players who do not appear until later in the story. His reasons for arriving so early here make sense, expanding the scope of the series and showing that Nine has unwittingly become embroiled in a matter much bigger than himself. The inclusion of these characters and fellow supporting antagonists like Astrid (Ivana Sakhno) and Edwulf (Redchild) lead to some of the show’s strongest moments, and the latter two action sequences look dynamite.
But for fans of the live shows, it may feel as if the sense of discovery has been lost. Plot elements are introduced here early on to pay off later in the campaign, allowing the show to plant flags so that certain members of the Nine can take center stage in future seasons if needed. However, the balance feels a little off – some characters make sense to tease what’s to come, others get a little spoiled. Very Prematurely, almost as if the animated show feared that playing too coy would cause newcomers and fans to lose interest or deem the persona unnecessary.
These problems probably existed Vox Machina Even for those who liked that campaign. But for those who know about the exploits of the Mighty Nine, this campaign is probably why important role Even today, the lack of character ambiguity may come to the fore. This may just be an issue of how the season is structured: while Vocal While seasons tend to end with characters reaching some sort of conclusion, either as a group or individually, that’s not really the case here. While the way things end creates a compelling hook into the future, it feels more like the first half of the season rather than a fully told story – which likely reflects the show’s creators’ belief (or hope) that it will be seen to the end.
That belief is not wrong; important role The team has made good television in the past, and meighty nine It’s more than that, just a little bit scaryIt exists within the cozy space that this franchise often occupies by design, Where you tune in every week to see your favorite characters and actors coming into position one after the other. And with the year coming to an end, it couldn’t have come at a better time.
first three mighty nine The episodes arrived on Prime Video on November 19, with new episodes airing weekly.
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