#She-Ra is a great Friendly Archenemy story

[secretmellowblog]

Carmen Sandiego Hot Take

THIS SHOW IS GREAT AND I LOVE IT

Positives:

Short answer: the best parts of this show are the central character, the action scenes, and the visuals

I love the Heroic Thief/Robin Hood archetype, and this show does it beautifully! 20/10!!! 

Their new take on Carmen Sandiego is suave and snarky and compelling and I love her

 She’s a thief-themed superhero, a liminal figure  who “belongs nowhere so she can belong anywhere,” the kind of rebellious anti-heroine I wish I had as a kid 

Friendly Archenemy Relationships! “I’m fighting you but I also know/care about/respect you” drama! Both with VILE and the police! Always good

The action scenes are all  fun and engaging, and every heist/chase/other big set-piece feels totally different. They found a lot of cool ways for Carmen to use her thief-skills and a lot of compelling situations for her to use them in, and it’s really fun to watch.

A diverse cast and tons of cool female heroes and villains

Carmen is an action adventure show first and a comedy second, and I love that. I’m glad we’re finally recognizing that people, including kids, want to watch mANY different genres of animation

This show’s gorgeous my dudes

It’s seriously worth watching for the designs/animation alone.

 It’s got this Art Deco Poster style that’s both beautiful and fits perfectly with the Heist Movie tone of the story

Really though, props to all the artists who worked on this show. It looks so gorgeous and unique

so pretty animation

THE MUSIC

THE INTRO

The backgrounds and the locations are as much as a star of the show as Carmen herself. In hindsight I wanna praise the background designers/painters/layout artists and stuff for their absolutely gorgeous work, especially cuz as an “adventure around the world” story the show doesn’t get to reuse most of the backgrounds/designs!

I ship Julmen, predictably

Things that could be improved:

Like She-ra, this show has “Season One Problems”-- tONS of setup/exposition and some early pacing issues. It also has the bad luck of having the Exact Same Premise as She-ra ( brainwashed soldier of evil organization learns outside world isn’t like what she was taught, and rebels against her former friends.) And the thing is….

Carmen isn’t “worse” than She-ra, but it’s tonally very different, which is why it sucks their premises are so similar you can’t help but compare them. SPOP episodes center around personalities/relationships,  while Carmen’s episodes center around heists/action sequences. She-ra’s action scenes work because of the Character Drama(tm), Carmen’s action scenes work because they’re just good action scenes. But even then.....there’s a scene where Carmen reunites with an old friend But Now They’re Enemies, and I might’ve really enjoyed it if I hadn’t just seen Catra/Adora do the exact same thing but with more emotional weight

This show features three characters-- Player, Zack, and Ivy- who were the POV characters in the original games. The problem is that this show is from Carmen’s POV. So if these guys aren’t our POV audience-insert characters anymore, who are they? The show is having trouble figuring this out, especially with Zack and Ivy

There’s been a recent trend of cartoons where the only “butch-coded” women are antagonists? Jasper/Topaz/Bismuth from SU (until Bismuth got brought back), Scorpia from She-ra, and now Coach Brunt. Eh. Another villain is the “evil girly-girl” stock character, which feels very “come on, you’re better than this” in a series that otherwise has actually interesting female antagonists

It often feels like someone behind the scenes was saying “we can’t tell kids that stealing is cool!” and that message just doesn’t work in a show about a Robin Hood. Kids aren’t dumb-- MCU Captain America is now a criminal  on the run from the cops because his heroism is against the law, Carmen can be that too, and it won’t turn kids into the people from the Purge movies

All in all I really enjoyed this show so far! Even if some of the side characters/world-building get messy, anytime Carmen is onscreen snarking and pulling off Master Thief Moves it’s great. It’s a flawed but solid start with tons of potential.  I hope it gets another season because I’m excited to see where it goes next!