#it was originally going to be a part of bentobox but turned out to be complex enough to be its own thing lawl

[sdmsims]

so for.................no reason at all

for a mod aiming to add sim-like interactions and personality to pets,

[theliterarywolf]

Hazbin Hotel

The little pilot that could, the runaway hit with the simple premise of 'What if Sinners Could Be Redeemed, What Kind of People Would Want That, and What Kind of People Would Oppose?', now turned into an Amazon Original Animated Series. Sharing the same platform as Invincible and...

Uh...

Hm.

Anyway, this series has been a long, long, LONG time coming. To the point that we had people theorizing that the whole thing was a scam or that it would never come out.

I feel like those people could use a lesson on how time-consuming animation is, but I digress.

The point is, the series is out at last: debuting with four episodes on Amazon Prime with the rest of the season scheduled to come out weekly.

And what is there to say? Was the premiere worth the wait? Are these sinners doomed to burn in obscurity? Was watching these first four episodes a Helluva chore?

While it would be easy for me, as someone who has followed the 'Hellaverse' since the premiere of the original Hazbin Hotel pilot all those years ago, to just gush over the fact that all of these beloved characters have transcended the online space to mainstream screens, such flippant praise would be a disservice to my fellow creators.

Thus, to go about things in a bit more of a refined approach:

Hazbin Hotel (the series) takes the conventions of what was established in the pilot and refines them down into a more serialized story. The core premise is still the same: Charlie Morningstar, the idealistic Princess of Hell, daughter to fallen angel Lucifer and Adam's original wife Lilith, is taking it upon herself to end the qualms of Hell being both overpopulated and a target of Heaven's yearly extermination bloodbath by establishing a sanctuary for sinners to redeem themselves. The titular 'Hazbin Hotel' (originally the 'Happy Hotel').

Of course, such a premise in a literal den of sin and inequity is easier said than done and, so far, the series is doing a good job of showing Charlie learning that redemption isn't as easy as singing songs and making nice.

Though, rest assured, there is plenty of singing to bear witness to. Of course, with a cast of Broadway's finest, it's to be expected that the musical accompaniments will be just as much as a feast for the eyes as the colorful, unique character-designs.

Though, sometimes, those character-designs aren't able to shine as much as they should, which leads into my first critique. Which, considering there are only two, stands as a testament to the work Spindlehorse and BentoBox have accomplished her.

In the first two episodes (this issue seemed to have been fixed in episodes 3 and 4), there are countless instances of characters having odd shadowing. It has the unfortunate consequence of the characters moving like they aren't a part of their environment. Of course, again, this seemed to have been fixed for later episodes, so hopefully it doesn't show up again.

Back to the music: standout pieces, thus far, are Adam's taunting "Hell is Forever (Whether You Like it Or Not)", "It Starts With Sorry", "You're a Loser, Baby"... I'd also point out the bombastic duet between young upstart overlord Velvette and arms-dealer overlord Carmilla Carmine, but I forgot the name of it.

However, this leads into my second critique. During "Happy Day in Hell", Charlie's 'I Want' song (because every princess needs one), her girlfriend and main confidante Vaggie is back at the hotel singing her own additions to it. And everytime she sang, I just wanted to scream 'Can someone PLEASE tell this bitch to emote?!' Let it be understood that I know what the direction was: Charlie is being bombastic and bright and happy singing out her dreams and goals while Vaggie is lower, more realistic, and deadpan.

However, its the way that they had her new VA execute that direction that could have been a bit better because it doesn't stand out in the best way. Which is a shame, because later on when we hear Vaggie in both her duets with Carmilla and her love ballad to Charlie, her voice does wonders. Though, I have seen some people say that it might not be the same VA, which would be weird: why would you hire a Broadway VA and then just swap them out?

Other elements of note: Episode 4 is definitely my favorite so far, I gushed about the direction and delivery of the "Poison" sequence here, Zestial is one of my new favorite Hellaverse characters, I need merch of him pronto, and...

Oh! One final note:

Back when the original HH (the series) trailer and promo material was coming out, I had a slew of anons in my inbox bemoaning how the series is yet another 'Heaven is actually evil' plot. Yet, after watching these four episodes (episodes 1-2 three times each, twice since I had early-access and once more when the series premiered proper), the series narrative is less 'Heaven is evil and Hell is just misunderstood' and more 'Angels are fallible, demons are fallible, the notion of a status-quo is as fickle as rice paper but you have to do more to change it than sing about good vibes'.

Final Rating: 8/10