#toh characters are all pretty bland unfortunately

[medeasfirstborn]

was thinking about toh and lumity really was like killugon lite huh

[jellybeanium124]

The Owl House: 8/10, good amount of gay

So here’s my full review of season 1 of the owl house. Spoilers ahoy, and this will be quite long. You have been warned.

The Owl House is a really, really good show. It has almost a pixar-ish quality, in that it feels like it’s made for both adults and children. Like I’ve mentioned before, this show is clearly the spiritual successor to Gravity Falls and Star Vs. The Forces of Evil. I do have some critiques, but I’ll start with My Likes.

GOOD STUFF

THE ANIMATION/ART

The animation is cute and colorful. The style it’s drawn in isn’t entirely original, but it doesn’t need to be. It’s classic for a reason. The later episodes have some of the most fluid and beautiful animation I’ve seen in a 2D television cartoon. All the character designs are fantastic and adorable and it would probably take 10,000 years for me to get tired of looking at King.

VOICE ACTING

I didn’t really pay attention to voice acting during my watch, but since it didn’t come to my attention as bad, it must at least be acceptably good. The one character that does stand out is Hooty, who despite his voice never came off as irritating or grating, which is impressive.

EDALYN CLAWTHORNE

has to be one of my favorite adult characters in the history of television. She’s just the right amount of everything. She’s fun and badass and cunning, but also caring. She reminds me of the Doctor in that she somehow feels both 15 and old. She’s practically perfect in every way.

LILITH CLAWTHORNE

Lilith manages to be both sympathetic and villainous in a way most other characters aren’t. She feels somewhere in between Azula and Zuko. In some ways I think she’s like an even better Azula 2.0. Can’t wait to see if there’s a reason behind why her hair was poofy in the past and straight now.

WILLOW PARK, GUS PORTER, AND KING

Willow and Gus are great best friends. Willow stands out as the better of the two. She most fully feels like a real young teenage girl, and I love her for it. Gus is more of the funny guy, but he does a good job at it and has his moments. And King... my soul belongs to King. I want a plushie of King so damn bad. Every time he was on screen he was what I was focusing on. I love King. I love his design, his voice, his actions, everything. I love him!!!!

THE WORLD BUILDING

I don’t think the world building is perfect in the Owl House, but it’s pretty damn good. They don’t give you everything at once and overwhelm you, but instead parcel out information slowly so you can soak it in. I wish there had been a little more (I’m a sucker for world building), for example I’m still not exactly sure what all of the nine covens/schools are (healing, plants, animals, illusions, abominations, potions, oracle... yeah I still can’t recall the last two) but it’s more good than bad.

NOT GOOD STUFF (I won’t call it “bad stuff” because nothing’s really bad here)

AMITY’S ARC

I love every version of Amity we see in TOH. I love seeing her as an antagonist, a neutral force, a friend, and a love interest for Luz. However, her arc from “antagonist” to “friend” feels... underdone. She’s a mean girl one episode and friendly the next. The ingredients of a redemption arc are there, but whoever put them together had no clue how to do it. Amity’s arc is one of the poorest handled overarching stories in the show.

THE IDIOT PLOT

An “idiot plot” is a plot that relies on its characters being idiots. This happens a lot in the Owl House, particularly in the early episodes. If you’ve been following along with my reaction posts, you know how I feel about this. It’s a little infuriating. This doesn’t make any particular episode unwatchable, it just makes me dislike the character being an idiot (usually Luz unfortunately) a little less.

THE PACING

It seems like the Boiling Isles move faster than Earth, which is fine, I guess, but it’s poorly handled. It sure feels like Luz has been there a lot longer than 3 months, but I think she hasn’t? I don’t know, and that’s part of the problem.

AND LASTLY, LUZ

Luz is fine. Luz is not bad. Luz is not great. It’s unfortunate that main characters are often like this. I think she is better than a lot of other main characters. You can’t call her bland, but she really does suffer from idiot plot syndrome (especially at the start) and this drags her down. I did love seeing her journey as she learned how to use magic, but she isn’t one of my favorite characters. Granted, this may be a me problem, I don’t know. 🤷‍♀️

So yeah, those are my thoughts on The Owl House. It’s a really damn good show and I will definitely binge season 2 as soon as it comes out.