Cartoon Month: Gravity Falls.

It's summer, and the twins Dipper and Mabel are spending their vacation with their granduncle(or "Grunkle") Stan, a professional con man who runs the Mystery Shack, a tourist trap filled with fake oddities and a overpriced gift-shop.

But after finding a old journal with the number 3 on it, the twins discovers that Gravity Falls apparently is the capital city for the paranormal. With the journal, the twins explore every inch of the weird little town, meeting all sorts of creatures, including gnomes, mermen, video-game characters and dinosaurs. It seems like this is going to be the most exiting summer in their life.

Now, how do I best describe Gravity Falls...

Um... Try to imagine... The Simpsons for kids.

The characters in the show are not unlikable, but they have plenty of flaws. Some of them are greedy, others unintelligent, some lazy, and some are just annoying. They are the people that you don't want to be with at first. But as we keep watching the show, notice the likable traits in even Grunkle Stan and that he may not be that bad an uncle, even if he is a lying, stealing, jerkish fraud.

The humor in the show is pretty mean-spirited from time to time, but that is the beauty of it. There are plenty of third-stringer characters who provides humor by simply being stereotypes while others are... GOD knows what. The best example could be Tyler.

Seriously, what is up with this guy?! What the heck is his deal?! Believe me, once you watch the show and see this guy for the first time, you will understand what I'm talking about.

But let's not forget what this show is about: Monsters and mysteries.

The weirdness and spookiness is varied. Some of the episodes are just weird(one word; Minigolf), while some of them are downright scary. Because of the changing level of weirdness, creepiness and so on, it takes you by surprise when you realize that you are watching a scary episode. One of the episodes is(without spoiling too much) about a very angry ghost who wish to avenge his friend who worked themselves to death for nothing. It's freaking creepy, as we see the graveyard... grow.

There are also an ongoing story-line, since Dipper wish to find out WHO wrote the journal, and if there is a number 1 and 2 as well. The hunt for the Author is twisted and has many dead ends. And it seems like that they get all kinds of answers to everything else BUT The Author's true identity.

So, like... Go watch it. Now! ASAP! Before ASAP!!! Travel back in time and watch it! GO!!!

Next up; A boy and his three(or is it four?) moms.

I'm Waezi2, and thanks for wasting time with me.

Cartoon Month: Adventure Time.

Meet Finn, the last human on the planet, and his best friend/adopted brother Jake, a magical shape-changing dog. Together, they go on all kinds of adventures in the land of Ooo. Anything from saving Princess Bubblegum of the Candy Kingdom from the crazy Ice King, fighting monsters or go on treasure hunt. Anything is possible as well as allowed in Adventure Time.

Weird cartoons are nothing new. But this show managed to give us something a bit... different.

Remember being a kid playing with Lego, or on a playground? It's not like a role-playing game with rules. Your imagination allows ANYTHING to happen. A huge dragon can come to your kingdom and throw up goblins in your face, and only your cool sword can cut that overgrown lizard to pieces. Or you are lost in a labyrinth, and has to run for it before you get eaten by a horde of bugs, and then Pikachu saves you. All those weird games you played as a kid had nothing to do with all that dumb grownup stuff such as LOGIC, REALISM, or any of that poophead junk.

That's the essence of Adventure Time. There are no rules. Anything can AND will happen. Finn and Jake goes on wild out-of-control adventures, yelling made-up word no one would normally use if they were older than 12.

... Aaaaand then it hits you in the feels.
This show manage to be surprisingly deep. Because of all the silly playground action, it takes you totally off guard when they decides to make a serious(or more or less serious) episode. It works surprisingly well, like when we take a close look at the Ice King, (a character usually ridiculed), and realize that he is actually pretty tragic. And we realize that the sweet and kind Princess Bubblegum MAY not be that sweet after all, and that she runs her kingdom with an iron fist. My favorite "serious episode" is the one called "'Princess Cookie" that is... surprisingly dark compared to the rest of the show. Seriously, it made me more depressed than anything else. I'm actually unsure if I would let a child watch it.
Adventure Time has something for everyone. The kids can enjoy the awesome, mathematical, fartastic adventures, and the elder siblings/parents/adults who watches kids shows for some weird reason can enjoy the surprisingly intelligent and subtle humor, as well as analyzing the episodes. And even though it's pretty chaotic at first, then it has a interesting fantasy-universe that you can explore, analyze and make theories about. And it has plenty of great characters, such as Marceline, 3/4 of the fans favorite character.
That's all for now. I'm Waezi2, and Bubbleline forever.
... DON'T JUDGE ME!!!

Cartoon Month: Dave The Barbarian.

This show only lasted ONE season?!

If it wasn't because I knew that there was a awesome and very vengeful god, I would claim that there weren't one.

... Please show mercy, Big G...

"Dave The Barbarian" follows the adventures of Dave, the most muscular wimp who ever held a sword. While his parents(the king and queen of Udrogoth) are away to fight evil across the globe, Dave must protect the kingdom with the aid of his magic and sarcastic sword Lula, his two sisters; Fang and Candy and their uncle, the useless wizard Oswidge.

None of them are the greatest heroes in history, not even CLOSE! But they are all Udrogoth has.

This more or less useless barbarian family must do their best to fight a horde of weird enemies, such as Chuckles, the ruthless(but adorable) lord of evil... Also, he is a talking pig.

As you may have deducted by now, this show was weird! Weird as in "stupid weird!" And that's a compliment.

The show has a charm that resembles Animaniacs. The show hits you with crazy stories, weird characters and insane plot-twist that makes you ask; "Dear god, WHY!?", while the show replies; "Why not?"

And Dave is simply to die for. Is is likable and unlikable at the same time, if that makes sense to you. Because he is really a nice guy. If it was up to him, he would devote his time to his interests, such as cooking and handcraft, all that stuff that would have been acceptable in our time period, but when you are an barbarian, living in the middle ages, you're a jackass.
And none of that changes the fact that Dave a coward. And the thing is; he has no reason to be a coward. He is big, strong and has the skills of a great barbarian warrior. But he is easily scared, and prefer to hide behind something instead of drawing his goddamn sword and fight, for Christs sake!!!

I highly recommend this overlooked family-show that is a lot like a fusion of "Animaniacs" and "Monty Python And the Holy Grail". Unfortunately, you can't get it on DVD, but it should be available on YouTube.

That's all for now. Next time, we will take a look at the show that teaches our kids that starting a nuclear war is a GOOD thing.
 I'm Waezi2, and thanks for wasting time with me.

Cartoon Month: Totally Spies.

You know, I realized from an early age that I was never going to become the next Chuck Norris.
One of my favorite toys as a little kid was a Polly Pocket-ish town. The first manga I read was NOT Dragon Ball, but DN Angel.
And I watched(and liked) Totally Spies...
Even the girls in my class made fun of me!
Totally Spies follows the adventures of Sam, Alex and Clover, three best friends and teenage girls. But when they aren't in school or shopping, they work as agents for the secret agency WOOHP(World Organization Of Human Protection), saving the world from evil masterminds of all sorts, like evil women wrestlers, rockstar managers, time-traveling disco dancers or cheerleader coaches.
... Yeah, the show was kinda stupid, now I think about it...
But in a awesome way!
The show usually has the girls doing a mission that is linked to a personal problem that they are going through in their school life most of the time. In this sense, the show is kind of repetitive in that regard, even if the normal lfe part of the plot is a bit weak. The villains are stupid as in Silver-Age-comic stupid, and their reason to join the dark side is as silly as well.

But the show IS a ton of fun, to be honest. If anything as a guilty pleasure.

The girls are a pretty stable group with Sam as the smart and mature one, Alex as the childish sporty one, an Clover... Clover is pretty much a valley girl, which makes her seem kinda out of lace here. But the show wouldn't have been the same without her, really.

But actually, it wasn't so much the girl that interested me, but their boss; Jerry.

Jerry is the British guy all spy-themed movies/TV-shows need. At first, he does not seem that important to the plot besides telling the girls what to do and providing them with gadgets. But as the shows go on, he starts to grow on us, and he even helps out the girls on their missions. Jerry was once a field agent as well, and he can still hold his on in a fight. One of the best episodes is the one where the girls and Jerry has to fight Terrence, Jerry's evil twin-brother.

I can't really recommend this show, unless you want a nostalgic blast from the past, or if you, like me, enjoy watching silly cartoons that you can't take serious at all.

That's all for now. Next time, I will take a look at a show a bit more... barbaric.

I'm Waezi2, and thanks for wasting time with me.

Cartoon Month: Medabots.

In the future, kids has pet-robots called Medabots, robots with advanced artificial intelligence thanks to a medal stored in the back(hence the name medabots=medal robots). And with such highly advanced robots who can think and feel like a human, what are they used for?

Why, to fight for fun, obviously! DUH!!!

Ikki Tenryou, a ten year old boy, is frustrated over being the only kid in school without a Medabot. He only has just about enough money to buy an outdated model, and that's without a medal, meaning that it won't work. And his parents won't buy him one.
But one day, Ikki finds a medal in a lake, and he can finally start to become a Medafighter(a guy with a Medabot). Only one problem; his Medabot(that he has named Metabee) doesn't like him that much, and unlike other Medabots, he doesn't follow orders automatically.

Remember the first episode of Pokemon where Ash and Pikachu becomes friend in ONE episode? Yeah, that's not happening here.

Through several episodes, Ikki tries to tame Metabee and gain his respect, but it's harder than one would think. Metabee KNOWS that Ikki needs him, so he really pushes his "masters" patience for no other reason than, well, he can. But he also knows that he needs Ikki to fight, something Metabee wants to. So the two of them tries to make it work as well as possible.

I might as well point out the show's weakest point: the low-budged animation.

This is a show from 1999, but the animation looks really, REALLY old. And that's not a compliment. There are some episodes that looked pretty good, but some scenes looked pretty horrible. There is also a awful lot of reused scenes and stock footage. But if you can learn to live with it, then you can enjoy a pretty good, if anything child-friendly animated show(it does have it's darker moments, though).
The series obviously reuse a couple of ideas from Pokemon, such as a gang of criminals called the Roborobo Gang who uses Medabots for their evil deeds.
... Well... more or less evil deeds.
They are actually not that evil to begin with. Their "crimes" are more mean-spirited or annoying than anything else. Until the evil Dr. Meta-Evil(Subtle!) takes over the gang and makes them steal rare Medabot medals.
This show may not be the greatest cartoon in history, but it was pretty entertaining. It had some fun battles, some nice designs for the Medabots, and some pretty good drama, especially the episodes that focus on Rokusho, the mysterious Medabot without a master. I can get a little TOO goofy fnow and then, but hey; it's a kids-show!
That's all for now. I'm Waezi2, and thanks for wasting time with me.

Cartoon Month: Duel Masters.

How come no one likes the stuff I like?!

Such as the trading card game Duel Masters.

The game, as well as the animated series, has been accused of being a cheep Yu-Gi-Oh ripoff. But the game is more like a child-friendly version of Magic The Gathering. And the show has little to nothing to do with the plot of Yu-Gi-Oh.

Shobu Kirifuda haven't seen his father since the day he left him and his mother, leaving nothing behind but a deck of Duel Masters cards for his son. Since that day, Shobu has practiced playing Duel Masters, hoping to be a Kaijudo-master(someone who can summon real monsters) like his father.

But when Shobu is invited to a temple that worships the game, he begin to realize that being a Kaijudo-master MAY not be as fun as he thought it would be...

Let's be honest here; the show is not genius. But it's still entertaining. And calling it a Yu-Gi-Oh ripoff is unfair. Sure, Shobu has weird hair that KINDA looks like Yugi's, but that's pretty much it. His personality is completely different, and he doesn't even dress like him. And unlike Yugi who doesn't rely on one tactic, Shobu is more of a "attack first, plan later" kind of guy. His goal is different as well(to become a Kaijudo master and find his father).

In fact, let's try to see who is ripping off who:

In the Duel Masters cartoon, we have a hero who are not exactly the brightest bulb on the porch, but has a talent for trading-card games. He loves the game, and enjoys every match, even if he ends up as the loser:

His best friend is a little dork with glasses who sucks at the game:

And his rival is a prick dressed in black, who think that he is better than everyone else. And even though he despise our hero, he ends up supporting him:

Our hero learns that the monsters from the game are real, and travels into the dimension where they live:

I think I speak for everyone when I say; What's wrong with this picture?!

Anyway, back to the review;

There are a couple of reasons to why I enjoyed the DM series more than Yu-Gi-Oh. The first being that the games goes a lot faster, so that we won't lose interest due to filler dialogue between the players who can use minutes talking about WHAT their cards can do, and HOW they will use them instead of, you know, DO IT!

Another thing I like about the DM show is that it doesn't take itself TOO seriously. The people who translated the series to English knew from the start that the entire premise was silly and ridicules and made the show part parody and yet make it possible to keep the heart of the show. And that was two years Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged episode 1!

All I'm saying is that if you like cardgame TV-shows and can accept that it in theory is a stupid concept, then you might enjoy Duel Masters. It has some nice games, a fair potion of drama and some pretty cool computer-animated monsters.

So, that's my thoughts of the Yu-Gi-Oh ripoff. Next time, I will talk about a Pokemon ripoff.

I'm Waezi2, and thanks for wasting time with me.

Cartoon Month: Oban Star Racers.

I'm more than just a comic-book nerd, you know.

I'm also a cartoon-show geek.

Even though I love the comic-book media, a break now and then can be a good thing. And in order to make sure that there will still be some activity in Comicsin5panels.com(and seriously, I needed some weeks ago), I will let July be the month where I tel you about animated shows that I love as much as comics.

Starting with what was my favorite show when I was a teenager; Oban Star Racers.

OSR is the story about the 15 year old Eva, who has been living in a boarding school for ten years after the death of her mother. But her father, the famous racing manager Don Wei, is still alive, and Eva decides to find him after she finally manege to run away from the school.

And she does find him... But he does not recognize her. Confused and intimidated of her father who has become a harsh man, she loses her nerves, lies that her name is Molly, and instead get's a job as a mechanic on his racing crew.

But fate has it that Molly shall be the pilot representing Earth in the greatest race of all time; The Great Race Of Oban, an event held each 10,000 years where racers from all over the universe compete for the Ultimate Prize.

Oban Star Racers is a great colorful adventure, if anything a bit short(only 26 episodes). The animation may be a bit odd(humans without noses), but still excellent. The races are action-packed, the landscapes wonderful and the aliens and their racing-verticals are very creatively designed.
As second season starts, we realize that if this competition was more than just a race, it is most defiantly more now. As the competition goes on, the races becomes harsher and the pilots more brutal, all of them ready to do anything to win. Each of them has a dream that they are ready to throw away their self-respect and decency for. Friendship and mutual respect becomes a luxury that you can't afford. Honor and fair play becomes irrelevant.
I highly recommend this overlooked gem of an animated TV-show. My favorite episode is episode 11, furthering my favorite character through the entire series; Spirit, a mute, shape-changing alien who can transform into his own ship. And he also plays an important role in Molly's past.
Unfortunately, the DVD is a little difficult to find due to it being A; a bit old, and B; a Jetix series. But it should be possible to find it on Amazon, and all the episodes can be found on YouTube.
That's all for now. Next time, I will take a look on a series about a boy with spiky hair who saves the day by playing cardgames.
I'm Waezi2, and thanks for wasting time with me.