I am extremely influenced by South Park, and it's very clear that a lot of my work pays homage to it. BUT, at the same time, I consider my work to be a less... less crude version of South Park? One that is for a younger audience, and one that is more "real" than the somewhat insane world of South Park. So I definitely try to both be like South Park and different than South Park in the ways that you mentioned.

Thanks about the background noises, I definitely spent some time trying to get them to just the right levels.

About the voices, I've gotten new equipment since this episode was recorded, so I hope that my audio will already be improving!

Thanks for the review =)

Hmm, this is very interesting. Thanks a lot for the review, it's really made me think, and you pointed out some things that I don't know if I would have noticed or thought of myself. On both the animation end and the tonal end, I really feel like I achieved what I wanted to. BUT, those things I wanted to do also appear to be the things that are keeping the audience from engaging in it as much as I would like. The animation is very purposefully simplistic and rough, and that's something that I really want to keep, at least with these characters and this world. It's a style that I find really...exciting? That might not be the right word. I do love the idea of characters wrapping around others like snakes (and I do actually have a character in other animations that moves in snakelike ways), but that is not something I want present in this specific animated world.

On the tonal level, I was also really trying to aim for something specific. I wanted to avoid the cartoonish extremes that I feel is used all over the place today (all over newgrounds, all over a lot of animated shows). I like a lot of work like this, but I specifically wanted a more....real(?) world. But not completely real. I wanted something more realistic, but still with a "tint" of cartoonishness. I like absurdity, but I was trying to go for a much less absurd version of absurdity... if that makes sense? Like, exaggerating is kinda what I feel like a lot of people would do, so I wanted to tone it down a bit? But not completely to the point that it's like, straight reality.

But you pointed out that this piece really is on the fence. It isn't too cartoonish, and it isn't straight enough. And I do actually believe that's why it isn't really appealing to people... but at the same time, that "on the fence" kind of deal is exactly what I was aiming for. I guess I didn't really consider that this might not work for many people...

Anyway, this gave me a lot to think about. Thank you again! I do believe you've pinpointed the problem this piece has with appealing to people.

ALSO, the sound definitely was a bit tinny. I've actually upgraded my equipment and software since this piece was recorded, so hopefully at some point, my future animations will begin using all of my new stuff! That's one area that should definitely be improving soon =).

I'm glad you enjoyed it! I'm also happy to hear that you were able to see some of the changes in the animation, I though they might be too subtle.