Wouldnt know it was you if it didn't say your name
Ugh, I feel so bad for leaving this review, I love your work so much, but I gotta be honest, this just wasn't you at all. There is a gaping hole in this flash where your touch should be. The art is solid and clean-drawn and there's some great acting here, especially the blind guy. That laugh was awesome, it's perfect for the character. It's well-presented, and it's sleek enough to be professional. But there are a lot of things that are kind of bothering me.
Half of the problem here is the lack of style and color that you put to full use in ALL your other stuff. It's missing completely; I know you said in one of your responses you said that the setting is meant to be bland intentionally so that future settings will look better in comparison, but something didn't sit right with me. I remember the first thing I ever saw from you, Closing In, it was so fucking cool, colorful and stylish for such a simplistic concept, I still creep back and watch it even 2 years later. There was none of that fun, quirky style here. That blast of energy and color your collab pieces have, it was nowhere near this cartoon at all...
The other half is in the plot and dialogue, there's a lot of cliche, and not particularly in a satirical manner. Some things in this cartoon ("JEERO? MORE LIKE ZERO") had me face-palming the same way I do when I watch Ben 10's horrible depiction of...well...human interaction in general. I can't tell if you were doing it on purpose or not... If the cliches were a joke, it wasn't communicated too clearly to the rest of us. Some action and sick fBf may have saved it, but there wasn't any. You say there'll be more action in future episodes, but that doesn't do much for us, the viewers, right now.
I think the discrepancy here is the same as with many plot-heavy original series on NG that fizzle out before they can make an impact, and that's too heavy of a lean on future episodes. In future episodes, the settings won't be so bland. In future episodes, the story will get better, in future episodes, there will be more action. In future episodes, the characters will be really interesting. The thing you have to consider is that if future episodes are where all the meat of the series is, then what's the point of this current episode? If it's just to show me the characters faces or expose a single plot point or two, then this whole cartoon was a waste, because people probably aren't going to watch it again. Things like"exposing characters" or "getting people amped for the next episode" are disposable, people won't look back. The audience will pick up on the story if it's told well enough, we don't need shmoozing into the series unless the "shmoozing" is just as entertaining as the rest of the series is supposed to be.
Even if it's just a prologue, satisfy us. Make finding the good in this series easy for the viewer and make each episode as entertaining and satisfying as possible. Have as much intrigue as possible, as much character as possible, and if it's an "Action series", it helps to have action in every episode. Even a one-sided frame-by-frame ass kicking between the old man and the bullies would have added a lot to this episode's rematch value. When you're writing to ask yourself if each episode is entertaining enough to remember, or to warrant multiple watches regardless of what point the story is at. Could I show this one episode to somebody and have them be satisfied even if I could never show them the other episodes? Make each iteration like it's the series finale, put super-stank on it, so these 3-5 minutes will be incredible. It's not even like you can't, I've seen you do it before. When you're working on the next one, please don't paste "future episodes will be better" all over it, if you keep doing that, those "better" future episodes will never come, and there won't be any reason to watch any of the episodes.
Umm... >.> Love you?
<.<
