As a fan of Warner Bros Animation's DC Comics related output you can probably imagine how excited i was when they announced that they'd be producing a series focusing on one of the more memorable characters from their much praised series Justice League Unlimited. Having never read up much on her origins i figured this would be an educational watch in that regard. With some of the writing staff from The CW's cape shows on board and it being announced that it would officially be set in that same universe, me watching this show was pretty much a foregone conclusion. I did have misgivings however, such as the fact that it would only be six episodes at around 5 minutes each. As a test run i concluded it was better than nothing so i waited eagerly for it to premiere. Now that its concluded its run i thought i'd share my thoughts on the series.
Vixen is the story of orphan Mari McCabe, a young woman looking to find out where the mysterious totem she has in her possession came from and by extension, something about her birth parents. Over the course of the series, she finds the answers she seeks along with a whole heap of trouble. Now, in general i'd say the story was pretty interesting. With the already short length of the episodes however, the length of the shows cold open (which has footage that is eventually recycled later on in full) was a bit much and as a result it starts off a tad confused. When it hits its stride in episode 3 though, its a nonstop ride until the finale. From that point it was pretty enjoyable. The episodes also got progressively longer ending with an 8 minute long finale. The show overall is pretty good but suffers greatly from the short length of each episode. Watched as a whole though, its a much less troublesome experience as it just flows into the finale. Mari as a character was a bit of a dull lead at the start but as you get to know her better she really grows on you. The antagonists seemed less interesting at the start but as you learned more about who they were, you also got endeared to them as well. The vocal performances from Megalyn Echikunwoke as Mari and Anika Noni Rose as Kuasa were good. Anika Noni Rose delivered a particularly good performance showing her range as an actress. Megalyn also was able to deliver the more comedic lines with ease which provided nice moments of levity. It was a fun ride overall though i wish there was more and i hope we get more.
Now onto what i really wanted to talk about, the animation. First off, i have to say that even though i've been throwing shade at Phil Bourassa recently since i feel his designs have started to look really similar, he did an excellent job here. The character all look unique and less overly muscular and i really liked Mari and Kuasa's designs though Mari could have had a more interesting hairstyle. So, if you've been keeping track of what animation studios WB Animation normally outsource animation production to for their projects, you'd be as surprised as i was that they went with Digital eMation for this outing. This is a studio more well known for producing a number of direct to video Scooby Doo flicks. I wasn't too sure how well this would turn out for WB but Digital eMation put together a pretty decent storyboarding team for the project. Now, the only 2 storyboarders i'd heard of that worked on the show were In Seung Choi (Known for his work with Studio Mir on The Legend of Korra) and Sang-jin Kim (Who at one time worked over at JM animation and i was familiar with from his work directing the "Fraud" segment of Dante's Inferno: An Animated Epic). Knowing then that these folks were involved in the storyboarding of this, i find it utterly perplexing why the first couple episodes were incredibly bad at establishing environmental geography so the viewer could get their bearings on where the fight was taking placed and where it was going. I know In Seung Choi more as a good animator and as far as i'm aware, he's only done storyboarding in a few instances such as an episode of Korra. Kim however has none of these issues in the Dante's Inferno segment he directed. It was kind of upsetting but i really think they found their groove by say, the 3rd episode. After that they boarding was less boring and they started making some more interesting visual storytelling choices.
The use of up angles and shadows became more distinct as well as the spaces the characters traversed. In the last couple episodes the main setting is a mostly destroyed african village and using that environment as a starting point, you started seeing them use the light shafts of the hits to create patterns on characters paces. Of particular note is a use of shading in the 2nd image where Kuasa is telling Mari a story. As a somewhat dishonest storyteller, she is covered in shadows in the entire scene with the only light reaching her face forming sharp jagged lines across her face highlighting how little light she has left in her soul. By contrast, Mari is never shown in the shadows and is instead covered in a healthy glow of light though not the lights shafts directly. In the episode that followed as Mari continues to gain more confidence we see more and uses of up angles and Mari starts to smile more comfortably than she did in episodes prior.
Its at this point that the series reaches its peak with a pretty well animated fight between the 2 women. As is customary, the hair gets loose and the fists start flying.
From here on we get a full minute of nice animation and great effect work. The lead up to it was great and the final fight definitely delivers.
I'm not entirely sure whether or not In Seung Choi did any animation for the final episode as the animation is definitely more dynamic and looks somewhat similar to his work but with no credits we'll probably never know unless he posts his some roughs like he did with Korra though in that situation it was easier to tell his work because it all looked similar. From this point we also got some animation from an animator who worked on Dante's inferno with Kim to round out the fight at the end. Not much identifying info besides the style but i'll keep on looking into it as i feel it's a style worth putting a name to so i can see some more of their work at least.
In the end i'd say the show looked pretty decent. Even when there wasn't nice animation, all the character art was consistent. The rating i'd give it on my scale would be a 3/5 which isn't too bad. The show itself i'd give a 3.5/5. This was my first post in a while but i will but doing another one at least before the end of the year when i usually do my top 10 cuts of the year. I can tell you that will be a very hard list to put together this year haha. See you guys next time.
Vixen is the story of orphan Mari McCabe, a young woman looking to find out where the mysterious totem she has in her possession came from and by extension, something about her birth parents. Over the course of the series, she finds the answers she seeks along with a whole heap of trouble. Now, in general i'd say the story was pretty interesting. With the already short length of the episodes however, the length of the shows cold open (which has footage that is eventually recycled later on in full) was a bit much and as a result it starts off a tad confused. When it hits its stride in episode 3 though, its a nonstop ride until the finale. From that point it was pretty enjoyable. The episodes also got progressively longer ending with an 8 minute long finale. The show overall is pretty good but suffers greatly from the short length of each episode. Watched as a whole though, its a much less troublesome experience as it just flows into the finale. Mari as a character was a bit of a dull lead at the start but as you get to know her better she really grows on you. The antagonists seemed less interesting at the start but as you learned more about who they were, you also got endeared to them as well. The vocal performances from Megalyn Echikunwoke as Mari and Anika Noni Rose as Kuasa were good. Anika Noni Rose delivered a particularly good performance showing her range as an actress. Megalyn also was able to deliver the more comedic lines with ease which provided nice moments of levity. It was a fun ride overall though i wish there was more and i hope we get more.
Now onto what i really wanted to talk about, the animation. First off, i have to say that even though i've been throwing shade at Phil Bourassa recently since i feel his designs have started to look really similar, he did an excellent job here. The character all look unique and less overly muscular and i really liked Mari and Kuasa's designs though Mari could have had a more interesting hairstyle. So, if you've been keeping track of what animation studios WB Animation normally outsource animation production to for their projects, you'd be as surprised as i was that they went with Digital eMation for this outing. This is a studio more well known for producing a number of direct to video Scooby Doo flicks. I wasn't too sure how well this would turn out for WB but Digital eMation put together a pretty decent storyboarding team for the project. Now, the only 2 storyboarders i'd heard of that worked on the show were In Seung Choi (Known for his work with Studio Mir on The Legend of Korra) and Sang-jin Kim (Who at one time worked over at JM animation and i was familiar with from his work directing the "Fraud" segment of Dante's Inferno: An Animated Epic). Knowing then that these folks were involved in the storyboarding of this, i find it utterly perplexing why the first couple episodes were incredibly bad at establishing environmental geography so the viewer could get their bearings on where the fight was taking placed and where it was going. I know In Seung Choi more as a good animator and as far as i'm aware, he's only done storyboarding in a few instances such as an episode of Korra. Kim however has none of these issues in the Dante's Inferno segment he directed. It was kind of upsetting but i really think they found their groove by say, the 3rd episode. After that they boarding was less boring and they started making some more interesting visual storytelling choices.
The use of up angles and shadows became more distinct as well as the spaces the characters traversed. In the last couple episodes the main setting is a mostly destroyed african village and using that environment as a starting point, you started seeing them use the light shafts of the hits to create patterns on characters paces. Of particular note is a use of shading in the 2nd image where Kuasa is telling Mari a story. As a somewhat dishonest storyteller, she is covered in shadows in the entire scene with the only light reaching her face forming sharp jagged lines across her face highlighting how little light she has left in her soul. By contrast, Mari is never shown in the shadows and is instead covered in a healthy glow of light though not the lights shafts directly. In the episode that followed as Mari continues to gain more confidence we see more and uses of up angles and Mari starts to smile more comfortably than she did in episodes prior.
Its at this point that the series reaches its peak with a pretty well animated fight between the 2 women. As is customary, the hair gets loose and the fists start flying.
From here on we get a full minute of nice animation and great effect work. The lead up to it was great and the final fight definitely delivers.
I'm not entirely sure whether or not In Seung Choi did any animation for the final episode as the animation is definitely more dynamic and looks somewhat similar to his work but with no credits we'll probably never know unless he posts his some roughs like he did with Korra though in that situation it was easier to tell his work because it all looked similar. From this point we also got some animation from an animator who worked on Dante's inferno with Kim to round out the fight at the end. Not much identifying info besides the style but i'll keep on looking into it as i feel it's a style worth putting a name to so i can see some more of their work at least.
In the end i'd say the show looked pretty decent. Even when there wasn't nice animation, all the character art was consistent. The rating i'd give it on my scale would be a 3/5 which isn't too bad. The show itself i'd give a 3.5/5. This was my first post in a while but i will but doing another one at least before the end of the year when i usually do my top 10 cuts of the year. I can tell you that will be a very hard list to put together this year haha. See you guys next time.
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