Like eeehhh, it wasn’t THAT bad, but I think my biggest issue is the tonal whiplash this show has. Like it goes from funny, loser college boy meeting a goth baddie who is a magical, gamer bunny girl and they’re cracking jokes and talking about ACE to a deeply emotional scene about identity all in 2 episode?
I think the Bunlith show would be stronger if it just stuck with a pure comedy tone. Like no attempt at anything serious or dramatic. Hell, some of the gags in the first episode made me think it was gonna be more Chowder and less later seasons of Helluva Boss.
Like the scene where she says “the government is after me because I’m trans” would have benefited from being more comedic. Like she could be like the government is after her for being trans and also maybe she hacked a bank or something. I get that drastic tonal whiplash is popular now thanks for dropping attention spans and shows like The Amazing Digital Circus and Murder Drones popularized it.
Like Bojack Horseman and Futurama, which were in the same vein of alternating comedy and drama, often took long episodes in between each other of comedy and drama. Not slamming them both together haphazardly in the space of 20 minutes. And even The Amazing Digital Circus and Murder Drones often waited till the end to drop the drama bomb.
And my god, that infamous “estrogen scene” comes at such an odd moment. Like a guy breaks into your house, you spend the whole episode yelling at him and insulting him, you kill an NPC because he got pissy you asked to not be called “dude,” you make out with a wolfwoman, and then NOW we have a serious and deep conversation about identity!?
I think that was the biggest issue with Bunlith. It just feels like it is trying to do too much. Like be a funny gamer comedy show that has a very tough anti-DRM message and also be this deep, serious thing tackeling issues of identity. I’m hoping the creator can slow things down in later episodes or at least find a tone to stick with. Because this just felt like it both wants to be a serious thing while carrying the excuse of “GOSH, IT’S A COMEDY SHOW! IT’S NOT THAT SERIOUS!”
Had it been straight up comedy and focused more on anti-DRM in gaming, it might have been pretty good. I’ll be honest, some of the jokes and gags in it were cool and the art was legit amazing. The creator herself has done a lot of 3D animation and made Bloodborne Kart, so honestly it might have been amazing.
And I think that is what is so frustrating about it. Not that it is bad, but that it could have been good. That is the worst kind of bad media.
Maybe you weren’t the audience it was meant for? I watched it and I liked it, but I could identify with it, so maybe you can’t identify with. I do appreciate your opinion and thoughts on this.
All media is for you when you lack basic media literacy like I do.
Jokes aside, I dunno. My girlfriend, who is trans, didn’t like it either but you could absolutely argue she isn’t the audience it was meant for too because she isn’t a gamer, sadly.
I really liked it personally. It shows how messy life can be. There are plenty of signs that V is trans throughout the show up to the egg crack moment, and it’s pretty clear that V has spend time in the queer community from the fringes. 1 dose of estrogen isn’t going to cause any irreversible changes, but it could let V explore the mental effects.
Do you like the tonal whiplash? I found it kinda jarring.
I grew up loving shows like Baman Piderman and Amazing World of Gumball, so yes, the tonal whiplash works for me, and made the emotional moments hit harder IMHO.
Fair enough.
As an animation nerd, I appreciated the artistic direction of Bunlith from the get-go. I’m a total sucker for animated microexpressions (ever since Paperman) and seeing them juxtaposed with those low-poly PS1 graphics and hammy Looney Tunes visual comedy really made me smile and got its hooks into me.
If anything, I felt the action sequences were a bit long in the tooth. With such an interesting setting and visual style, I wanted to see more of these characters getting into situations and interacting than zoom-pow-bang action.
As for the tone shift, I think they pull it off. Yes it’s jarring if one looks at it through the lens of classic western filmed storytelling (like TV and movies), but it’s kinda hitting the online media zeitgeist that trends towards flashy low-attention-span fare (that a classic connoisseur might call spastic brainrot).
These are the sorts of things that filmmakers figure out as they iron out the tone of their work. I came up watching television in the 1980s and 90s, and it was an entirely common trope to presume that any show was going to be a mess in its first season or two. In those days, creative teams got years to work things out before hitting their rhythm.
Today we have individual filmmakers and comparatively tiny production teams banging out animated shorts for us. I have all the patience in the world for these folks who are making it happen. If I’m catching kernels of greatness in all the trash that’s out there, I’m more than happy to give them time to work it out and you bet I’ll be there to eagerly applaud them along the way.
Look at it this way: you’re comparing a crowd-funded web show with two episodes to Futurama and Bojack Horseman, two animated shows featuring some of the most gnarly dramatic gut-punches in the last 25 years. Like it or not, putting Bunlith in conversation with shows like that is high praise, regardless.
The comparison I went for was moreso that I see what they are trying to do. Blend comedy with drama like how Futurama and Bojack do, though the more apt comparison is The Amazing Digital Circus and Murder Drone which also did that. Hilariously, Lilith Walther also worked on TADC. That’s what I was trying to say, not to any sort of quality or whatever.
And like I did expect a bit more out of this, but in the end I think I’m more happy it exists than it doesn’t. I think the creator can probably figure out what she wants from the show. Though like I said, I wanted more Chowder of just pure comedy and gags and less attempts at sincerity.
