I sit here writing this review hours after somewhat reluctantly watching the first two episodes, but oh man, was I in for a treat!
For a massive Adventure Time fan who has seen the
base series more than a few dozen times and was a little disappointed with HBO's distant lands, I am awestruck how picture perfect the series (so far) has continued the story of the world and characters we love in the fashion of the later allegorically complex adventure time episodes while introducing new characters and worlds which intertwin perfectly together.
Upon hearing about the Fionna and Cake series that was announced I was reluctant, to say the least, that such a series could deliver the fans of adventure time a universe that was as exciting and relatable as the original and build upon the universe which we have grown with from children to adults. Not only was I wrong but It has gone one step further and placed the main character (Fionna), based on the character we love(Finn), into a more relatable world from the beginning.
A world which gives fans of the opposite gender a more relatable main character off the bat.
But don't worry like i did, characters from the regular adventure time world coexist in a way that is true to the adventure time world and more importantly feels natural and not forced. So Fionna and cake is as, or more so, relatable than base series Adventure Time and yet it is still a progression of the adventure time world.
This progression of the adventure time world which has been always changing and fluid over the series and grown with us as people from children to young adults continues to grow with us further into adulthood with Fionna and Cake.
Upon seeing Finn for the first time i was anxious and excited. Excited to see a character i love return but anxious to see how his character would be portrayed in his new future form. Following from his character progression into a confident man, who for the most part defeats his demons, he still has the adventurous spirit and a desire to help with nods to past episodes of Finn-development importance like 'The hall of egress' to introduce this new character. Similar struggles and concepts from our hero Finn are now developed further with his female counterpart and other characters we know and love in a similar way of allegorical storytelling and metaphor ambiguity with a more relatable mature world to meld it all together.
This mature world that has developed further with us now, to my pleasant surprise, introduces a feeling of greater realism and mortality with certain monsters spilling buckets of blood upon being killed for the first time in adventure time. Along with this mortality comes further maturity of 'sadness, madness and magic' with these themes of adventure time further developed in the sad, mad and magical world of Fionna and Cake. And while the maturity of adventure time progresses, so does the animation quality.
Something that was, as a professional artist, underdeveloped in HBO's last adventure time series; Distant lands, was the fluidity of the animation of the art which sold the magical world of adventure time as not just a stiff image transformed in an animation program, but the result of many frames of drawn animation. That is not to say it is the artists to blame, i know how and why these things may happen by working in an animation studio and more than likely it was underbudgeted and there was no reasonable time and artists to complete an animation epic with fluid like animation - cost saving would have compromised artistic quality.
But Fionna and Cake is anything but stiff animation. Every frame and movement has been more fluid and lifelike with more grandeur than before. Every frame is an artists hard work, every movement an artists dance of his digital pen. A natural progression of the quality of art in this show.
Fionna and Cake (so far) is nothing but an exceptional work of art. This 10 episode series is a natural progression of the adventure time universe with new and returning characters that are just as relatable to me as an adult as the first season was to me as a child. It's themes and allegorical storytelling continue to develop while remaining true to the fantastical world of Adventure Time while the technical animation quality and expressive artistic aesthetics further impress.
Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake is on the path to be nothing but 10 episodes of some of the best Adventure Time content around.
A week between episode is just too long to wait.
