Before I get into my criticisms, I would first of all like to say that I am very happy for Vivienne! Getting an indie adult animated show greenlit must have been actual agony, and I am genuinely glad to have seen this come out. I do hope we can see more shows from indie animation studios become big, as it is something i have a lot of love for.
For background, I have actually followed development of Hazbin Hotel for multiple years; I in fact remember Alastor's original design! I remember when Baxter was a thing, and I remember Angel Dust's brother! I really didn't want to find this show just meh, I genuinely wanted to enjoy it more. I'm not hating the show to hop on the hate train, and I'm not going to glaze it just because I like Vivzie's other work.
Let's do the positives first. The animation is very impressive most of time, and I do find the artstyle enjoyable. The amount of detail that's been animated on some of these characters is incredible, and I can only imagine how much of a nightmare animating the more intensive characters like Husk, Alastor and Pentious must have been. The backgrounds are pretty and appealing to the eye. The voice acting has also been pretty impressive! I thought the new choices were good, and for the most part they worked well across both the speaking and singing segments. Emotions were generally believable, and it was great for a cast with so few voice-acting roles between them. The show got a couple of laughs out of me.
Unfortunately, I do now have to get into the negatives. The pacing is absolutely terrible and unbelievable. There's no sense of time within the first 4-ish episodes, and then in the 5th or 6th episode you're slapped around the face with a revelation that 5 MONTHS HAVE PASSED. So little has actually happened in the plot during this time, that I genuinely thought only a week had passed in the plot. For a show that's allegedly about 'sinner rehabilitation', very little time is actually spent on improvement. I don't find it believable when Angel Dust proves himself to heaven because we haven't really seen him make improvements beforehand. Like sure, he had a song with Husk where they talked about his issues but I don't believe he would have changed that much. He didn't really show any difference in the time between this big character moment and the heaven trial, anyway! I just think it was waaay too rushed, there should have been another episode or 2 where we see Angel Dust starting to change between the Husk song and the Heaven trial.
In the 5th episode, Charlie is freaking out about the hotel not working but... We've barely seen her try anything? All the episodes are so squished together, so lacking for time that I feel like I should be getting whiplash from the amount of info crammed into the episodes, but not a whole lot happens. I've watched episodes 1-6 twice, now, and I'm just... sat here wondering where the rest of the show went? I'm sure part of this is because of how Amazon controlled the episode numbers and length, but that doesn't mean the show gets a free pass. I do feel sorry for the staff that worked on the show, probably crunching majorly to get this out on a shoestring budget, but that doesn't mean I have to pour praise onto the show.
Another negative is the... 'reveals'. I'm sure a lot of people have heard this already, but I didn't really think the Vaggie is an angel reveal hit how it should've. I agree with what other people have said; finding out at the same time that Charlie found out would have been much more emotionally dramatic and interesting. Being told about 5 minutes beforehand, and then revealing it to Charlie again was a strange choice, to say the least. I think a better way to do this, if the writer wanted the audience to know before the other characters knew, would be to reveal Vaggie to the audience alone WAY earlier in the show. That way you could build the tension more, show ways that Vaggie was trying to hide it, seeing Charlie almost find out before the trip to heaven. I think that would've been a lot more interesting than what we got.
I do have a very very slight problem with the humour. A lot of the jokes just do not land. Obviously, humour is absolutely subjective so if you found it funny then more power to you. I'm genuinely glad you could enjoyment in places I didn't! However, a lot of the background jokes were a lot funnier than the up-front, in your face jokes. When I re-watched it with friends, we all laughed more at Niffty constantly throwing herself off the stage than any of jokes you were meant to be paying attention to. The memes about the over-the-top swearing are genuinely real as well, though toned down slightly from the pilot. My friends and I were drinking everytime there was a swear, and we all had to stop drinking halfway through the second episode.
I also think it's... kind of bad as a musical. I'm not gonna claim to be an expert on these things, but it just wasn't believable. The songs are all diegetic, and other characters react to people singing. I think this breaks the illusion, to the point that I can't really suspend my disbelief which is something you REALLY have to take into consideration when writing a musical. A musical has songs when the characters are emotional, and in my opinion a lot of the songs come out of nowhere. I enjoy musicals, but if I'm wondering why the characters are singing at this moment IN A MUSICAL, then maybe it should have been rewritten. I also think a couple of the songs should have been cut so that more story-telling could have been included, as a lot of the songs say nothing that hasn't already been explained in the speaking segment.
Overall, it's alright. If you think it would appeal to you, then it probably would. It's a very love it or hate it show. I think I've simply grown out of the demographic in the years and years I've been watching this project be put together. Genuinely, give it a try, especially if you're passionate about animation. This show does need all the support it can get, to prove that indie animation is worth picking up to big companies.
Edit to add: The very last episode was very good. It was a strong 7 leaning toward an 8 for me, but unfortunately one very good episode cannot drag up the rest of the series for me. The animation is amazing, the humour hits like it was meant to in this one, the songs are the best they've been so far! The Lucifer/Adam fight is especially good, very well laid out and the use of Lucifer's powers in interesting, thoughtful and funny. I actually feel and understand the character's emotions in this one, and the episode is overall enjoyable, with the little hints of side plot being very interesting. It gives me hope for season 2, and I hope they can carry the height of episode 8 through into it. Episode 7 was a little bit nothing-burger though.
For background, I have actually followed development of Hazbin Hotel for multiple years; I in fact remember Alastor's original design! I remember when Baxter was a thing, and I remember Angel Dust's brother! I really didn't want to find this show just meh, I genuinely wanted to enjoy it more. I'm not hating the show to hop on the hate train, and I'm not going to glaze it just because I like Vivzie's other work.
Let's do the positives first. The animation is very impressive most of time, and I do find the artstyle enjoyable. The amount of detail that's been animated on some of these characters is incredible, and I can only imagine how much of a nightmare animating the more intensive characters like Husk, Alastor and Pentious must have been. The backgrounds are pretty and appealing to the eye. The voice acting has also been pretty impressive! I thought the new choices were good, and for the most part they worked well across both the speaking and singing segments. Emotions were generally believable, and it was great for a cast with so few voice-acting roles between them. The show got a couple of laughs out of me.
Unfortunately, I do now have to get into the negatives. The pacing is absolutely terrible and unbelievable. There's no sense of time within the first 4-ish episodes, and then in the 5th or 6th episode you're slapped around the face with a revelation that 5 MONTHS HAVE PASSED. So little has actually happened in the plot during this time, that I genuinely thought only a week had passed in the plot. For a show that's allegedly about 'sinner rehabilitation', very little time is actually spent on improvement. I don't find it believable when Angel Dust proves himself to heaven because we haven't really seen him make improvements beforehand. Like sure, he had a song with Husk where they talked about his issues but I don't believe he would have changed that much. He didn't really show any difference in the time between this big character moment and the heaven trial, anyway! I just think it was waaay too rushed, there should have been another episode or 2 where we see Angel Dust starting to change between the Husk song and the Heaven trial.
In the 5th episode, Charlie is freaking out about the hotel not working but... We've barely seen her try anything? All the episodes are so squished together, so lacking for time that I feel like I should be getting whiplash from the amount of info crammed into the episodes, but not a whole lot happens. I've watched episodes 1-6 twice, now, and I'm just... sat here wondering where the rest of the show went? I'm sure part of this is because of how Amazon controlled the episode numbers and length, but that doesn't mean the show gets a free pass. I do feel sorry for the staff that worked on the show, probably crunching majorly to get this out on a shoestring budget, but that doesn't mean I have to pour praise onto the show.
Another negative is the... 'reveals'. I'm sure a lot of people have heard this already, but I didn't really think the Vaggie is an angel reveal hit how it should've. I agree with what other people have said; finding out at the same time that Charlie found out would have been much more emotionally dramatic and interesting. Being told about 5 minutes beforehand, and then revealing it to Charlie again was a strange choice, to say the least. I think a better way to do this, if the writer wanted the audience to know before the other characters knew, would be to reveal Vaggie to the audience alone WAY earlier in the show. That way you could build the tension more, show ways that Vaggie was trying to hide it, seeing Charlie almost find out before the trip to heaven. I think that would've been a lot more interesting than what we got.
I do have a very very slight problem with the humour. A lot of the jokes just do not land. Obviously, humour is absolutely subjective so if you found it funny then more power to you. I'm genuinely glad you could enjoyment in places I didn't! However, a lot of the background jokes were a lot funnier than the up-front, in your face jokes. When I re-watched it with friends, we all laughed more at Niffty constantly throwing herself off the stage than any of jokes you were meant to be paying attention to. The memes about the over-the-top swearing are genuinely real as well, though toned down slightly from the pilot. My friends and I were drinking everytime there was a swear, and we all had to stop drinking halfway through the second episode.
I also think it's... kind of bad as a musical. I'm not gonna claim to be an expert on these things, but it just wasn't believable. The songs are all diegetic, and other characters react to people singing. I think this breaks the illusion, to the point that I can't really suspend my disbelief which is something you REALLY have to take into consideration when writing a musical. A musical has songs when the characters are emotional, and in my opinion a lot of the songs come out of nowhere. I enjoy musicals, but if I'm wondering why the characters are singing at this moment IN A MUSICAL, then maybe it should have been rewritten. I also think a couple of the songs should have been cut so that more story-telling could have been included, as a lot of the songs say nothing that hasn't already been explained in the speaking segment.
Overall, it's alright. If you think it would appeal to you, then it probably would. It's a very love it or hate it show. I think I've simply grown out of the demographic in the years and years I've been watching this project be put together. Genuinely, give it a try, especially if you're passionate about animation. This show does need all the support it can get, to prove that indie animation is worth picking up to big companies.
Edit to add: The very last episode was very good. It was a strong 7 leaning toward an 8 for me, but unfortunately one very good episode cannot drag up the rest of the series for me. The animation is amazing, the humour hits like it was meant to in this one, the songs are the best they've been so far! The Lucifer/Adam fight is especially good, very well laid out and the use of Lucifer's powers in interesting, thoughtful and funny. I actually feel and understand the character's emotions in this one, and the episode is overall enjoyable, with the little hints of side plot being very interesting. It gives me hope for season 2, and I hope they can carry the height of episode 8 through into it. Episode 7 was a little bit nothing-burger though.