OK Dendy! Let's Be K.O. (OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes Season 1 Episode 46) - 'Toon Reviews 19

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OK Dendy! Let’s Be K.O.

In most cartoons, K.O.’s best friend Dendy has starred alongside him or popped up randomly to advance the plot, but now she’s the star of one.  Through doing a simple task, she makes it stand out with her likable quirks and charm as a technical analytical genius. 

When K.O. realizes he’s scheduled to visit his grandma and can’t work, Dendy fills in for him.  Her interesting approach to what’s basically doing K.O.’s bodega work are shown through an analytical checklist of everything he does.  True, it brings some stalker implications, but given what’s known about Dendy, this reveal seems fitting. 

It’s also amusing to how strictly Dendy follows her data on K.O.’s routine.   There’s something funny about characters of certain personalities trying to perform traits they’re not accustomed to but can never fully step out of what suits them.  Dendy’s feeble attempts to mimic K.O.’s enthusiasm filtered by her intellectual tone have a charm that’s all hers.  It brings cuteness not often expected from a genius character.  Keeping what Dendy’s trying to do interesting, she breaks from the charade when it gets too uncomfortable or hard.  Instances include keeping her shoes on even though K.O. doesn’t wear them, and awesomely working her technical skills while cleaning the store. 

She may be posing as K.O., but you can’t deny it’s really Dendy.  This is especially true when she calls out an evil robot attack before anyone else.  The attack gives light to a robot frequently seen in the background at Boxmore, but has never been fully explored, named Ernesto. 

Since much of what he’s been seen doing was business work, the fight at first ties into that. Ernesto gets so tied up with reading flashcards of his entrance speech, Rad and Enid take him on without trouble.  It’s during this robot battle where we get a humorous jab at the need for family shows to have life lessons.  Dendy, still striving to be K.O. as much as possible, happens to list learning a life lesson after the section on the evil robot attack.  She responds by openly stating a lesson about the importance of being oneself.  This move plays with the life lesson convention through showing why they’re always saved for the end.  Ernesto becomes a much more brutal fighter because of what Dendy said.  It shows that the convention of lessons coming at the end exists so that no antagonist can take advice to heart and the story can safely end which is what happens with Ernesto. 

Dendy bluntly stating the lesson plays on how characters learning things often feel like they’re going through motions of a formula and don’t mean anything.  This contrasts greatly with how she’s able to help defeat Ernesto.  Through analyzing the fight, she herself genuinely learns to be herself by becoming K.O. in her own way instead of acting exactly like him.  Since her true personality was constantly shown in her few attempts, it’s a fitting lesson for the story. It's topped off with a nice display of her primary technical skills as she mans a K.O. hologram to defeat Ernesto. 

Despite one line suggesting Dendy fill in for K.O. every day from his close co-workers, this scene is just the perfect turning point for Dendy’s role in the cartoon. It builds up to the truly crowing moment of winning a fight all by herself.  It shows how capable she is of starring in a cartoon of her own as she subverts expectations and plays to her own strengths, making the experience adorable in a scientific way. 

A

The Ranking

1. Face Your Fears
2. Let’s Take a Moment
3. Mystery Science Fair 201X
4. You Have to Care
5. T.K.O.
6. Back in Red Action
7. No More Pow Cards
8. Glory Days
9. Legends of Mr. Gar
10. We’ve Got Pests
11. I Am Dendy
12. Let’s Have a Stakeout
13. You Get Me
14. Let’s Be Heroes
15. You’re Everybody’s Sidekick
16. We Got Hacked
17. K.O.’s Video Channel
18. Jethro’s All Yours
19. Know Your Mom
20. Everybody Likes Rad?
21. OK Dendy! Let’s Be K.O.
22. Villains Night In
23. Lad & Logic
24. A Hero’s Fate
25. Plaza Prom
26. We’re Captured
27. My Dad Can Beat up Your Dad
28. Let’s Be Friends
29. We Messed Up
30. Parents Day
31. Plazalympics
32. Presenting Joe Cuppa
33. Sibling Rivalry
34. RMS and Brandon’s First Episode
35. Second First Date
36. Stop Attacking the Plaza
37. Just Be a Pebble
38. The Power is Yours
39. Do You Have Any More in the Back?
40. Let’s Watch the Pilot
41. Villains Night Out
42. You’re Level 100
43. You Are Rad
44. We’ve Got Fleas
45. Rad Likes Robots
46. One Last Score

The next OK K.O. review features a collection of Plaza Shorts.

Next time on MC Toon Reviews is Episode 43 of Animaniacs.

If you would like to check out other OK K.O.! reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.

'Toon Reviews 19: OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes Season 1 Episode 37: We Got Hacked

If you like this review and want to stay updated for what else I have in store, become a follower of this blog, click here to like the official Facebook page, and click here to follow me on Twitter. Now on with today's review:

We Got Hacked

This may just be another cartoon about a mishap at Gar’s Bodega, but even with a typical subject, it still leaves an impact with a creative aesthetic. 

K.O. sets up a specialized mop to clean the store, but it gets out of control and wrecks everything.  With repairs desperately needed, Dendy comes to make it so the bodega won’t have to be closed.  As usual, Dendy impresses through her combination of intellect with childlike charm through manning her technical skills to get the mop under control. 

Through her work, there’s subtext of how dangerous going online can be.  When bringing up windows of the mop’s inner workings via her hackpack, one of them has an enticing popup ad.  K.O. childishly ignores Dendy’s warning against clicking it, and bad things happen when he does.  If anyone’s been on the computer, I’m sure they’ve done something that unleashed a virus on the system at some point, usually all from a single innocent click on a popup ad. 

This idea is creatively portrayed when K.O. pressing the popup ad unleashes a virus on the mop which is crafted like a human virus.  It explodes with pink puddles of harmful electrical data everywhere and they infect everything and everyone.  When the virus puddles touch an object, it turns pink as if the virus was a bunch of germs latching onto a hard surface.  When people touch the puddles, how they get the virus has a nice interpretation.  They turn into mindlessly functioning beings shaking around and done in limited CGI common in video games of the early 90s.  Different circumstances lead to many people getting infected leading to an army of glitching CGI characters like a zombie apocalypse.  This becomes so serious that the survivors have to hide in the break room.  It’s a creative occurrence with an interesting aesthetic, and the legit dangers to how it spreads add to its magnitude. 

It’s constantly bogged down by K.O. insisting he didn’t click the popup ad that started the mess when he usually does own up to his mistakes, but at least he comes to his senses later.  There’s also a heartwarming scene where he and Dendy decide to endure the inevitable through making sure the last things they see are each other. The emotions feel so real.  The only break in the emotion is when K.O. and Dendy notice everyone glitching so much, they can go out into the store and get Dendy’s hackpack to reset the system and cure the virus. It's honestly a pretty funny realization. 

After that, the suspense kicks up again when K.O. and Dendy rush to connect the infected to the hackpack.  In the process, K.O. does an impressive amount of the work considering he caused the problem in the first place.  All seems well afterwards, even coming with a creative interpretation of the reset process from everything disappearing and reappearing.  However, the last scene of K.O. getting glitched is a little concerning.  It does feel appropriate for the disaster movie feel the cartoon is going for.  All the same, this being the ending doesn’t feel satisfying with him suffering after learning his lesson and doing a lot to fix everything.  Fortunately, the strengths are so strong, the sting of the ending doesn’t cause much harm. 

This is still a simple concept turned into a creative escapade with relatable topics, and stakes that make what happens feel real and relatable.

A

The Ranking

1. Face Your Fears
2. You Have to Care
3. T.K.O.
4. No More Pow Cards
5. Glory Days
6. Legends of Mr. Gar
7. We’ve Got Pests
8. I Am Dendy
9. Let’s Have a Stakeout
10. You Get Me
11. Let’s Be Heroes
12. You’re Everybody’s Sidekick
13. We Got Hacked
14. K.O.’s Video Channel
15. Jethro’s All Yours
16. Know Your Mom
17. Everybody Likes Rad?
18. A Hero’s Fate
19. Plaza Prom
20. We’re Captured
21. My Dad Can Beat up Your Dad
22. Let’s Be Friends
23. We Messed Up
24. Parents Day
25. Plazalympics
26. Presenting Joe Cuppa
27. Sibling Rivalry
28. Second First Date
29. Stop Attacking the Plaza
30. Just Be a Pebble
31. The Power is Yours
32. Do You Have Any More in the Back?
33. You’re Level 100
34. You Are Rad
35. We’ve Got Fleas
36. Rad Likes Robots
37. One Last Score

The next OK K.O. review explores the background of Red Action and starts a charming friendship between her and Enid.

Next time on MC Toon Reviews is Animaniacs Episode 33 featuring cartoons in Wakko's body.

 If you would like to check out other OK K.O.! reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.

'Toon Reviews 19: OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes Season 1 Episode 29: A Hero's Fate

If you like this review and want to stay updated for what else I have in store, become a follower of this blog, click here to like the official Facebook page, and click here to follow me on Twitter. Now on with today's review:

A Hero’s Fate

One message I’ve been surprised to find in a lot of what I’ve reviewed is the importance of leaving room for leisure as well as hard work.  That’s something I’m a big advocate for since it’s really important to have a balanced life.  In the case of this show, with K.O. having big heroic aspirations, this feels like a good lesson for him to learn. 

To be fair, he seems to have good reason to put all his attention on becoming a great hero when his Pow card still won’t level up past .1.  Then, a hero literally named Hero shows up to offer K.O. to train with him in hopes of leveling up.   With K.O.'s lack of progress in mind, it’s worth going along with his decision to train instead of hang out with Rad and Enid on their self-proclaimed day off in a kiddie pool. 

As a character, Hero is as standard fighter character as you get.  He looks like a basic fighter and his primary weapon is a standard sword used to use against monsters.  Also, through expressing excitement of his heroic quest, his positivity sounds stoic and phoned in.  It doesn’t make for the most enjoyable character to follow. 

However, as K.O. does what he can to keep up with him and level up, there are some interesting things about Hero and his self-proclaimed quest.  He’s constantly fighting the exact same monster which reappears right after he defeats it.  There’s also a specific routine Hero and K.O. have to follow whenever they fight.  In addition, whenever they get hurt, they get better from drinking bottles of a potion that Hero purchased at Gar’s Bodega.  When they’ve battled enough monsters, their work still isn’t done when they have to go up a huge flight of stairs filled with insane obstacles.  At the top is the final boss, another warrior named Galgarion which Hero humorously can’t say straight. 

By now, it's clear that the aesthetic of this whole quest is like a video game.  I mean, the exact same monsters regenerating on the way to the final boss, injuries getting healed, random castle obstacles, and a staged final battle ring very true for video games' nature.  At the same time, K.O. constantly lags behind and realizes how focusing all his attention on training is not good on his state of well-being.  This is a believable look of an actual person living through a video game.  In fact, leveling up this much is the very reason why it’s hard for him and Hero to beat Galgarion at first since the final boss leveled up a lot too. 

Eventually, K.O. snaps at the prospect of doing the quest a bunch more times and admits that he needs a break.  As I mentioned before, breaks from action are more necessary than some people may think.  They get you feeling happy enough so that when you do go back to being productive, you’re in an appropriate state of mind.  Also, Hero and Galgarion, despite seeming to be part of a living video game, get the value of taking a break too, walking away from the fight seeming to be on good terms all along. 

The conclusion is also very satisfying with K.O. being welcomed to the fun of the kiddie pool by Rad and Enid. As for Hero, he returns to the realm of a comic strip which is a bit of a shocking change of pace, but I can’t really fault a creative way of delivering a message.  With an interesting message to get behind and unique aesthetics, this is a cartoon sure to enlighten you in many ways.

A

The Ranking

1. Face Your Fears
2. You Have to Care
3. T.K.O.
4. No More Pow Cards
5. Legends of Mr. Gar
6. We’ve Got Pests
7. I Am Dendy
8. You Get Me
9. Let’s Be Heroes
10. You’re Everybody’s Sidekick
11. Jethro’s All Yours
12. Know Your Mom
13. Everybody Likes Rad?
14. A Hero’s Fate
15. Plaza Prom
16. We’re Captured
17. My Dad Can Beat up Your Dad
18. Let’s Be Friends
19. We Messed Up
20. Presenting Joe Cuppa
21. Sibling Rivalry
22. Second First Date
23. Stop Attacking the Plaza
24. Just Be a Pebble
25. Do You Have Any More in the Back?
26. You’re Level 100
27. You Are Rad
28. We’ve Got Fleas
29. One Last Score

The next OK K.O. review features K.O. bond with his idol, Mr. Gar, and encounter Shadowy Figure all in the same stakeout.

Next time on MC Toon Reviews are lesser Star vs the Forces of Evil episodes "Heinous" and "All Belts are Off."

If you would like to check out other OK K.O.! reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.