'Toon Reviews 19: OK K.O.! Let's Be Hereos Season 1 Episode 31: Rad Likes Robots

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Rad Likes Robots

Some of the weakest stories seem like they’re going to bring a big change, but reverts back to the status quo in the end as if it was never suggested at all.  It doesn’t leave room for growth and throws away any chance for solid development, opting to not stay relevant.  While this cartoon isn’t that bad of an example of this concept, it still brings down the quality significantly. 

During a more intense than average fight against the bodega employees and the Boxmore robots, Shannon gets struck by lightning and is reprogrammed to be more romantic.  She saves Rad from getting blasted, claiming she never knew how good he punches stuff, feeling infatuated with him, and that’s enough for Rad to love her back.  It’s a very shallow reason for a potential couple, not to mention it’s completely forced with Shannon getting reprogrammed.  Therefore, the love she and Rad share for each other simply doesn’t feel genuine.  In fact, it’s much easier to side with the opposing forces, Rad’s friends and Shannon’s robot siblings, who all have good reasons why this couple shouldn’t come to be.  It is at least funny to watch them get defensive at the opposition though. 

There is at least one moment to have the couple make sense when there’s acknowledgement that Shannon’s love for Rad is fake.  Darrell and Raymond point out that she got reprogrammed by that lightning.  Even when Shannon hears that she’s been reprogrammed, she claims to like being this way and refuses to change.  Just acknowledging this factor and both people being fond of each other fortunately works in the couple’s favor.  This is especially good since a great and passionate love ballad of how Rad and Shannon are star-crossed lovers follows this scene. 

It still isn't the most justifiable instance of love, mostly on Rad’s simple judgement than Shannon’s reprogramming.  However, there’s at least enough endearment to accept its existence.  The very idea of a hero and villain becoming a couple offers a good chance for character development and a shakeup in the dynamic of the protagonists and antagonists.  It’s a perfect opportunity to keep things fresh especially with Rad and Shannon clearly set on making themselves as a couple official.  

The next day though, genuinely concerned for their sister, Darrel and Raymond plot to destroy Rad to snap Shannon out of her crush when she’s about to run away with him.  This is where the cartoon becomes one to go back on a potential big change. Despite acting like she loved Rad above anything else for the whole cartoon, Shannon gives into her brothers’ demands, and reboots herself to lose her feelings for Rad.  She comes to this decision much too easily and not enough time is devoted to her expressing sorrow for stopping loving Rad.  Even with the reveal that she faked her reboot, she just does it for real after misinterpreting Rad mourning her. For this, why did she have to her fake her reboot at all? 

While it does make sense for the couple to not be a thing anymore, it going nowhere makes having to put up with this dead-end plot pretty frustrating.  In a way, it kind of works as a parody of romantic tragedies, but it’s hard to brush off thinking the cartoon was going to change things up only for it to go nowhere.

C-

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. Let’s Have a Stakeout
9. You Get Me
10. Let’s Be Heroes
11. You’re Everybody’s Sidekick
12. Jethro’s All Yours
13. Know Your Mom
14. Everybody Likes Rad?
15. A Hero’s Fate
16. Plaza Prom
17. We’re Captured
18. My Dad Can Beat up Your Dad
19. Let’s Be Friends
20. We Messed Up
21. Presenting Joe Cuppa
22. Sibling Rivalry
23. Second First Date
24. Stop Attacking the Plaza
25. Just Be a Pebble
26. Do You Have Any More in the Back?
27. You’re Level 100
28. You Are Rad
29. We’ve Got Fleas
30. Rad Likes Robots
31. One Last Score

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode whose subject is good old online videos.

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 22: Plaza Prom

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:

Plaza Prom

Even when a story is told similarly to how other shows tell it, it can still stand on its own with a certain brand of entertainment and distinct characters.  This show has tons of distinction from the characters' looks which is one reason to get excited when they get together for a party, or in this case a prom. 

Rad aims to throw such a prom fitting his aim to be the coolest hero around.  He wants to bring all of Lakewood Plaza Turbo together to boost his status, especially other cool guys like the alley teens Drupe, Red Action, and Gregg.  As is fitting for party stories, Rad has tight guidelines for how things should go, and insists following them.  You can probably guess that message will involve following guidelines not always being the best course of action for parties.  This is further fueled by the actual prom being very lackluster, and the guidelines of Rad’s prom scroll are no help. 

As I said earlier, basic and common plot points do not hurt the quality of a story since a show’s use of entertainment and character moments can make it its own thing.  A big reason for how this plot works well is from the characters we follow as opposed to just little bits of the guests and most focus on Rad.  It gives a sense of what the whole experience means for different characters.  K.O. acts as Rad’s cohost and sticks strictly to that scroll while having doubts about it.  Brandon and A Real Magic Skeleton have a falling out after lying to each other about having a date.  While chaperoning, Mr. Gar is once again struck by his fear of talking to Carol, though commendably makes a great effort to ask her to dance with him.  There are frequent shots of Enid struggling to play Rad’s suggested music. They're not too important but bring a hilarious interpretation of what it’s like to listen to bad music as she becomes hospitalized while playing it.  This isn’t even mentioning moments of many other guests getting up to mischief, showcasing the prom falling apart due to Rad’s stubborn adherence to the scroll. 

Ultimately, all these different scenes of the prom going wrong lead to an ultimate move to save the whole affair. The prom’s crashed by the perfect Boxmore robot for the job, the ever classy Raymond.  It’s his presence that gets K.O. to realize how flawed the scroll is, and he pushes Rad to take the intruder out in a dance battle.  Set to the lively acoustics of Enid’s music literally from her heart, the dance off is the very thing to liven up the prom.  It’s fun to watch and listen to, and brings a big shift in view for Rad.  He dances his own way, and his moves blow Raymond out of the competition.  After this, there’s a very nice moment of the prom going on as the great event it was destined to be, allowing the subplots to come full circle.  Rad impresses the alley teens. RMS and Brandon make up for their lying. Mr. Gar gets his dance with Carol.  Finally, there's a nice display of snapshots of the most prominent guests. 

Even if you can get a good idea of how things will play out, the story of this plaza prom and how it builds up to a memorable party is executed greatly.  It's a vast gathering of characters you won’t want to miss.

A

The Ranking

1. Face Your Fears
2. You Have to Care
3. Legends of Mr. Gar
4. We’ve Got Pests
5. I Am Dendy
6. You Get Me
7. Let’s Be Heroes
8. You’re Everybody’s Sidekick
9. Jethro’s All Yours
10. Know Your Mom
11. Everybody Likes Rad?
12. Plaza Prom
13. We’re Captured
14. My Dad Can Beat up Your Dad
15. Let’s Be Friends
16. We Messed Up
17. Presenting Joe Cuppa
18. Sibling Rivalry
19. Just Be a Pebble
20. Do You Have Any More in the Back?
21. You’re Level 100
22. You Are Rad

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode which reveals some interesting information on the love lives of Rad and Enid.

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 7: Sibling Rivalry

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:

Sibling Rivalry

Being a team doesn’t always mean that everyone who’s a part of it gets along all the time, sometimes for big legit reasons and other times for petty reasons.  This cartoon looks into both types of reasons for tension. 

The petty reasons come from the heroes’ side of the conflict with a lot of their scenes devoted to Rad and Enid fighting over who did the most work during the usual fight with the Boxmore robots.  Being fueled by a disagreement that doesn’t even matter much isn’t very engaging to the audience, and it can get concerning when they just brush off K.O.’s insistence that the most important thing is that they worked as a team.  It does gain appeal points for being hilariously over-the-top though. 

Regarding the villains, the tensions between them are much more legit, which is impressive since it becomes easier to feel sympathy for characters we’re not supposed to like, going for a great angle to flesh out all of the cast no matter what their morality is.  Darrell and Shannon have so far been portrayed as very charismatic and eccentric when it comes to attacking Lakewood Plaza Turbo, but they’re somewhat sympathetic when their father and creator, Lord Boxman, berates and disowns them whenever they're defeated.  He’s ashamed of their failures so much that he creates a new robot named Raymond, who’s charismatic like the other two robots, but also the most competent of the three as he does his assigned acts of villainy with a flair.  Even acts as small as stealing a letter from the Gar’s Bodega sign are ones he treats with utmost importance and enthusiasm, and it pays off because he turns out to be the robot the gang at Gar’s Bodega can’t easily defeat. 

Darrell and Shannon’s feelings on the matter go far beyond simple jealousy and blaming each other for Raymond’s existence.  It’s a really tough thing to deal with a parent flat-out disowning their children and not exaggerating when they love another one more just because the other children failed at something.  This makes their conflict more engaging than the other conflict, and develops Darrell and Shannon past more than just eccentric fighting characters.  The abuse they have to deal with becomes especially prominent when K.O. takes notice of it after they capture him.  He decides to help the regular plaza attackers sabotage Raymond’s success in hopes of making them realize that winning as a team makes everyone a winner. 

They have it look like they captured K.O. as a team, leading to even more Boxman abuse when this one victory leads him to disown Raymond like he did with his other robot children.  However, Darrell and Shannon’s typical robot tactics are still on display when they still won’t let K.O. get the bodega sign back and intend to actually hold him prisoner.  From here, the message on the importance of teamwork becomes botched a bit when K.O. makes Darrell and Shannon fight over who did the most work to escape and get the sign back. 

As for Rad and Enid’s conflict, their conflict stops unnaturally just because they see a beautiful sunset which makes them decide that who did the most work in the fights didn’t matter.  Maybe if we actually saw it happen this concluding point would be stronger.  The ending is still nice at least.  Even if it’s not perfect in execution message-wise, this cartoon is still an interesting comparison between petty conflicts and legit conflicts while also fleshing out the characters, especially the villains.

A-

The Ranking

1. Let’s Be Heroes
2. You’re Everybody’s Sidekick
3. Jethro’s All Yours
4. Let’s Be Friends
5. We Messed Up
6. Sibling Rivalry
7. You’re Level 100

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next OK K.O.! episode where we meet K.O.'s best friend Dendy for the first time.

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