MC 'Toon Reviews

Friday, August 21, 2020

Boxman Crashes - (OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes Season 2 Episode 21) - 'Toon Reviews 40

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Boxman Crashes

With Season 2’s many changes and creative concepts brought to life, it’s sometimes easy to forget that Lord Boxman has gone off on his own. Luckily, the show isn’t above him enough to just forget about him, and this cartoon is dedicated to what he’s gotten up to now that he’s no longer in charge of Boxmore. That is to say, while he hasn’t been in charge of Boxmore for the time.

Another big thing about the cartoon is how beneficial it is to developing Professor Venomous. To recap from Season 1, he was always the villain Lord Boxman seemed the most interested in and highly revered among that class. Despite all of Lord Boxman’s eccentricities, he kept ending up supporting him in the end by investing in Boxmore and giving Lord Boxman a chip for a one-of-a-kind robot. I must admit that it was hard for me to think highly of these moments before, but many parts of this season, and especially the next, give them much needed weight.

For one thing, the premise of this cartoon looks into what Professor Venomous does on a regular basis. He’s constantly forming evil schemes and tries to get money by intimidating local congresswomen while fairly negotiating with other fellow villains. There’s also an established role of a father figure to his assistant Fink, who gets many standout comedic moments. This is all a very interesting look at a villain’s daily life, but the big idea to get from these scenes is how tiring it all is for Professor Venomous. By chance, he finds Lord Boxman in his trashcan who claims that he has no place to go after getting removed from Boxmore. Without a look at him since this season’s second cartoon, it can easily be assumed that Lord Boxman’s been living in trashcans for all this time which is just sad.

He convinces Professor Venomous to let him stay with him and Fink, but the arrangements soon make Professor Venomous even more stressed. The cartoon puts Lord Boxman in the role of an annoying houseguest by making his hosts eat his cooking, making messes, and finally destroying Professor Venomous’ entire lab. Each time he engages in such an eccentric behavior, Professor Venomous is quick to respond with enraged frustration. To say nothing about how an edgy brat like Fink is quick to berate Lord Boxman.

Somehow though, Lord Boxman gets them both on board with much-needed excitement. In a way and destructive as he was, it becomes clear that Lord Boxman was at least trying to be a grateful and respectable guest in the home. He’s constructed a present for Fink, an entire dirt bike made from random junk. The three of them set off to attack Lakewood Plaza Turbo by allowing Fink to drive around and cause as much destruction as she wants. She certainly goes all out, setting fire and carnage to the parking lot. In all the fast-paced action, K.O., Rad, and Enid manage to find a way to stop her, bringing her destructive ride to a grand finish.

Despite this outcome, all three villains are satisfied with the excitement, and Professor Venomous does something about constantly putting up with Lord Boxman. He plans to buy back Boxmore, put Lord Boxman back in charge, and moves in with him to help run the company properly. It could have been clearer that this happens in real time and I wish Darrell had more of a say in this, but this is still an impressive status quo revert with a noticeable change. It’s a meaningful result of a comedic take on annoying houseguest plots that offer welcome development for certain characters.

Season 2 Rankings

1. Your World is an Illusion

2. T.K.O.’s House

3. Final Exams

4. CarolQuest

5. Dendy’s Power

6. Lord Cowboy Darrell

7. Bittersweet Rivals

8. Red Action to the Future

9. My Fair Carol

10. Are You Ready for Some Megafootball?!

11. Boxman Crashes

12. Wisdom Strength and Charisma

13. Mystery Sleepover

14. Point to the Plaza

15. Special Delivery

16. Seasons Change

17. The So-Bad-Ical

18. Plaza Film Festival

19. Let’s Watch the Boxmore Show

20. Be a Team

21. Soda Genie

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode featuring a crossover with some of the biggest Cartoon Network shows of the 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.

Thursday, August 20, 2020

CarolQuest - (OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes Season 2 Episode 20) - 'Toon Reviews 40

CarolQuest

Among the more endearing parts of this show is the emphasis on healthy family love. Much of that is found with K.O.’s relationship with his mother, Carol. It’s always an absolute joy to see them both together and show how important they are too each other. It may be a more idealistic family bond, but it’s staged as something so believable and pure. It’s this very feel that ends up going very well with K.O. showing self-awareness of many big heroic reveals he’s been exposed to as of recently.

Kicking off with a matter of K.O. being taken care of while Carol sets off for work, it soon turns out that Carol will have to bring K.O. with her. However, Carol learns that she won’t exactly be going to her job at the dojo. She gets a special call from Foxtail of P.O.I.N.T. who refers to her by her old hero name, Silver Spark, and gives her a major assignment. All throughout, attention is given to make sure that K.O. is kept unaware of what’s going on, as if they don’t want him to be aware that P.O.I.N.T. is involved.

It’s in the following sequence where despite their efforts, K.O. proves to know a lot more than what’s expected from someone his age. For one thing, Carol is assigned to investigate the labyrinth of shelves that make up the back of Gar’s Bodega. K.O instantly recognizes where they are as the place where he and his co-workers got lost. The only difference is that Carol knows how to make the place not so dangerous and therefore much easier to get through.

This turns out to not be the only thing K.O. is aware of. They soon discover other familiar heroes involved in this secret P.O.I.N.T. mission, giving an impression of the true extent of P.O.I.N.T.’s power. In addition, as one of them, the ever-charming Ms. Mummy, tries to hide what’s going on with code words, but K.O. easily deduces what they’re talking about. Someone is trying to steal glorbs from the tree below Lakewood Plaza Turbo. While he’s shown to know a lot as well as how this isn’t a scavenger hunt like everyone claims it is, Carol and the others still go along with the façade. They discover that someone is indeed stealing glorbs from that very tree, a harvesting robo-creature known as a mecha-maw. Even when another hero associated with P.O.I.N.T., one of Carol’s dojo students, comes to help, they’re easily outmatched. It’s remarkable that K.O. turns out to be a big help to them with his powers. Making the battle with the mecha-maw stand out though is how easily Carol’s ways of taking care of her son are worked in. Counting the heroes helps K.O. solve his math homework, and the fight with the mecha-maw works in the assigned tasks of feeding him dinner and giving him a bath.

Then once the fight is over, Carol finishes the job with a fitting bedtime story. While what she says is staged as a story, K.O. sees it as major information on her background. Giving meaning to the end of “Let’s Take a Moment” Carol is actually still part of P.O.I.N.T. in secret. She and other Lakewood heroes do what they can to protect the plaza from difficult situations so P.O.I.N.T. won’t need to come and help and make Mr. Gar feel inferior. It’s a lot of necessary reveals that give weight to the show’s underlying plot, and while K.O. doesn’t find it a good bedtime story, he appreciates learning all this.

Everything comes together in a highly endearing and effective cartoon mixed of wholesome family love and exciting missions, which can’t be easy to pull off well.

A+

Season 2 Rankings

1. Your World is an Illusion

2. T.K.O.’s House

3. Final Exams

4. CarolQuest

5. Dendy’s Power

6. Lord Cowboy Darrell

7. Bittersweet Rivals

8. Red Action to the Future

9. My Fair Carol

10. Are You Ready for Some Megafootball?!

11. Wisdom Strength and Charisma

12. Mystery Sleepover

13. Point to the Plaza

14. Special Delivery

15. Seasons Change

16. The So-Bad-Ical

17. Plaza Film Festival

18. Let’s Watch the Boxmore Show

19. Be a Team

20. Soda Genie

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode featuring new beginnings for Lord Bozman.

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

Monday, August 17, 2020

Fragments - (Steven Universe Future Episode 16) - 'Toon Reviews 41

Fragments

Almost everything of this epilogue series has featured Steven face a lot of difficult conflicts with his relationships and uncertainty of what to make of himself. With instances of uncontrollable rage constantly coming as a result, you can tell how much of a bad effect to his well-being this is. Now they've become truly major issues with the events of this cartoon, as him if needing to go to the hospital and crashing his dad’s van weren’t telling enough.

Speaking of the latter event, it gets Steven an intense conversation from the Crystal Gems, one of the last thing anyone striving for independence would want. With mentions of his constant pink outbursts, one emerges as Steven uncontrollably puts up walls, yells loudly, and dashes away from the Gems to get himself out of the talk. If you think that’s bad enough, his issues get more serious from here. With the destruction of his powers and how he feels he’s lost the support from his friends, Steven dares to start confiding his issues to more dangerous Gems. In this case, he discusses them to an antagonistic Gem making a reappearance for this epilogue series, Jasper.

Right away, there are issues raised about her coping methods. She talks about how her rage, anger, and destructive powers are something she’s proud of, which is why she channels them and comes off as strong. This contrasts with Steven who fears his powers and secretly sees the Crystal Gems’ point that they’re a problem. However, as the cartoon goes on, he further sides with Jasper that his destructive rage is something not to fear, but to own. This is very telling of how lost and separate he is from people who actually care for him. Then, throughout the rest of the cartoon, Steven gets Jasper to train him to master his destructive powers so long as he eventually gives her a rematch of their earlier fight. For several minutes there’s a silent montage of Steven going from holding back on his powers, to being more willing to attack, overtake Jasper, and really live off the land. That’s an effective way of showing Steven distance himself from who he really is more than ever, a true instance of showing instead of telling. The same is true for Steven becoming more muscular and rugged than usual, a more clever way of how distant from others as well as himself he has become.

In fact, when the time comes for the long-awaited rematch after three days of training, Steven is the one to initiate it. All the events of the cartoon build up to this barrage of action, and it captures the true feel of pent up rage. Facing someone who encourages this unhealthy behavior like Jasper no doubt makes it worse. All it takes is a statement on him acting weak and wanting to see what he can really do for Steven’s powers to go beyond the limit. He hits Jasper with literal fast attacks, taking the fight to the sky for a while, and then the fight reaches a dark end. Steven catches Jasper in several big shields and then hurls a huge layer of spikes at her. Ultimately, pacifist Steven ends up committing the direst fate a Gem can face …

…and it’s shown in the form of the shattered remains of Jasper’s gem. In other words, Steven flat-out murdered a Gem, and still having good nature within him despite recent events, he’s fittingly devastated. Granted, he manages to bring Jasper back to life with his powers and all her pieces, but that doesn’t make it any easier to live with. For one last measure, he’s filled with much unease when for shattering her, Jasper addresses Steven as one of the most destructive beings in the universe, her Diamond.

This closes the cartoon as a greatly told explore of Steven’s fall from his good graces into a path of darkness.

A+

The Ranking

1. Growing Pains

2. Volleyball

3. Fragments

4. Bismuth Casual

5. Little Graduation

6. Mr. Universe

7. Little Homeschool

8. Prickly Pair

9. In Dreams

10. Together Forever

11. Bluebird

12. Why So Blue?

13. Snow Day

14. Rose Buds

15. Guidance

16. A Very Special Episode

The next Steven Universe Future review has Steven believe he belongs with the Diamonds, only to reveal that even they're in a better place than him.

Next time on MC Toon Reviews is a "CarolQuest" for OK K.O.

If you would like to check out other Steven Universe reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.

Thursday, August 13, 2020

Mr. Universe - (Steven Universe Future Episode 15) - 'Toon Reviews 41

Mr. Universe

In the last cartoon, there was a feeling that even at a time when Steven feels like he’s losing his supportive relationships, he still has his dad to help him through everything. Here, a father-son bonding experience turns out to build a lot of background while also creating even more drama in the process.

At the start, Steven, without any hesitation, tells Greg some of the roots of his problems. They’re not just about people moving on from him. There’s also the matter of him not knowing his true self after believing he was just a reincarnation of his mother for so long. Greg easily relates to that, saying that when he was Steven’s age, he felt the same way about what to make of himself. With that, he aims to help Steven find out what he really wants by taking him on a road trip. To further showcase this moment as a good instance of bonding, a montage of Steven and Greg on the road is set to an older song of their relationship, “Dear Old Dad.” Given what happens later, I consider the inclusion of this wholesome number to be very appropriate.

One of Greg’s main goals of his trip comes when they decide to stop at one specific house in a suburban area. In what seems like a break of his good nature, Greg goes forward with breaking into the house despite Steven’s visible unease. Something seems off even more as Greg insists on getting in through the window as opposed to using the door. After a while of seeing this as total vandalism, Steven discovers the real reason Greg wanted to visit this house. There’s a drawer filled with letters he sent to the owners of this house all unopened to people with the last name, DeMayo. Then with the sight of Greg in an awkward family portrait, Steven discovers that this place is his dad’s old house. The catch is that while Steven is easily taken in by the family photos as well as glimpses at his graduation and yearbook pictures, Greg is disgusted to revisit his past. He talks about how his parents basically forced him into all sorts of activities he didn’t enjoy and were overbearing with rules, control, and the same customs over and over. While disdain from him is not something to expect, the fact that his parents told him what to do, gave him no freedom, and didn’t accept what he later became, is feelings feel justified. I kind of wish these things were shown and not just told.

Anyway, they leave when Greg retrieves a specific treasure from the vent, a box containing a CD. After letting Steven drive the van to discover his own path, he plays the CD that’s very telling of how he formed his identity. In addition to its subject on freedom, it constantly mentions the name, Mr. Universe, explaining where Greg got his new family name.

This reveal is enough to put Steven over the edge, and him showing appreciation for Greg’s family gets more weight. While Greg feels he was doing his son a favor by not telling him about his background earlier and raising him with freedom, Steven is disgusted to not know. It just ends up making so much sense that he ended up missing out on appropriate human things like school and the doctor after learning this. To further capture his rage, this is followed up by a pink glow and daring to crash the van. Going forward, while Greg remains his positive self even after this act, we end with Steven sinking further into his trauma by erasing his dad from his phone contacts. He deliberately cuts off ties to a loved one.

In the end, while we’re treated to great relatable new backgrounds, there’s far more emotion to the main conflict at hand from the reveals.

The Ranking

1. Growing Pains

2. Volleyball

3. Bismuth Casual

4. Little Graduation

5. Mr. Universe

6. Little Homeschool

7. Prickly Pair

8. In Dreams

9. Together Forever

10. Bluebird

11. Why So Blue?

12. Snow Day

13. Rose Buds

14. Guidance

15. A Very Special Episode

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode where Steven is led to form a new tie with, of all beings, Jasper, with chilling results.