Devils And Daemons

Because I feel it would be unreasonable to post about Palworld every day, even though I definitely could do that, today I'm going to do something I don't normally do and write about a couple of TV shows I'm still in the middle of watching. If nothing else, it makes for an instructive jumping-off point for a meditation on the purpose of reviews and reviewing, a topic on which I have far more to say than anyone would want to hear.

In brief, it does seem wrong sometimes that I only get to write about shows after I finish watching them, and sometimes quite a while after, at that. I occasionally have to make it clear I've forgotten a good deal about a particular show and even when I don't offer that caveat, it's often the case that I've had to go back and re-watch a few scenes, just to refresh my memory so I can write about them.

Contrast that with being mid-watch, so to speak. Those are the times when not only are the details of the show fresh in my mind but when I'm suffused with enthusiasm and eager to spread the word. It's weird to hold back, isn't it? If it was a new game; would I wait until I'd finished to begin posting about it? 

Not likely. In exceptional circumstances, if a game was both self-contained and short, it's conceivable I might play, finish and write about it on the same day but almost always there would be a series of "First Impressions" and "Currently Playing" posts, detailing my ongoing experiences, thoughts and opinions in something approximating real time. For what we now, somewhat euphemistically, refer to as "Live Service" games, no real "Final Review" is ever even possible, although professional reviewers frequently need to pretend otherwise.

It does seem strange, then, that another similarly extended, ongoing experience, like watching a TV show, should have to wait until the final episode before I even mention it. That would never have happened in the days before streaming services and on-demand viewing. In the olden days, if a reviewer waited until the conclusion of a TV series before writing about it, it would already be too late. Anyone who hadn't watched it already would have no way of catching up and most people who'd seen it would already be watching something else and wouldn't care.

All of which is steering us dangerously close to the sandbanks of what a review is for, something I desperately want to avoid, so enough with the pre-amble and on to the shows. Just bear in mind I haven't seen the endings of either of these yet (In one case, no-one has.) so, to paraphrase the boilerplate at the end of advertisements for financial services, my opinions may be subject to change.

Hazbin Hotel (Amazon Prime)

This one has a complicated backstory -not the internal narrative but how it came to be made - none of which I knew until I read the Wikipedia entry in preparation for this post. To summarise, a Patreon-funded pilot episode was released on YouTube back in 2019 and four years later, about a couple of weeks back, the first episode of the series itself premiered on Amazon Prime.

I've linked to the pilot but I haven't even watched it yet myself. I only found out it existed about two minutes ago! As for how I came to watch the new show, Prime chose to featureit in one of those big, splash panels you see at the top of the page when you log in. I'd never heard of it but I liked the look of the art style and I'd just finished another show, meaning I had a gap in my schedule, so I thought I'd give it a try. 

My initial reaction? Blimey, Charlie! 

Hazbin Hotel is a full-on assault to both eyes and ears. The aesthetic that attracted me to it in the first place is rigorously, almost mercilessly employed. It's spiky, aggressive, loud and sophisticated all at once. It's also color-keyed to an extreme I've rarely experienced before. 

The action takes place in Hell, where everything is some shade of red. Everything. Characters are red. They dress in red. The buildings and the streets are red. It's all red. Okay, there are some yellows and oranges but they only make the reds more red! 

While you're seeing red, you're hearing blue. Hazbin Hotel has to be one of the sweariest shows I've ever watched. Certainly the sweariest since Deadloch and it doesn't even have the excuse of being Australian. I'm six shows in (Prime are doing that thing of releasing episodes on Fridays, a couple at a time.) and I think the firehose of four-letter words may have been turned down just a notch, although it's possible I'm just inured to it now. 

The older I get, the more I realise I love creative swearing. I used to find it abrasive and awkward but now I just relish it like good music. Hazbin Hotel has some extremely musical swearing and I'm not even being metaphorical because Hazbin Hotel is a musical.

Oh yes, did I not mention that? As if it wasn't enough to have super-sweary demons swaggering around a scarlet, cartoon Hell, they also keep breaking into song. Throw in a central plot about genocide, some sub-plots concerning pornography, coercion and consent and a whole raft of religious table-turning, top it off with plenty of explosive, cartoon violence and you have something pretty much guaranteed to annoy or offend almost anyone.

I love it and apparently a lot of other people do, too, because it holds the current record for the "largest global debut for a new animated series on Prime Video", at least according to Wikipedia. I haven't even mentioned one of the show's greatest strengths, the characters, all of whom are memorable and frequently endearing. 

In short, highly recommended, provided you don't shy at swearing, sex, religion or song and dance numbers. Or, I guess, suffer from red/green color-blindness, which I imagine would be kind of a problem...

My Daemon (Netflix)

Another new show about which I knew absolutely nothing before I began watching it. Unlike Hazbin Hotel, whose wiki presence is enormous, My Daemon rates only a basic, factual, uninflected entry on Wikipedia. It deserves so much more.

Whereas Hazbin Hotel sets out to shock but mostly succeeeds in being immensley enjoyable and entertaining, My Daemon comes in under the radar to deliver an emotional payload so harrowing I had to debate with myself quite seriously about whether I could go on watching after the first episode. Seriously, it's traumatizing.

The Cliff Notes version: a road movie with a quest narrative in which a child protagonist attempts to walk from one side of a futuristic, post-nuclear-disaster Japan to the other in search of a rumored daemon with the power to raise the dead. So far, so anime. 

The heartbreak is in the reason for his journey and the horror is in the razor-edge line the narrative walks between quotidian good and thoughtless evil. Without spoilers, there's not much I can offer in the way of detail. Just know that every character, even the bit-parts and walk-ons, comes freighted with a life all their own, motivations and attitudes and assumptions the narrative subtly offers and invites you to understand, accept or challenge.

Coming fresh to the show, I expected the titular daemon to be a supernatural, otherworldly entity. I didn't take the extra "a" to be significant but it absolutely is. These are the daemons of His Dark Materials, seen through a science fiction lens. Philip K Dick would have recognised them as his great-grandchildren.

Visually, My Daemon is stunning. The animation is fluid and subtle but the backgrounds are purely sublime. It's one of the most beautiful shows I've seen and of late I've watched a lot of action taking place in front of jaw-droppingly gorgeous backdrops. The standard is high but this exceeds it.

The writing matches the visuals and the voice acting doesn't let either down . The real problem with the show is its emotional impact, something that on multiple occasions I've found almost more than I could take. The repeated scenes of what can only be called animal cruelty, even if the daemons are, technically, something not-animal, are particularly horrific and the perpetual tension around whether Kento, a nine-year old orphan can keep his best friend, Anna, the ineffably loveable, loyal and - as Kento claims - incredibly cute daemon he raised from a tiny speck, at times verges on the unbearable.

Throw in the death of a parent, a terminal illness and a mysterious government organisation, devoid of all humanity, determined to have Anna, "dead or alive", and you have the potential for melodramatic sci-fi soap opera. Instead you get something rich, strange and fine.

I'm five episodes into the thirteen-episode limited series. I hope it has a happy ending. I hope I can make it through to see it.

Obviously, this one is highly recommended, too. If you think you can take the emotional strain, that is.