My Review of Amphibia · 6:37pm May 24th, 2022
My TV Show Rating Score:
5/5: It is an awesome show!
4.5/5: it is a great show albeit not perfect
4/5: It’s a good show with minor flaws
3/5: It’s overall okay/guilty pleasure
2/5: It’s bad but not awful
1/5: Look, up in the sky! It’s super bad!
0/5: MY EYEEEESSS!!!
Greetings, everyone! This is Mr. J back with another television series to review for this afternoon. Today, I will be analyzing the recently-concluded Disney animated cartoon show entitled: Amphibia. This is one of the best Disney shows to exist on the channel and one of the very few Disney cartoons I honestly enjoy as opposed to the others. Right next to The Owl House, it is filled with lore-heavy storytelling, amazing character development, perfect comedic timing, and splendid world-building. The first time I came across this show was around last summer back when "True Colors" was being premiered. I stumbled upon a YouTuber's reaction video that featured some of the episodes from season 2. After that, I instantly became fascinated with the series and wanted to see more of it. I had to watch the full series from season 1 to the season 2 finale before the third season could premiere.
This show is about a 13 year old girl lost in a world of amphibious talking creatures. She comes across a small frog family called the Plantaars (Sprig, Hop Pop, and Polly). After a series of wacky, slice-of-life adventures, she learns a valuable experience about responsibility, sacrifice, and true friendship. Marcy and Sasha have their own adventures in respective places until they all reunite and go through a life-changing experience they'll never forget.
I absolutely adore this show and its wonderful animation style. It gives each character a unique model that fits with their personality, voice, and appearance. Granted, there are a lot of episodes that has its weird, cringey animation (such as the facial expressions), but it is not as unbearable as it seems.
The voice acting is phenomenal and flawless. I genuinely enjoyed the performances of Brenda Song as Anne Boonchuy, Justin Felbinger as Sprig, Bill Farmer as Hop Pop, Amanda Leighton as Polly, Haley Tju as Marcy/Darcy, Keith David as Andrias, and many more! Their voices fit so well with the characters they flawlessly played and made them so enjoyable and entertaining throughout the times they appeared in the show.
This show taught so many important lessons about friendships and how healthy and unhealthy they can be, depending on the nature of those relationships. As we have seen in Sasha's relationship with Anne and Marcy in the beginning, she was a toxic control freak who cared for no one except for herself and wanted nothing more than control. But after experiencing the impact of her so called "friendship" with them, she learned how harmful her influence was to them, especially to Marcy. Thus, she changed from a toxic bully to a loyal friend. Her character development was well-written and profound.
Marcy was likewise one of the most well-written characters in this show. Because she refused to let her friends go and her parents to separate them, she deliberately stranded them all in Amphibia to stay together. Until she felt first-hand the pain of betrayal, being possessed by The Core, and realizing the hardship she brought on herself and her friends, she finally understood the reality of how friendships go. I love her eccentric personality and sense of humor. A guy like me can always appreciate someone who knows how to have fun. ;)
Lastly, King Andrias is one of the best well-written tragic villains in animation history. Prior to his reign as king, he was a young newt who had two of the best friends he could ever ask for and had a happy time with them throughout his childhood until his wicked father stripped him of his happiness and pressured him to make preparations for the invasion. Leif, foreseeing the prophecy of doom from the music box, tries to warn him of the impending doom but Aldrich refuses to listen--prompting her to take the music box away from them. Thus, for a 1,000 years, The Core had Andrias as their puppet to carry out their will. I honestly always loved Andrias as opposed to many other people who hated him for what he did to Marcy. Even though I was hoping he wouldn't get redeemed, deep down I was hoping he would be given a backstory that would explain how he became what he was. I am very happy they didn't make him a one-note antagonist with a crappy redemption arc and actually made him a three-dimensional character with great dialogue, well-written backstory, and having him redeem himself in the most realistic way possible. Keith David, you rock, man!
As we have seen in both Andrias's life and in Anne's life, we understand just how toxic friendships and toxic familial life can cause significant damage to our well-being. They are basically two sides of the same coin, and Andrias is what Anne could have been if she didn't stand up to Sasha sooner unlike the former.
I can go on and on about the greatness of this show. However, I am sad to say that this series isn't perfect. Far from it. Seasons 1-2 are just perfect for me since they have their well-balanced episodic adventures. I really miss those kind of episodes. When it comes to season 3 however, it has a lot of segments that are either uninteresting, boring filler, or just downright dumb. The only season 3 episodes that are worth watching are "The New Normal', "Olivia and Yunan", "Turning Point", "The Core and the King", "The Beginning of the End", "All In', and "The Hardest Thing". I also hated the way they used the same old boring trope of the main character dying only to be brought back to life (albeit a clone in this case). But since I already complained about that recently, I won't get deep into that.
Overall, this series is awesome and well-written. Thank you, Matt Braly and crew, for creating one of the best Disney shows on the channel and inspiring so many fans around the world to follow in your footsteps and in sharing the life-changing lessons from Amphibia. For that reason, I will officially rate the show a solid 4.5/5: amphibiously dope!
Peace!
(Yes, I added a new rating score on the scale because this show deserves a higher score than a 4/5. 
I agree, mate, is gut show.
When it comes to Season 3, one of the only things I was saddened by regarding it was that there were some characters who didn’t make any appearances after their debut episodes, mainly Robert Otto and Dr. Frakes. I was deeply hoping that we’d get to see more of them because they held so much potential, but in the end…they disappeared and were never seen again.
And this may just be me, but I also believe that the episode length depicting the Plantars’s time on Earth was too short.
That and of course the pun. XD
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I do admit it would have been cool to see them again. But hey, at least we got to hear the spectacular voices of Brad Garrett and Cree Summer respectively.
Now that I think about it, you're probably right. It would have been interesting to see them explore more of Anne's world, but given the overall storyline, it was most likely for the best.
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Good point.
When you put it that way, it probably would’ve been the right concept to use for either a spin-off series or some television specials.
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A spin-off seems more likely and more interesting to me in that case.
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Out of curiosity...
How big of a time gap do you think took place between "The New Normal" and "Escape to Amphibia"?
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A month at least, give or take.