#nice lineart? don’t know her/pos

[cupophrogs]

@impishjesters okok but hear me out-

[infini-tree]

ok seeing as ive essentially bingewatched all of tpod have this informal review abt my first impressions overall:

pros:

while there are only so little movie characters in the series, the ones that do appear are still in-character and develops the secondary characters 

THIS SHOW MADE ME RLY SAD ABT GRANDMA PANDA FOR A HOT SECOND THERE SO PROPS

actually, kinda made me care abt li shan by making him a more distinct character. ymmv on him, but the angle of him being this Really Proud Dad to compensate the fact that he’s never had to be w po during his childhood’s an interesting angle (either that or he was bragging. there’s probably that too)

the villain's main two-faced gimmick and deceit is good. you know that moment in kfp2 where shen tells po his parents never loved him to psyche him out?? that’s literally just jindiao’s mo, so its fun

so, here’s a possibly contentious opinion: the kids...... are alright. better than alright, really. they’re good. their characters are distinct, and they act like good kid characters-- they’re not obnoxious and their interactions are nice

every other series-exclusive character has fun designs and gimmicks for the most part

cons:

lets just get this one out of the way-- the five and shifu don’t show up. they’re only mentioned in name, and the closest thing you get to a cameo is nu hai holding the tigress action figure

admittedly, not all kids are made equal, development-wise. jing (the one with the white tiger) is the most developed out of the four by virtue of the fact that the most things happen to her than others. then comes nu hai (azure blue dragon), bao (black tortoise), and fan tong (vermilion bird red phoenix), so gauge your expectations based on that

the setting.......... is very small. by that i mean there isnt a lot of new places, and the ones that are there are pretty generic. really, there’s only two that stand out in my mind (the one based on the irl hanging monastery in china, and the Criminal Village whose name i forgot)

bits of dialogue uh... inconsistency??? like, you know how in movies there are certain elements that are arguably ‘modern’ (like the concept of action figures and the like) but are otherwise justified in a lighthearted-ish version of ancient china (like the concept of Really Fast Portrait Painters in place of cameras in holiday special)-- there are mentions of pizza and other contemporary things/turns of phrases for comedic effect, so depending on how you are it can be really jarring to hear that

they essentially incapacitated po in a way halfway thru the season, mostly so the kids dont have a safety net in the form of him potentially helping them out. its..... annoying

the actual four constellations-- you know, the characters whose existence kinda are/were pivotal to the plot?? they’re all very generic kinda-jerky kung fu guys in both personality and designs. they literally just rehashed the oogway/tai lung/shen models rip

the ending...... imo is a little............. basically really similar to kfp3. if you still want to watch it, then i won’t spoil it but it kinda lost me at the climactic final battle at the end there (which is Not A Good Thing for a climactic final battle to do)

slight quibble, but all this qi terminology is extremely silly. Good Chi?? Evil Chi??? HERO CHI????

let me be a little bit cynical here, a part of me still thinks they went w the panda kids angle is bc they’d appeal to kids more and potentially get more money

other things:

the kids are voiced by actual kids, i think?? or at least really convincing adults

heres another point of contention: the 2d ink style works better in the series than in 3 proper bc its a lot more sketchy and more like ink rather than clean lineart with an ink filter on top??? idk its hard to explain

on occasion, there will be a montage and those montages will have songs in chinese??? thats fun

more species are shown!!!

referenced kfp3 Happening and even named-dropped kai. conversely, it seems that they really want to brush kfp2 under the carpet when talking about past threats that befell the panda village

apparently they forgot insects are sentient in this universe, seeing as there are multiple gross food gags where bugs are an ingredient. notable mention goes to this maggot soup thing that one of the characters eats. does that count as eating children????

you bet ur ass im using the panda village lore in au’s

ping x cart real

conclusion:

imo the series is a fun departure from canon, but you Really gotta turn off your brain to keep from pointing out potential inconsistencies towards the movies. if you’re really turned off by the fact that the five and shifu aren’t here, then its probably not gonna be fun for you to sit thru 6.5 hours of this

but if you guys are interested in fun setpieces and characters with little regard for keeping movie canon sacred, then i guess i can recommend it. its kinda like watching those movies for anime series-- with minimal having to care about them outside of that one self-contained thing

but as ive said-- last bit is a copout, perhaps even moreso than 3. its really all about the journey for this series, rather than the destination