by Hedge
I spoke a while back about how Pendleton Ward, creator of Adventure Time, is insane. Well he – and housemate Breehn Burns, creator of the Dr Tran webseries – have returned to our minds with Bravest Warriors, an online exclusive series that takes the best things about Adventure Time, wraps them in a science fiction burrito and shoves it in your face cave.
As the series is web exclusive, and hosted on Cartoon Hangover’s YouTube site, I have the pleasure of providing both episodes aired to-date before I talk about them. So you can see for yourself exactly why this series is so great. Because it is great.
Episode One: Time Slime
Episode Two: Emotion Lord
Based around these four friends, Bravest Warriors promises to explore the galaxy and give us twelve episodes of fun and weirdness and they’ve already set themselves up well in these two initial outings.
Bravest Warriors has the same delightful animation style and snappy writing as its big brother, coupled with online exclusivity that permits somewhat edgier content. In the same way that Futurama did, the series benefits from having the rich universe provided by a science fiction setting while drawing on its roots as a children’s television series. I suspect that, like Adventure Time before it, the majority of Bravest Warriors’ viewers are going to be nerds aged 18 through 35 and would assume the remaining 10 episodes will continue to have content aimed at both the younger audience and the more mature.
Well. Physically mature, anyway.
With several jokes based on the name ‘fartsparkles’ in the first episode we can be sure that those who are going to love this show like I do, don’t mind a bit of clever, if not off-colour, humour. Coupled with the science fiction plot lines, stellar voice acting and wacky character designs I think Ward and Burns have a clear winner on their hands.
My one complaint about the series is that the episodes are short; really short. Adventure Time episodes are, admittedly, only twelve minutes or so each but they serve them as a double feature that prolongs the enjoyment. With only five minutes delivered at a time – and twelve episodes in the first season of Bravest Warriors – it does mean the audience is left wanting for more. I do understand the reasoning behind it, this is an online only, independent series after all, but it does make me a little sad.
The short length means that these are less episodes in the characters lives and more like moments in time and it’s a credit to the writing that after less than a quarter hour of overall exposure I can have grown to like the characters, and to begin to understand their personalities, as well as I have.
If you enjoy Adventure Time or any of the other contemporary “childrens’ series watched mostly by grown-ass adults” and you haven’t checked out Bravest Warriors then you’re seriously missing out. You can get new episodes delivered weekly by subscribing to Cartoon Hangover on YouTube and I highly recommend it.
I, for one, cannot wait for more.
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You can harass the author of this post via twitter: @CAricHanley
Or you can follow the creators of Bravest Warriors: Breehn Burns @Breehn and Pen Ward @BuenoTheBear
