Animated shows really do have an addiction to complexity, and I acknowledge that. You’ve got a piece of Western media, for instance, and the premise is something like ‘some high school kids are secretly werewolves!’. Or ‘some kids turn into animals!’.
But then you get to an animated show and it’s all ‘in the year 2070, the Earth’s continents were split by a magical meteor, and certain humans gained special elemental powers, and mystery spirits started to appear in the form of cute heroes, and animals started to talk to people, and there was discovered a secret breed of humans who can talk to trees, and there’s an evil government agency which is secretly aliens who want the power of the meteor to open up a portal to the dark dimension.’
Case in point: Oh, My Princess, Hyperbaric Therapy Queen! Yeah, it’s all about hyperbaric chambers, except in this universe, people climb inside them and fly them like rockets. Oxygen-powered rockets. Sure.
I think this one goes overboard for me. You could have a really charming show about someone learning to be a hyperbaric specialist…and I think they already did something similar, but whatever. Or maybe a universe where oxygen therapy specialists can do magic and they travel around helping people with ghostly breathing problems. But in this one, Melbourne experienced a civil war, was divided into royal districts, magic emerged into the world in the form of song, and then suddenly Melbourne was sealed off by an unknown magical barrier and is constantly being attacked by Asthma Golems, who can only be defeated by a plucky young group flying rockets that are are also hyperbaric chambers.
And my response to those elements, in turn, is ‘how?’, ‘why though?’, again, why?’, ‘why?’, ‘really?’, “Why are they all teenagers?’ and ‘I don’t think the hyperbaric chambers available in Melbourne work like that’.
Not immersive enough. 2/10 minus points.
-Dylan