January Bonus Review: She-Ra & The Princesses of Power series 1 & 2

Since we’re getting towards the end of fantasy month, it feels appropriate to look at something fantasy related. The reason I chose the She-Ra reboot is that I’ve seen it lauded as a rare example of a reboot done well and I’ve heard it has a shit tonne of ho-yay and we love our well done ho-yay. That being said, I have to confess to something before I start.

I don’t know that much about the original She-Ra. The cartoon started before I was born and ended when I was all of one. As far as I know, it never really made it big over here either. Maybe in the States She-Ra and He-Man were big, marketable successes but I don’t think that carried over. Then again, it was before my time so maybe they did have some success and I’m just not aware of it. I have seen a little bit of both She-Ra and He-Man, but they both struck me as mediocre cartoon series with low quality animation and bland writing. So, I never watched that much.

Now, you’d think that would make a fairly low bar to clear but then you look at the reboots of things like Lost in Space or the live action based off of those cheesy Archie comics and see how shite they are and you realise that sometimes even relatively low bars become insurmountable due to sheer incompetence. But this is supposed to be a reboot done well, so let’s see how it does.

Story:

Adora is a promising young horde soldier. She’s been raised by the sorceress, Shadow Weaver, for great things. And with her closest, more than friend Catra by her side it seems like nothing can go wrong. That is until the pair of them find a mysterious sword in the woods and it calls to Adora, leading her to take the mantle of She-Ra, princess of power, and join with the rebellion against the horde. The first series has an arc about Adora learning about her powers and building a new princess alliance with her companions, Glimmer and Bow. The second series doesn’t really have an arc. It’s mainly used for set up.

I have two issues with the writing. The first is that the second series just seems to end abruptly with nothing major happening. It has some good episodes, certainly. The finale with Bow’s dads is really good. The one where the princesses and Bow spend most of the episode goofing around with impractical plans is actually really funny. But it doesn’t feel like a proper series. In the first series, there’s a big climactic moment at the end and a satisfying arc. In the second, there are a bunch of episodes that you could basically watch in any order and it wouldn’t matter and it ends on a cliffhanger. My second issue is that some aspects of the plot rely on the characters being dumb for no reason. Take the beginning when Adora is first brought to Bright Moon and, instead of having her change her clothes, she just stays in her horde soldier garb and it leads to an immediate and completely avoidable misunderstanding. While those moments aren’t common, they are glaringly obvious when they happen.

With those complaints out the way, I will admit that I actually kind of love the writing in this series. There’s a lot of really strong build up. The world building is fantastic. The sense of humour is very much perfect for me. It’s very similar to the witty dialogue Gail Simone uses for comedic effect in her comics combined blended with the kind of quirky situations and characters you’d get in the Big Hero 6 cartoon. There’s a lot of intrigue and sources of tension. With the original, I watched a bit and didn’t really care to see more. With this one I watched an episode and got really hooked. It’s also charming as hell.

Characters:

I quite like the cast in this and it’s not just their funny quirks that make them endearing or their really strong interactions. It’s that these characters have a genuine sense of complexity. From what little I saw of the original, the villains seemed to be evil for the sake of being evil and the heroes were just kind of trite archetypes.

In this one, the antagonists have actual motivations and likeable traits. Take Scorpia. She’s a villain, but she’s also fiercely loyal to her friends and a self-described “hugger.” She’s like that friend who’s a bit too touchy feely but you still appreciate and value them because you know you can always count on them. The only antagonist who doesn’t seem to have many redeeming qualities at this point is Hordak himself but I think part of that is that the series has only hinted at his motivations and he’s largely been a shadowy figure.

The strong bond between Catra and Adora is particularly interesting. And I’m not saying that because it oozes les-yay. I’m saying that because the fact that they were very close and ended up being torn apart because Catra wanted to follow her ambitions and Adora wanted her conscience leads to a lot of strong, heartfelt moments where they reflect on what they had, there are clearly some regrets. It also helps add depth to Catra’s character since a lot of her worst moments don’t come across as her just being evil, but seem to stem from bitterness over feeling that Adora abandoned her.

The protagonists are interesting as well. One thing I’ll fully credit this cartoon with is that it can give you very limited time with a character and not only make an impression with that character but also imbue them some complexity. Characters like Netossa, Spinnerella, Madame Razz and Bow’s Dads are all great examples since they all have very limited screen time but they all have some verisimilitude and enough strong moments to make them memorable.

The only character I kind of dislike is Swift Wind. His whole thing is that he’s a talking horse with higher reasoning skills who wants to liberate the other horses and act like the over-exuberant kid sidekick. As a consequence. there are times where he really comes across as a bit obnoxious and just like the writers are trying to hard to make him the “fun” character.

Art:

The art style in this kind of reminds me of the Big Hero 6 cartoon with the way characters move and the general aesthetic but the characters in this don’t have the issue with the weird looking super toothy smiles. The action sequences and backgrounds all look good.

For the sake of being thorough, I did check the original character designs and compare them to the new ones and I honestly think they did a great job with updating the designs for the modern era, adding some diversity both in terms of character ethnicities and in terms of general appearances. In the old series, most of the characters look like reskins with the exact same builds and faces. In the new version, they each have their own unique look. Which I can appreciate.

Sound:

The acting is pretty good. Maybe not among the best performances in a cartoon but they’re a leap above being merely serviceable. Aimee Carrero, AJ Michalka, Karen Fukuhara, Marcus Scribner, Lorraine Toussaint, Lauren Ash… they’re all good in this. And Keston John does manage to sound good and intimidating in his role. The music is decent enough. It gets the job done. Though I wouldn’t go out of my way to listen to it on its own.

Ho-yay:

There is actually a lot. Adora and Catra seem to have feelings that go deeper than friendship. Bow has two dads and they’re pretty adorable. Netossa and Spinnerella are blatantly a couple. Scorpia comes across as having a bit of a crush on Catra. So, those are the big, notable examples we have in two series.

Areas of Improvement:

1. I would have liked to see the second series do something major with its climax instead of being purely build up.
2. Let your characters think. I don’t mind comic relief and your characters occasionally doing something dumb in the pursuit of that, but I also don’t think you should have plot points that revolve around your characters doing something blatantly dumb like not changing out of their totally conspicuous clothes and into something a bit better.
3. Tone the stuff with Swift Wind down a bit.

Final Thoughts:

I actually really enjoyed this series. I can understand why it’s given as an example of a good reboot. It has charm, a strong sense of adventure, a really fantastic cast of characters with great interactions and there’s just a lot to recommend it. I’m going to give it a 9/10. And I almost went higher but the things that held back the first two series were a bit too substantial. But I’m still definitely going to watch the other three series.