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I decided to watch this show for the August 2019 Anime Watching Challenge because I needed to watch a fantasy anime. As an African, I always love to see black characters represented in anime and I was sold once I found out that the creator was black as well. I know that's not a great way to build a watchlist, but I had to support a brother.

Art: 8/10
The character designs are all unique, which helps if you're like me and can't remember names. I especially applaud this show for its flawless integration of 3D with 2D designs. The sparse use of 3D really served ... it well. There was also some great background art, creating a scenic setting that matches a show of this genre.

Sound: 6/10
I don't have anything to say about the sound design. Nothing particularly stood out to me. I will say that they had an awesome intro song though. I literally never skipped the intro on Netflix and even as I grew frustrated with the show, I would always appreciate this ultimate bop. Will definitely add to playlist. I wish the tempo was even more upbeat though.

This is the last positive thing I will say about the show. If you are a huge fan, please stop reading because I'm about to rip this anime to shreds.

Story: 3/10
Character: 1/10
Enjoyment: 2/10

I'll group these 3 together just because they're all intertwined. I have no idea how this show was allowed to be made. I'm genuinely confused. It starts out alright with us meeting the main characters. I was intrigued since I'm a sucker for shows in which the main characters adventure together through different lands while meeting interesting characters along the way. The show is definitely this type of anime but it had major flaws that made me unable to appreciate any of that.

The main issue is the lack of character development. The only way the premise of a group of characters traveling together works if you actually like the characters. Not only did I not like them, I didn't know anything about them. After the first few episodes, I expected us to see subtle characteristics that reflect their personalities and outlook on life. The show was more concerned with making Philly look as "cool" as possible rather than actually showing us how he came to have this unfazed, unenthusiastic attitude as well as the effect his loneliness has on him. They really gave us 5 seconds of his backstory in episode 11 and expected us to feel anything for the guy.

They also made him so overpowered that there were absolutely no stakes in every fight he was in. It's not a good sign when your viewer is hoping that the main character gets actually killed or heavily injured.

The 2 bots were purposely written as naive idiots just so the writers can dump exposition on the viewer with the pretense of Philly having to explain every detail of the world they themselves live in. This is cheap and makes me feel like the writers just didn't give enough of a f*** to ingrain details in the scenes for the viewer to pick up on themselves. Other than the 5 minutes in ep8 that I felt pity for Casey and the first few episodes where we learn about Sam's relationship with the Prince, I didn't actually care for any of the characters in this show.

This is sad because instead of doing this episodic bulls***, they could have spent time diving deep into these characters to reveal what makes them tick, what motivates them, what makes them themselves. But the writer decided that it was more vital to the story to show how cooky and zany the different towns of the universe are. I DONT CAAAARRREEEE! Give me heart, give me passion, give me something to make me want to root for these characters instead of spending nearly 6 hours of my life watching the most hollow characters do absolutely nothing and finally being thrown into a battle. They should have been building up to the final fight, instilling anticipation in the viewer with each episode. Instead, we had no idea how far away they were from their destination and had no actual confirmation that Philly was indeed taking them there. Because I still can't come up with any legitimate reason why he would. He could have just roamed around and gone where he wanted to go while lying to his companions so as to keep Casey with him as his handyman. I fact, taking them where they wanted to go would only lead to Casey leaving with Sam and Philly being left without a handyman. There is more reason for him to keep them away from their destination! THIS IS SIMMMMMMPLLLEEE TO FIGGGGURRREE OUUUT! The people ivolved in this show could have taken 1 second to flesh out this part and made this show make sense. But no! They have cool transformer cars. They don't need decent writing!

And to top it all off, they came back to spit in my face with the sh**show that was the last 2 episodes. I genuinely feel disrespected. The writers gave absolutely no f***s and decided they'd throw all reason out the window. Because of the lack of character development, the viewer was forced to assume each character's motivations for doing what they were doing. But the writers wanted to "surprise" us, so they wrote the final 2 episodes in which none of the things the characters did made any sense and you were forced to watch the most chaotic fight scenes, not knowing who was on who's side. I truly felt like I had missed an entire season of content between episode 10 and 11 because the random s*** that was happening had no rhyme or reason.

I think this is it for me. I don't know if accurately describe how much of a waste of time this show was. I can't understand how anyone could come out of this wanting a second season. The entire show was clearly a setup for the next season, but I genuinely hope it doesn't happen for the sake of my sanity.

I know this review was pretty dramatic but I just want to say that if you did enjoy it, good for you. We all have different tastes, but this was just my take on this show.