Chesed

Let me start out by saying that I'm not one to default to being biased towards children's media or 3D animation. One of my favorite shows of all time is children's media that utilizes 3D animation. However, there is a certain bar of quality one needs to hit. Either the 3D animation needs to be actually good, or at least passable, or the story needs to be good enough to make up for the animation. Onyankopon fails on all fronts in this regard. And unfortunately, when your show is shorts, that tends to kill it, badly. On top of the generally hideous, poorly done animation that involvessuch delights as the hair clipping upwards randomly when connecting too much with a character's arm, content actually gets reused. In fact, one of the running gags of the series is just to repeat the same thing over and over again to attempted humorous effect. Sadly, it doesn't make it enjoyable. Somehow, hearing the same four girls yell the same thing out multiple times in a row doesn't make me laugh. I get it. Not everything that a kid would find funny is something I, as an adult, can find funny. But that's where another issue comes in. This show is clearly aimed at young children, but the jokes are aimed at tweens-younger teens, who are not going to laugh at these jokes or waste their time on the series in the first place. Children aren't going to think these jokes are funny because they'll likely go over their head. The jokes that aren't obviously aimed at tweens come off as boring and crude at best. About the only thing that's remotely enjoyable about the show is the random music number thrown in near the end of each episode, as the background music for some of the songs is quite nice. This is again, ruined by repetition, because the characters can't stop singing "Onyankopon." The lyrics that aren't the name of the main character/show are nonsense lyrics about what the writers clearly think young girls think about, which they don't. Nobody does. None of the problems presented are real. Speaking of characters, I remember the name of exactly one character. Can you guess who? Surely not the character who gets his name said at least twenty times an episode, half of which by himself. The four girls that are in this show probably had names. I've already forgotten, and I'm writing this review right after watching the show. If they were meant to be memorable, they weren't. They don't even have different personalities beyond the girl wearing glasses kind of appearing to be the "smart and calm" stereotype. The other three just blend. I can't even recommend this in the sense of "it's so bad it's funny," because it's not. It's just incredibly dull, unfunny, and badly animated to the point of being insulting. Huge avoid. This isn't even something to throw on for the children to watch.