Wakfu
This is a cutscene. A very long, boring cutscene.
It follows every single RPG plot trope right down to the letter: young kid with mysterious past, remote village, dragon, frikkin' chocobo, 16-tonnes of undefined <words> that would be in <brackets> so you know they are <important> in a <game>, boss-what-joins the party, etc. Heck, even random gold pieces lying about in fields, ready to be grasped as soon as you stand on the sparkly thing and push A. About the only thing it didn't do was kill the father figure, and I'm sure he'll choke to death on a fishbone in the next episode or something. I suppose it might have been funny, once -- depressing for a kid's show.
The art, while clean, looks like it was done for a Flash game, which it probably was. The character design follows the RPG trope of impractical fashionable obscenities with those hats. I'll give them some credit for not making the main character a crazed hotheaded red-head with a sword, although I think they stole his powers from Portal.
This show is exactly like every other fantasy anime show out there except it's in French. It doesn't have any of the self-referential fun of Druaga, nor the bishie appeal of Tales. It's bland, much like the kid's cooking.
It does, however, have one of the most accurate portrayals of butter melting on a pan I've ever seen. Yeah, I'm reaching here.Although I've yet to see more than one episode of this show, it seems interesting enough. True, it does what many shows of it's kind have done before, but the vast majority of shows these days (if not all) can be said to have elements which have been used many times before. Original ideas these days are few and far between, if they even exist at all any more.
The art in the show is nice (I don't care what you think Kevin, even Flash animations and games can have amazing art if the effort is put in, and if this shows art is being compared to such a thing then I must say it is extremely well done for Flash), and as I known French already, I enjoy being able to watch it without subtitles.That's the spirit! Have diverse opinions! It makes me look less of a Handpicking Fraud, and more of a Quality Grubbing Tyrant.
I'm fairly certain that's an improvement.This show looks like it probably needs two episodes to be decided upon as we haven't got into the meaty plot yet, if there is one. So far its just establishing action and some of the rules of the setting while introducing the characters. Still, its pretty enough to take another look.
Also, there are two schools of thought, equally despised in their own way, to fantasy settings. The problem is that you need to establish the rules of the setting for the audience will cry bullshit, and this often requires the use of terminology that might not exist in the regular lexicon. Now, you can either do a data dump at the beginning, or just let the audience get it all cold and then explained in story as we go along. It's a pain in the ass and annoying either way. Besides, I'm fairly certain this show hasn't gone too far in introducing unexplained terms. The biggest one is the titular Wakfu and I think there were maybe two or three others I don't really remember.Yeah, that's a point in its favor I forgot: no data dumps. It's also pretty simple to figure out most of the terms ("Oh, that must be a deity. And I'm guessing that's money since it's coin shaped."). I'm also slightly surprised that none of the kid's father figures are dead yet, and that they seem to be having some fun with his portal abilities. Somehow doubt that it'll get to Blink-level munchkinism, but if the kid ever does start portalling people into geosyncronous orbit, I might start liking this show.Hmm - I really didn't mind this show, for all that it fit into a good handful of stereotypes. I was really amused by the french since I can actually understand it - and I am waiting for it to use my favourite french expression, it gets an instant win if it ever does.
I'd have to wait until further along to make any sort of judgments.
