There is a 2 hour long review of this show on Youtube, it's called "My Pride: Highlighting the Toxicity" and I agree with a lot of the points in the video. My review is basically a summary of the most important bits of the video, because I don't expect everybody to watch a review that is longer than the actual source material.
Let's point out first what I like about the show. The animation, it's not the best but it being an indie series, the animators put their attention where it was needed, and their hard work shows in the final product. I also really like the rest of the visuals, the backgrounds and designs of characters and locations. It's all very pretty and pleasant to look at.
The voice acting is great. One thing that doesn't make sense, however, is some characters' accents. Powerstrike and Farleap are British, while Sharptongue and Nothing are American, this doesn't make sense since they all lived in and grew up in the same place.
And I guess some of the dialogue isn't too bad. There are some lines that I like, like Nothing saying how Hover is great, and correcting herself to "hate, I hate her." when her mother judges her. That was pretty funny.
That's about everything I like. Now onto things that I think are a little less. The writing of the storyline and characters.
Episode 1 (No-Mane): this is the best episode, no question. Nothing really controversial or "weird" happens (and with weird I don't mean supernatural, this is a show with supernatural elements and that's okay), and characters are well established. 7/10, because it's just a good episode, not great, but good.
Episode 2 (Nothing): This is where things get weird. Nothing has a huntress assessment, which she doesn't finish because she trips, her assessment is then automatically done. You mean lionesses never trip on their assessments? Don't they have to finish it? There would be a LOT more lionesses with mocking names out there if it was like this. It could be passed off as Powerstrike just being very ableist, but this kind of gets retconned later on. Then there's Hover's introduction... oh boy, here we go. First of all, this is supposed to be our protag's love interest, but she makes fun of Nothing? Was this supposed to be funny? Because Hover came off as very ableist. Now, I'm not physically disabled so I can't say everything, and I guess Hover was making fun of Prides as a whole, but it still left a bad taste in my mouth. 4/10
Episode 3 (The Calling): this is also one of the better episodes. Sharptongue's death was kind of expected, since she was so sick last episode, but I still didn't expect it at the moment and the scene really set the tone well. Hover and Nothing's relationship was at the best in this episode too (ignoring the final scene, I'll talk about it later), they were actually pretty cute, I'll admit. What I didn't like however, is that Nothing was trying to get Hover to join her Pride. Like, bruh, you know how awful the Pride is to you, and you want Hover to join your misogynistic cult?! I also cannot believe Hover would agree to that, it was very out of character for her. Also out of character for Nothing to invite Hover. Then there's the final narration by an older Nothing, "I wouldn't have let her join if I had known what would come next." And nothing proceeds to happen that couldn't possibly have happened according to Pride Law (established lore). Another thing that I didn't like was how Nothing and Hover are supposedly already in a relationship here (it was confirmed outside of the show by Tribble). This show being gay is your main marketing tactic, so why can't you have your lesbian lions ask each other to be their mate or say that they are mates? I just thought they were pining after each other while watching the episode, I was actually looking forward to a confession scene, but I guess these lions are mates and in love even though they show almost no signs of it. 5.5/10 because it was pretty decent ignoring its problems.
Episode 4 (Outsider): this episode falls into the "innocent dumb child accidentally causing trouble"-trope that I absolutely despise. Now I don't like Feather's character as a whole, but in this episode he is especially annoying. Also the weird thing of Nothing forgetting about time for like a minute. If you had that little time, maybe you shouldn't have gone away, maybe. And also Hover's assessment happening while Nothing was slightly late. How short are these assessments?! Overall this episode has very bad writing and everything that happens doesn't seem natural and was just put there to keep the plot moving and to introduce drama. 3/10.
Episode 5 (Escape): Visually the most impressive episode. This was the only episode where I found myself disappointed the action bits weren't longer, Quickmane's corpse genuinely scared me a bit on my first watch. Okay, here comes the dumb useless drama. First of all, Hover being upset with Nothing is very pointless. Yes, she broke a promise, but being angry and refusing to help her at the moment seems very petty, her brother is literally in danger of being murdered! What do you mean you won't help her because she didn't show up to the dumb test that you suddenly care about?! I thought you didn't care about Prides, but for Nothing you would do anything. Hover is very stupid in this episode and it actually made me hate her. (Also, what kind of name is Longrun? Swiftbite, her name in the original book, was way better, why'd you change it, Tribble?) Then there's Powerstrike. Oh boy. Yes, she suddenly cares about her daughter now, even though she was abusive to her in past episodes. I get the "hiding your love because it means weakness"-trope, but suddenly she doesn't care about that anymore? Also she just lets her son die I guess. "You could have been a Hunt Chief" yikes, guess you only love your daughter because of what she could have accomplished, not because... oh, idk, because she's your daughter?! 5/10 because of the pretty visuals, I can't bring myself to totally hate this episode.
Episode 6 (Prideless): If you took this episode out, nothing would change in the story. Yes, we already know Nothing wouldn't abandon Feather, you've established she's not that kind of person, what kind of test is this? Rain was interesting while we didn't know who she was, theorising on who she is was fun but overall there isn't much to say about her. 4/10 because it isn't *bad*, just pointless.
Ep 7: I really don't like it. Farleap's jealous of her sister whose life is terrible, gets mistreated by everyone she knows and is now supposedly dead? Yeah, no. According to Farleap Nothing got all the attention from Powerstrike. This is just... incorrect. It was established in episode 5 that Powerstrike tried to ignore Nothing the best she could, and in every single scene they interacted Powerstrike was yelling at Nothing. Was this what you were jealous of, Farleap? Powerstrike suddenly also cares about Nothing's wellbeing (no, the "confession" from episode 5 doesn't count), and tries to defend Hover. I hate the fact that Powerstrike is getting away with abusing Nothing, because Nothing is a kind person and is going to forgive her mother if Powerstrike apologises, I honestly hope Powerstrike dies before this can happen, there is no way a scene like that can go well. 3/10
Ep 8: This episode is very out of place, it seems like it was added in last minute. Karabi and Kyoga were cute and the "plot twist" (basically everybody knew it already before the episode) that they were in a relationship, was pretty well-executed. Their relationship, however, wasn't the best. I'm just going to say it, Nothing being a reincarnation of Kyoga is stupid. She's now destined to be special and to defeat Lite, when she was already special, because she survived all these hardships! You don't have to make her chosen by the godesses! This actually ruins her character in my opinion. If it is revealed Hover is actually the reincarnation of Karabi, I'm going to riot, this would make their relationship "destiny" which makes it less special. 2/10 because the visuals and world were cool.
Episode 9 (Fire): I didn't expect this LGBTQ-show to be so queerbait-y. Moonstrike is a token trans character (NO, we aren't counting that one other trans character that shows up blurred in the background in one frame, I bet most of you don't even know who I'm talking about), she is a Hunt Chief who is a Hunt Chief despite Pride Law being extremely anti-LGBTQ. Nothing is explained about this. Fire and Feather's rivalry came out of nowhere. I also HATE Feather's speech, like bro, you're an able-bodied person, you don't get to say what is empowering to Nothing. Her name is basically a slur! What do you mean it means something else now? 4/10
Ep 10: By this episode I was kind of numb. I don't have any strong opinions on anything except that Nothing yelling "my name is Nothing!" was very cringey. Why is Fire even trying to kill his sister? He seemed nice in episode 9. Feather fake-dying was also stupid, that wound should totally have killed him. Should have just had the guts to kill him off. 3/10
Also, I am not a big fan of Tribbleofdoom anymore because of this show. I appreciate her efforts to make a project that she is passionate about, but it's not good. I'm not going to sugarcoat it, the show is toxic, ableist, queerbait-y, and has bad writing. And this actually hurts to type, I've been subscribed to Tribble's channel since episode 24 of Cow of the Wild, which is way before the first trailer dropped, which was also better than the current trailer for Season 1.
TLDR: Cow of the Wild was better. I cannot bring myself to rate an indie project lower than 4/10 when I know how hard it can be to manage one, but my actualy opinion would be like 3/10 or something.
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