- Released: 14 June 2019
- Creator: Matt Braly
- Amount of seasons: 3
- Seasons watched: 1, 2, 3
- Rating: 5/5
Synopsis
Three teenage girls end up in a dangerous world of talking amphibians and have to find a way to get back home.
My Thoughts
It's over. It's officially over. I can't believe it.
Unlike many, I didn't get into Amphibia until season 2 was already being released. I saw hype surrounding it before, but me one day being bored and watching the first episode got me hooked pretty much instantly. Yesterday as of writing this, the last episode of the final season dropped, and I am an emotional wreck now.
To cut to the chase: Amphibia is definitely in my top five favorite shows at the moment. And probably my favorite show I've watched for the first time (so not counting re-watches of older shows) in the past three-five years. It has everything I love: an epic and dangerous fantasy world, great and likable characters, good world-building and animation, some really epic, funny and heartfelt moments, and of course ye olde found family trope.
The story surrounds three teenage friends, Anne (our protagonist), determined and controlling Sasha and nerdy and klutzy Marcy. From here on out they each bond with different people and also have to resolve some of their personal issues, as back on Earth neither one of them was the perfect friend to the others.
Anne ends up bonding with a farming frog family known as the Plantars, consisting of Hop Pop, the elderly leader, and his grandchildren Sprig (Anne's future best friend) and tomboyish Polly. From here on out season 1 mostly deals with small interpersonal conflicts between the frogs of the town the Plantars inhabit, Wartwood, and Anne and the Plantars themselves.
Season one mostly starts things off small this way, but there's definitely some moments of deeper plot and more heartfelt or dark moments throughout. It all comes together in a pretty damn intense climax where our main characters have to face Sasha and an army of toads terrorizing the small town of Wartwood.
Season two slowly start to build things up to be more intense. Anne and Sasha are now (for the moment) sworn enemies, and Anne gets finally reunited with Marcy, who is now a part of the grand city of Newtopia, ruled by a future major villain: king Andrias. From here on out the duo plus the Plantars must go on a quest to charge the gems on the magical music box that sent them to Amphibia in the first place. This season still has a lot of the small-conflict episodes, but it's more intermixed with more serious episodes that hint at the bigger ongoing plot of the series. It all comes together in a great an epic season finale full of betrayal, heartache and beautiful animation.
Season three can be split into two parts: the first part dealing with the Plantars and Anne now being on Earth and having to adjust to life there while trying to get back to Amphibia, and part two being about the ultimate battle to save not only Amphibia but also Earth.
Season two and three is really where I think the series is at its best, with a perfect mix of plot-driven episode and more small-conflict short episodes that don't do much for the overall plot. The pacing of this series is honestly great if you ask me. I love The Owl House, another current Disney show, for example, but I do think that the pacing in that show is just a little too fast when it comes to the main conflict. We're rarely given any moments to breathe between the major episodes that mean something for the overall story-line. Amphibia doesn't have this problem, with a perfect balance without too much filler or too many consecutive plot-heavy episodes.
I also just love the tone. Amphibia can both be really funny, really epic and really heartfelt. And that's a difficult balance to maintain. Heck, even some shows I like that try to balance all three usually only excel at two of these. Heck, in Amphibia there's even some comedic moments in the more serious or dramatic episodes/scenes, and it somehow just makes them work without taking away from the moment.
The animation is usually pretty standard TV-quality hand-drawn animation, however I will say that when they do really try and put a big budget behind it, it can look absolutely breathtaking. A good example of this would probably be the season two finale battle between Anne and Andrias. The animation there is so damn good. And it's not just that moment, others too, but this is just one of the most obvious showcases of how good it can really be.
The world-building of Amphibia is also great. It's not a perfect fantasy world you'd want to end up in. There's dangerous predators around every corner, toads that terrorize small towns and of course an evil king serving an even more evil Core trying to take over the world. But at the same time there's some real aspects of the world to fall in love with as well, whether it's the creative designs and concepts they come up with or the many lovable characters.
Speaking of which, that's where the show really shines to me. The characters and their relationships. Anne's relationship to the Plantar family just feels so damn heartfelt. They take her in like one of their own despite obviously not having to. And they grow so close and it's just so damn wholesome, especially the brother-sister best friend bond between Anne and Sprig.
The other characters develop some pretty heartfelt relationships, too. Whether it's Sasha getting semi-adopted by the warlord Grime or Marcy befriending Andrias, Yunan and Olivia and of course many others, such as the bond between Sprig and Ivy or Polly and her robot friend Frobo. And of course, at the core (pun intended) of the entire show is the bond between the three girls. Neither of them was a perfect friend, but in the end they manage to work through their differences and re-unite, and it's just so damn sweet.
The series finale is of course fresh in my mind, so I'll just talk about it here: it's fantastic. Probably one of my favorite finales of a show to this date. It's epic, it's groundbreaking, it's funny and it's heartfelt. The animation is fantastic, each of our main characters get to shine and it was just overall so moving.
Amphibia is saved, but Anne does die. Yes, a character in a Disney show died. It wasn't a fake-out. Yes, of course she is eventually brought back, but in a cloned body instead. Her old body is definitely gone. And there's of course the fact that she'll become a god in 80 years or so now. Damn.
This penultimate episode of course has to deal with the goodbyes. Anne, Marcy and Sasha go home, and say goodbye to each of their found families and friends. Just overall a really painful moment. And I really admire that they committed to the fact that the girls can't return to Amphibia or vice versa. It would've made the emotional goodbyes a whole lot cheaper if after a while they somehow found a way to return. But they don't. One last portal and, unfortunately, they never see their amphibian friends again.
Another thing I admire the crew allowed to happen is, 10 years later, the girls having grown apart a bit. They're still friends, but each of them have their own life now and they don't see one another as much. But they're still friends. Maybe not besties anymore, but still friends. And that's good. Change is a major theme of the show, and I think this is a good way to encapsulate that. They may not see each other each day anymore, or be the very closest, but they are still friends through it all.
And finally, Andrias. I like that they didn't kill him off. Is he redeemed? Well, he at least tried to redeem himself? He did use his powers for good in this finale, and I like that. In the epilogue it's shown that he has become a farmer instead, probably serving a sentence for almost allowing the destruction of multiple worlds to happen.
It just would've been so easy to do what I've seen multiple shows and movies do over the past years: having morally (almost) irredeemable characters "redeem" themselves by doing one good act and then dying (just think about Snape from Harry Potter, Billy from Stranger Things or Shadow Weaver from She-Ra and the Princesses of Power). That's the easy way out. It shows that they didn't need to keep working on themselves after all the horrible shit they did; they just had to do one kind thing and after that it's over and they're usually seen as fully redeemed in the eyes of our characters.
Andrias doesn't die. He loses almost everything, and he knows that he won't be forgiven by pretty much everyone around him. Heck, he doesn't even try to say a proper goodbye to Marcy because he knows there's no coming back from the awful things he did to her. But he did do a few good things in the finale and in the epilogue we do see that he's working for a better future of Amphibia. This doesn't mean his actions are forgiven, but it means that he's actively working on himself even though he never may be forgiven. That's a whole lot more powerful than just killing someone off and redeeming them the easy way.
Overall this is just a really beautiful and powerful series and I'm sure I'll be re-visiting it many times in the future. Currently it's one of my all-time favorites and it rightfully deserves that spot in my top five if you ask me. I wish the crew the very best on whatever projects they take on next and just want to say thank you for creating such a great show.
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