- Released: February 16, 2020
- Total amount of seasons: 1
- Seasons watched: 1
- Rating: 1.5/5
Synopsis
My Thoughts
Once upon a little more than a decade ago, a community started to form on YouTube of teenagers creating their own webseries. Usually these were animated using very bare bones programs such as MS Paint and Windows Movie Maker, and the scripts and stories were written by these people themselves. Some of these early series included Valley of Heroes, Unknown Blood, AzureHowl and Cow of the Wild.
The creator of the last series, Madeleine Patton (AKA Tribbleofdoom online), later went on to become a professional writer. Cow of the Wild was still being worked on occasionally, with it having more than twenty episodes at this point. Eventually this series was cancelled, but Patton didn't stop producing webseries content. Instead, she got her own funding and after that managed to put together a team of animators to work on this new series based on an old story of hers, My Pride.
Now, as you guys know, I have certain rules and guidelines for what I will and will not review on this blog. And in pretty much all cases, indie webseries that don't have a budget outside of maybe a Patreon won't get a review. I will not be reviewing series such as these unless the creator themselves specifically asks me to. I feel like it'll be uncalled for for me to treat these series (that lack a budget and are not made by professionals) like they're professionally made and criticize them when they are mostly just made by teens and young adults with pretty much no budget and usually just as a passion project and/or for fun.
However, My Pride does have a budget. It also had a Patreon, but that was supplementary only as their main funding was provided mainly from IPF. It is also worked on by several professionals, including Patton herself. I was on the fence about reviewing this series, but after my community voted I should go for it, here we go.
I will also say, before going into the review, that there are several problematic aspects of this series. It's ableist (not saying stories about disabled characters cannot be made, but the way the topic was handled here is less than graceful to say the least) and there are several other problematic/toxic elements, however I will only briefly be touching on those in this review as there are already several video essays on YouTube out there that put this into words way better than I ever could, and I'd only be repeating what they already said.
Patton herself has also turned out to be a quite toxic person as well. This review will mainly be focused on what I think does and doesn't work about the writing and other elements of the show. Just...keep these other elements in the back of your head as you consume the series. Without further ado, let's finally begin the review (I've never had this much lead-up to a review before, sheesh).
In this series, we're introduced to a young disabled lioness who lives in a Pride. In this world, all lions that live in a Pride follow a (frankly quite oppressive) system known as Pride Law. There's also Prideless lions, lions who choose to live outside of this system and travel alone, and No-Manes, bachelor male lions who have been cast out of their birth-Pride and are now looking to take over another.
Our lioness is given the demeaning name of Nothing, due to her Pride members feeling she cannot contribute properly to life in the Pride with her disability. Nothing is upset over this, however she ends up bonding and eventually being romantically involved with a Prideless lioness named Hover. When another male takes over her Pride, she is cast out, and together with her cousin Feather must find a way to survive alone without anyone to back them up. Not long thereafter, Nothing is contacted by one of the three goddesses the lions worship, who gives her with the seemingly impossible task of restoring balance to the world by finding a missing goddess and putting an end to Pride Law.
Overall the story I think has interesting elements, however it also feels a bit meander-y. I feel like it needed a few more re-writes and it could've been something pretty neat. But for now, the story mostly is just Nothing being pushed around and abused by others up until she is contacted by Rain/Cansu in episode eight and told what the actual goal of the series is. And, I'm sorry to say, but the eight episode out of your ten-episode season is too late to establish your main overarching plot and goal for the series. Because right now the first seven episodes are honestly just showing Nothing's life with no story or plot to it. It's just her being abused and put down time and again, including even by her girlfriend, up until she's forced to leave.
Like I said before, there are interesting concepts in here. A disabled lioness put down by most rising above them all and restoring the balance to the world and breaking the oppressive system she lives in sounds inspiring on paper. I also like certain elements, such as the re-incarnation cycle or the lore behind the goddesses and the Emerald Valley. But it's unbalanced.
I think that the main plot, restoring Asra and breaking Pride Law, should've been established way earlier. We can still show Nothing's life up until that point, but at least throw some more obvious hints our way before that. There are some brief hints scattered throughout the early episodes (e.g. Sharptongue telling Nothing to "break the cycle" and Nothing's dreams in the jungle with Ghost), but it's too few and far between and the final plot gets established too late into the series.
Another flaw I spotted is that Nothing is kind of a...nothing protagonist, pun intended. And that has nothing do with her disability, but the lack of personality and agency she has. Throughout the series, we barely ever see her showing any moments where she isn't just a generic protagonist. Honestly, she just kinda goes along with the plot, which you don't want for a protagonist. Generally speaking in stories, you'll want a proactive protagonist who doesn't just go with the flow of the plot and never takes action.
There's brief moments where Nothing shows signs of a personality and is proactive (e.g when she claws out Quickmane's eye, when she wishes to take her Huntress Assessment despite Powerstrike insisting she doesn't, and in episode ten when she challenges Fire). But outside of that she doesn't really have any distinct qualities that set her apart from other characters. She's just a pretty generic meek character who goes along with whatever life throws her way. Which, again, you don't want for a protagonist.
Heck, even after episode eight, where one of the goddesses shows Nothing how messed up Pride Law truly is and what its origins are, in the next episode Nothing's right back to following it without question when she plots with Fire to kill the Mane of another Pride (as Pride Law demands). As if the entirety of episode eight meant nothing for her character development whatsoever. And then in episode ten, after Feather "dies", she's suddenly back to hating Pride Law again. What is the audience even supposed to take away from this? It makes her character (the little there is) look inconsistent as hell. And don't give me the "she thought it was a dream" argument, it was clearly established as far back as episode three that she was looking for a meaning of her dreams. Episode eight gave her that meaning. For her to suddenly go back to believing her dreams are bullshit goes against her previously-established character.
Also: the main quest she's given in episode eight, to find the Shifting Place where Asra is hiding? She doesn't even have to do that at all and be proactive in her quest, it literally is just handed to her on a silver platter by Ghost when he shows up to collect her in episode ten. Big disappointment.
The character development of the other characters is also just...all over the place. Hover starts out as a self-confident love interest to Nothing who doesn't give a shit about Pride Law, but then in episode five she right the fuck out of nowhere turns on her girlfriend for simply missing a ceremony she doesn't care about. When Nothing's brother's life is at stake, mind you. Truly a great supportive girlfriend right there, that Hover.
Two other characters who seem to turn on a dime are Powerstrike and Farleap. They are Nothing's mother and half-sister, and throughout the first two thirds of the entire season hate Nothing with a burning passion and don't do anything to hide that whatsoever. They're pretty much outright abusive towards her. But then after they presume Nothing to be dead in episode seven, right out of nowhere they suddenly supposedly care about her and are willing to leave the freaking Pride for her. Remember, so far they have been depicted as characters who A) hate Nothing and B) value the Pride above everything else. Where is this coming from? I'm not one for redeeming abusive characters like this in general, but if you have to try, at least show why they are suddenly changing their minds and have it make sense in the context of the story. Don't just have it happen.
Another example like this? Fire. In episode one, he's shown as a jerkish brother. In the mid-points of the series, he's grown a lot more supportive and loving towards her and is one of her best friends in the Pride until he's forced to leave. Then in episode nine and ten we meet up with him again and he's now just...suddenly a huge asshole turned murderer. Including towards characters he cared about before such as Feather and Nothing. Seriously. And, like with Powerstrike and Farleap, we aren't shown him going through this development. It just happens because the plot demands it. Fire changed because of the harshness of living on the Prideless Stretch in dry season, but, again, we're not shown this character development. Remember the golden rule, show; don't tell? You can't just have a character change personality on a dime and expect it to work.
The "show; don't tell" rule is broken several times. And I'm not talking about Nothing's narration, that honestly works fine for me. But just moments like Fire's "development". There's another part in Farleap's development where this rule is ignored. Farleap mentions hating Nothing because she (Farleap) was always the best at everything yet Powerstrike always paid more attention to her disabled half-sister. Were we ever shown this? No, because literally all attention we see Powerstrike pay to Nothing before she is presumed dead is negative. Meanwhile Farleap gets treated as a worthwhile member of the Pride by her. So where, pray tell, does Powerstrike choose Nothing over Farleap? Just that one brief instance where she mentions that Nothing could've been a Hunt-chief? That's a single line of dialog, not enough to warrant Farleap moping about how much she hates her sister because Powerstrike only paid attention to her.
There's other characters, but honestly I'm not sure if it's worth going into them. There's a bunch of one-offs like the band of No-Manes and Barkmane's Pride, and some more major ones like Quickmane, Proudmane, the Emerald Valley leaders, Rain/Cansu and others. They're just...varying, but I find it most important to go into the development of the major players.
Okay, let's talk something else: animation. I've seen mixed responses to the animation. Some people think it looks great, others think it looks fine and serviceable, and other people criticize it to hell and back. And, honestly, I'm in the first two camps, most notably the second.
My Pride uses limited animation. All of the character's moves are animated (or tweened in more stilted scenes), and they do open their mouths when talking, however there is no actual lip sync, which seems to be the killer for a lot of people. It most certainly is not for me. Despite this series having a budget, I think it's totally find to cut corners in the visuals here and there if needed, so long as it doesn't look too jarring. The lack of lip-sync is very easy to get used to, at least for me. You can still easily tell who is saying what, which is the most important thing. I can fault the series for many things, but I won't give them any shit for cutting corners in the animation.
Heck, the animation even looks pretty damn good in certain cases. Sure, most dialog scenes are more limited in animation and have a lot of tweening going on (which sometimes looks decent, but other times a bit awkward), but the more action-oriented scenes or stuff like walk cycles generally do look really good, like that's where the budget went to. And that's honestly a good call. I don't need all dialog scenes to be animated like it's Disney (heck, look at what some anime do with having stilted dialog and very well-animated action), especially if we get some eye candy well-animated scenes where it's really needed.
I also like the visual style (which follows the general Tribbleofdoom style, though you can sometimes tell where another animator takes over and it changes slightly). Maybe it's not for everyone, but art-styles are largely subjective. I do wish there was a little more variety in character designs (not meaning markings/colors, but rather body types and face shapes). I don't need everyone to have a unique body type and face or anything, but a lot of indie series, including the ones that have no budget outside of a Patreon, tend to have a few different ways of drawing faces/body types. Not a unique one per single character, but just a few types to choose from. I just think that'd be nice to see, especially with this series having a budget and all. Because right now all lions look the same with the exception of some having slightly longer muzzles (Powerstrike, Sharptongue) and some being built slightly more muscular than others. It also is kind of jarring when characters with a really unique design such as Hover, Rain and several background OCs made by other people are introduced, because they look so vastly different from the majority of other lions, who generally all have the same body/face and marking types. The lions with manes tend to look a bit more unique than the ones without because the mane can be styled like various hair styles, but most lionesses all follow the same general look with a few variations here and there.
Honestly, if I do have a main gripe with a visual element, it's something that happens in episode ten. Fire is about to attack Feather, Nothing readies herself to stop him...and then does nothing. Literally, she just stands there while he runs past her easily and "kills" the cousin she loves so much. And I know this was because of budget issues as stated on the Wikia, however surely another route to bypass this could've been taken? Cut to black with a gasp from Nothing to imply he knocked her aside/out or something? Because, while the animation is good in the action scenes, this looks really jarring because she's just there. She doesn't lunge at him, she isn't knocked aside, she just stands there with an angry expression and lives up to her name.
Some other things to bring up? Like said before, the way the ableism was handled wasn't the best (as pointed out by many people, including a lot of actually physically disabled people), despite the show being proudly advertised as the "Gay Lions Show" there's relatively little actual gay lion content (only a few episodes of Nothing and Hover together, and some brief moments of Karabi and Kyoga being together in episode eight), the way it tries to redeem characters that really shouldn't even be redeemed and several other toxic elements. Again, just look up "My Pride video essay" on Youtube and you're bound to find some in-depth takes about these subjects. And of course the creator is a less-than-great person.
Do I overall consider My Pride to be good? No, for the reasons above. And I'm still relatively nice to it, I've also seen people tear this series a new one. However, it's also far from the worst thing I've ever seen. The offensive elements and toxic creator aside, this mostly comes off as a series with decent visuals and concepts, but a lackluster execution. Maybe it has something to do with the series coming out really quickly (all ten episodes were released in roughly a year's time) and needing more revisions and re-writes before staring production.
It's also very possible that the budget led to some important elements being cut from the original draft (as it is known that some characters, such as Golden and the painted wolves, didn't make it to the final cut) and that this shows in the inconsistent character writing. Still, if they really needed to cut elements, I think they still should've worked it into a story that works better as a whole. Maybe a shorter season of eight episodes that work well instead of ten that have lackluster writing. Back when this was being made it was uncertain whether they'd ever get a budget for season two (heck, it still is as of writing this), so they might as well have made the most of it.
I overall do not recommend this series. If you like lions, there's better lion media out there these days, whether it be movies, documentaries series, webcomics, etc. It's by far not the worst I've ever seen, but I'm not lying when I say that the writing and character development was better handled in Patton's Cow of the Wild (which she wrote when she was a teenager) than in this series, which feels like its rushed. I'd give this one a pass.
And, I just want to re-iterate: I am still very impressed by the team overall. Putting together a webseries, including with funding like is the case here, cannot be an easy task, especially when it's being released as fast as it did in the middle of a pandemic. Me criticizing the final product does not mean I hate the entire team that worked on it and do not see the immense amount of effort that went into the show. Heck, even with other indie shows such as Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss, which are not my thing to put things mildly, I can still appreciate the immense effort that went into the animation, voice acting, etc. No matter the end product, I will always appreciate the effort that goes into making a project as big and ambitious as this, even if I don't end up liking the final product.
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