- Released: October 7, 2019
- Total amount of seasons: 2
- Seasons watched: 2
- Rating: 4.5/5
Synopsis
My Thoughts
Okay, I know that it technically hasn't been confirmed whether the series is over at two seasons, but I'm just going to assume it is for now. If not, I'll adjust the title and this part of the review. The two seasons do have a pretty conclusive finale and there's no confirmation of season three, so I'm going to leave it at that until further notice.
Primal is an excellent adult animated series. Most series I do watch on here are geared towards a younger audience, but once every while an adult animated gem such as this or Arcane is released. And boy, is it good.
The animation and visuals are fantastic. It's intense. It's gritty. It's gory. It's everything you'd expect a series with this kind of premise to be. The world of Spear and Fang feels unforgiving and raw. And the series gets this point across perfectly.
The series doesn't really have an overarching story-line other than the survival of Spear and Fang (our main characters), but there are several smaller arcs in this. Season two overall has a more of an arc going on as it starts with Spear and Fang rescuing their new team-member, a human called Mira, and later getting stranded on a huge ship where they are enslaved and forced to fight in war. I liked both seasons, with season one's more episodic stories and season two's more connected arcs.
Another super-unique feature is that the series contains barely any dialogue whatsoever. Specially season one, but also season two. And the dialogue that is spoken is always in a non-English language with only a single exception (The Primal Theory episode). Our main characters don't even really talk, with Spear only knowing Mira's name and no other words.
I do have some minor criticisms, particularly towards the finale. It's still a fantastic series, but rarely ever is anything perfect. One criticism I have is that characters don't seem to retain scars or injuries sometimes for that long. Like Spear and Fang and other characters will get the most intense injuries in some fights but usually they're gone in a next scene or episode, even stuff like limbs that are (or seem to be) broken. And stuff like claw-marks. I get that animating a character full of scars would be a huge pain, but since the violence is such a huge focus I think a little bit more consistency in injuries sometimes even during the same scene would've been nice.
As for the finale: it was kind-of poorly paced and the ending was...eh? So Spear and Fang finally face a fire demon (a previous enemy of theirs, long story) and after all the fight's they've won throughout the years, this is one they cannot beat. Spear is burned badly and is heavily implied to be dead at the end of the episode, but not before Mira bones him and has his child in the epilogue.
My main problem with this episode is that the first two thirds were well-paced, but the final climax that killed our main character was over super fast. Like, Spear has lasted ages and ages against the most tough of opponents time and again. And I know that he can't keep winning, he's bound to meet a foe someday that does win. But the fight with the fire demon was over in a jiffy so the impact of Spear burning to death doesn't really land that well. If there'd been more build-up and time dedicated to the fight, it'd feel way more intense, not like it was over in just a moment.
As for the ending, Mira deciding to have sex with a dying spear kind-of came out of nowhere. I didn't read them as a romantic couple, not until this moment at least. I just thought they were close friends, but maybe that's because I'm bad at reading social cues. Overall I think they just didn't seem that romantically interested in one another (if they even were supposed to be), so for Mira's last decision regarding her dying friend to be "oh I should fuck him" is a bit, idk, weird, to me. I don't mind the fact that they have a child, but the way she came about was a bit weird and abrupt.
That said, if they do release a third season or a spinoff series based on Spear's daughter (or even another tale set in this world unrelated to Spear, Fang and the others) I'd be totally okay with that. But for now the series finale just left some things to be desired.
Still, this overall a super-intense and super-awesome series I totally recommend, so long as you can stomach the content. It's not really sexual up until the last episode (and even then very briefly), but there's a lot of death (of both animals and humans, including children) and gore involved so if that's not your thing I totally get why you'd skip it. I'd say watch the first episode. If that's too much for you, the rest of the series probably won't be, either.
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