The Amazing Digital Circus - Western Isekai that probably will become Hazbin Hotel killer

[Bob Barbas]

I feel like every animated show has this problem lately. Indie or otherwise, it's always rushed and has no filler.

Don't forget that Murder Drones a series produced by the same company also had next to no filler either. In fact in my opinion it's what crippled it because it felt like the show was really trying to speedrun its own plotline.
As I said before it really makes me wonder how true their claim that Glitch gives them full creative control really is because I highly doubt it's true. In fact you'd have to be a retard to think that Glitch's budget doesn't factor in at all. But atm we have no idea what their actual budget is nor how much TADC costs to produce per episode. HOWEVER we were told that Murder Drones cost them around $200,000 to $300,000 per episode which really puts into perspective why they'd want to rush it along like they did.
Now take this with a grain of salt because I might just be imagining this but I swear I remember hearing at the very least that TADC costs them less to produce per episode than Murder Drones did, so theoretically they should have a bit more leeway... in theory anyway.

Putting all that aside for a second it could also just be that they don't fucking know how to write and that giving them 100% creative control is actually the problem. I think I floated the same theory regarding Murder Drones in the Glitch thread but maybe Trannyworx just isn't that good of a writer either. Most good productions at least have some kind of co-writer or someone to run ideas by to help the creative juices flow and to tell you whether an idea is retarded or not and as far as I know Liam didn't have one and neither does the Tranny.
As much as I like to speculate on behind the scenes drama it could very well just be they're shit writers.

 

[Rome's rightful successor]

Episode was ok but the evil squad was under utilized. Maybe they could come back in another episode.
The writers also don't seem to get why people like Jax all that much.

 

[Hemlock Latte]

I don't think shows, animated or otherwise, need to follow a certain format. It's okay to not have any filler. We've all seen shows, typically shonen anime, that are crippled by their filler. It's hard to balance these things, especially for network shows. Alex Hirsch had an out with Gravity Falls. He wanted it to have a proper ending that brought the lore full circle. He wanted to avoid dragging it out. What if it became way more popular than it was, and Disney insisted that he drag it out another two, three seasons for no good reason? What if was renewed but cancelled before he could bring the narrative to a close? The ending is rushed, but it's not bad, honestly, in my opinion, it's pretty impressive. I think Digital Circus has a good format in that the adventures feel like standalone episodes, but the lore builds character at the same time. It could get tired if they lose sight of those characters and of the tone though. I really think that was the problem with E5. It was a little all over the place. I definitely think they should nail down every character's main arc before proceeding. If they make it up as they go at all it will fall apart.

 

[LucasSomething]

I feel like every animated show has this problem lately. Indie or otherwise, it's always rushed and has no filler. Steven Universe had the rushed ending, Gravity Falls had a weird rush with the symbols in Weirdmageddon, Owl House was rushed, Hazbin Hotel was ridiculously rushed, and now this. Why can't any show have enough episodes to tell its story? SU and Owl House were on networks that hated the gay shit, but come on! There has to be a reason nobody can pace anything out anymore.

Owl House was alex hirsch wanting to speedrun it against disney wishes, SU was allegedly gay marraige killing the show, owl house was shortned after it went full serialized and hazbin is... It's just bad writing that leads to bad pacing.

The reason is because every cartoon creator nowadays is afraid of getting their show cancelled without warning, which ironically makes them panic write without planning and never have enough time to breath like old shows. Many of them also trick the companies by saying they're episodic but on practice are story driven (which is the case with digital circus) and companies hate that.

The audience and competition is also not the same as back then, this includes the anime industry. People have lower attenttion spans and other stuff to consume nowadays, nobody wants to wait a week for a "filler episode", imagine months for TADC. Your cartoon/manga better start strong or else it's out.

also want to add, anyone else hate how Gooseworx constantly talks to people on tumblr confirming or denying theories? It just takes all the fun out of it. I came out of the episode thinking Gangle was maybe an NPC because of Evil Orbsman being her opposite, but no, Goose goes and confirms it's just because "Gangle being forgotten is funny." Come on.

I wrote and deleted about this, every writer who directly interacts with fanbase like this ends up creating a toxic bubble (vivziepop) and goose hyping up shit while correcting others is retarded and doesn't let the fandom think for itself.

 

[Chromeo]

I don't think shows, animated or otherwise, need to follow a certain format. It's okay to not have any filler. We've all seen shows, typically shonen anime, that are crippled by their filler. It's hard to balance these things, especially for network shows. Alex Hirsch had an out with Gravity Falls. He wanted it to have a proper ending that brought the lore full circle. He wanted to avoid dragging it out. What if it became way more popular than it was, and Disney insisted that he drag it out another two, three seasons for no good reason? What if was renewed but cancelled before he could bring the narrative to a close? The ending is rushed, but it's not bad, honestly, in my opinion, it's pretty impressive. I think Digital Circus has a good format in that the adventures feel like standalone episodes, but the lore builds character at the same time. It could get tired if they lose sight of those characters and of the tone though. I really think that was the problem with E5. It was a little all over the place. I definitely think they should nail down every character's main arc before proceeding. If they make it up as they go at all it will fall apart.

I appreciate that Gravity Falls had an ending, and yeah we don't need any show becoming the Simpsons and dragging on mindlessly for 20 years, but there's a difference between that and giving the plot space to breathe, or fully making things make sense (I'm still annoyed how the symbols weren't that important in the end of weirdmageddon, like pacifica being the alpaca because of a sweater she wore that day.) I'm not saying GF's ending was bad, 95% of it was fantastic, but there was a rushed element that could've been done better. It doesn't need to be "5000 episodes of random bullshit" or "cram a whole show into 12 episodes."

And for what it's worth, while there ARE meaningless filler episodes of some shows, there are also ways that filler episodes can have purpose and endear us to characters outside of The Lore, giving us a reason to want them to win. Steven Universe was great with its "filler," because even something small in one episode could be foreshadowing for something bigger down the line, and smaller low-stakes episodes keep things a grounded between major developments in the story.

 

[Hemlock Latte]

Agreed. I mean, the Bill and Frank episode of HBO's The Last of Us was ostensibly "filler," and it was probably the only good thing about the show.

 

[Chilson]

Agreed. I mean, the Bill and Frank episode of HBO's The Last of Us was ostensibly "filler," and it was probably the only good thing about the show.

It was actually hot garbage because it wastes time to deliver fucking nothing relevant or necessary for the shows story. The game did it so much better by portraying them as real people with real couple problems (if you looked for the clues). One of them finally got sick of it and stormed off as he couldn't handle his partners paranoia. Fucking up and dying, only to leave behind a spiteful message as a last stab when/if he found the corpse. Its incredibly human and something you can imagine actually happening.

It was done with much less screen time, but packs such a large punch while being relevant to Joel and Ellies relationship.

Getting away from my autism and back to TADC, this episode was pretty decent. I don't like the shipping garbage, but I do like that they are paying off Jax warming up to Pomni in the prior episode. This isn't really filler, it seems important to the later character conflicts coming up. But we will see if they blow it or not.

 

[Tardy Tard]

I came out of the episode thinking Gangle was maybe an NPC because of Evil Orbsman being her opposite, but no, Goose goes and confirms it's just because "Gangle being forgotten is funny." Come on.

Personally I thought of it as gangle being neither good or evil but neutral, mainly since she’s implied to be a sort of pervert, and due to what she does in ep4. Getting an evil version of her is like multiplying 0 by -1, you get the same thing as a result.

It definitely pushes the Zooble/Gangle ship extra hard with how many times Zooble simps for her. This is despite the fact that Goose said the series wouldn't have any canon ships, but he just can't help himself from pairing the token they/them character with the uwu weeb girl.

Wouldn’t have canon ships? What about the part where pomni looks like she’s flirting with the gator?

<creepy image removed>

Couldn’t you have put a jumpscare warning on that ugly goblinoid?

Looks more like generic magical girl characters to me, the girl on the right feels more like a reference to that blonde girl from madoka magica

I don't think Jax will turn out to be utterly horrible (without eventual redemption anyway) for one reason: there's no way a marketable show like this is endangering merch sales of the most popular character. Face it, we're in an era where characters are commodities just like cereal brands.

(Maybe I'm wrong and come a future episode, Twitter will be filled with pictures of Jax toys in the trash can )

I think the creator mentioned that Jax will do something irredeemable at some point but I don’t know whether it’s by fag morality or real human morality
I think he will either do the final push towards Ragatha abstracting (by saying something really shitty), or trying to sacrifice Pomni to resurrect his friend (either the frog or Kaufmo)

 

[Hemlock Latte]

The game did it so much better by portraying them as real people with real couple problems (if you looked for the clues).

I did, and I think it was great, too. I'm a big fan of that kind of storytelling that's there for you if you look. Soulsborne obsessive. I nonetheless liked what the show did with it. I mean it wasn't just relevant to Joel & Ellie but also Joel & Tess. Loved that moment before they leave Bill's town when Joel offers condolences to Bill but doesn't reveal that Tess had died, probably because he couldn't bring himself to.

 

[SteelPlatedHeart]

I must be getting old or something because a lot of the stuff that people say makes Jax an “irredeemable evil monster” or whatever just seems like bored trolling from someone who knows nothing he does can actually really hurt anyone.Like I get that he’s a jerk sometimes, but that’s really the worst I can say about him. That and he’s kinda a bully, but I dunno.

 

[Gender: Xenomorph]

I hate you all

 

[samuraicrack]

View attachment 7566296
I hate you all

This whole show is I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream for people who like to ship characters from FNAF

 

[LucasSomething]

I must be getting old or something because a lot of the stuff that people say makes Jax an “irredeemable evil monster” or whatever just seems like bored trolling from someone who knows nothing he does can actually really hurt anyone.Like I get that he’s a jerk sometimes, but that’s really the worst I can say about him. That and he’s kinda a bully, but I dunno.

I don't think he ever was either but Jax gets a lot of leeway due to the fact they're all stuck in a cartoon forever. The cast only tolerates him because Jax straight can't hurt them, at worst he can bully them into abstraction which a valid reaason to be concerned but he wouldn't do that intentionally.

There is also this fan theory that Jax is actually intentionally trying to be hated so it distracts everyone from being abstracted, which would be interesting if Goose didn't keep reminding us that no, Jax is malicious and will fuck up big time eventually. That helped start the train.

Speaking of theories, when Jax becomes vegan he points out that "how is this possible? I thought caine couldn't-" and jeez, that's bringing the matt pat "Jax is an NPC" theory back at full force (and that one npc at the ending is a human).

 

[Mystery Spy]

Depends on what you mean by "filler". If you mean well tought episodes were the plot doesn't technically advance but it's enjoyable and won't be memory holed then it's good. If you are just wasting time to pad out time with things that don't matter. Then it's terrible.

I wouldn't call the latest episode filler. It wasn't exciting and is the weakest of the bunch so far. But it's setting a lot of plot points that will pay off later.

I do agree it was too on the nose tough. A lot of obvious theory and merchandise bait. And blunt exposition.

 

[Metallic Blood]

I must be getting old or something because a lot of the stuff that people say makes Jax an “irredeemable evil monster” or whatever just seems like bored trolling from someone who knows nothing he does can actually really hurt anyone.Like I get that he’s a jerk sometimes, but that’s really the worst I can say about him. That and he’s kinda a bully, but I dunno.

Meh, do remember that most of this show's fans are between the ages of 13-16. As long as you don't have abusive parents, the evilest thing you can ever witness are highschool bullies.

I dare even say that we weren't so different with our "magical pony shows" from before, not to say that TADC and MLP are similar shows, but they do bring that unique autism flavor of overanalyzing cartoon horses or Goofy-lookin purple rabbits.

 

[InJailOutSoon]

I haven't watched the latest episode but from what I've heard it's probably going ti be my least favorite due to terrible pacing and forced dialogue that directly tells the audience who and what they are as a character. Also, no mentioning of the "exit door" once again. I'm really starting to think they changed the direction from psychological virtual horror to character study episodes, and I kind of hope the rest of the show is going to turn back to the former instead of the latter.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

I unsubscribed from the channel because they absolutely spam the Maid Jax gag. Also you fucking know the same lowlives who buy the merch would have been livid if it was a woman forced into wearing it.

 

[Sparky Lurker]

The webtoon indie company is really becoming a pozzed low budget version of Hasbro/Mattel, if I wanted to see a glorified product placement for "children" in CGI format, I would watch the 2000s Hot Wheels and Max Steel animations.

 

[ReceiveAndAsk]

Consoom is a business concept that has been around for a while. This is indie Cartoon Network animation revival, now with more shallow millenial edgy existentialism. Marketed to zoomers who stare at their phones 24/7.

 

[BigJoey41X]

even though the maid jax thing is 100% author's barely disguised fetish, it does make sense that (almost) everyone else wanted to humiliate him that way for being such a prick for so long.

Theory time: Jax is gay (or at least bi) with that dead frog guy, Goose said there wouldn't be any romance, but Kinger apparently had a wife in before Pomni's time, so past relationships are on the table.