01.09
For all the “Ragtag-Team of Lovable Warriors On A Quest To Save The World” stories and cartoons we’ve been fed over the years, you’d think adding another one to the pile would just result in a ho-hum, neat little cartoon that reminded you once again of how cool you thought this stuff was when you were maybe ten years younger. Whether it was The Slayers or The Pirates of Dark Water or whatever, you know at one point you loved watching heroes go on a long, involved quest around the world that eventually resulted in saving the world from certain doom at the hands of maniacal villain or hellspawn released from its eternal slumber.
So why on earth would you want to go back and watch a new one in 2013 with all the same tropes and long bouts of filler material between plot arcs?
Because this one hits a homerun on all fronts.
French studio Ankama’s MMORPG-spinoff-spinoff series “Wakfu” can easily be described as “the modern generation’s Slayers”, because the overall tone of both shows is strikingly similar. A European-based fantasy world, sword and sorcery but also some mechanical robots, legendary magic artifact MacGuffins galore, let’s stay at the Inn in this town tonight, there’s a monster living in a nearby cave, excuse me but do you have a ship we can use, and every other RPG cliche under the sun. Both shows also love humor, everything from basic slapstick to tongue twisters and pun flurries to pop culture parodies and homages.
One thing that sets Wakfu apart from the others of its kin, though, is its most excellent use of Flash animation. Movements are very expressive and cartoony, framerates are high and full. Many of the action scenes elicit a Storm Hawks feel, albeit a more polished and realized one. Also, the action sequences are inimitably choreographed to suit each character’s fighting style and weapon of choice, especially on the part of main character Yugo and his use of short-range portals, where a lot of nifty tracking and quick-pan shots are expertly used to showcase all those aerial acrobatics. This style of very involved animation, coupled with the shows creative and colorful backgrounds (Jing: King of Bandits, anyone?) make for a lot of fantastic eye candy.
Of course, eye candy alone does not a great show make. While the bulk of Wakfu’s episode plots deal with the usual town-hopping, spelunking, and uncharted sailing, there are several important plot arcs that provide a neat, ongoing mythos that slowly unravels into a fully-realized universe over the course of the series. We learn that Yugo is born of a very special race that is capable of sensing the life energy (the “wakfu”) of all living things, and that the main villain is in fact draining and harvesting this wakfu from its major sources in the world for the purpose of [spoiler spoiler spoiler]. Most of the important plot threads unwind into an unexpected spectacle filled with tragedy, racism, mysticism and questionable morality that strikes nerves much deeper than one might expect from such a surface-friendly adventure show. Season 1’s villain, Nox, has one of the most tragic backstories and end fates I can think of in recent times (right up there with Adventure Time’s Simon Petrikov – no bull, it’s THAT sad).
The show isn’t without it’s flaws and shortcomings, though. For a (currently) 52-episode + 3 specials show, there seems to be rather a lot of filler episodes. Then again, that’s to be expected from an adventure-driven story. Some of the characters may require a certain amount of invested time before you really start connecting with them. And outside of fansubbed torrents and importing the French-only DVDs, there’s not much hope (as of this writing) for getting a chance to watch it.
But overall, this series is quite fantastic. Fantasy buffs and RPG players will flock to it naturally, and fans of animation will eat it right up. Casual viewer beware though, as the only way to really, truly enjoy Wakfu is to buckle down for the long haul and watch every episode, because for all the filler material, there are still little snippets and segments that may become crucial to the story later on. Episodes should not be skipped!
Recommended for a PG+ audience, as the action can get pretty intense (don’t let the oft-cute style deceive you!), and the usual not-explicit innuendos and similar such dialogue.