I never did finish Adventure Time. It's a show I return to frequently and start over with. But this is almost intentional. There are a few shows I find I do this with, ones I adore greatly but just never have managed to get through entirely. This is a result of love, for shows that I just can't bring myself to finish. And thus I start them over, returning to them after a few months having completely lost my place. These are what I would consider my comfort shows. When I feel down, they're always there to watch, always capable of distracting me and making me feel a bit better. Much needed in these uncertain times we all find ourselves struggling in. So it came as a surprise to me that Adventure Time had been given some sort of soft reboot sequel series, currently airing right now. There are only a handful of episodes out, but Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake immediately caught my attention. I desperately wanted to watch something new, from the start, and know that I would be able to keep up. I'm often discouraged from watching new things with the fear of cancellation or too many seasons stopping me from keeping up.
Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake initially had me with low expectations. For some of the reasons mentioned above, but also due to how rocky the world of western animation currently is. I don't feel it can be trusted with stylisation and ability to tell a good story void of political influence. But I admit that lately I have been proven wrong by a number of animated productions, and I have been quite pleased with it. This has made me want to open up a bit more to different series and films, discovering more creativity and generally not just having far too high expectations for things, or being pretentious. Low expectations tend to be the norm too, another thing I haven't been too proud of, but generally being more welcoming with different things. It took me a week or so of seeing the show mentioned, but Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake has hooked me in. Being something that seems incredibly fun, more modernised for its obviously more aged fanbase these days.
Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake
The first thing I noticed with Fionna and Cake was an incredibly beautiful art style. I really like the interior and exterior stylisation, the colours are incredibly beautiful. And the way it displays the regular world is pretty visually appealing despite the more darker, adult themes. Fionna seems to be an adult, a very messy one just getting by with her cat. Barely capable of holding a job, even when it comes to being a tour guide for a local bus company. This first episode seems to have a lot of colourful inspiration in the form of watercolour stylisation, very simple use of colours to begin with, mixing it with a more modern look of Adventure Time's existing look. This style is one of the things I really liked about Adventure Time, it's colourful, bright, and generally creative when it wants to be in character design.
Though it seems that this show has a lot more detail to it. A lot more going on in the scenes. More detail on the characters and their clothing, but also in the interiors. The interiors have a very cozy, artistic look to them. I'm really liking it so far due to this, it doesn't feel like they cheapen out on the budget at all. The quality is absolutely there, and the episodes and humour are exactly how you would expect it to be from Adventure Time, all-in-all, it really is the same show, just with different characters. And Fionna and Cake are worthy replacements over Finn and Jake. They are incredibly enjoyable to watch from the very start of the first episode, to which they're both relatable and funny.
As always with shows like these, my main concern ends up being whether the quality can hold up. With these shows, they often have very small seasons or they quickly rush to tell a story to conclude everything. Being a short story of the universe of the franchise but nothing major. I don't really think that will be the case here with Fionna and Cake, given the show seems to be highly successful so far and they really did put in the effort to make it good. I don't see this getting the usual fate of being cancelled, so I will rule that possibility out for once. I'm pretty excited to see where it'll go from here, it's a rare glimpse of what stories can be told with animation, being fun and for a wider demographic, while looking good. Not to fail to mention the fact that the characters of Fionna and Cake were actually a result of the Internet naming the characters, with one of the show's creators doing art requests in 4chan threads. For me, this adds another layer of appreciation for it, to see a community have some impact on the production even without knowing, way before it would air.
Currently the story seems a bit loose, but I feel this is intentional as it does sort of just set up the stage so to speak. To introduce the characters and their strengths and weaknesses, with Fionna being bored of her regular life and wanting an adventure, even having dreams of Adventure Time and the world Finn and Jake roamed through, hinting at a broader connection with some sort of multiverse theory, of course. I don't want to write too much about the story given how new the show is. If you're a fan of Adventure Time, you'll likely really want to watch this and discover what it has to offer, especially with how it's new and only a few episodes in still. And so far I absolutely recommend it. If you are a fan of the show or a fan of animation with something new you're searching for, check it out!
I'll be watching more of this as it comes out, excited to see where it goes. It's very refreshing to see the animation industry getting a bit of a revival. In between these episodes I'll be catching up on some My Adventures with Superman too! And definitely going back into Adventure Time for yet another viewing from the very start. Because I again do not remember where I left it.
