Animation
Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End
An elf mage contemplates on connection and regret as she watches her human friends grow old and pass away.
When Kevin got his driver’s license, he thought he finally had it all. He could go wherever he wanted whenever he wanted. His life was finally going to begin. But instead, he got stuck driving his little sister, Gretel, to all of her commitments (along with her pet hamster, Hamster).
Sigh.
But then, an alien spaceship appeared and granted the two of them superpowers! And by the two of them, I mean Gretel and Hamster. Kevin was more or less left out of the deal.
Sigh.
It turns out that the aliens gave a bunch of other people superpowers, too, and they’re a lot more inclined to use them for evil. And unfortunately, Gretel’s solution of punching everything doesn’t always work. So even though Kevin’s still chauffeuring Gretel to her superpowered commitments, he’s also operating as the brains of the team. After all, how else could they defeat such dastardly villains as Van Dyke (a sentient piece of mind-controlling facial hair) or La Cebolla (a woman who can communicate with onions)?
“So, who came up with the idea of talking to onions as a superpower?” An alien asks.
“Ah, they can’t all be winners,” another replies.
And the aliens are right, because with the combined forces of Kevin, Hamster and Gretel, there’s only one team that’ll win the fight and save the day: them.
Creator Dan Povenmire sure loves his crime-fighting pet animals. Consider Perry the Platypus from Povenmire’s Phineas and Ferb. In the show, Perry worked as a secret agent, fighting evil scientist Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz all while his adoptive family was none the wiser.
Well, that’s more or less the idea behind Dan’s new animated show, Hamster & Gretel—except, this time, Hamster’s owner, Gretel, is well aware of his crime-fighting because she’s saving the day with him—as superpowered heroes are wont to do.
For those who spent their 104 days of summer vacation following the adventures of Phineas and/or Ferb, the similarity in animation style between the two will be immediately obvious. And parents will be happy to hear that, like its predecessor, Hamster & Gretel has relatively few content concerns and much of the same style of humor. The superpowered fighting will pave the way to a bit of slapstick violence, but there’s little else, at this point, at least, that’ll give viewers pause.
While Kevin goes on a date with his crush, Gretel gets to fight her very first supervillain. Also, Gretel’s habit of solving things through punches begins to frustrate Kevin.
Gretel peels back a stop sign, and she bursts through a wall, accidentally hitting a water pipe. She also beats up a villain and his robot minions. Hamster spits water at Kevin.
A meteor destroys a tree. Buildings burn and explode with popcorn. Two people are given powers to use for evil.
The word “butt” is used once.
Kennedy Unthank studied journalism at the University of Missouri. He knew he wanted to write for a living when he won a contest for “best fantasy story” while in the 4th grade. What he didn’t know at the time, however, was that he was the only person to submit a story. Regardless, the seed was planted. Kennedy collects and plays board games in his free time, and he loves to talk about biblical apologetics. He thinks the ending of Lost “wasn’t that bad.”
An elf mage contemplates on connection and regret as she watches her human friends grow old and pass away.
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