Larva Family
Though it provides some positive messages about family and friendship, Larva Family also employs plenty of cartoon violence and bathroom humor.
If there’s one thing that cat Pud and dog Ham can agree on, it’s that Human is simply the best.
And, really, that’s the only thing they agree on, as far as Pud is concerned. Pud finds the eccentric Ham quite unbearable and overly hyper. Things were much better before Human brought Ham home.
Case in point: when the two compete against one another for Human’s attention, they accidentally slam into Human, causing her to drop chili onto a power outlet and shut off all power in the apartment. And guess who got blamed for it? You guessed right—Pud.
But it turns out that chili on a power outlet is the least of their concerns. Because, somehow, that power outage caused Human—and, in fact, all humans—to disappear, or so they’re informed by a suddenly appearing robot named I.T., a bot that “works for Universe Corporation, the company that maintains the entire Universe.” The answer for the disappearance? It has something to do with a mysterious tower that has appeared way off in the distance.
But getting there is going to require many choices—some of which just might require—shudder—working together.
Last year, we lambasted Netflix’ Battle Kitty for calling itself interactive (among its many content issues). That show’s interactivity ended as soon as you chose what episode you wanted to watch, making it effectively as “interactive” as a table of contents.
Well, our complaints were apparently heard, and they’ve been deeply addressed in We Lost Our Human.
If Battle Kitty is a table of contents, We Lost Our Human is the whole library. You’re not confined to one story—in fact, choosing one direction will mean that you’ll miss out on entire parts of other stories interwoven into the plot. Central characters in one timeline are simply passing strangers in another. And, dependent on your choices, you can end up at over a dozen endings.
The choices you make in We Lost Our Human are sometimes insignificant, sometimes enormously impactful for the rest of your watching experience—in more ways than simply plot. They also dictate to what you will and won’t be exposed. For instance, choosing to explore a home inevitably leads to Pud having to defend himself from stuffed animal zombies, while heading to find some food eventually forces Pud to defend himself against a crazy hermit.
As that description might make clear, there are some things in the show that might make you reconsider watching—all of which are listed in our episode review below. But to give you a preemptive warning, the show includes some violence that sometimes feels slapstick and other times feels verging on a bit intense for a TV-Y7 audience. Genuine deadly peril becomes increasingly present as the show goes on. And ingrained within the show’s plot is a spiritual idea that our universe is actually the construct of some computer code.
On its brighter side, the show generally rewards viewers who choose options that focus on forgiveness and working together. Ham is taught to think about the potential consequences of his actions before he chooses to do them. And when players pick the correct choices, many timelines end with Ham and Pud apologizing to each other for their mistakes. On that last point, it should be noted that Pud, in particular, can be played as selfless and introspective just as much as he can be played as self-serving and unrepentant (though most endings try to resolve the dispute between Ham and Pud).
With all that in mind, it’ll be up to you to pick your first choice:
Watch? Or Stay Away?
Note: Because We Lost Our Human contains many branching paths, it is possible that you will not come across some of the concerns listed below. However, to provide as full of a list as possible, below are issues from a multitude of the show’s timelines.
General themes from multiple timelines seem to indicate that the universe is a giant computer, and things are going wrong due to a piece of missing code. We hear a reference to yoga. An amulet is called “witchcraft.” Pud and/or Ham are shocked by a power outlet, causing them to have a vision of potential future events. Pud says “See you in Valhalla” at one point.
Pud’s tail is lit on fire. Pud vomits up a hairball that later becomes sentient. Pud is knocked unconscious by a crazy hermit version of himself, who forces him into a costume that looks like Ham. We hear a reference to Pud eating his own vomit, and we also hear some crude jokes about Pud wetting or defecating in his pants.
After a montage of slapstick danger, Pud arrives with a pegleg and eyepatch. In one timeline, Pud steals a blanket from a baby. In another, his fur is burned off. Pud fights off a flower that tries to bite him. Pud fights against stuffed animal zombies that light an effigy of him on fire: One stuffed bunny is particularly angry, frequently talking about how Pud is going to die and asking to “wear his skin.” Another stuffed animal zombie tears off its face. Pud comments on how a flower monster has flowers for nipples. In another timeline, Pud runs into another version of himself and comments on the other Pud’s armor, which contains “nipple vents.”
Ham is lit on fire after eating a burning marshmallow. A sentient meatball slams into the ground and dies—and in one timeline, he asks Ham to eat him as a way for his soul to move on. A witch tries to cook and eat Ham and friends. Sentient flora attacks Ham and Pud. Ham sees a potential future where he dies, and his skeleton is seen. Ham and Pud must avoid being melted in stomach acid or crushed in a pigeon’s belly.
We see general slapstick violence. A building collapses. In one ending, Ham face is permanently stuck on Pud’s rear. A creature sings a song about stealing things to make herself feel better. A dinosaur is launched into a volcano. A turtle is left to its fate of burning in lava, and Pud comments on its fate for a bit. A “kill count” reads 397 billion. A duck boat is popped, and the duck describes the experience of deflating as painful. Jokes about rears are frequent.
[Spoiler Warning] Pud and Ham find the “code for the human race,” which is also referred to as the human genome. They plug it into a hole, which is causing the universal glitch, to fix their predicament.
In terms of words you might not want your kids hearing, we heard words like “butt,” “oh my dog,” “dang” and “heck” during our viewing, with “butt” being quite frequent.
Though he was born in Kansas, 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 and hermeneutics. He doesn’t think the ending of Lost was “that bad.”
Though it provides some positive messages about family and friendship, Larva Family also employs plenty of cartoon violence and bathroom humor.
The sun rarely shines in The Rising, which seems wholly fitting. It is a gloomy, humorless slog through scandal, secrets and murder.
