Jessica Shaffer

The show falls off rather hard by the fourth/fifth season, but cracks begin to appear as early as the end of season two. With so little time to tell the story the desire, the writers are left constantly shelving, ignoring, or outright fridging any characters who do not happen to be some brand of Mystic Monkey. The redemption arc of Macaque is by far the worst aspect of the show are horribly rushed, consisting mainly of off-screen character development and an artificial shearing away of the character’s flaws whenever he moves off screen, only to be thrown back with a better personality and less humanizing shortcomings, leading to a once interesting character becoming a disappointingly bland anti-hero whose crimes are ignored and forgotten about rather than forgiven or grown past. The Samadhi Fire arc is horribly clunky, promising character development for Mei without delivering, choosing to instead give her a power-up that is forgotten for the entire next season before being awkwardly dragged back into the plot by a pity episode that tries also to bring back Red Son, a character who exists alongside his parents for the sole sake of being shelved or forgotten about. We have more backstory for the awkwardly redeemed villains Macaque and Red Son than the majority of our supposed “main characters” put together. THE main character, MK, undertakes a severe dose of trauma every season, showing that the writers believe angst is a good substitute for any form of actual development. He’s also the next in an excruciatingly long line of protagonists who we’re led to believe are important because they’re hard-working individuals who try their best, only to secretly all along be a cosmically-crafted chosen one who may well be THE specialest little boy in all of reality. The worldbuilding and power system are thin and patchy, and consist mostly of the team showing an interesting concept or location before dropping it and never looking back, such as the Weather Station or The Cloud, or simply utilizing ass-pulls and dropping or creating powers when useful to the plot. The hand-drawn animation used to work as a bandage for the worst of these flaws, but has since been downgraded to horribly clunky puppet-rigged work, leaving the show awkward, non-dynamic, and clunky.