A decent review, but I am just a slight bit confused on your opinion of modern cartoons.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you have to like them or your not allowed to hate them. You at the very least have some valid reasons. Being put off to a show or something by it's art style, while it personally doesn't mean much to me, is very understandable. You definitely have decent reasoning where as most people I see go all "bawt itz nawt teh nientees!!!11!!onehundredandeleven!!1" . It's just that, while I too love Infinity Train, I find most of the things you critiqued (well, not critique but provide your disapproval on, which is perfectly fine) to match up with Infinity Train. The art styles are similar to most things on Cartoon Network, the humour is a similar, and the storytelling is also rather comparable. Or at least IMO (Most recent cartoons I've seen seem to have some kind of mystery or paranormal element.) Maybe you see a difference, but I just kind of see the same I see in most modern cartoons. Which isn't bad, obviously not.
But, that's just a small nitpick. I guess it's just me being all "bawt eye lick mawdarn khartewnz!!!111!!!thatsamenumberjokefrombefore!!11". Personal thing. I just...really like a lot of toons from the 2010's. A well written review.
" I'm the princess! Everyone has to do what I say!"
It\'s subdued, as I see it. It\'s similar, but not as much in the same direction, if you know what I mean. I see what you\'re saying, and you\'ve got a valid point there. But this moves a little bit away from those directions, which to me is a good step.
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(pilot episode review) A refreshing cartoon that shows promise
I really don't like modern cartoons at all. I hate their annoying art styles that I find unpleasant to look at. I hate their style of humor. I hate their lack of good storytelling.
Not that the past was perfect, mind you - 1980s cartoons may have been far more story-driven, but they tended to mostly use the same standard realistic drawing style again and again. The 1990s tried too hard to be Darker and Edgier.
But finally, out of nowhere, here's a cartoon short, a pilot episode even, that shows real promise. It's the most refreshing thing I've seen in a long time, possibly since Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Infinity Train may currently only be a test pilot thrown out by Cartoon Network to see if there's enough interest in a full show, but already there's a rapidly forming fandom that's spreading the word, creating fan art, and more. I happened to discover the show because it showed up recommended on YouTube. So, what's the fuss?
Well, what we have here is a mystery-themed adventure, with a lot of humor that's not too obnoxious and is genuinely clever. The pilot episode establishes things very quickly: an intelligent girl of indeterminate age (middle school?) named Tulip is lost on a reality-bending train with a humorous duo of combinable tiny robots that follow her orders. Any train car can be absolutely anything, and many contain puzzles for her to solve before she can move on to the next. And we see her enter a train car that opens into an expansive world run by dogs who are being menaced by rising tides and some kind of monster.
We're introduced to a bunch of genuine mysteries that hint at a much larger narrative. Some are set up clearly, like the number on Tulip's hand. What does it mean, and why does it decrease not by 1, but by 4, after the strange robotic "Steward" is scared off? Some mysteries are solved during the episode, like the cause of the tides, and the appearance of the "monster". And some mysteries are outright brought up. The biggest being the robotic Steward. It looks creepy, like some kind of spider-like collection of wires with a human-like mask face. It attacks not Tulip, but her robots, then tells Tulip to "get back in [her] seat" before it leaves through a hole in the "sky" of the mini-world within the train car. That raises far more questions than it answers - actually, we get no answers at all!
This cartoon has a lot of promise. For once, I don't mind the art style and find it to have its own charm. It contains tons of mysteries both big and small, both ones that are solved within the space of the episode, and ones that linger. It's adventure-oriented and story-driven, and much of the humor is actually subdued and witty. I can see myself watching this if it gets picked up as a full series, and I really hope it does. It's a breath of fresh air in an industry that I feel badly needs one.