The easiest way for me to describe Over the Garden Wall is that it was everything I wished Spirited Away had been for me. There's a whole lot of Miyazaki-esque elements to this, being a whimsical and zany yet also spooky and dark story with folkloric elements that are completely invented, and the sheer magic and atmosphere are fantastic. To be sure, the latter is also true for Spirited Away, but I could never connect to it beyond those elements. Here, the characters feel much stronger and the series-of-events plot structure is much neater, in part because there aren't as many quests and recurring subplots within the story that conflict with the episodic plot, and the fact that this is a true journey rather than events in and around one location makes the Wonderland-esque series of events feel more natural.
The characters themselves are very good. They start out fairly basic, but the development happens nicely, and despite a one-dimensional villain, the rest of the cast has a lot of depth, and the Big Bad is fine for the type of story they're telling.
The imagination in this series is fantastic. There are so many great fantasy and spooky ideas that just feel so right despite being 100% original. Ideas like a bell that controls someone's will, a lantern that keeps souls alive, a village of pumpkins with a sinister secret, a civilization of frogs...it's one of the most creative and enchanting things I've ever seen.
The animation is good, too, with a nicely subdued palette and some heavy vintage-Halloween influences in several of the denizens of the forest. There are dips into Fleischer territory and Ghibli vibes abound, and the whole thing is done so well that all of these things can coexist in one amazing work.
The tonal decisions are great at creating an old-timey fantasy feel, with every element of the story being from some past time period, right down to the styles of every musical sequence, which are all decidedly not-Broadway in sound, instead going for faithful recreations of older genres, including jazz, ragtime, and opera. It's great.
All that talk, and I haven't begin to trawl the depths of what makes this cartoon so nuanced and realized. Please, if you are a fan of a good story, good animation, good folklore, watch this series. It won't disappoint.
One of the best animated works...ever.
The easiest way for me to describe Over the Garden Wall is that it was everything I wished Spirited Away had been for me. There's a whole lot of Miyazaki-esque elements to this, being a whimsical and zany yet also spooky and dark story with folkloric elements that are completely invented, and the sheer magic and atmosphere are fantastic. To be sure, the latter is also true for Spirited Away, but I could never connect to it beyond those elements. Here, the characters feel much stronger and the series-of-events plot structure is much neater, in part because there aren't as many quests and recurring subplots within the story that conflict with the episodic plot, and the fact that this is a true journey rather than events in and around one location makes the Wonderland-esque series of events feel more natural.
The characters themselves are very good. They start out fairly basic, but the development happens nicely, and despite a one-dimensional villain, the rest of the cast has a lot of depth, and the Big Bad is fine for the type of story they're telling.
The imagination in this series is fantastic. There are so many great fantasy and spooky ideas that just feel so right despite being 100% original. Ideas like a bell that controls someone's will, a lantern that keeps souls alive, a village of pumpkins with a sinister secret, a civilization of frogs...it's one of the most creative and enchanting things I've ever seen.
The animation is good, too, with a nicely subdued palette and some heavy vintage-Halloween influences in several of the denizens of the forest. There are dips into Fleischer territory and Ghibli vibes abound, and the whole thing is done so well that all of these things can coexist in one amazing work.
The tonal decisions are great at creating an old-timey fantasy feel, with every element of the story being from some past time period, right down to the styles of every musical sequence, which are all decidedly not-Broadway in sound, instead going for faithful recreations of older genres, including jazz, ragtime, and opera. It's great.
All that talk, and I haven't begin to trawl the depths of what makes this cartoon so nuanced and realized. Please, if you are a fan of a good story, good animation, good folklore, watch this series. It won't disappoint.