How Zeke Got Religion

After being assigned to bomb an obscure church in Germany, the crew of a B17 Flying Fortress (pointedly, a mix of the faithful and atheists) is joined by a mysterious expert in the occult. As many others have commented, the imagery is similar to the B17 episode in 1981's 'Heavy Metal', and the plot of 'isolated men vs a horror' is pretty standard (and pretty thin). The realization of the interior of the bomber and the actions of the crew are very well done, the demon that attacks them is interesting (if hard to get a good look at,) and the gore is over-the-top (but a bit cartoonish). OK time passer.

While I wouldn't say this short had much to offer in terms of interesting/engaging narrative like a lot of LDR shorts, it makes up for it with an incredibly cool monster design and great animation.

Firstly, the demon was definitely the best part of this episode. Its design was so unique and very creepy, seeming to take inspiration from eastern horror. You could tell the creators of this short put a lot of work into creating this thing like the design and its wild powers.

Second, I'm a big fan of this style of animation. It looked great and the gory parts were definitely visceral and quite vivid. I thought the backstory and context was engaging as well, with a lot of mysterious elements that left me wanting more lore from this universe.

This is the only good episode of the season, I think. CEL shaded animation, but has the look and feel of a Mike Mignola Hellboy comic, especially due to the lighting - everything being shades of red, most of the time.

The story is simple - a lone US Air Force bomber is sent on a special mission to bomb a church in France, where occult nazis are performing a blasphemous ceremony. The characters are simple and most of them are just monster fodder, but it works well, with the focus being on two - Zeke the devil-may-care atheist who fears nothing, and grizzled veteran Pat, as well as Preacher the religious young irishman. Soon they find out that what has been summoned in the church is "one of the Fallen", a fallen Angel, and I absolutely love the horrifying, indescribable look of the monster - yes, it has wings, and a golden Cherub mask, but it has no distinct shape, has way too many arms, that seem to reach out from anywhere and stretch to insane lengths, and when shot, instead of bleeding grows screaming mouths that scream so loud it makes people's nose bleed.

Most of the action is set on the plane, which is portrayed accurately to the era, with spotters and gunners, and the cramped environment against a monster that can almost fill the hull is claustrophobic. The weakness of the creature is fitting, and while it takes a while for them to take advantage of it, I quite liked how it was finally brought down. Overall, a very gory but nice action flick with some great lovecraftian imagery.

This episode seemed to be a generic hodgepodge of Nazi/WWII symbolism with a "Vote For Jesus" at the very end.

The audience was provided zero information on the motivations of the characters. Its just "blah blah blah, I'm an atheist" and then another guy is like "you sure about that?" Something something, a church is bombed, something something a demon appears, something something, God exists. That's the premise of the story. No explanation of why a church is bombed, or for the demons existence. It's just there for the plot to conveniently move along.

Worst episode I have seen, and it's not even close.

Preachy as hell and rarely entertaining. 1 star.

This was disappointing.

As the title said, if I had to say which episodes I truly liked from this season, this is the only one I could mention. Even so, there is absolutely nothing in it in terms of story, I am just drawn to it because of the good old cel shaded animation style - it kept me being engaged and entertained on a visual level. And that is pretty much all I have for this one, the story is not something I could write home about, done a few times before. But that seems to be the theme of season - stories that were told a million times over, done to death. Animators, I salute you... writers, come on guys, surely you could have injected some personality into the story itself..