Pilot

This pilot was ok. It's not anything mind blowing, but a decent animated short film, and a great introduction to the world of Helluva Boss.

When I saw the pilot back in 2019 I loved it and couldn't wait for the actual thing. But now, with 3 episodes in, its just not the same. It's interesting to see how this show evolved. While Helluva Boss is basicly an R rated Looney Tunes, this pilot shows something that looks more like Space Force or The Office, but with a fantasy twist. It's clear Medrano wanted this show to be character focused from the very beggining, and you can tell that. The episode does a great job at presenting them all and their dinamics with very little time. But it has issues. It' flashback structure was quite confusing and the comedy was very predicteable at times. However, it's still a funny episode, specially, when it comes to Blitzo and Stolas. The character were really good and clearly left a good impression. Helluva Boss got one of "those" obcessive fanbases, mostly consisted of teens and young adults. While things eventually calmed down, the existence of such a devoted fandom to such a small piece of animation is impressive to say the least. Yes, it's true this show is connected to Hazbin Hotel, but even then, you can see the fans quickly fell in love with the characters for themselves, and not the world they were in. If you look at the fanart and fanfics of the time, the characters are clearly the focus. If all this isn't proof of a well done introduction, well done characters and character dinamics, then I don't know what it is. Animation wise, it's a bit rough, but if you consider this is an indie project its almost jaw dropping. While I'm not 100% on board with Medrano's artistic decisions (particularly on the humans being too simplistic) this is still good looking. I'm a big fan of the collor pallette used here and the character designs are pretty good. The musical number was great and gave the show and is captures really well the vibe the show is going to have. The voice cast was great too and had some big names, wich was impressive for an indie project. Overall, solid pilot for a show that's going to be polished way more in the future. Stick around and you won't be disappointed.

The show reaaaally wants to be for adults. To the point where every third word is a swear or a sex joke. I don't have any problem with such stuff if done tastefully, but this pilot is everything but tasteful with it. I mean, there are no, like, porno scenes, come on, but, as the headline suggests, it's done in a very immature, annoying and simply unnatural way. It's not funny, it doesn't flow well, and is simply off-putting. Kinda similar with the gore, it does feel weird and out of place to me. Like, it's mostly for shock value, not for actual impact: it's not for emotion, it doesn't add much to the world building or character presentation (I already know they're devils and that they suck), and it's also low-key played out for the laughs. I don't know, it just feels unnatural.

And so does the song. It's also, like, weird. I like musicals, but only if the songs feel natural and integral to the story. It feels really weird for bounty hunters to sing so casually and basically carelessly, almost laughing out loud, about something that is quite obviously risky and heavy. I know they're devils, but if you want them to be evil and take that evilness seriously, maybe don't make a song where they're just being idiots? I can't explain it well, but it just doesn't feel right.

So, why not 1/10? Well, the animation is quite amazing, and it can't be denied. I personally do like the character designs, colouring is good, eyes glow very pleasantly and satisfyingly, it's fluid, it's colourful, it has a nice palette, the posing is good, framing is as it should be, and generally it's just simply good animation.

I find the world building quite creative, too. Their bodies being representation of the sins they committed when they were alive is nice. The pilot doesn't present too much of the world building (I think?), but what is there, is pretty good. Not every series has to have as much lore as, idk, the gaslight district or freaking the lord of the rings (that one is thick).

Besides, a few jokes at the beginning actually landed. Like, the first 2 minutes of the thing were actually good. It's just that it gets kinda unwatchable at the 6 minutes mark or so.

So, overall, there are definitely things to appreciate, and there are people who may like the bounty hunters premise (for me it's... fine, but doesn't win me over unless there's substance added to it, and there isn't), but the pilot is rather... bad. It's done in an untasteful and seemingly poorly thought-out way.

This pilot doesn't have an actual plot, it just introduces the main plot of the show. You need more than that for a proper pilot and this definitely doesn't work.

It's just a "this happens, then this happens, then this happens, etc." kind of episode. It's poorly explained and it's required to watch to fully understand the rest of the show. It's never a good idea to make the pilot an episode that explains everything and then not explain anything about the main idea of the show in the first real episode.

It's not that bad of an episode because there's some funny lines and scenes, but it just doesn't really work well.

The animation could've been better too, which I wouldn't mind if this was truly a pilot and not a first episode that you have to watch.

Overall, a 4/10. Bad episode.

After watching the recently released Hazbin Hotel series (which I found entertaining and halfway decent) I decided to watch Helluva Boss again from the first to the last episode released and see at what point the series was "ruined" or if it is an exaggeration to call it a bad series

The pilot episode in summary presents everything that the series and its characters were supposed to be about.

The main problem with the episode is that it does not have a fixed plot, it jumps from scene to scene so that we can get to know the characters and it is mainly used for comic purposes, which knowing the type of humor that the Vivziepop series handles does not work very good.

In the end it does not stand out in anything other than the animation (and it is not as good as the following episodes) and perhaps a little in the potential that the idea could have.

Mid 5: It is your typical animation for adults with fairly basic black humor.