Exploding Kittens

Yeah...so I gave this a fair shot since I figured a lot of the negative reviews were just brigaiding from the religious lot. Nah though, it's just not that great.

It feels like the "hello fellow kids, I too enjoy musicband" of adult animation. The jokes aren't *bad* but they are kinda stale and tryhard. The visual gags are a little bit better, but only a little bit. The dialogue/voice acting is a kind of Upbeat Quirky Snark™ that was already feeling done to death 10 years ago. It just feels so, so generic, "safe", like it was made purely for mass commercial appeal by a panel of old men.

The parenting jokes are overdone and not well integrated. The teens are so clearly written by adults that don't know any teens. The cats are seriously underutilised and when they do get screen time it's more imitation edginess that just doesn't land. It's boring. It's a shame because the concept isn't a bad one, it just totally fails to deliver.

I can't even call it bad - it's not interesting enough to be bad - but it's really not good either.

Exploding kittens takes the chaos of the card game and captures it in animated form making it a fun watch relatable to the annoyances of humanity, however instead of using the unique designs and outlandish characters from inman's wide range of card games he falls on a formulistic story mocking common sit com tropes. The creator has brief Easter eggs and references to his games and comics but it doesn't actually seem to relate to the game play of any of them. We need to see how having his characters and mythological characters and cryptids in heaven and hell actually makes this world unique. Season 2 should build the world based on the card game and those included in show not just the worst of earths society and religion.

Perhaps the mere fact that my low expectations were so widely exceeded OR.. or... And bear with me now (is it 'bear' or 'bare'? ).. OR perhaps it's just REALLY GOOD (cause it IS), but I'm loving this! And for the official record, my pedigree in western animation is substantial (don't tell anyone but I actually watch em all, which for a middle aged white guy, is sad?) but, ya this is solid 100 percent worth your time! Animation 9 voice acting 9 Story 9 (so why did I give it an 8? Lol, cause for me 9s are 10s and I reserve 10s for the all time like an Attenborough documentary or Rick and Morty, sooo...)

I sat down one night, popcorn in hand, To watch "Jurassic Park," the best in the land.

But what did I see? To my surprise, Exploding kittens before my eyes!

Cartoon cats, oh so cute, Blowing up, in hot pursuit.

Expecting dinos, but got this instead, Funny felines messing with my head.

Their antics were wild, their humor quite bold, A show full of laughter, stories untold.

No T-Rex roaring, no Velociraptor chase, Just kittens with bombs all over the place.

Animation bright, voices so clear, Quirky adventures, plenty to cheer.

Though it wasn't the dino flick I craved, "Exploding Kittens" still had me enslaved.

A solid 7, for fun and delight, But for Jurassic thrills, I'll switch tonight.

Kittens, you were great, you played your part, But nothing beats dinos, they steal my heart.

What's great about other Oatmeal's art is its cute sarcasm: it's sharp and unforgiving, yet kinda lovable. Even monster babies are adorable, in their own disgusting way - but it's still delivering the point, like "cats rules, babies suck", and the like.

Here, the cuteness of the characters is all there - the art style of the drawings is transitioned into the animation quite impeccably: everything looks ugly and beautiful at the same time. The voice acting is a good match, too - mostly, anyway. But the sarcasm is severely lacking.

It's just too nice.

Don't get me wrong, there still are fairly sharp jokes and puns and some sarcastic attitude (like the fair part of the SeaWorld episode), but the whole premise of God being selfish jerk is lost pretty much in episode 1, and the evil is pretty much never materialises at any point. And all the family values...

Too nice.