Pryde of the X-Men is an interesting failure. On one hand, the animation is outstanding for its time. On the other hand, unless you already read the comic you wouldn't know what the heck was going on. And it's pretty gosh-darn stupid.
The animation, particularly the use of shadows and the particle effects, are impressive. I suspect Marvel had this animated in Japan, the style shows through. If not, the animators did a good job of emulating the efforts of most anime studios at the time. The characters all look cool and Wolvie has his brown costume (my favorite).
Unfortunately, nobody put much effort into cohering all those awesome battle scenes into a story. I mean, they didn't even try. There isn't a plot, things happen. Magneto escapes from the back of a tanker truck. Professor X introduces Kitty Pryde to the X-Men. Magneto and Juggernaut attack the X-Mansion. Not an X-Men fan? What I've typed got you a bit confused? Don't know who these people are or their relationships to one another? The cartoon won't help.
The script of a children's cartoon needn't be outstanding literature but it should at least put forth a minimum of effort into expounding on who everyone is, what they're doing, and why they're doing it. Take the more recent Fox X-Men series as an example. In the first episode, the X-Men save a little girl from the robots trying to capture her. You get to know everyone's name, their respective powers, and that they're the good guys. You get good action scenes and good exposition. Here, in Pryde of the X-Men, you get the X-Men yelling at a little girl and some other guys knocking over stuff while particle effects flash and swirl about the screen. Sure, it'll pique a kid's attention but after two or three episodes he's going to quit watching because he won't know what's going on. Yes, that does matter to children.
Perhaps the biggest failure of Pryde of the X-Men is the "subplot" (I wince at using any form of the word 'plot' in reference to this show) regarding Nightcrawler. Nightcrawler is one ugly dude, he looks about like a cathedral gargoyle. Kitty is scared of him but later comes to realize that just because he's ugly doesn't mean he's evil. That's all fine and good IF HE WASN'T A TOTAL PERV! When he meets Kitty he reaches out to her (and I really hope this was unintentional on the animator's part) like he's going to grab at her breasts. He practically drools on her. Later, when he rescues a little girl from a fiery inferno (more particle effects!) he, well, puts his hands about her bum and her crotch. I remember that from when I was a kid, too. I wasn't scared of how he looked, I was afraid he grab me and talk soothingly to me while fondling my private parts. The way he acts, he's the last person you'd want your kids watching on a weekly basis. And his costume is apparently a red, v-shaped vest with nothing underneath. Brrrr.
All in all, good eye candy for its time but it lacks enough direction and coherence to keep even small children watching. That's probably why no one picked it up as a series. That and Wolverine's Aussie accent was really bad.
