Welcome to Neo Yokio.
Once a place filled with fear, the greatest exorcists of the 19th
Century came together to rid Neo Yokio of its and secure its standing as the
greatest city in the world. Kaz Kaan is
a descendant of one of the famous families who saved the city and ushered in a
new eschalon of Aristocratic standing.
Sadly, he’s just broken up with his girlfriend and has lost all faith in
his duties, his hobbies, even his friends.
Unfortunately, Kaz’s talents are still needed as demons looking to
possess poor souls still roam the streets.
It’s Kazs’ destiny to protect Neo Yokio.
But when the second most eligible bachelor in the city loses the one he
loves…who will protect him from the darkness of melancholy.
Where the frak do I even begin with this one? Barely five minutes into the first episode
and im wondering why this show is even a thing?
Is it Anime, it looks like it.
Heck it looks like Ouran High School Host Club if the Host all had
offspring that made up the population of a whole city…and they battled
demons. Why is there a robot butler who
looks like a discarded Autobot design?
Is this the future or the present we’re looking at with this city that
sounds like an Ice Cream flavor (is it an Ice Cream flavor? It’s so strange to ask that). All these questions and more ran through my
head until the ten minute mark when it slapped me right in the face, the one
thing that could destroy any future interest in this series new to Netflix…the
revelation that I was hearing Jaden Smith voicing Kaz…well…crap.
Yeah. Neo Yokio’s
got a lot of problems in the first episode alone, from the confusing setting to
the less than inspiring cast. Top of the
list, however, is Jaden Smith’s portrayal of the “Main Character”. I throw quotes around that cause…well I guess
he’s supposed to be but I feel like we’re just hearing Jaden in real life…were
he an aristocrat…in which case he still isn’t that interesting. Kaz
spends the whole first episode whinning over his life of luxury without
a girlfriend, who dumped him to…lets face it she can do better, anyone
can. If the fate of a city, nay the world
is left in the hands of a suicidal rich brat who spends time napping on a
custom made grave stone he made well in advance of his death…wow, ive got
nothing.
I wasn’t sure what to make of Neo Yokio before I went
into it. I only had the sudden pop up on
Netflix to go on and that was it. Well I
had that and a couple of youtube vids I will probably check out once im done
writing this review. Animation wise,
it’s not terrible but the world it’s portraying is too confusing. Besides Smith, there’s some interesting voice
talents, in an Anime not being distributed by Disney. Jude Law, Susan Sarandon and Jason
Schwartzman all lend their acting skills to this piece of oddity. Law stands out as the Optimus Prime like
butler Charles, who is doing his best to class up the scene when Kaz just wants
to mope. I guess this is all supposed to
be a next gen co production between the States and Japan. Looking up some info now, it looks like Neo
Yokio was worked on by Production I.G., which also pioneered co productions
with Toonami’s IGPX. And yet this still
looks bad. I want to give I.G. credit
cause I.G. rarely does wrong but this animation is…just bad *shudders*.
In the end, being both bored and infuriated by a
character voiced by an equally bored and infuriating actor probably wont keep
me invested in even a series as short as Neo Yokio. The premise feels like it belongs in some
other title and needs to be spiffed up and reorganized (not sure if that makes
sense but neither does this project as a whole). The cast has amazing talent behind it
(mostly) but there’s really no reason for something so low on the totem pole to
have their vocal powers behind it (kind of like Sean Bean and Lena Heady in
Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV). Why does
this show exist? I don’t know. Should it continue past six episodes? Definitely not. Do I want a Transformers knock off robot
butler with the voice of Jude Law? You
know what…yes, yes I would…if it was actual Optimus M*********G Prime. As I said Neo Yokio sounds like an Ice Cream
flavor...but I doubt this bad taste is what any of us expected, even with the
lowest of expectations.
Seriously, we get this poor excuse for a college fan film
production but aren’t getting Kakegurui on Netflix until 2018?
No comments:
Post a Comment