Eric, an environmental police officer, gets back to work after his wife dies in a forest fire. He investigates the death of a river dolphin and gets entangled in a world of Brazilian mythical creatures (known as ‘entities’ in the show). These are ruled by Ines, the cuca. Other important characters include Luna, Eric’s daughter, and Camila, an iara (siren).
*****SPOILERS*****
Positives
There
are many things to celebrate.
The
opening credits were spectacular. Whilst the duration was longer than I
typically like, each moment was used wisely. The length was thus the correct
choice.
The
actors of Eric and Camila were amazing, showing great skill.
The
body of the dead river dolphin transforms into the shape of a human. Ines made
blue butterflies swarm over the it and then they fly off, the body disappearing
into a cloud of even more butterflies. This was beautiful to watch. Not only
visually but the purpose behind it: Ines wanted to protect the entities from
humanity’s curiosity and fear.
We
see a piglet eating a bowl of fruit and it’s adorable. But then the piglet puts
a hoof into the bowl and this was a cuteness overload. It’s still chewing as
it’s picked up and that could have killed me with happiness. How much of this
was planned and how much was accidental I don’t know. I’m just happy it
happened.
Problems
At one
point, Luna wakes up. She alternates between screaming, breathing heavily, and
shouting for her grandma. I found this a weird combo. A scream as she woke up
would have been fine, but to intersperse a few in the middle was too weird and
unnatural.
Curupira
going back into the forest caused most of the issues.
He
starts writhing around, making all these weird body movements and weird
screams. His facial expression throughout the show have been utterly bizarre so
this fits with the characterisation, but why this weird characterisation was
included I don’t know. It seems unnecessary because it doesn’t add anything to
the show.
These
screams weren’t in pain or in fear. Eric follows animals calls which lead to
Curupira. But Curupira’s screams are definitely human. So why he was screaming
I don’t know.
Questions
Some
things were problematic but there could be something to explain them away. I
say ‘could’ because they’re not immediately present and I’m just grasping at
straws.
There
is occasional use of the word ‘fuck’. That’s fine. But no other swear words are
used in the show. Usually stronger swears are accompanied by weaker ones
because going straight in with one of the strongest is off. Maybe this is a
translation error. Maybe in Portuguese, their equivalent of ‘fuck’ isn’t
considered as harsh a swearword as it is in English.
Isac
starts talking about Curupira drinking too much alcohol but halfway through
saying ‘alcohol’, he changes this to ‘coffee’. Um, what? Is talking to kids
about alcohol in Brazilian culture bad? I can’t think of any other explanation
for this weird behaviour.
Throughout
the show, the butterflies land on people’s faces and the eyes on the wings are
positioned over the eyes on the face. This is a nice touch. Although the
butterflies are blue on top and brown-with-eyes below: when they land and
spread their wings, it should be the upside (the blue) showing, not the
underneath (the brown). But these are magical butterflies which are the result
of the shapeshifting cuca, so shifting their shape to flip the wing patterns
isn’t unplausible.
Conclusion
All-in-all,
this was an enjoyable show. The animation and the acting were done well, as
were the clothing designs. It’s clear that a lot of effort went into producing
it. It kept me intrigued the whole way through.
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