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While I'm on a little break from MLP Reviews, I wanted to give a proper scorecard to two modern Disney shows. Ones that I think deserve the praise and attention they get, and one that brought back one of the actresses from two of my most nostalgic shows on Disney, Brenda Song.

This is the first season of Amphibia.

It's about a 13-year old girl named Anne Boonchuy (voiced by the aformentioned Brenda Song), who along with her best friends, Sasha Waybright and Marcy Wu, steal a mysterious frog-themed music box, which unexpectedly transports them into a whole new world named Amphibia, a world where amphibians of any kind are sapient, and rule over the land... and try to survive it. While lost in the woods near a town called Wartwood, Anne meets a young frog named Sprig Plantar, who becomes her new best friend, and along with his grandfather Hop-Pop and younger sister Polly, decide to give her shelter for a few months until they figure out a way to find her friends and get them all home.

First, I'd like to praise the animation of this show. It's noticable that Disney puts a lot of effort to their animated works, since this show not only looks beautiful with its amazing backgrounds and distincitive monster and enviroment designs, but the character aninmation is smooth and full of personality. Which is fullyt highlightred in the action scenes and emotional moments.

The characters as well are all very likeable and enjoyable to watch. We have Anne herself, who not only has her personal arc of growing as a person and learnign about what being a friend truly means, but we also see her struggling to earn the respect from the townfolk of Wartwood, going from being seen as a town monster to the town hero. We also have the Plantars themselves. Sprig is good-hearted and loyal, if a bit mischiveous, Hop-Pop is the one to have the most traditionalist views but is also very honest and wise, and Polly is basically a younger Izzy from Total Drama, which is always a positive in my eyes. The townfolk of Wartwood also has some colorful characters among them, like Hop-Pop's old flame Sylvia, creepy girl with a heart of gold Maddie, wild survivor Soggy Joe, the old lady with a mysterious past Mrs. Croaker, and Sprig's love interest Ivy Sundew. My favorite among them, however, has to be One-Eyed Wally, who loves being who he is despite being seen as the town weirdo.

And we also have great villains like Captain Grime and, spoilers, Sasha. Grime is intimidating and commanding, but he also forms a genuine friendship with Sasha and learns how to be a leader thanks to her. And Sasha not only is an enjoyable antagonist, being able to manipulate whovere she wants with only flattery and compliments, but it's also shown that, despite being a toxic influence on her, she genuinely cares for Anne, and wants to reunite with her friends as muchas she wants to get home.

Also, I don't know if anyone's said this already, but this is a surprisingly dark show. Not only is it set on a death world where everything and sometimes anyone will try to kill you if you make the wrong move, but this show also talks abvout toxic relationships, anmd how it affects everyone involved... and I love it.

I wouldn't call this season perfect, since there are certain elements that bother me, like a few boring plots, and there are times where Sprig can be annoying or unlikeable. But those aren't flaws that destroy the enjoyment. More like a few nitpicks I have with it.

So, I don't really have that many episodes I genuinely disliked to do a traditional Bottom 5, so I'll just tell you what my least favorite episode is:

Least Favorite: Cracking Mrs. Croaker

This is the kind of episode that many cartoons have tried to tackle, and rarely seen it work. In this episode, Sprig tries to make Mrs. Croaker like him, since she's the only frog in Wartwood that doesn't seem to care about him very much... okay, fisrt, when did Sprig become a town favorite? Back in the beginning of the season he was introduced as a troublemaker, and not particularly liked by the rest of the townfolk. So when did he suddenly get so popular? And why is Mrs. Croaker the only one who doesn't like him? She has shown to be in friendly terms with him before. Like offering him a ride home in Anne Theft Auto, or taking his side of the argument in Civil Wart. One would assume that she would come to dislike him since he tends to cause some trouble around like in Croak and Punishment where he goes around accusing people of being criminals, but the reason she apparently dislikes him is because he has "big eyes and goofy smile that rub her the wrong way"... which is a very poor excuse to not like someone, since we later have Cursed where it teaches to never judge anyone for their appearence. So what makes Sprig judging Maddie for how she looks wrong but Mrs. Croaker judging Sprig for how he looks okay? And the twist with Jonah was pretty obvious. Once we get to see him there's the feeling that this guy isn't Mrs. Croaker's "long lost love". So, I understand if oyu like this one, but I personally consider it the only genuinely bad episode of the show so far... which, at least in my opinion, is a huge compliment.

And as for my favorite episode... Reunion.

But you'll have to wait for what I have to say about it. So stay tuned.

Overall, this was a great start for this show, and I can't wait to see what they'll do from here.

Description
While I'm on a little break from MLP Reviews, I wanted to give a proper scorecard to two modern Disney shows. Ones that I think deserve the praise and attention they get, and one that brought back one of the actresses from two of my most nostalgic shows on Disney, Brenda Song.

This is the first season of Amphibia.

It's about a 13-year old girl named Anne Boonchuy (voiced by the aformentioned Brenda Song), who along with her best friends, Sasha Waybright and Marcy Wu, steal a mysterious frog-themed music box, which unexpectedly transports them into a whole new world named Amphibia, a world where amphibians of any kind are sapient, and rule over the land... and try to survive it. While lost in the woods near a town called Wartwood, Anne meets a young frog named Sprig Plantar, who becomes her new best friend, and along with his grandfather Hop-Pop and younger sister Polly, decide to give her shelter for a few months until they figure out a way to find her friends and get them all home.

First, I'd like to praise the animation of this show. It's noticable that Disney puts a lot of effort to their animated works, since this show not only looks beautiful with its amazing backgrounds and distincitive monster and enviroment designs, but the character aninmation is smooth and full of personality. Which is fullyt highlightred in the action scenes and emotional moments.

The characters as well are all very likeable and enjoyable to watch. We have Anne herself, who not only has her personal arc of growing as a person and learnign about what being a friend truly means, but we also see her struggling to earn the respect from the townfolk of Wartwood, going from being seen as a town monster to the town hero. We also have the Plantars themselves. Sprig is good-hearted and loyal, if a bit mischiveous, Hop-Pop is the one to have the most traditionalist views but is also very honest and wise, and Polly is basically a younger Izzy from Total Drama, which is always a positive in my eyes. The townfolk of Wartwood also has some colorful characters among them, like Hop-Pop's old flame Sylvia, creepy girl with a heart of gold Maddie, wild survivor Soggy Joe, the old lady with a mysterious past Mrs. Croaker, and Sprig's love interest Ivy Sundew. My favorite among them, however, has to be One-Eyed Wally, who loves being who he is despite being seen as the town weirdo.

And we also have great villains like Captain Grime and, spoilers, Sasha. Grime is intimidating and commanding, but he also forms a genuine friendship with Sasha and learns how to be a leader thanks to her. And Sasha not only is an enjoyable antagonist, being able to manipulate whovere she wants with only flattery and compliments, but it's also shown that, despite being a toxic influence on her, she genuinely cares for Anne, and wants to reunite with her friends as muchas she wants to get home.

Also, I don't know if anyone's said this already, but this is a surprisingly dark show. Not only is it set on a death world where everything and sometimes anyone will try to kill you if you make the wrong move, but this show also talks abvout toxic relationships, anmd how it affects everyone involved... and I love it.

I wouldn't call this season perfect, since there are certain elements that bother me, like a few boring plots, and there are times where Sprig can be annoying or unlikeable. But those aren't flaws that destroy the enjoyment. More like a few nitpicks I have with it.

So, I don't really have that many episodes I genuinely disliked to do a traditional Bottom 5, so I'll just tell you what my least favorite episode is:

Least Favorite: Cracking Mrs. Croaker

This is the kind of episode that many cartoons have tried to tackle, and rarely seen it work. In this episode, Sprig tries to make Mrs. Croaker like him, since she's the only frog in Wartwood that doesn't seem to care about him very much... okay, fisrt, when did Sprig become a town favorite? Back in the beginning of the season he was introduced as a troublemaker, and not particularly liked by the rest of the townfolk. So when did he suddenly get so popular? And why is Mrs. Croaker the only one who doesn't like him? She has shown to be in friendly terms with him before. Like offering him a ride home in Anne Theft Auto, or taking his side of the argument in Civil Wart. One would assume that she would come to dislike him since he tends to cause some trouble around like in Croak and Punishment where he goes around accusing people of being criminals, but the reason she apparently dislikes him is because he has "big eyes and goofy smile that rub her the wrong way"... which is a very poor excuse to not like someone, since we later have Cursed where it teaches to never judge anyone for their appearence. So what makes Sprig judging Maddie for how she looks wrong but Mrs. Croaker judging Sprig for how he looks okay? And the twist with Jonah was pretty obvious. Once we get to see him there's the feeling that this guy isn't Mrs. Croaker's "long lost love". So, I understand if oyu like this one, but I personally consider it the only genuinely bad episode of the show so far... which, at least in my opinion, is a huge compliment.

And as for my favorite episode... Reunion.

But you'll have to wait for what I have to say about it. So stay tuned.

Overall, this was a great start for this show, and I can't wait to see what they'll do from here.