 So, the Matt Mercer Effect got his new show released on the Bezos channel, and it's everything that I would expect it to be, coming from a man whose typical writing style is based around the assumption that I have literally hundreds of hours to waste listening to voice actor ASMR suddenly learning that his entire show will be the same runtime as one session. As someone who didn't watch Campaign 1 and therefore didn't know my scanlines for my strong jaws, I went into Box Machina with no expectations other than Sam Riegel's comforting smile. And considering that most of these voice actors made their careers in anime, it's interesting to see all the visual and tonal inspiration that it took from our eastern seaborne, especially the part where the first episode is trash. Before you can get to the fun part of Box Machina, you need to spend an episode and a half learning about the setting, as well as get introduced to the seven main characters that make up the squad, who are constantly talking over each other to nab at a tiny bit of screen time so that they aren't lost in the whirlwind of what's going on. The show makes a genuine effort to connect us to these characters, but since I wasn't already connected to them vicariously through their live game, I didn't lose my mind over seeing Scanlon Bone a busty barmaid. Apparently the first two episodes take place before the live play of Critical Role began, so this was either a recreation of what they did in their private game before going live, or it was a completely new story manufactured for maximum character development. Either way, the pace was going faster than in typical Daffy Chappy video. The humor was your typical 2000s, well that just happened. And hold on, is that David Tennant? Never mind, these episodes were great. I will say that I was actively trying to enjoy myself because I want to support the D&D show that got kickstarted from the ground up, which is probably not the best place to come from as a reviewer, but it didn't help my second-hand embarrassment from perpetuating right up until the climax of episode two, where the show finally dropped the pretense of look at these losers, they can't even work together, and it suddenly turned into a dope-ass action scene filled with references that went so far over my head they disrupted air traffic. By the end of episode two, I was ready to give it a chance, and the following arc, Whitestone, was known to me as both the beginning of the live Critical Role game, as well as apparently the greatest thing since the second coming of Diced, so at the very least I knew that it was going to be putting its best foot forward. And once it took that step, things finally clicked into place. I don't know if it's the case of Matt taking all the best moments from the tabletop, or the writers just didn't feel the need to oversaturate the scenes with forced characterization, but once the party started doing things related to Whitestone, everything picked up and I no longer had to worry about what the Twitter mob might say if it turned out that I didn't like the animated Dice game. I can't speak on lore accuracy, but the version of Whitestone that I got was your typical revenge story of, bad guys killed my parents, now I must kill them. With a couple of the usual twists thrown in and a backdrop of undead monsters that were so prevalent that they had to take the cleric out of the show for a few episodes to give the bad guys a chance. It's not going to challenge your consumerist mind, but it's still fun to watch all the mindless action. I will say the dark and foreboding plotline was undercut a bit by the fact that when anyone else encounters so much as an evil fern, they get horribly eviscerated and their giblets turn into wall decoration. But when the main seven fights something, that thing swoops in like it's about to go in for the killing blow before it stops just short and says, hey, wait a minute, are you Travis Willingham? I loved you when Full Metal Alchemist. I get that they're the main characters, so of course they're going to have plot armor stronger than Midgardian male, but it feels like they're in Lord of the Rings while everyone else is in the Witcher. Besides that though, there isn't much bad to say about the Whitestone arc, or Vox Machina as a whole. All the cast members know what they're doing, because they've literally been playing these characters for years. And while the humor does sometimes dip back into, he's right behind me territory, it's usually a lot more clever than that. And the show knows how to switch between serious and lighthearted scenes without ruining either. There are a few scenes, especially near the end, that actually got me a bit emotional. And besides the plot armor gripe, all the action scenes are actually pretty awesome. It's tough with a huge cast to come up with something for every character to do, but the show manages to keep the balance fairly well, even if sometimes I look in the background and see someone standing there like it's not their turn yet. That's mostly due to the animation while serviceable, being on the level of Invincible, which I refer to as anime light, where it never looks bad, but you'll never think, wow, I can't believe it's not buffer. That is until the last three episodes where they funneled all the budget into really fluid fight scenes and some of the most engaging plot that the show has to offer, courtesy of that Briarwood twist. Until that point, like Invincible, they try to distract you by dialing the sexing gore all the way up to 13, which initially struck me as an edgy way of saying, yeah, D&D is for adults too. But it grew on me faster than Scanlan ever could, and by the time that the 50th guard's steaming guts spread out onto the ground, it was just a day in the life. Speaking of Scanlan, Sam Regal is the goat of critical role, and I will go on record saying that if he wasn't a part of the group, no one would have given a shit about Vox Machina, and Pull My Beads of Love is the smoking gun. Speaking of smoking guns, second place is No Mercy Percy, but he ripped off my character in the Daniel, so he's getting doxin' points. Overall, super fans of critical role are going to enjoy the series more than people who are just tuning in for a new dragon show, which makes sense. The legend of Vox Machina was made for super fans, but if you're looking for something to turn on to avoid the social paralysis of laying on your couch endlessly flipping through channels, then you can binge Vox Machina in an afternoon and wait an entire year for season two, which got greenlit before season one even came out, and then eventually you'll probably get tired of waiting enough to try watching the live play series. You do still have to have some knowledge of D&D, or at least fantasy tropes in general, to watch the show, because otherwise you'll spend the whole time wondering things like what the hell K-Liz deal is when the simple answer is, oh, she's a druid. I'm gonna give Vox Machina my patented four out of 10. I kind of compare the series' quality progression to solo, where you can practically see the linear line from terrible beginning to absolutely phenomenal ending. It's lighthearted, it's serious, it's fun, it's charming, it's a little dull in places, but you're gonna have a great time watching anyway. And hey, if the characters stick to you, then you're always welcome to tonight's episode of Critical Role. But, that'll about do it. I hope you enjoyed this video. Be sure to do all those things that I know you do. Leave your own review of the show in the comments, but only use the one correct rating. And maybe support me on Patreon so that I can crowdfund my way into season two. But yeah, dabby, yeah.