The Avengers Anime on Disney Plus

Disney Plus. You've heard of it. Unless you haven't, in which case, let me sum it up for you. It's the streaming service to suit all of your Disney needs.

That includes your basic Disney movies, along with Pixar, Star Wars, Marvel, The Muppets, Disney Channel originals, animated movies you forgot were Disney (see: The Wild), those live action movies based loosely off children's books (guest starring Jennifer Garner or someone like that), cartoon shorts that were lost deep in the memories of your childhood,

...pretty much anything you could possibly think of that's Disney. But somehow not Enchanted. 

It also includes Future Avengers, a new Disney Plus-exclusive English dub of a Japanese anime from 3 years ago. Ariana and I encountered it a few days ago, and whether it was by accident or by fate, we had nothing better to do, so we gave it a spin.

Mistake? ...No, I wouldn't say mistake. I would say misfortune, though. You know by now I'm a pretty big critic. Not that I don't enjoy things, but I do enjoy picking them apart.

So let me tell you about the premise. (Keep in mind, I've only been half-watching this whilst multitasking, so I don't have the best grasp on everything.)

It revolves around three teenaged kids: Makoto (your stereotypical obnoxious full-of-himself hotshot), Chloe (The Spunky One), and Adi (so far he has no distinct archetype, aside from being Good With Tech. The most normal, therefore the most likable one. Also the most ignored one.)

The three of them are super-powered beings. I don't really understand what their exact powers are, but they have them. And they work for Hydra, because I guess they hire kids now?

They're tricked to believe that they're the good guys, and that the superheroes (ie the Avengers) are evil. Then they find out they were being lied to. I say it so casually because that's exactly how it happened. "Turns out the boss is lying to us. The Avengers aren't evil, we are." "What? Oh no."

So they run off to join the good guys. But Tony Stark is like "um no you're just kids", and so rather than fighting alongside the Avengers 24/7, they just tag along with them and sometimes help them on missions. So they dub themselves The Future Avengers. (Yes. It feels very self-insert fanfiction in that sense.)

So Stark designs them these watches that they can press to suit up. It also has a digital assistant built into it. A holographic Pokemon (or, rather, Yokai Watch) -esque creature named Visco, Yes, that's right, Visco.

He's like their own personal Jarvis, except instead of a classy British voice, he has a squeaky annoying voice, and the ability to electrocute them if he chooses to.

If I'm telling the truth, the kids' aspect of the show bores me. And like I said earlier, I've only been half-paying attention, so I couldn't tell you much about their story past that. So let's talk about the Avengers instead.

The team consists of Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Hulk and.... Wasp.

And guess what? She's fantastic. Possibly the best Wasp I've ever seen in anything ever, including the movies.

You get occasional appearances by almost any hero you could hope for. And honestly? They're good. Good voices, accurate portrayals, great design.

Black Panther is the king of Wakanda, and he will not take any nonsense from those dumb kids.

Hawkeye is living alone in a shabby apartment, just like in my favorite comic series.

Bucky Barnes battles with his past and his Winter Soldier alter-ego, in a more in-depth way than any Marvel cartoon I've ever seen. (And uh, simply put, he's hot).

We get good classic Spider-Man vs Green Goblin content that I haven't seen since, like, the Leapster game I had when I was 6.

 Falcon shows up, Captain Marvel AND Ms. Marvel have screentime, even Deadpool comes in. It's fantastic.... some of the time.

That said, I do have some complaints.

First off, there's not shortage of cheesy dialogue.

"THE Iron Fist? The hero with fists of iron?" 

"Spider-Man's no superhero, Spider-Man's a super zero!" (said in unison by a group of bully children.)

and more!

There's also no shortage of villains with bad accents. Particularly Russian. "So. We meet agiyhn, Kehptyn Amehryka."

There are plenty of connections/similarities to the Marvel movie universe we know and love. Because of this, the inconsistencies are especially noticeable.

For example, they sort of touched upon the Civil War plotline, but not... really? They introduced a hero regulation bill, but then immediately abolished it. Didn't give them enough time to have disagreements over it or anything.

Another, more ridiculous example is that the Winter Soldier can teleport. And if there's an explanation for this, I wasn't paying attention when it came.

My final example is that the characters all address each other by their hero names. Almost all the time. In the movies they're rarely EVER referred to by their superhero names, right? Unless it's like bystanders or the press. It's always "Peter" "Tony" "Sam" "Nat", y'know?  No one says "Oh hey Black Widow." It just doesn't sit well with me.

They also all have catchphrases. Like, you know "Hulk smash"? Well everyone in this show has their own version(s) of that, which they call out before their attacks. Here are some I recall:

Iron Man: "Unibeam!" / "Repulsor blast!"
Thor: "Lightning strike!"
Captain Marvel: "Blast punch!"
Hulkbuster: "Buster crash!"
Wasp: "Wasp sting!"
And the very best...
Captain America: "Shield throw!"

Oh, and while we're still kind of on the topic of Hulk smash....  well, maybe you should just see this for yourself.

Hulk: "Hulk smash!"

Captions:

I wish I was making this up. 

That's a common theme, though, actually. The captions being bad.

I want you to take a look at someone for me.

Now, I don't know how familiar you are with Marvel, but regardless of that,... you can tell me right now that this isn't a picture of Loki, right? 

Well, if your answer was yes, congratulations! You've officially outsmarted the transcriptionists! Because this is, in fact, not Loki, but Amora the Enchantress (one of my favorite supervillains who NEEDS to be in an MCU movie). And throughout an entire episode, the captions mislabeled her as Loki. Slow flippin' clap.

Finally, I'd like to make you aware of one last thing. The credits have an outro theme song. Not unusual, especially for an anime. But this particular anime has a disco outro theme song. That is all.

A lot of the pent-up classic Marvel nerd inside of me is coming out again as I watch this show. I had a huge phase when I was probably 14 or 15, and it slowly mellowed. And now I fear its exposure is near.

That is a dangerous thing, because I now have the urge to shop online for the comics I need to complete my Hawkeye collection (I DEFINITELY recommend it, and I happen to have an extra copy of the first volume if anyone wants to borrow it...) Or to marathon all the MCU movies. Or to plan a superhero group cosplay.

And you know what? That nerdy side of me is surprisingly appeased. This may not be a fantastic show, but there are parts of it that they handled better than any of the Marvel cartoons have. And I have something to keep me entertained for a few more days of quarantine.

Thus far (about 15 episodes or so in), I'd give it a solid 3 out of 5 stars, with some 4 star moments here and there. 

Do I recommend it?... uh...

Sure.

I hope you've all found something more productive to do with your time than critiquing an anime, but honestly, whatever you're up to, I hope you're enjoying yourselves.

See ya.