I watched the pilot the second it came out and I really enjoyed it 😊 The animation is phenomenal, the concept is interesting, and the character designs are astounding, but there were some flaws that I want to address. I know that this is just a pilot and the purpose of a pilot is to test the waters and see if it’ll be interesting enough to grab people’s attention so there is room for mistakes here and there, but I hope that Vivzie takes these critiques to heart and improve on them in future episodes 😊
Pacing-The pacing in this pilot is way too fast as if the whole pilot is on fast forward. I understand that the characters are supposed to give off a chaotic, wacky atmosphere but there should be some scenes where the viewer gets to breathe and observe what’s going on. Like the one quiet scene we got was when Charlie was calling her mother. I wish we had more scenes like that.
Sound Effects-There are WAAYYY too many sound effects in this show. Once again, I get that the sound effects play a role to give off a sense of silliness, but it was really distracting. When I first watched the pilot, the whole time I was thinking “...what is with the sound effects?” I enjoyed it at first, but it got old really fast. It would’ve been better if they used very little of it so it wouldn’t be incredibly distracting.
Use of Profanity/Slutty jokes- Don’t get me wrong! I love cartoons that are raunchy but this show tries way too hard to be adult. All of the characters swear in every other sentence and I feel like that that’s all there is to their character. I know that they’re in Hell so OF COURSE that they are gonna swear like sailors, but there has to be more to their character than just swearing. Also Angel Dust just seems like his character is just being a slut. Like there’s nothing more than that. I know some people have pointed out that he does care about his friends. For example when he saved Cherri Bomb from being captured and how he thinks about comforting Charlie, but that’s about it. Another thing about the swearing is Charlie. Charlie is the nicest one of the characters but hearing her swear seems kind of...off....and they should’ve used that to their advantage! Like when Charlie is at her breaking point and she just breaks down and swears. That would’ve been off-putting but it would be powerful. It kind of doesn’t work if she swears all the time.
And now for my last point...
Nothing happened- I know that this is a tricky point to discuss because literally everything happened in this pilot but to be honest nothing really happened in this show. There wasn’t really any conflict. It was just Charlie pitching an idea to the news reporter, sulking that it failed, Alastor shows up and that’s pretty much it. I guess Sir Pentious was an antagonist but he wasn’t really in it that much. Plus I felt like he was kinda shoe horned in at the end. Also the plot needs to have a standard 3-act structure or the Rising Action/Falling Action pyramid chart such as the Exposition, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, and Resolution. There wasn’t really anything like that in the show. Everything that happened in this pilot was kind of just a bunch of introductions all at once. Also it feels like the pilot was just a bunch of the clips stitched together with a few extra scenes in between. When I first watched the clips, I thought it was going to be a small portion of it but it turns out it was the majority of it. If you fast forward the clips you’ve already seen, then there’s not much else to the pilot. Just a few extra scenes here and there.
Anyway, that’s all I have to say about that! Don’t take this as an attack on Vivziepop, this is just honest criticism. I love Hazbin Hotel and its characters! I just want to see it reach its full potential! I just hope that they fix these things in future episodes( if they plan to make more episodes) Thanks for reading! ❤️