This video was inspired by all the drama spawned out of this series inception. It’s just a basic review, and my honest thoughts on the series, not influenced by other’s opinions.
Text Version
High Guardian Spice is super popular right now, since it’s actually a real thing. We all thought for a while that Crunchyroll just kind of ditched the project until a release date came out, and then we finally saw the show for ourselves, sitting on the service. I think everyone can recall the original reaction the show’s announcement received, being marketed solely on the fact that the show was being produced by a self-proclaimed diverse team of individuals with no information about the show itself, the only thing we had to take away from it was that the team wanted to make a story like the viewers have never experienced before. And the truth of the matter is I really have never experienced a show like this before: a show that was so severely hated on before it even released to turn out as an inoffensive, albeit extremely boring piece of terribly animated moving pictures marketed to the wrong audience.
By the time I had finished episode one, my thoughts on the show were pretty clear, and mostly had unchanged by the end of the final episode. Aside from a few words, which could have been altered, like some characters saying “shit” or “damn”, I saw almost no need for the mature content warning at the start. I mean, what was the most offensive part about the show? A little blood? The image of a mother trying to kill her kid? A kid figuring out he’s transgender? I don’t know. Seems to me like they could have erased some curse words and literally marketed this to kids – at least then maybe people would be a little less mad about it. That wouldn’t take away from them complaining about a trans character in a kids’ show, but at this point that’s become pretty normal, and it needs to be accepted. In fact I do believe High Guardian Spice did well by that regard. Among many lessons it could have taught to kids like friendship, discipline, and morals. Acceptance of each other and one’s self was above and beyond, the number one thing that the story drove home.
Do I think they didn’t need to over amplify the fact that certain characters were the way they were? Anise and Aloe, for example, we pretty much got the point they were gay from the first time they showed up on screen and how close they interacted. But I guess they needed to keep showing us that to make sure we understood that “gay is okay”? But really, that’s a nitpick, it’s inoffensive at its worst. People are going to forget this show if they never release a second season, which it seems like Crunchyroll is making some form of attempt at doing with the final episode’s after credits scene – and that may actually happen as time raises its overall rating. You see, the first episode may be down voted into oblivion with over 6x the dislikes as likes at the time of writing this video, but as you approach episode six, those meters slowly reach a stalemate and come closer in line with a 50/50 split. The overall rating is only a 1.7/5 on Crunchyroll itself, which is the easiest rating to just hit and go to another page. In terms of the later episodes, iMDB lists shows like Paw Patrol and Peppa Pig with ratings closer to a 60 or 70%, with all the bad PR surrounding High Guardian Spice, when it does die down it will probably find it’s way closer to those shows, where it belongs, like the mediocre, poorly marketed kids show it really is.
And just in case we’re not clear. Yes, I think Crunchyroll wasted their money with this, the money in which consumers pay them for their product. But it’s their choice in the end to waste money on this kind of product. If there’s any offense really made by this series, it’s just that, but it’s not like it was made by sacrificing anything I really care about.
High Guardian Spice is available on Crunchyroll.