Panda and the Magic Serpent

I wrote this for a class, which explains why it's a bit more analytical/spoiler-filled.

Panda is the first feature length anime in color, and it shows in the production value. All in all, it's not too bad, it just isn't that easy on the eyes. The character designs are very simple and the animation is exaggerated and cartoony. The tone is a mix of some humor with a serious plot, although the bad dubbing and unnecessary narration hurt the credibility and seemed to dumb the whole experience down.

The characters are pretty surface level, either being comic relief, a person in love, or a blustering villain. They often did some pretty foolish things, like the serpent's servant nearly drowning everyone while trying to save them or the villain's complete disregard of the possibility of a mistake until it smacked him in the face. It was a nice story of love, but a lot of the time it was frustrating.

The pacing seemed off, as it kept going after it felt like it should have ended. But it still explored, again, friendship and sacrifice, fairly well. Xu-Xian's animal friends are very dedicated to him, and take on tough odds to try and help him. And Bia-Niang is willing to give up her immortality to be with him. All of it makes Xu-Xian seem kind of lame honestly, since everybody does everything for him and he can't do much himself. The audio made the whole thing funnier than it should have been, but it was decent.