I’m a fan of animation, and it’s always welcome when an adult Western animation debuts that is proud to be animated.
“Hazbin Hotel” is a musical dramedy (dramatic comedy) directed by Vivienne Medrano that stars Erika Henningsen as the voice of Charlie Morningstar, the princess of Hell, as she tries to establish the titular hotel as a rehabilitation center for sinners.
Almost no one takes her idea seriously, and it is severely handicapped by the yearly exterminations carried out by Adam (Alex Brightman), the first man, and his legions of angels, in which the citizens of Hell are slaughtered. Heaven justifies these as deterrents to an uprising from Hell, but Adam and his angels take pleasure in the killing.
Charlie is accompanied by her girlfriend, Vaggie (Stephanie Beatriz); the radio demon, Alastor (Amir Talai), who serves as a mentor figure and is an overlord of Hell; Angel Dust (Blake Roman), a porn star in Hell who is also a drug addict; Nifty (Kimiko Glenn), the hotel’s maid; and Husk (Keith David), the hotel’s bartender and a former overlord who’s in a contract with Alastor. In the first few episodes, failed supervillain Sir Pentious (Brightman) joins the hotel as a guest after a lackluster attempt to attack it and Alastor.
The show’s animation is great, taking full advantage of its digital Flash animation style with expressive characters with complex designs and interesting cinematic sequences making full use of exaggerated camera angles and bright colors. This is a gorgeous-looking show.
Many of its songs are also quite good — I started watching this show because of clips of some of its hits circulating online. With that being said, it also could have dropped half its numbers and it would have been stronger for it, as some really don’t land.
The show does struggle with transitioning into its musical numbers, oftentimes giving the viewer whiplash when it stops its action in order for the tunes to start playing. It also leans a little too heavily on them, using them as narrative shortcuts in place of developing its characters slowly over time.
But at its core, its characters are all great with relatable backstories and goals I was able to easily connect with. Almost everyone is given their time to shine — it’s just too bad that the show rushes through most of them.
Eight episodes clocking in just over 20 minutes apiece is not enough time to tell the story this show brought to life. The show did just about as good as it could, given its circumstances, but it never gives itself — or the viewer — time to breathe in order to appreciate these characters and this world. It’s constantly bouncing from high-energy sequences to high-energy sequences, which severely blunts the impact of its characters and the strong themes of its tale.
There are a lot of interesting ideas at work here, from its core message of challenging the rigid dichotomy of Heaven and Hell and its assumed rules, to the fact that it manages to make a likeable main cast out of sinners, with the angels of Heaven being despicable villains. It has solid criticisms of the mechanics of Heaven and Hell, ideas in the Bible that are very hard to explain and defend in a literal sense when they are presented as physical places where souls reside forever.
Its character arcs are also quite good. Charlie learns that it takes hard work, compromise and sacrifice in order to achieve great things. Alastor realizes that he isn’t the most powerful entity in Heaven or Hell, and will presumably decide to act less recklessly next season. Sir Pentious has perhaps the best character development as (spoilers), he proves that Charlie’s theory that souls can be redeemed is true through his heroic actions.
It’s a shame that most aspects of the show feel like they’re not fully developed because it flies through some of its best moments. “Hazbin Hotel” feels awfully truncated — it deserved more episodes to allow Medrano to slow down its pacing and allow the audience to take in this amazing world that’s been built.
With that being said, its remarkable potential remains, which it can still realize next season.
“Hazbin Hotel” Season 1 gets an 8/10
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