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life-in-the-monster-haus · 6 years

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Monster Haus Reviews: Super Monsters

Since Monster High (and Ever After High) have no animated specials lined up at this current moment. I’m going to start reviewing Monster High adjacent properties. Today I’ll be reviewing Netflix Original Series Super Monsters!

It’s a show about the children of famous monsters in pre-school learning how to control their super natural powers before they get into kindergarten. This show debuted on Netflix October 13th 2017, I’ve watched a few episodes and the show is pretty much Monster High for very little kids, it’s cute, colorful, inspired and has a lot of heart in it! But I wouldn’t exactly call in ground breaking it’s got some cute lessons in it for little kids (such as encouraging manners and tidying up) The kids start the day as humans and at night they turn into their true monster selves.

The main cast is 6 kids and 2 teachers.

The teachers are Igor (the most good looking version of an Igor I have ever seen) and his Granddaughter Esmie. She is adorable but it’s hard for me to stomach the idea that Igor reproduced to have grandchildren, even this newer handsomer Igor. But she’s super cute! I like the idea of a gothy Pre-school teacher!

I watched the whole first season and part of the show I do not understand is why the kids start the day as humans, Their parents don’t seem to need to hide or transform so why do the kids? I wouldn’t even mention this is it wasn’t such a big part of the show, every episode consists of two 11 minute episodes and each episode has 2 transformation sequences in it. They say “Sun Down! Monster up!” when they turn into monsters and “Sun Up” when they turn back into humans and go home for the day. They don’t specify why they need to hide as humans at all, I wanna say to avoid prejudice from real humans but they don’t state that, that kind of thing happens in this universe so I’m left a little confused. They go out in public on field trips and to pizza parlors run by humans and no one seems to have a problem with them being monsters...so why the transformations?

The kids are sweet no matter what form they take, human or monster they are both painfully precious.

The designs range from super cool! to super samey.

Let’s go over each kids name, design, personality and super powers!

Cleo Graves is the daughter of the Mummy! she’s adorable and all but we’ve seen her hundreds of times in media, her name is Cleo and she’s an Egyptian princess. I feel like every time we see a female character from Egypt her name has to be Cleo or she loses her street cred. There are other female rulers of ancient Egypt that could be explored here. in Monster High we have our own Cleo after Cleopatra and Cleo's sister is named Nefera after Queen Nefertiti. If I was going to name this little mummy I would have went with naming her Hattie, after Hatshepsut. I’m also super over the Egyptian princesses as a personality trait thing, Where are the ancient Egyptian punks!? brats? athletes? nerds? spooky weirdos? class clowns? None of these concepts are new, they’ve been around as long as school has and I wish we’d take advantage of that more often.

Her super power is perhaps the most unique thing about her, they say in the show she controls wind but she’s been shown making clouds that rain and controlling sand so I think her power is more like control over the weather and not just the wind.

*pinches nose bridge* This kids name is Drac Shadows...Drac... Who keeps thinking this is a good name for anyone but Dracula!? There’s tons of old school vampire names out there, Vlad, Ixion, Vincent, Roman, Sterling, Talon etc etc. and they go for Drac, since it’s a kiddie show I would have kept it simple and went with Vlad or Bram. His personality is he’s very self absorbed, He’s a very gifted flyer and has a tendency to show off. He also tends to jump into situations without fully considering them first. He’s still growing his fangs in (he only has one) and his power is flying...duh. Not a ton to say about him really.

Katya Spelling has one of the more unique names! She’s a witch and her power is magic (duh) but her personality is very shy, cautious and considerate! Her mother has instilled in her that good witches use their magic to help others and she takes that advice to heart. Shes learning how to fly her broom, no one else is allowed to touch her wand and her familiar is a cat that turns into a plush when she’s in her human form. (pic shown further down)

*rubs temples* a Frankenstein named Frankie...ground breaking, I’ve never heard that one before. Frank and Frankie seem to be everyone's go-to when naming these types of monsters and I get why but it’s also so painfully over done, they could have at the very least named him Hank or Francis. I really wish they would have kept his glasses when he transforms or the unibrow when he’s in his human costume. they’re both unique features and it’s a shame that he has to trade one for the other. His power is super strength, He’s very sweet but very clumsy and doesn’t know his own strength yet, I appreciate that he’s kind and not just some big dumb doofus.

Lobo Howler is a werewolf! His power is super speed! I don’t really understand this trend with making werewolves fast, yea they run faster than humans do but it’s not like they're the fastest land animal (that distinction belongs to the cheetah) Wolves aren’t even in the top 25 fastest, so why is it so common to make them fast??? But that’s the only thing about him that’s predictable, he’s an athlete (he wears a varsity jacket) he’s got ants in his pants, he’s hyper active, inquisitive and confident! I have no beef with his name it’s just wolf in Spanish but at least it’s not super common and it makes his ethnicity un-disputably Latino which as I’ve seen many times in cartoons if a character is ambiguously brown people will just say they’re a tanned white person and its important to all little kids to see themselves in media! I don’t really like that his eyes change from brown to green when he’s in his wolf form, Green eyes aren’t even common in wolves (not impossible like blue eyes are, but still very rare) common eye colors in wolves are yellow, amber, orange and brown. so this design choice seems odd.

Zoey Walker is a zombie! and her power is that she can see and walk though walls! Zoey is by far my favorite character in the group! she is so adorable! She’s an artist (she paints) and she’s book smart! (she likes to read) and she’s considerate of others! I LOVE her design so much! she is so colorful! However what I love the most about her design is also what I dislike the most about it - while she’s very cute she looks nothing like a zombie, as soon as I saw her I assumed she was a living rag doll but they call her a zombie in the show??? I don’t understand it but she’s perfect everywhere else so I’m not going to question it. Zoey the Zombie is a great example of how to name a monster with it being close but not too predictable! Also her last name is hilarious if you are a fan of The Walking Dead.

Like Lobo her eyes also change color when she transforms and just...why!?!?! why green!? is green a more dead-friendly color? it’s cute on her, but why!?

They also have a class pet (Glorb the Hampster) and Katya’s familiar (Henri the cat)

In the season finale in they introduce a new character: Spike the Dragon! He’s only in the finale so we don’t know much about him yet other than he’s Chinese (stated that Chinese new year is a big deal in his family) and his power seems to be to summon clouds and make waves. He’s a little cutie pie! I love his design!... But I really wish they would have went with a different name.

All in all the show is very cute! I highly recommend it if you have little ones around or if you’re just into spooky cartoons! (like me) It’s a Netflix original show and I really hope it gets picked up for a second season!

The animation is really cute if not a bit boring but that’s kinda the standard of 3-D cartoons these days, I’m not sure if being 2-D would help or hinder this show.

I really wish there was an explanation for why they have to change into humans, I just don’t get it. Monsters and humans seem to peacefully coexists in this world. The werewolf kids dad works for the fire department and his fellow fire fighter is a human woman, They took a field trip to a pizza place run by a human man, Their veterinarian is a human woman (she may not be human he name is Dr. Jekyll ) and so far none of them have freaked out in the company of monsters... In fact They went out trick or treating to human houses to show off their powers to “trick” the humans and the humans seem to love them!?!?

This is not the face of someone whose shocked and afraid of being in front of a zombie. In fact they invite the humans to a Halloween party and they all go, no questions asked, no conflict started. I do not get the transformation sequences at all.

But it’s fun to see what the kids would be as humans. My favorite part of any non-human media!

#super monsters #monster high #spooky #creepy #cute

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