Das Abenteuer Beginnt: We Review Critical Role's The Mighty Nein

Posted in: Amazon Studios, Critical Role, Review, TV | Tagged: Review, The Mighty Nein, titmouse

The Mighty Nein brings a new cast of misfits together for an adventure, but does it capture the same spark as Critical Role’s first series?

The success of The Legend of Vox Machina on Amazon Prime, from the day it got millions of dollars in crowdfunding to get it started, all the way to where we’re talking about its fifth and final season going into production, will be a textbook lesson on how to get a series off the ground in the face of adversity. Without its success, we wouldn’t be talking about a second animated series from Critical Role, this time focusing on the characters from their second Dungeons & Dragons liveplay campaign, The Mighty Nein. But can the second series capture the thrill, imagination, irreverent nature, gore, and fantasy vibes of the first series? We binged all eight episodes of the first season to find out.

WARNING: While we are keeping this review relatively spoiler-free, we are going to talk about the show and reveal a few items tied to the story. So if you don’t want to be spoiled about anything, skip to the end. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Unlike its previous series, where we joined Vox Machina at a point where they had been together for a while but were still a bunch of screwed up drunkards running around doing adventures for money, this series takes the new approach of joining all of the key figures shortly before they formed their party, giving us some backstory into each of their lives before they eventually form the Mighty Nein. This somewhat falls in line with real life, where Campaign One started when the group was already playing the game, while Campaign Two started with them as three small groups who eventually came together.

While there are similarities between what happens in the show and what took place in real life, multiple changes have been made between the two to make a more compelling story in animated form. Which is something we should address right out of the gate for the diehard fans of Critical Role.

For starters, we learn right off the bat what caused the conflict between the Dwendalian Empire and the Kryn Dynasty, a major focal point of the character’s overarching story. We also see what many of the characters go through to lead them to each other, including Fjord’s time on his first ship, Jester pranking people, Beau’s time in the Cobalt Soul, and more. They give us a greater appreciation for the relationship between Caleb and Nott the Brave, as well as Molly’s time at the circus as one of the performers. We’re also given a glimpse into what life was like for two other major characters, Trent Ikithon and Essek, ahead of their encounters with the group, adding more context to events unseen.

The most noticeable change for longtime fans is the alteration in how Yasha is portrayed. Originally, this was a bit of a hassle IRL, as Ashley Johnson (who voices Yasha in the series) was in-and-out of playing the game due to her filming obligations on Blindspot, which left her character development all over the place. Here, they have taken a chance to retell her story in a different way, giving the character a very different path to walk, but one that eventually leads her to the group. These changes, while they may be slightly jarring for hardcore fans of the original game, are necessary when it comes to telling a concise story in an animated series.

Now that all of that is said, let’s get to the series itself. The primary focus of this season is to tell the story of how this group of unlikely heroes, all of whom seem to be on their own different journeys of discovery and finding their place in the world, all come together to eventually form the titular adventuring party. Each character gets their own moments to shine throughout the eight episodes, as we learn more about them through various means. Some characters you don’t get to see for a few episodes, others you are giving small pieces that eventually build into bigger and more epic moments. It’s a slow but methodical process where they do their best to make sure every character in The Mighty Nein, both good and bad, gets their day in the sun, all building to something much bigger story that has an epic payoff.

An area we have to draw attention to and give great credit to the writing and animation teams for is telling us the story of how the war between the Dynasty and the Empire came to be. A story that, for the most part, was told by Matthew Mercer at the table by various characters, and served as plot points in his notes that only came up when needed during the campaign. Here, we are given a far better look at how several events played out that eventually led us there, and how one incident can be the first domino to fall on the path to war. We’re also given a deeper look at life for Essek and The Bright Queen in the Dynasty, as they bring fans into the fold of all the drama that unfolded after the incident and how their people are coping with what has happened.

On the production side of things, The Mighty Nein has an amazing look and feel that, while it appears in the same world as The Legend of Vox Machina, doesn’t quite look the same for all the good reasons. The show was once again animated by the folks at Titmouse, but there’s an Avatar: The Last Airbender/The Legend of Korra kind of thing going on, where you can tell there’s a slight change in tone between the two so that they feel similar but different. (Or hey, maybe we’re just imagining things because it’s a new series that has nothing from the first series.) Regardless, it visually feels like they’ve worked to set this apart from the first one.

The voice acting should also be given a major tip of the hat. Aside from bringing back the original cast (Laura Bailey, Taliesin Jaffe, Ashley Johnson, Liam O’Brien, Matthew Mercer, Marisha Ray, Sam Riegel, and Travis Willingham), they made some key choices to voice many of the characters that Mercer played at the table. These include Lucy Liu, Redchild, Ivanna Sakhno, Mark Strong, T’nia Miller, Ming-Na Wen, Jonathan Frakes, Alan Cumming, Tim McGraw, Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, Anika Noni Rose, and more. They went all out this season to ensure this cast was robust and included as many diverse, powerful voices as possible for the series.

Overall, this was an amazing series for us. There are many shows in history that attempt to tell multiple stories at once that are happening simultaneously but independently from each other, with the eventual goal of running everyone into each other. Some do well, but most of them feel forced. The Mighty Nein is a great example of how you can take multiple characters and tell a great story with each of them without forcing anything along, so that when they do eventually collide, it’s seamless and feels more like destiny than a plot device. As a fan of the series, I’ve noticed the differences and similarities between the two, and they have done a masterful job of bringing these characters to life in a way that feels natural and tells a distinctly different story than Vox Machina.

If you’re a fan of fantasy adventure and animated series meant for adults, we could not recommend this to you more. Every episode felt like watching a lit fuse slowly make its way to a powder keg: you know something amazing and dangerous is about to happen, but you can’t look away! If you’re a casual fan expecting this to be like Vox Machina, the best we can say is that it’s like two different kinds of tea, where the process is the same but the flavors are distinctly different. For us, this was the best fantasy story we’ve seen all year, with several twists and unpredictable outcomes that will make you wish Season Two were already done. Hopefully, it gets the same love and attention as the first series, or as Caleb might remark, “daumen drücken.”

The Mighty Nein

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Review by Gavin Sheehan

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10/10

The Mighty Nein takes a epic story with a bunch of not-so-heroic characters and turns it into one of the most epic animated adventures Critical Role has to offer.

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