FOR CLARITY: This review applies to Season 1 ONLY.

After my second time watching it, I can confirm, it's really good! If I hadn't seen Andor then this would be contender for the best show I've watched. The art style is fabulous (this was one of my big inspirations for learning Blender back in the day). I paid more attention to the environments this time around and they are also gorgeous. I don't like giving more than a passing mention to art/production quality in these, since in my humble opinion story should almost always take precedence. But this show's got everything.

My few criticisms are that all the slo-mo shots felt uber dramatic and goofy and some of the fight scenes are simply not that engaging to me. All the things that remind you it's a show made based on a videogame, in essence. It can also be kind of hard to follow the show if you're not paying close attention all the time (it cuts between different storylines very frequently). I think that was the main issue with my viewing experience the first time I watched it. Vi vs Sevika in the last episode is also puzzling to me because I'm not clear on what chain of events lead to them having to fight again, other than for cool factor.

This series has more dedicated haters than it warrants. I've spent too much time on Twitter and most of the insults people throw at the show and Vivienne Medrano are idiotic (it's Twitter... can you really be surprised?). Engaging with discourse about Hazbin or Helluva Boss is headache inducing at best, and I'm too cynical to be able to love either show. I do like some aspects of them! But there's a lot of actual, good faith criticism to be had.

I'm not going to assign ratings to either of these (I don't feel like doing so, and it would make more sense to rate it by season or just the whole series). I also have no desire to rewatch Hazbin Hotel currently. The only reason it's on my mind is because one of my friends coerced me into watching it with them (though they were thankfully dissuaded from watching the rest of the series).

We started out by watching the first episode of the actual series, and, well... It's not great. To be fair, S1E1 is easily one of the weakest of the series (from what I recall). It does have the redeeming quality of having a song that I genuinely enjoy (Hell is Forever) but otherwise it's generally uninteresting, few jokes actually land, and most egregiously, it answers the question of the premise of the show RIGHT off the bat.

What about the pilot? Well, it's not the most amazing thing I've seen, but I understand why it developed such a massive fanbase. Unlike the first episode, which is trying to speedrun everything, the pacing feels a lot more natural and the important characters get more time for a proper introduction. One thing that struck me the first time I rewatched the pilot after seeing the show is how much darker and hopeless the setting of Hell feels. Episode 1 waves around blood and gore and guts to try and persuade you that it's a horrible place but they maybe lean into the comedy too much? Meanwhile, the pilot feels a lot more grounded and Charlie stands out a lot more as the stupidly optimistic princess trying to change a broken world. From the pilot, you get the impression that everyone there (besides Vaggie and Charlie) are bad people who revel in their cruelty. You only get a very small hint that Angel Dust might want to be redeemed and isn't just leeching off the hotel's generosity. Alastor's cheerful mannerisms, on the other hand, contrast other denizens of Hell, but it makes him more unnerving than anything else.

From pilot to show-- what happened?

The pilot released in 2019, on Youtube. It would take 5 more years for the first episode of the actual show to air. Between pilot and show, it was picked up by Amazon Prime, we got an entirely new voicecast and small redesigns for all the characters. Visually, the actual show feels like a downgrade. Everything is cleaner and sharper but the colors are too saturated and painful and the animation feels stiffer. Musically, I sadly enjoy the show quite a bit. There are plenty of misses but the show would not have stuck around so well in my brain without the songs (ewwww musicals).

Character and plot wise? It's a huge disappointment. You can find plenty of youtube video essays going into more detail! Some of those videos might not even be grating to watch! But oooof the way they butchered show Alastor HURTS. Angel Dust is sometimes good in the show but suffers from flanderization and show Charlie is far more insufferable. The only character I can think of that improves is Husk (S1E4 is a highlight for me).

When you look at the show vs pilot, it's sad to see the lost potential. But especially after Helluva Boss season 2 aired, I don't think it would be fair for anyone to expect great or even good writing out of this show. We just need to accept that the Hazbin Pilot was a fluke and, while entertaining, expecting professional writing from Vivziepop shows only leads to disappointment.

Sept 22 2026

The first season is impressively bad. By the third it actually gets decent? I started finding some of the jokes funny and the characters a lot more charming. I'd probably rate it a solid 5/10. The improvement over the course of this show is genuinely inspiring.

However, season 1 is one of the worst things I've seen (tropey, unfunny, Theo is ANNOYING, worldbuilding is severely lacking, animation is stiff and ugly). Season two is better visually and the plot and characters might have undergone SLIGHT improvement but it's still difficult to get through.

If anything stuck with me from this show, it's the Sea of Thieves rippoff game from the 3rd season. Flying ships are fucking awesome.

In conclusion, don't watch this show. Season 3 is not good enough to counterbalance the dredgery of the first two.

It pains me to rate this one a 4 because I was obsessed with it while it was still coming out. I joined the fandom when episode 5 released but as the show came to a close it became increasingly clear how messy and unplanned it was. A lot of interesting ideas and plotlines were introduced, but the end of the series fails to resolve it in a satisfying way.

After rewatching it, the flaws in character writing are much harder to ignore. N and Uzi represent cute and funny tropes, but they fail to become more than that.

I know this anime is beloved but it didn't click with me. The worldbuilding is cool, and the bones of good characters are there but I don't think the show fully understands how to flesh those characters out. The overarching plot feels very disconnected from the rest of the show and the finale left me confused.

A 7/10 would be a much safer rating and I'll probably regret this later.((Author's note: I did in fact edit it to be a 7 later.)) I don't know, I just really like it. The dialogue is corny as hell but this is by far the best Glitch show out (that's not (currently) just a pilot) (I haven't watched Sunset Paradise either don't come at me).

In my humble opinion this is the best flavor of character driven show. I feel like Gooseworx understands her characters and had specific visions and arcs for all of them in mind. Yes, it's rough around the edges, probably too much to deserve an 8. But it struck a chord with me personally (jax's storyline in the finale especially) and My opinion is the only thing that matters here so ha!

This one gets glazed constantly and for good reason. I don't think I have anything unique to say about it so go watch a YouTube video essay to get a more in depth opinion. If you're older than... 16 or so I would definitely recommend though!

Sept 21 2026

A five might seem kind of harsh for this one, and it might be. It's a decent watch, has some modern day relevance. I watched it for school on YouTube at 360p so that might be affecting my enjoyment of it. It's hard to see more subtleties in the acting when they're all incredibly low quality.

It's not paced the fastest and takes a little patience to get through. I don't know, I just feel like the horror of the whole thing would have been harder hitting back when it was first released. It just felt a lot more predictable to me, likely because I'm familiar with many of the tropes.

I feel that I tend to rate older things lower, and I do want to make it clear that I think it's worth it to engage with older media. You just have to set your expectations.

Sept 15 2026

NPMD is campy in all the best ways. And I liked it better on rewatch?

All of the characters (except Ruth) have a compelling arc, Grace Chasity and Max Jagerman are superb (and for sure outshine Pete and Steph) but Pete and Steph are still really solid and they make a cute pair. And nearly all of the background characters are also likeable and pretty memorable?

And the music is bonkers, I loooove this one. "Nerdy Prudes Must Die" and "Literal Monster" are straight up bangers, "Dirty Girl" is ah... a song for sure, and I also liked most of the Pete & Steph duets. I know people love "Hatchettown" which I don't fully understand but its still good. Almost of the songs feel like they serve a purpose and rarely feel like they overstay their welcome.

Main criticisms: some of the song lyrics are perplexing. Just don't think about them too hard, I guess.

Also, all my praises of the songs have one exception: "Just for Once". This song isn't bad, but it isn't meaningful, doesn't advance the plot, and really should have been cut or replaced. It reads as a desperate plea to get you to like a joke character.

Oh and the whole Summoning thing with the Lords in Black is strange and a bit out of place but it's not a huge complaint from me.

While Twisted is objectively better story-wise, NPMD is a guilty pleasure. After the trainwreck that was Black Friday, this was such a pallete cleanser. It only lightly references the other Hatchetfield stuff, and it's a great standalone story. Watch it! This one's a gateway drug to the rest of StarKid.

(This review is basically a vent, not sure how much other people will get out of this one. Feel free to skip)

I remember vaguely disliking this one when I first watched it, but when I tried to remember specific reasons why I would draw up blanks. I know this was one of my friend's favorite StarKid musicals though so I vaguely wanted to rewatch it and find out what I missed the first time around.

Now that I've finally gotten to rewatching it (5 or 6 years later?) I can confirm that this is absolutely horrible and I don't understand why anyone would like it, let alone state it's their favorite. (no offense to anyone that does like it. If you are one of these people, please reach out! I am genuinely curious to know what you see in it.) The musical is littered with atrocious writing decisions, unfunny jokes, and serious scenes that are funny because of how bad they are.

To be fair to it, I will now list all the things I DID enjoy about Black Friday.

1. Some of the singing is absolutely phenomenal. Dylan Saunders as Tom kills it. TGWDLM's singing can be rough at times but Black Friday is a pretty big step up.

2. I liked the whole Lex + Hannah + Ethan storyline. I found the song where Lex is about to die genuinely heartwrenching (until she gets Deus Ex Machina'd out of it). And watching Ethan and Hannah interact is actually cute. Although I forgot how abruptly Ethan dies in the musical.

3. The President going into the Black and White plotline (it was stupid but idc)

Thankfully I have solved the mystery of why I didn't remember anything from the first time watching it. Most of it is boring as hell with dreadful pacing so I definitely zoned out for most of it the first time. Good thing I was locked in THIS time so I know my dislike of it was justified!

Black Friday diverges from other StarKid musicals because it takes itself far more seriously than any of the other ones. Twisted and TGWDLM had fairly serious plotlines in them (Scheherezade in Twisted, Bill and his daughter in TGWDLM) but overall they were much more lighthearted. In Black Friday there are way more serious topics referenced throughout(the car crash, dealing with grief, abusive/neglectful parents and partners) and the violence feels way more graphic and (sort of) grounded. And then there's that one scene Becky talks about how she murdered her ex-husband and its meant to be a very serious moment? But it's so fucking corny? And it just makes me wonder what the hell they're doing (god Becky is an awful character). And I personally hate the Tom/Becky romance because of how hard it shoves it down your throat (and the introductory song to the relationship is so amateurish and high-school-y? I haaaate it)

Black Friday is ambitious, and it bites off way more than it can chew. It feels like it juggles a lot of different characters, most of whose arcs don't really intersect in meaningful ways. The most important plot threads I can think of are Lex+Hannah+Ethan, Tom+Becky, Linda (?) and President are all very disconnected from each other (the president one especially) and lack narrative parallels that might make them feel like they belong to each other. Most of the characters also do not feel like they develop. Tom is the only one that I can say definitively does, maybe Lex? but idk a lot of them are stuck as tropes.

My final question: How exactly did Black Friday end up being This Bad?

I checked and Nick & Matt Lang are cited as the writers on Wikipedia. They also wrote TGWDLM, Nerdy Prudes Must Die, and Ani, all of which I have seen and some of which I have loved. They were also involved with writing Every Single Other StarKid musical (except for the VHS Christmas Carols). So they have some excellent works under their belt. I have heard mixed things about a couple of other StarKid shows (like Firebringer) so I can only conclude that they have some impressive range in the quality of their work.

I would never recommend this unless you like torturing yourself. Please watch ANY of their other musicals. Thank you.

Before (Indeterminate time)

Twisted - 7/10 (rewatched fall 2026)

After rewatching it AGAIN this year I don't think it was quite as good as I originally thought. I originally rated it 9/10 but I knocked it down to a seven here. Maybe Twisted works better as a novelty when you're not entirely sure what to expect? Or maybe NPMD is just THAT good. Overall it's well paced, has many iconic moments. There's far more it does right than doesn't, and I still definitely recommend. This time around the Princess got on my nerves a lot more (she feels very immature for supposedly being 16) and I found that some of the songs (Follow the Golden Rule, the Princess' I Want song) should have been shorter and were a bit grating.

(Original Review- rewatched spring 2026)

I've seen this one called StarKid's magnum opus and that assessment is 200% right. The humor is gold, the plot has a deeply emotional core, Aladdin is the biggest scumbag I've seen, overall amazing. The Princess is one of the worse characters but by the end even she gets to shine. The opening song is iconic. If you like raunchy comedy, or if you like heartfelt familial relationships, please watch it I promise it will win you over.

The humor feels very geared toward kids and feels quite cringe at times. I like the story and characters overall.

Nimona as a character gains so much depth throughout the movie- she starts out being very annoying but her relationship development with Balister is adorable. And her story gets very serious in the movie. The movie improves on a lot of aspects of the comics (if I remember correctly, Nimona does a lot more explicit murder) that makes it easier to suspend disbelief. It isn't a very one-to-one adaptation, but you can see where certain scenes could have drawn inspiration from the comic. IDK it's not the most amazing thing ever but it's a good watch.

Fuck yeah. This one is an all-timer. Still ranks as only my... third favorite StarKid Musical? Paul and the other characters (maybe other than Bill and Charlotte) are fairly shallow and it's ALMOST not enough to carry a musical. I feel like the 2nd half is a bit slow for my liking, adore the ending though.

It's good don't get me wrong but Holy Shit I hate Walter so much by like the 3rd season. I also don't think I'm cut out for longer shows tbh. At some point they feel like chores to get through.

This show does a lot of things well and then in other aspects it completely baffles me. I don't think I have much new to add to this discussion. Love Like You is a great song, Season 6 should have been a space pirate epic, ummmm umm ummm that's about it. Feel free to watch it if you want to subject yourself to a frustrating amount of filler.