Just got through the episode, and it was great. Its main issues are in the analyses, like an unfunny anti-establishment joke about a villain called the White Man. There’s also some really weird one-off lines where the hosts say one of Iron Fist’s feats, “absorbing a train that had enough explosives to make Hiroshima look like a sparkler,” had an “insensitive analogy” and was “not tactfully described.” I’m guessing the guy who wrote this episode hasn’t seen the earlier episodes of this series, which have plenty of those as jokes from the hosts themselves.
As for the good parts, the characters’ analyses are pretty decent aside from what I mentioned above. They helped me learn a lot about these characters who I didn’t really know much about despite liking them a lot. As is expected, the main highlight of this episode is the animation. The guy who voiced Po did a great job, though his inflection made me think he sounded more like Owen from Total Drama. The voice actor for Iron Fist also did a good job portraying him, though I can’t really say much else about him since all I know about Iron Fist comes from Ultimate Spider-Man and some MVC3 I’ve played.
The fight itself is really fast-paced, and it does a great job showing off both characters’ personalities and abilities. We get to see Po fanboying over Iron Fist’s different powers and using his weight to his advantage, both showing off a decent number of techniques, and it feels really entertaining watching them counter what the other is using. The best scene that shows this off is when they take the fight to the spirit realm. From there we get to see shit like Danny holding his own against Po despite being blinded by the Golden Lotus Clap and the two creating dragons out of their own chi during the final clash. The earlier fight with the bamboo sticks also does a great job at highlighting Po’s more unpredictable nature by having him gnaw on Iron Fist’s stick to give himself an edge and tickling Danny’s nose to set him up for a Wuxi Finger Hold. I’ll also give the fight bonus points since unlike the analyses, it got a few chuckles out of me. Scenes like Po falling down the temple’s stairs, the awkward interaction when Po initially traps Danny in the Wuxi Finger Hold, and Po getting frustrated with how Fist kept finding ways to avoid it were easily the highlights in terms of comedy. The little references they had to the movies, like the aforementioned stairs scene and Po focusing himself by envisioning Danny as a dumpling, were also a nice touch.
But as I said before, the best part of this is when they enter the spirit realm. Aside from what I already mentioned, we get some amazing hand-drawn shots of Iron Fist turning into a skeleton and their respective chi dragons clashing against each other. The final struggle between them is especially great, though the finishing blow is where the fight’s fast pace becomes more a weakness than anything else. After some great build-up during the final clash, Po just sorta flies through Danny and disintegrates him before teleporting back to the world of the living. I get the show has a limited budget, but they could’ve at least given the kill a bit longer to sink in.
I’ve also got some slight nitpicks with the animation. First off, why wasn’t this hand-drawn instead of 2D? The shots of Iron Fist and the chi dragons show that the art style would’ve been perfect for an episode like this. It doesn’t help that since they stuck to sprite animation, there are some parts where Po’s expressions look a bit weird, like his mouth is animated larger than his muzzle, and there are some parts his eyes just look... off. However, even with my complaints, I give the episode an 8.5/10.
As for next time, it’s Steven Universe vs Star Butterfly, another case where I don’t care for either series but am fully awaiting a shitstorm from salty SU fans.
