5 January 2005 | rdatsun
Interesting
I was rather surprised when I found out the two women who sung for Teen Titains were getting their own cartoon show as well. Granted like most folks in the U.S, I've never heard of this band since its from out of country (the closest I've ever heard of J-Pop would be the Dance Dance Revolution machines). So I found it interesting as the show premiere came close (Checking it out at my Lowes movie theater helped as well).
Premise: Basiclly just a bunch of misadventures of the band's three member trio: the title characters Ami and Yumi (which from what I read in interviews, are based off the real life duo's more shining characteristics) and their tightwad money hungry manger, Caz, as they travel the road on their concert tour.
Its a cute show really with simple premises, situations and solutions all with a dose of the girl's music thrown in. However since the format for this show is short, most of the episodes end pretty corny and doesn't really give the stories a chance to flesh out more. Not to mention that you can see most of the resolutions coming a mile away. Still the character's personalities shine through and make the show worth watching as they stumble in and out of problems.
Art wise, very nice style. The creators or Puffy must of been fans of the game Parapper or Um Jammer Lammy cause the show reminds me of those video games and the art is very reminiscent. For those that haven't played those game, the style is simple line art, very abstract and colorful. Especially for a flash cartoon (2-D animation done mostly on computer). So good job here from the folks of Renegade.
As well as the sound section. As mentioned, the tunes are of course Puffy Ami Yumi songs with some usual cartoon play back. And the voice actors (which you may recognize as the main voices from Grim Adventures and Teenage Robot) do a nice job voicing the girls while mixing in some Japanese language (mainly when the two characters express surprise, get shocked or angry) and I love the dude who does Caz voice, the only one who seems to have an accent here.
And lets not forget the opening and closing segments with the real life Ami and Yumi. Though I think this is mostly from their show in Tokyo then down here. Still its cute and they don't take to long to lead in the cartoons.
Overall, a simple cartoon kids and teens might love, the older crowd might give a glance at. Would've been better if they can flesh out the problems more and use it as an opportunity for more humor. But they do well with the time they have. I don't know if the band will hit it off down, but anything possible and I wish all the luck for Puffy AmiYumi. Keep rocking girls!
