Amphibia S1E1: “Anne or Beast”

This review was comissioned by @Vinegrape.


It's a Disney children's cartoon about what I assume are frog people, based on the name. Anthropomorphic cartoon animals were Walt's original jam, and a hundred years later here we still are. That's not a figure of speech by the way, Walter Elias Disney started his professional cartoonist career in the summer of 1920.

Anyway, Amphibia premiered last year on the Disney channel and its online platform, and is still ongoing. Let's start.

Intro shows a little girl who I assume is Anne opening a Hellraiser box and being sent to an island somewhere. I think the island is supposed to be shaped like a lily pad, but due to my recent media consumption my first thought was "just need to fill in that last bay to complete the transmutation circle and eat God."

The rest of the intro is just an upbeat little montage of the girl and a bunch of friendly frog people doing rural stuff and escaping giant fish, bird, and lizardlike predators. The frog people's children are anthropomorphic tadpoles rather than just tiny frog people, which is a nice touch. No lyrics, just music.

The series and episode title cards have a very stylistically different delivery, though. And a creepier one.

I'm getting "Over the Garden Wall" vibes. Maybe its just the frog motif, but...no, the thorns, the shadowed framing, it's going for the same low-key rustic horror vibe.

Open on a bustling evening at an English tavern full of English accented frog people. A particularly inebriated one bids goodnight to his fellows and heads home, but seems to go stumbling off in a different direction than he intended to, ending up out in the woods. He hears something moving in the darkness, and turns to see a towering, glowing-eyed silhouette looming over him. The camera pans up to the night sky over his scream.

Yeah. This is darker than the OP had me expecting.

The next day in happy-go-lucky frog village, an elderly frog with a hillbilly accent drives his slug-drawn cart into town. Riding in said cart are a pair of grandchildren in different stages of development.

Grandpa frog tells them to watch the cart and not leave it while he does the shopping. Older, male frog child vows that he will let no harm come to their vehicle. Grandpa Frog tells the boy, Sprig, that he wasn't talking to him, he was talking to little sister Polly. Sprig is apparently too irresponsible to be entrusted with much of anything, whereas Polly is tasked with watching the cart and making sure Sprig doesn't do anything catastrophic.

Sprig objects to this assessment, which spurs a montage of him being irresponsible. Point made, Grandpa.

Grandpa goes shopping. Sprig and Polly are left in the cart, the former sulking, the latter irritated at his sulkiness. Then, they hear a scream splitting the peaceful village sounds. Apparently that British accented frog has been running and screaming since last night, and is just now making it back.

I figured that scream and panning away was to imply him being eaten. I guess not. Show apparently not darker than typical children's fair after all, heh.

Some other townsfolk (who all have American accents. I guess the British one, who they now name as Wally, is supposed to be from somewhere else) tells them about the monster that attacked him outside the town. He uses some leaves and sticks to create a likeness of what it looked like.

A human. Going by the intro and the episode title, it's looking like this "Anne" girl got isekai'd into frogland, and the natives find her terrifying (at least when they encounter her alone and unexpectedly in the woods while drunk).

The local authority figure, a corpulent frog by the name of Mayor Toadstool, declares that they'd best organize a hunting party to catch this thing before it hurts someone. He's framed as a political gloryhound type in the way he says this while posing photogenically and reminding everyone that safety is his administration's top priority, but selfish motives aside he seems to be making a reasonable decision.

Overhearing all this from across the town square, Sprig declares that he's going to go Leeroy Jenkins that monster and singlehandedly save the town. Polly tells him to calm the fuck down and stay in the cart like they were instructed. He bribes her with candy though, and while she might be mature for her age she's still just a little tadpole, and pac-man's it up (heh, it even uses the Pac-Man sound effects) and lets him go hopping off to get himself killed. She does call after him to please not die, once the candy is eaten and no longer clouding her judgement, but he may already be out of earshot.

In the forest, Sprig follows some large, shoe-shaped footprints (none of the frogs we've seen so far have been wearing shoes, notably). He follows them onto a very conspicuous patch of leaf litter, which of course turns out to be concealing a snare. Once he's suspended upside-down over the forest floor, the beast shows itself, spear in hand, an ersatz Harry Potter emblem on her shirt.

Apparently, she thinks that Sprig is the creature that's been following her. He assures her that he hasn't been, at least up until a few minutes ago, and asks if she's the creature that attacked Wally. She clarifies that she approached Wally and tried to ask him for help, but he screamed and ran away before she could so much as open her mouth.

Why were her eyes glowing, in that scene? I'd predicted that she'd be wearing glasses or something, but apparently not. I guess she could have lost them since the last night. Or maybe she's just part cat or something.

Just then, they hear what sounds much more like an actual monster coming through the woods behind Anne. Anne starts to flee, but after turning around and seeing the innocent bystander caught in the snare she'd set she comes back and releases him, carrying with him under her arm.

The frogs are kind of in a weird side range. They're much bigger than actual frogs, but still much smaller than humans. Sprig seems to be basically cat-sized, or a little smaller. Which would mean that his grandfather and the other adults stand about 3 feet tall. Odd design choice for anthro characters.

Anyway, they hide in a hollow log until the monster passes them by. Looks like a giant praying mantis type thing.

After collapsing on the ground for a relieved sigh, the two of them resume introductions. Sprig is happy to learn that Anne really isn't any sort of beast or monster at all, but rather an extremely ugly hero. Anne takes this in good humor, as the feeling is fairly mutual. Anne mentions that she's hungry though, and while Sprig's insectivory makes this rotting log a pretty easy place for him to find food in, she's not ready to resort to that just yet. So, he leads her off to find something else to eat.

Back in the village, Grandpa Frog comes out of the trading post to find Sprig missing, Polly nursing an overfull belly of candy (which she cutely denies any culpability for), and the mayor psychic the townsfolk up to go monster-slaying. Hopefully that zeal can be redirected toward the mantis thing, assuming it actually is more hostile than Anne herself.

Upon hearing "Sprig" "woods" and "monster" from the various sources, Grandpa leads the charge to rescue his grandson himself. This guy might be gruff, but you can tell he really does love his grandchildren, and that he's strong and fearless despite his age. The rest of the townsfolk follow him, torches and weaponized farming equipment in hand.

Back in the forest, Sprig has helped Anne find some roots and mushrooms that appear to be human-edible as well as frogman-edible. Or at least, if they aren't they take longer than a few minutes for her to start showing symptoms. Upon being asked what she is and where she came from, Anne explains that she's either from another dimension, or she's dreaming and just talking to her own imagination. She doesn't know how she got her, assuming it's not the latter, and she has no idea how to get home.

...

Okay, I think I see why Vinegrape wanted me to see this. It's not every day that you're introduced to a YA portal fantasy protagonist from a native's perspective. It definitely does a lot to keep things fresh, and lets her introduction to frogworld go in a different story direction than usual thanks to us following a heroic-ish local's arc instead of hers.

...

Just then, the villagers arrive and bury Anne under their bodies before Sprig can explain.​

He tries to explain to them that this is a misunderstanding, and to Anne that no, he didn't just lead her into an ambush. Grandpa is initially impressed with Sprig for finding the monster for them (he apparently thinks that he was deliberately scouting for the group in a coordinated manner instead of just being reckless, heh), but Sprig doesn't let that temptation get to him, and continues telling the truth.

Before the situation can be resolved, the giant mantis attacks. Apparently, these mantises are a known quantity, because as soon as it appears the mayor orders them to get into "mantis formation." The frogs hop onto each other's heads to form a pyramid, with the one on top making noise and glaring angrily at the mantis. Apparently, giant mantises are a bit like mountain lions in their lack of depth analysis, and seeing the "larger" creature makes it retreat without a fight.​

So they do know that there are "monsters" that exist in the woods around their town. I guess that it's been the same few species for long enough that they've learned to deal with them all, while the appearance of a new one had them panicked.

This does mean Wally is a total idiot though. Going off into these woods at night alone, when the mantises take a large number of frogs to scare off? Yeah, he's lucky to have survived this long.

Then the much bigger mantis that had chased Sprig and Anne before shows up. Hah, I was wondering why the mantis had changed color.

Whatever countermeasure they might have for this kind, I don't think they've got it on hand. Also, they acknowledge this thing's approach, rather than their own actions, are most likely the primary cause in the smaller mantis' retreat.

The townsfolk all run. The big mantis starts chasing them, but Sprig sees that Anne is left tied up on the ground, which means that if they escape it that just means it'll come back and console itself with just the one helpless prey item. So, he doubles back, releases Anne, and then slings a rock at the returning megamantis to aggro it away from her. She risked her life to save him after he got caught in her snare. So, now he's doing the reverse on behalf of his heedless village. He tells her to run and save herself, and he'll try to elude it again on his own.

Well, Grandpa was wrong. Sprig isn't irresponsible. He's reckless, restless, and has a very short attention span, but he's extremely responsible when the chips are down.

Speaking of character traits, Anne is either really strong for her size, or the mantis is really weak for its.​

With Anne apparently able to fight this much larger animal on an even-ish footing somehow, Sprig grabs the rope that the villagers had just used on Anne and hops around the distracted megamantis, tying it up. Between Anne's strength, Sprig's mobility, and some high quality rope, they're able to bring the big bug down and restrain it.

The townsfolk cheer, and then resolve to chase Anne away too "just in case." Wow, what a bunch of pricks. Sprig protests, and Grandpa (now named as Hoppadiah, for that punny backwoods New England flavor) vouches for his grandson's judgement, and says he'll take responsibility for the weird alien. The mayor reluctantly agrees. Man what is even his problem? The townsfolk then drag the tied-up megamantis back to town with them. Apparently they do hunt these things for food at times, albeit not usually ones this big, so this one is a nice catch.

Hoppadiah and Polly complement Sprig on his courage and responsibility, and criticize him for his reckless stupidity in equal measures. I'd call that fair. They bring Anne to their farmhouse. Did they get to take a leg or two of that megamantis, considering that they did all the work besides bringing the rope? Probably not. Oh well. Hoppadiah shows Anne around, and tells her that if she's going to stay with them, she's going to have to be up at dawn and working around the farm just like they all do. Again, quite fair. She's going to be stuck with them for a while though, as the mountains surrounding their valley are impassable at this time of year.

The intro showed an island. Is that island in a lake within the valley, or is this valley on the island? Looking at the first screenshot, I'm not quite sure. Anyway, she's got two months of froggy farmwork and giant bug wrangling ahead of her until the winds let up and she can try and find her way to somewhere else. She's not happy about this, but has a good attitude about it. She's exactly the sort of kid who's best suited to rolling with an unglamorous isekai scenario, I dig.

Sprig shares his toys with her before they go to bed, and it's cute. He also warns her not to let the bedbugs bite; not just an expression in this place, giant bedbugs are among the region's dangers alongside the mantises. Good to know. Once everyone else has gone to bed, Anne produces her hellraiser box and tries to send herself home with it, without success.​

End episode.


That was okay. Very much a kids' cartoon. A fairly good one. The only really distinctive thing about it, aside from the unusually gruesome for its target age giant bug monsters, is the perspective that I described before. The story features a human kid who's been sent to a magical world full of frog people and insect monsters, and from what we see of her she's a pretty tough, outdoorsy, young adult hero type of kid, but it's really about a little frog boy learning about responsibility and courage in the midst of an ET-type event.

It kind of reminds me of that one Star Trek TNG episode, "First Contact." Not the movie, the episode that happens to share its title. In it, the Enterprise crew are alien visitors in a B-scifi story told from the perspective of some information-age politicians and scientists, who are the real protagonists of this one episode. Just that perspective and protagonism flip makes a well-worn story seem fresh.

So, I admire the creativity, and the generally decent writing. Don't know if I'd watch it on my own, though. With kids sure.