Yes, this will be fun!
So you know how video games... well you see when a video game... the thing about independent animators... Yeah, I got nothing. Look, I just want to talk about a show I really love- it don't gotta be no deep thing, right? Hazbin Hotel has finally started dropping after the four year wait since the pilot first graced our screens and in that time we've really seen the independent animators of Youtube pop and show what they can do. Incredible 3D animations bringing Warhammer 40k to life in a way no one could have imagined, other indie teams creating their own pilots for perspective series' and the creator of Hazbin, Vivziepop, even developing a companion show for Hazbin Hotel, Helluva Boss, which has been chugging along in the background over the past couple of years whilst we've all waited. But now that the show has an animation studio and a star studded cast- was it worth all that waiting?
Hazbin Hotel is an adult animated show set in the raunchy recesses of the pits of hell, just like Helluva Boss. Unlike the slice-of-life antics of Blitz and his gang of murderers for hire, however- Hazbin has a grander world to frame whilst navigating the crass yet ultimately exceedingly human and empathetic stories of Hell's most curious denizens. Therein lies the real strength of the show. It's never just a full blown comedy intent only on kicking your funny bone, nor is it some grim melodrama about the endless broken citizens of the universe's dumping grounds, hell. Rather, Hazbin Hotel presents a look at the ugliness of people and their relationships squeezed through the drama of hell and fluffed up with healthy doses of debaucherous humour and the occasional sweet moment of connection to make it not seem all so hopeless.
I think that aspect of the hope and the rebuilding of one's self is really what makes Vivziepop's content more watchable than your typical decent into the extreme worsts of man. If Helluva Boss merely told the story of a brash and flawed Imp who revelled in burning bridges with everyone in his life and carried on doing that forever, repeatedly self destructing, then the shtick would ever get old or depressing fast. (Just watch any CW show for an example of what that feels like. They all fall that exact foible.) If Angel Dust was merely a sex worker with the 'horny' dial turned all the way up with nothing more to him- he would be a one dimensional and forgettable character. Vivzie's team are great at finding the relatable flawed humans underneath these larger than life characters in order to highlight how everyone, even the most hopeless, is trying to be better- and there's always a way to rebuild burnt bridges.
Perhaps that guiding philosophy is what makes the lead of Hazbin Hotel, Lucifer's Disney-coded daughter, so entertaining. The endless optimist floating on an endless sea of hope, Charlie embodies the exaggeration of perfect innocence, highlighting sweetness and purity to a frankly unrealistic degree given the flawed and human denizens she works with. But rather than Heaven who use that deficit as a rod to punish, Charlie finds endless purpose in her efforts to fix and help her people. And of course, Charlie herself is not perfect. The bleeding heart always addresses herself least. She's naïve, inexperienced often foolhardy, but she's not a quitter. I once thought that Hazbin would mount an opposite trajectory to Helluva Boss and tell the story of a hopeful character who loses her hope to dream (which would also mirror the apparent loss of her Father's hope) but I'm coming to realise that would drive a dagger through the heart of the show. Charlie is heart, and for the premise to survive she can never break. She can be shaken, but the moment Charlie breaks irreparably, the show betrays itself.
Angel Dust is probably the most diverse character in this regard, balancing his own many traumas and personal faults with disarming over-sexualisation, placing up smokescreens and illusions to make himself seem stronger than he is- but in placing all those walls he also forces out people who could get close and come to work at the real him. He is a very raw character in that sense, that touches a lot more people than many would like to honestly admit. You don't need to be as broken and abused as Angel is to relate to his coping mechanisms and self destructive spurs, but it can make some people uncomfortable to see themselves reflected in an unflinching mirror like that. I suspect that is why he has also become one of the most controversial characters on the show by people who seem desperate to carve away his breadth of character and chalk him down into a pithy facsimile that can be ridiculed and discarded.
Hazbin is also a musical, and rather distinct from the way that Helluva Boss endeavours to wind it's songs naturally into every episode as 'within the box' performances, Hazbin balances atop a more 'musical theatre' sensibility both in the style of songs it creates and the arguable non-canonicity of the songs themselves. I can only imagine that Velvette did not break into a confrontation song against Camilla during the meeting of the Southern Overlords, but when it aids the humour of the show to nudge the forth wall a little and acknowledge the sudden vocal range of every hellish denizen, I appreciate the wink to the camera. Funnily enough this is another aspect of the show I've seen critiqued by traditional published reviewers who seem unimpressed by the straightforward nature of each song. Which is strange, because this is musical theatre. Every song has to push the plot along, that would be difficult if they coated themselves in poppy allegory and abstract conceptualism. (I suspect reviewers are choosing not to bother engaging with 'another adult animated show'.)
The one general thematic compliant I think is clear comes in what I like about the show the most- it doesn't present an open hand to the viewer. In that, it's not really the kind of show you can stick on for an uninterested party and they'll find themselves gently invited into the world. Hazbin Hotel has a grand world it wants to present and it kind of expects the audience to give themselves into the premise a little from the get go. If you are hostile towards the show, everything will just seem a little chaotic to you. If you want to engage with it, you'll find a lot of richness of substance somewhat uncommon from animated shows of this ilk. (Then again, how many Animated shows are the product of several years of world building, stories and head canon deciphering?)
By the time this blog is out I will not have seen every episode, afterall the last two don't air until next week, but barring some colossal screw up I don't really think I'm going to change my general opinion on Hazbin Hotel. I love the show. I think it's emotionally intelligent, irreverent and entertaining- which is all the show really needed to be. Perhaps the humour is not quite as snappy as the pilot was, and the animation takes less self-indulgent gallivants into impressive excess- but the heart of what made that pilot work all those years ago is totally intact and that is what matters when it's all said and done. I really like the show, I hope for more like it and I pray it finds it's audience despite the lax amount of advertising Amazon has afforded it. (The Hazbin universe has self advertised itself for this long, I suppose.)
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