Wednesday, June 2, we announced the new web series launching for FEARnet called Mari-Kari. I had the privilege (or misfortune if you think of it) to see it ahead of time.  Here are my thoughts.

Mari-Kari starts with a teacher explaining why Mari’s back, but there’s no real explanation why Kari’s dead.  She just is, accept it.  The voice acting is absolutely atrocious, especially the teacher’s voice.  She sounds like a bad caricature of the vocal coach in Singin’ In The Rain.  ”Round tones!”  Shannen Doherty actually provides the best voice acting in the show as Kari- her Mari, however, sounds forced.

The animation, which is supposed to be modeled after Japanese anime, looked like it missed its mark.

 The show looks like a cross between South Park’s stop animation and something Disney churned out, making it one of the most awkward looking shows I’ve ever seen.

I’ve never been a fan of gore, but usually only when it’s unnecessary to the plot.  The gore here is necessary- it shows just how strong Kari’s need to protect her sister is.  However, when the episode is only one to two minutes, a full minute (it seemed like a minute) should not be dedicated to a chainsaw cutting through someone’s head (and not even getting that far in).

Honestly, the best part of the show is that they’re so incredibly short, but unfortunately it’s also the worst part.  Since the show’s so short, there’s no room for character or even real story development.  Just needless gore and a few sentences of dialog, so the attempts at tongue-in-cheek comedy fall short. Maybe that will change with future episodes.

If you like gore (even if it’s animated), you’ll possibly enjoy these shorts.  If you enjoy story lines, character development, and anything else that makes up a good program, I’d suggest you steer clear of these shorts.