This one was an odd one but rather enjoyable for me. Shows where, there really isn’t an ongoing narrative since there is no grand plot. The premise being laid bare right at the start and you able to enjoy the show. You may even learn a thing or two.

How best to describe the show… hmm according to Wikipedia (at least at the point of writing this)

“The series serves to illustrate biology of real life animals and their characteristics as well as explaining some biological issues regarding mythical animals, all this while showing the concepts of design thinking, such as testing and prototyping.”

and that does cover what you will see quite nicely.

The premise is given right at the start. God created the Earth, yada, yada, yada, BUT when it came to the animals he realized how big a task that was so outsourced to a Design Team.  (I’m not sure if the Christians are going to love or hate this). After the opening explanation we are introduced to new Angel (as in just came into existence) Shimoda who is to work as the go between for the Design Team and God (who we never see).

The Design Team is the group who work out all the animals based on God’s very, VERY vague requests such as “cute but not cute”.

So then about the characters. I already mentioned Shimoda but on to the Design Team themselves.

We have the old man Saturn who is obsessed with horses which was his big masterpiece early on. He’s the one that keeps trying to push Pegasus and Unicorns and so we find out why they don’t work (MLP fans may want therapy after this)

Jupiter who is very relaxed and keeps designing animals based on if they taste good, and also keeps trying to eat them.

Mercury, a very serious professional person who I can best describe as one of those Steve Jobs etc characters in his presentation and often comes up with very inventive solutions.

Venus a flamboyant Trans Woman (everyone refers to her as a woman in series so kudos on progression I suppose) very much responsible for birds.

Neptune a large man who is the big softy and loves to make cute animals.

Pluto a young woman who tends to be the one who creates all the slightly creepy things.

Lastly there is Mars who creates all the proto types and often pointing out the reasons designs wouldn’t work.

Once you see the first episode that’s basically the whole thing, if you don’t like it from there you’re not going to enjoy the show. No big revelation part way through that changes the dynamic. It’s these characters interacting while they try to fill out God’s request for an animal. There are a few times a plot goes over into the next episode but even then it’s nothing serious in the end.

It is a comedy series so it’s all done in a light hearted tone. Each episode being split up into different sections to cover elements often an animal request used as means to show how that animal actually works. But it also takes a few shots at the life of a Design Team, from the problems of vague requests to even the wording of them.

I enjoyed the series quite a lot and have suggested it to a few friends who then found they liked it too. A nice light hearted show can help cheer you up in dark days.

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