User reviews

Guillermo and Tales of Arcadia Team streak again. After Trollhunters, another good work indeed. Well writing and amazing score, is real match with this storyline.

I think this is a classic case of a rather boring premise being put in the hands of great writers. The story itself is about as simple as you can get: another classic tale about aliens secretly taking refuge on Earth. As such I feel like I've already seen the story many times before. There's also a lot of plotholes, easily-confusing details and scenes that feel rushed. However, there are a few unique twists, and in addition the animation and actors do a really good job of portraying a mood that keeps you immersed in an otherwise shallow premise. I feel the voice actors, in particular, do a phenomenal job of making the world feel alive. Definitely interesting but only if you don't look too deep into it.

It´s not common today to find a really well rounded animated series, which makes sense and is able to capture even adult minds. 3Below is one of the rare cases, it´s so easy to watch the next episode, and the next, and the next.... The animation is very eye-friendly, rather simple but of high quality, with pleasing colors. Great voice acting, simple but strong story line with more than a few surprises. The characters are very well written, they have depth and are really relatable, even smaller side characters are often interesting (the blank bot "parents" are so much overblown, but at the same time really hillarious) and when something happens there is a real reason behind it. This show continues in the good tradition of Trollhunter, and for me it´s even better then it´s predecessor. A truly nice and entertaining piece to watch.

The Tales of Arcadia team continues to do incredible work. I loved Trollhunters, but I honestly may like this new series even more. It's funny, imaginative, thoughtful, and beautifully animated. I really wish I could give it more than 10 stars.

The good: 1. Crossover episodes with trollhunters were tons of fun. 2. Stuart (comic relief). 3. Great production value.

The bad: 1. Characters felt one dimensional and you didn't feel as invested in them as in trollhunters. 2. Jokes were overplayed and repeated. 3. Supposedly smart characters do dumb stuff all the time. 4. Weak story development especially in the way characters change allegiance.

It feels as tho this series is targeted at a younger audience then that of Trollhunters. It had great potential but fell short.

Must watch for Trollhunter fans! Loved the animation and the cast. Eventhough it may seem for kids but you'll enjoy either way.

It is what it is for a kid's show. One dimensional characters with slapstick humor that you pretend to laugh at but it's not really funny at all.

After Trollhunters I was expecting the same outstanding depth of storytelling. Clearly something went wrong along the way.

I like this show but can someone tell the actor doing Varvatos voice to tone it down! His voice is the worst and he keeps yelling, I can't stand it. It's a shame considering the great voices of Trollhunters. Beside that, great family show.

Great voice acting. Fast paced. Witty. Lots of fun. Tatiana Maslany!

I have seen both Trollhunters and 3Below, and I left a glowing review of Trollhunters (mainly of the villains) 3Below, I'm not ready to praise so highly, The art style is beautiful as always, the character designs are pretty cool, and I enjoy the music. I LOVED the arch-baddie's voice and am sad there's not more of him. Some of the jokes are also quite amusing...at first. It's fine for something bright and entertaining and whimsical. Does this live up to Trollhunters, though? Not so much. Unlike Trollhunters' villains, 3Below;s villains amount to mustache-twirling baddies at best, and incompetent excuses for action pieces at worst. The bounty hunters exist solely so that the good guys have someone to fight/acquire alien tech from when needed, and the senior baddie barely shows up at all other than to give his villain spiel about how he is Evil McEvilton come to overthrow a good, peaceful empire. In Trollhunters, the villains had a weight and menace to them due to the fact they presented a real threat to the Trollhunters, who struggled to stay ahead of them. In 3Below, the baddies are rarely seen, except when the plot needs them to show up, and they are not particularly intimidating despite the fact they are portrayed as though we should be frightened of them. They don't display much skill in fighting, despite the fact that they usually outnumber and outclass the heroes, and their plans and motivations don't reach past killing the heroes. Compare this to Trollhunters, where each of the villains was playing their own separate games trying to fulfill their own wishes and grudges (as well as racking up casualties on-screen and off-screen, making it much more believable that they can and would kill the Trollhunters). The heroes themselves are okay, but they try to be funny too hard, and in doing so, the stale humor of "look at us, we're super-quirky" dialogue sweeps aside much room for character development, i.e. making the three into actually likable characters. Aja seems a bit selfish in dodging her duties for no apparent reason. Tech-guy (no, I don't remember his name even after 9 episodes) comes off as exactly that: he likes technology, and that's his character trait. Vex was funny at first, and there are some good scenes with him adapting to his human form, but he can get rather obnoxious. Even with episode 8's reveal, the viewer knows how Vex's character is going to play out and resolve this conflict. There is literally no payoff to this plot point: just set-up and instant reaction telling the viewer what they already know. As far as the Trollhunters' appearances go; well, they're all right, but they only made me wish more and more I was watching Trollhunters instead of this. It's wonderful to hear the crew back together, and it makes me wish for more Trollhunters. The Trollhunters world is better-built, their rules more concrete, the integration of both normal world and magical world much smoother, the conflict more intense, and the characters both more relatable and more exciting. All in all, 3Below is a harmless, if slightly bland, addition to the Tales of Arcadia collection that honestly is a little lackluster after Trollhunters' magnificent storytelling. I might pass on the rest of these episodes, but if you need me, I'll be re-bingeing Trollhunters for the third time! (Seriously, just go check it out. It's TOTALLY worth it!)

The colors in this and TrollHunters are so beautiful it looks like no other animated show ever made! TrollHunters is my favorite animated kids show ever! It was beautifully made by Del Toro & I was so sad when it ended! They really surprised ppl with that! But Del Toro gave us a taste of these two characters in two episodes from the last season of TrollHunters & I thought huh weird these two kids are crazy nutz. But they must have something to do with the next upcoming story line in T.H... But then they ended it and this came out of Nowhere it's part of the Tale of Arcadia universe with a third show on the way about Witches of Arcadia! So as genius as these show runners are I wouldn't be surprised if we get another taste of those upcoming characters in this show! I really am enjoying this so far they are mixing characters in from T.H. And it makes me less sad that that show is over. They got another great cast of voice actors for this show and they give life to the great written script! Tales of Arcadia is so smartly written & funny it's so good for children but there is always a addictive story line and funny characters to keep parents and like myself ppl in there 20s who love a great animated show or just watch everything Del Toro does! You don't have to watch TrollHunters first to watch this! But you would get a lot more out of it if you did! Like I said I watch a lot of shows and TrollHunters is my favorite kids show ever yes even more than the Last Airbender! I love watching these shows while I go to sleep to cause all the beautiful blues and dark neon colors just relax me into sleep! That's after I have watched them a few times tho!

The series is more fast-paced in general than Trollhunters and doesn't have the double-season size of Trollhunters' first season. This means we don't get under the character's skin in quite the way we did with Claire, Jim, Toby and the gang. If still works brilliantly, even if I might have wanted more time with Krel, Ajaa and Varvatos Vex.

The whole family is looking forward to season 2.

It's not as good as troll hunters however I've only watched 2 episodes hahahaha but I really like it and I'll be back for an overall review

Overall, this is a very interesting series. Honestly, without exaggeration, from the very first episode until the middle of the second season, I thought I would give it 8(I don't really like this kind of graphics). But from the middle of the second season, the narrative of the story began a very rapid fall into the abyss called "the most stupid and banal clichés about heroes and villains". And even though this is, by and large, a children's animation, the plot has become madly predictable and no longer just for children, but for some babies... which personally caused a strong drop in interest for me me. Like the rating falling, up to 7. In the end, the decision of some of the characters were also disappointing (here I supported the guy with the glasses with all my hands, I would have done so in his place too).

This is a top-notch animated production, no debate. But you can debate the demographic and characterizations. I think this 1/2-hr, 13-ep show is aimed at young-teens, though the visuals can definitely be appreciated by all. I would expect teens/parents to rate this as 9/10, but the rest of us 7/8. The show borrows a lot from others which some of you might remember: Sym-Bionic Titan and Invader Zim. The main three protagonists are very similar to the former and the artificial stand-in parents are almost directly lifted from the latter. When the protags, Aja (girl) and Krel (boy) get to Earth they end up in high school in short order. The character Varvatos Vex is interesting but annoying because he always refers to himself in the third-person so you hear his name all - the - time. Plus he's voiced by comedian Nick Offerman who's almost 50 but sounds older/feeble which doesn't do the character justice. The overall plot is derivative, you've seen this play out before, but again, the visuals. 3Below pushes wholesome albeit dated themes of family togetherness and the value of brother/sister teaming though the adversarial situations they always overcome are unrealistically optimistic. There is animated violence but it's tame/indirect. It's a decent enough series, and I'd watch a second season mainly for the outstanding animation, though.

As soon as I seen the 2 girls kissing I came here straight away to see if anyone complained about it it didn't take long to find the comments, Serious people get a grip on reality, it's a kiss! I saw a comment saying this sort of thing shouldn't be in a kids show, we need to protect our kids from this sort of thing, please!! I bet you let your kids watch any Disney movie which every one of them has a heterosexual kiss and you have no problem with it, but God forbid it's a gay kiss and the world ends??! you are the people making a big deal out of it, not the kids themselves, kids LEARN hate from those around them, speaks more about YOUR insecurities as a human than anything else.

It's solid animation occasionally on par with one of these 3D animation movies (which is obviously the goal). However the storytelling is quite chaotic, incoherent-feeling and hyperactive. In particular, I find the dialogue and character interaction lacking in this regard. One couldn't really expect it to stand out as clever and "well-written" anyway, and it also doesn't exceed expectations by being about as shallow as can be, however in addition to that I find it unnecessarily annoying. It is kind of a given that there is somewhat chaotic interaction between the undercover aliens and the humans, which serves for a lot of the "humour", however the dialogue and interaction between the aliens themselves (mostly brother and sister) is equally messy and erratic, with constant talking past each other and pointless side-remarks, which seems like a try-hard attempt to have constant conflict and be interesting, but which just results in the watching being kind of strenuous and not really pleasant. (I also find the boy in particular lacking in any sympathetic traits and even his voice odd and too old-sounding.) I still deem it essential "holiday entertainment" right now, and a fairly fun blend of science fiction adventure and everyday slapstick, but it obviously could have been better.

This is an exceptional animation series by DreamWorks. Great CGI, passably decent story, good voice acting and directing. Retains viewer interest. For what it is (basically a Saturday morning series), it's pretty good.

Negative side, t has too many "crossover" episodes with a companion show called Troll Hunters. If one is binge watching on Netflix and hasn't done Troll Hunters, some parts may be confusing. The first time they did so was tolerable. The Nth time they did crossover stories it became annoying.

The show holds its visual integrity throughout, but the closer it gets to the end the more the story line seems to drag on. And on. And on. Fight after fight. Impossible situation after impossible situation. By the time it hit the final episode, I was ready for it to be the final episode.

Technically it is a superior series in every way. If I had to point to a single plot element and say "that didn't really work", it would be the main villain. Tired and cliche concept. They could have come up with something better than the evil supreme dictator concept. But somewhere in there they lost inertia and failed to regain it. An okay show and worth watching. Just be prepared for a yawner closing.

An unparalleled imagination, Guillermo del Toro's is master storyteller and I'm enjoying his projects across genres. This is the second story arch for the TALES OF ARCADIA which began with a triad series called TROLLHUNTERS and will close with a triad series called WIZARDS giving us 9 seasons of Arcadian tales. Once again, I feel unqualified to speak about this genre which seems to be somewhere between Child and Young Adult SciFi/Fantasy, but I'm finding that I'm not the lone adult following this project. Again, del Toro has attracted stellar voice talents: Tatiana Maslany, Diego Luna, Glenn Close, Hayley Atwell, to name a few. I particularly enjoyed the crosssover plot with the Trollhunter story line as 3Below begins its timeline in the third season of TROLLHUNTERS (you really should watch TROLLHUNTERS as well, although it has some pretty silly bits, which probably appeals to the younger audience). I give this series an 8 (great talent and imagination) out of 10. For a young audience it may be an 8 or an 8.5 out of 10. {Animated, SciFi, Action, Adventure}

...And it would be even greater if the creators didn't try to drop in a Leftist political message, every other episode. I don't think kids should be taught political theory at this point, as it tends to run pretty close to indoctrination when combined with children's shows.

That said, the characters are decent (despite certain cliched roles, they really tend to work), the stories are interesting and flow well, and I find myself laughing with every episode, more often than not.

Story is ok, not nearly as catching as Trollhunters though. But what really put me off is the annoying voice of Varvatos. The constant shouting made me quit the series.