User Reviews

So let me tell you about this show's premise.

A war horse from a war torn world of humans is teleported into a bizarre world of colorful, obnoxious, and varyingly insane centaur-esque creatures that have magical powers (one of which is the ability to create miniature, existentially dreading versions of themselves). That horse named "Horse" begrudgingly joins a herd of centaurs and embarks a journey of self-discovery, memeable faces, body horror, PTSD, depression, and existential dread. And it's also a musical.

This sounds like a desperate and stupid premise that would offer no depth or a specific tone. Something that would be designed specifically for kids and nothing more than a cash grab.

But here's the most insane part: CentaurWorld is not only surprising, but also one of the best shows I've seen this year. The animation is fluid and top notch, and not just in the action scenes, but just consistently excellent with the characters' movements being fluidly expressive and the landscapes they cross are nice and varied.

Speaking of, the characters are fun and bubbly; Horse is a superb, down to earth straight man who slowly warms up to the crazy realm of the Centaurs; the Herd is weird, almost infantile and borderline insane at points. My personal favorite character from the show is Wammawink, who is adorable, motherly, a wonderful foil to Horse, and easily the most layered and tragic character in the Herd.

And what I love most about this show is the willingness to drop the mostly light-hearted tone and delve into deeper and darker themes like identity, existential dread, despair, war, and post traumatic stress. Even the dread and despair bleed into the music numbers.

Lastly, the one thing I dreaded going into this series was the musical numbers. But I gotta say, most of the songs here are actual banger, with a couple having a lot of emotional power. There are a lot of songs in each of the episodes, but they are short and varied enough to not overstay their welcome (even if some of the transitions into the songs feel abrupt and clumsy). While a handful of the songs are reminders that this still directed mostly to kids, the songs here are actually great and meld well with the scenes.

The show isn't without its faults though. Again, some of the song transitions can feel sudden and clumsy; the herd, while can be funny, can get on viewers' nerves. But this show depends heavily on taste, since not everyone will likely enjoy this movie mainly because of the premise, the humor, or the character design.

Beneath the blindingly colorful exterior, CentaurWorld is deceptively brilliant. The animation is stunning, the characters are likable, the show takes the right balance of keeping the journey slow enough to not feel rushed, but fast enough to keep the characters going. If anything, this show reminds me a lot of Arlo the Alligator Boy, a movie I had a lot of expectations with. But where that movie was a clumsy sales pitch for an upcoming series, The situation here is the opposite. I had no expectations with CentaurWorld, but ended up loving this show. This weird, but brilliant show.

So I got a chance to see the show in its entirety and Season 2 continues that's streak, albeit with more shaky execution. The first half is not as good as the latter, with the humor more hit-or-miss (though when the jokes hit, they *really* hit) and the overall soundtrack, still good, but not as memorable and a bit over-reliant on reprises. The season does pick itself up after Episode 3 and the movie-length finale is ingenious and a massive improvement over last season's finale. But even then, the muddy execution of the first half really knocks this season down a peg.

This show is still a 10/10, but if I were to individually graded the seasons, season 1 would be a 9.5 out of 10, and season 2 is a 9 out of 10.

I came into Centaurworld thinking that I wouldn't like it very much, just because I didn't like the centaur designs -- too simplistic. But boy was I wrong.

Centaurworld is like the Cowboy Bebop of western cartoons -- it combines so many genres into one that it becomes its own genre. There's adventure, action, mystery, drama, comedy, and a musical aspect -- every episode has tons of songs.

Not to mention the fierce juxtaposition between the gritty and dramatic nature of Horse's original realm (she's a war horse) and the fluffy cotton candy nature of Centaurworld. This is really meta -- you see, it's a commentary on the battle between comedy cartoons and story-driven cartoons. Centaurworld is both of these things and more.

I found myself not really caring for the centaur characters at first, thinking that they were annoying, but as you spend more time with them, you feel more sympathetic to them -- especially Mamawinks.

Mercury Filmworks always delivers on the animation, and they did a great job with the brown, darkish lighting for Horse and Rider moments vs the pinkish neon color scheme for Centaurworld, and the beautiful animation for both of them. The former is stylized like a graphic novel while the latter is simplistic.

I can't believe I ended up loving it, and you will too if you give it a chance -- unless you don't like musicals.

First of all, I would like to express a gratitude towards creators and cast. I love every aspect of this show since the first time I saw it and today's release of Season 2 clinched my love for it.

As a 90's kid who grew up with old 2D animated classics like Lady and the Tramp, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, Mulan, Tarzan, Spirit or The Lion King. Disney classics which had a quality writing, cast and amazing soundtracks. Since Disney started doing 3D animated stuff, which I am not a huge fan of, I had a huge hole in my inner child's heart. Until now.

What's more, it managed to combine it with things most of us consider a taboo, but all of us were, are or will be going through. Like loneliness, sadness, loss, anxiety or depression. Especially during this hard covid time of lockdowns and deaths.

The characters are cool, but they each have their own bits of sadness and coping with it, which makes them all relatable in one way or the other. I love that the centaurworld is without our humane abstract inventions, so the characters are more pure and unique. The story is great and the way it's written is amazing as it plays with funny and feeling part of viewer's mind.

My most favorite part is a soundtrack. The songs are memorable and I love vast majority of them.

To me it feels like all my favorite cartoon films I mentioned above were sewn together to create a masterpiece, especially the ending of Season 2, the one hour long episode that sumed up all plots together.