New episode: "Beshte and the Hippo Lanes"

[Carambulesco]

The song of this episode reminds me of the song "Get Up On".

[SimbasGuard]

It also seems that these Hippo Lanes are very important to all of the animals in The Pride Lands. It also seems that a flood is involved so I think we can expect trouble from Makuu.

[Panpardus]

[quote="Carambulesco"]The song of this episode reminds me of the song "Get Up On". [/quote]

"Get Up On"? Never heard that one before. Link?

[Carambulesco]

[quote="Panpardus"]
"Get Up On"? Never heard that one before. Link?[/quote]

Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCCkb6k_aow

[Panpardus]

Oh, "Get On Up". You had "Get Up On", which I thought was its own song. I don't hear it, except maybe the guitar stuff in both.

[Carambulesco]

[quote="Panpardus"]Oh, "Get On Up". You had "Get Up On", which I thought was its own song. I don't hear it, except maybe the guitar stuff in both.[/quote]

That's why I said that reminds me.

[Panpardus]

So, this is one of those episodes that surprised me at how good it actually turned out to be (in my opinion).

Firstly, let me get this out of the way: I'm a fan of the song. I've had it on automatic replay for the past twenty minutes or so because that's how much I'm enjoying the groove on it, and the chorus has some nice harmony. The rap lyrics pretty much trail everywhere, since there's not much substantive that you can actually say about pushing over grass, but the delivery is good. Beshte and Fuli seem to get the best songs out of all the guard members, or at least I haven't been disappointed by anything they've led so far.

The story itself was decent; I was afraid it would be pretty middling given the whole idea of the hippo lanes, but the writers found a way to deliver some sense of urgency with the impending storm and Makuu's ever-present float. The underwater shots throughout were cool touches, and I appreciate that they at least acknowledged that hippos are fully capable of taking on crocodiles, though I was a little disappointed that Basi's comment didn't lead into an actual fight between the two parties. The show's been lacking in a good fight scene since "The Imbali Fields Migration". (The minor scuffles in subsequent episodes and the "fight" in "Lions of the Outlands" don't count to me.) At least the guard didn't show up and save them.

The side story was actually surprisingly interesting and entertaining. The banter between Fuli and the lead sable antelope was genuinely funny, and Fuli's sudden moment of open empathy/tenderness was a nice little character shift. I feel like she's grown the most out of all five guard members so far. (Kion's got some interesting story arc related things going on, being guard leader and having the roar and all, but to date he's been a pretty flat character for the most part.) The little moral lesson there - if there is one - actually hit on something I've always wondered, which is whether any of the residential herds get tired of Kion and co. ordering everyone around, since they're still a bunch of kids/preteens. Granted, it seems as though a lot of these [adult] animals are on the verge of being too dumb to live, but still...

Overall, a surprisingly solid episode from my take.

[Kallo]

Eh, I don't really have much to say about the episode. It was alright, but not one of my favourites. Not a fan of rap, so I didn't really enjoy the song, and the lyrics seemed too "cool" and unfitting for Beshte. He never talks like that normally. Sadly, the animation looks like it's taken a nose-dive again, which makes me wonder if this episode was made before the previous one, but ended up with a later air-date. While the story was generally enjoyable and had some funny moments, I feel like the characters were dumbed down a bit too much to make it work. Especially Beshte. I mean, I get that being a bit forgetful, overly kind and all that is part of his character, and that's what caused him to mess up the hippo lanes the first time around, but I still feel like after Ono pointed that out to him, he should be smart enough to get it right. It's just making a straight line, and I thought it made Beshte seem extremely... incapable not to be able to set his mind to it, even when other animals were in need of his help and even though he had Ono to help him. Instead, he had to get his injured father's motivation and help just to be able to make a straight line in the reeds. I dunno, just made Beshte seem a bit too weak in my opinion. I mean, the reason he failed the first time was because he was absentminded, not because he can't walk from one end of the flood to the other.

Still, I think it was a generally good, enjoyable episode. The biggest positive, I thought, was that it was cool to see Makuu again. He's an enjoyable villain and feels like a genuine threat. Also, Fuli with wet fur and droopy ears is cute.

[PridelandsPhantom]

I found the episode fairly enjoyable, it's not the best, but also not the worst. I did like that the beat was different from the typical TLG song, but I'm not much of a rap fan. However, Beshte's VA does like to do rap, so it's appropriate that he'd have a song involving it in the episode. I would have liked to see Beshte and his father take on Makku more rather than have his dad get injured by the rhino and sort of left at that. I agree that Beshte would be nervous, but probably not that distracted about the Hippo Lanes considering they're a big deal to the Pridelands Animals. I did like to see the development of Fuli and the general attitude of the gazelles being "nah" towards the guard and Fuli's irritation. It shows Fuli has a lot of different sides. It's nice to see that Kion's roar wasn't used to save the day, but was used to help the guard.

[zerodix]

i watched it yesterday, here is my opinion: at the beginning i was like.. where are the lions? but the song made up for everything.. it reminded me of ijcwtbk and i really loved the melody of it. that antelope leader made me cringe. what an ungratefull personage. i understood why fuli was on the edge of a mental breakdown dealing with a herd of stubborn ungratefull antelopes. when it comes to helping prideland animals, i would like to see more various species. catlike.. like the serval leopards lions cheetahs and stuff. fuli is the only cheetah so far. i hope she meets another cheetah someday. the episode hippo lanes was nice.. not the best not the worst.. i liked it overall