Toon In: Animation Highlights for February 2024, from Solar Opposites’ Valentine’s Special to The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy
TV Lists animation
Welcome to the ink, paint, and pixel corner of Paste TV, where we’re highlighting some of the best premium animation projects on streaming or direct-to-video aimed for teens and adults. This monthly column not only provides an overview of the new animated series to check out, but we’ve also collected some of the finest creators and voice talents in the medium to give updates, or introductions, to their series.
The Tiger’s Apprentice (February 2)
For fans of Laurence Yep’s young adult book trilogy, The Tiger’s Apprentice, comes the animated adaptation of the first chapter in the series, directed by Raman Hui (and co-directed by Paul Watling and Yong Duk Jhun). A contemporary adventure infused with fantasy elements, The Tiger’s Apprentice centers on Chinese-American teenager Tom Lee (Brandon Soo Hoo), who discovers he’s part of a long lineage of magical protectors known as the Guardians. In order to unlock his potential, he’s trained by a human/mythical tiger named Hu (Henry Golding) so they can confront the evil entity hell-bent on destroying humanity, Loo (Michelle Yeoh).
The long in development project started at Cartoon Network way back in 2008, and then eventually migrated to Paramount+ for this movie, which Hui tells Paste is very much based in the mythology Yep created for his books.
“In the book, Mr. Hu is a human in a black suit with a tiger head, and we originally wanted to use that approach,” Hui says of their development process. “But the more we worked on storyboarding, we felt seeing a whole tiger act and fight would be stunning visually. Thanks to our awesome and hard-working story team led by Rob Koo, their drawings of the tiger using the body and tail to show emotions were effective and expressive. They helped us define our characters and gave us blueprints of how they should behave.”
As the story has one foot in the real world and another in the mystical world, Hui says when it came time to decide on the style of CGI animation, they realized they wanted their characters to have fun but also be capable of having touching emotions. Ultimately, they decided to go with a more realistic approach led by animation supervisors David Nasser and Yannick Honore.
“The animation ranges from big exaggerated body movements during the fight scenes to refined small facial movements to convey delicate emotions,” Hui says of the spectrum of places the story goes. “The mourning of Grandma scene was one of the earlier scenes we animated that showed us how connected the animators could be with Hu and Tom. And the introduction appearance of Mistral the Dragon (Sandra Oh) was an exciting scene to exercise the big cool action.”
A standout character is the tiger incarnation of Hu, which is a gorgeous CGI creature featuring glowing Chinese calligraphy-inspired brush stroke stripes. Hui says production designer Christophe Lautrette and his team did countless iterations of Hu the Tiger to try different ages, shapes, looks, and faces to assess his performance potential. “We had to test through drawings with expression changes to show various emotions. Then, we had to compare the human and animal designs to make sure they look like the same character in different stages,” he details. “Henry Golding gave us incredible and rich performances that inspired us to push the acting of Hu. His multiple dimensions that were tough, soft, funny, sentimental, and charming made Hu the Tiger likable and special.”
Hui says that while The Tiger’s Apprentice went through many phases of development, this version was always intended to be an event film and not a streaming series. However, he and their team already have ideas to develop the characters if asked to do so.
“I personally would like to see Tom and Rav develop their relationship further. Brandon Soo Hoo and Leah Lewis breathed life into them and made them so adorable and fun together,” he says enthusiastically. “Other than Hu, Mistral, Sydney, Naomi, and the Rooster, the rest of the Zodiacs didn’t get as much screen time in the movie. It would be nice to explore more since in the story the Zodiacs have been a team for a very long time. If the audience likes to see more of them, we can have fun telling their stories with Hu and get to know them much more. The Tiger’s Apprentice is the first book of the trilogy, the next two books can still be adapted to movies to expand this world.”
Marvel’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur Season 2 (February 2)
Marvel’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, Disney Channel’s five-time Children’s and Family Emmy Award winner, returns for its second season this month for more New York adventures with Lunella Lafayette (Diamond White) and her unruly pet, Devil Dinosaur (Fred Tatasciore). The series is a delight that features gorgeous, stylized animation of the city and very funny performances by an all-star voice cast that includes this season: Edward James Olmos, Xolo Maridueña, Cynthia Erivo, Peter Weller, and David Tennant. There are even some MCU connections, including appearances by Maria Hill (voiced by Cobie Smulders)—before that Secret Invasion nonsense. In fact, for those complaining about current storytelling in the Marvel universe, you’re missing out on a fun time with Moon Girl. Get on board and you’ll be surprised.
Solar Opposites Valentine’s Day Special (February 5)
Be afraid because Terry (Dan Stevens), Korvo (Thomas Middleditch), Jesse (Mary Mack), and Yumyulack (Sean Giambrone) are coming for Valentine’s Day in the all-new Solar Opposites special, “An Earth Shatteringly Romantic Solar Valentine’s Day Opposites Special.”
This is the series’ third holiday special, following previous Christmas and Halloween standalone episodes. The whole concept keeps alive a disappearing tradition of holiday-related storylines, due to the massive changes in television writing in general.
“We love making holiday specials,” creator Mike McMahan admits to Paste. “Solar is a show about people loving TV and aliens basing their lives off from TV, basically. Just like the idea of a holiday special to us is such a TV thing and then getting to play with the form. Like, you can tell in this holiday special that it’s a holiday special, but it also is messing with the format of a holiday special the whole time.”
In keeping with the lovey vibes, the episode makes some major moves in the relationship between Terry and Korvo. McMahan teases about the story, “It was just so important to us to do something like this, that hadn’t been on our radar at all in the first season. And then we grew to love the characters and really appreciate them. So, the fun for us was, let’s do something crazy, but then also impactful for the story, and be super stupid and funny while we’re doing it.”
Maybe most surprising is that this episode will be integral to the storyline of the upcoming fifth season of Solar Opposites. “In specials, they usually stand alone,” executive producer Josh Bycel says of how they typically exist within a series. “But our idea was that we were going to have this insane Valentine’s Day special that ends up being Planet of the Apes with parrots and Linda Hamilton reading a long scroll that ends arguably with the biggest thing to happen to them since landing on Earth,” he laughs. “It felt like a fun treat for our fans who will be like, ‘Wait a minute, you’re doing this monumental shift in a Valentine’s Day episode?’”
When asked what holiday might next be on their special radar, McMahan jokes that his Chicago origins means that a Casimir Pulaski Day episode, or some other obscure small holiday would be funny. “But the real thing I would love to do is another Christmas Special,” he says. “Christmas specials are so classic and the formats are so set. And there’s so many movies and Christmas specials, that it’s so much fun to fuck with them,” he laughs.
Bycel then reveals, “We do have another special coming out sometime in the second half of this year.” So, start your office pools now.
Ninja Kamui (February 10)
Director Sunghoo Park of Jujutsu Kaisen fame has a new anime action series, Ninja Kamui, debuting on Adult Swim’s Toonami (next day on Max). A bloody revenge drama, it follows a former ninja clan member whose family is murdered, which spurs him to seek unholy revenge. This is for those who like their anime black as night, with Park pushing action sequences to the limit. The character designs are also the work of Takashi Okazaki (Afro Samurai).
Rock Paper Scissors (February 12)
Not a lot of animated, kid-centric shows are meant to please two masters: kids and their parents. But Nickelodeon’s new series, Rock Paper Scissors, from new-to-animation creators Kyle Stegina and Josh Lehrman, does that in spades with a funky, creative aesthetic too.
The premise follows the anthropomorphized versions of Rock (Ron Funches), Paper (Thomas Lennon), and Scissors (Carlos Alazraqui) living out in the real world as BFFs and roommates who navigate all kinds of weirdly-specific scenarios, like achieving their landlord’s bucket list to make rent or training for a janitorial job. The concept itself begs the question, “How come this idea is just getting made now?”
Lehrman tells Paste that the show idea was born from a great shower-thinking session. “I was mid-shower, and I went, ‘Oh, it’d be funny if rock, paper, and scissors were roommates and buddies. And they go on wacky adventures.’ And that was it,” he laughs. “That logline is so simple, that what really matters is the characters. And then from there, the freedom that you have in that simple setup allows you to tell a variety of really fun stories.”
After pitching it to Stegina, they developed it for Nickelodeon’s Intergalactic Shorts Program, where it was bought in 2019 and is now a series. The episodes are 11 minutes each and just teeming with layers of jokes, some of which will go over the youngest heads but make parents roll.
Stegina says all that time they had to develop is why the show has such tight comedic timing, utilizing their voice talent to really land the show’s more absurdist jokes. “We did the eight-minute pilot, and I appreciate it,” Stegina says. “But the characters have evolved so much more. Through every phase of the production, they get a little bit better, and a little bit more specific, and a little bit more detailed. We’re really happy with where they turned out.”
Another charming hallmark of the series is its mixed media production and art direction, which has all kinds of photo realistic items and textures existing against highly stylized characters. “It’s very indicative of the tone of the show, because it’s beautiful and so charming to look at, but it’s also a little janky,” Stegman laughs. “Our show doesn’t take itself that seriously. I love it.”
Lehrman says all credit for the established look of the show goes to their pilot presentation collaborators, Amanda Lee and Paul Watling. “Amanda was our background designer and created the world sort of based on an LA apartment. She did that photo collage, realistic style. And then Paul Watling put these 2D characters over it. And I say this in the best way, when we saw it, we were like, ‘Oh, that just looks so dumb.’ We just loved it. It was just really pleasant to look at,” he also laughs. “Then when we went into series, we had a supervising producer/ director named Bob Boyle. And John Won also oversaw a lot of the art. Those two guys really honed the look of the apartment, so it looks great.”
The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy (February 23)
The Second Best Hospital in The Galaxy is the latest original Prime Video adult comedy to come from the streamer. The sci-fi brainchild of creator/writer Cirocco Dunlap (Russian Doll) and executive producers Maya Rudolph and Natasha Lyonne, the series follows the messy lives of alien surgeons Dr. Klak (Keke Palmer) and Dr. Sleech (Stephanie Hsu). The best friends since intergalactic medical school treat an array of bizarre alien patients, while navigating time loops, personal anxieties, libidos, and mother issues.
Looking to find an outlet to write (in a funny way) about her own journey with anxiety, Dunlap tells Paste that she developed the show as a mash-up of Groundhog Day time loops, hard core sci-fi worldbuilding, and the kinds of female friendships she fell in love with on Grey’s Anatomy.
“For months, this is all I was focused on,” Dunlaps says of her development period. “I learned how to make a whole deck and I just sent it to my manager. Then, when we met with Danielle Renfrew Behrens, one of the producers at Animal Pictures, she was like, ‘This is exactly what we wanted. It’s sci-fi, it’s female, and smart.’”
With Animal Pictures came Rudolph and Lyonne, who eventually signed up to voice the characters of generations-old robot Dr. Vlam and acerbic Nurse Tup, respectively. With them came other actors of note like Kieran Culkin (and his brothers!) as bird-like empath Dr. Plowp, and Palmer and Hsu as the two leads.
As for the look of the show, with its multicolored aliens and female-centric design, it’s the work of artist Robin Eisenberg, who is a producer and the production designer for the series. Dunlop says her specific style is what she envisioned for the series, so she reached out to meet and talk to Eisenberg about her interest in working on Second Best Hospital.
Eisenberg tells Paste, “When we first started talking about it, we definitely had initial ideas that were based around the style that I’ve established, but pushing everything a lot more. A lot of the aliens I usually draw are pretty humanoid. But I have done some more super intense aliens so we wanted to really lean into that. And then we just started exploring all sorts of stuff.”
Most challenging was creating a diverse selection of characters that were distinct for audiences to recognize. “We wanted the main characters to all be very different and unique, but we were cautious about not wanting people to look too similar,” Eisenberg details. “Even color was definitely a challenge because all the characters have so many different colors. So then it’s finding a way to do that, but without making it look like Candy Crush, right?”
With a final cast and world that is super offbeat and not like anything else out there, Eisenberg cites the character of Dr. Vlam as one of her favorites, because of how she distinguishes herself from the typical female robot tropes. “She took a really, really long time to land on because we didn’t want to fall into certain robot tropes, or women tropes in sci-fi,” she explains. “We wanted her to feel like this robot character, but also be human, in a sense, and be expressive. When we landed on it, she felt perfect.”
Tara Bennett is a Los Angeles-based writer covering film, television and pop culture for publications such as SFX Magazine, NBC Insider, SYFY Wire and more. She’s also written official books on Sons of Anarchy, Outlander, Fringe, The Story of Marvel Studios and Avatar: The Way of Water. You can follow her on Twitter @TaraDBennett or Instagram @TaraDBen
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