Chozen

An unnecessary series that picks out the worst of the most diverse elements and tries to hipster it in MTV-21st Century ... under the pretense that it would do something better. A series without a compass, what it actually wants to say. It is definitely not entertainment.

On paper, this reads like a show that should be funny. There are some seriously talented actors and comedians on the cast, it is made by the same people that made Archer, an extremely funny show, and the premise seems like one that should provide laughs. The show falls flat, however.

Chozen never reaches it's potential. The writers go after the obvious jokes, the ones that are usually about anatomy, body function, race, sex, or stereotypes. These may be funny to a really young male teen demographic, but that's it. I'm fine with dirty jokes, when they're funny, but most of the jokes in Chozen feel so dumbed down that they constantly miss.

The voice acting is also hit or miss. While Nick Swardson, Danny McBride, and Hannibal Buress tone down their comedic voices, Bobby Moynihan yells his lines the whole show. It really is hard to listen to it.

I really tried to like this show, but I don't think I can watch it anymore. I was holding out hope that the first few episodes would get the lame dick jokes out of the way, but they didn't. I can't figure out the target audience for this show, and I feel like the writers don't really know either.

So, save yourself some time and skip this one. That is, unless you are a connoisseur of fine dick, rape, anal sex, racial stereotypes, misogyny, etc... "jokes." By "jokes", I mean grade school level lines delivered by someone screaming them at you.

I had very high expectations for this show given that it comes from the creators of Archer (which I love) and Eastbound & Down. Unfortunately the flow of the show is very uneven. The production value of the songs is actually very good (Method Man is quite talented), but the storyline presentation and characters fall flat and becomes somewhat boring in places. But what turns me off most of all is the voice work. ChoZen's voice literally began to give me a headache to the point where I almost flipped channels. And someone please explain to me why a great actor like Michael Pena has such an excessive "accent" to his voice. It also becomes very annoying. I realize his character is Hispanic, but he should use his normal speaking voice. It has enough of the Latino accent to make the character work well. They should have ChoZen speak normally in general and play up the rapper voice only when talking to fans, or something along that line. In an animated series the voice work is EVERYTHING. That is one of the reasons Archer works so well because Jon Benjamin is a genius with excellent comedic inflection and timing. I gave it a 5 because of the songs quality (particularly the one at the Student center) and for the shining star that is Danny McBride. His character has the potential to become a Principal Lewis or Krieger. Much potential here to be sure; this could become a hip-hop version of Metalocalypse, but quite a few things need to change.

I hoped that this would be similar to Archer, but it is quite different, both in good and bad ways. It is the same style as Archer in the way it is animated, so that is working out nicely, but the thing that is different is the humor, this is not my kind of funny in many ways. There are many good points, but it is maybe more of a teenage show, then the more adult version that Archer delivers, it is by no means bad, but you have to be into the place and the way this history evolves and for that I might be getting too old :)

But you should check it out, it has many great scenes, the story is very up to date and there are many "issues" that are handled with special care. It is very enjoyable in many ways.

Chozen was a pretty excellent show! Don't get me wrong, there was room for some improvements, but in general it was on point. Being a gay rapper myself, who did 5yrs out of a 7yr period in prison in Texas, as well as growing up in a hyper masculine Hispanic culture from San Antonio, I can speak from experience that this show was almost perfect. My partner, who's a white gentleman in his 50s, used to joke with me and say that Chozen was just basically me in a cartoon. Dat Boy Beast on SoundCloud if you want to see for yourself. 😝

Anywho, it's very unfortunate the show got cancelled. Kudos to the writers.