मर्डर ड्रोन्स

I'll begin by saying that the mere fact that someone was able to make their vision into a full blown animated show on YouTube is always an extremely amazing thing in of itself, the fact that shows like this are even able to exist on Youtube, especially with how notoriously hard it is to profit off of animated projects on YouTube, is a phenomenal feat and worthy of praise.

With that said, I enjoyed this show but it definitely has it's issues. The comedy is extremely hit or miss, but it largely misses, often to a cringeworthy extent, and there are several instances where it's poorly timed and can break the pacing and tension of a scene (episode 4 in particular was really bad with this). The show is also really fast paced; Some plot points don't get as much time to develop as they should and the show often conveys extremely important plot points super quickly while so many other things are happening at once, which makes it very easy to miss important details. (For example, I didn't realize the symbol on Uzi's eye was supposed to be linked to the Solver entity until episode 6, a whole four episodes after this was supposed to be known to the audience). While the voice acting is generally really good, especially considering the largely amateur cast, some line reads can be hard to understand because of the characters mannerisms or other loud background noises happening at once which does not help the issue of plot details being missed.

I don't think it helps that the first episode frontlines most of the show's worst aspects and magnifies them at their absolute worst (the terrible comedy, lightning fast pacing and severe tonal whiplash) as your first impression. I'd go as far as to say it's pretty bad. (The animation is also pretty rough at points in episode 1 but considering it's an indie animation on YouTube from a small team on a small budget, I'm more lenient on that then a proper network show. Especially considering how vastly improved it gets by the second episode)

But with that said, the show begins to hit it's stride with episode 2 and shows all it's positive aspects. The animation is great, especially for a indie YouTube project with a small team (the lighting in particular by episode 2 onwards is genuinely amazing), and does some really cool things with their robotic nature and the characters powers, the character's are charming and endearing despite their tropy nature (angsty rebel teen girl, goofy and empathetic outcast from a group of killers, evil psychotic russian woman etc.), the story is interesting despite it's fast pace and how easy it is to get lost, The atmosphere is super well done and while I wouldn't call it outright scary, It still executes it's horror aspects in a fun way, and the antagonist is a really cool hybrid of an eldritch monster and malfunctioning A. I.

Ultimately, I largely enjoyed the show despite it's faults, especially in the second half, but I can definitely see why someone would be turned away by this. I'd say to try out the first 3 episodes at least and see how much it speaks to you or whether its faults are too much of a dealbreaker for you.

After the last episode I have to say it was quite the journey. Murder drones is just a great show and probably one of the best things indie animation has to offer. Still it was quite hard to follow and without external lore videos it would be even harder. I know that the missing pieces were probably intended to create mystery but I honestly think that's the only part they really failed. I think it would have been even better if the story would have been more straight forward as other than the artificial created mystery the story really isn't that mysterious at all. Some of the episodes also were pretty pointless and obvious filler episodes. Yes they are world building episodes but if they take away valuable spots where the main story could have been explained more I think this is an issue.

Murder Drones is something I respect, it's great that indie animation is going on higher leagues this year and Murder Drones is a solid contender.

Murder Drones is a great combination of genres, the dedication and soul can really be seen in the quality of the animation.

Its weakest element is how it handles its humor, Murder Drones throws too many meta jokes that none hit well, it eventually bodes the meta humor to the point where they feel forced.

While the story is solid - even with some pacing issues, it's nice to see that it's great because the team put soul and dedication to this project.

It's not a masterpiece but it is great as an original project and it's a good example for what original indie animation should be.

Not gonna lie. Aside from the plot (which is simple yet entertaining), the quality of the animation and the voice acting (both of which are exceptional), Murder Drones scratches a unique itch of mine. It combines several genres to create a dark/horror sci-fi, with much comedy and amazing attention to detail, which left me at the edge of my seat eager for more.

The aesthetics are nice and I like it, I really like how the murder drones are almost like vampires and in a world were we get bad reboots now, this is a refreshing original IP with a good story, the acting is great, I do see hands and other things clip but I've seen much worse, otherwise, im pleased.