The Boys présentent: Les Diaboliques

Irreverent, bloody, violent humor like The Boys series, but amped up a bit with animation. It is focused on getting quick laughs with its short stories, so it is mostly missing the non-comedic heart that The Boys series has.

The core strength of an anthology show is that it can deliver a different flavour each episode. However, they usually come from the same complimentary palette.

Here though, the tastes are all over the place, with some being literal faecal, and not every viewer is going to enjoy every episode.

There are only two episodes here which are really closely associated with The Boys: "I'm Your Pusher", and "One Plus One Equals Two". Both of those are presented in straight Westernised-anime style, and stay strictly on tone and message for the comics and live action. They anchor the series, and the latter episodes closes it out strongly and gets it back on brand.

The rest of the episodes are linked only by Vought, and are wildly different in art styles, score, tone, pacing, and intent.

We start with "Laser Baby's Day Out" which takes the Incredibles short "Jack-Jack Attack" to its extreme, juxtaposing a cute baby, classic Warner Brothers animation and orchestral score, sans dialogue, with extreme cartoonish bloody violence. It's as simple as it sounds, competently done, and can be enjoyed for exactly what it is.

"An Animated Short Where Pissed-Off Supes Kill Their Parents" is absolute truth in advertising, and is a strongly Rick and Morty toned episode - quite literally, given that it was written and (bit part) voiced by Justin Roiland. It will appeal to Rick and Morty fans, or it won't appeal at all.

"I'm Your Pusher" is a straight comic adaptation by its author, Garth Ennis, and will appeal to people who just want to see an animated version of the original source, or the live action. A basic story, no surprises, and decently voiced, although Jason Isaacs can't replicate the gloriously Shatnerian hot mess that Karl Urban brought to the live action.

"Boyd in 3D" is the strongest concept and most tightly written episode. The art style is Walt Disney, 1960s to 1980s, and the theme is the self destructive nature of social media, borrowing themes from Black Mirror episodes like "Nosedive" and "Fifteen Million Merits". It crams an astonishing amount of effective story arc into its short runtime, and the inevitable twist ending is likely to provoke a genuine emotional response. Whether you love it or hate it - and I hated it, having invested in the characters - you won't be able to ignore it. That's high praise for an animated short.

"BFF" is the literal stinking turd of the series, incompetently written and voiced by two people whose garbage inner natures are inadvertently mirrored in its premise. It's poorly conceived, infantilely implemented, and should have been flushed rather than aired.

"Nubian vs Nubian" is conflicting. It's basic and under-written, although there are a few genuinely funny lines. It falls short of real Blaxploitation, and thankfully there are no hateful identity politics. However, it abuses a young child actress to deliver some vile lines which will have destroyed what's left of her innocence. This is not OK, and it doesn't become so just because everybody in a degenerate industry does it.

"John and Sun-Hee" is the Akira-meets-Studio-Ghibli episode, and stylistically it's right on point with the artwork, animation style and premise. However, it's a wafer thin premise, sparsely written, and merely competently voices. Unlike "Boyd in 3D" there's no emotional involvement with the characters. We're supposed to feel something for them, but its far too trite, false and forced for that to work. Swing and a miss.

But "One Plus One Equals Two" closes the season out strongly, with some basic backstory and strong voice performances, particularly from the amazingly versatile Elisabeth Shue who credibly plays a much younger character, something that Aisha Tyler notably failed to do in "Nubian vs Nubian". Even the closing score is clever, introducing tonal disjoints to represent Homelander's instability, and getting us back on track for the next live action season.

Given the vastly disparate nature of the episodes, most viewers are going to find something to love, and something to hate among them. Perhaps that was the goal? It's certainly likely to be the effect.

With only eight episodes and under 2 hours of runtime, it won't take you long to binge your way through and find out for yourself. Overall, I'd say it's worth your time, although if you skip over "BFF" you aren't going to miss anything.

I actually really enjoyed most of the episodes. 1,3,4,6,&8 were all great. They range from cute and charming to brutal and sadistic. The show really gives us a better look at how Vaught as a company affects the lives of citizens and families. 2&7 were also rather enjoyable and a bit more personal in terms of scope. The 7 episodes mentioned all have solid voice acting, animation styles and music that support the premise, and intriguing characters (some of whom we've seen before). My main issue lies with episode 5 which is the worst episode of any show I have ever seen in my entire life (I'm not even joking.) This episode singly handedly lowered my rating from a 7.5. The concept is somewhat unique, but where the episode decides to go is just disgusting and stupid. The voice acting is hideous (it's mostly just Awkwafina) and it felt like an episode that belonged in a different show entirely. I hated it and highly recommend you save yourself fifteen minutes by skipping over it. The other 7 episodes are worth watching, but I have to grade the season as a whole.

The first toon, "Laser Baby's Day Out", is by far the best. The gentle retro flavor, combined with OTT violence and gore, is brilliant. Highly recommended.

The other toons vary greatly in quality. They're ALL watchable, but expect some to not be to your taste, as there is a lot of diversity here.

One wonders what someone new to the Vought universe would make of all this (hmm ...).

I do think it's great that folks like Awkwafina (The Farewell), Christian Slater (Archer), Aisha Tyler (Archer), Nasim Pedrad (SNL), Andy Samberg (SNL), and so many others helped.

I rate this at six (6) stars overall. The Boys and Gen V are better.

I really like a couple of these. I like the concept too. Each episode is done in a different style by different people. I thought the Looney Tunes one was pretty good. There were a couple others that were good, a couple watchable and a couple just awful.

The poop one done in anime was dreadfully awful. Just painful to get through. And that's what you remember about a show like this. The really terrible ones. The last one about the Asian couple was bad too. Why did the wife have no eyeballs? It was supposed to be about a loving couple in the Vaught world but it was pretentious and dumb.

Best is that each episode only comes in at around 15 minutes. Plus I love the dog at the beginning of each episode, a couple of them were laugh out loud funny.

I love the Boys itself, looking forward to the next season. If they put out more of these cartoons I'd watch again.