Throughout this year I haven’t been seeing much on Netflix. The only thing I’ve been looking forward to is Scott Pilgrim, and especially the final season of Hilda. Recently however I saw a trailer for Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix which had a specific “video game character” I knew in an unexpected role. Captain Lazerhawk takes place in an alternate futuristic 1992 version of America called Eden. It is sort of a video game crossover adaption that uses characters from Ubisoft’s library.

The anime-like animation is really great especially the art shifts to not just the style of an old 16-bit video game but also the style of old FMV games. The 80s-like music also very catchy and the characters were well written especially one that I’ll get to soon. What really stood out to me about this show was how subversive and unpredictable it was because characters I thought would be more prominent are unexpectedly killed off early. There was one specific death in episode 2 that shocked and kind of broke my heart. I admit that this season could’ve had a few more episodes which would’ve made their deaths more powerful.

HUGE SPOILERS: I now need to talk about the elephant in the room or the “limbless protagonist” in the room aka the reason I checked out this show…..RAYMAN. I’ve seen my brother play Rayman Origins and Legends so when I saw him in the trailer I was like “is he going to be a villain?!”. In this show he’s a reporter, talk show host, movie star, kids show character, he’s practically the voice of Eden. To my surprise Rayman’s role was much more unexpected and insane role than I thought. Having him be a villain would’ve been itself crazy, but what they did with Rayman feels like something out of a fever dream yet I thought it was done very well. Also, it’s really bizarre and funny to see him swearing, smoking crack, and shooting people. He’s honestly my favorite character of the whole show and I can’t wait to see what they do with him next.

Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix is up there with My Adventures with Superman as one of my favorite new cartoons of 2023. It is also up there with The Last of Us as one of the best video game show adaptions of 2023.  It’s violent, dark, subversive and a lot of fun. I’m really looking forward to see what Ubisoft does next.