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This week, I’ll be reviewing the Japanese stop-motion series “Pui Pui Molcar.” It’s a series of shorts, each one a little over 2 minutes, revolving around sentient guinea pig cars as they get into wacky adventures and help each other out of problems.

The show arrived on Netflix at the end of March, but originally aired on Japan’s TV Tokyo channel in the mornings beginning in January of this year. I watched the show on Bandai Namco’s official YouTube channel, where each episode was uploaded the day it premiered on TV, and remained available for a week. I’ve also seen other people re-upload the episodes after Bandai Namco took theirs down. After finishing its first season recently, the show has 12 episodes, so it’s an easy binge; you can watch the whole series in less than half an hour.

I did a little research on how this show was created, and discovered that it took a year and a half to produce the first season! It was created by director/animator Tomoki Misato when he was thinking about the annoyances that come with driving, and wondered what it’d be like if instead of cars, people drove around in guinea pigs. This is what sparked Pui Pui Molcar, which shows the misadventures of guinea pig cars including getting stuck in traffic jams, helping a friend overcome their fear of the car wash, and competing in a race.

Each Molcar has their own unique personality. The fuzzy cast includes tan-and-white Potato, who’s always willing to help out his friends, the tomboyish Teddy, who isn’t afraid of anything (not even a zombie apocalypse!), and white Shiromo, who’s always landing himself in sticky situations. There’s also a bunch of special characters that show up, like emergency services, a DJ, and even a time machine a la Back to the Future.

“Pui Pui Molcar” has a unique look to it, because the Molcars themselves are needle-felted. That’s something I haven’t seen a lot of in stop-motion shows, and I am 100% here for it. It’s cute and fun, and whenever I watch the show I just wanna reach out and touch the fuzzy guinea pig cars. The backgrounds for their crazy adventures are colorful and fun-looking, and it adds a lighthearted and playful feel.

As for the non-cavy characters in the show, like the drivers, they’re represented by tiny plastic figures when they’re not the main focus of the scene. When the camera zooms into the Molcars to show what the drivers are thinking or doing, they’re represented by real people (one of which is Misato’s sister), but they’re filmed in stop-motion to blend in with the rest of the show, which I absolutely love. It’s different, and it works perfectly.

There’s no dialogue, with the show consisting almost entirely of guinea pig squeaks and chortles (which are from a real guinea pig, not an actor) as opposed to talking. Although their eyes are black beads, the Molcars are super expressive. They show on their faces how they’re feeling, and will even cry and sweat to show emotion. This helps add to the easy-to-follow stories, and makes them even more engaging.

“Pui Pui Molcar” is visually appealing, and a short, fun watch. Not to mention it’s super creative; combining cars and guinea pigs sounds strange, but this show makes it work really well. There are so many fun adventures and stories to see. I’d recommend it to anyone who likes cute things, or has a guinea pig – I’ve heard stories of people’s guinea pigs squeaking at the TV when this show is on. I hope there’s a season 2!

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For this Film Review Friday, I’m reviewing the second season of the HBO Max original Close Enough.

I’ll start with a little background about the show. Close Enough is an adult animated sitcom created by J.G. Quintel (who’s best known for creating the Cartoon Network series Regular Show). It follows Josh and Emily, a couple in their early thirties, who are living in an apartment in Los Angeles with their six-year-old daughter Candice, along with their divorced friends Alex and Bridgette. Much like Regular Show, all of the episodes revolve around a small problem that eventually turns into a surreal, sci-fi-style adventure of large proportions. Like Josh joining a gym so he can be strong enough to pick up Candice, but it actually turns out to be an addictive cult.

The series premiered on HBO Max in July 2020, and got renewed for a second season less than a month later, which arrived on the platform on February 25, 2021. Two weeks prior, the series got renewed for a third season. It’s been met with mostly positive reviews by users on Rotten Tomatoes, IMDb, and IGN.

While it has a lot in common with Regular Show, Close Enough is for a slightly older target audience, skewing more towards Millennials than kids and teens as we watch the couple and their best friends/roommates transition from their 20s to their 30s. Like that awkward time period between spontaneous college life and settling down to start a family or career.

With that being said, let’s dive into season 2. With the last season setting up the cast of characters and getting us used to their personalities and quirks, I found this new season to be a little different. There were episodes focusing on the other characters in the show besides Josh and Emily, which I liked a lot. I got to see more of the other occupants of the duplex, including their landlord Pearle and her adopted son Randy.

One of my favorite episodes from Season 2 was “Cyber Matrix,” one of the two segments of episode 3. This segment focused on Alex’s refusal to get a smartphone, as he believed that it would become addictive. Sure enough, the quirky, washed-up community college professor ends up switching to a smartphone after his old phone breaks (with the selling point for him being that it has a calculator feature). When the virtual assistant ends up seducing Alex into a smartphone addiction so intense he’s literally connected to the phone, it’s up to Josh to connect to him via VR headset and bring him back to reality.

Josh and Emily’s daughter got her own episode as well, titled “Sauceface.” This was also one of my favorite episodes of the season, featuring the six-year-old starting an illegal hot sauce ring after the school cafeteria bans it so she and her friend can buy a drone.

I’m really liking Close Enough so far, and find it to be a super creative, funny show about growing up and becoming an adult. As someone who grew up watching Regular Show, this show almost feels like a spin-off (Quintel even confirmed that it takes place in the same universe), and it’s almost like this is what Regular Show grew up to become. It has that same witty, quick humor, and I love how it turns mundane, everyday situations into wild fantasy situations. I’m excited to see where this show goes in the future!

Matt Groening’s multiple-award-winning animated series The Simpsons has been renewed for seasons 33 and 34 on Fox.

Season 34 is set to air in 2023 – once it has been released, the series will have a grand total of 757 episodes aired. The Simpsons has been the longest-running primetime scripted in television history since 2017, when season 29 was released. This is when the series took the title from Gunsmoke, which released 635 episodes in its 23-year run.

“Everyone at ‘The Simpsons’ is thrilled to be renewed once more, and we are planning lots of big surprises,” Matt Groening expressed in a statement. “Homer will lose a hair, Milhouse will get contact lenses, and Bart will celebrate his tenth birthday for the thirty-third time.”

More than three decades after its debut in December 1989, the show has an average of 7 million viewers across its many platforms. To date, it has won 34 Emmy Awards, 34 Annie Awards, 9 Environmental Media Awards, 7 People’s Choice Awards, 13 Writers Guild of America Awards, and a Peabody Award. Its worldwide cultural impact is evident through its billions of dollars worth of merchandise – the iconic series has spawned a wide variety of products including comic books, a 2007 film (with a sequel in the works since 2018), video and board games, toys, and clothing, and even has its own areas at the Universal Studios theme parks.

The show’s renewal on Fox is part of the network’s effort to expand their adult animation lineup, titled “Animation Domination”. While The Simpsons is their longest-running animated program, Bob’s Burgers and Family Guy have also been airing on there for more than ten years; recent additions to the block include Bless the Harts, Duncanville, and The Great North.

The 700th episode of The Simpsons, titled “Manger Things,” will air on Sunday, March 21 on Fox.