Lucharaaaaaaan! Welcome to our review of ¡Mucha Lucha!‘s season one finale, named “Mask Away”. As every week there’s a song for you, this time the obvious one is Cumbia Poder from the awesome Celso Piña, but I suggest that you listen to Aunque No Sea Conmigo. And now that the ring is ready, let’s start this review!
1. Recap
In “Mask Away” The Flea flies away with a kite, when Rikcohet and Buena Girl try to save him, a wave hits them ant they get stuck on an island. Rikochet becomes crazy with freedom, Buena Girl also becomes crazy but with order. They surely are going to clash, this is war! Who is the only one who can save them? This is a work for Flea and his kite.
2. I can eat what I want (so long as it’s coconuts)
This episode shows us how can to friends can be radically different, both Rikochet and Buena Girl go insane, but while one turns into a more, let’s say, ‘natural’ instinct, enjoying his freedom, the other one tries to keep calm and restore civilization, only to believe that she’s the rightful owner of the island.
People are different, but can always get along, as long as we have a mediator who can keep the peace of the group, in this case the crazy ones like Flea have that task. I remember being the one trying to be the voice of reason in a group of friends that used to talk about religion (never put a Jehova’s Witness between atheists).
Weirdly enough, that’s what I got to think about seeing this episode, the American people are more polarized than ever, and you can argue that we all know who is wrong here, but we need to have peacemakers, to show to the intolerant people how to be better, more inclusive people. Gawd I miss Bernie and his crazy ideas of love and peace.
3. Those catchphrases
This is a simple thought: I love the catchphrases of Los Tres Mascaritas: “Ay Basura!”, “Zapatos de Rata!”, & “That is not buena!”. Those are so weird things to say, but really sound great! I might even start using them IRL, surely nobody’s going to freak out.
4. Kudos to the voice actors
This is the first long episode of the series, instead of having two-11 minutes episodes, and I think this gave the opportunity to the voice actors to really give live to their characters, everyone gets at least a monologue where they use a lot of Spanish words. They also have longer scenes and dialogues, and thanks to that they can fully show us what they are capable of. This was one of the best episodes of the season, and that is thanks to the guys that lend their voices to our heroes, Carlos Alazraqui, Kimberly Brooks and Candi Milo. Great work folks!
5. Overall review
I think ¡Mucha Lucha! marks an era of animation. Technically because as I told you before, they where one of the first shows to be animated on Flash (now Adobe Animate), and thanks to those first pioneers, we have a bigger animation industry. But also, I feel that it also puts its mark socially speaking, I don’t remember a lot of series where Latinos are the main cast, so I think that this show contributed to make a more ethnically-diverse programming on TV for the Children, and this is awesome.
I’m thinking about other animated series with a Latino (or Non-White) cast: Samurai Jack, Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi, Steven Universe. Do you have some in mind? Let them on your comments.
Finnally, Eddie Mort, the creator of the show really loves Lucha Libre and the Characters he created, so, he made a really funny Bootleg comic (Cartoon Network obviously own the rights of the show) featuring Los Tres Mascaritas, he says it’s his “way of giving something back to everyone who has supported” the show all this time. It’s called “Tales From The Coliseo” and you can read it here. Thank you Eddie!
¡Uno! ¡Dos! ¡Tres! ¡Ganadoooooor! There you go. Our last review for ¡Mucha Lucha! In our Summer TV Binge. Next week you will have an awesome review of the criminally underrated Clone High by Benjamin Birdie! Meanwhile, let us know you thoughts of this episode in the comments below. See you soon!
