Niko and the Sword of Light started out life as a motion comic for the iPad from Imaginism Studios. The book was only a handful of episodes and the story was more contained, but the design was awesome, with imaginative monsters and and engrossing artwork. Now, Amazon Studios has taken the concept and developed it into a full TV show for kids. While this first episode might not have the full weight and magic of the comic, it definitely offers an enticing preview for what’s to come.
1. All in the World
Niko and the Sword of Light takes place in a heightened fantasy world overrun by monsters. There’s a great, evil volcano at the center of everything spewing out darkness. The last remnants of humanity are trapped in a castle suspended in time for almost a millennium. The show focuses on this young boy growing in a giant chrysalis to become some great warrior who will help to defeat the great evil, except following a mishap with a lemur thing and a spewing centipede creature, his crystal shatters early and he’s sent out into the world before he’s ready. There are definitely elements of Avatar: The Last Airbender, with the boy in the crystal, and Voltron: Legendary Defender, with the doomed princess making one last ditch effort to save everything before evil wipes it all away. The creatures sit somewhere between a Steven Universe gem mutation and some of the cheerier pages of Guillermo del Toro’s notebooks. The show takes all these things, mixes them together, and . . . I’m not ready to say it makes them its own, yet. After the end of this first episode, the setting, characters, plot, etcetera, are all comfortable enough for us to see what it’s doing; there are also prospects, glimpses, flashes of what the series could become.
2. Stretching Toward a Different Sun
What does the show manage to do differently from its usual slew of fantasy save-the-world-chosen-one contemporaries? Unlike something like Avatar: The Last Airbender, this show seems specifically designed for kids. The jokes are broad, the emotions open. Characters tend to e-nun-ci-ate and speak plainly and overtly.
That being said, there’s something sad about the frozen humans. As in, the show goes out of its way to make them feel more tragic and whatnot. “I’ve been 14 for 768 years!” Lyra cried out to the High Council at one point. They’re drifting in some Phantom Zone, only able to watch as their warriors are defeated time and time again, their home slowly falling to more darkness. We’re also given the impression that Lyra has failed a lot and the animators make sure to show how that weight and that guilt bear down on her.
I also wonder if being 14 for 768 years mean you always act 14? Like, is your emotional maturity stunted and you’re in this perpetual state of adolescence? Because that might be the saddest, most tragic thing of all.
3. Where a Kid Can Be a Kid
One of the things I most enjoyed was just how kiddy Niko was presented. The creators go out of their way to have him act like a 10-year-old instead of like a compact adult. He’s excited by small things, doesn’t have any concept of danger, and is bored by the whole Chosen One narrative. In one of my favorite sequences, he gets bored listening to Lyra go on her exposition dump and just starts running through her celestial projection. Just going back and forth and giggling wildly. It’s charming, I promise.
Niko and the Sword of Light is for younger audiences and tries to speak with them in a way those younger people can relate. So, having a 10-year-old acting more juvenile than most of the animated protagonists or trapping the wise mentor character in a 14-year-old’s body are great ways for the show to talk to their audience at their level. Kids like seeing people slightly older than them doing things because it gives them a chance to think who they can be when they grow up.
4. Not All So Shiny
I’m sure some of this is because I’m not the target audience for Niko and the Sword of Light. A kid’s first encounter with a genre only happens once and I think it goes to influence their relationship with the material for the rest of their life. And I mean, as far as Saving-Destitute-Fantasy-World narratives go, this isn’t a bad one for a kid’s first encounter. That being said, “From the Temple of Champions to the Bridge of Doom” does struggle to find an identity for itself, to be more than the sum of its parts. It joyfully throws in all the familiar elements but that, I also think, is more to help introduce us to this world than to let us see its personality.
Continued belowIt also goes for the talking sidekick schtick, which is grating. Maybe not so much as its desperate attempts to make catchphrases stick. Tom Kenny’s deliveries are also more stifled and shrugged in than some of his other work, too. (“On second thought, maybe I’ll stay here a little longer,” “I promise if you got to know me, you wouldn’t want to eat me,” and so on.)
The animation doesn’t reach the same level as the comic’s but that might be more a discussion of resources (one comic versus a whole TV season) versus a dip in quality. Director Sung Jin Ahn finds some clever ways to work around it but there’s a lot of times where the characters are standing around, stiff and unmoving.
5. Pending Eruption
The animation, however, does kick up when the bad guy is finally introduced. The volcano, the swirling forces of blackness a la Princess Mononoke, the color scheme . . . it’s all pretty cool. Also, Nar Est is played by Steve Blum, so.
Overall, it’s not the worst set up to kids’ programming. Niko and the Sword of Light is fun. It’s cute. It doesn’t have the wider appeal of the comic but it does have an energy and playfulness to keep it engaging. The creators throw in hints at a deeper mythology but they don’t load us down with unnecessary information yet. There’s a lot to discover in this world and so far, I think we’re as excited as Niko to come across it. I just want to see it distinguish itself better.
