On June 4 theater goers were treated with the theatrical release of the final episode of the Amazing Digital Circus, perhaps the most successful indie cartoon ever made at this point. After managing to avoid leaks like the plague I have since seen the finale twice and I have a lot to say about it. Of course this review fully assumes that you have already watched the finale. So yeah go do that why are you even here if you haven't.
Looking back on the first episode, this series has come a long way in its' animation. The theatrical release included a short recap of the series by Caine using clips of the previous episodes. The contrast of being shown a clip from the early episodes then cutting straight to one from a later episode is night and day. While the animation is not necessarily on the level of detail the big budget films mega corporations like Disney or Sony get, it is no less appealing to look at, and Glitch should be extremely proud of that accomplishment.
The finale is probably the peak of the series in terms of voice acting. Michael Kovach as Jax and Lizzie Freeman as Pomni are the emotional core of this episode and their performances are magnificent. The soundtrack is also a joy to listen to and there were even some licensed songs that took me by surprise but the way they were used was really well done.
Though there are some flaws with the plot the character writing was generally great overall. To get things out of the way, Jax abstracts early in the episode with much of the runtime being dedicated to Pomni attempting to save her by entering her mindscape. It really is a character study of Jax above all else and her story is genuinely great representation of how repression and self destructive tendencies only hurts you and everyone around you. The scenes inside of Jax's mind are some of the most haunting, funny, and emotional scenes in the entire show. The absurd scenarios of the Maid and Bugs Bunny Jaxes had the audience of the theater bursting into laughter while the backstory with Ribbit and the final scene with Jax and Pomni comforting one another while she admit to being a terrible person before saying goodbye broke our hearts.
Despite my praises for everything that happens after Jax absracts, the situation that led to her abstraction was rather contrived. After Caine was killed Kinger reveals that the cast can never leave the circus as they are just brainscans of the original people who are still out in the real world living their lives completely ignorant to the events of the show. The cast spends some time being depressed about this reality before gradually joining Pomni and Kinger in repairing the damage done to the circus. The exception to this of course being Jax who stays alone in her own corner. For a moment she attempts to reach out to Pomni before pushing her away again and abstracting completely offscreen.
This is probably the biggest flaw in the episode’s writing as the previous episode had the cast insisting on staying together and how that included Jax. At this point in the series it feels out of character for Pomni to not reach out after Jax attempted to reach out to her
Caine's return also felt contrived in a similar way. While I liked the character work that went into his redemption, he just kind of comes back without much of an explanation. The only hint at the possibility of his return is a throwaway line from Kinger about how the computer fell into the void before he could restore Caine. I suppose you could argue that files on computers are usually recoverable as they aren't truly deleted most of the time and Caine already escaped being quarantined previously, but ultimately the only real consequence of deleting Caine for Caine himself was teleporting him to the void and making him self reflect.
As stated previously though the character work that went into Caine's redemption was still good. The scene where a flashback of Caine first accessing the mind files intertwined with the redeemed Caine using them to browse the internet and give the cast closure was great. One depicted a selfish Caine and the other selfless.
I wanted to address this aspect on its’ own. The idea that the characters were digital copies of their real world counterparts was a popular fan theory for quite some time and really took off after episode 8 after Caine used phrases like “mind files” and Kinger found a folder labeled “brain scans”. I will be completely honest when I say I was not fully onboard with the theory. Not that I did not like the concept but more that I was worried that such a concept would not be done justice by being revealed in the eleventh hour of the show. In this regard I felt I was sort of right? The episode is more focused on being a Jax character study than dealing with the existential crisis that would inevitably stem from such a revelation. In many ways it was just set dressing for why leaving the circus is impossible and for those purposes virtually any explanation would have achieved a similar effect. I would have loved to see how each character relates to the identity of their counterparts. Pomni was ultimately comfortable putting a degree of separation between her and Abigail by sticking with her circus name. But what about everybody else? Perhaps someone like Gangle would want to reclaim their human identity Zoey. Especially as the name “Gangle” came from Jax who was nothing but an asshole to her the entire time.
That said its’ implementation in the episode was not bad and overall sold me on the concept even if I would have put a greater focus on the resulting existential crisis and how that informs each character. Caine using the internet to find any information he could on the humans to give them the closure they needed was a very sweet moment that really made me tear up (thankfully none of these people committed to being anonymous online).
One of the common criticism you'll see online is that Jax took over the show at the expense of the rest of the cast. While it is true that Jax was a bit less prominent in earlier episodes she was always the odd one out from the very beginning. She was the person driving conflict between the humans and was the only one whose hand did not reach out to Pomni at the end of the very first episode. Jax was always important, without her only the conflict with Caine would remain. It is true that the finale is really about Pomni and Jax (and Caine) and the rest do not get as much to do (though the scenes they did get were great, especially Ragatha's. I adore the hug with Pomni it was so cute), but when put into the context of the entire show the cast was generally used pretty well. The only thing I think absolutely should have happened is giving Pomni some genuine bonding time with Zooble as they're the only one Pomni doesn't really get a one on one scene with. Maybe there could have been one additional episode in between 4-5 or 5-6, but what we ended up getting worked fine.
Alright here we are, I've been using she/her pronouns for Jax this entire review so you probably already know what I think about Jax being a trans woman. Yeah that rabbit is fucking transgender. Before the finale I thought it was a fun headcanon but didn't believe it 100%. The most significant thing to me was her stereotypically girly room and Gooseworx's social media posts that seemed to hint at some gender issues for Jax. After the finale though... yeah there really no way to deny it once you really think about it. "BuT THeY NeVEr uSe FEminIne Pr0noUnS!" Yeah because Jax is deeply repressed, doesn't make the character any less trans. With everything taken is all taken together I really do not think there is any other way to read Jax's story than as an extremey repressed and traumatized trans woman. It's ironically the simplest explanation. Let's go over all the evidence shall we.
I already mentioned the girly room, but there's also the fact she had a poor relationship with her mother and masculinity due to constanly being compared to her deadbeat father which resulted in Jax blurting out something "deeply personaly" that led caused her to laugh and insult her. Given the context that could have easily been something along the lines of "Everything would be so much better if I was a girl! Maybe then you wouldn't keep comparing me to him! Of course there's also the adorable bow scene with Ribbit, the false Maid Jax covering her feminine presentation in irony, the real world "Leeroy" being a regular at Riley's (Zooble) queer bar and seen growing her hair out in the post credits scene. And if that's not enough, how about playing a cover of Stevie Wonder's "Isn't She Lovely" during a montage of Jax before Pomni was pulled out of the mindscape. "Oh that's just referring to Pomn-" ALL THE SCENES IN THE MONTAGE ARE FOCUSED ON JAX HOW CAN THE SHE IN THE SONG REFER TO ANYONE ELSE?
Part of me wishes Gooseworx made it even more blatant. While I appreciate her respecting the audience enough to figure it out on their own because the Jax of the circus would never admit to being trans of her own free will, the spiteful side of me wishes there was no room to deny it at all. At the same time though I wonder if making it blatant in regards to a character who is a shitty person would be the best idea. Is the current political landscape ready for undeniably trans characters who are nuanced or bad people in the midst of a fascist propaganda compaign to demonize us? I've already seen some assholes online making jokes about how the trans woman is a character who abuses women and essentially kills herself. Of course the funny Youtube indie cartoon is not going to determine the direction of transgender rights in the world in any meaningful capacity. But it was something that crossed my mind in regards to how to handle writing characters from marginalized groups that are actively being targeted and not something I have the answer for. But I still really adored Jax's story in the end and Gooseworx being a trans woman herself truly makes me believe that the writing for the story was genuine.
Jax's story was way too relatable for me as someone who has been down that self destructive path before and while I am not nearly as repressed as she is I still am not out to anyone aside from the kind people at Planned Parenthood despite being on HRT for a whole year now. The only time I presented as myself in public was entering under the name Amy in a convention's Mario Kart tournament. It's a pain in the ass because the fear of being rejected by all your loved ones is very real and it's easier to just not rock the boat so to speak. Jax, who kept her true self literally locked behind a chained up door and pushed everyone away to the point that she became abusive to everyone around her. All because letting people in would only lead to rejection in her eyes.
Jax is a cautionary tale of how repression destroys someone and how you should never give into those self destructive tendencies. It's also a story of how we our defined by our material reality. "Leeroy" would have been able to recieve closure about her mother (who is not dead by the way) and had friends to help her get back on her feet after being homeless. Jax meanwhile was ripped from her entire support system at the lowest point of her life into what was effectively a prison with only complete strangers and no way of communicating with the outside world. "Leeroy" will likely transition into a happy trans woman, but Jax can't, and that's the true tragedy of the story. Jax will never be able to be the person she truly is deep down... but maybe you or I can.
I just want to finish off with how fun the theater experience was. The entire audience were nerds and it was great. There were tons of people with merch be it clothing or plushies, a guy in a full Kinger costume, a kid in their homemade Caine costume. A kid dressed as Maid Jax who poured her eyes out at Jax's death, another kid in a Gangle costume, and bunny ears and jester hats everywhere. It was fun to talk about the show with complete strangers I'll likely never meet again. So yeah go see it in theaters if you are able I highly recommend it.