Director: Michael Hegner,
Justin Murphy
Distributor: Warner Bros. Home Entertainment
Duration: 13 x 22 minutes
Ninjago – Masters of Spinjitzu: Season 2 (DVD) – Series Review
What do you get when you combine an international best-selling toy with cool martial arts and transform that to a cartoon? You get a fun looking show that takes inspiration from just about every successful children’s franchise and mixes it until it becomes its own successful franchise. LEGO has long figured out what sells and what doesn’t and with this new show they’re proving they know what kids like.
LEGO Ninjago – Masters of Spinjitzu: Season Two is the follow up to the first season of Ninjago. In the first season we met our protagonists, the five Ninja’s: Kai (Vincent Tong), Jay (Michael Adamthwaite), Zane (Brent Miller), Cole (Kirby Morrow) and Loyd (Jillian Michaels). They are trained by Master Wu (Paul Dobson), an old Spinjitzu master. Near the end of Season One, the Ninja’s successfully defeated the giant serpent “The Great Devourer”, thanks to the help of the evil Lord Garmadon (Mark Oliver). Lord Garmadon takes advantage of the confusion in the aftermath of the battle to steal the four Golden Weapons, which are extremely powerful and will be used against the Ninja’s.
Season Two has the Ninjas training Loyd, who must overcome his evil father Lord Garmadon. Loyd used to be bad, but has embraced his good side. It also turned out that he is the mythical Green Ninja, the Ninja who has the potential of being the best Ninja in the history of Ninjago. Will Loyd be able to tap into his full potential and defeat his evil father? We’ll found out in LEGO Ninjago – Masters of Spinjitzu: Season Two.
LEGO Ninjago – Masters of Spinjitzu: Season Two is a smart show. It takes all sorts of elements from successful franchises and makes it his own. The four Ninjas each have a color and an elemental power. Kai is the Red Ninja, who can control Fire, Jay is the Blue Ninja of Lightning, Zane the White Ninja of Ice and Cole is the Black Ninja of Earth. Loyd can control all the elements, as he is the foretold Green Ninja. The Ninjas also transform and have cool looking elemental weapons, so it’s like a mixture of Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, Airbender: The Last Avatar and Dragon Ball Z. The cool thing about it is that it actually works and the show is funny with some nice looking action.
Speaking about the look and feel, Ninjago is well animated. It’s certainly a whole lot more fluid as LEGO: Legends of Chima was. It also has better facial animation, which allows the animators to put more emotions into the characters. The surroundings are also rich and full of detail, making Ninjago feel like a big and interesting world. It helps that the characters aren’t one dimensional, but also have some flaws. It isn’t super dimensional, because it is still a show targeted at children, but at least it is attempting to address some issues regarding having to fight your father.
Another improvement towards Chima is that the heroes aren’t annoying little brats (most of the time), but actually manage to earn their victory and powers. They don’t easily win all their battles, but must overcome their limits to hold their own. Like always, this includes some obvious moral lessons and even some training montages, but they are pretty mild for your current day cartoon. The pacing is also a strong point, the episodes are filled with humor and action so they never feel dull or boring. It’s always an adventure.
The biggest downside is one that carries over to all of the LEGO movies and series. It’s clearly a very smart way of advertising the cool new play sets and it’s probably going to be pretty effective. If your kids are into LEGO, seeing the big castles and the awesome robots will surely make them put in on their list next holiday.
Conclusion
LEGO Ninjago – Masters of Spinjitzu: Season Two is a well-executed cartoon, with some cool looking animations and an interesting plot. While it appears to be a rip-off combination of several successful shows, it actually uses its inspiration sources in a positive way, making for an interesting and fun kids show.
Ninjago - Masters of Spinjitzu: Season 2 (DVD) - Series Review,
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