A combination of my experience with Bojack itself as well as your commentary really made that last comment - Who you are on the inside only matters while you're alive, and what's on the outside lives forever - incredibly poignant, and I can't thank you enough for that.
You've really got something here. You’ve got a unique style, and that's saying something with how saturated RU-vid is nowadays. Really enjoyed this and all your other retrospectives. I'll be here as soon as the next one drops.
the fact that this video was almost 3 hours long...and I watched the entire thing...and enjoyed every minute of it. The script is so well organized and written. All of your arguments are refreshing, original, and sharp despite the abundance of video essays/theories that've been released since the shows season 2 premiere. I just really, really love this video! I love watching people talk about whatever they're passionate about! i can't imagine how long this took and your zeal is infectious
i was just getting ready to rewatch bojack for the 5th time so this video came out at the perfect time lmao. this sad horse show means so much to me, it genuinely helped me come to terms with my mental health issues and (potential) asexuality
These videos seem long when you look it, but just wait until you're zoned out while drawing or doing homework and you'll realize how short that two hours actually is.
Hank after dark was one of my fav episodes and I wish the storyline was continued. It's such a real raw dark topic that should've been addressed and brought up instead of it being a 1 episode gag :/
I dont find Bojack Horseman funny at all, think Ive laughed only a handful to times while watching it. The dialogue in the first two seasons is way too on the nose and lacks subtlety. Its world building makes absolutely no sense to me. When it brings up anything political or hot button topics I automatically know which side its gonna take and it completely lacks any nuance on thst front. But I fricken adore this show. Its one of the best stories Ive seen on the subject of depression, self esteme, substsnce abuse and dealing with your personal demons and traumatic pasts. Bojack isn't a good person, hes not an evil person either. Hes a real horseguy.
Small note, herb wasn't so much upset with the betrayal as he was with the fact Bojack never reached out afterward. What herb really needed was someone to be there for him during that time in his life, a friend which Bojack never reached out to do since he was dealing with the guilt of betraying herb.
All the “and everything was fine” moments at the end of the first few seasons is such like painful foreshadowing because when you’ve watched it all you know that it all comes back to haunt bojack. Every mistake that goes away comes back. It’s kind of scary thinking that one day every bad thing you’ve ever done in your past will fall in front of you and your new life one day and shatter everything. (DISCLAIMER: Obviously bojack should never have gotten away with the crimes he committed and the abuse of Sarah Lynne and Penny)
Finished the whole video!! This has reminded me that it ending with bojack in prison is the most cathartic ending they could have gone with. I’m also glad that he wasn’t on a clean slate with anyone at the end of it all, people may have started to forgive but no one forgot and I think it’s so important that they show that side of it too. And I like that we aren’t encouraged feel bad that he isn’t forgiven because the nuance allows us to understand both sides. Yes bojack is upset that he can’t fix thing. No his victims and the people he’s hurt do not owe him an apology or a place in their lives again. 10/10 show and amazing recap. Will definitely be coming back to this one as a rewatch
Love this video in general, but the take at 1:20:50 confuses me a bit. I personally think it was very important to the show overall that Bojack be accepting of Todd and his asexuality. A big thing with Bojack is that he defines himself in comparison to worse people and how much better he is than them as a means of justifying his worst qualities. Things like how he looks down on PB for being less self aware or criticizes Hollywood for making people into Bojacks, for example. One of the biggest examples of this comes in the form of his parents, especially his backwards, homophobic father. He holds great disdain for his parents’ politics and expresses this multiple times. Plus, after the thing with Herb, he’d be working off extra guilt of not being understanding in his youth. Him accepting Todd is not only in character based on the events of the show, but I think he wouldn’t be Bojack without that. Having the “correct” political opinions is an easy way out to convince yourself the terrible things you do are justified. You see it all the time in progressive spaces, where men who claim to be super supportive and left leaning are secretly violently misogynistic and abusive to the women in their lives. If bojack was as backwards as his parents, if he wasn’t constantly trying to be in the right, and often succeeding at doing so, the show wouldn’t work. The show is all about how a likable asshole is still an asshole, and Bojack must be likable for that to ring true.
Having Bojack be accepting of sexual minorities as a rebellion against his family's bigotry is an angle I had never thought to examine but one with a lot of merit. Half the appeal of making analysis videos like this is seeing new perspectives from commenters that help to continue the discussion. Thank you.
@@viedogaems I appreciate your openness to stuff like this! BTW, another point I wanted to bring up - when you discuss The Kidney Stays in the Picture you mention how Bojack Horseman has “never dealt with race before” and cite Chickens as an example of sidestepping and colorblindness, but I simply cannot disagree more. Diane being Vietnamese is EXTREMELY important to her character, and a major part of her arcs in episodes like The Dog Days are Over, which center around her racial and cultural identity. There’s a particularly striking part where she pretends to not understand english just so an american construction worker (literally a bald eagle, not very subtle lol) can act out his mystical asian woman love story fantasy with her. This isn’t even mentioning the cultural coding of the animal characters in the show such as Princess Carolyn - who is very much coded as Jewish through things like the flashback to her family in the old country in Ruthie and the anti-cat holiday the Stilton family celebrates. I don’t blame you for not picking up on a lot of this (though if i’m being completely honest, the Diane stuff was kinda right there), because these nuances are lost on a lot of people, but to call the show lazy for addressing race at all is a bit lazy to me. Once again though, lovely analysis overall, I just think you’ve got a few blind spots. (This is one of the reasons I believe so strongly in the importance of diversity in fields like media criticism - some people might pick up on things like this more than others. I myself am Jewish, and so picked up on Princess Carolyn’s coding right away.)
@@toonydotloonyi honestly couldn’t tell that princess carolyn was jewish, except for the stilton family’s holiday simply due to my general ignorance of certain cultures. but i am a first generation immigrant and feel out of touch with my culture sometimes. but instead of being fetishized i simply get shat on for it but i’m glad they went into that
I have my therapist, my Prozac, and BoJack Horseman. This has been the trifecta that has helped me heal decades of childhood abuse trauma. Today I turned 45. This sitcom is medicine.
Dude the second to last episode “the view from halfway down” and mushrooms sent me into one of the biggest existential crises of my fucking life but I felt it was necessary to come to terms with a possibility of the end of my own existence. But shit man, it was beyond rough in the middle of it
"a brief retrospective" 2 hours long (nah im just joking but i find it hilarious that there is so much to say that even a "brief" video is over 2 hours
Greatest show ever made by fucking miles. For so many reasons. For how many shows can you say its first episode is not only the weakest, but the weakest and nothing comes close? Boundary pushing, supremely funny, incredibly insightful, heart wrenching, and not one fucking Emmy win. The View From Halfway Down and Free Churro lost to the Simpsons and Rick and Morty.
I also must posit my (observation? theory?) that 106, "Our Story is a 'D' Story" is the episode where the show really morphs pretty fully into what it is, because from that point it becomes Hollywoo instead of Hollywood
There was some delicate high-pitched chiming in parts of your video's music. Ppl with impacted hearing function could, hearing this background 🎶, be confused as to whether or not there really ARE bells chiming faintly _somewhere_ nearby. Further, it whines much like my tinnitus whines (when it is ACTIVELY ringing in my ears, of course,) resonating similar feelings of discomfort and pressure in my head. I would recommend and request not using music containing bell chimes like we heard in this video. (The kind that are so quiet and high pitched that I'm not certain they're actually real, while at the same time it teases playfully by promising an impending icepick-stab ache behind the eyes as the Hz snake through my mind grapes.) Thank you in advance. Another no no for non-diegetic music in these videos are any songs or musical scores which include police sirens. If you're driving, and your media entertainment contains sirens, you're gonna have a bad time. Srsly; play Ramones' Psychotherapy while driving ~ 15-20 mph above the speed limit. Swallow your heart back down from your throat. Search desperately for cruiser and flashing lights. Love your content. Musical and Tonal differences aside. Your insights are helpful; I don't find myself questioning how you could have possibly interpreted some scene or action the way you did. Solid observations and reasonable conclusions. But you have also tapped into subtle metaphors and symbols in your subjects' episodes, and you do a great job of compiling and synthesizing into the building blocks of a particular show, showing how and why people are a certain way, or how a creator tries to impart a particular world view, etc. TL;DR: You play music with high-pitched chimes in the background and you shouldnt. Also, You like things that I like, and for similar reasons. Your tastes tells me you must be very smart. Your videos tell me you're talented. ✌🏻
Just gotta say, IMO this is a pretty good example of how to provide constructive, useful feedback to a creator. Thoughtful, contextual, backed with reasoning, and balanced with positivity. Personally, I wouldn't use words like "should" in a comment like this because it can seem demanding, but that's just me and it's not overwhelming in combination with the rest of your words. ✌️🍍
i love this so much. only 6 minutes in and you have such an eloquent way with words!! the intro abt stories and storytelling was so perfectly structured and expressed something i feel like ive felt forever. i love your calm style while presenting these topics in such a respectful, understanding yet objective and analytical way! i watched this show and really enjoyed it, but you pick up on small things and catalogue them so well its like every point is an "ohhhh i get it now" moment. watching this is a treat so thank you for doing what u do
I began watching this show in 2021 and I immediately got hooked. I’ve watched several video essays on it and I’m always enthralled. This show does a great job on touching on various topics like depression, addiction, generational trauma, the perils of stardom, self-loathing, workaholism, motherhood, asexuality, codependency and self reflection.
"Bojack is a petty individual" - until he isn't - and that is what so beautiful with this series. It not only describes and has characters that feels truly human and real and honest, but the small changes are actually visible and makes sense through out the seasons. Had Bojack "been a petty individual" as if that's a character trait that's immutable - he would have *never* given his mom that fake feeling of hope and calm when she had her moment of clarity in the later seasons, he would have told her off like he *sort of wanted to* but realized that, that would have been cruel. The nuances, subtleties and so much else about this series makes it one of the best if not the best series I've ever watched.
It is foreshadowing as no one knows Herb will actually get cancer- its the first thing Bojack tells Herb in that flashback so I'm not sure what you mean? If anything, Sarah Lynn learned that type of speak from Bojack
@@s.h.3648 Sarah Lynn literally told Bojack about Herb having cancer back on the bench. Timeline wise it happens later, but it happens after the audience already knows about the cancer so it isn't foreshadowing, it's just a callback joke on something we already know will happen.
@@rafaelcastor2089 That's true. I wasn't considering the audience perspective. And please pardon the last bit of my comment- I misremembered the timeline. I guess in a way it's a bit of both? Or maybe it's more ironic than either a callback or foreshadowing? 🤔
I really liked your video (I watched it in one sitting and paying attention!) but I feel like you didn't mention BoJack's and Wanda's relationship endind, and how she showed that BoJack was attracted pretty much by a 20 year old, at least her naivete, but she was able to see through that with time
2 things I think you could have improved: 1, CrackerJack wasn't Honey's brother, it was Beatrice's (when you mention that she loses this "love" thing, it made it sound as if he were her lover). 2, you didn't mention the most important thing about "The view from down below", Bojack tries to kill himself. If you didn't mention it because of a potential YT strike, you could have said other things like "un-alive" or "erase himself". This was crucial to understand why he as hallucinating.
I remember watching some BoJack Horseman in the past, not the whole series but episode here and there... And honestly I don't remember anything about it, this show just disappear from my mind. With other animated comedy shows like South Park for example, I can still recall moments and jokes from some of the first episodes I've watched about 8 years ago, but I have nothing for BoJack. I'm not saying that it's evidence of the show being bad, it just makes me wonder if it could be any good if I literally deleted it from my memory. Perhaps I should give it another try but I don't know if I want to potentially waste my time.
I also remember listening to some reviewers who said that the writers kinda killed majority of the serious and drama moments because they tried to force jokes into everything. That would actually explain a lot.
The first few episodes are pretty forgettable on their own - it takes about half a season before the show really starts to show its appeal, so it's not surprising you wouldn't retain anything from the weaker episodes. I also partially blame the release style of Netflix, binging a season of a show at a time makes individual plots blend together which doesn't do any favors for memorability.
I would argue that the simple fact that you are here watching a review of Bojack Horseman and felt obliged to make a comment shows that the show impacted you enough
Super amazing retrospective! I adore Bojack to bits, idk how many times I’ve gotten others to watch the show or rewatched it due to showing it to another person, or just returned to it for myself, but it’s a lot, lol. I really enjoyed how you brought a unique perspective & commentary I have yet to hear from a ton of the other retrospectives I’ve seen! :D
I recap each episode for context, but the whole video is written with the idea that you've seen the show before, so there will be spoilers if that's something that concerns you.
I listened to this while playing hollow knight! I really enjoyed the analisis. It brought up so many subtle points that I knew, but couldnt verbalize. Thank you for this!
Its kind of aptopriate. The thumbnail being the sneeze picture. Like of course you used it. Why wouldnt you its the sneeze picture. Its just the media legacy of bj horseman.
I think it stays consistently funny that your voice starts off low, then gets higher and higher and then between different cuts resets to being low again. This happened in the rick and morty one too and I think another one.
As someone who has watched this show 10 times (four when the second part of season 6 was released, before every new season I used to watch every previous episode to recap) I feel like this video covered a pretty decent amount of stuff you covered that a lot of other RU-vidrs don't. So many people just ignore Mr. Peanutbutter which is very lame.
thank you! it's like, i heart tf outta j2c -top notch coverage in this field - but he just don't get not all relationships have to be commited and/or monogamous. he gets so heated, for instance, about fry and leela's gray areas
Even though you only offered a short discussion of each episode, I thought you were able to provide insights that I actually hadn’t seen in other retrospectives. Connecting the themes of each storyline in an episode, for example. It was really well done and I feel like I understand the show better now. Good job!
The real conclusion is so true. VB>R&M across all metrics. Joke density. High concept Sci fi. Pop culture references. Sound track. Number of Brock Sampsons and Dr. Orpheuses. The list goes on
