So I watched the first few episodes of Tangled: The Series, and... I'm actually really impressed??

The writing is REALLY good, the main characters are all great foils for each other, and pretty much everything that happens is adorable, dramatic, or hilarious. Usually a mix of all three. The animation is really pretty, too!

I wasn't sure how much I would like it, since it kind of just looked like a Disney movie spinoff show, but WOW. It's actually super cool?

The series takes place over the course of three years, between the movie Tangled and the short Ever After. It starts with a TV movie, Tangled: Before Ever After.

(If, like me, you've never actually watched the movie, never fear! Eugene gives a silly rundown of the whole thing in about thirty seconds at the beginning of Before Ever After.)

"This is the story of how I died. ...And went to heaven! Heyo! Okay, so the kingdom of Corona to be exact, but let's not get hung up on semantics."

Rapunzel is still absolutely thrilled and thankful to be outside and able to meet new people, make new friends, and help anyone as best she can. When the black rocks react by seemingly trying to attack her and something about them causes her seventy feet of golden hair to grow back, she's faced with a dilemma. The first of which is 'can you really hide seventy feet of hair from your dad so he doesn't know you snuck outside of the kingdom and almost died?' (The answer to that is a pretty big no.)

The second of which is that these black rocks are still sprouting up, and are creeping toward the castle at an alarming rate.

(Headcanoning that Maximus does dressage. And that Eugene helps him practice. That's a pretty good side pass!)

Eugene is living the dream in Corona's castle. He's traveled all over the world during his time as a thief, and believe him—it doesn't get any better than this. He plans on proposing to Rapunzel on her coronation day, and has big dreams of getting an amazing happily ever after after all.

He also really enjoys making fun of Cassandra, mostly because she enjoys making fun of him. Rapunzel kind of just wishes that her best friends would get along.

Cassandra is Rapunzel's recently-appointed lady-in-waiting—which is really not her first choice of jobs, considering that she'd rather be out practicing her swordsmanship and training with the Royal Guard. Even so, she takes it upon herself to guide Rapunzel through life at the castle, and is more than willing to protect her best friends with her life. She sort of just wishes someone would appreciate that.

I should mention that she's also super cool??

Varian is a teenage alchemist who lives at the border of the kingdom. He constantly tries to create bigger and grander things to help his village and impress his stoic father... but unfortunately, the majority of his experiments and inventions are rather unstable. Or very unstable, to the point of endangering their entire village.

He really tries his best, though.

Lance is Eugene's childhood friend from the orphanage. They both adopted fanciful names from the Tales of Flynnigan Rider books and worked together as well-known thieves. Lance waltzes into the castle to see his best buddy—which is frowned upon, since he's still a thief. Eugene is desperate to get Lance to change for the better, because having a friend who swipes royal mantelpiece ornaments does not make a good impression on the King and Queen. And when you're hoping for the King and Queen to be your parents-in-law soon, you really want to make a good impression.

The lineless animation style makes it look awesome, and the series doesn't shy away from having a deep plot with a lot of feeling and character development. And it's squeaky clean, as far as I know, which is extra awesome! Clean Fantasy With Cool Characters And a Little Bit of Angst is 1000% my favorite genre.

(Y'know, just a little angst. Small amounts of angst are good. With humor and cool moments to balance it out. XD)

(We even get to see how Rapunzel and Pascal met! It's adorable and cool and very, very SAD. This show is not beyond killing chameleons or toppling towers.)

There's also a very Broadway-studded cast—I'm not familiar with musicals so the names don't ring any bells for me, but it's still pretty cool! Mandy Moore and Zachary Levi reprise their roles from the movie as Rapunzel and Eugene. Eden Espinosa (Elphaba from Wicked) voices Cassandra, Jeremy Jordan (Jack Kelley from Newsies) voices Varian, and James Monroe Iglehart (the Genie from Aladdin) voices Lance. They all get well-written songs at different points in the series, and it is awesome.

I'm partway through Season 1 right now, and so far it's super cool. I've seen spoilers for some of the big plot twists that come later (and they are big plot twists), but I really can't wait to see how in the world we're going to get to them. 10/10, awesome show so far, will keep you guys updated with the 487 gifs I saved.

Also, if you have three minutes to spare and don't mind spoilers, here's a super cool AMV for the series to the song Battle Scars by Paradise Fears. I think it contains clips from every episode up to about halfway through Season 2! It does an amazing job of showcasing some really cool animation.

[There should be a GIF or video here. Update the app now to see it.]

Now if you'll excuse me, I have... well, actual stuff to do, but later, more new episodes to watch. XD