Hello, Spongey here.

Last year we looked at a 2016 cartoon that is both another series from the same creator of a show I follow and a spin-off of that very series. Now we get to talk about another one.

That was an odd connection. What’s next, does this one have a character named Luna like another certain 2016 cartoon? Oh…well next there will be another 2016 Disney show with Jenna Ortega in it as an inventor!

…Anyway, back in 2015 I did a look a the Disney Junior show Sofia the First, in which I went on for too long on stuff that didn’t matter.But the important thing is that it was super popular, so naturally Disney wanted to do a spin-off of some kind.

A spin-off that was announced only a few days after my post went up. Coincidence? …Yeah.

I found it interesting back when it was announced and now it’s become a hit of it’s own. I’ve been thinking about it quite a bit as it does a lot of interesting things, both on it’s own and compared to Sofia, and hell even compared to other Disney Junior (ish, we’ll get to that) shows.

You saw a small part of it with the Holiday episodes I’ve reviewed, so it’s time to fully go into it. I was going to save it for a Spongey’s Favorite Episodes but I have too many general things I want to comment on.

Oh, and for this we will mostly be focusing on Season 1, only mentioning Season 2 in small ways when I really have to. It’s not done yet so I can’t fully comment on certain things.

With that said, let’s head over to Avalor and see exactly what makes this show tick and why I wanted to go as all out as I am doing.

This, is A Look at Elena of Avalor

Before I start, I gotta say that I won’t be talking about the songs because I already did that here: https://spongey444.deviantart.com/journal/Top-11-Elena-of-Avalor-Season-1-Songs-711906181

Also, on Twitter I tagged creator Craig Gerber when I linked to it, thinking he’d just like the tweet like Swampy likes to do…but he actually replied and thought it was pretty cool. . Since it worked I’ll tag him when I post this so if you’re reading this…hi!

Anyway, as I mentioned, this premiered in Summer 2016 and in November we had a Sofia special that explained the backstory. By that I mean the special was made to lead into the show but for some reason they premiered the show itself first.

They had a preamble with the first episode explaining things so we’re not lost but it made the special kind of lose any surprises,outside of one I’ll say a lot about later.

I always find that odd, maybe the special was behind schedule and they needed Elena to start in the Summer, but that’s the only reason I can think of that makes sense

Speaking of backstory, the one behind this show is that Craig noticed that Disney was lacking a Latina Princess so he figured he’d make one and thus this show was the result.

And he figured why not use the show he already has as a springboard for it. Certainly makes it easy for Disney to market, being based on an already popular series.

And while we’re on the subject, once again I will not comment on the whole culture element a I am not the person.Sure, I think it’s done well and that at least tried their best, but I am not fit to be the judge on that kind of thing.

Just know that I think the show is quite good on it’s own and that’s the important thing to me as a viewer and fake critic.

Before we start diving too deep, I should quickly talk about the animation. The style is simpler than Sofia but as a result it looks a lot smoother and looks pretty good right away instead of looking a bit off early on.

The character animation is pretty smooth and quick as well. Like Sofia, sometimes the way a character moves tell you all about them and they clearly have a lot of fun them with them, especially in the songs.

The improvement isn’t quite as drastic as with Sofia but you can notice things looking slightly less plastic-y later on, and there’s more lighting which looks really nice.

Anyway with that said, the backstory for the show itself is that 41 years ago in the kingdom of Avalor, the evil Queen Shurki invaded and took over. She get rid of the King and Queen but a special amulet was able to save Princess Elena by sucking her into it.

Long story short, the Wizard Alakazar needed to find someone who could free her and that amulet ended up in the hands of Sofia who after becoming Story keeper (that’s an even longer story) was called to Avalor and after freeing Elena, they were able to kick Shuriki out.

Now Elena has to see over Avalor while she waits to fully become queen, since she’s still physically 16.

Yeah, that’s a quite a bit of backstory for a Disney show in general, not just a Junior one. Speaking of Junior, let’s talk about the similarities and differences between this and Sofia.

It’s mostly similar in terms of the basic format: Most episodes are built to teach some kind of moral, which will be fairly clear from the start. This is more evident early on when the show is more focused on episodic stories.

It’s slightly more of an issue early on as sometimes they may make it too obvious or stretch a character in order to make another look better, or to make them lean the lesson.

They were generally enjoyable enough to make me forgive that but thankfully as the show goes on it’s stepped away from relying on this formula, or at least made it less obvious.

It is the format pretty much all shows on Disney Junior follow and while it is held back by it, it manages to do a lot right to rise above it. Actually, calling it a Disney Junior show may not be totally accurate.

See, When it premiered, it was actually on Disney Channel in prime time. At the moment, premieres are now on Disney Junior itself but back when it started, it was on Disney Channel first for at least a month or so.

It seemed like it was simply to push it further so it can get better ratings and while that is part of it (the whole moving premieres thing kinda proves this), there’s another reason.

It’s considered weirdly both Disney Channel and Disney Junior. Disney does put it along the Junior stuff (especially now) but it also lumped in with Disney Channel too, and arguably helped lead to them putting animation back on DC all together.

This leads us to the main differences between Elena and Sofia. The first is the overall tone. There’s a bit more of a focus on adventure, which involves the leads getting into some peril.

Sofia has that too but to a lesser extent and the peril is typically bigger here. And speaking of tone, remember how I said Shurki got rid of Elena’s parents?

That was just a kid friendly way of saying she murdered them. Yes, really. We even get to see it twice. Sure, we just simply see her zapping them because duh, family show, but it’s pretty clear that is what is going on.

Dead parents are not new for Disney but a show like this having them at all is quite something, especially when they are full on killed by something,.

They don’t forget about this either, Elena’s feeling about this are addressed a few times like in A Day to Remember/Jewel of Maru, and is a big part of why she has it out for Shurki when she (spoilers) returns.

It’s handled pretty well and it’s just interesting seeing stuff like this in some way aired on Disney Junior. It’s not a super dark show in general but it has some moments that make it clear why it’s aimed at a slightly older audience than Sofia.

They of course still need to make sure that audience can access this show but it’s clearly slightly more mature and I appreciate that.

The other differences simply come from this show about a 16 year old princess vs a 8 year old one. She’s close to becoming Queen so she has to be a more direct, like making sure certain kingdoms feel welcome when they visit Avalor and the like.

There’s more discussion of the diplomacy and such,.just without the boring parts of that. I think it helps it stand out further and these elements do make for some interesting stories.

The way it tells the stories can be ever so slightly more nuanced in general but there’s one character and a couple of episodes that we’ll get into later that show it off better than I can here.

Speaking of said Princess, there is also Elena herself, voiced by Aimee Carrero. Yep, we’re discussing the main character in the middle of the post again because here it especially makes sense to do so.

Let me put it this way: The first Sofia song had her signing about how she’s not ready to be a princess due to her upbringing, The first Elena song has her insisting that she is ready to rule while Francisco says she still has some learning to do.

Being a teenager, Elena is a bit headstrong and has the tendency to act without thinking. Compared to Sofia who is a bit on the perfect side, Elena makes more mistakes. But she’s still strong in various ways so it doesn’t seem like she’s incompetent and she learns from these mistakes.

I feared maybe the set up of her screwing up would get old but Season 2 mostly seems to straw away from this, although there is an interesting thing in a couple of episodes that further shows how she differs from others in the show.

They’ve done a good job at giving us a protagonist who is strong but still flawed. There’s an episode where she takes up fencing and actually kind of sucks at it, and needs to train via various montage in order to stand a chance.

That episode manages to have it’s whole Girl Power thing while still making things feel natural in that way. They strike a good balance with her, which makes for a solid lead.

But there’s another really interesting character that further shows how they can take certain ideas from Sofia and taking it in a really different and interesting direction: Esteban, voiced by Christian Lanz.

Yeah, we’re discussing a Non Lead character in the middle of the post just like I did for Cedric in the Sofia post but I only do it because, much like Cedric, Esteban is the most interesting thing in this show to me.

Early, on, I wasn’t sure what to think of him. The first two episodes aired together and in the first he’s just simply a dignified grumpy guy (or the “Resident Douchebag” as Lanz himself once said), but in the 2nd episode he flat out doesn’t tell Elena George Takei is coming that day, just so she can be unprepared and thus make him look better.

But then Island of Youth humanizes him and makes him more sympathetic. It seemed like they couldn’t decide if he was a villain or not. Thankfully, after that he calmed down and mostly stuck to being slightly jerk-y but far from any kind of real villain.

Which is good because we did NOT need another Fisher Biskit situation on our hands.

Once Elena and the Secret of Avalor finally aired, we found out more about his deal and it was explored further in King of the Carnival. Basically, he (along with a friend, we’ll get to that later) helped Shurki take over and after she betrayed him by killing Elena’s parents, he was pretty much forced to be by her side.

He managed to help out with her defeat, and has grown to see how his family loves him. But what he did still haunts him, and at the moment no one really knows what he did.

So yeah, Esteban has to live with the guilt of knowing he helped out a bad guy who killed the King and Queen.

Yes, this is still a Disney Jr show.,

Esteban truly is fascinating. There’s obvious comparisons to Cedric but the thing with him is that he was indeed a villain and identified as such. Esteban never really is.

He’s sorta like one in Model Sister but outside of that he’s simply someone who made a mistake in the past. He’s more than just some grumpy guy, he’s rather complex due to what he’s had to deal with.

It’s an example of how this show does similar things to Sofia and does something interesting and nuanced with it. Just like Cedric is my favorite Sofia character, Esteban is my favorite character in this show.

Besides everything I just said, he’s also pretty funny and has amusing interesting with the others, especially Elena and Naomi. He’s just an all around fascinating and enjoyable character.

Then we have another really interesting aspect of the show. I’ve mentioned before that if feels like most 2010’s Cartoons these days feel the need to have some kind of Story Arc.

This show is no exception.

Yes, we’ve now reached the point where shows that air on Disney Junior have Story Arcs. Sofia even sort of has one but that’s for another time.

It already had a fair bit of lore behind of it so it does make sense they’d take advantage of it. It doesn’t go full force until Season 2 but Season 1 shows hints of it, mostly starting with The Scepter of Light

Season 1’s Arc episodes mostly just reveal lore stuff, like how Elena’s scepter has these crazy powers. It’s mostly set up but the way it’s done makes it pretty interesting.

It can fall in the trappings of some story driven shows by having some episodes exist mostly just to reveal certain things, but I feel it also avoids some of the trappings too.

This is where being a Disney Junior show actually helps it. Because of the restrictions these shows have, they’re not allowed to have incomplete stories. Every episode must have some kind of takeaway, or stand alone point.

The story episodes tend to serve a dual purpose. Science Unfair for example has a subplot involving the story that drives it forward but the main plot revolves around Isabel learning a lesson.

Thus, they move the story and still have somewhat of a standard episode. Even the episodes that fall prey to the trapping the most still stand on their own, the most part.

We’ll have to see if Season 2 will resolve things correctly, but at the moment I am totally happy with the story is being handled.

It being on Disney Junior also that means that while it will get more serious, it won’t get full on boringly “Dark and edgy” like some story shows do. The tone is being kept in check so far so I imagine this will continue into the future.

I wouldn’t say it’s perfectly done just yet, but compared to some other shows I feel this show does a good job with it’s Story Arc so far. It also remembers to keep it character focused as well, as part of the whole focus on lessons and such.

But that does beg the question: Does being on Disney Junior actually hurt it? After all, it still does have to keep some of those elements, with it getting a bit more serious.

It’s hard to say. I’d say mostly no but it is complicated. The format I went into can arguably hold it back from going more all out, but I feel Season 2 so far does a good job of working with it’s limitations.

Most of the flaws that come with the format aren’t to be found in the Season 2 episodes so far so I feel it is growing.

I do feel like having premieres on Disney Junior now is a bit weird given it’s growth. It’s going to air on the Disney Junior on Disney Channel block anyway so what’s even the point of holding them off?

I don’t have access to the alternative universe where it isn’t tied to a Disney Junior so I can’t really know if it would have been better. But I do now it manages to be solid as it is, and it works well with it’s limitations.

As long as them pushing Disney Channel now doesn’t make them screw over Junior too much, I think Elena’s doing pretty okay where it is.

Oh and because I had nowhere else to put this note: The humor can be a tad snarkier than Sofia. That had it’s moments too but this has more of them. Guess that’s what happens with a teenage lead.

At least it keeps the amazing self aware-ness to the fact that they break into song all the time.

We got all the important elements that make the show interesting, so onto the obligatory stuff…starting with the discussing the weakest episode so far. Sometimes I just talk about a weaker one like I did with Milo.

…But sadly this one is kind of a full dud. A lighter one compared to most of the ones we’ve talked about, but I still don’t like it.

It’s called Party of a Lifetime. The sad thing about is that at least half of it is almost good. After getting lost at sea, they end up with a Captain (voiced by Khary Payton aka Cyborg) and his crew, who turns out to be 400 years old thanks to a sorcerer who made them live forever.

Captain Cyborg is a pretty fun character due to his carefree attitude and most of the stuff with his crew is pretty enjoyable. There are some breaks between the bad parts, so it does become more tolerable than other dud episodes.

But then comes the main conflict. Elena invites her friends along for some sailing but for some reason Armondo simply writes “Best friend” on the invite (Seriously, I don’t get why he does this. It’s not like it was a mistake or anything on his part) so thus Mateo and Gabe think only they were invited and start fighting over who Elena’s best friend is.

Yeah, the whole set up is surprisingly clunky. I can slightly see Gabe being like this but Mateo really does not seem like the type. And he’s like this right away, it’s not like Gabe starts it and he gets roped in.

They are both equally to blame, Gabe is just slightly worse. Their bickering is really annoying to me, and they up end causing a lot of problems too. Some of this is a personal thing since I’m not always crazy about this kind of plot but I do think even objectively it’s not done very well.

Sure, they make up but it doesn’t quite feel right to me and it doesn’t make up for how everything.

And yeah, it’s pretty clear what the whole fight is a stand in for. I guess this was their way around that whole No Romance thing they put in, but it just feels weird for it to be toyed with in the show, with how it’s done anyway.

Oh, and Naomi doesn’t get wrapped up in this because she’s actually reasonable and cares more about the fun of sailing. Actually, she’s quite competent here compared to the boys, which is a sort of problem.

Actually, the whole moral sort of falls flat given Elena is closer to Naomi most of them. Sure, they’re all friends in spirit but I think maybe having Mateo and Gabe being slightly jealous of Naomi would have been a better conflict.

Wait, if their whole fight is a stand in for something more and Elena and Naomi seem a bit closer in general….Well, congrats Disney, you did it again. First Descendants, now this.

Granted, I have no problem shipping this hard but come on.

ANYWAY, Party of a Lifetime has some fun stuff and I like that at least it’s more about fun than telling a deeper story, but it’s too annoying to work overall. This is the only time it doing things Sofia couldn’t created problems.

(Also, didn’t want to do the whole gag but the title gets spoken twice, nice)

But that’s enough negativity, let’s talk about some of my favorite episodes…of Season 1, anyway. Season 2 isn’t done yet so we’ll maybe do those some other time.

Here’s my rough Top 5:

Captain Turner Returns:

Writer: Kaita Mpambara

Naomi’s Mom returns from voyaging only to announce that the family is moving back to their home country of Norberg. You can tell just from that how it will end and that does it hold it back but it manages to be really good despite that.

It explores Naomi’s family as we see their really sweet bond, and they get a lot of emotion out of it. Plus, they do write it in a way that makes it seem like she will leave, and I go get wrapped up enough in it for the predictability to not be as much of an issue as it does with other examples of this plot.

Masks of Magic:

Writer: Kaita Mpambara

Elena is put it in charge of the “Feast of Friendship”, that is done to help their relationship with some ambassadors, much to the behest of Doña Paloma.

Elena wants to make the guests feel like friends while Doña wants everything to be fancy and formal. It would have been incredibly easy for Elena to be totally right and make Doña the villain here.

And while she is a bit stuck up and does make things worse by giving them the titular masks by mistake, the episode actually acknowledges that she’s been doing this for way longer than Elena and thus has a better idea of what she’s doing.

Their problem is that they should have found a comprise instead of just fighting over which way is better. The best part is a scene between the two as they explain why getting this right is special to them.

It goes into Doña’s backstory which makes her sympathetic but also makes sure Elena is as well, so neither is completely vilified.

Despite one or two bumps, it strikes a pretty solid balance and has some fun stuff with the masks two. Solid way to end the season, even if it should have ended with that special that was clearly the finale in production order.

(Also, this writer is currently on MLP which is cool)

The Scepter of Light:

Writers: Tom Rogers (story), Mercedes Valle

As I said before, this is where the story more or less started and it’s a great way to start it. Besides some interesting lore, there’s higher stakes as a moth fairy comes out during an eclipse to bring eternal night.

It’s highly enjoyable and intense, especially as it goes on. Orzibaba (voiced by Eden Espinosa) is a fun villain with a cool design to boot.

It’s a really solid, interesting and intense episode that helped raise the stakes further. Pretty great.

A Day to Remember:

Writer: Silvia Olivas

https://spongey444.wordpress.com/2016/10/20/a-look-at-disney-halloween-episodes-2016/

I talked about this in that post I linked, so I’ll keep this short. While I did praise it a lot, I don’t think I quite gave it enough credit. It didn’t even make the honorable mentions of the best things I reviewed in 2016, although to be fair it did have stiff competition.

This episode has a lot of what makes the show work, especially the strong family element. The culture is interesting, the story is engaging and the ending is incredibly emotional.

It’s usually the kind of episode that I’d have as my number 1 but there’s one more that impressed me more.

King of the Carnival:

Writer: Tom Rogers

After everything I said about Esteban, this isn’t surprising. Esteban’s old friend Victor shows up and reminds him of what he did. Victor wants to steal the crown and asks Esteban to do it or else he will spill his secret.

This episode deals with Esteban’s deal really well. It really shows that he is deep down a good guy who simply made a mistake. They go a bit into why he did it in the first place and it gives you a lot to think about.

Aside from the song (which topped my list), the best part is at the end. I won’t spoil but it lays down who Esteban really is. It also has a small cliffhanger while still standing on it’s own and shows it has a reason to exist on it’s own.

There’s one or two clunky moments (like when Victor “As You Know”’s Esteban to tell us about what he did) but the overall story is so great I can forgive it.

All that makes it my personal favorite, both of Season 1 and overall. But we’ll see if that changes.

Honorable Mentions: Spirit Monkey Business, Realm of the Jaquins. (Both have pretty solid lore and are highly enjoyable, they just don’t hit me like these 5)

Well, that’s the important things, as well as the weakest and strongest episodes. Time to go into the other characters since we already went into the most interesting ones.

We’ll start with Elena’s friend group. We’ve got Naomi (voiced by Jillian Rose Reed), Mateo (voiced by Joesph Haro) and Gabe (voiced by Jorge Diaz aka one of the guys from Paranormal Activity the Marked Ones)..

I’d say Naomi is my favorite, because I like her spunky attitude and I feel her episodes tend to show off her character the best. She arguably gets more focus which I think is fine since the others are getting more to do as time goes on. Also, her parents are super enjoyable too.

Mateo has also had some growth as he’s trying to be the royal wizard but isn’t always the best at it early on. I enjoy him too and recent episodes have fleshed him out nicely.

Gabe has gotten less development then the others but he’s had some episodes like Olaball that goes into him somewhat He’s the royal guard who can be a hot headed. He’s less interesting than the others but I still like him fine.

They all have solid chemistry and I do have sometimes they give each other crap in that way real life friends do. Just slightly more kid friendly.

As for her family, we have her Grandparents Francisco (voiced by Emiliano Díez who was apparently in Adventures in Babysitting 2016) and Luisa (voiced by Julia Vera who was apparently in The Ridiculous Six). There’s not much to say for them, they fill their roles fine and can be decently funny.

Then we have her little sister Isabel, voiced by Jenna Ortega. As far as these kind of characters go, she’s one of the better ones. She’s rarely annoying and is mostly likable. Plus, the inventor angle makes her more interesting.

Her episodes do tend to be a bit less interesting for me but those episodes are arguably more for the younger crowd compared to the rest of the series, and they do tend to be solid at least.

Going outside, Next there’s Zuzo, voiced by Man of a Thousand Voices Keith Ferguson. He’s Elena’s Spirit guide who sadly doesn’t get to appear much since his nature only lets him be in important episodes.

I say sadly since he’s generally pretty fun, and I’d like to see more of him in the future. I do wonder what a full character episode for him would be like.

Then we have the Jaquins consisting of Skylar (voiced by Carlos Alazraqui), Migs (voiced by Chris Parnell) and Luna, voiced by Yvette Nicole Brown. Migs is the sensible one, Luna is the sassy one, and Skylar is the fun-loving one.

That’s more or less what they amount but they work and we get some neat lore with the Jaquins in some episodes that I find interesting. Not too much else to say for them.

Then there’s ones I have less to say about, like amusing comic relief Armando (voiced by Joe Nunez) and Private Higgins (voiced by Mikey Kelley). and the ever so Bitch-y Doña Paloma (voiced by Constance Marie), at least until her growth in Masks of Magic.

And of course there’s some other minor people I don’t remember enough to go into, or don’t give me much to say. Or some that would give me more to say when I talk about Season 2 and beyond episodes like Victor and Carla. Even though I do want to talk about them.

There’s also some one-off (for now at least ) characters here and there that I enjoy. Plus, one of the one-off villains is voiced by Lord Dominator, which is amazing.

The characters are a pretty solid bunch that usually fleshed out nicely, or at least are enjoyable. And the ones that stand out like Esteban really do stand out.

As we approach the end of this,we must answer the question: Do I prefer Sofia the First or Elena or Avalor? Well, even if we only use the first Seasons, it’;s hard to say.

As you can see, Elena does manage to improve on Sofia in a few ways, including have a better rounded lead and the crew learned a few things from their experience on it.

It being less Disney Jr-y allows it to do a bit more and it has less moments that remind you this is a Disney Jr. However, Sofia Season 1 does perhaps have a few more highs. Both have some Season 1 jitters, Sofia just managed to have a few more highs despite them.

P&F and MML were the same way, some aspects of Season 1 were better but I do think the earlier show hit me a bit harder more often when it comes to certain episodes.

I think we’ll have to wait for Season 2 to finish before I fully judge. As it is, I think both are more or less equal. Some do certain things better than others, but both are still pretty solid.

Either way, Elena of Avalor is a good “spin-off”, as it manages to stand out from Sofia, and from other Disney Jr shows to the point where I wouldn’t even call it a Preschool show. It just doesn’t feel like one, despite that format I went into.

It has a solid lead, good animation, great music, some enjoyable and sometimes rather interesting character and uses a story arc somewhat better than other shows these days.

Even the flaws aren’t too bad and are being fixed as the show goes on. As it is, it’s pretty solid and has grown beyond just being a spin off of another show. Oh and I don’t think you need to have seen too much of Sofia to get into this show.

Secret of Avalor is needed but I’ve seen people watch that without knowing too much about Sofia going on, so I think you’ll be fine. Even if you’re not into watching shows from a network with “Jr” in the name, I do think it’s worth a look.

Elena isn’t on Netflix like Sofia (guess they’re saving it for their own streaming thing), but it’s on the other usual places and has a few DVD’s. Not too hard to find.

Overall, Elena is a pretty good show and is another current cartoon worth watching. Hopefully I did a good job of explaining why it works, and I didn’t ramble as much as I did with Sofia.

(Sure, I have 13 pages but I tried my best and it could have been worse)

That’s about all I go for this one. We’ll get to this show again someday, aside from Holiday reviews. Not sure when but someday. Glad to finally let a lot of these thoughts out at least.

The series returns hiatus in July so that should be fun. Until then, hope you enjoyed me ramble about why it’s good. …And yeah, that’s about it.

See ya.