Iwájú || Series Review

It was a boring Friday afternoon and I needed something to keep me entertained. I've been watching and reading intense and action-packed movies and books recently so, I wanted something different. I headed on to my browser and I came across the animated mini-series titled Iwájú, hoping I would get something less-intense and action-packed. I did get what I was looking for though.

I was quite excited when I heard about this series. An animated series set in the futuristic city of Lagos, Nigeria and the Yoruba land in general. I live in Lagos and to be honest, I would like to see a futuristic Lagos as portrayed in the cartoon. The fact that the series showed the difference between the island inhabitants and the mainland inhabitants in Lagos made me more excited to watch it as the idea behind it seemed all creative. But sadly, all the hope fueled in me at the start of the movie was quenched when I got way into the series.

Iwájú is a Disney+ animated series based on a young girl's experience in the city of Lagos. It is a 6 episode series that tells the coming of age story of Tola, a privileged 10 year old girl living on the island and a young boy, Kole living on the mainland. Set in a futuristic Lagos, the movie opens with Tola on her tenth birthday, goes to the airport on the mainland to welcome her dad. She happily welcomes her dad but catches the fancy of villainous Bode as his next kidnapping victim. He seeks out Kole, the help in Tola's house and her only friend at home. Taking advantage of Kole's sick mother, he forces Kole to make a terrible choice between the family and his friend.

The most spectacular thing about this movie for me was the story line. It was absolutely creative and brilliant. Weaving Nigerian culture into an animation isn't something Nigerians are familiar with. I totally appreciate the script writer's distinct thought process through which this series came to life.

As much as I would like to focus on the creativity behind the series, worthy of notice also was how in-line the series seemed with the city of Lagos. As I mentioned before, I stay in Lagos and I was quite familiar with most of the things that went on in the series. The futuristic Lagos they portrayed and the Lagos of now, didn't seem alien to each other. I also loved the way they used some Yoruba proverbs in the series. I'm not of the Yoruba tribe but I am a little bit fluent in the language. So, I found myself interpreting some proverbs without the help of subtitles, and the rest were with the help of subtitles.

However, I found this series visually ugly. I've watched a lot of Disney cartoons and I absolutely loved the visuals. Just not this. All the while I was watching it, it seemed like I was watching an illustration from a primary school textbook. This didn't sit right with me as the main reason I picked up this particular cartoon was for entertainment. The visuals were very poor and screamed low-effort. As the series wasn't visually appealing, I found it hard to feel any emotions during the series. It looked like I was just watching movement on my screen and narration in the background. The voicings and the visuals lacked a connection I don't know how to explain. They just did not rhyme with each other. This practically made me loose interest in completing the series, but I continued nevertheless.

Although the episodes in the series were a total of 6, it still seemed rushed. Due to the fact that the series wanted to cover a diverse amount of themes, they failed to follow the proper pace at which a movie should flow, thereby stirring up confusions. I found it kind of annoying, confusing viewers during the episodes, only for us to get a sloppy ending. I sure never planned the series to turn out this way.

The series which did not fail to enlighten us on the possible robots that might exist sooner or later in the world was dissatisfying, judging by how interesting it seemed in the trailer. I was really interested in seeing the exceptional abilities of a particular robot in the movie as I had seen in the trailer but the producers ended up doing whatever they liked and the robot's ability which I had been waiting for only came to play few minutes to the end of the movie. I felt they didn't want it to seem like there was no scene like the one in the trailer so decided to do a last minute fix-up. I found this disheartening.

Overall, I would rate the series a 7/10. Lesser points due to the fact that I found myself zoning out at certainly points into the series. I didn't particularly find it as entertaining as I had envisaged before I started it. Anyways, I'm glad I watched it. One movie down from my endless To Be Watched list, Lol😂. I do advise you to check out this movie. it is safe for children to watch also. You probably might enjoy it.