So I just finished watching The Lion Guard, it's a new Lion King Movie that leads up into a new animated series Disney is going to be airing. So thoughts? tl;dr it was alright. The animation was decent although the art direction had a bit more of a cartoon flair (more solid bright colors.) It was interesting that they decided to place this series before the events of Lion King 2. The main character, Kion is in fact Kiara's younger brother (who is shown as a cub in the movie.)

A great thing this series may try to do is add a bit more to the lore (some for better or worse.) For example, learning more about Scar and having more of an explanation for his frail appearance was nice. Also apparently Timon and Pumba adopted another child which is their honey badger nephew, Bunga (also portrayed as Kions best friend although this would make him his cousin as well.) On the flip side, the whole Lion Guard bit is a bit too... sentai feeling, with each of Kion's friends having clearly defined physical or personality traits with a lion head cutie mark (on the front shoulder) to boot. Speaking of the "titles" they have, "keeness of sight" is way too fucking long in comparison to bravery, strength, speed, and leader. Was perceptive too complicated of a word to use for a kids show? I think it fits the bill perfectly.

The songs were all blegh but not too cringy. Villian song steals the show both in sound and visuals (without trying to hard to be another "Be Prepared" clone.) The ending wasn't anything too climatic and more or less felt like the first episode to lead into the new series. I think I'll check it out more but I'll continue to keep my expectations low. All in all, it was alright.

If you want to watch it for yourself, here's a link: http://kisscartoon.me/Cartoon/The-L.....Movie?id=66780