Having a service like Netflix is almost a mystical experience. Upon first entering it this seemingly endless vista of new worlds runs out into the distant horizon. Like the explorers of old there comes this unrivaled sense of freedom and discovery. Everything is waiting to be seen. It's a liberating experience, much more open and available than what came before, things like discount-diving, or looking around on obscure channels at odd hours to see if anything of note was showing. But in this experience, choice rests at the touch of a button, without a cost per-unit, offering the best of the previous two options. There is a vaster library with the possibility for perfected refinement, such that the exploration runs only through the terrain that is desired, not just what is forced by the vagaries of programming and stocking.

As I said, I intend a string of these, to tell of my exploration in this new world of cheesy wonder and low-budget moving pictures from the far shores of the world. Because of the cost-effectiveness of digital media more of these things can be made and sent out. No need to pay for packaging, physical media and the pressing of units. Put it on a server and have folks pay to have access to it and dozens like it. Sturgeon's Law is in place here, but those little flecks of gold among the detritus are worth all the more because they were plucked from the effluvium and shown off for all to see.

These reviews are also in honor of, and dedicated to,  roochak, my dear friend, compatriot, mentor and guide through the shadow land of philosophy. The Virgil to my Dante. He does this sort of thing for more lofty, more serious and artistic creations. I am a humble shadow, and so I tread on less grandiose ground. I actually intend to review with asides and comedy, between references and notations. I'm not going to do half-measures, getting in what research on these things that I can, so as to present the roundest possible picture.

So without further ado I open with my first review, Mouk!

Mouk is an educational production, in a sense. It's very... European. Which is appropriate, as it's a French production. A 2D Flash creation in an almost semi-cel-shaded style. The thing was made by Millimages out of the works of one Marc Boutavant. Think of it as a sort of less-frenetic, thoroughly modern Richard Scarry. He has the same idea and almost the same sensibilities as Mr. Scarry. M. Boutavant is more focused in his Mouk work, however. It's less about general subjects and formal learning of things like math and spelling. These are scrubbed and polished travelogues for kids, emphasizing cultures, traditions, and pro-social lessons on cooperation and kindness. His heroes, such as they are, serve as a vehicle for seeing a good portion of the world, and exploring how things are in those places.

The series has two stars. The title character Mouk is a brown bear, while his traveling companion and best buddy is some variety of cat, presumably a snow leopard, named Chavapa. Let those names sink in. If you can deal with those names having British voices coming out of them, this might be for you. And then realize that their friends back in... Euro-somewhere... are named Popo and Mita. I don't usually make comments about character names. Usually. But you really shouldn't name characters so that they sound like a villain's flunky, a hooligan, and crap. Mita there comes off as the most normal. Oh, yes. Popo and Mita are twin bears, who hear tell of Mouk and Chavapa's adventures on their computer via what is effectively FaceTime with the names changed and the numbers filed off. Apparently Mouk and Chavapa carry a magic laptop. They get a great signal in some incredibly improbable places. Granted, it's not always perfect. The thing has broken a few times, they've let the battery go dead and they claim to need wifi hotspots. But when you're doing video chat from a hut along the banks of a river in Venezuela... just say a wizard did it.

Speaking of a wizard, apparently an evil wizard put a curse on the entire world, such that there are only five voices. Yes, that's right. In the English dub there are five voices, two for female characters and three for males... mostly. As is usual in the voice business, some of the young male voices are done by one of the voice actresses. It works out quite well, as ever. Because of certain practical necessities of course everyone speaks the same language in every dub, occasionally working in words and phrases of very important cultural ideas. It's just amusing to see everyone speaking with a British accent. It only really makes sense when the episodes are in India, or at a stretch in Canada or Australia. One positive thing, the Netflix version comes with five dubs. An embarrassment of riches. English (with serious British influence on the vocabulary), the original French, Spanish, German and Italian. There's nothing wrong with the English dub, it's just funny. The French is fair enough; not speaking it I can only say that it sounds mostly organic, with a fair selection of voices. The German has decent casting as far as the age of the characters is concerned but it sounds a bit stiff, not very flowing. They could use better actors. Since I speak Spanish to a limited degree, I was more focused on it. It was competently done, with a good variety. Now, anyone who has seen Spanish and English beside one another knows that sometimes the Spanish runs long. Saying the same thing takes longer or necessitates faster speaking. That's this. The delivery is rapid-fire but they at least put in effort. Also, in a strange and random happenstance, some voices are just too old for the part they were playing. I recall a character meant to be as old as Mouk and Chavapa had an adult's voice. Finally, the Italian version is excellent. The pacing is crisp, the actors are competent, there is a variety in sound, and the whole thing was just done in a classy fashion. Italian speakers are the lucky ones here.

The selection of locations is fairly impressive, and I mean that. Just from the first season, which is what is available on Netflix, there are 21 countries visited. Incidentally, the second season of both the English and French version are on YouTube, for free, thanks to the production company's great generosity. A strange fact, though: Netflix is missing two 11-minute season one episodes, meaning a whole episode unit. They are Kabuki and The Whistling Language.They have a mixture of northern and southern hemisphere, and don't necessarily restrict themselves to big-time tourist destinations and big cities. Now they do get constricted with Japan; they're there six times and each time they're in Tokyo.

Speaking of Tokyo, because I used to be what was unquestionably a Weeaboo (as my Yuri Hime tankouban collection indicates) I can tell that M. Boutavant studied his stuff well, as is appropriate for the French Richard Scarry. I'm able to pick out the slightly subtler touches there. The background characters and happenings make sense for the location and add to the realistic richness of the world. For Japan, for example, there is this meta running gag of Mouk and Chavapa passing by or being passed by a knot of schoolgirl squirrels. They also pass, and finally meet, this group of people that I can only describe as Pick One: Cosplayers, super-involved Harajuku kids, or folks with very involved kigurumis. Seriously, one is dressed like a rabbit, and another like a Tweety Bird type, and another who just has wild hair and clothes. Heck it could be all three. Also, all the tanuki they encounter have leaves on their heads. Seriously, those who don't have hats on clearly have leaves sitting on their heads. Mostly looks like a generic tree leaf but some of them sport lily pads on their heads. It's things like that, the small things that happen as the main actors pass it in wide shots, which make this production a cut above the usual, very bland fare for children, regardless of how European it is.

I mentioned the age thing, in a very vague way. I said there are male voices and male child voices. But the premise of the show makes me question just how young they are, or in another sense it makes me see just how European the production is. Mouk and Chavapa are cyclists, and they are biking around the world. That's a bit vague to start with, since there are practical reasons rendering that impossible, especially given the vague rout that can be puzzled out from the locations they spotlight. They have a tent, some repair supplies, seemingly a few books and some money. But that's about it. And they are doing this alone. No parents are ever in evidence. These are(apparently) little kids on bikes riding through arctic tundra, deserts, and predator-infested jungles. No part of that plan seems remotely safe or sensible, especially since they seem to rely on strangers a lot of the time. Sure, they make friends easily and get invited to really nice things like Holi, or a Quinceñera, or a spontaneous outdoor rock concert. So these kids... are going through distant lands with a laptop, some cash and a few basic supplies, camping out a lot of the time and hoping that they don't get stranded in some forsaken land. So they are either not as young as their child-like speech and thinking may imply, or this is about as Euro-weird as I think it is.

There are two very minor nitpicks to get out at this point. Continuity and what I would call 'cringeiness.' Continuity is easy to explain but had to get across. They meet particular people at particular point, in a loose sense. There is usually a 'first time we met X' thing happening when they first go to a country, though there have been cases where is was just, “We were staying with our friend X.” Subsequent episodes in that place will show the relationship, generally speaking. But that establishes only a continuity with respect to the nations. There doesn't seem to be a preferred viewing order, which makes their circumnavigation rather anarchic, and implies they turn back now and again to revisit old locations. It also means the characters don't quite have the proper feel. The biggest example is comparing the Egypt episode (Nice and Easy) to one of the Crete episodes (Little Fish Grow Up). In the Egyptian episode Chavapa steers a dhow, and is the one to tell Mouk about sailing terms. But in the Crete episode I mentioned he is just as clueless about the whole endeavor, making me wonder if one came before the other, but Chavapa says he learned from reading books, and not something like “From that time we were in Crete and learned about boats.” So it's confusing. As for the other part... it's a hard to define but certainly obvious ones it stops being glossed over. Cringeiness seems to be tied to the outcome of an ill-prepared child actor reading lines, or perhaps decent acting that simply touches on subjects that are either inherently uncomfortable or in the context of the action becomes a very, well, cringey thing. I'm glad they left off the episode “Kabuki.” Because Mouk asking about Samurai constantly and asking if a gong is from the “Time of the Samurai” is super cringey. It's ignorance crossed with innocent energy and gusto. It makes the aware uncomfortable. Honorable mention goes to many of the times the characters say words in other languages in their posh accents and end up sounding so cheap. It's a good thing they just dubbed in actual Greek singing in one episode. I would not liked to have heard these people trying to sing in Greek.

Now you may notice I've been unleashing a lot of snark on this thing. Please understand that is it good, clean, wholesome sincere snark, not that poison-dripping sarcastic snark most modern review-douches use. I call it as it is, because frankly, this falls under the heading of 'You are harshest to things you love most.' On an obvious and sincere level, I love this show. I mean, they make plot points out of either real local customs and happenings in these locations (the concept of fadys, local taboos and superstitions in Malagasy villages; cloud-harvesting of water in the Atacama desert; making a piñata for a celebration is Mexico) or how solving a problem in a particular place can involve the local people and their local items. As I implied earlier, this is travelogues for children, showing some places that may not be familiar to most children. The first season list of locations, with a notation of how often they went to each, is: Morocco (three), Algeria (one), Crete (six); Canada (six), Japan (six), Senegal (three), Madagascar (three), Peru (one), Venezuela (five), Vietnam (three), India (five), Brazil (two), China (three), Mexico (one), The United States (Three; New York, Arizona and Utah), Australia (four), Argentina (one), Egypt (one), Chile (one), Finland (one) and Borneo (one). That's an impressive list, even for a sanitized show about world cultures. It will surely expand the horizons of children, and even some sheltered adults.

Final thoughts: Turn on Closed Captioning and either the Italian or French language track, as you prefer, and watch it. Sure, it's not My Little Pony: Friendship is magic, nothing is. It's more The Busy World of Richard Scarry, as I alluded to before. I won't win award-awards, but I hope it earns those little awards no one remembers or talks about, those educational awards, usually from some small organization. I's a nice, wholesome little program, suitable for all ages and especially towards those who need a French animation fix. France does do animation. Some of it is actually quite good, as I will explain later.

If you found this review helpful or would like to share your impression of Mouk, just leave a comment below.