Centaurworld on Netflix is half kids show, half adult cartoon

A couple days ago I was scrolling around Netflix at 9 in the morning, looking for something to watch as I ate scrambled eggs and sipped black coffee, and I noticed something new in the Recent Releases category. It was called Centaurworld, and the candy-colored thumbnail featured a horse house with a fat ass and a door in it:

I had better watch this right away, I thought.

I immediately got the idea that this was going to be an adult cartoon. The horse house with the big butt immediately made me think about Tuca and Bertie, for some reason. The color palette (and the plot of being lost in a strange world) reminded me of The Midnight Gospel, and to some extent Rick and Morty. Also, the main character is a horse, so I thought of Bojack Horseman.

I was three episodes in before I realized: “Hold your centaurs, is this a children’s show?” Evidently it is, but I watched the entire season anyway. What the hell, it was entertaining.

What is Centaurworld on Netflix?

Centaurworld has a pretty simple premise. A horse, named Horse, from a war-torn dimension is separated from her Rider by a horseshoe-shaped artifact and transported to Centaurworld. Now she must try to get back home with the help of a gang of half-animal, half-human hybrid beings who become her friends along the way.

Each episode features new characters and locations. In one episode the characters deal with wish-fulfilling trees, then a tribe of mole-people, a troupe of cat-people, and so on. It works for the most part, but it makes the stories fairly predictable. The characters will always get whatever it is they’re after, and the episodes always end cleanly. Nothing wrong with that, but I found myself wanting more complexity; more messy, ambiguous endings, like the adult cartoons I thought this show was trying to imitate.

It seems to me that Centaurworld is purposely trying to appeal to two age demographics. Sometimes the show is just straight up goofy in a way that will amuse the younger set, but it can also get gritty, with dark humor and heavier themes. It has one foot in Saturday mornings on Cartoon Network and another in Sunday nights on Adult Swim.

The animation style and character design also straddle this divide. For instance, take a look at our main cast here:

With the exception of Horse, we’ve got a lot of round shapes, colorful features, and smooth faces. Perfect for tots. And yet the exaggeration of the features and absurd designs don’t feel entirely innocent either.

And that’s just what you can see from a still image. The animation itself is quite wonderful. Everyone and everything has quick movements, rapidly changing expressions, and a lot of randomness that gives the show a very trippy vibe. It’s perfect for today’s happening, mature youth, myself included.

Well, mostly. While I think it’s an accomplishment to make a cartoon that can play with both kids and adults, as I watched Centaurworld the more childish elements started wearing on me. Maybe it’s because I’m an adult; I want the show to cater more to my taste than keep the balance it seems to be going for. Although I found a lot to like in the show, it could be grating. And the thing that grated the most was the songs.

Wowsers, does this show have a lot of songs. And fair enough, it’s supposed to be a musical adventure, and I a good amount of the songs work. Songs like “Rider’s Lullaby,” “Welcome to Centaurworld” and “What You Need” aren’t just nice to listen to, but also introduce characters and ideas. That’s what you want in a musical number. Others are ear worms that won’t leave you alone (I’ve listened to “I Don’t Know Him” more times then I’d care to admit). But others feel there just to be there and fill a quota. A lot of them I don’t remember, or only remember vaguely and consider pointless. This makes sense, because, again, there are a lot of songs here. Not all of them are going to land, but with three or four songs an episode, some are just dead on arrival because you’re going, “Oh brother, another one!”

If you’re an adult who doesn’t mind cuteness and kid shows, if you’ve occasionally gone out of your way to catch episodes of “Craig of the Cheek” on Cartoon Network at 10:00 a.m. (because it’s also a very fine show with broad appeal but I digress), then I would definitely recommend giving Centaurworld a binge. It’s fun, quirky, easy to digest, and aesthetically interesting. If you’re on the fence, just watch the first episode. You might just find yourself pulled in, like a horse led to rainbow-tinted water.

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