"Tuca and Bertie" is a great adult animation series about two 30 somethings best bird friends and the everyday things that they go through. They are polar opposites (of course) but there is a no backstabbing stupidity that tend to sometimes comes with these kind of set ups. The story does not start at the beginning of their friendship not at the end nor in the middle but shows how a relationship goes through fights, crying, hugging, laughing and random adventures such as going to the store. The humour can be crude at times with many references to sex and even a masturbation scene but it is not too over the top, actually it is realistic.
This section of their story starts when Tuca moves out of her and Bertie's places so that Bertie's boyfriend, Sparkles (who is a generally good guy), can move in (don't worry she is quite close by and the move barely makes much of a difference in the first few episodes). We get backstory of how Tuca was in the past and that she is bettering herself now (her arc started before we joined the series but it is still in development since there there are other challenges in her life that she needs to try conquer) and we see more of a characters arc with Berties as she finds a way to do her baking passion. That is what I really like about this show is that the characters are real with issues, insecruities, and fights (like with Berties and Sparkles in the last few episodes) but these things are not obvious and show more on the internal struggle that people go through. They is no obvious big bad and the issues are something that difficult to talk about and even more so to explain to another. I had a really connection even though I don't know the words to tell you why. The voice acting is honest with texture to the voice when confusion and dark emotions come on the screen.
The style of animation is high energy, flowing with Tuca's movements looking as if she has floppy bones. They indirectly break the forth all but it is part of their world such as music video, surreal like sections, words appearing on screen and then one of the lead characters putting them to the side. The colours are bright and the background of the city that they live in is alive with unusually designs such as the snake train but linked so much to our world that we don't feel lost or overwhelmed. Close to the end of the season there is a stylized scene that was done very well and hinted at a lot with showing little. The look and dialog (with just saying enough) give us a challenge to fill in the unpleasant blanks.
And they use almost fish-like camera lens where the background seems to curve slightly which I thought made it stand out as well as being a neat touch.
That is one of the major pros in that the show knows when to natural turn down the high energy in more serious moments and conversations. In these parts there are not indirect forth wall breaks and the visuals are simple with the characters just talking to each other so that they expression and words are all that you focus on. The show knows when to highlight the serious with a natural change of tone without in being forced and it was at times unexpected. Like there was no real routine per an episode aka funny start-minute 15 serous, dark scene-happy ending etc. It took you on a ride like a roller-coaster where the upbeat parts are when you go down hill with your heart pumping, the darker parts when you go up hill with tension and the level parts are the deep conversations. And I am really glad that Bertie's story with a certain character (who is shown as not being a good guy especial when he does not 'cheer'her drink after an event well done) did not go the way I expected since it would have been cliched-so thank you show for that.
It deals with the issues of sexual misconduct of women and these are sprinkled through out with Bertie being gawked at a lot but it is only when we get to the end that we see her backstory of what happened to her and what essential stopped her from being (the stylized scene). The sprinkles at the beginning are kind of like indirect foreshadowing to her backstory. I am glad that we do not start at the beginning and that their backstories are throughout the series although I wish it was a bit more obvious with Bertie and maybe even if there was more of a mix. It felt as if the first part of the season was telling Tuca's backstory and then going more into Bertie's but this is me nitpicking.
Overall, great characters, great backgrounds and flowing animation, good story fun to watch and makes you analysis. Can't wait for season two or to watch it again.