Review: YOLO: Crystal Fantasy “A Very Extremely Very Yolo Christmas: Reloaded”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

A Christmas special in August? That’s just how Australia do…

Sarah and Rachel just want to celebrate a peaceful holiday together, but they soon find themselves working through a series of obstacles. Sarah’s attempts to honor her Nan’s wishes lead to both her and Rachel in increasingly dangerous situations. The two’s bond as friends is tested, even if they don’t realize it, and the unusual cast of characters that they encounter on this trek help them understand new things about themselves. Sarah and Rachel aren’t sure if they’ll survive this Christmas together, but if they do they know it will be the best one ever.

Our Take:

Holiday specials can be an overdone convention in animated series with a very telegraphed series of story beats that they go through. YOLO: Crystal Fantasy has already proven itself to be a series that doesn’t care about rules, so it’s actually exciting to see them approach something like a Christmas special. Whether the impetus for this episode to originally air in December becomes irrelevant because “A Very Extremely Very YOLO Christmas: Reloaded” works in a way that’s highly atypical to the standard holiday special. In fact, if the episode didn’t advertise itself as such it’d be easy for to feel like a regular entry in the series. However, the fact that it tries to invoke the Christmas spirit when it’s absolutely unnecessary to do so is part of the gag and it helps give this installment some extra kick.

This is also by far the most musical episode of YOLO: Crystal Fantasy, which is hopefully a trend that continues with the series. Flying Lotus straight up appears out of nowhere, performs a set, and woos crocodile ladies while Sarah and Rachel bide their time on this mysterious island. The song snippets throughout this installment are nothing complicated, but they’re all charming and humorous in their own way.

“A Very Extremely Very YOLO Christmas: Reloaded” continues the trend of each episode of YOLO: Crystal Fantasy improving upon what came before it. It’s an episode that leans on the familiar character dynamics that fill the show, but it’s by far the most ridiculous episode yet and it properly shows off just how weird this show can be. This moving story for crocodile love and rubies is enjoyable, but the episode also looks gorgeous. There’s one sequence in particular where Sarah and Rachel are tumbling through the Earth to Crocodile Town that’s a visual cornucopia that demands to be paused so every detail can be taken in. This level of dedication to unnecessary frivolity is exactly what YOLO: Crystal Fantasy does so well.