Season Review: Onyx Equinox Season One
Overview (Spoilers Below):
Mictlantecuhtli starts a blood war by sinking the city of Danibaan and its people alive. As a result, the celestial gods make a plan to close the gates of the underworld. Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl make a bet with their sacrifices given to the winner. Quetzalcoatl chooses Izel to close the gates of the underworld. However, he refuses because of his grief over his sister’s death and is unwilling to live in a world without her. Yaotl, an emissary of Tezcatlipoca, attempts to rile the boy to complete the mission. Later Izel obtains the help of Yun and K’in, Zyanya, and Xanastaku to close the gates. After an unexpected revelation, the group gets to the last gate where they try to fight the queen of the underworld. In the end, the last gate remains open as Izel chooses freedom for humanity. That decision marks the countdown to end humanity for Tezcatlipoca.
Our Take:
Onyx Equinox is a good show that’s produced by Crunchyroll Studios that shows a lot about Mesoamerican societies. From the ulama game to the cities, it was an enlightening experience to learn about the old societies. The show’s main plot is the apocalyptic conflict that forces a group of teens to save the world. Along with that, there were a few unexpected twists that made the show more interesting. But the show is a bit slow in the beginning as it establishes the cast and their backstories. Things start to pick up around episode five as Izel trusts the twins a bit more after a fight. The animation for the fights is good, and the background scenery is beautiful. Their trip to the underworld was amazing to watch as they traversed through the different parts of the underworld.
Izel isn’t your typical main character radiating confidence. He’s a child who mourns over his sister’s death and then pushed into completing the task from the gods without any time to really grieve. From the start, he doesn’t want the duty of saving humanity, and Izel runs from it in the second episode. There are a few ironic things, but the second episode stands out because of that. After the people of his town shun him because of his cursed eyes, Izel clings to the hope that the gods can bring back his sister, Nelli. His grief portrayed by his voice actor, Olivia Brown was good especially with the montage in his home. Onyx Equinox did a good job at continuing to portray his grief with his anger to anyone who insults Nelli. His grief later recedes as Izel realized that he should live even with Nelli gone in the finale. Izel’s development towards becoming a leader is slow in the beginning. However, he does show signs of it while battling the guardians of the gates with his strategies. His decision in choosing freedom worked well in setting up a potential second season.
The group’s interactions were rocky in the beginning, but they formed a bond over keeping each other alive. Izel even considers them his new family by the end and even with Yaotl. Yaotl mainly gets frustrated with Izel’s actions in the show. However, even the big jaguar understands that Izel is a child taking on a heavy task from the gods. Admittedly he does not appear often to help close the gates. It is because the obsidian is a repellent against gods. It extends towards Yaotl since he’s an emissary with his power coming from Tezcatlipoca.
Now the humans in the group all have their roles in the group. There are the twins, Yun and K’in, who after Yaotl’s threat to eat them agree to go along with Izel. Their bond with the ball reveals the gates of underworld locations. Their personalities balance each other with Yun being the kinder brother and K’in being the more impulsive of the twins. Then there is Zyanya, a warrior survivor from Danibaan who hides the horrible secret. She is a servant of Mictlantecuhtli after losing a fight. Her goal is to bring back her people by any means necessary and has a monstrous form that helps the group at the end of the show. Her betrayal did hurt the group’s trust in her until the end, where she redeems herself. Lastly, there is Xanastaku, a kind priestess with healing powers and wings. She helps the twins hone their control over the ball and heal at critical moments in the show. Also, Izel cannot close the gates of the underworld alone. He needs to trigger the five switches to close the gate completely. The switches’ distance from one another depends on the size of the gate. This mechanic worked well in displaying that people need each other to survive in the world. I enjoyed how Izel’s group fought the guardians using the closing mechanism to kill them in the process. It goes back to how humans use their intellect to hunt down larger creatures.
There’s also the mythology part of the series which plays a major part in the show’s conflict. It has notable gods like Quetzalcoatl, Tezcatlipoca, and Mictecacihuatl. Furthermore, Meque, the transporting axolotl’s real identity is Xolotl, Quetzalcoatl’s brother. The subtle hints in the middle of the show worked well, and it was good to get that confirmation at the end. Onyx Equinox includes the god’s attitude towards humanity as nothing more than playthings. It emphasizes Izel’s choice of not being their pawn anymore in the end. Also, the romantic subplot between Mictecacihuatl and Yaotl was a welcome surprise. The eleventh episode shows an intriguing take on her origins. It shows her growing up as a deity in the underworld and becoming more interested in humans as time goes by. It worked well to help empathize with her situation and explain her motives for helping Izel’s group.
Overall Onyx Equinox was a good show with a chance of a second season going by the ending and the result of the bet. It has a lot of bloody scenes and a few humorous moments between the serious moments of the show. If you enjoy a good story about teens bonding as a family while facing monsters, then this is the show for you.
"There are also other characters that come and go (also owned by the Warner Bros. Discovery conglomerate media company)."
Huh. Is that just referring to other characters from the show itself, or is this implying that the new season is going to have cameos from other WBD IPs