Season Review: The Matumbila’s Season One

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Our Take:

The Matumbila’s is a show that comes from Zul Manzi, a 23-year-old animator from Tanzania. It’s a family comedy inspired by events from his own life as a Tanzanian-American living in Massachusetts. You can clearly tell that it’s a passion project from an up and coming creator. The animation can’t rival that of animated comedies with big broadcast money behind them, and the editing can be odd at times. But the writing is solid and it’s easy to like these characters.

Hashim is the patriarch of the Matumbila family. He runs the household alongside his wife Zainat. The two of them are fun to watch. Though they certainly come across as somewhat stereotypical in certain ways, there’s enough good stuff to make them feel like real individuals, too. The episode where Hashim lands his daughter Amina a job at the local Halal Fried Chicken restaurant is one of the highlights of the season, as he and his wife clash heads over whether it’s good for her to be working at her age — and whether Hashim should keep choosing the chicken over his wife’s home cooking.

The kids are really the stars of the show, though. Zulfiqur is the youngest of the three, and as a seeming stand-in for the show’s creator/writer/director himself, many of the episodes revolve around him. He’s a great protagonist to root for, and the show manages the balance between making him very funny and keeping him realistically a kid well. From being under the attention of a creepy hair-touching kid at school to having to turn down pepperoni pizza because he can’t eat pork, it’s a lot of fun to navigate through the world of the Matumbila’s through Zulfiqur’s eyes.

Amina is the rebelliously sarcastic teen standout, and though I wish she was featured a bit more often, when she is on the screen it’s usually hilarious, like when she imagines herself taking a stand for what’s right during dinner, or when she tries to lead her brother Rajab away from the bad influences of a popular neighborhood clique. Rajab himself is probably my least favorite of the family, but he’s still funny — the episode where he gets involved in an increasingly escalating music content against their neighbor Terry is great. (Terry keeps on coming back with a new nemesis every time!)

There are minor complaints, like the off-putting overly cartoony sound effects that plague pretty much every episode. Lots of bloops and bleeps that sound more amateur than auteur. The voice acting is solid, for the most part, although the audio mixing of the episodes is a little off, with some characters voices sounding much too loud while others are a bit too quiet.

But for the most part, I’d label The Matumbila’s as a successful start for this young creator. The characters are well defined and have believable and hilarious relationships with each other — a credit to the writing. The show also tackles a number of different topics ranging from racist classmates to overcoming awkward family traditions, all while keeping things light and funny. The Tanzanian-American experience may not be something that most people can relate to, but this show is something most people can enjoy.