Review: Tigtone “Tigtone and His Manless Match; Tigtone and the Cemetery of the Dead”

Heartfelt storytelling? In my Tigtone? “Over my dead body!”

Overview

In “Tigtone and His Manless Match,” Tigtone’s eyes meet with a woman who was journaling at the same time he was — about the same adventure he was about to pursue. The woman, Beconka, duels with him over who will get to have their weapon enchanted by the local giant’s magic heart. The two are so alike in personality, they race each other into the giant’s heart, fighting and reveling in each other’s spirit all the way. The giant tells them they must give over a piece of their souls to have their weapons enchanted, to which they nonchalantly agree. After returning home, they find Helpy murdered Beconka’s arrogant sidekick, Jacques, but nothing of value was lost. Tigtone and Beconka both emotionally part from one another, having their own adventures to pursue — but they fight on in the giant’s heart.

The gang has a mystery to solve in “Tigtone and the Cemetery of the Dead,” when teens are being murdered at a warrior training camp. Tigtone drinks a “temporary death” potion to go to the underworld and interview the murdered teens, but a mysterious cloaked figure convinces him that he was the murderer. After Tigtone turns himself in, Helpy discovers that the real murderer was the groundskeeper — son of a cloaked dead serial killer, Cryptomb, who sought revenge on Tigtone for killing him. Tigtone hangs him and CJ in the underworld and lets Helpy go to the big dance.

Our Take

So far in Tigtone, “gameplay” mechanics and parody-based dialogue have been the driving factor for the plot — but in these two episodes, things were shaken up a bit by the introduction of a great new character and a classic murder mystery.

“Tigtone and His Manless Match” was a genuinely adorable watch (even with Helpy’s brutal murder of Jacques.) It was a nice change of pace from the usual lighthearted, fun. While the usual episode tends to think with its “fists,” the sentimental route it took when it came to Tigtone and Beconka’s relationship literally emphasized their nature as soulmates in the end, when they are parted but their souls are destined to always duel each other in the heart of the giant. Beconka was a great character that needs to make a comeback — but if not, the closure was definitely satisfying in the most literary way.

“Tigtone and the Cemetery of the Dead” had its fair share of gags, but also had its own meaningful takeaways. It was an episode that truly outlined Tigtone’s character as a hero, turning himself in when he thought he was the murderer. It was an episode that made the viewer cheer for Tigtone, as none of his usual character flaws portrayed him as anything but a true hero.

From a voice acting standpoint, hearing Cree Summer’s voice is always a treat — however, they may be overusing her when it comes to one-off and reoccurring characters. Many of the characters she’s voiced all sound pretty similar so far, but it could easily be fixed by varying the tone on upcoming ones. In the same vein of complimenting the series’ consistent performance, it would be crazy not to give a shout-out to Nils Frykdahl’s wonderful voice acting work as Tigtone. This appears to be his first big voice acting role — and while his career is more music oriented, it would be unsurprising if this role paved his way to a bigger voice acting career.

Also, Paul Reubens played Cryptomb. AKA, Peewee Herman. Do we need to say more? It was incredible — the show is really nailing it when it comes to guest stars.

So to total up, we have a minor critique of the voice acting, and the usual critique on the animation (hey, it’s a budget thing. What can you do?) Overall, though, the two episodes’ slight deviations from the norm was enough to keep things lively.

Score
8/10