Dina Recommends: The Amazing Digital Circus

Well, the finale for The Amazing Digital Circus is out. I actually went to see it in the movie theatre during its limited run, but I still had to catch the YouTube premiere as well. In fact, I watched it twice on Youtube. Which should probably tell you that I liked it.

And there’s a sense of relief here… because there are shows and series where the finale is just such a letdown that it sours the entire show for me in retrospect. (I could mention Tangled: the Series and Steven Universe, both of which I used to absolutely adore, but which had subpar finales that cooled me off on them considerably… Tangled: The Series especially). But The Amazing Digital Circus is not one of those series. The finale has just reinforced my love for the show as a whole. Was it perfect? No. But even if there are bits and pieces I wish they would have done differently, and a few pressing questions about the characters and the world remain unanswered, the show stuck the landing.

(And I’m going to gracefully ignore all the fandom controversies here. The fandom for this show has had its… problems, let’s leave it at that.)

And now that it’s done, I’m finally ready to write another entry for the “Dina Recommends” series!  

So, what is The Amazing Digital Circus? For people who have been paying any amount of attention to the indie animation scene (or the cosplay scene!) it would have been hard to miss this show, but for those of who who haven’t: The Amazing Digital Circus, or TADC for short, is a nine-episode animated series created by American YouTuber and cartoonist Gooseworx, and produced by the independent Australian animation studio, Glitch Productions. And it’s without comparison the most successful independent animated series ever — even Hazbin Hotel hasn’t quite reached this level of success.

It started out as a Youtube series… well, it really still is one… but ever since the first episode was uploaded to Youtube in October 2023, the show has expanded; it’s now also on Netflix, there’s a ton of merch out there, Japan has its own TADC-themed cafes and stores, there’s an ongoing manga adaptation, and as I mentioned in the beginning, the double-length finale was even shown in movie theatres. Limited run, sure, but in cinemas all over the world. Not bad for a quirky little nine-episode horror-dramedy series from an independent animation studio… in fact, TADC has together with Hazbin Hotel been seen as the ultimate slap in the face to the big studios and their carefully-focus-grouped. Streamlined animation series.

The premise is simple enough: Six people have been trapped in a colourful digital world that takes the form of a cartoony circus/carnival, and which is run by a manically cheerful and only slightly unhinged AI named Caine, who styles himself the “ringmaster” of the circus, and who constantly creates weird, wacky and usually VERY unhinged adventures for the people to engage in. His only goal is to entertain them and make them happy… and they WILL be entertained and happy, OR ELSE. (Oh, and like many AIs he’s squeamish about sex and swearing, so any curse words or “untoward” visuals will be censored.)

Creator Cooseworx has openly admitted that TADC is heavily inspired by the Harlan Ellison short story I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, in which five people are constantly tormented by a sadistic and spiteful AI named AM. The initial question that led to the series being something like “What if AM was a friendly and hammy goofball who, instead of intentionally tormenting his captives, was just trying to entertain them and didn’t realize that he was actually making them miserable?” The result is a series which is far less bleak, much more colourful and upbeat, and — it must be said — a lot more POSITIVE than the deeply cynical I Have No Mouth, but with a lot of barely hidden horror, darkness, angst and tragedy underneath the cartoony exterior. 

The characters of TADC are probably why the series caught on so well. They’re a colourful and mostly loveable bunch who used to be normal humans but in the Circus have these immortal and unkillable cartoony avatar bodies. They remember their lives as humans from before they got stuck in the circus, but weirdly none of them can remember their human names, and so they’ve had to adopt new names to fit their new bodies and personas:

• Pomni: The newcomer who joins the Circus in the very first episode, and who essentially becomes the main character, as the series follows her discovering and adjusting to her new existence as a cute little cartoon jester in a surreal cartoon world. Pomni’s essentially the mascot of the series and has been a very popular character among cosplayers, to the point where even people who don’t know anything about the show might remember “that little jester character who shows up everywhere”.
• Jax: The self-declared “funny one”; a purple rabbit in dungarees who acts like a total asshole to everyone and anyone because he thinks it’s funny… and possibly because he has some deep-seated issues he refuses to face or even acknowledge. Jax is divisive among the fans; some people love him for being funny, some people hate him for being mean, some people love him for being funny BECAUSE he’s mean, some people just slide him straight into the “Tumblr Sexyman” category alongside such characters as the Once-ler from The Lorax, Bill Cipher from Gravity Falls, and Alastor from Hazbin Hotel.
• Ragatha: One of the oldest members of the circus; she’s a sweet and sympathetic ragdoll who just wants everyone to get along and has a tendency to turn herself into a bit of a doormat. Ragatha’s also been a bit of a divisive figure among the fandom; some people think she’s engaging in “toxic positivity” (which is echoed by a couple of the other characters in the show who point out that they don’t always know how sincere she’s being), and her low-key enmity with Jax was also divisive… though that reaction eventually subsided and was replaced by outrage that she wasn’t the main character. On a more positive note: Yes, she is visually inspired by Raggedy Anne.
• Gangle: A shy and insecure artist whose body consists only of red ribbons, and whose face is a theatre comedy/tragedy mask — with the comedy mask she’s generally more positive and upbeat, with her tragedy mask she’s more sad and gloomy. And so, a rather cruel running gag is that the comedy mask breaks or gets lost roughly once every episode, usually early in the episode, leaving her only with the tragedy mask. Gangle is Jax’s favourite target for bullying because she’s too timid to stand up for herself, and she’s… probably the closest to how I’d be in the circus. Especially with her passion for art and the hint that behind her cute, soft-spoken presentation she’s got quite a pervy mind and likes to express that through art.
• Zooble: The last person who joined the Circus before Pomni did; a somewhat aloof and grouchy, but generally kind-hearted, non-binary person with a mix-and-match toy body with replaceable limbs. Suffering from body dysphoria, Zooble is always changing their limbs out and looks slightly different in every episode. Zooble swears the most of all the characters (though Pomni is a close second!), they’re the most antagonistic to Caine, and the one who most often refuses to go on the designated adventures… but they’re the most supportive and encouraging to Gangle, and the two develop a very sweet relationship that’s romantic in all but name.  
• Kinger: A chess piece (a king, of course!) in a purple robe, and the oldest member of the crew; Kinger has been stuck in the Circus for the longest, and as a result he’s not all there… constantly confused, forgetful and prone to weird non-sequiturs, but in the right circumstances he’s probably the smartest, kindest and oddly the sanest of all of them, at times taking on an almost fatherly role towards Pomni and Ragatha. Kinger’s probably the most universally beloved character in the series; I don’t think I’ve seen anyone who actually dislikes him, both among fans and characters.  He’s definitely my fave.
• And I suppose we should also include Caine: The ringmaster and AI who runs the circus and basically controls the digital reality like a virtual god. Caine is loud, exuberant, wacky and always performing; he lives for creating adventures and entertaining people. He means well, but his total lack of empathy, fragile ego, inability to accept criticism and tendency to instantly forget anything he considers even vaguely unpleasant, he’s not the most stable of AIs. Caine is usually accompanied by Bubble, a soap bubble with sharp teeth who seems to split his time between voicing Caine’s inner thoughts and just being completely random.

In addition we get a huge number of NPCs created by Caine for the adventures, but most of them play very small parts… the most prominent one is probably Gummigoo the gummi alligator (with Australian accent), but you also have the Sun and the Moon, and that… fish NPC who’s not actually that prominent, but he did get a moment in the theatrical release where he told the audience to please not record this movie as it would be up on Youtube for free soon anyway.

And then there are the previous members of the Circus, who are no longer around. See, while the characters can’t actually die, they can experience a process that’s essentially like death — Abstraction. That’s when they completely break down, give up and give in to despair and hopelessness, and lose their minds, thoughts and individualities to become many-eyed, rampaging, shadowy blob monsters who just mindlessly rampage until Caine locks them away in the cellar. There’s no cure for this and no way of bringing the Abstracted back to who they were, so the only thing the characters can do is to try and keep from getting Abstracted in the first place. This is what happens to Kaufmo the Clown in the very first episode, Ribbit the Frog some time before that, and Kinger’s wife Queenie even before that… so they don’t appear other than on pictures and in flashbacks.

Now, while Pomni is essentially the main character of the series, with Jax and Caine emerging as the most important secondary mains, especially in the latter half of the series… TADC is actually very good at giving attention to all the characters. Every single character gets at least one moment in every single episode; even Gangle and Zooble who arguably have the least importance to the overall series, get their turn in the spotlight and even have a developing relationship that turns into a low-key romance. (Despite Gooseworx’s insistence that there was no romance in TADC, the Gangle/Zooble relationship is basically canon at the end… and the credits for the final episode includes a scene that definitely confirms that they’re FUCKING LIKE WEASELS.)

Because in the end, the show is about leaning on each other and finding happiness and meaning in your life even when everything seems meaningless. Humans, even immortal cartoon avatar versions of humans, are social beings and in the end you just have to be there for each other. Pretty much every positive thing that happens in TADC comes from the characters opening up and sharing with each other. 

That’s ultimately what I take away from TADC. Sure, it’s a silly horror-comedy that uses a cute, funny and colourful exterior to mask some REALLY dark stuff, themes of angst and dread and terror… we’ve seen this sort of thing dozens of times, especially in the age of the Internet. But unlike a lot of those other “isn’t this fun and silly AAAGH FOOLED YOU IT’S HORRIFYING!” franchises, TADC seems to want something more than just freaking the audience out. It’s about growth and acceptance… learning how to cope with the things you can’t change and doing your best to change the things you can. 

I can think of worse messages.

It’s also very LGBTQ-friendly, though it’s not the most explicitly so; the biggest LGBTQ representation is the nonbinary Zooble who has a feminine voice, openly goes by they/them pronouns (which even the asshole Jax respects!) and ends up in a non-explicit romance with the female Gangle… buuuut I’d say the final episode hints that SOMETHING is going on between Pomni and Ragatha as well,  and of course there’s the repeated hints that Jax is actually a deeply closeted trans woman (which was confirmed by Gooseworx after the finale, and of course Gooseworx is a trans woman herself). Huh… if I count the Pomni/Ragatha ship (which WASN’T confirmed) and Caine as an AI is probably some form of asexual… I guess the only regular character who’s actually cishet is Kinger. 

I’m fine with that too.

TADC isn’t the sort of show that holds your hand and explains everything. It leaves plenty of things unsaid and even more things up for interpretation. Several questions go completely unanswered, and several questions are only indirectly answered, and you need to actually pay attention in order to get what’s going on or why it’s important. While this does mean that there are a few scenes that happens offscreen that probably would have been better if they’d happened onscreen, and a number of fans complain because they don’t realize the implications or catch the meaning of what’s not being directly said… it is kind of refreshing in a post-CinemaSins world where everything has to be explained in detail to the audience so they possibly couldn’t misinterpret or call out plot holes (looking at YOU, live-action Aladdin remake!) TADC takes the “Eh, if you get it, you get it; if you don’t, that’s not my problem” approach. It’s a show that rewards engaging with it on both an emotional and an intellectual level… and it’s a show that gets better on rewatching because now you see hidden meanings and reasons behind so many of the characters’ actions.

I do still think it would have been better if they’d increased the episode count to ten, so that we could have slowed down SLIGHTLY and inserted some more scenes to explore certain characters and relations more, but all in all I wholeheartedly recommend this show. If you like animation, horror-comedy that mixes heartwarming and unsettling, and complex characters who explore emotional trauma, definitely check it out.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go watch the finale one more time.