1001 Animations: Meanie Genie

Show: Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures
Episode: S2 E2
Year: 2014

Writer(s): Ken Pontac
Director(s): Moto Sakakibara


I'll be totally honest here, I barely even heard of this show, or really payed attention to it untill it was reccomend to me by someone, if I forgot your name I am truly sorry. This is the very first episode of this show I've watched and so far the only episode I've watched, but even this far in I think I can understand the shows basic concept, so that's pretty good. The theme song itself seems to try to copy from Sonic SatAM, but it comes off more akin to Kirby: Right Back At Ya's English dub theme from 4kids, though nowhere near as obnoxious. From what I've heard the video games based on this series aren't too bad, and the show is definitely more vibrant than the Hanna Barbera show from the 80s with Marty Ingle as Pac. Now onto this particular episode:


Genie plots are one of my all-time favorite plot types, they have room for all sorts of potential when it comes to granting wishes, and the wishes backfire in pretty unexpected ways, hence why Fairly Oddparents was such a good show. The genies can range from average joes, to tricksters to total bitches like Jean here or Norm, from Fairly Oddparents. Speaking of Norm, the biggest problem with this plot were brought up by him in Fairy Idol: the three wishes are usually as follows: 


1. Something really stupid, like a giant sandwich, which is exactly what Pac's first wish is, though they do deal with it pretty hilariously.


2. Something involving money, power and corruption, I assure you they don't go that route. And I can easily cross 3 off the list as well, which is the biggest problem with genie plots as a whole, I WISH I NEVER MET YOU! When you do the latter, it comes off as extremely insulting, especially if it results in the masters mind getting erased having them learn nothing from their endeavors, Fairly Idol is one of the only times this never came off as insulting, because they do this reset button "fairly" often but have Timmy still learn.


Jean is an alpha bitch done very well and seeing her wreak havoc reminded me a lot of Discord. It was also cool seeing the ghosts invade and have Jean be a part of a bigger scheme. I won't spoil anything else, but I will say the final battle with Jean is very good, they even managed to make a clever and actually hillarious fart joke out of it, I won't say how. This is probably one of the best genie plots I've ever seen since Danny Phantom's takes on the plot, and seeing it come from such an under the radar show surprised me even more.


Pac-Man is owned by Bandai-Namco Games.

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