Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire Season 1 Review – A beautifully animated anthology

Episode Guide

Herderboy
MkHuzi: The Spirit Racer
Moremi
Surf Sangoma
First Totem Problems
Mukudzei
Hatima
Stardust
You Give Me Heart
Enkai

Anthology series are a great way of bringing together a medley of creative people and showcasing their talents. Netflix’s Love, Death & Robots has become a staple name for this, while other platforms have tried out a variety of different ideas, like Hulu’s lackluster American Horror Stories and Amazon’s superhero-centered The Boys spin-off. The focus here though is on Disney, as their latest anthology, Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire, delivers a very enjoyable array of bitesize stories.

With a focus solely on African culture, Kizazi Moto blends sci-fi concepts and simple themes into one bombastic show that displays a variety of different ideas and animation styles, all whilst paying homage to African culture. From hand-drawn to fully rendered CGI, the use of colour, lighting and general aesthetic across the 10 episodes is really quite outstanding and definitely deserves some praise.

When it comes to the narratives however, most of what’s here is pretty basic. There’s a couple of episodes that rely solely on big chase sequences (like Mkhuzi and Surf Sangoma) while others do tend to lean on the same message (like Herderboy and Stardust) about defying conventional expectations and rising up. It’s all pretty interesting stuff but there’s nothing particularly groundbreaking here either.

Personally, it would have been nice to see more African myths and legends thrown into this, like the Akan folktale character Anansi, or even seeing the Tokoloshe, malevolent, imp-like spirits. However, this is a minor gripe in what’s otherwise an endearing series overall, one that definitely has some highlights. The animation in Surf Sangoma for example, is uniquely stylised, boasting brief slow-mo shots where the screen turns red after the impact of a strike.

There’s also a couple of neat little narrative twists in here in different episodes, like that seen in Hatima, which takes things in an interesting direction other than what you may be expecting.

Given each episode clocks in at around 15 minutes or so, this is a very easy show to sit through and binge. The episodes are a little similar in their thematic message and narrative flow, and the lack of African Gods and myths is a bit disappointing. However, that’s easy to overlook given the distinct differences in animation style. This isn’t going to crater the animated anthology genre, but it is a thoroughly enjoyable watch all the same.

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