The Amazing Digital Circus

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If you put on a strange VR headset, you might get transported to the Amazing Digital Circus: a virtual reality created by an AI ringmaster, Caine.

I'd heard about this from various art-focussed Tumblr blogs, but I wasn't really sure what it was until Riza and I moved in together and they said, "Hey, have you ever seen The Amazing Digital Circus?" There were 6 episodes available back then, with the 7th having only been released maybe a week or so after we started watching. Riza wanted to just watch them one after the other, but I was like "maybe let's save some for later? I mean, there's only 6 episodes." So, yeah. Unlike ATLA (which we kinda blazed through in about 6 or 7 days), we only watched 1 at a time. Mum decided to watch episode 1 with us and she said it gave her nightmares. Quite honestly, that's what it should do.

Don't look at the cutesy artstyle and bright colours and go "hey, kids' show!", because in amongst various other things, the show is an examination of the "existence as a computer simulation" idea. Only, you simply appear in the Circus after putting on a VR headset, retaining basically all your memories except for your name. You are then thrust into a computer program's idea of entertainment as you come face-to-face with your own fears, but don't have an existential meltdown! If you spend too much time thinking about escape, you'll drive yourself to Abstraction, becoming functionally dead, trapped forever in a dark hole somewhere in cyberspace.

The unique bit about The Amazing Digital Circus, relative to everything else on the video log, is how easy it is to skate along on the surface level, only interacting with the episodes based on what is readily obvious. However, looking under the surface, even a little, will pull you right down into the characters' own fears and neuroses. You'll begin to feel Pomni's panic suddenly being confronted by a flowerpot with collision issues, Kaufmo's obsession with finding an exit, Pomni's frustration with throwing doors open only to find more rooms full of office supplies, that sort of thing. And that's just the 1st episode. If you stick around until the 2nd episode, it may just throw everything you've ever believed about your life into complete disarray.

Hell, if you stick around until the ninth episode, it might unlock the floodgates to all the regrets and sorrow you've ever had, kinda like it did to me.

8/10 stars.

The n-2 rating is mostly for content. The overarching theme of the piece is captivity in a digital toybox, and humans are the toys. On the surface, however, it's a rare display of Unreal Engine 5 as something other than a hyperrealistic military shooter game. It just goes to show, you don't need a triple-A film studio to create a series of humourous, thought-provoking, and tear-jerking animated films (lookin' at you here, Disney, with your totally unnecessary Toy Story franchise). Anyway, if you're into psychological horror and character drama, presented as a cutesy cartoon, The Amazing Digital Circus is there for you. Along with all the marketable plushies, stickers, and other ironic capitalistic derivatives you can buy.