Hilda

Hilda is one of those characters whose place is right next to Mikulas, Pipi, Calvin and similar rascals with an insurmountable imagination, who connects with everyone who has at least a tiny part of child's soul inside them, regardless of age. This is true about the original comic book as well as this literal translation / redrawing into the form of an animated series, which adapts the first four stories (published in two albums in the Czech Republic), enriched with a few new story lines. The specificity of the world on the border of children's imagination and Nordic fairy tales is preserved, as well as scout adventures. Compared to the originals, there is no greater emphasis on explaining and fully depicting the rules of Hilda's world, but this is not replaced by a larger number of adventures and mischievous, clever ideas. As in the originals, the better the illustrator Pearson is, the better his depiction of situations and dialogs, the more trouble he often has with the overall framing of the story and its conclusion. He can work wonderfully with the rules and specifics of his world, build on them. He skillfully connects seemingly unrelated information and form a closed unified story and… And if I were a quibbler, I would say that despite all the adult sophistication hidden in childish playfulness and mischief, we can repeatedly see obvious deus ex machin in the conclusions. The biggest shortcoming of the adaptation, however, is paradoxically the (magnificent if being alone) animatization, which eliminates perhaps Pearson's greatest advantage; the inimitable art of leading and aptly depict situations purely with a picture from window to window. | S1: 4/5 | (23/09/2018)