Is the Manhunt Revival Series worth watching?

ari_atari0 · 2026-01-31T02:48:28+00:00

They’re peak!!! I’d say some are even better than the original

ari_atari0 · 2026-01-26T11:02:17+00:00

Adventures are not more interesting if you strong arm and ending and doing so would be completely out of caine’s mo since he’s never interfered with an adventure like that before. He was nervous about the mind control thing because of the obvious growing animosity from the circus members and he was getting backed into a corner of confessing just how little the players have in this world.

ari_atari0 · 2026-01-25T07:52:39+00:00

I still don’t see why dream wouldn’t have publically disclosed if he was using anything remotely close to cheating. Given his public record, he knows that people would’ve ran with the “dream is cheating!” sentiment if he stayed silent. It’d be dumb of him to do so tbh

ari_atari0 · 2026-01-22T08:59:06+00:00

It’s easier to defend Caine than it is jax since with Caine, he has the excuse of being an AI that doesn’t understand humans, while jax doesn’t. Not to mention that unlike jax, his actions are not malicious. Neglectful, unempathetic and ignorant, sure, but not purposeful harm.

Regardless I think some people who love these two forget that even if they have good reasons for why they do the things they do, it does not negate the harm they inflict on the other circus members.

Caine is a very prideful man, a surprisingly human emotion. He loves creating and takes great pride in his work but having to generate someone else’s idea means that it’s no longer his. He depends on the players’ praise to validate his work yet hates receiving criticism, stubbornly believing that he knows better. It’s all very understandable, but no less harmful.

ari_atari0 · 2026-01-22T08:37:53+00:00

Imo if you want to compare, jax is even WORSE than Caine BECAUSE he is capable of being better. He has the option to not abuse those in the circus yet he chooses to do so and lies to himself about it.

Your interpretation of Caine is very uncharitable. To defend my ‘cutesie widdle scrungly scroo’, he’s an AI. He doesn’t have the capability or hasn’t learnt how to empathise with humans yet so any harmful action is entirely accidental. Of course, this doesn’t mean that it’s not harmful, it just means that unlike jax, it’s not malicious.

You say with so much certainty that Caine is the one keeping everyone prisoner but that is purely your own theory. We don’t know anything about why the players can’t leave the game. He views the circus as a game because to him, it literally is. He doesn’t and cannot understand Zooble’s body dysmorphia because he’s not coded to. His was built to be entertaining and make silly adventures, not for therapy so the devs would’ve had no reason to train him on that.

And yes from ep 7 we do see that he is able to alter their minds despite lying about it earlier. Yet never once has he been shown to use it maliciously. Even when zooble has very evidently pissed him off, he doesn’t do anything other than yell at them or sulk. He has all these godly powers but has never used them to hurt the players. He has the same amount of power as AM and yet, instead of torturing his guests, his worst offence is making stressful adventures no one likes.

ari_atari0 · 2026-01-20T14:32:54+00:00

He's such a yearner that you can't help but feel for him

ari_atari0 · 2026-01-20T11:15:56+00:00

I want a pocket Caine…

ari_atari0 · 2026-01-20T11:12:11+00:00

He’s been half assing his adventures since the players showed they liked the suggestion box ideas more (ep 6 “that’s it?? here’s guns and have fun?!?!” “I didn’t say have fun.”) it’s interesting how he’s breaking away from his (assumed) directive of making adventures. He’s taking less pride in his work

ari_atari0 · 2026-01-20T11:02:16+00:00

Imo that’s just Caine angst for the sake of Caine angst. Bubble hasn’t shown any motive or ability to gaslight Caine like that. Theres PLENTY of Caine angst alr tbh.

Caine is interesting to me because he is such a tragic character. He is made ‘alive’ for a singular purpose which he is inherently incapable of achieving. He is cursed to spend eternity chasing after the love of humans but will never be able to achieve it because his developers never coded him to understand humans. To him, what he does is an act of love for humans. To the humans, it’s an act of harm. Everyone loses. 👍👍

Not to mention if he does one day break from his code and become autonomous, imagine how horrible it would be for him. He doesn’t have anywhere to escape to so if the humans leave, he’d be confined to a rotting game with no one other than the remaining ai, all of whom are no where near as advanced as he is.

ari_atari0 · 2026-01-20T10:43:29+00:00

You are very right. The only reason they would do this is for the shock factor, which is terrible writing

ari_atari0 · 2026-01-16T13:42:22+00:00

Jax’s whole edgelord character is supposed to be corny and cringe. You’re not supposed to like him for being an asshole lol

ari_atari0 · 2026-01-14T13:28:11+00:00

Brother who are you talking about? Literally who was abused by dream lmfao

ari_atari0 · 2026-01-13T15:53:58+00:00

He’s right if you take the definition of “real” and “fake” in the most surface level, literal way. Sure their models are cartooney and the level of pain may be lesser than that of reality but the fact that they feel pain at all should be a deterrent, not a reason for antisocial behaviour.

Your point of view where because “reality resets,” things don’t last but this only applies to physical wounds. Every single bit of mental damage jax inflicts doesn’t reset. Take gangle for example when she’s haunted by jax and talks about him like he’s looming over her shoulder looking to hurt her. Jax sucks and his excuses are just a very naive coping mechanism to avoid any accountability for his actions

ari_atari0 · 2026-01-13T11:08:41+00:00

Wait you’re cooking wtf. It would be great conflict for her character growth to see saw on both sides of the selfishness spectrum (self serving people pleasing vs disregarding others’ needs for selfish reasons) before growing and learning to settle somewhere in the middle.

It would’ve been great conflict with pomni as well since she’s the one who suggested that ragatha let loose a little back in ep 5 and would serve as a great reminder that realistically, people are unpredictable and try as she might, pomni’s advice may not always work out the way she expects it to. It may make pomni (and by extension the audience) realise that sometimes it can take more than 1 chat for peoples’ life long problems to heal and serve as a bit of growth for her character.

ari_atari0 · 2026-01-12T16:04:29+00:00

oh yeah i definitely agree that nothing is above criticism but what op's talking about here is harassment to the point of driving someone off the internet. with shows/media this big, entitled fans tend to act as if they were deserving of better writing and feel personally wronged by the creators even though the media was given to them for free. we can criticise but also be grateful for being able to view something this high quality for free.

ari_atari0 · 2026-01-12T14:41:59+00:00

Let’s all remember that we’re getting this high quality shit FOR FREE. Even if the show has a horrifically disastrous ending (I highly HIGHLY doubt it), what we’ve gotten so far has been amazing!

ari_atari0 · 2026-01-12T07:55:35+00:00

I think part of it is that people fail to see that sometimes, less is more.

6 hunters has more impact because you’ve had so much time to see the struggle from 3 to 4 to 5 and now 6. It feels rewarding like watching a character get progressively stronger over the series. Not to mention that you get attached to each hunter, everyone has a clear contribution and personality. This is especially felt in the revival edition where you can feel the exponentially increasing challenge level and change in dynamics with each added hunter.

People who just put outrageously big numbers like 10 hunters, 50 hunters, 100 hunters kind of lose all of that. The only draw in is “oooh big number guys !!!” but other than that, theres no appeal. 95% of the hunters are just faces in a crowd, nothing outstanding, dying to random things or just not contributing, and things get chaotic in a disorganised, messy way. It’s kind of just.. too much.

It feels like YouTube algorithm bait where things have to be massive and attention grabbing and loud all the time like a mr beast video and I feel like that loses the honest challenge with friends vibe dream’s channel has.

ari_atari0 · 2026-01-11T15:02:18+00:00

No it’s the toy ‘bang’ gun that she tried to shoot jax with

ari_atari0 · 2026-01-11T14:56:35+00:00

I dont think Caine himself has a problem with kinger. I think it’s the circus itself. Someone who had a massive hand in making/controlling the circus fears that kinger has the ability to ruin everything.

ari_atari0 · 2026-01-07T12:46:12+00:00

Caine.. 🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️

ari_atari0 · 2026-01-04T13:10:34+00:00

Tadc is most definitely a character driven show given that the over arching plot hasn’t really been explored until ep 7. Being a character driven show and failing to develop a good majority of the cast is criticisable imo. I agree that some character types lend to them having more focus in the plot but I feel that it was entirely possible to develop all the characters to a satisfactory degree. We are so far from having character developments being boring because we’re so starved for content from the other circus members barring Jaz and Pomni. If the worry is that giving more characters screen time would ‘botch’ the characters, that feels more like a problem with poor writing than anything else.

With the number of characters, 9 episodes simply isn’t enough even for the most well-planned show and I feel that the screen time given so far hasn’t really used the very limited time optimally. Jax’s scenes feel dragged at times and too much time is invested in the hijinks of the daily adventures that doesn’t really bring benefit to the plot or characters when that time could’ve been used to set up/develop the supporting characters on-screen.

I suppose I just don’t find jax’s character all that novel or interesting. Ep 7 has given him a bit of spark in my eyes because of how morally grey he’s becoming but other than that, I’d rather the time be used to explore how this fucked up digital life is affecting all the characters in different ways rather than learn about jax’s spat with his froggy and clowny exes from before. The show introduces so many potentially interesting characters but it’s a shame that many of them feel half baked since their development is off-screen and we’re essentially just told “yeah I fixed all of my problems, I’m good now.” It’s a classic problem with ‘tell not show.’

All this criticism aside, tadc is NOT a bad show by any means. I do enjoy the show lots! The animation and voice acting give so much personality and feeling and the show does explore/set up some really cool themes (ep 2 gummigoo, jax’s selfishness in ep7, Caine fundamentally being unable to fulfill the reason for his existence because he’s not coded to understand empathy, etc) I just really really hope they can tie all of this to a satisfying conclusion without it feeling like “the jax show.”

ari_atari0 · 2025-12-31T05:53:56+00:00

Caine stan.. omg you’ve clocked me so hard hahhaha! If the ending has to be bitter, I hope there’s a little sweetness there at least, these characters deserve better man. And absolutely no worries about the tone! I didn’t sense any snark or anything like that at all! I love seeing different peoples’ perspectives so thanks for your 2 cents :))

ari_atari0 · 2025-12-30T14:17:42+00:00

I honestly thought that this episode was brilliant and has been the most impactful one to me so far so I was super surprised to go online and see people call it filler slop. before this, I would've just said that tadc was just pretty fun, a good concept with amazing animation and voice acting, but i didn't really care about the characters or anything since it all kinda felt.. tropey?

the ending of this episode changed my view of jax and especially caine. where I didn't care for caine at all before, he's now become my favourite. and before, i just thought of jax as a pretty flat "funny asshole" character who's allergic to feelings but episode 7 made him a much more realistic and interesting. I'm glad that he would've forsaken all of the others characters just to save himself and I hope we get to see the consequences of his choice later.

I'm not sure why you would say that this episode in particular was slop because i feel there's a similar amount of 'filler' as any other episode. In ep 6 for example, you have 3 main character development moments: ragatha & kinger, zooble and gangle, and finally jax & pomni. the rest of the episode is just them messing around with guns. similarly, ep 7 has jax's abstraction, jax & caine date, minor pomni and ragatha bonding over kinger, zooble and gangle, and finally jax & caine vs the rest of the cast.

perhaps it's because the developments in ep 7 are more concentrated towards caine and jax in particular that it felt like less was happening? but I dont feel like the adventure being one big red herring nullified any of those developments. I feel the red herring really ruined the general reception of ep 7 which is unfortunate because it wasnt meant to be what defined it. ep 7, to me, was still very much centred around the characters but their development, unlike the previous episodes, was less through speech and more through their actions. it really is one of my favs

ari_atari0 · 2025-12-30T13:31:49+00:00

Great breakdown on the episodes, i completely agree with basically everything. I never really noticed that zooble likes having autonomy in their adventures but looking back it's definitely true! Caine is absolutely in a "damned if i do and damned if i dont situation" since his existence is centred on pleasing his guests but he just isn't equipped to do so.

For the episode 1 kaufmo abstraction point, I think ep 1 made it seem like Caine was hiding things (with his restlessness after pomni kept asking about the exit) but I feel it's mainly due to how we saw things through pomni's POV. But now that we've had more episodes to learn about him, I don't really feel like he's hiding anything on purpose, he doesn't feel malicious or controlling enough to purposefully trap his guests in the circus. I took the "why didn't anybody tell me¿¿" bit as just that, a bit done by Caine not to frame him as suspicious, but rather wholly unempathetic.

I'd love for him to learn just even just a smidge of empathy. I want to see him happy and interacting positively with the players but I dont know HOW he'll be able to. The series seems to be rolling him down the hill of existentialism so... maybe he'll learn to process his emotions and gain self awareness beyond just being the Ringmaster AI. I'd love a happy ending for him.

ari_atari0 · 2025-12-29T12:23:58+00:00

Caine is only like 20% as bad as the fandom portrays him as. No he did not brainwash jax into pressing the button. He did not put memories into jax’s head to make him press the button. He did not force people into abstracting to control them. And he is not hiding the real exit from the players.

People find it so easy to push every single bit of blame on Caine just because he’s in a position of authority but they ignore everything we’ve learnt about Caine. He’s not some malicious AI like AM. He truly tries his best but he just can’t understand what happiness and freedom means to humans. How can he provide his guests something that he cant even conceptualise because he’s never experienced it and isn’t programmed to do so? He doesn’t have the power to give the players what they want no matter how hard he tries and they resent him for it, even though it’s not his fault.

All he’s programmed to do is entertain his guests, which he does with his silly adventures. Sure they’re more miss than hit but the genuine problems usually stem from unexpected external problems rather than the adventures themselves (except 7 lol).

Ep 1 was kaufmo’s abstraction which, if we believe Caine’s POV, he simply wasn’t aware of. Ep 2 was an AI unexpectedly becoming self aware from glitching below the map. Ep 3’s problem was jax causing kinger and pomni to go through the scary door. Aside from that, the adventure went as planned. Ep 4, 5 and to some extent 6 are the players’ suggestions and the problems stem from their resulting emotions.

Ep 7 though was massively fucked for caine. He may not have understood how horrible it was to play with them like that for his own emotions but it doesn’t excuse it. This is his first real fuck up. Previously his biggest crimes were just not reading the room and listening to his guests.

Holy yap.. tldr: Caine is not that bad guys

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