Do These Characters Have The Courage To Face Their Ghosts?

Posted on by Karandi
Voice of Fox Episode Review Title

Voice of Fox Episode 8 Review

Even as Hu Li thinks it is all over, a surprise is headed his way when Hetian challenges him in the finals. Caught by this surprising announcement, Hu Li is taken even further by surprise when he is literally carried away in a sack. Once again the drama of this show is slightly ill-balanced against its more humorous moments and Hu Li getting rolled out of the hospital and knocked silly in the process wasn’t exactly the best this show has had to offer, even if it did transition us smoothly to the next part of the show.

Voice of Fox Episode 8 - Crowd

We’ve finally been given a motive for Sky’s actions as well as the reasons for certain other characters acting suspicious. The one thing we don’t have is clear confirmation as to who Sky is, though the suspect list is pretty low at this point in time so I’m kind of thinking my earlier thoughts are correct. I’d happily be proven wrong but I’m pretty sure we’re out of time for another twist in this story.

Voice of Fox Episode 8 Hu Li

However, in order to take up Hetian’s challenge, Hu Li is going to have to get over his sense of inferiority and that idea that he doesn’t deserve to be on the stage or live his dreams. It might seem pretty straight forward but Sky was not the only ghost haunting Hu Li and a lot of the drama that has unfolded has been entirely of his own sub-conscious-es making. I’m hoping he does get over it because Voice of Fox has taken me on an emotional ride and I really want Hu Li to have his moment even if he doesn’t win.

Voice of Fox Episode 8 Kong Que

That said, Hu Li isn’t the only character with ghosts to face. Kong Que is coming to terms with the fact that it was he who needed Hu Li and that without a ghost singer, he might as well be a ghost, and he isn’t taking it well. It certainly sets up a rocky future and I’m thinking this isn’t the last we’re going to see of the now dumped idol.

Still, the preview for next week looks like it is going to delve into the past of these characters and I’m hoping that then clears the way for a final run to the end with more singing and less angst. Not so much because the drama hasn’t been fun, but more that I’m ready for these characters to get a little bit of happiness and want them to get a happily ever after. Or at least an ever after.

Can Hu Li Actually Conquer Sky’s Terribly Twisted Challenge?

Posted on by Karandi
Voice of Fox Episode Review Title

Voice of Fox Episode 5 Reivew

I’m a little torn here because I do genuinely feel for Hu Li. He needs money for his mother’s hospital bills and he is clearly working hard having signed a contract that gives him almost no advantage other than the money to pay those bills. However, at the same time, I kind of feel a lot of his current troubles have been brought on by his own actions. He did in fact violate the terms of the contract (terrible terms though they may be) and now he’s on the edge of being revealed because of his individual work that he’s been posting and while Sky is definitely a factor, Hu Li could have been a lot more careful.

Voice of Fox Episode 5 - Hu Li

Still, he’s young, he’s passionate, and he was also clearly desperate. And this is where the torn factor comes in. Voice of Fox does an excellent job of making you want Hu Li to succeed while at the same time gives you plenty of reason to doubt his character has the strength to succeed. That makes it even more of a tense watch because while the villains of the piece seem obvious, the question becomes whether Hu Li would actually succeed even without the restrictions he’s been dealt.

Voice of Fox Episode 5 - Sky

I’m wondering if the identity of Sky is supposed to be obvious, or if we’re being given a red-herring. It seems like it is clear who it must be at this point and yet that feels like it would be too cheap and trite in the end. That, and it wouldn’t be much of a reveal at this point. I’m kind of hoping something happens next episode to make it clear that we’ve been being mislead and make us reconsider the options, but part of me doesn’t feel like this show is really going for that.

All things considered, Voice of Fox remains a very solid character driven drama. And while the drama might be melodrama at times and there has been a lot of contrivance to get us to this point, there’s sufficient deft handling of the emotions of Hu Li and he comes across as a reasonably believable teen well in over his head that it remains pretty compelling viewing.

Here’s hoping it does something cool next week and in the meantime I’d love to know your thoughts on this one if you’ve been following it.<a title="HYPERDIMENSION NEPTUNIA: BLACK HEART DRESS VER." href=" <a href=" data-mce-href="

Voice of Fox Episode 4: Is Hu Li Losing His Resolve?

Posted on by Karandi
Voice of Fox Episode 4

This week we see that Sky’s provocations have gotten under Hu Li’s skin far more than it might have seemed at first. Whether he is in the classroom or performing, he can’t get the his conjured image and voice of Sky out of his head and it is having an impact on his performance.

Fox4a

While they may have scraped the victory through this round, it wasn’t by Hu Li’s voice. This time the credit is entirely on the fact that the opponent suddenly lost their voice mid-performance and while it was pretty obvious why even before they revealed it, it is a pretty scummy move. The only question is how many people are in on the current conspiracy and how high does it go.

Fox4d

As for Hu Li, he has bigger problems because his confidence is a little shaken and he’s becoming increasingly paranoid. Not to mention, his friend from school who also happens to be an idol, has kind of outed his mysterious online persona so it all seems like things are going to get messy.

Fox4c

I’m still having immense fun with this one. It isn’t perfect but for a weekly short it works well enough and I’m genuinely intrigued. It would be nice if they sang a different song given round after round singing the same thing has to get boring even for the audience, but apparently we’re just sticking with what we know.

Voice of Fox Episode 3: Relying on Coincidence, Mishap and Luck

Posted on by Karandi

I’m just going to admit I really had fun with this episode even though realistically for a thirteen minute episode quite a bit of this was wasted time. We catch up with Hu Li trying to sneak into the venue for the whole competition thing and the whole time he was doing this, I just had to wonder why the company didn’t take pains to get him an actual pass as one of the crew or something else. It seems ridiculous to expect him to find his own way in and avoid security. And it lends itself to a lot of silly moments that just kind of eat up screen time and rely very much on coincidence and the absurd for things to work out.

Voice of Fox Episode 3

Kong Que on the other hand is a character I’m getting to dislike more and more. While I can kind of accept the whole ghost voice thing for an idol, the fact that he can’t even manage an amusing or entertaining stall is just kind of sad. He cracks so quickly under the pressure of Hu Li not being there and has no back up plan and insufficient charisma to really do anything.

Voice of Fox Episode 3
This guy is the judge and he’s asking a lot.

Naturally though, Hu Li does eventually get to the stage at least and due to a nicely timed black out (not sure whether that was the mysterious SKY or someone else who arranged it but again, good work with the coincidence) Hu Li manages to stand behind Kong Que to perform. Without the microphone or back-up music. And I must say it was a very nice performance before he quickly ran away and the lights came back on.

Voice of Fox Episode 3

So while I still am having a great time with this, the story plausibility keeps going down and while that isn’t really a problem, it also means that you just kind of end up hand waving a lot of points and so the actual ability for this story to leave a lasting impression is diminishing. Still, fun enough for thirteen minutes a week.

Voice of Fox Episode 2: It Isn’t Paranoia When They Are Watching

Posted on by Karandi
Voice of Fox Episode 2

There isn’t anything overly new here and the story plays out this week more or less as expected after the introduction last week. We learn a bit about Hu Li’s tragic back story though the specifics are still not clear giving them plenty to lean into later should they choose to. We also learn more about how he ended up in his current Ghost Singer arrangement, and could they make the company and the contract seem any creepier.

Voice of Fox Episode 2

But more than that, we see Hu Li going about his day and realise that the blue haired girl from last week knows him so I guess it is pretty easy to see how she figured out what was going on, not that she said anything but that’s neither here nor there. What is interesting is how many blue haired characters are in Hu Li’s life as he searches for his mysterious online stalker Sky. They are probably all red-herrings and the Sky person is probably a red-head but it was still plenty entertaining.

Fox2c

Like the first episode, this one packs a lot in and covers as much ground as most shows to in twenty minutes in twelve, which means there isn’t a lot of down time and subtlety is a little lacking. Still, it is pretty solidly entertaining and as they expand on the cast and concepts I anticipate this being a lot of fun.

Voice of Fox Episode 2

One downside this week, almost no singing. That was kind of a shame.

Voice of Fox Episode 1: Curiosity

Posted on by Karandi
Voice of Fox Episode 1

I have to admit I was curious when I read the description of this one on MAL and then the date it was said to come out came and went and I just assumed nothing I used was going to get it and moved on. Then an episode popped up on Crunchyroll. I’m kind of glad it did because while I was curious about it, I probably wouldn’t have tracked it down after the season was over so watching Voice of Fox now is probably the only way I would have ever seen it.

Voice of Fox Episode 1

I caught zero character names during this first episode but I was still pretty fascinated by the characters. Sure they do that annoying thing where they start with the protagonist at some terrible moment before we go back to see how they get there but that is swiftly forgotten as the fairly solid OP starts and we begin to get a look at the characters in the actual beginning.

Voice of Fox Episode 1

Let me just say, for 13 minutes, this first episode packs in a lot and there is almost no direct narration or exposition to get ideas across. Instead, we see the characters in action, whether that is singing, washing dishes, tripping security staff or whatever else they are doing and it all paints a picture of who these characters are and their role in the story to come. Admittedly, they do hit us with exposition at the end of the episode, but still this was a fairly solid effort and I was pretty caught up in the story.

Voice of Fox Episode 1

While I can’t say I’m totally hooked on any of the characters given I can’t even remember their names, I really liked the set up, I took the hook with the whole ‘this message started everything’ melodrama, and so far the music has been really great. I’m going to stick with this one for a bit and see how it goes.