‘Mighty Nein’ Still Brings the Fun of ‘Critical Role’ to Animation

Having spent three seasons adapting its first campaign, Vox Machina, for animation, the Critical Role team has now expanded that focus to include its second outing, Mighty Nein. That this show exists on Prime Video carries an extra weight owing to the Actual Play campaign progressing as the team was also crowdfunding what would become the animated Vox series, bringing everything full circle.

Comparisons between this and Vox are inevitable, but the general idea behind Nein is it’s meant to serve as a darker counterpart to its more adventurous, lighthearted predecessor. Though it retains Vox’s anime-like art style and generally solid animation—save for when it gets a little looser during simple physical movements or lip flaps, which never stops being jarring—there’s a noticeably grimier vibe to what goes on throughout the eight-episode season. Even the gore and violence, which hits the same overall level as Vox, takes on a different tenor here that’s owed to characters’ brutality and the lack of gleeful joy they’re having in dishing it out. It’s a fun show, but no one’s really having fun, unless it’s at the expense of someone they don’t like.

That’s not to say Mighty Nein is all misery; there’s still jokes, and the show’s mostly good about when to use them. For fans of Critical Role or those who came onboard with the first animated series, Nein retains the general energy that’s defined the franchise over the last decade, even as the creators have also clearly put the effort into ensuring it can stand on its own two feet. The various tweaks and remixes to the source material help, but an even bigger boon is the extended length: at 45-50 minutes each, episodes have more time to let threads play out, or just let the characters breathe in a way Vox can’t always allow with its 20-30 minute runtimes. A few more episodes would always be appreciated, but the length feels like the right amount for this series. 

Early episodes get off on the right foot by focusing on the Nein in separate groups before bringing the team together, after which the rest of the season gets to hit the ground running letting them bounce off one another. The main cast all slip comfortably into the early days of these characters they’ve inhabited for so long like no time’s passed at all. (Given the Nein’s made repeat appearances in the years since their campaign wrapped, including just a month ago, that’s technically true.) For the most part, everyone’s used equally and they’re all afforded moments that’ll please longtime fans and get new ones invested in them, particularly two of the Nein who’ve been redeployed in ways that feel right, but will undoubtedly reflect how their live show counterparts were handled.

Mighty Nein’s voice actors are also its creators, so there are moments and character beats that were often running jokes in the live show now treated with a touch more seriousness here. In seeing the alcoholism of goblin rogue Nott (Sam Riegel) not be treated like a gag, or for the strife between rookie monk Beau (Marisha Ray) and wizard Caleb (Liam O’Brien) to drive much of the story, you can understand how and why the team opted to rework these characters for the new medium. No one is really betrayed by the jump to animation, and the choices made here allow for stronger tonal consistency that puts the Nein members on a bit more equal footing, since so much of the season is about them coming together.

What works less consistently is what information it doles out about these characters. One of the deviations made from the campaign is introducing audiences to Essek (Matthew Mercer) and Trent Ikithon (Mark Strong), a pair of supporting players who don’t show up until later into the story. Their reasons for being here so early make sense, expanding the series’ scope and showing the Nein have unknowingly gotten caught up in something much bigger than themselves. The inclusion of these characters, and fellow supporting antagonists like Astrid (Ivanna Sakhno) and Eadwulf (Redchild), lead to some of the show’s strongest moments, and the latter two look dynamite in the action scenes. 

But for fans of the live show, it may feel like a sense of discovery has been lost. Plot elements meant to pay off later in the campaign are introduced well in advance here, allowing the show to plant flags so certain members of the Nein can just take center stage in future seasons when needed. The balance feels a little off, though—it makes sense to tease at what’s to come for some characters, others come off a bit too premature, almost as if the animated show is afraid that playing too coy will make newcomers and fans lose interest or write that person off as unnecessary.

These problems likely existed in Vox Machina as well for those who loved that campaign. But for those who came up on the Mighty Nein’s exploits, the campaign that’s arguably why Critical Role persists to this day, the lack of character ambiguity may stand out. This may just be an issue of how the season is structured: whereas Vox seasons have ended with the characters reaching some kind of conclusion, either as a group or individually, that’s not really the case here. While the way things end make a for compelling hook into the future, this feels like the first half of a season rather than a story fully told—which potentially speaks to the confidence (or hope) the show’s creators have that this’ll be seen through to the end. 

That confidence isn’t misplaced; the Critical Role team has made good television in the past, and Mighty Nein is more of that, just a bit scrappier. It exists within that comfortable space this franchise does, often by design, where you tune in every week to watch characters and actors you like get into one situation after another. And with the year winding down, it couldn’t have come at a more perfect time.

The first three Mighty Nein episodes hit Prime Video on November 19, with new episodes airing weekly.

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