Hope Remains for Blood of Zeus Season Two

Earlier this year, my Reddit feed was buzzing about a new Netflix show: Blood of Zeus. Curious, I decided to watch the show’s trailer and—as a Percy Jackson devotee with an admiration for Ancient Greek mythology—was ecstatic afterward; I could not wait for the show’s debut!

Alas, on October 27th, my eyes lit up in excitement as I saw all eight episodes of Blood of Zeus on the television screen before me. My shaky fingers grasped the TV remote, and I uttered a desperate plea into the air before hitting “play”: please, please be worth it.

The first episode started, and immediately, I was intimidated by the music;

the thunderous opening with the flurry of the violins and heavenly choral voices made my heart pound! Right off the bat, I fell in love with the animation; the sharp features of characters reminded me of Ancient Greek statues, which especially helped to emphasize the subtle regality of the gods in the show. The voice-overs were also noteworthy; Blood of Zeus’s voice acting showed that American cartoons are able to take on serious shows, which is rare in our dominantly satire cartoon industry. Furthermore, the soulful voice acting helped illustrate the main themes of the show: revenge, infidelity, and power. Throughout the show, people are portrayed using their power and status to achieve revenge—a case where the end justifies the means.

The animation sequences from the show make me reconsider watching it again this holiday break. My favorite scenes would be when Hermes runs all over Greece, Olympus, and the Underworld. The animation as he runs through valleys and leaps on mountains, and the sound effects of him speeding through the clouds and slowing down as he reaches his destination are enthralling. I gained a lot of awe toward Hermes because of these.

As each scene transitioned to the next, I noted the consistencies with Greek mythology: the gods, Olympus, the Amazonians, poleis, automatons, Titans, Greek armor and weapons, pegasi, the Fates, and the Underworld. However, the show did not always follow Greek mythology accurately—which I expected. For example, the main protagonist, Heron, is an original character to the show and does not appear in Greek myth. The show follows Heron on his journey to being an esteemed hero. Another difference from Greek mythology are the antagonists, who are demons that terrorize the poleis that also do not appear in Greek myth. However, this difference does not bother me as they serve to progress and deepen the plot fairly well. It was entertaining to watch a show about Greek mythology without knowing what was next, which kept me looking forward to each episode.

Going off of the show’s inconsistencies with Greek myth, I found that the climax of the plot (which I will not go into too much detail for the sake of spoilers) really strayed away from Greek mythology. Was I a little bothered by it? Yes, but there were some other things that I was more disappointed about.

With its short episodes, I had a feeling that the show would be rushed. The first few episodes gave me no reason to harbor that concern, but as the show reached the end, I felt like a lot of things were undeveloped and ignored. For example, in the beginning of the show, there was a lot of build up to a sword that Zeus crafted for Heron. By the end, Heron seldom used it and the show brought it up too little for any symbolic value. However, I remember always being immersed in the show since there were little to no scenes used as fluff to fill up time.

My main problem with the show is that there were little appearances from other gods, which could honestly just be the result of rushed production. With one of my favorite Greek goddesses being Athena, I was surprised by her lack of appearance. Much warfare and training occurred in the show, yet she only appeared in about two scenes and said a few words that were insignificant to the plot. Artemis, my favorite Greek goddess, could have also taken a larger role in battles being the goddess of the hunt, but, like Athena, she barely appeared. The show surprisingly had a lot of appearances from Hermes and Apollo, who had more scenes in battle than Artemis and Athena, which is weird because Hermes and Apollo were not gods related to warfare. A slight problem I had with the show is how it is officially promoted as an anime, which can be misleading to many viewers. I found this especially odd since Blood of Zeus was animated by Powerhouse Animation Studios, an American-based company, and is written and produced by Charley and Vlas Parlapanides, who are also American. Calling it an anime would mean that the show was, for the most part, produced in Japan, which it is not. But as I mentioned earlier, it is only a slight problem and does not alter my opinion of the show in any way.

Earlier this month, Netflix announced its renewal for a second season for Blood of Zeus. As for a release date, it is still unknown when the second season will air and how many episodes there will be. I have hope that much improvement will be made in the second season, which I think can be achieved by producing more than eight episodes a season. Though the first season was a little shaky and kind of generic in the way that it follows the hero archetype, I still highly recommend the show, especially if you are into action, adventure, and fantasy! There are few animated shows based on Greek mythology, and as a fan of Greek mythology and animated shows, I thoroughly enjoyed watching Blood of Zeus.