Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures

Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures, also known in Japan as Pac-World, is an animated television series produced by 41 Entertainment, Arad Productions, a partnership between Sprite Animation Studios and OLM, Inc., and Bandai Namco Entertainment for Tokyo MX (stereo version), BS11 (stereo version) and Disney XD (bilingual version). Based on Bandai Namco's Pac-Man video game franchise, it is the second animated series to be based upon the game franchise, following the 1982 TV series. The show aired from June 15, 2013, to May 25, 2015, running for three seasons and 52 episodes.

Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures
The Pac is back, but not in a way you were expecting in his "ghostly" adventures.
Genre: Action Adventure Science fantasy Comedy Animation Superhero Running Time: 22 minutes Country: United States Japan Canada Release Date: June 15, 2013 - May 29, 2015 Network(s): Disney XD Tokyo MX Distributed by: 41 Entertainment Starring: Erin Mathews Sam Vincent Andrea Libman Ashleigh Ball Ian James Corlett Brian Drummond Lee Tockar Matt Hill Seasons: 2 Episodes: 52

Plot

The series takes place on and around the planet Pac-World as well as its Nether-World. Pac-Man and his best friends, Spiral and Cylindria, attend Maze High School, a boarding school located within the city of Pacopolis. They help to protect citizens from the threat of ghosts after the seal that locked up the Netherworld was accidentally opened by Pac at the time he was avoiding the school bully Skeebo. Ghosts can possess Pac-Worlder bodies although only for a time limit of a few minutes unless aided by Dr. Buttocks' technology. Victims of possession usually are apparent by a red-eyed glow, although this, too, can be prevented with Buttocks' technology.

Pac-Man also has four friendly ghosts (Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde) that surrendered and vowed to help him along his voyage (in exchange for being restored to the living world). Pac-Man vows to stop Lord Betrayus and the ghosts (or any other bad guy) from taking over Pac-World while searching for his long-lost parents. He has the unique ability to eat ghosts and destroy the ectoplasm that makes up most of their bodies. Only their eyeballs survive, which he spits out. They reform their bodies using a regeneration chamber. The ghosts continually attack the city to locate the Repository, a storage chamber for the corporeal bodies of the ghosts which would allow them to live again if they possessed them. It is kept hidden to deny them this freedom and only President Spheros and Pac-Man are aware of its location. The ghosts also attack the Tree of Life to prevent Pac-Man from gaining powers to fight them. Without the powerberries, Pac-Man is not able to fly, breathe in the Netherworld, or enjoy the taste of ghosts.

Bad Qualities

1. Pac-Man went from a gaming icon and now reduced into a glutton who focuses more on food rather than helping others most of the time, at least.
   • Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde are supposed to be enemies in the original 1980 game, yet they are allies of Pac-Man in this show, though it does make sense in context. While making changes to a character is to be expected in an adaptation, reboot, or even a remake, the changes given to these incarnations of the ghosts are too drastic, to the point where they don't feel like they're the ghosts that Pac-Man eats in the original game.
2. The lip-syncing is way off (most likely because the show was made in Japan and then dubbed into English, though other Japan-animated shows don't have this issue too much).
3. The show pretty much relies solely on the edgy teenager cliché for most of the characters.
4. Annoying theme song which makes some of the Pokémon intros look like masterpieces.
5. Flat characters that the writers constantly try to add depth to, but fail.
   • Lord Betrayus is not only a generic and lame villain that rips off Mezmeron from the 1982 TV series and Vlad Plasmius from Danny Phantom, but he is also both a complete man-child and a total crybaby who tends to whine a lot as well. (Also his name most likely wants to "betray" others or his minions, and it's all contradictory since he really doesn't do that.)
     • And the worst of all is that he feels more or less like a modern-day mediocre equivalent of Dr. Ivo Robotnik from Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, King K. Rool from Donkey Kong Country, Team Rocket from Pokémon, and/or King Koopa from both The Super Mario Bros. Super Show and The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3; four villains that are genuinely funny with their cartoonishly evil personas 16 to 24 years that came before Betrayus (Even Ganondorf from The Legend of Zelda, was a funnier villain than Betrayus). While he can be amusing or sympathetic sometimes, Betrayus is like taking that ideal of comedic villains to a fault. While he started off as a decent antagonist with his moments of well-executed comic relief moments since the first episode "The Adventure Begins", his flanderization took that "cartoonishly evil" ideal to a pitifully bad degree of character derailment that it becomes more tiresome and stale than funny, especially when he becomes more childish and annoying as the series progresses on.
   • Skeebo is the stereotypical bully character who borrows too much from both, Flash Thompson from the Spider-Man comics and Dash Baxter from Danny Phantom. He hates Pac because he hates the yellow color, even though his hair is yellow. Not only is he a bumbling coward and an idiot, but he also refuses to save anyone from the ghosts, not even his then-girlfriend, Cylindra; in the first episode, even Spiral tries to convince him to do so and reminded him that she is his steady girlfriend, right before Skeebo decided to break up with her. Because of this, he has become a widely hated character by viewers; fans of this show or otherwise.
     • On the topic of stereotypes, in the episode "That Smarts!", Pac-Man ingests a berry that increases his intellect thus turning him into a stereotypical nerd character, "which is often seen as generic or even insulting towards nerds".
   • Pac-Man and Pinky are often shipped by the writers throughout the show, and it can get very awkward to watch (especially because of Pinky's extremely suggestive and romantic dialogue that can get really corny to hear).
6. Much like another decent show that came out in the same year, this show has the overuse of shoving the name "Pac" into many nouns, to the point of ranging from irritating names to being horrible puns.
7. Speaking of which, this show was produced by Avi Arad, the same producer who produced Marvel films like Iron Man and every single Spiderman film, which all shows how there was so much wasted potential here to be a fantastic or at least decent video game adaptation because of how it wasn't executed very well.
8. It tries way too hard to be hip and cool with the kids of the 2010s era at times.
9. The comedy most of the time is only based on gross-out humor or stale comedy gags, which is also mediocre since the "humor" drag out the episodes and it doesn't fit its supposedly serious/mature theme whatsoever. Making the show's tone pretty inconsistent due to it going on and off with being either a serious show with complicated themes such as wars & genocide or an adventure-comedy show where you take nothing seriously.
   • Examples of the comedy or silly traits include Pac-Man burping after eating either food or ghosts, some characters doing awkwardly gross things that are played for laughs like farting or belching, and the fact that ghosts are actually slimy (which Pac-Man sometimes shares how they taste "sour" in a comedic manner). In addition, the episode, "Is Zit You or Is Zit Me?", is based only on the grain of humor that has already been overexploited a lot in many other cartoons.
10. Several cartoon stock sound effects can be sometimes cringe-worthy, awkward, and quickly grate on the nerves whenever they're reused at the wrong time (i.e the cat meows or the bouncy sounds that sometimes don't fit), even though there are decently used ones.
11. While the soundtrack throughout the show is generally pretty catchy and well-composed, there are plenty of tracks that sound a little too juvenile and bouncy for its supposedly serious/mature theme.
12. While most of the voice acting in the show is good, some voices like the casting of Erin Mathews as Pac-Man are questionable: she gives him a nasally, overly "cute" voice (not unlike Sarah Natochenny's portrayal of Ash Ketchum in the English dub of Pokémon).
    • Speaking of which, the voice acting can be annoying to listen to, such as Matt Hill as Skeebo. It's so irritating, it also makes him sound stupid in a very bad way. On that note, his voice can be obnoxious to listen to, especially when he screams. It's even more shocking that Matt Hill himself is known for his role as Ed from Ed, Edd n Eddy.
    • Another example is Sam Vincent as Lord Betrayus. While it's passable at best, it's intolerable at worst due to how ear-piercing it sounds because of how whiny, grating, and unpleasant it is. The biggest problem? It sounds like Jack Black as if he swallowed a boatload of speakers, gargled nails, and tried to pull off an effeminate drag queen act while imitating the Joker. What doesn't help is that Sam Vincent is known for his roles as Edd/Double D on Ed Edd n Eddy, Russell Ferguson on the 2012 series of Littlest Pet Shop, Krypto the Superdog, and Jerry Mouse on Tom and Jerry Tales.
      • Speaking of Betrayus, the biggest offenders of his irritating voice are his voice cracks, whimpering, wailing, squealing, yelling, and cackling, which all sound annoyingly abysmal in almost all episode he appears in.
13. Misleading character designs, such as Cylindria, who looks like a goth but acts more like a tomboy, and Lord Betrayus looks like a potentially formidable goth-like villain to Pac-Man but acts more like a childish and villainous but fallible buffoon for anyone to make fun of.
    • Speaking of designs, some of the character designs can either come off as unappealing like Skeebo for example, or they feel like Pac-Man OCs brought to life given that this show has its own separate world from Pac-Man's canonically, these include the aforementioned Skeebo, President Stratos, Spiral, Cylindria, and many more.
    • Pac-Man's new redesign from this series was poorly received by many fans alike, due to lacking the cartoony features from the older designs and looking more realistic and human-like which doesn't suit the character at all since Pac-Man was never meant to look realistic and considering that he was watered down into being a kid in this series, the new redesign has been labeled by many fans as one of the worst character redesigns of all time because of this.
14. The series unsatisfyingly ended on a cliffhanger. Pac-Man and his friends were supposed to find Pac-Man's parents and put an end to Betrayus's underhanded schemes, but the outcome was never resolved when the show got canceled, thus making the entire show pointless and moot.
15. Several bad episodes, for a few examples including but not limited to:
    • Is Zit You or Is Zit Me?
    • That Smarts!
    • All You Can Eat
    • Pac-Mania
16. It steals elements from many other shows very badly, such as Danny Phantom (which is the only show that many people have compared this series to, mainly because of the countless similarities they have with each other like the school, the protagonist being a high school student while being underestimated by others unless he saves everyone, paranormal elements like ghosts, and some gothlike characters), Pokémon (with the main character being a chosen one and most of the Ghosts, the iconic four ghosts especially, act very similar to Team Rocket except that they aren't evil this time and actually help the main characters as well as betraying their leader), Batman: The Animated Series (likely due to Pac-Man having dead parents as Bat-Man did in the original comics), The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 (with Pac-Man having power-ups similar to Mario and his friends did in that series since it happened in the original Super Mario Bros.) and many more other cartoons that make this series feel unoriginal in comparison.
17. The CGI animation tends to look rather off and weird at times, especially in the first two episodes where the framerate moves very poorly and there are a few animation errors here or there such as one scene where the Tennis Players are just literally Tennis Balls.
18. Plot hole: Whenever the Ghosts are defeated by Pac-Man after they've terrorized the entirety of Pac-World, they leave to the Nether Realm only then to later come back to Pac-World when they already know that they're already going to get eaten by Pac-Man in general since he's very versatile and can outrun most of the Ghosts in a jiffy due to his superpowers. So, why do they even come back to Pac-World when they know the obvious is about to happen as always?!
19. The series tends to be mean-spirited at times, such as Pac-Man often getting constantly bullied by his classmates, and the entire citizens of Pac-World making fun of him in the episode "Pac-Mania", and there is even one scene in the first episode where Skeebo lets Cylindra to nearly get killed by a giant Ghost and didn't care if she was gone since she's his steady girlfriend, and he instead lets Pac-Man save her instead.
20. It nearly killed the Pac-Man franchise for 5 years, as every game after this entry would only ever be on Mobile Devices with them mainly being revamped versions of the original Arcade game from 1980 and there wasn't a mainstream product in the series, until Pac-Man 40 came out in 2020, and Pac-Man World Re-Pac was announced in 2022 that is meant to be bringing the series back into the mainstream gaming market. Later titles have completely ignored the "Ghostly Adventures" name after the series faded into obscurity and many characters from this series haven't been in any future games and were also ignored since its cancellation.

Good Qualities

1. The voice acting is at least passable for most characters, including Ashleigh Ball and Andrea Libman.
2. Some hilarious moments here and there.
   • While most of the dialogue and line delivery is corny and childish, there are some good one-liners that can be humorous and quite hilarious at times, such as:
     • "Pulverize the old hag!"
     • "Aw man, I'm a meme."
     • "What are you free-loaders doing?! Is that my credit card? I'm not paying for those pizzas and-"
     • "More like Slurp Slime!"
     • "Yes. How thoughtless I was to let him swallow me and spit out my eyeballs... I'd hope to hunch around, just long enough to watch Spheria, torch, your, tiny, tush!"
3. Some action scenes are very energetic and sometimes entertaining to watch.
4. There is also a few faithful elements of the source material, particularly Pac-Man eating the ghosts and several references to the original game like the design of the maze that references the last stage, Map 256, and a Pac-Man arcade game that is seen in the very first episode.
   • The number of references here and there to the original Pac-Man video game, such as the jingle at the beginning of its intro, are pretty nice.
5. The CGI animation is decent and smooth, although weird & off-looking at times, and it has a colorful art style that makes it look appealing.
   • In Season 3, the animation has significantly improved since the first two seasons.
6. The backstory involving a war is surprisingly dark and it's also an interesting premise that can be done quite well, despite the sloppy execution.
7. The two video games that this show spawned, can be considered to be slight improvements to this show despite its flaws.
8. The characters aren't always clichéd.
   • While a majority of the characters are unlikeable or annoying (ex. Pacster, Skeebo, and Lord Betrayus); there are some likable, enjoyable and/or tolerable characters such as Sprial, Cylindra, the Ghost Gang (despite their shenanigans), Butt-ler, Sir C, and a few others too.
   • Speaking of the unlikeable characters, there are a number of people who can still find them very likable, lovable, or entertaining regardless of their flaws, like Pacster, Skeebo, Dr. Buttocks, and Lord Betrayus themselves; the latter often being praised for being an entertainingly incompetent villain.
9. Awesome intro in the Japanese-dubbed version, which is miles better than the American version.
   • The music for the theme song (in both the American version and the Japanese version) is very catchy and upbeat despite the American version having some badly written lyrics that became infamous at one point.
10. A lot of the soundtrack throughout the show, despite sounding a little juvenile and bouncy, is generally pretty catchy and well-composed. Most of the music is pretty varied and upbeat, for example, all of Lord Betrayus's theme songs are quite memorable and tuneful to listen to, as it gives a ghostly and haunted yet light-hearted and quirky vibe to notes being played.
11. Most of the characters have fairly decent designs - especially Lord Betrayus, who manages to have a very appealing and cool-looking design that perfectly suits his portrayal as the show's main antagonist.
    • Pac-Man's redesign, despite its flaws, is at least accurate to the games, more specifically, Pac-Man Party and Pac-Man & Galaga Dimensions. Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde's redesigns are also faithful to how they looked in the two aforementioned games.

Reception

The show received average reviews from critics and received mixed to negative reception from audiences, and it currently holds a 4.6/10 on IMDb.

Trivia

• The show has its own video game adaptation and its sequel.
• "Aw man, I'm a meme", the Nerd Pac and the entire show itself became memes on their own.
• It air in the United States on Disney XD before it air on Japan.

Videos

TBA

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