Welcome to the bandom! Mystery skulls are a band, i guess they could be considered indie pop? Im not great at genres. That's besides the point though! The real exciting part is their music videos! As of 10/31/20 there are four based on their songs telling the story of a scooby-esque gang who are on a ghost hunt! They "mysteriously" run out of gas in front of a spooky mansion and the story goes from there! The first video, ghost, has an insane amount of detail, and they may not have created the head bounce but its definitely popularized its widespread use in many, many animation memes! My favorite one so far has to be hellbent, because Big Ghost Eighteen Wheeler. Here's the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0fvOtjetDLFH_avalzdmSLL91rvwiE07 And here's the videos!
Ok actually if anyone's interested i also want to talk about the music as well, i love it! Like i said above, i love hellbent. The lead up to the beginning of the song is so fun, i love listening to it in the morning cause it literally causes me to jump out of bed and turns my brain on :D
Hellbent is definitely my favourite song. It goes extremely hard and I played the hell out of it for a few years at work just on those merits alone :D I wasn't aware of Mystery Skulls before it, but afterwards, I gotta say Freaking Out is probably overall my favourite of the animations. That one is kind of in a sweet-spot of having lots going on, both in the immediate here-and-now, and also lorewise. 'S just good. Spoiler: No direct spoilers, just opinions based on knowledge of the content In contrast, I find Hellbent overly crowded? (And Future is kind of. In-between those two.) It introduces a lot of stuff and you gotta do some freeze-framing which. I'm categorically not a fan of as a way to convey narrative information, but watching Hellbent and Future back to back it's clear that a lot of the frustration I had with it was just the long gap. I really enjoy how the character designs have developed into being less... smooth. Less even. Part of it is the way lineweight and shading has changed, part of it is that their designs have picked up details as the plot has progressed. It's just very visually engaging, I was positively surprised at how easy the action in Future was to follow.
hellbent is a fucking AWESOME song i love how the music videos convey characterization and plot even without any real dialogue, it's very cool
Man i cant get over how on target Every Note is in the beginning of the Hellbent video. It works so well to add shit onto arthur's character (even though i think he's at least somewhat innocent; itd be easy to write him off as a jealous ass but i think there's more going on)
-15 weeks late to the party with starbucks and some dead beats- I HEARD MYSTERY SKULLS -takes deep breath and defenestrates punctuation- ok so there is a point to be made from the first video onwards that arthur is at the very least bi and into both of his besties, and is struggling with that considering the boy is from rural texas and has had a falling out with his parents. im firmly in camp he was jealous of the relationship vivi and lewis had; and not of lewis because lewis was dating vivi. and it took just a moment of not being on guard (considering how arthur was more or less dragged into ghost hunting, im almost willing to bet that when he got possessed, he wasnt really aware that there really was anything to be on guard against) for the malignant spirit in the caves to take over, completely misinterpret arthurs feelings (or not. look at what i make you do to the person you love.), and shove lewis off a cliff. the end of hellbent with arthur recognizing lewis, lewis realizing that something isnt as he thought; and the future with lewis erasing the spikes before arthur dies and then the fuckin locket changing punched me right in the heart, multiple times. ngl im still emotional about this also i poked a japanese friend and she was like, oh yeah, kitsune having kids with humans is a folklore staple, so im like 99% sure that mystery is vivis ancestor, just checking in on the fam. shiromori (who is basically also his kid) coming by and throwing hands with vivi is probably super terrible for him, because those are both! his daughters! stop fighting! and then shiromori is like you had a kid with the frosty binch, how fucking dare you listen i just want an ot3 ending
Ok i just told my brain to cancel any and all other relationship interpretations, this is the one for me Ot3! Ot3! Ot3!
