Stop-motion series debuts on July 4

I am once again taking another magical step into the world of Unico and right off the bat, it’s great to see this world expand. One thing I loved about this series is how effectively it rides the line between being beautifully mysterious and downright haunting. A lot of that does come down to the presentation, which takes advantage of gorgeous panel spreads to create a lovely sense of atmosphere. I also feel like the use of color in this volume, in particular, was also far more deliberate than before. Black and dark greens were used to emphasize this foreboding sense of dread, while shadows were used to emphasize serious scenes despite the overall color palette still being quite bright.

There is more dialogue in this volume compared to the previous books, but I feel like this story could almost be told strictly through its artwork. The individual set pieces and character designs stand on their own, but the way that everything flows together immediately communicates a sense of narrative progression directly into your brain. It is a very underrated quality in a comic that is primarily geared towards children. This is the kind of comic that I could read to very young kids, and even if they don’t understand the admittedly more complicated lore, they would still be able to follow along for the most part by focusing on the flow of the pictures.

I will say that the story definitely introduces more complicated ideas here. Some of those elements are in service of the story, expanding the overall scale as everyone begins traveling between realms to find Unico, and the idea of everyone scrambling does make this a more anxious read than before. There are a lot more perspectives showcased in this volume. While it does make the world of Unico feel more lived in, I do worry that the series doubles down on my complaints about the previous volumes. Unico himself gets buried a little bit under everything that’s going on. He is still trying to figure out who he is and what exactly his purpose is. While everything in the story does still effectively revolve around him, he does get far less screen time in this book.

Instead, a lot of time is focused on this Sphinx son who is dealing with his own sense of inferiority, the scary mercenary, who is trying to hunt Unico down, and even the lovely returning cat companions that Unico befriended in the last volume, except now they’re learning how to time travel. I was worried when that plot point was just randomly introduced here. I don’t think that idea alone complicates or ruins the story, but I do feel like this book suffers a little bit by just having things or ideas brought up out of nowhere with very little fanfare. Again, for a story that is primarily geared towards children, things are setting up to be far more complicated than they need to be, to the point where even I am struggling to see where all of this is headed.

Make no mistake, though, this is still a quality product that I feel like I could still recommend to people, especially if you were a fan of the first two. However, there’s so much to keep track of now. This does genuinely elevate the stakes, giving plenty of other characters time to shine. But it also comes at a bit of an expense with regard to the story and Unico himself. I don’t think it goes so far that the entire story is ruined, as I am still more than satisfied with this book based on the artwork alone. But a part of me does wonder if the next volume might be a make-or-break point for the series.