Iwájú is a new animated series on Disney+ co-produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and Kugali Media. While looking into the background of this show, it’s also the first animated long-form series Walt Disney Animation Studios has ever done. Now, that may sound like a mistake; this is the feature film animation division and not the Television division that has made shows going from DuckTales through Recess to Big City Greens. So, this series is already a pretty big deal with just how much of a divergence on what this team of creatives are doing. Iwájú is a story set in a future version of Lagos, Nigeria, about a father and daughter learning how to connect with each other on the daughter’s tenth birthday. It’s a story that deals with family and class as two of its central themes. Tola Martins (Simisola Gbadamosi) lives with her father on the island of Lagos, Nigeria. Her father, Tunde (Dayo Okeniyi), is a talented and wealthy robotics engineer. He’s very protective of his daughter, shelters her from the world, and is very caught up in his work. On his daughter’s birthday, a local crime boss, Bude DeSousa (Femi Branch), sees them and decides to plot to kidnap Tola to ransom her for money. Tola’s headstrong nature leads her to want to explore Lagos, and she ends up dragging her best friend – and her father’s house servant, Kole (Siji Soetan) on an adventure on the mainland. All these things come crashing together, along with a unique lizard named Otin (Weruche Opia).
Let me be honest here and say it took me some time to connect to this series. This series made me think of how it must feel in other countries when watching stuff from the United States, especially from a Black American perspective. We’re so used to our specific ideas and presentations of Blackness being the norm, our way of life from the poorest to the richest. Even when we see African people, usually from a US company, it’s about them coming here, adapting to our way of life, and connecting to us. This show is not that at all. This show is a Nigerian story from a Nigerian perspective about Nigerian people. This futuristic science fiction fantasy about African people was a pleasant shock to the system. The animation, which is CG, is very well done and up to the quality you’d expect from a studio. The design of the world and characters are very well realized. The designs of the future technology and of the city of Lagos are very creative. The character silhouettes are diverse in shape and fashion. It’s pretty cool seeing something made by Disney in animation that is all African people.
Now, there is some stuff I didn’t care for with the show’s pacing at times, as it does feel a bit slow in the middle as they try to give backstory to the characters and move the plot forward. The use of the lizard really took a long time to add to the overall adventure. Maybe I got impatient, but I feel like while Otin feels like it’s supposed to be important, it ends up falling flat. They should’ve had it be more involved from earlier in the series. I can’t say anything bad about the animation, which has wonderful colors and designs. The characters have that Disney feel in design and silhouette but are a little bit different from their usual style as well. I think Iwájú could do very well, especially around the world, as it feels from a different perspective we are used to Disney and US animation as well. The attempt to bring in new voices from other places worldwide is worth celebrating, especially as it met the call with good work and execution.
Score: B
RIOTUS 