Episode 1 - Never Judge a Hyena By Its Spots

[s-tlk]

Actually this is the first episodes, but it was aired after "The Rise of Makuu", so don't be confused, because I am already. I never understood the strange ordering of Disney series. Never mind. I try first to quickly summarize what happened in this episodes.

The episodes starts with Janja and his gang hunting a herd of gazelles in the Pride Lands. Of course the Lion Guard comes to its rescue. (You also don't want your lunch to be hunted :-P ). Kion is charging the Hyenas alone back into the Outlands. When he tries to roar, the tree trunk that connects pride- and outlands cannot support him anymore and he crashed into the river below. In the end he could swim at the shore on his own, but he ended up at the wrong side of the river.
Kion tries to get back to a place called "Flat Ridge Rock" and tries to meet with the rest of the Lion Guard. On his way back Kion needs to pass through the outlands gorge, where he meets a young female hyena Jasiri. Long story short: Kions forgets his doubts about Jasiri once they get to know each other. In contrast to Janja, Jasiri respects the Circle of Life and only takes the food she needs to survive. Together they traveled to the this Flat Ridge Rock thing to meet their finale challenge. Janja and his gang were creeping up on Jasiri, but Kions comes her rescue and together (with the help of the roar of the elders) they defeated the hyenas.

I must say, I like this episode a lot. The song "Sisi ni sawa" is definitely one of the better ones in the series, although the message is not new anymore. The thing that disturbs me most was the constant switching between scenes. It would be better to deepen the relationship between Kion and Jasiri in longer shots. Nevertheless, the landscapes are nicely drawn and you see a lot of the pride and outlands in this episodes (which you didn't saw in the movie, btw). From geographical point this series makes no sense. Even in TLK you had trouble to create a map of the TLK universe. I also missed a scene where Kion is crossing back over the river. But maybe I didn't see it.

One last thing: Do you like to have a topic about every episode, or should we try to compress the discussion in one thread?