It has been a very long time since I have done a film or television review thanks to a wonderful thing known as life. Life often gets in the way of even the most basic hobbies but is often rewarding or at least pretends to be. So, surely the first review I have had in such a long time will be a wondrous one full of majestic characters and a stirring plot worthy of rousing ambition to the sounds of chaotic beats. *Looks across at package* Hazbin Hotel Season One on blu-ray. *Googles the synopsis* *Sighs deeply* I mean, if my editor wanted me to stay in quasi-retirement, he should have said so. At least the chaotic beats part seems to be accurate. Let’s take a look.
Are we familiar with the story of the angel Lucifer and Lilith, the first woman? No? Well then, let’s go over it. Lilith was the first woman with Adam, and she left that man because he was controlling (Mmmm hmmm). She then shacked up with the angel Lucifer instead. Then they gave Eve, the second woman free will through the famous apple. This created Hell, and then those two, Lucifer and Lilith were sent there as punishment.
Lucifer lost his will and Lilith grew her power through song and Hell flourished. The angels did not take kindly to this decision however and decided upon an event known as the Extermination where once a year they would descend to Hell and drastically reduce the number of demons. But Lilith never gave up and everything was passed down to her daughter. Enter Charlie Morningstar (voiced by Erika Henningsen).
Charlie runs a hotel called the Hazbin Hotel. The idea behind the establishment is that she and her fellow staff will be able to give the demons and sinners redemption. This will eventually lead those souls to Heaven. She is supported by her girlfriend, Vaggie (voiced by Stephanie Beatriz).
Promoting a hotel that offers redemption to a bunch of demons is a rather hard thing to do. One such demon, Alastor (voiced by Amir Talai) who has no desire to be redeemed has offered to help Charlie and Vaggie in this situation with a rather misguided commercial. Angel Dust (voiced by Blake Roman), a porn star and the Hotel’s only resident offers to provide his special services, but that is also shot down.
That’s when Charlie gets a very special phone call from her father, Lucifer. It seems that he wants her to attend a special meeting with the leader of the Angel Army to discuss something. Charlie sees it as an opportunity and a chance to sing a song. Later at the Heaven Embassy, she meets with the one and only Adam (voiced by Alex Brightman) who is the head Angel.
Charlie’s pitch goes nowhere even with an extra verse or two. In fact, Adam exclaims at the end of his guitar solo that the next extermination will be in six months, far ahead of the usual year schedule. That sets Hell into an uproar but little do we know that the reason behind this is simple, someone killed an Angel during the last Extermination (this has never happened before). Adam and his army want to make sure that it never happens EVER again.
This arc is the main thrust (puns are fun) of the first season. It should be mentioned that this show is labelled as Adult Dark Comedy Animation. When I say adult, I mean nothing is off limits. In fact, the only technically straight character is the maid, Niffty (voiced by Kimiko Glenn), a tiny hyperactive cyclops demon. In other words, if you offend easily, there isn’t much you will find funny or even remotely interesting.
However, I have watched plenty of racy animation. Tripping the Rift, Drawn Together, Heavy Metal, and Evil Toons among many others. I’ve even enjoyed some of them and I did find myself laughing at a good number of the jokes in Hazbin Hotel. But there are lots of problems here.
There are a ton of characters, far beyond what I could write in this article. In fact, there are so many it creates a situation where you are struggling to keep up with the overall story especially without finding many orifices, I mean holes (oh boy) along the way. Or worse yet, the viewer might get invested in a character that does not have much screen time and become disinterested in the main plot. Example, I’m more interested in Husk (voiced by the amazing Keith David) and Angel Dust’s “relationship” than the fact that the Angel Army wants to rid Hell of every single demon spawn forever.
Breaking into song a couple of times an episode doesn’t help either. I know it’s labelled as a musical series, but when there are important plot points wrapped up in these numbers, details can be easily missed. Dramatic shifts UP and DOWN (okay, that was awful, even for me) in tone doesn’t do the series any favors and sometimes I don’t know if I’m supposed to laugh or what exactly.
Video
The video is in its original aspect 1.78:1 1080p widescreen picture. Who would have thunk that Hell would be so colorful and vivant? I know officially every shade of red, purple and black under the umm…pitchfork that has ever existed because of this blu-ray set. But there are plenty of other colors on display and the result is an exciting ensemble of detail and scenes that are certain to pop out as much as they can in this format.
Action is handled extremely well, and when the scenes slow down for a eruption of dialog (my editor is probably hating me at this moment) or perhaps a song, the hits keep on coming in this presentation. Even though I was holding my head at many of the moments in this series, the quality of the video had nothing to do with it.
Audio
The audio for this one is DTS-HD MA 5.1 English as well as an audio descriptive track (I could have probably done without this one) . Thanks to the musical nature of the show, the sound is beautiful and bouncy (why do I keep doing this?) and the surround speakers will get as much a workout as Angel Dust does during his shoots (okay, okay, I’m done). Dialog is easy to understand and there are honestly no real qualms about the presentation here. The only perhaps confusing tidbit might be why this didn’t get a Dolby Atmos treatment.
Subtitles are provided in English SDH as well as Spanish. There were no issues here and at least the English side followed right alongside the action.
Special Features
- Episode Commentaries featuring Creator: Vivienne Medrano, Animation Director: Skye Henwood, and Art Director: Sam Miller: Commentaries can be found for each of the episodes on both discs. These are certainly energetic affairs and they are enthusiastic about the characters and what has been created here. Quite enjoyable and will help the viewer enjoy the series that much more.
- Blu-Ray Packaging Notes: This is a very nice package (I told myself, no more puns). A 2 disc clear case (half-stacked type) includes inside and outside cover art that highlight the presentation. Also inside you will find a mini-poster of the cover art and a premium foil or cracked ice special edition card from the Hazbin Hotel Trading Card series. Personally, I received the premium foil card of Hate Watch, though honestly being out of the card game for a while, I’m not sure I would know a cracked ice card if I saw it or if there were other character cards that could have been received.
Final Thoughts
The very fist episode or pilot of Hazbin Hotel was originally funded through Patreon in 2014, and was finally released through the Youtube format in 2019. It can actually still be found there and has 121 million views as of this article. Due to all of those views, it finally became a series in 2024 with help from Amazon Prime Video. A second season followed in late 2025 and there are plans for at least two more seasons. The show continues to gain in viewership but it is not for everyone even for those who are fans of similar shows like Drawn Together or Tripping the Rift such as myself. The characters are a bit of muddled mess and the show’s frantic nature makes it difficult to keep focus and create that bingeing attitude. With that said, I did find myself at least interested in the arc of characters like Sir Pentious (also voiced by Alex Brightman) and Husk but not so much the main characters Charlie and Vaggie.
The discs excel in video and audio presentation while the addition of a mini-poster and a collectible card is sure to delight plenty of fans. My recommendation is probably obvious at this point, but it’s an A+ package for fans of the show. The only thing that would have been a cherry on top would be a Dolby Atmos track or perhaps 4k discs. Maybe it will happen for season 2. Everyone else should probably proceed with caution and a carry a very open mind. Enjoy.
