MeinMMO-Demon Cortyn has fallen for a new series that has been waited for 7 years. Hazbin Hotel meets all expectations, but it is definitely not for children.
Those who follow my articles a little closely know that I can hardly appreciate series outside of Anime. I have to force myself to give other things a chance – with one big exception. The animated series “Helluva Boss” on YouTube greatly impressed me, and the pilot episode of “Hazbin Hotel” from the same author immediately captivated me.
Accordingly, my anticipation was immense when it was announced that Hazbin Hotel would finally get a full series on Amazon Prime after nearly a decade of waiting.
A few days ago, Hazbin Hotel was released on Amazon Prime, and to make it short: Hazbin Hotel is much better than I expected.
I always had the fear that the vulgar, dark charm of the pilot episode from 7 years ago would be lost and smoothed out by Amazon to appeal to a wider audience and not be so offensive. I am more than happy to say: This is absolutely not the case.
Hazbin Hotel knows no mercy, no taboos, and is just as dark, vulgar, and lovable as expected by the fans.
Hazbin Hotel: An Escape from Hell
The plot of Hazbin Hotel is quickly explained. In hell, overpopulation occurs regularly. To get a grip on it, heaven sends its exorcists down once a year to destroy as many demons and hell residents as possible.
Charlie Morningstar, the daughter of the supreme demon Lucifer, is not particularly thrilled about this. She wants the annual slaughter to end and give the residents of hell a chance to reform and ascend to heaven. Therefore, she establishes the “Happy Hotel,” where sinners are supposed to repent for their actions and become better souls.
While Charlie, along with her friend Vaggie, a powerful demonic ally Alastor, and the porn star Angel Dust, tries to get her hotel running, a much larger threat is unfolding in the background. The demons have managed to kill one of the attacking angels for the first time, making the idea of a war from heaven against hell realistic. At the same time, heaven decides to conduct the cleansing not just annually but every 6 months – and shows little cooperation with Charlie’s plans.
What Makes Hazbin Hotel So Great?
In the hope of not losing you with this sentence right away: Hazbin Hotel is more of a musical than an ordinary series.
Each episode features one or two longer musical numbers, which greatly contribute to the charm of the series. While Charlie is at heart something like a singing “Disney Princess,” her environment is anything but harmonious. Demons blowing each other’s brains out, sex and decay at every corner, and a barrage of curse words clearly show how out of place Charlie is in her job as the princess of hell.
Yet all these characters are multifaceted and mostly much deeper than they first seem. The porn demon Angel Dust, who tells pretty much everyone who hears (or doesn’t hear) him that he loves to “suck dicks” or, during physical abuse, lobs a cheeky “Harder, Daddy!” at you, turns out to be quite a broken soul, caught between drug use and the high of being desired by others, while he actually has to cry himself to sleep every day, overwhelmed by his own misery.
Even seemingly irrelevant side characters like the angel Adam or the hellish overlords shine in their musical performances, and really every single song is incredibly strong – at least in the English version:
But the songs are not everything. Although the concept of heaven and hell is a few millennia old, Hazbin Hotel brings many fresh ideas that especially come to light through the characters. It has a profound backstory, and after each episode, you feel like you have only grasped the tip of the iceberg.
Whether it’s Alastor the “Radio Demon”, who even changes the art style of the entire series in particularly creepy moments or the clichéd “Vees” who want to subjugate the population with clever marketing and media control – they all have their own style and visible motivations that are not immediately obvious.
Hazbin Hotel often manages to switch astonishingly quickly between silliness and suddenly dramatic, emotional moments – this was already a strength of “Helluva Boss”, and it seems they have evidently retained it.
Hazbin Hotel – Also Great in German
Because I liked the series so much, I watched the episodes again in German afterward to form an opinion about the dubbing as well.
In most moments, I was positively surprised. The voices fit and hardly lag behind the English original. In some places, the German translation even does the series a lot of good, as some insults or conflicts appear a bit “harsher” in German.
However, the German translation is not perfect. The most noticeable issue is probably that the character Angel Dust is voiced by two actors – one during the dialogues (Hannes Maurer) and another during the songs (Laura Leyh). Both do their part well individually, but the difference between the voices briefly pulls you out of the series. You trip over these passages a bit, as the change in voice is clearly audible.
This is unfortunately seamlessly connected with the second problem – while many of the songs have really good German translations, the one sung by Angel Dust, “Poison” (YouTube), simply did not turn out well in the German version. The translations are clunky, the lyrics do not quite match the meaning of the English song, and at no other point is the gap between the English original and the German dub so evident.
Aside from this one song, the translation is fantastic – it is just as vulgar, merciless, and blunt as the original. In fact, I find that some sentences in German even hit harder than in English. But compare for yourselves:
- English: “Can’t wait a whole year to slaughter those little cunts, I know it’s just been a week – but we’ll be back in six months!”
- German: “Euch Fotzen zu schlachten, das ist so wunderbar. Darum vergeht bis wir kommen, jetzt nur noch ein halbes Jahr!”
This already made me think “Wow, they don’t hold back” – and it benefits the series. The world of Hazbin Hotel is after all hell full of unscrupulous sinners who don’t hold back, and that you even raise the ante in German fits perfectly. After all, curse words are a bit rarer in general German language use than in the American context, where “Fuck” has simply become a filler word.
In the end, Hazbin Hotel is much more than its vulgar language. Because although it revolves around lustful demons, a conflict between heaven and hell, and a lot of cruelty, behind all of that lie extremely detailed, multifaceted characters and often even educational moral views.
If you want to listen to just one of my “weird recommendations” this year – then watch Hazbin Hotel on Amazon Prime. The 7-year-old pilot episode is available for free on YouTube and the first episode of the Amazon season is also (in English) free, also on YouTube:
Oh – and if that hasn’t been completely obvious for some reason. Hazbin Hotel is of course nothing for children, even though it is an “animated series”. Themes like sexual abuse, genocide, sexism, violence, and drugs are the order of the day here – but what else would you expect from hell?
Despite these harsh scenes, Hazbin Hotel does not handle these themes lightly or brings them up just to deliver a shock moment – nonetheless, one should be prepared for what one is getting into.
If the two episodes do not convince you – then go to where the angels live.
