tracieabbancroft I re-watch this series every year, it became a fall tradition for me. Ah I'll never get tired of watching it. ITS SO GOOD GO WATCH IT!!

loganp-74929 So I just got done binge watching this and I was pretty darn impressed. The acting, characters, plot, tone, score, animation, everything was just so well done. I'm not too happy with Cartoon Network as a company and how they handle their intellectual property *cough* teen titans go *cough*, but this show made me think that there is still hope for Cartoon Network, it can actually produce some good stuff when it wants to. But now onto the actual show. The acting was amazing, Elijah Wood was fantastic as Wirt and Collin Dean was surprisingly good for only being 9 at the time of the show's release. The two actors played off each other very well and had a very watchable chemistry, although that might also be attributed to the brilliant writers of the show, who somehow manage to spin a whimsical and imaginative story-line while maintaining the innocent tone of the show. The characters were all written beautifully and seemed very natural and real. The tone of the show was very consistent overall and was nicely contrasted to the story. The score was also awesome despite being a little repetitive at times. And the animation was very creative and smooth. Now that I have said the positives, let me explain why I'm only giving this a 9/10 instead of a 10/10. It was pretty much just the ending. I did not enjoy the "it was all a dream" thing, I thought that for a show this awesome and this unpredictable, going with the most clichéd ending honestly upset me a little. Plus, it being a dream wouldn't even make a lot of sense based on what happened. I just did not enjoy the ending and I think that for a show this good, and this clearly well planned out and executed, they should have thought more about the ending rather than making it the most cliché thing in the whole world. Anyway I still enjoyed this show quite a lot and would recommend it to pretty much everyone. And that's why this gets a 9/10.

joyfrijns This has to be one of the best animated series I have seen in a long time.For a while now have been watching shows such as Gravity Falls, Steven Universe, Regular Show, Adventure Time; cartoon shows that are marketed to children, but clearly carry some great adult themes with them.Over the Garden Wall was recommended to me by one of my best friends, and after seeing the pilot episode, I was instantly hooked. Add to that the simple yet gripping finale, and I am now praising this piece of animation as one of the greatest out there. I only wished sometimes that it would have been a little more darker than it was, but that is just me.The tale itself is an age-old formula: Kid(s) find themselves in an unknown world (see what I did there?), have to find their way home and meet all sorts of crazy people and adventures on the way. But for the more adult viewers there is more than enough to marvel at. It is a beautiful representation of the the spiritual nature of our world, and how every living being, dead or alive, are interconnected. This fits perfectly with my personal view of our world. Every episode is part of the imagination of people or even animals who have been alive on our planet at some point in history. Or maybe even in the future, who knows. Quincy (John Cleese) and his 'ghost' lover come from the early nineteenth century, when capitalism started booming, Beatrice herself is from a time somewhere in the industrial revolution, and I think her anger with the bluebird who later curses her and her family is a nice representation of ho we as a species have come to see nature and agriculture with the rise of factories and such (or maybe Im just taking this too far). If you know what to look for, this series gives some nice social commentary.The music and score are wonderful. The use of old bluesy and folk- country music from the 19th and early 18th century fit perfectly with this mixed display of US American folklore and old European fairy tales. This is only further enhanced with the casting of people like Blind Boy Paxton and C.W. Stoneking, who not only lend great voices and personality (and in Paxton's case, his singing voice in the Highway Man), but whose independent music are great favourites of mine.Finally the animation. Wow. It is simple and yet conveys so much. In the first episode, when the presumed Beast shows up, the animation and style of the weredog was perfectly in the style of the show, yet it's movements and animation were somehow a style in and of its own, and I most confess that he scared me a bit haha. Also the style of drawing when Gregory goes to Cloud CIty was heartwarming to me, as it reminded me of the early Disney cartoons from the 30s and 40s. I don't know if it was done on purpose, but seeing as they used it only in this environment (more than 3 characters on screen, song-and-dance routine), I almost have to conclude that the creators did this on purpose.Finally we come to the greatest aspect of the series, at least in my eyes. The Beast.Over the Garden Wall is one of the few media I know that, while not outright being a horror show, stays true to the number 1 rule of that genre: Never reveal what the monster looks like. And they did this all the way to the end, which I applaud. And even when Lloyd's Woodsman shines his lantern on the Beast and reveals his true looks, it is only for the briefest of seconds, and I spent at least two full minutes trying to pause the screen just right to see what he looked like. And even then, it fitted perfectly with his lore, and still managed to give me the creeps.The animation for the Beast and Samuel Ramey's voice were the perfect match, especially at that moment when Wirt, at the last minute, refuses to give in, are a joy to see. His eratic movement and the changing of the eyes (did anyone notice the weredog in E01 had the same rainbow eyes? Brr...).In the end, I do have to give some minor critique, if only for reality's sake. At times, I found that the creator's took the lore a little too lightly, and I believe the impact could have been a bit deeper if they made it just a bit darker. The core tale itself and the Beast's lore were very simple and they could have expanded on this. It was a bit too easy to figure out what the lantern actually was, but then again, this is a kid's show. These minor, minor points are the only reason I'm not giving this series a 10, and as you can see they are only personal nitpickings.

inkenchantress Over the Garden Wall (2014) follows the story of two brothers, Wirt and Gregory, who have become lost in the woods after climbing over the garden wall. The series follows their attempt to find a way home in the magical and maudlin world of the Unknown, where they meet friend and foe alike. Over the Garden Wall hits the perfect note between fun and fear. Though the series itself is not scary, it crafts a sense of foreboding from the first episode to the last, which only escalates as the boys' journey continues on and they see more of what the Unknown has to offer. The characters themselves are very consistent, which works well since the Unknown is a world of twists and turns. Likewise, the growth the characters experience as the show progresses - especially Wirt - feels natural without becoming cliché. The animation itself is beautiful, reminiscent (at least to me) of the older Disney animation style (before and during the Golden Age especially). To match this lovely animation is a superb soundtrack. Overall, I would highly recommend this series. It's fairly short, but each episode is very well-crafted, and the overarching plot of the series is engaging and dark and wonderful in the best kind of way.