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Helluva Boss

'Helluva Boss' debuts Season 2, despite not technically being done with Season 1

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Loona's lost dog posterThe now-Ursa Major Award-winning animated YouTube series Helluva Boss has begun its second season on YouTube, with "The Circus" available now. Warning: The episode linked to contains "Graphic Violence, Strong Language, Sexual Themes, Flashing Lights" and "Rampant Demon Horniness" according to the episode's opening itself. The show, created by Vivienne "Vivziepop" Medrano, tells the story of the demonic assassination startup business I.M.P.

The last episode of Helluva Boss, "Ozzie's", was posted back on Halloween of last year - listed as a "Finale Part I", so a "Finale Part II" was surely forthcoming. An update on the show's Twitter account explains the situation:

The Good News is the episode we have been working on for basically 8 months now is finally at the finish line-but the Bad News is due to forces quite literally out of my control we unfortunately don't know when we are able to actually release it ... at this point.

But you will see it!

'Shine', 'Awoo!' take 2021 Ursa Major Awards by landslides; K. Garrison wins three

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The results of the 2021 Ursa Major Awards were announced this Sunday, with motivated fan-bases driving decisive voting in certain categories, while others were finely balanced.

Littlefur/adult baby slice-of-life comic Shine by UK artist Star ran off with Best Graphic Story; coming second was a remake of Found, another of her works under the name Toddlergirl. Both had seen strong support in last years' Ursa Major Awards.

'Awoo!: Volume 1' Likewise, AC Stuart's Awoo!: Volume 1 (on Amazon) stormed the opposition for Best Other Literary Work, with four more first-preference votes than the other four nominees put together.

Netting twice the points of the next nominee for Dramatic Short Work was Frank Behring's "Nobody Does It Better", derived from Best Comic Strip Carry On. Artist Kathy Kellogg (KD Nightstar) also took Best Published Illustration for "A World of Our Own" — beating all other nominees by 50%.

What the hell is 'Helluva Boss'?

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Helluva BossKeeping up with Flayrah's decades-long tradition of not reviewing (or even covering) animated shows until well after it's necessary, let's discuss Helluva Boss, a show about the misadventures of four demons from Hell who work as assassins.

I'd say most of Flayrah's audience is well aware of Helluva Boss. It would have won the 2020 Ursa Major Award for Best Dramatic Series, but then Beastars had to be translated into English, so never mind. Flayrah has a piece on Beastars currently planned for 2023. Furthermore, Helluva Boss is free on YouTube, and unlike My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, that's actually on purpose.

Granted there's only one character who is truly furry, and that's Loona the Hellhound. To be fair, she is really furry. On e621, "loona_(vivzmind)" results in over 2000 hits, so that's not too bad. To be less fair, she has the smallest role of the four main characters, to the point where her entire appearance in the second episode consists of her screaming obscenities offscreen. And in the episode that features her for any extended period of time, she's magically disguised as a human for the majority of it.

That being said, I'm still going to recommend furries at least try the series, because it features interesting non-human (if not exactly furry) character design. It has pretty good animation for a free YouTube series, and although it's got a dark, cynical sense of humor, it balances that with a strong moral center. That last one may come as a surprise, seeing as how the premise of the show is that the characters' job is to kill people.