[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M25cs97aeK0]
Gravity Falls: Mabel’s Guide to Life
Summary: In five two minute shorts, Mabel Pines explains her unique views on life, the universe, and everything.
Rating: ★★★★★
I already talked about how much I love Gravity Falls when I reviewed Dipper’s Guide to the Unexplained. However, there was something in those shorts I didn’t realize I missed until the next batch came out…
Mabel.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27UP0c4tFbA]
If you don’t know, Mabel Pines is Dipper’s twin sister who is spending her summer in Gravity Falls too. Where Dipper is all about the mysteries of the town, Mabel is so very not. In fact, most of Mabel’s life revolves around arts and crafts, cute things, her pet pig Waddles, silliness, her friends, and boys. She’s a character full of life and joy and easily one of my favorite characters in a Disney anything. If I ever worked at the Disney Store, she would be my tag character.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVbsUk3oLWc]
Which is why I think the Mabel’s Guide to Life shorts are way more awesome than the already pretty great Dipper’s Guide to the Unexplained ones. It’s not about unraveling some great mystery in the show. It’s just Mabel being awesome at life.
Part of what I love about Mabel is that she embraces the parts of her that are silly and sparkly. She uses stickers on everything, conspires with her friends on how to dress Soos up like Jareth the Goblin King and make Grunkle Stan see a rainbow for the first time, and labels herself “Amelia Awesomeheart” when she has a crashed out attempt at flying. In most shows, this would make Mabel just the oddball character. Mabel is certainly odd, but the show and these shorts especially let her be her perfectly silly self while still being the deuteragonist with her own character arcs.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPkZFsl8ZoQ]
These shorts in particular give an insight into Mabel’s world. The things she finds cool and how unflappable she is. A TV blows up in her face at one point and she’s still smiling. We also get to see her interact with her best friends Candy and Grenda too as they help her make the shorts and give her family flash makeovers. She also puts way more work into her videos than Dipper does with custom title cards with glitter and a theme song with a sequence that changes every episode. Dipper asks her in one of the shorts who she’s making these for, but frankly, I don’t really care. I just love that it’s perfectly in character for her to do all of this. I already loved Mabel with all my heart before these shorts, but Mabel’s Guide to Life made me love her more somehow.
I think they’ll make you love her too. They might not be as primer-rific to the weirdness of Gravity Falls as Dipper’s Guid to the Unexplained is, but they’re such a wonderful look at the character of Mabel in her natural habitat of crafting and positivity. Whether you’re a Gravity Falls fan or not, it’s hard not to smile when you take a look at Mabel’s Guide to Life.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLOerTBYVMA]
English