My Hellish Life is a new indie pilot made by GuppyRoll and written by his wife Ruvale. My hellish life follows a young socially awkward demon named Alan(Fluffbat), otherwise referred to by his gamer tag, “Lord Wasabi 55”. He lives together with an anthropomorphic effeminate pc called Chi-u (Krysdolly) and spends his days playing video games.
GuppyRoll, the creator and animator, has previously worked on a couple projects in different mediums. While My hellish life is an animated pilot, he recently released a platforming game called The Repairman and he has previously published a comic called Power Pow!.
What’s My Hellish Life?
In My Hellish Life we follow Alan as he head out to rent a “so bad it’s good”-movie from the neighboring store. While perusing the movie section he recognizes the voice of a woman he met on an mmo. Alan is so caught up with the shock of meeting her and the struggle to introduce himself without being weird that in his attempt to play it cool that he accidentally makes everything extremely uncomfortable and accidentally makes himself look like a stalker.
I think what will be a big make or brake in the show is whether or not you like Alan. He is a young man who spends his days playing games while acting socially anxious. I can see a lot of people finding that very relatable. I’ve always liked stories with that sort of lead but I think there is a limit to it. I can see other people growing frustrated with him. I feel like that will differ from person to person however. He is very clearly flawed in at least one way: He struggles socially.
He is unintentionally rude to most people we meet in the pilot and he obsess over acting correctly to someone he met in a game many months ago while acting weird in front of everyone else. He seems to be thinking about this as if he has some close connection to her while she seems mostly uninterested. I can see a lot of people finding him endearing because of his awkwardness but I could also see others getting frustrated with him which you can’t really get away from when writing a character like him.
Alan’s crush would be Valerie (Unique Paradise VO) the coveted gamer girl who he by chance runs into. It’s hard to say anything about her yet as no one outside of Alan really did much in the Pilot. She generally feel like a Ramona Flowers like character who falls into his life and gets a crush on. We don’t know much about her except that she stopped playing games with him at some point.
My Hellish Life and Scott Pilgrim
There are a couple superficial similarities between Scott Pilgrim and the pilot. They both star guys in their 20’s navigating their love lives, they both have a rather cartoony esthetic, and Valerie feels immediately like a character made in the same vain as Ramona. GuppyRolls previous comic, Power Pow!, also seems to cover a lot of similar themes where the cast wants to start a rock band while navigating young adulthood. It’s hard to say now just how much My Hellish Life will pull from these sources but looking at the pilot there are a lot of differences already, first and foremost in characterization.
Although Scott generally is an awkward and impulsive guy who has a hard time in relationships I never got the impression that he had self confidence issues the way I feel Alan has. Scott, although he’s a NEET, is very socially active. He attends parties, he have regular meetups with friends, and he looks for relationships. I don’t think Alan does that.
Watching the pilot I don’t think Alan has an especially active social life outside of his roommate and his online friends. I doubt he goes out to do more things then stay in his room. He seems to play a cool guy around the people he already knows while being completely ill-equipped to tackle the slightest talk with strangers.
It could have been rather simple to just walk up to Valerie and ask “Hi excuse me, are you Valerie from this game? I thought I recognized your voice…” but he didn’t do that. He makes a way bigger deal out of it then it has to be by overthinking it and I think that’s a good thing if that’s what the My Hellish Life wants to explore that theme of Alan’s inner struggle with social interactions.
I hope that the My Hellish Life focuses more on Alan’s inner social anxiety and don’t forget it. I don’t think it would serve Alan well if It was just meant as a one time thing when meeting Valerie for the first time. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
It has a similar looking art-style with some differences. In Scott Pilgrim the characters have pretty humanlike proportions while still looking cartoonish with rather large heads while in My hellish life the cast is a little more chibi. Regardless to more fine details I don’t think anyone would fight the claim that it could be an inspiration. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was pure happenstance however.
While discussing art, there are a lot of references and inspirations that can be found in My Hellish Life. My mind directly went to the original animal crossing with how Alan has horns the same way that the male characters did in that game. The title “My hellish Life” seems to be playing at something regarding hell given that Alan is a demon but I don’t think anything biblical will have a deeper meaning in this story. Outside of that there are direct references to Adventure Time, Cave Story, Parappa The Rappa, PvZ, and more. Every shot almost feels like its own Where’s Waldo? given how many refences that was sprinkled throughout.
My Hellish Life also makes use of a VHS/CRT filter to try to make it look older. Although there is nothing wrong with that I do get a little curious why. There is a lot of animation and filmmaking, the most prevalent probably being analogue horror, that uses these sort of effects to look more authentic. In this there is no clear reason why however.
I’m mostly curious on what it tries to be authentic too. It don’t really remind me of anything that would be on a VHS and there is no real metatextual reason for why that is there. It’s completely fine if its just there for esthetic purposes. It don’t actually distract in any way unless you are a nerd like me, I’m just curious, it’s by no means a serious issue.
Generally I think My Hellish Life is a fun pilot that’s a little rough around the edges, I’m very curious on what will come next in the story and where it goes. Right now I’m mostly curious about what Allan’s and Chi-u’s relationship even is. Are they siblings? Close friends? Guess I’ll have to wait and see.
You can watch the pilot here
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