American Dragon: Jake Long Pt. 2

All right, now time to take a look at season 2 of American Dragon. Just like last time, I will take a look at the opening of the season. Also, I will talk about development in the character and new characters and end with my final thoughts. Let's begin.






Now unlike last time, I will touch upon the scenes that follow the opening as they play an integral part in  certain episodes of this season.  First of all, the most dramatic change here is the animation. Perhaps, I'm in the minority here but I think the animation has been vastly improved. As I said in part 1, I felt the animation was a little bland  but with season 2, I believe the animation adds another layer to this season and in away it  is its own character. I believe that the animation helped to diversify the show and make it unique. Now onto the opening, let's start with the scenes before the theme. While they use the cliche of it being a dream, I believe that works as it helps the audience to understand where Jake is at this point in his life. Another example that works well and this comes after the theme are when they go through the montage of the different ways that Jake tried to get over Rose. This again shows that he still cares for her and personally find the monk scene the funniest.

Now onto the actual theme song portion. This is so much better than the season 1 theme opening. It flow nicely. It has a great shot of the villains and the magical ceatures. best of all they got rid of the whole Jake free styling concert. They still kept certain lines from that part but for the majority they cut it out and best of all, they got rid of that mac daddy line. I approve.

Characters

This time, I'll be breaking this down by talking about characters that went through changes from the first season for one reason or another. I'll also be talking about certain new characters. For the the returning characters, I won't be talking about the villains as there isn't too much to say there and also I won't be listing their voice actors.

Returning Characters

Jake Long



The most obvious  change to Jake is his physical appearance. This is part of the animation change. I will admit that Jake does look a little weaker than his season 1 counter part but I think that works to his advantage because it also transitions over to his new Dragon look. Admittedly besides Jake's new physical look not much was changed about his character. Now let's take a look at his season 2 dragon style.



Here Jake's dragon form is a little skinnier and in his dragon form, he does not look as muscular.  I actually think this is a good change as it works better with his age. Because in S1, he was very fit in dragon form but I think this works better because he is still in training and this shows that.

Spud




In  Season 1, Spud is portrayed as being dim-witted but in this season it is shown that this was just all an act as he is quite smart and he didn't let it out because he was afraid of what people would think of him. Though he found that people didn't think of him too differently. Since he revealed that he was quite smart, he was able to Jake in many of his missions. He sort of took on the role of techie/researcher with his laptop and it is also hinted that he may come from a line of wizards.

Rose

Rose's character went was perhaps the most drastic change of all the characters. First off, while she still kept her role of Huntsgirl, she was now an ali to Jake and she was just using her postilion in the huntsclan to protect the one she loved.  Rose also made some serious revelations when she went into her subconscious and finds out that the Huntsclan kidnapped from her family when she was born and that her family is still alive and she has a twin sister. Even though her twin is only seen in one episode and never again.  The next big change comes when Jake confronts The Huntsclan for the last time and wishes that Rose had never been taken by the Huntsclan. When this happens, Rose's memory of meeting Jake are all erased and she doesn't remember a thing about her relationship or ever being with Jake. For the longest time after this event, Rose is not seen again. Not until the Series Finale, The Hong Kong Longs. Here Jake and his family are at Hong Kong for what his dad thinks is a vacation but Jake has a hidden agenda as he wants to try and find Rose because she moved there after Jake made his wish. Jake tries to get Rose to remember but it takes a while for remember but when she does, she goes to help Jake confront The Dark Dragon.

Returning Characters I Didn't Cover Last Time

Now as I said in the previous blog, there were certain characters  for one reason or another that I did not cover. Part of that is  they didn't play a large role in the first season but their role was expanded in the second season. Therefore, I have decided to cover them on this particular blog.

Hayley Long voiced by Amy Bruckner



Hayley is Jake's little sister. She is eight in the second season and while she did develop her dragon powers in season 1, she didn't too much with them. In this season, she actually starts her dragon training with her trainer, Sun Park. Hayley is quite smart for her age as shown when Jake drops her off at her school because she attends an advanced school. Anyways back to her dragon training, Hayley's training is  quite different from Jake's as Sun uses a more peaceful approach to training. That works for Hayley for the most part and I think they did that to balance out the different styles of training.

New Characters

Sun Park by Sandra Oh



As mentioned earlier, Sun was Hayley's trainer and if you watched the video I included all the way through, you would have seen her first appearance. She is first seen as Jake's Home EC teacher. Later on though, I can't recall it is revealed that she is the Korean Dragon.  As I said her training style is much different.  Not much more I can say about her character. Fun Fact: Rose was supposed to kill Sun in this season but Disney told the show to scrap that idea because it was too dark.  A few questions come to mind,  if Rose did kill Sun, that would be out of character for the way she is portrayed in this season. Unless Sun was supposed to be a villain because one of the teachers on American Dragon was supposed to be a villain but again they were told to scrap this idea. I don't know everything about this but I think it can be easy to put these two together and you could come up with something very plausible.

My Final Thoughts

There you go, that's American Dragon: Jake Long season 2. Now I know that I didn't cover all the new characters but really some of them were just so annoying that I couldn't find anything to say about them without having to use the Disney Facepalm and I don't want to use to often. Again, I realize I didn't say anything about the villains but really they didn't change all that much.

In the end, I found this season much more enjoyable. Part of it may be that I think the animation looks better and also I thought the characters were better developed. All in all, both seasons are great and Disney really screwed this show over because it should have lasted more than just 2 seasons. That's my thoughts anyways. Peace!