Larva (TV series)
Larva is a computer-animated television series made by TUBA Entertainment in Seoul, South Korea. This cartoon shows two larvae as its main characters. The first season was premiered on KBS 1TV, the second season was premiered on KBS 2TV, the third season was premiered on JEI TV, and the fourth season was premiered on Netflix. and worldwide on GMA Network and GMA Pinoy TV in the Philippines.
Characters
Main
- Yellow – is a dense, dirty and happy-go-lucky yellow-colored caterpillar with an antenna. Yellow is often abused by Red, but that never endangers their friendship. Although usually he obeys Red, he loses his mind in front of food. Yellow is bad with Red because he takes all things that are for Red and Red always fights him. He changes color from yellow to brown and he grows green shades around his mouth when feeling extreme emotions.
- Red – a mostly hot-tempered and greedy red-colored caterpillar. Arrogant and often seen abusing Yellow, Red usually ends up hurting himself instead. He usually shouts like Bruce Lee when afraid or angered.
Recurring
- Violet – an oversized ghost slug. He is sometimes shown with his lower half buried in the ground. When he is threatened, he exposes his whole body and roars, showing his sharp teeth.
- Brown – a dung beetle that gathers poop. To him, poop is either his food or his treasure. He hates it when other insects touch his prized poop. He has a long strand of hair on his right cheek.
- Black – a horned Atlas beetle that has great strength and is usually punching a cocoon. He's aggressive and will beat up whoever he thinks is messing with him. In "Black’s Back" he turns out to be a slug wearing beetle armor.
- Rainbow – a snail with a red and green shell. When in his shell, he moves slowly, but under that he has a muscular human-like body and can function like humans do.
- Pink – a pink larva with two antennae. She loves Yellow and Yellow loves her as well. She hides a great strength behind her cute, beautiful face.
- Ivory - a stick bug with a brown skin, Ivory has a very thin body with a brown skin color. He black eyes and darker colored areas by his eyelids. He has 2 antennae and a little pink studs on. His girlfriend is Cocoa.
Minor
- Blue – housefly that has numerous smells. Nobody can get close because of his repugnant smell. He often feels gloomy and lonely because nobody can approach him.
- Navy – in "One Wild and Rough World" part 1, this deep-sea fish appears when the sewerage is sunk. He appeared as a goldfish. When Red and Yellow threw him into a sardine can full of warm water, he changed into a deep-sea fish which is often seen whenever the sewer floods. He has a good enough appetite to eat up caterpillars and other insects.
- Green – A carnivorous plant which eats up anything on the ground. In season 1, he is an enemy to all insects because he tries to swallow the other insects when he encounters them. But he is weaker than Violet. He appears to have a menacing set of teeth.
- Frog – a frog which often appears in the sewer, is sensitive and tries to monopolise all power by eating insects and larvae. He is several times bigger than other normal frogs. He escaped from sewer and went into the house where Red and Yellow lived in a season 2 episode. In season 3 he lives in the sewers again.
- Bee – a honey bee which collects honey. She stings when someone touches her honey that she collected or makes her angry.
- Maroon – dachshund who wears a blue and yellow sweater, appearing in season 2. He attacks when he sees moving things. He buries his valued bones in the ground and is quite temperamental In "Whistle” he turns into a werewolf when he hears certain whistling.
- Prussian – a blue parrot which appears in season 2. He observes other friends and gives a sardonic laugh before attacking. He is also a predator to the caterpillars. "Nanta" revealed that he used to live in the Amazon rainforest as a hatchling.
- Prism – a chameleon which appears intermittently in various areas of season 2, such as the living room, bathroom, rooftop, and even bedroom; he suddenly appears and attacks Red and Yellow without reason.
- Ephemera – A mayfly who appears in the titular episode. Red has a crush on her, but she dies quickly due to the lifespan of an average mayfly.
- Bomber bug – A bombardier beetle which bombed Yellow, Red and Brown in episode "Bomb Bug" in Season 2. He has the ability to bomb a place with acid which comes out from his bottom. He usually does that when he's angry, sad or feel disgusting.
- Grey – a rat that appears in season 3. He is an enemy to all caterpillars in this season.
- Silvers – A bird duo using food scraps to protect their super reflective heads from the sun, they are enemies of the larvae. Each bird communicate with one word, "Yah" for the bird wearing the banana peel, and "Huh" for the bird wearing the carved out watermelon. These birds only appear in Season 3.
- Cocoa - a house cricket that Ivory's girlfriend.
- Mite - a baby mite who Yellow initially adopts, but turns out to parasitically prey on Yellow and the others. Then Yellow left in a zoo.
- Mud - a mudskipper. They live underground under the sands and can slap each other with their fins.
- Booby - a Blue footed booby bird. He met the larvae when they landed on his island.
- Mango - a larva Red has fallen in love with. When she first meets Red, she couples with him.
- Chuck - a human. He is the first character who can speak...although previously other characters occasionally spoke on occasion, if it fits the scene. In season 1, (the episode called “Mummy” Red encounters his father and says "Papa". Also in season 1, Red and Yellow whisper to each other as they formulate a plan.
- Clara - a seal that Red and Yellow befriended. She is playful and charming and has the same name as Chuck's pendant.
- Blue - a whale who can only speak in season 5.
- Crabsformer - a crab that accidentally ate an unknown object that turned him into a robotic crab. He has a crush on a lady crab, however she and the other crabs are scared of his powers. This character appears in season 4 and 5.
Production
Episode list
Series overview
Season 1 - Grate (2010-2011)
Season 2 - House (2012)
Season 3 - New York (2014-15)
Season 4 - Larva Island (2018-19)
Season 4 (2018)
Season 2 (2019)
Reception
Emily Ashby from the organization Common Sense Media rated Larva three stars. She praised the show for showing the perspective of Red and Yellow, stating “because the characters are the size of worms, everything around them is larger than life, and that perspective is always fun to see in action.”Although designated a children's show by Netflix, many parent reviews on Common Sense Media considered Larva to have too many adult themes, including frequent violence, sexual innuendo and drug references to be inappropriate for children.