Gunnerkrigg Court (TV series)

Gunnerkrigg Court is an American animated television series created by Tom Siddell, adapted from his 2005 webcomic Gunnerkrigg Court. The series is produced by Maloing Entertainment and BBToons Originals with animation outsourced to Canadian studio Mainframe Studios.

The comic tells the story of Antimony Carver, a young girl who has just started attending a school at a strange and mysterious place called Gunnerkrigg Court, and the events that unfold around her as she becomes embroiled in political intrigues between Gunnerkrigg Court and the inhabitants of the Gillitie Wood, a forest outside the school. The comic's style and themes include elements from science, fantasy creatures, mythology from a variety of traditions, and alchemical symbols and theories; the literary style is heavily influenced by mystery fiction and manga.

Setting
Gunnerkrigg Court is set in a boarding school in a country that resembles the United Kingdom, identifiable from the grey skies and mandatory uniforms. The comic contains other clues about the setting, such as the house system that is described at the end of the first chapter. This system is similar to that used by many UK schools, including the one the author attended; Siddell has even stated that the school in which Gunnerkrigg Court takes place is modeled after his own secondary school.

Gunnerkrigg Court, the fictional place around which the story revolves, is a mysterious and vast establishment that many characters suspect hides much more than just a school. The school appears to actively recruit many talented or extraordinary students. As the story progresses, it is soon revealed that the school is inhabited by a wide variety of both supernatural creatures – many of which become characters involved in the story's plot – and ultra-modern technology. One character explains that "the Court was founded on a union between technological and etheric design." Another describes it as "man's endeavor to become god."

The court is built on the edge of a wide chasm, on the other side of which lies the Gillitie Wood, which is inhabited by "etheric" or magical creatures. At the time when the main story takes place, the two sides exist in a kind of truce, with the Court as the realm of science and technology and the Wood the realm of nature and the etheric. The denizens of the Gillitie Wood do not allow technology in the Wood, and the rules of the Court forbid students from leaving school grounds.

Plot
The story of Gunnerkrigg Court involves several different ongoing plot arcs. The main story is that of the protagonist, Antimony Carver, and her deepening involvement in the intrigues between Gunnerkrigg Court and the Gillitie Wood, the forest outside Gunnerkrigg Court; she is accompanied throughout the storyline by her friend and classmate Katerina Donlan and her companion Reynardine, a demon living within her stuffed animal. As the story progresses, Antimony and her companions also slowly learn more about their surroundings, the relationship between Gunnerkrigg Court and the Gillitie Wood, and the beings they encounter.

The story begins when Antimony builds a robot to transport a mysterious shadow into Gillitie Wood, the forest outside Gunnerkrigg Court. Several chapters later in the comic, and apparently several months later in the story's timeline, the robot reappears on the bridge outside Gunnerkrigg Court; being controlled by a malevolent creature from Gillitie Wood, it pushes Antimony off the bridge when she goes out to it. Antimony spends a night at the banks of the river below the bridge, and encounters a ghost, before she is rescued by Kat and taken back to the school. Her brief time outside Gunnerkrigg Court, though, sets off a dispute between Gunnerkrigg Court and the Gillitie Wood. Not long after Antimony's return, the Court is visited by Coyote, a god from the Gillitie Wood, and General Ysengrin, the being who caused the robot to attack Antimony at the bridge. They express anger over the robot's visit to the forest, and over the damage Antimony caused when she left the Court.

During the time that the robot is gone, Antimony meets a creature called Reynardine, who tries to take over her body but, by accident, instead becomes trapped in the body of a stuffed animal she carries; and becomes subject to her command. Because of her relationship with Reynardine and the events with Coyote and Ysengrin, Antimony is nominated to begin training to become a medium, one of the individuals who moderate disputes between the Wood and the Court and communicates with etheric beings, a position last occupied by her mother, and she learns to use her innate etheric abilities, including fire manipulation and astral projection. From Coyote, Antimony she learns that in the past Coyote had granted some of his powers to Renard (called later Reynardine) and Ysengrin. He had given Ysengrin "power over the trees" and given Reynardine the power to take bodies, but bodies that Reynardine took always died after he left them and Ysengrin was hardly strong enough to stand without the help of Coyote's tree armor. Reynardine had been in love with Antimony's mother, Surma, and had used his power to steal a young man's body and woo Surma; the man died, however, and Reynardine was imprisoned in Gunnerkrigg Court until the events surrounding his first meeting with Antimony. She also learns that her mother was a psychopomp and the descendant of a fire spirit. It is suggested that the powers Antimony has are passed from mother to daughter, at the cost of the mother's life.

Characters and voice cast

 * TBA as Antimony Carver - The protagonist of Gunnerkrigg Court, eventually revealed to have fire elemental ancestry, she came to the school after her mother's death. Has a way with the "etheric" or magical beings that inhabit the Court and the Gillitie wood. She is able to see and communicate with the guides, spirits that lead humans into the afterlife. Acts as a medium between Gillitie Wood and the Court, as her mother did before her.
 * TBA as Katerina "Kat" Donlan - Antimony's closest friend. Daughter of two teachers at the Court, Mr. and Mrs. Donlan. Whereas Antimony has close contacts with the supernatural, Kat is gifted in the formal sciences. The robots in the Court started to regard her as an angel and later "Creator". Kat is in a relationship with fellow student Paz.

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Release
The series was released to BBToons on August 23, 2019. In Canada, the series started airing on Teletoon on November 23, 2019.

Reception
Gunnerkrigg Court have a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes, with too few reviews for a consensus. At io9, Beth Elderkin described Gunnerkrigg Court ' as a "must-watch", writing that it joined the likes of Gravity Falls and Steven Universe as a series with a broad appeal to many age groups, and highlighting its music and art design.

Writing for Polygon, Petrana Radulovic appreciated that beneath a standard fantasy exploration quest, the series is a "vibrant mosaic, with a unique world, multidimensional character relationships, and a deeper underlying plot" about the tensions between mutes and humans. She also noted that Benson was the first character to have an explicit coming out as gay in an all-ages animation series, and that the understated manner of the scene, in episode 6, made it all the more noteworthy. Charles Pulliam-Moore at io9 likewise wrote that the series's "casual queerness is fantastic" because Benson's orientation is not treated as a plot point to complicate Kat's feelings for him, but, "with a distinct matter-of-factness", as just one aspect of his character.