American Born Chinese Season 1 Review

American Born Chinese (2023-)
Season 1 - 8 episodes

Rent American Born Chinese on Disney+ // Buy the graphic novel on Amazon (paid link)
Created by: Kelvin Yu
Based on: American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang
Starring: Ben Wang, Yann Yann Yeo, Chin Han, Jimmy Liu, Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy quan, Sydney Taylor, Daniel Wu
Rated: TV-PG
Watch the trailer

Plot
Jin Wang is an average teenager balancing high school and home life. When he meets a new foreign student on the first day of the school, Jin becomes unwittingly entangled in a battle with Chinese mythological gods.

Verdict
This mixes a teen coming of age story with Chinese mythology. The teen aspect is nothing new other than dealing with micro-agressions. I get the point the show makes, but it feels like there should be a next step, something more corrective than letting it happen and moving on. The show frames a lot of it as ignorance, but there's never an education as to why it's wrong. The mythology ties into the typical teen hero story. Jin is the key to save the universe, but I wish this season did more.
It depends.

Review
Jin (Ben Wang) is a teenager dealing with his mom, school, and the other kids. He lacks confidence and the school pairs him with exchange student Wei-Chen (Jimmy Liu) because "they have so much in common" which is they both look Chinese. What Jin doesn't know is that Wei-Chen is involved in an otherworldly war.

Jin compromises to be popular, and you get it. That's typical for anyone. This show uses the in universe show Beyond Repair to highlight the racial discrepancy. It's a parallel to Jin trying to fit in. Being a minority makes that all the more difficult.

Mahi Alam, Jimmy Liu, Ben Wang play Anuj, Wei-Chen, Jin Wang

I was surprised at how quickly Jin accepts Wei-Chen's Chinese god story. You'd think he'd be more incredulous. Throughout the season Jin is often more concerned with his social standing than a potential end of the world war. That never tracked. Even a teen would realize the consequences of a mythological war.

The strength of this show is looking at the difficulties minorities face. I thought this would do more with Ke Huy quan's character Jamie.  We get to the point where Jamie's show Beyond Repair might get revived and he may play the stereotypical part again. He doesn't want to but stops short of denouncing the part and the joke. It's also a parallel to Jin. Both characters are stereotyped and made fun of specifically due to their culture and language. A joke isn't funny when you have to resort to physical characteristics and race. As a minority those jokes are isolating and demoralizing because the majority assume all Asians are like that. A character makes that connection between the Beyond Repair character and Jin. The show falls short of directly denouncing this behavior. We see Jin pardon it to help his chances of getting on the soccer team. Jin's parents gently rebuff the principal, but I really thought this would do something with Jamie while making a bigger point of not just that it's wrong but why.