Jentry Chau: Sabrina Spellman's spiritual successor

When I first saw the trailer for "Jentry Chau vs The Underworld" I thought the same thing as most, which was the same as "The Life and Times of Juniper Lee" and "American Dragon Jake Long." The three shows are about an Asian-American teenager who has to fight creatures and is trained by his grandfather/grandmother, but despite that, since I feel a particular attraction to creepy series for children, I gave it a chance, and I'm glad I did.

The series ended up subverting several expectations I had, such as usually one expects an animated series to be designed to last 3 seasons or more, but in this case the creators seem to have condensed a plot that was enough for at least 2 seasons into one, for fear that Netflix might cancel them? Although this causes the main problem that the story has, which is that its first episodes are dedicated to world building and beginning to unravel some mysteries without them having begun to matter to us first, something that is fixed starting in the fourth episode where we have a bit of what we would usually consider filler but in this case it is necessary to connect with the characters.

This paragraph has spoilers. It was also a complete surprise that the series got rid of what seemed like the main villain of the series in episode 10 in a moment worthy of being the closing of a season. Mr Cheng completely transmits the vibe of the antagonist that the protagonist has to defeat at the end of the season or directly from the series, like Shredder from Teenage Mutants Ninja Turtles or Vilgax from Ben 10, so it is very unexpected when they reveal to us that the main villain is really the Mogui(which has a much more generic appearance, looking like a Marvel symbiote). End of spoilers

But if there's one thing that really made me love this series, it's that it feels like a spiritual successor to "The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina." I really loved what Netflix did with the Teenage Witch, so its cancellation was painful and I searched in vain for something to fill its place with "Merlina," "Lockwood & Co." and “Dead Boy Detectives”.  I didn't expect Jentry Chau to be what I was looking for, but it was.

The similarities between both series are several: 16-year-old protagonist with powers, a love trio, demons, trips to other planes such as limbo, scenes worthy of a horror movie, etc. Even Jentry and Sabrina are quite similar, they both have short gray hair, they are rebellious and despite being kind, they know how to stand up and be ruthless when necessary.

It seems strange to me that I don't see anyone else making this comparison on the internet, beyond the starting point the course of the stories are also similar in many moments, which I won't comment on to avoid spoilers. I hope this article reaches other Sabrina fans so that they are happy like me watching this animated series.

However, despite the similarities that may be found, I want to make it clear that "Jentry Chau vs The Underworld" shines with its own light, largely thanks to its use of Chinese folklore. Deep down it is not far from other beliefs, instead of talking about Hell they talk about Diyu, and instead of having vampires they have Jiangshis, but it is still a glimpse into a culture that is foreign to us and is quite fascinating.

Plus there's a certain episode (which if you've watched the series you'd know exactly which one it is) that's incredible, it feels like a great teen horror movie that would be a Halloween classic. It reminded me of how the first two episodes of "The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina" always felt to me like a movie that could have been released separately to attract more people, kind of like what "My Babysitter's a Vampire" did. Or it could also be compared to the famous ninth episodes of “Game of Thrones” that always had a scale worthy of cinema.

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