Unquestionably my favorite cartoon of 2023, and the best Eric episode to date by a landslide. Sublime volumetric cartooning with great posing, cartoony expressions and character acting, with not a single one of the drawings feeling at all arbitrary. They all fit the context they exist in and enhance the emotions of the scenes and line deliveries. This kind of tight artist direction is something rarely found in animation today. The story is good too, and the characterizations feel real and believable, thanks in no small part to the excellent vocal performances. Jacob's performance as the crazy chocolate guy had me in stitches. I normally dislike hammy voice acting like that, but he sells it so hard that it works for me. Additionally, the cartoon is laden with clever filmmaking ideas you almost never see in web animation, let alone western cartoons in general, particularly during the montage. I love how Eric mouths some of the lyrics in the track, and I really want to see those split screen techniques in more cartoons! I really can't think of much wrong with the episode. I wish the animation was a bit less limited, but such shortcomings are understandable for an indie project, and perhaps it's stylistic. The gradient shading doesn't look great and feels randomly applied. But these are ultimately nitpicks, this cartoon is by all means still an enormous milestone in everyone involved's creative development and I definitely can't wait for the next Eric episode. Keep up the impeccable work and you just might become one of my favorite cartoon directors, Chris.