‘Neo Yokio’: When Tweets Become TV

Vampire Weekend’s frontman Ezra Koenig has a very specific sense of humor. His Twitter, which has amassed a cult following among conscious consumers of popular counterculture, is basically a collection of the usual petitions and articles critiquing the current presidential administration interspersed with highly esoteric jokes. Koenig composes his subtly funny all-lowercase tweets about tasteful palette 70s film, Fidel Castro wearing two Rolex watches at once, and half-hearted text responses, among other things.

Koenig’s idea to create “Neo Yokio,” an anime that takes place in New York City and stars Jaden Smith (another master of the ironic tweet), Steve Buscemi, Susan Sarandon, Tavi Gevinson, and Richard Ayoade, to name a few, might as well have been another one of his viral tweets. Ironically, it’s an actual Netflix original with six 20-minute episodes.

“Neo Yokio” is a delicately caricatured representation of NYC, evocative of the style of mainstream children’s anime (“Pokémon,” “Sailor Moon,” “Yu-Gi-Oh!,” etc.), and faithful to the city itself. Cartoonish-looking Kandinsky imitations line the spiraling walls of the Guggenheim, while the embellishments of the Washington Square Park arch are intricately drawn. Even the protagonist’s fictional prestigious prep school, The Easton School, is an exact replica of The Dalton School.

The show is also jam-packed with the same esoteric humor that populates Koenig’s Twitter feed. Protagonist Kaz Kaan (voiced by Smith) becomes the poster boy for a Caprese Martini campaign (“Tomato, basil, and mozzarella, but it gets you lit!”). He asks students at Easton to write hundred-word essays on “the graceful geometry of cableknit sweaters” and can’t say no to squid ink fettucine. Gevinson, a famous young fashion blogger with a cult following, plays Helena St. Tessero, a famous young fashion blogger with a cult following (called the Helenists, which is only really funny if you’re familiar with ancient Greco-Roman history). Helena speaks in recognizable pop-progressivism one-liners about “a culture built on hatred, greed, and the subjugation of the working class.” The show even has an unexpectedly solid grasp on regional slang—a character describes Kaz’s outfit as “OD gothic” and calls him “B.”

Supported by all these very specific and highly conceptual jokes, the plot is some formulaic nonsense about beating the bad guys with magic powers. It’s really only there to showcase the incisive but somewhat warm and goofy exploitation of rich kid stereotypes designed for intellectual and “edgy” young people who interact with members of the creative elite, like Koenig, Gevinson, Smith, Buscemi, etc.