Junior is a penguin born and raised in a zoo, where he and his brother, Little, perform for adoring crowds. One day he gets magical powers in the zoo to become a human and he does that. Confused by what has happened, he ventures out and stumbles upon a boarding school. It turns out that a spirit Mina has been helping hi out to get in school. As a new student, Junior tries to fit in by joining extracurricular activities, but most clubs fail to catch his interest, till he finds swimming club and he is better than everyone there. He meets another student Sun, a quiet and introverted. When swimming team champion tries to harm Junior, Sun comes to protect him. Despite Sun's introverted nature, the two become close friends. However, a new problem arises. The zoo keepers and other guys are now looking for missing penguin. They come to school in the process following a tracker on Junior and next few episodes focus on the bad guys trying to catch Junior and figure out what happened. But in the process we find that Sun himself is hiding a secret. He is a black panther turned human and is going through his own stuff. The two slowly start to fall for one another but they also ned to decide whether to go back to their cages or continue to live as humans. There is also a parallel story of romance between two other boys who become Junior's friends.
I loved Junior's character in these first episodes; he didn't know much about the world, but he did know what he wanted and went to get it, he was able to stand up for himself, even when he was betrayed by someone he had trusted his whole life. And he did all that while being an adorable penguin. But somewhere the series gets too muddled and all over the place with silly side plots and force comedy. The story is paper thin and the series feels like full of fillers just for the sake of it. The characters have a few mature discussions, tackling topics like freedom and identity. Sun and Junior build a meaningful bond by spending quality time together. They treat each other with compassion and respect and their love story feels sweet but also bland at the same time. Junior has a cute smile and brings energy to every scene, but the actor playing Sun is so stiff (and his character likely demands it), it feels almost wooden expressions. A big conflict arises towards the end but is very quickly resolved as well after a few months have passed. I feel like the idea was good on paper but the writers likely struggled with how to make a full fledged series out of it and hence this is what we end up getting. Overall, a forgettable and pretty average series. (4/10)
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