Jackie Chan Adventures Season 2
Kathy Douds
Jackie Chan Adventures is an animated television series chronicling the adventures of a fictionalized version of action film star Jackie Chan. This series ran on Kids' WB from September 9, 2000, to July 8, 2005, for a total of 95 episodes, and had 5 seasons. During its run, it was also shown on Cartoon Network, and afterwards its reruns landed on Toon Disney's Jetix block. An Arabic translation has been airing on MBC 3 since early 2005. There have been several toys and video games based on the series.[1] The series ended on July 8, 2005, just five episodes away from its 100th.
Jade attempts to take the rabbit talisman to school without Jackie's knowledge but accidentally causes the talisman to be hit by an experimental chronoton beam in Section 13's lab while hiding from Jackie. When Jade tries to use the rabbit talisman to avoid being late for school, she is transported back in time. Valmont sends the Dark Hand's enforcers through the portal Jade created to find her and the talisman, and Jackie is forced to chase after them, especially when his past self is placed in mortal danger.
Jade accidentally breaks an ancient terracotta statue of Lo Pei, the warrior who defeated Shendu and imprisoned him in a statue before scattering the talismans containing his powers around the world. After using the horse talisman to repair the damage, Jade decides to reanimate the statue with the rat talisman so Lo Pei can share the locations of the remaining talismans. However, Jade and Jackie find themselves trying to convince Lo Pei that they are not enemies, especially when the Dark Hand attempt to trick him into handing over the talismans to them.
Jackie and Jade set out to find the snake talisman, which they have learned is hidden in the temple of Culebra Gigante in South America. However, they soon find themselves crossing paths with an egotistical archaeologist who stars in his own TV show, Wesley Rank. Rank tries to find the talisman himself to prove his archaeological superiority, but the arrival of the Dark Hand complicates the search. Jackie soon has his hands full attempting to retrieve the talisman while dealing with the Dark Hand, Rank, and the guardian of the talisman.
Captain Black recruits the J-Team to assist him investigate Taiwanese billionaire Chang, who is suspected of masterminding the theft of jade figurines from several Chinese museums. To uncover evidence of his crimes, Jackie and his allies find themselves entering a fight tournament arranged by Chang at his island mansion, who seeks the most worthy fighters to be his bodyguard. However, only Tohru manages to win his match in the tournament, but the investigation is soon complicated when Jade tries to prove herself by tailing Tohru into Chang's private chambers.
Jackie Chan Adventures is a successful American animated television series chronicling the adventures of a fictionalized version of action film star Jackie Chan. Many of the episodes contain references to Chan's actual works. This series ran on Kids' WB from September 9, 2000 to July 8, 2005 for a total of 95 episodes, or 5 seasons. During its run, it was also shown on Cartoon Network, and afterwards, its reruns landed on Toon Disney's Jetix block. An Arabic translation has been airing on MBC 3 since early 2006. There have been several toys and video games based on the series. Its main character designer is Jeff Matsuda, the same designer of the animated series The Batman.
The series features the fictional adventures of Jackie Chan, who is an archaeologist, martial arts expert and reluctant secret agent in the series. With help from his feisty niece Jade, his stubborn old Uncle (simply known as "Uncle") and his old friend Captain Black, he saves the world from evil forces that attempt to use magical artifacts to rule the world. Later seasons included other supporting characters that comprised the world-saving J-Team. He often works for the spy group Section 13 against the criminal organization the Dark Hand and various evil and supernatural forces. The first season involved the pursuit of twelve magical Talismans. Subsequent seasons featured talisman powers, but more prominently involved Jackie Chan's pursuit of other magical items. While he travels around the world, Jackie Chan lives in San Fransisco, California, where both Section 13 and Uncle's Antique Shop are located.
(16 episodes) Jackie is recruited by Section 13 to search for twelve magic talismans scattered across the world, in order to stop a criminal organization known as the Dark Hand from using them to revive an ancient demon sorcerer, Shendu. When the tiger talisman is split in half, so is Jackie, and his dark half hands over the talismans, allowing the Dark Hand to reanimate Shendu. Shendu travels to China to summon his dragon army to destroy all of Asia. Jackie pulls the talismans out of Shendu, causing him to transform back into a statue, and Jade destroys him. However, this leaves a vacuum to be filled by a new evil force bringing on an extremely spectacular, awesome, action-filled season two where a very large portion of fillers are also placed.
(36 episodes) Shendu has possessed Valmont and is trying to bring his brothers and sisters - the Demon Sorcerers - into this world through a series of mystic portals, located with the magic Pan'ku box. Jackie must stop this to save the world. After initial failure, Shendu's spirit possesses Jackie as previously planned and travels to Australia, rewriting the Book of Ages so that the demons were never banished and now rule the world, with no one remembering their now-alternate lives. But Jade had managed to retain her memories and, with the help of the J-Team, changes the world back. In this series there are also a large number of "filler" episodes, where Jackie goes off on his own adventures, involving minor criminal organizations and other bandits, Spring-Heeled Jack, the Monkey King, as well as more grisly ones with beings such as the Jiangshi and the Chupacabra, and occasional run-ins with Dark Hand members. There are also three episodes set during the time period of Season One. At the end of the season, the Dark Chi Wizard Daolon Wong was introduced, who after having been foiled in his long-term plan to engulf the world in dark chi, pursued the Talisman powers, paving the way for the events of Season 3.
(17 episodes) When Section 13 is infiltrated by the Dark Hand and the evil Chi wizard Daolon Wong, Jackie destroys the twelve talismans to keep them from being used for evil. This results in the twelve powers being spread all over the world, each taking up residence in one of twelve "noble" animals. Daolon Wong is searching for these magic powers, and it is up to Jackie to try to stop him before he gains them all. In the end almost all animals with these powers are kept in section 13 (Daolon Wong manages to acquire the Rooster and Pig powers however). The only remaining power - from the Dragon Talisman - is lost since there are no more dragons in existence. To acquire the power, Daolon Wong resurrects Shendu, who then goes on a rampage and reclaims all of the Talisman powers. Section 13 arrests Daolon Wong and the Enforcers while Uncle uses the same spell from before to turn Shendu back into stone and recreate the Twelve Talismans. Shendu is stored in Section 13's vault.
(13 episodes) Tarakudo, the King of the Shadowkhan, is inadvertently awakened by Daolon Wong. Taking the Enforcers as his servants, he sets off to find the legendary nine Oni masks which, when worn, each release a new type of Shadowkhan. Jackie battles the King of the Shadowkhan to stop him from plunging the world into eternal shadow. Sometime during this season Shendu's son, Drago, travels back in time from the future in a plan to bring back his father but is defeated and detained in Section 13.
(13 episodes) Drago escapes from Section 13 and sets off to find the seven magic objects that imprisoned the other Demon Sorcerers, which possess traces of their demon chi that would allow Drago to assimilate their powers. Jackie, Jade, Tohru and Uncle set off to stop him.
The opening begins with Jackie Chan running into Uncle's shop where the camera then zooms onto Jackie who turns into the live-action version of himself. He then switches to cartoon mode again and is confronted by two Ninja Khan. The screen changes to a silhouette of Jackie defeating the ninjas with a rolling background that is relevant to the season and live-action Chan sneaking past the screen. It changes to live-action Chan jumping onto the screen and performing a marital arts move in front of a background with Ninja Khan scrolling downward. A fan then appears and the screen changes as the fan opens to Jade preforming a move with the fans in hand in front of an orange background with Chinese letters scrolling downward. The screen then slides over to Uncle preforming a move in front of a green background with Chinese letters.
The screen changes to a quick pan of the current seasons' main antagonists with the primary antagonist appearing at the end. It then shifts to Jackie being chased by Shadowkhan through various world landmarks. This includes one of the large suspension cables of the Golden Gate Bridge, the Eiffel Tower and one of the Egyptian Pyramids. It shows a shot of Jackie's face as he is fearfully evading his aggressors, which turns into live-action Chan. A season-relevant object then slides over and transitions the screen to Jade standing by Section 13 and fiddling with another season-relevant object. Jackie then runs over and picks Jackie up before inspecting the object which activates and shines at the screen. As the shine fades, Jackie, Uncle and Jade are then confronted by a large opponent who towers over them. Uncle and Jade run away as Jackie delivers a punch which knocks the opponent out cold but hurt his hand as shown when he briefly turns into live-action Chan who wallows in his pan. A cartoon Jackie then assumes his fighting pose with Jade and Uncle join standing next to him before the screen changes to the series logo.