Inside Out 2 Introduces Two New Scene-Stealing Characters With Very Different Animation Styles

In 2015, Pixar's "Inside Out" introduced us to a wonderful ensemble of characters in the form of five core emotions inside the mind of an 11-year old girl named Riley. Joy (Amy Poehler) was the leader of the crew, trying to keep Riley happy all the time. Sadness (Phyllis Smith) was constantly stressing out Joy by making Riley feel down in the dumps. Anger (Lewis Black) came out when Riley just couldn't deal anymore, Fear (Bill Hader) made sure Riley kept herself safe, though sometimes irrationally scared, and Disgust (Mindy Kaling) ensured that she never ate broccoli or dealt with anything cringey that might upset her. 

In "Inside Out 2," all the core emotions are comfortable in keeping Riley on the straight and narrow, complete with a new belief system and sense of self (more on that in our full footage reaction from our visit to Pixar Animation), even though Fear and Disgust are now voiced respectively by Tony Hale ("Arrested Development") and Liza Lapira ("The Equalizer" on CBS). But their world is thrown into chaos when Riley starts to experience puberty, and a quartet of new emotions enter headquarters: Anxiety (Maya Hawke), Envy (Ayo Edebiri), Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos), and Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser). 

As Anxiety starts to upend everything Joy and her team have created for Riley over the years, their developing girl starts to change, and not always in ways that are going to be good for her. With Anxiety taking over the console in Riley's mind, the core emotions start to lose control, leaving the new emotions no choice but to literally bottle them up and throw them into the back of Riley's mind. This is all shown in the trailers that have been released for "Inside Out 2" so far, but when Pixar played 35 minutes of footage from the sequel for attending press at their campus in Emeryville, California, we saw much more, including two new characters who have yet to be revealed.

Not unlike how the first "Inside Out" introduced Bing Bong when he was lurking around long term memory, the back of Riley's mind introduces us to two new characters who have been hanging around for awhile. When the core emotions are locked away with some of Riley's other secrets, we meet a couple new scene-stealing characters who are both brought to life with drastically different animation styles that we're not used to seeing from Pixar Animation. They're a lot of fun, and you're going to love them.

Helping Joy and the gang break out of their suppressed emotional prison first is Bloofy, a two-dimensional cartoon dog that is basically a combination of Blue from "Blue's Clues" and the titular "Dora the Explorer." He's a character from Riley's favorite childhood TV show, and he's chilling in the back of Riley's mind because she secretly still likes the show. Comedian Ron Funches provides the perfect voice for Bloofy, who asks questions to a non-existent child audience, just like Steve on "Blue's Clues" and Dora would on their respective TV shows.

Alongside Bloofy, we're also introduced to another character with drastically different animation: Lance Slashblade, a video game character animated to look like the polygonal graphics of an original Playstation game in the vein of "Final Fantasy." In fact, the character is voiced by Yong Yea, a professional video game voiceover actor who has lent his talents to games like "God of War: Ragnarok," "Spider-Man 2," and yes, "Final Fantasy VII Rebirth." Why is Lance in the back of Riley's mind? She secretly had a crush on him when she was younger. Lance acts confident, but he's still longing to be a hero, with the kind of melodramatic voice that video game fans will undoubtedly remember but non-gamers will still laugh at. Even though Lance is eager and brave in the face of danger, his ability to roll into a ball for his special attack isn't nearly as intimidating or effective as he thinks.

Both of these characters offer up some refreshing variations on the animation we see in "Inside Out 2," similar to the moment when Joy, Sadness, and Bing Bong treacherously make their way through abstract thought (seen above) in the first movie. They bring entirely different visual styles to life as if these characters actually existed in the real world. Unfortunately, Pixar hasn't revealed them in the marketing yet, so you'll be left to imagine what they might look like for the time being. 

There's also a third character who remains a bit of a mystery. He's a dark, beefy guy who represents Riley's deep, dark secret, and he looks almost like an emo version of the Incredible Hulk. We were left to wonder what that might be when the footage presentation at Pixar was wrapped up, but it's likely that this revelation will be key in the second or third act of the movie. 

The closest we've got to seeing these characters is the moment where Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust have been put into a bottle and locked away. The above shot from a recent "Inside Out 2" trailer comes from inside the vault where they get locked up, where there are bumbling cops who can't seem to keep the core emotions contained for very long, undoubtedly sending them on another adventure across the various faces of Riley's mind, such as the sarcasm chasm teased in the same trailer.

Even though I've only seen the first 35 minutes of the sequel, I can already tell you that "Inside Out 2" is still hiding a lot of story details. There's next to no footage in any of the trailers released so far that wasn't in those first 35 minutes that Pixar showed to attending press. (There's also another unseen emotion who is introduced in the first act, but rather than being pivotal to the story, it's more of a funny gag that only lasts a few seconds).

With plenty left to discover in "Inside Out 2," I can't wait to see the rest of the movie when it hits theaters on June 14, 2024.