Rick And Morty: The Anime Review - Weeb-A-Lub-A-Dub-Dull

Ten years ago, "Rick and Morty" was the cartoon all the cool kids liked — a fresh blast of comedic sci-fi genius, the instant success of which felt like vindication for the constant struggles faced by co-creator Dan Harmon's earlier cult hit "Community." Five years ago, "Rick and Morty" was the cartoon the cool kids were embarrassed to admit they liked — the Szechaun Sauce freak-outs, Pickle Rick memes, and annoying fans who didn't get that Rick isn't a role model gave the show a bad image.

Today, with seven seasons under its belt and at least three more on the way, "Rick and Morty" is entering the "Simpsons"/"South Park"/"Family Guy" realm of cartoons that will just keep making new episodes forever. Its success continues to keep Adult Swim alive even as cable TV crumbles all around, and every smoke shop contains at least one "Rick and Morty" bong. But it's no longer the show everyone's talking about, either positively or negatively. The news of co-creator Justin Roiland's abusive behavior led some progressive fans to reassess their comfort with the series in general, while the Elon Musk-types turned on the show for doing the right thing and firing Roiland. As of Season 7, "Rick and Morty" is still often funny and occasionally profound, but it's less consistently fresh than it used to be.

"Rick and Morty: The Anime" exists in a separate universe/continuity from the mainline series, so viewers who haven't kept up with every episode of the original could theoretically jump right in — though they'll likely have to watch every episode of the anime in order to fully make sense of it. Adult Swim only provided two episodes of the 10 episode season for review, so we can't tell you where the story leads, but we can tell you it's both very serialized and very complicated. Those who complain about the regular "Rick and Morty" sidetracking narrative development might be intrigued by this more story-driven approach. Whether this approach works is another story.

"Rick and Morty: The Anime" has its origins in a series of short films Adult Swim commissioned to different Japanese directors from 2020-21. Takashi Sano, a huge "Rick and Morty" fan best known for directing the first season of "Tower of God," made the two most memorable shorts, "Rick and Morty vs. Genocider" and "Summer Meets God (Rick Meets Evil)." These shorts were fun diversions, more earnest than the usual "Rick and Morty" tone while still being weird, wacky, and packed with clever references. They were also self-contained, and judging from the first two episodes of "Rick and Morty: The Anime," it's less clear whether Sano's take on the characters can sustain longer-form storytelling.

The clearest frustration right off the bat is that, so far, the title characters aren't actually together much at all. Splitting up the main cast is fine for an episode, but if this whole season is gonna be two parallel stories of Morty finding love in a virtual reality game while Rick goes on a separate time-traveling chase to hide an entropy bomb from the Federation, is this really a Rick and Morty show or are we doing a Surf Dracula? It's impossible to say just two episodes in, and anime does often follow a "three episode rule" where you can't fully judge a series until three episodes in, but it feels like an odd way to start the season.

As busy as these premiere episodes are with multiple timelines and flashy action scenes, they also feel slower than regular "Rick and Morty" episodes, probably because they have a lot fewer laughs. The anime treatment isn't completely humorless — I'm glad new generations will learn about "Citizen Kane" via cartoon parodies the way older generations did from "The Simpsons" and "Animaniacs" — but there's maybe a tenth of the total jokes per episode here as there are in the American version, and the jokes here tend to be a lot more mild and less biting. The stilted English dubbing sure doesn't help the comedic timing (the Japanese version wasn't available to screen, but will stream on Max and rerun on Adult Swim's Saturday night Toonami block). The silver lining to hearing the voice cast's awkward impersonations is that it makes one better appreciate just what a seamless job Ian Cardoni and Harry Belden did replacing Justin Roiland as the voices of Rick and Morty in Season 7. 

Many casual anime fans have reacted to the marketing of "Rick and Morty: The Anime" with some bafflement over the art style. While parts of the show scream "anime," most especially the catchy J-Pop opening theme "Love is Entropy" by Otonez, the art style doesn't fit the stereotypical image Westerners have of anime. Instead, it resembles the more simplistic art styles of long-running anime sitcoms like "Crayon Shin-Chan," a closer stylistic match to the original "Rick and Morty" art style rather than a radical reinvention. Like American "Rick and Morty," the anime's designs can look "ugly" but are utilized well for big action scenes. Where the American show uses digital rigs, the anime is all hand-drawn frame-by-frame, giving it a different flavor from the source material.

For those who wanted a "Rick and Morty" anime that's more of a looker, however, there's one show I will never pass up the chance to recommend: "Space Dandy." This severely underrated 26-episode gem from "Cowboy Bebop" director Shinichiro Watanabe premiered on Adult Swim in January 2014, a month after "Rick and Morty" first began, and offered an equally hilarious treatment of the multiverse while also being an unmatched showcase for experimental animation talent. Watching the first two episodes of "Rick and Morty: The Anime" mostly made me long for another season of "Space Dandy."

It feels somewhat unfair reviewing a show based on just two episodes. Just recently, I remember giving a more reserved review for the first two episodes of the latest "Doctor Who" season, only for the following episodes to prove my worries wrong with four stone-cold classics in a row (and then an underwhelming finale, but that's another story). So maybe all the convoluted sci-fi rigamarole in "Rick and Morty: The Anime" will pay off in a big way. But I can only review what I've seen, and what I've seen is meh.

"Rick and Morty: The Anime" premieres on Adult Swim at midnight on August 15, streaming on Max the following day.