Rick and Morty: The Anime Flips Japan the Middle Finger

Rick and Morty: The Anime is here. Let’s lay it on the steel table and examine its soft, squishy bits.

If I know J-List fans, a small but vocal group will hate the idea of Rick and Morty strutting around with “The Anime” on its T-shirt. Then there’ll be many fans who don’t care what they call it. Just entertain us! So, is it an anime? Should we care? The show doesn’t. We shouldn’t. Strap in for a wild and weird ride through alternate realities. Rick-style.

“Plot?” Where Rick and Morty: The Anime Goes, We Won’t Need “Plot”

The Rickverse. Sometime. Someplace vaguely anime-looking. An alternate-reality Summer Smith trolls the Galactic Federation fleet with boo kisses. Those bug bastards are about to blow a planet of peace-loving aliens to Kingdom Come. Meanwhile, alternate-universe Rick Sanchez idles through realities as Morty Smith plays a dating sim featuring giant worms on his VR helmet.

Or something like that.

Hey, That Person is Me

If you’re a Rick and Morty fan, I’ll bet you don’t watch the show for historical sensitivity. It’s the “ha ha, sucker!” irreverence of Nelson Muntz with a heavy boozer’s swagger. Or stagger. So, you can bet your Treaty of San Francisco that Rick and Morty: The Anime is poking fun at someone. Cough, cough. Japan. Cough, cough.

In other news, those peaceful aliens sure want to sit back and take it in the proverbial.

But hey, this is a Japanese-produced show, so maybe the joke’s aimed the other way. And to think, we expected brainless fun, but here we are, analyzing comedy.

Rick and Morty: The Anime Is Much of the Same. Sort Of.

Rick and Morty: The Anime has an entirely different English cast from the regular show. Will the new cast help it win new fans or keep the old ones? My guess is “no.” It won’t feel like the Smith family you’re familiar with. Even an alternate-reality Smith family.

However, the Japanese voice cast remains the same. Keisuke Chiba is back as Morty Smith, and Yōhei Tadano reprises his role from the original series Japanese dub as Rick Sanchez. Even for an anime that’s not an anime, I preferred the Japanese voice acting.

Another difference is that Kaichi Sato wrote and directed Rick and Morty: The Anime. I honestly can’t tell his work from Dan Harmon’s. Dan Harmon won me over with HarmonQuest, a show combining star-played roleplaying games like those produced by Critical Role with Rick and Morty-style animation. It’s one of the weirder offerings on Crunchyroll. Go watch it. Besides using the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game (a great alternative to Dungeons & Dragons), the show also featured Whose Line Is It Anyway star Jeff Davis. My knowledge of Harmon’s work ends there. Still, Rick and Morty: The Anime hits the same comedy notes as HarmonQuest.

Watch Rick and Morty: The Anime if You’re Already a Fan

I tried to get into Rick and Morty to sample from Harmon’s wider offering, but it didn’t hook me. If I wanted to watch something like the show, I’d catch up on The Simpsons. Rick and Morty: The Anime hasn’t changed my mind, either. If you’re already a fan, then, probably, you’re watching anyway. Enjoy.

Rick and Morty: The Anime claims Takashi Sano as its creator and developer. Studio Deen, Sola Entertainment, and Telecom Animation Film produced the show on behalf of Adult Swim. The five-part anime streams on Adult Swim. It can take my two Chibi Megumi Rating to the bank. Lucky them.

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Are you a Rick and Morty fan? Or do you hate Western studios passing off adaptations of their creations as anime? Where does a show like Robotech fit in? I have questions. And I need answers. Let me know in the comments or on social media!

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