Earlier this year, Adult Swim dropped an anime-style short playing off the manga classic Lone Wolf and Cub. Now Adult Swim has taken this a step further by producing an actual anime that reinvents Rick and Morty into classic anime tropes.
“Rick and Morty vs. the Genocider” delivers bizarre twists, dialogue, and plot devices that are all too familiar to fans of anime. The animation is also whimsical and beautiful, even as a Tokyo is destroyed when a giant flying saucer drops on the colorful capital city.
Of course, the anime short also has Rick and Morty elements like time paradoxes, mysterious enemies, and the love-hate relationship between the titular characters.
Written and directed by Takashi Sano (Tower of God), the 8-minute Rick and Morty short is a welcome surprise as typically Adult Swim has waited longer to start teasing out content between seasons. In fact, Adult Swim has been criticized in the past for going dark on content between seasons.
The previous Rick and Morty anime short “Samurai & Shogun,” was a 3D animation and set in the past. “Rick and Morty vs. the Genocider”is decidedly more modern and styled using 2D animation.
The new short references several episodes including “Total Rickall” with the alien parasites, “Morty’s Mind Blowers” with Morty’s memories deleted from his brain and stored in glass vials, and “Close Rick-counters of the Rick Kind” when Evil Rick tries to copy Rick’s brain. In the anime short, Rick tells Morty, “They want my brain.” That episode also introduced Evil Morty who is shown controlling a Rick who is flying the Genocider ship.
Take a look at the new Rick and Morty short below and let us know what you think.
