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Note: This review contains very minor spoilers for plot points in episodes 1 and 2. Readers wishing to avoid any spoilers should read at their own discretion.
It’s hard to believe that over ten years ago Rick and Morty premiered on Adult Swim. A collaboration between Dan Harmon (creator of Community) and Justin Roiland (the less said about him, the better) based on Roiland’s earlier work for Harmon’s Channel 101 film festival, this team up between an accomplished writer and showrunner and a mostly-unknown animator and voice actor was a strange combo but it resulted in a massive hit for Adult Swim, one quite possibly bigger than any other show they ever created save for perhaps Aqua Teen Hunger Force. However, for me, the biggest difference is that ATHF never quite achieved the kind of pop culture status Rick and Morty has seen. Rick and Morty is not merely just a show anymore but is more akin to The Simpsons: a cultural icon that defines a generation. While I cannot say for certain if that is a good or bad thing, I do believe it is the truth. Of course, with anything that reaches this level of popularity, expansion of the franchise is a must, casting as wide a net as possible to reach the largest number of people, which is where the new anime adaptation of Rick and Morty comes in.
Confused as to why they made a Rick and Morty anime? Once you look at Adult Swim’s original experiment in which they greenlit five anime shorts that would air over the course of two years in 2020 and 2021, the decision makes much more sense. They were interesting experiments for Rick and Morty, if not entirely unique, in which they gave a Japanese team the reins of a western IP and allowed them to put their own spin on it. Other studios have done this before, with franchises like Halo and The Matrix experimenting with similar attempts to equally mixed results. In Rick and Morty’s case, the five shorts are mostly mediocre. While I like the idea of them, I felt that the humor was non-existent and found them to be pretty forgettable save for maybe one. Regardless, those shorts must have been quite successful as Adult Swim approved expanding them into a full ten-episode television series.
Full disclosure, I am not a massive Rick and Morty fan, but I do not harbor any negative feelings towards the series either. I fell off it after the first two episodes of season three, but I find the first two seasons to be one of the best comedy series ever produced. The writing and characterization of the characters along with the excellent performance of the voice cast, a cast full of top tier voice actors and comedians, put Rick and Morty into a league of its own. There’s little surprise why most adult animated shows produced in the years since have tried to be like Rick and Morty. At the time of its release, Rick and Morty was such a different show compared to anything else out there, shows that had most everyone trying to copy what Seth MacFarlane did with Family Guy while failing miserably. It was a trend-setter and it deserved to be that! Harmon and Roiland created a show that, despite Roiland’s issues with accusations of abuse and sexual predation, the legacy of this series will continue to live on for years to come between the memes, merch, and old people quoting Rick and Morty to be “hip” with the kids. All of these things defined and made Rick and Morty so popular to begin with. Of course, I am here to talk about the anime adaptation, but that bit of context was important in order to understand where I am coming from with regard to the anime.
With all that out of the way, Rick and Morty: The Anime is directed by Takashi Sano who has mostly done animation work as an episode director for individual episodes of shows, as well as doing storyboards for series like Megalobox, and has also done key animation for a few titles like Lupin III: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine. While he does not have much under his general directorial belt, he did direct Tower of God and a couple other shows, but for the most part, his work is relegated to just production work rather than directing. But what he also directed is a few of those Rick and Morty shorts, so they must have seen something to give him the keys to this behemoth of a franchise. In a way I can kind of see it. His vision of Rick and Morty is different yet familiar. I happen to like how well they translate the art of the show into an anime format. Characters still have trademarks like those weird looking pupils, but they look so stylized and unique compared to their American counterpart’s simple design, which despite its simplicity is brilliant and recognizable. The art in general in the anime is very pretty to look at and the animation is not bad at all, outside of the mediocre CGI. Unfortunately, that is where the praise ends because from the episodes I have seen, Rick and Morty The Anime does not impress.
My biggest take away with this show, and the biggest issue I have with it, is that it simply lacks humor. While it tries to be funny, at any point it tries to go for a laugh, it fails at getting a single laugh from me. The show lacks any sense of humor and tends to tell every joke with a straight face. An early example being the first episode, which is all about Morty being in a virtual reality world. 
A joke that’s tired and cliched at this point. I have seen that sort of plotline already a million times before and they do not do anything with it to make it unique or interesting, turning it into nothing more than just a run of the mill parody of anime like Sword Art Online or .hack. Episode two was slightly better in that I had no clue what it was parodying, and found myself far more engaged with the plot as Rick gets entangled with an alternate universe version of himself. While this is far from unique as it is something that happens in the original series, they do at least have cool visuals and try to make the fight cooler than it actually is. Meanwhile, Space Beth (an alternate universe Beth) is trying to destroy a fleet of space flies, and the episode features an admittedly decent action scene at the end. Still, the same issue from episode one rears its ugly head where neither episode made me laugh. On the plus side, it did not make me groan in agony and I would not say I was bored watching it either, but it seems like the resulting issue is that Rick and Morty The Anime wants to have a straight face and not ham itself up. But the question I have is, when you’re dealing with an anime adaptation of a big IP, how do you not do more interesting things with it? For example, back in the day, Cartoon Network greenlit an anime adaptation of The Powerpuff Girls. However, American fans may not be familiar with that because Powerpuff Girls Z never aired in America despite a dub being produced for the western market. I’ve only seen a couple episodes, but comparing that to what I’ve seen here, PPGZ was doing far more interesting things than what Rick and Morty are doing here. While some may have taken issue with it had it aired here, the decision to shift PPGZ to a magical girl-styled series away from the superhero-themed original was a much more bold and unique take, while unfortunately, Rick and Morty The Anime doesn’t seem to be interested in doing unique things and instead relies on the one-note joke of “oh my gosh, we made Rick and Morty into an anime! Look at us!” as a selling point. If that is the case for the full season and not just the first two episodes, then that joke will die fast. I can only hope that episode three and beyond inject some form of unique personality to the show because otherwise, all I’m anticipating are plotlines that could have, and likely WOULD have, simply run in the normal show. I also find myself disappointed that the anime lacks the original voice cast from the American version for the English language dub of the anime. Union dubs exist, and Williams Street use them sometime! While the dub provided by Sentai Filmworks is fine and the cast are decent enough in their role, without the original cast back, it does not sell the series to me. It especially hurts to see the recast because for the Japanese audio, they use the same cast who already dub the American Rick and Morty into Japanese!
I will give credit where credit is due. Adult Swim greenlighting this is an interesting experiment, as not only will this show air on Adult Swim Thursday nights with the English language dub, but will “rerun” on Toonami at midnight, but that will be the subtitled premiere of the episodes with the Japanese dub. Maybe if it is successful enough, Adult Swim can look into its slate of older shows and turn them into anime series, or perhaps if the subtitled broadcast is a success, air more subtitled anime on Toonami that are not just shows they produced for the block.
In the end, Rick and Morty The Anime is certainly a unique take on Rick and Morty but I do not find it very successful. As a comedy, it just is not funny and although I certainly think humor is subjective, I do not understand who this is for. If you are a Rick and Morty fan, you can find funnier anime than this or just stick to the main series. If you are an anime fan and want to watch a fun sci-fi comedy series, I recommend Space Dandy because Rick and Morty The Anime at this moment in time, isn’t it.
Final Verdict
6/10
