Rick and Morty is a series that I am very much a fan of. So when I found out about and got the chance to cover Rick and Morty: The Anime, I was really excited. This blu-ray contains ten episodes which is the entirety of the anime series. The total runtime to watch all ten episodes is 207 minutes, so just over two hours to watch all ten. The slip cover is nice and the disc is nicely packaged, but there are no extras, either in this physical copy, nor the media content on the disc itself.
As excited as I was to dive into this anime, my excitement quickly faded once I got a few episodes into the series; two to be exact.
The story is that Morty falls in love with a multi-dimensional time traveling girl, and Rick has to use his new invention to save Morty from the girls clutches. The invention Rick comes up with is a multi-dimensional substance that lets you travel through multiple parallel dimensions simultaneously. Now with the series being what it is, I was really hoping it would take the story and just run with it and make it chaotic and fun, but it doesn’t.
As cool of a plot as this series has, it falls short in every aspect with the exception being the animation and art style.
The series is drawn in a traditional anime style which I appreciate and actually enjoy watching with the animation being right there alongside the art-style, which compliments it well. If you’ve ever watched traditional Japanese anime, you will really appreciate how well this was captured with this series.
Where the series falls apart for me is the repetitive nature of the series through the episodes. Because of the story line, a lot of things repeat or are told in a different way, but are ultimately too similar to really make much sense of. Because of this fault in the story, the series feels kind of flat and not engaging at all to watch.
Beyond my issues with the story, another really glaring issue I have with this series is the voice acting. This is an anime series and because of this, I feel like the voice actors tried too hard to make it sound more like a Japanese anime rather than the Rick and Morty series we know and love.
I feel like they are forcing themselves to sound dubbed and dubbed badly. Now this could be a result of the cast changing towards the end of the series or because they just didn’t really know how to portray themselves in an anime style show as opposed to the American animated show. I mean yes, the characters sound like themselves, but also too different from the original series to the point it feels like they are trying too hard to distance themselves from this project.
In traditional anime fashion, they recorded the anime in Japanese and then dubbed over it in English. I don’t mind this with traditional anime, but this is Rick and Morty The Anime. Because of the way the show is, I went into this expecting that it might start out this say and then eventually have them speaking English with the characters animated to match. I mean I feel like this would be on brand with the series, but sadly, that didn’t happen.
In conclusion, would I recommend Rick and Morty The Anime and the answer is no. This is really a hard thing to admit as much as I love the series, and I really enjoy some anime once in a blue moon these days.
Don’t get me wrong, the animation and the art-style are both gorgeous to look at and watch, but that’s really it. The plot of the series is hard to follow, the English voices feel like they are being forced to be different, and all of this combined makes it just feel totally off base from the series.
I feel like Rick and Morty The Anime is the black sheep of the franchise that they made as a test project and in the end only made because everyone was contractually obligated to complete.
If you’re a fan of Rick and Morty like I am and are really into anime, then I would suggest to definitely pick this up as it would be right up your alley.
But if you’re a fan of Rick and Morty and you are only slightly familiar or not at all with anime, I would say definitely steer clear of the Rick and Morty The Anime series.
Disclaimer: A review copy was provided
In addition to writing articles, Ryan Byers also creates content for his YouTube channel called "Obscure Games and Consoles", collects video games, and dabbles in video game development.