‘Rick and Morty’ Fan Pens ionate Defense of the Derided Anime

Rick and Morty: The Anime may not have been on the same level of quality as the main series, but it still has its fans — it’s not as bad as Space Jam Rick and Morty, after all.

Late last year, Rick and Morty into the visual language of anime with a collection of well-received shorts in early 2020, eventually developing a full 10-episode series centered around an anime version of Morty finding an anime version of love with a beautiful, blonde, time-warping woman named Elle. Thus, Rick and Morty: The Anime was born — or still-born, as many fans felt.

Unfortunately for Sano and Adult Swim, most Rick and Morty fans didn’t stick around to see the arc of Anime Morty and Elle’s relationship play out, as the ugly art style, complete lack of humor and drastic character changes from the original series earned Rick and Morty: The Anime overwhelmingly negative reviews from the franchise’s uniquely ionate fanbase. 

However, one fan in the Rick and Morty subreddit recently made some ripples in the show’s largest fan-forum by defending Rick and Morty: The Anime as a valuable addition to the Rick and Morty Extended Universe for one simple reason: It helped Morty finally find his perfect waifu.

In their viral thread titled, “trashed the spin-off from the moment the first teaser dropped to open their minds and lower their pitchforks, writing, “I want to have a nice chat and discuss not just ‘it just sucks, the animation is weird.’”

The crux of TotallyBrandNewName’s nearly 1,000-word essay about the importance of Rick and Morty: The Anime in the greater Rick and Morty canon is that Morty, being a 14-year-old boy, is largely driven by his desire for romantic love, whether it comes from the characteristically withholding Jessica or about a dozen different one-episode flings that always end in disappointment or tragedy for one-half of the titular duo.

“Between all the girls in the series, not one is as good as Elle from the anime,” TotallyBrandNewName argued of the time-warping heroine with whom one version of Morty raised a loving family in the spin-off series, then detailing each of Morty’s disastrous attempts at finding love in the main series. 

Then, in a rambling explanation that will leave more questions than answers for the uninitiated, TotallyBrandNewName wrote, “For those of you that didn’t watch the last 3 episodes of the anime, spoilers ahead, in the, what I assume the parmeesian universe, Elle never existed so the long hair rick and space morty’s universe elle and rick have been resetting the whole universe a million times just in case if you repeat it enough something will change(it doesn’t) (sic).”

“So this time Space Morty’s elle goes to our universe instead of resetting via the machine and during a war with the smith family agaisnt (sic) the federation, she sacrifices (sic) herself instead of making morty destroy her original universe,” TotallyBrandNewName summarized, although it would probably take more time to untangle that winding explanation than it would to actually watch Rick and Morty: The Anime.

Suffice to say, Elle was the only lover any Morty ever took who could put other people’s needs before her own, and both Morty and the main series need someone like that to keep them grounded. “I would love to, in the next season have Elle to become a character, not to become a main character but someone like summer,” TotallyBrandNewName suggested. “Morty could be healthier as a person and having Elle to show for it would be nice.”

Sadly for TotallyBrandNewName, the greater Rick and Morty fandom has less patience for a long-winded and confusingly worded treatise on the value that Elle brings to the Rick and Morty universe than they had for Rick and Morty: The Anime itself. Wrote the top commenter, “I am not reading all that bro, the anime was bad deal with it.”