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A bad anime adaptation can feel like a tragedy on multiple levels, mostly because it's never quite clear why the adaptation had to exist in the first place. Case in point: Rick and Morty: The Anime, directed by Takashi Sano, was released earlier this year and was loathed by both critics and fans alike. The show failed to make a case for why the world needed a Rick and Morty anime adaptation, a feeling made more uncomfortable by the fact that the animation looked distressingly ugly. The animation style in the original Rick and Morty isn't beautiful to begin with (not that it has to be), so the creative decisions behind the look of the anime are, well, confounding. 

This all came to a head at the Rick and Morty panel at Los Angeles Comic Con this year featuring Ian Cardoni, Harry Belden, and Spencer Grammer. At one point, the panelists asked the audience if anyone was a fan of Rick and Morty: The Anime. The room fell very quiet, with scattered cheers, which the panelists picked up on. Grammer noted that there was something "beautiful" about the way that Rick and Morty's story could continue in an anime format, touching on the original show's ideas about how one can live on through others' creativity. However, the actress was not firm on whether or not the anime was "successful" in accomplishing what it set out to do: "Successful is relative to how you view art," Grammer said diplomatically. Later, the panelists asked the audience if anyone there liked the Rick and Morty anime more than the original show, and they were met with silence. Oof. 

Despite fans' cold feelings towards Rick and Morty: The Anime, Cardoni, Belden, and Grammer all provided gracious and tactful commentary without punching down at the maligned adaptation. They noted that the fact that they were able to even have a conversation about their show exploring new territory in a separate series was an achievement in its own right. And they are absolutely right about that. The fact that Rick and Morty has gone on to spawn a separate anime series, along with other media like comic books, is nothing to sneeze at. 

Each week, Popverse's resident anime expert Trent Cannon runs down the latest and, dare we say "greatest," in anime and manga in Popverse Jump. Some recent columns have included... 

• Aggretsuko vs Chainsaw Man: Two Wildly different anine with the same anti-capitalist message
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• Piracy is baked into anime's past, but, like Crunchyroll, we should move on from it
• Flying whales, mechs, and Miyazaki vibes: Inside Netflix's Leviathan anime with the people who made it
• How AI translations of manga continues the 'enshitification' of the medium, and why Japanese publishers are "less precious" about it
• I never wanted a Cyberpunk Edgerunners sequel, but God help me I'm going to watch it
• The Summer Hikaru Died delivers its cosmic horror at an agonizingly slow pace
• The one thing that Dan Da Dan does better than Demon Slayer ever did
• Studio Ghibli movies have never been as cozy as you think they are and that's what makes them magic