How Anime Helps the Love, Death & Robots Team Promote Adult Animation

Netflix anthology series Love, Death & Robots returned for a third episode on May 20 in all its outlandish, red-ribboned glory. It’s nothing else in animation right now: each episode tells a different, self-contained story, ranging in tonality from gritty comedy to dark drama. None of the shorts shy away from dark hardcore elements: blood and guts, nudity and sex, horror and horniness galore. And unlike other staples of adult animation, like Big mouth or Family Guy, Love, Death & Robots is a genre spectacle that adapts various science fiction and fantasy stories.

Co-creator Tim Miller says he handpicked the stories from his Kindle’s vast collection of short story anthologies. Mueller (Managing Director of Dead Pool and Terminator: Dark Fate) and co-creator David Fincher (director of seven, fight club, zodiac, and more) launched the anthology series in 2019 and chose a variety of directors and studios to work on the shorts. One of those directors happened to be former DreamWorks director Jennifer Yuh Nelson (Kung Fu Panda 2 and 3), who directed season 2 LDR short “Pop Squad” and “Kill Team Kill” from season 3. She also serves as executive producer this season. It may seem strange that the director of Kung Fu Panda 2 turned around to help manage a hard-hitting, offbeat anthology, but Nelson tells us the transition into adult animation came naturally to her.

“My natural sensibility is very dark, much more adult animation,” explains Nelson. “I grew up watching anime. Therefore, animation should not only be a children’s medium for me. But that was mostly in the US, especially when it comes to big-budget world-building stories. When an opportunity like this comes along where I can finally focus on what I want to do as far as approaching stories in a totally inclusive way and being free – that’s actually what I’ve always been wanted to do.”

In the United States, animation tends to be pushed into a more family-friendly, all-ages box. There are exceptions, of course, but big theatrical projects are usually PG affairs. While many animators fight against this stereotype, Jokes about animated films primarily intended for children persist. But Miller and Nelson want to challenge that stereotype. You feel that the tide is slowly but surely changing. An important reason? The growing popularity of anime.

Image: Netflix

“I think it’s a generational shift,” says Nelson. “Because when I started, everyone I worked for had never seen anime before. They just thought it was funny. So you didn’t get it. You didn’t get it. They didn’t want to pay for it. They didn’t want a show about it. You preach to this empty void. Even if things like Akira and ghost in the shell happen, they are like, Oh, it’s just weird to me. But now everyone was online. Everyone has seen what every other country has. And if you look over there, how come they tell these stories and we don’t?”

Theatrical animation still tends toward family-friendly content. But in television, shows are expanding beyond the norms of adult animation american father and South Park. In the streaming world, there are series like Netflix arcane and Castlevania and Amazon Prime Reversed and Invincible break down genre boundaries, tell series stories and are aimed at a mature audience. Not all of them are as hardcore and edgy as Love, Death & Robots, but they deal with more adult themes and focus on older characters. That difference alone speaks to how far the medium has come since Miller first conceived the idea for adult animation.

“David Fincher and I spent 10 or 12 years trying to come up with a new adult animated film,” Miller recalls. “Even though pretty much the pantheon of giant Hollywood directors were involved and there wasn’t a huge budget, people still weren’t willing to take the risk. And now Netflix […] They have so much animation there for adults. They build, and that only breeds more fans of adult animation. I think the snowball is really rolling solidly down the hill here in the west now. There has been an avalanche in Asia for some time. We’re just catching up. We’re slow.”

The third season of Love, Death & Robots is now available on Netflix.