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I’ve enjoyed anthology collections of short anime works like Sweat Punch and the Genius Party series quite a bit. Even if the shorts can be kind of hit-and-miss, they’re usually at least interesting. I also don’t mind fun animated sex and violence like what’s in Heavy Metal. So when a friend of mine mentioned the animated anthology series “Love, Death & Robots” which recently premiered on Netflix, it totally seemed like my kind of thing. I ended up binging the series last Saturday and there is kind of a lot to unpack with 18 different shorts included, so I figured I’d write a review to both organize my thoughts and to share my thoughts with others.

This review is generally spoiler-free, as much as any review can be, except for what I’ve put under spoiler tags. Within those tags, I’ll discuss my reactions and thoughts on specific story elements and/or the final twists of the shorts, so don’t read those unless you’ve already watched it or absolutely don’t care about being spoiled.

UPDATE (21 May 2022): Today I watched Volume III of Love, Death & Robots. I liked it a lot so I’ve gone ahead and added reviews for the Volume II and Volume III segments to this post.




Before I get into each individual segment of this animated anthology, I’d like to give some general thoughts on this “season”. First off, I’d say that it is definitely worth a watch if you are a fan of animation and especially if you enjoy science fiction, fantasy, and/or supernatural stories with a bit of “edge” to them; meaning, a lot of sex, violence, and profanity. And this “edge” might be the first thing that could potentially put someone off to the series. While I definitely don’t mind these elements in my entertainment, some of it does feel gratuitous to the point of being distracting to the overall story.

Another thing that I’d say about the series overall, and something that is largely a matter of personal tastes, is that I was a bit disappointed by the lack of variety in animation style. Out of the 18 shorts, seven of them were all in a super-realistic AAA video game cutscene style CGI animation. Of the other 11, only three or four were in some form of 2D-style animation (“Alternate Histories” is a little bit of an in-between state of 2D/3D style). With this being called a reboot/reimagining of Heavy Metal and as someone who enjoyed Heavy Metal 2000 quite a bit back in the day, it was disappointing to not see anything which emulated the style of that work and to see the over-abundance of 3D-style animation.

With all of that said, I did overall enjoy the series quite a bit. Binging the series all in one sitting was a little taxing because for some reason I thought there were only 10 or so segments instead of 18 so I continually thought to myself, “It’s not over yet??” when it queued up the next episode. Most of the segments were at least interesting or entertaining on some level, looking really cool and/or making me think or surprising me a bit. If I gave the entire anthology a score on the same scale that I rate my anime, I’d give it a mostly-solid 8; maybe a 7.5 if I gave fraction. Again, I’d say it’s definitely worth a watch if these kinds of stories are interesting to you.

So without further ado, here are my individual thoughts on each segment:

01 “Sonnie’s Edge”
This segment is about people who control monstrous beasties with their minds, using them to participate in brutal fights to the death. Our lead character Sonnie is offered a chance to throw her next fight to make a lot of cash, but she declines. In the process, we get what is probably some of the worst use of pointless profanity in the series when her friend tells off the dude.... We also get a somewhat gratuitous sex scene in the final part of the segment if that happens to bother you, but if it does then this probably isn’t a series for you.... So, the monster battle is pretty cool. It starts off a bit slow, but gets rather hype by the end. It’s all a lot of fun and well-choreographed. The ending is also rather cool. While I thought I knew exactly what was going to happen with the twist, I was only half right and some of the things earlier on make more sense after the big reveal. I honestly wasn’t expecting this segment to make me think as much as it did.
Score: 8 / 10

02 “Three Robots”
In this segment, three robots of varying designs travel together around a human city after all humans have died. This one also has some unnatural profanity, but it didn’t bother me in this case because they were robots; their entire way of speech is kind of meant to be an unnatural mimic of how humans talk. So yeah, it works. And this segment as a whole really works. The robots’ banter is amusing and the story is interesting. It had a bit of a quirky slice of life feel to it which I really enjoyed. Seeing them hang out with a cat is especially funny.
Score: 8 / 10

03 “The Witness”
This was the first segment that didn’t really work for me all that well. This segment used rotoscope animation which was pretty cool in a way, but the story itself was just barely interesting. It follows a girl who witnesses a guy murder another girl who looks exactly like her. She runs and he chases. There is a ton of sex-stuff pretty much just because. But in the end, it didn’t have all that much going on behind its style.
Score: 6 / 10

04 “Suits”
This 3D-cartoon-style segment follows a group of farmers as they use mech suits to battle monsters who come through some kind of breach and attack. At first, it’s a very casual affair as the main farmer dude kills a small group of the monsters that come through while drinking his morning coffee, but then a huge breach occurs and shit gets real! He needs the support of two other mech-piloting farmers and his wife giving some back-up fire from their base (farm). While this isn’t particularly a favorite of mine and I did zone out a bit, it was still pretty cool and did have a rather genuine emotional bit to it, so definitely still worth the watch.
Score: 7 / 10

05 “Sucker of Souls”
Eh, another segment that wasn’t completely worthless, but not by much. It’s really a shame since this was one of the few 2D-style segments. In this segment, a group of mercenaries escort a professor guy as he researches some ruins and they run into Dracula. This has some more very awkwardly done pointless profanity stuff going on. I ALMOST past it off as “mercenary talk”, but some of it was just SO bad. I guess it was mainly the action here that saved it from the “5” score, but really, this wasn’t all that memorable. I think it being a 2D segment is one of the only things that is saving it here. It doesn’t even really have any spoiler stuff that is all that worth talking about. Meh. Easily second place for my least favorite in the series.
Score: 6 / 10

06 “When the Yogurt Took Over”
This was pretty amusing. This short is all about how genetically modified yogurt became sentient and took over the world! It has themes of the folly of man and such. It’s all presented in an amusing, ridiculous manner as we’re taken over by a dairy product, but it doesn’t elevate to anything particularly great in my opinion as it’s all kind of like, “Well yeah;” when it comes to the themes. Everything plays out pretty much exactly as you’d expect if a super intelligent being decided to take over. Again, nothing of a real spoiler nature worth talking about here, but it was pretty amusing.
Score: 7 / 10

07 “Beyond the Aquila Rift”
In this segment, three space travelers head off on a long journey in stasis. When the main individual wakes up, he is greeted by a familiar face and told that a routing error sent them LONG off course. The two of them get reacquainted (queue sex scene!!), but things don’t seem quite right.... I thought this segment was done rather well and has one of the more thought-provoking twists in the series, so a lot to talk about in the Spoiler tag....
Update: After marinating over this for the last few years and then this auto-playing after I finished Volume III on Netflix and got me to go ahead and re-watched the whole segment, I’m upping this from an 8 to a 9. This is at least my fourth favorite segment in the original set, probably actually tied for third or even my actual third favorite. I really like this one a lot.
Score: 9 / 10

08 “Good Hunting”
This is one of my two favorite segments in the series. It follows a boy living in early 20th century China. He and his father hunt kitsune-like fox-woman creatures who seduce men. But after one of their hunts, the boy becomes interested in one such creature. Then as the industrialization of the world marches on, the old magic of the world goes away and this girl loses her ability to shape-shift. The boy starts working on trains and other gear-works in a British settlement in Hong Kong. He meets the girl again who has had to “entertain” men to survive, but after something horrible happened to her, the two team up to get revenge. It’s all a really cool story, one that could easily be extended into a series of its own. If you’re at all interested in steampunk themes, definitely check this one out.
Score: 10 / 10

09 “The Dump”
This was an amusing little segment, but didn’t have all that much to it. I could pretty much see the main gist of the twist coming a mile away and there wasn’t much else to keep me entertained, but it was entertaining/interesting enough in the end. I’m sure if you get into the hillbilly/white-trash esthetic that this short uses, then you’d like it just fine. It was a fun, light little segment.
Score: 6 / 10

10 “Shape-Shifters”
This was a cool segment. I’m usually not a big fan of military themes, but this had enough of a supernatural twist to keep me entertained in spite of my disinterest in military stuff. So, not really a spoiler as it’s mentioned pretty early on, but this is about werewolves in the military. It mainly follows two werewolves in the US military who are currently deployed. Despite the amazing skills that they bring to the military’s disposal, they still get treated like shit. You know, because racism and stuff. Despite some of the heavy-handed nature of the segment, it is still very interesting and has some very cool visuals if you’re into werewolves and gore. The only thing that I had to go, “Really?” about was when the main guy got completely naked when he went out on a “hunt” and shit. Like, yeah, I guess it makes sense that he wouldn’t want to destroy any of his cloths during his transformation, but did we really need to see that dick flopping around? XD
Score: 8 / 10

11 “Helping Hand”
This is pretty much a light version of Gravity (the 2013 movie starring Sandra Bullock). A girl is repairing a satellite and something goes wrong which risks sending her to die, suffocating alone drifting in space. It’s a rather tense story of survival which plays out rather well, but it doesn’t have much going for it beyond that.
Score: 7 / 10

12 “Fish Night”
Here’s my least favorite segment in the series. It gets the absolute “Meh” of a 5 score from me. Really, there’s just not really much going on in this short. The ghost fish are pretty and that’s about it. Aside from that, the two characters are boring as all hell and the “twist” is really predictable and just didn’t have any real impact on me as the viewer. Really, it’s not even worth discussing further to the point of putting anything in spoiler tags for this one. Just, meh.
Score: 5 / 10

13 “Lucky 13”
My third favorite segment! This one also doesn’t really have any need for a spoiler tag section, but that’s not to any fault of the story itself. This particular segment is just very straightforward and doesn’t really have any huge twist. And you know what? That’s kind of refreshing. Every short doesn’t have to have some kind of shocker ending in order to be an effective short work. Also refreshing, this is one of the only segments with a female character that is never portrayed as a victim or a sex object. I mean, she gets into a pinch multiple times as a military pilot, but she isn’t victimized in any way on a personal level. This is just a good, exciting adventure story of a pilot and her plane. Also, Samira Wiley (Poussey from Orange Is the New Black) does a great job in the lead role and it’s interesting that they used her as a visual character model. I think this segment would be a great watch for any fan of hers. I also don’t recall any excessive profanity in this segment, so pretty much the only mature content in this short is rather basic war violence. If on its own, the segment would probably be at worst a TV-14 rating. Anyway, I was actually rather surprised with how much I enjoyed this despite my dislike of military themes. A very cool segment.
Score: 9 / 10

14 “Zima Blue”
And now we have the second of my two favorite segments in the series. I’m really not sure if I like this or “Good Hunting” more. They are just so different. While Good Hunting had loads of sex and violence with a female lead who was literally objectified, Zima Blue could have easily had a TV-PG rating if judged on its own. Seriously, the only objectionable content I can remember is maybe Zima’s robot butt and maybe a slightly graphic surgery scene? Maybe? While Lucky 13 was refreshing in its treatment of the female lead, Zima Blue takes things to a completely different level with how much restraint it shows. It tells a very mature (smart) story without ever feeling like it HAD to earn that TV-MA rating for the series. They didn’t make a pointless sex scene between Zima and the reporter girl. They didn’t throw in awkward profanity. They didn’t decide to draw a robot dick for Zima. They could have even easily had Zima paint a nude portrait during his early art career instead of a standard portrait of a couple and I wouldn’t have faulted them too much for it. Anyway, let’s get back to what this is actually about. On the surface, the story doesn’t really have much going on. It’s a story about an artist (Zima) inviting a reporter to hear his life story. It’s in a way reminiscent of Millennium Actress, one of my favorite anime movies, but with a heavier sci-fi twist. But while this story is short and basic, it is also beautiful and thought-provoking. And one last contract to Good Hunting: While I’d love to see the story of Good Hunting expanded into a larger series of its own, Zima Blue is perfectly concise in its short story length. I couldn’t imagine wanting any more or less from this story. It is just perfect as it is.
Score: 10 / 10

15 “Blindspot”
This is a fun little Fast-And-Furious-with-robots kind of segment. It wasn’t particularly amazing or memorable, but it was a fun and stylish little short as the car-driving robots perform a truck heist. With some cutting back on the language, I could easily see this as being an older-kids (TV-Y7) cartoon series. Just nice little mindless entertainment.
Score: 7 / 10

16 “Ice Age”
I guess this was interesting. Here we have a segment that is largely live-action as Topher Grace and Mary Elizabeth Winstead play a couple who move into a new place which happens to have a rapidly advancing civilization developing inside the old refrigerator there. It’s definitely a type of story that has been told before, such as by The Twilight Zone, The Simpsons, and South Park. The story has some cute moments, but largely don’t have anything that stands out. It doesn’t really -say- anything and also isn’t all that entertaining. It’s not totally boring, but it isn’t particularly “good” either.
Score: 6 / 10

17 “Alternate Histories”
In this quick segment, we simply see simulations of Hitler being killed off early (prior to the first World War) in six different amusing ways and we get to see the consequences of those deaths. It’s all just really silly fun.
Score: 7 / 10

18 “Secret War”
For me, the final segment didn’t end the series on a particular high note, but it was at least impressive from a technical standpoint. Secret War follows a group of Russian soldiers who are doing battle against horrible demon creatures which were summoned to our world by an occult ritual. This one is yet another to use super-realistic CGI-style animation and it is probably the most impressive of the segments animated in this way, not just in the realism of the character models, but also the scenery and execution of the large-scale battles. Unfortunately though, I feel like this segment mostly just boils down to battle-porn. The fights are definitely intense and the final battle is especially hype and a bit touching, but I felt absolutely no connection to the characters. If you are someone who enjoys military stories though, you’d probably like this more than I did.
Score: 7 / 10




Originally releases in 2021, two years after the series’ debut, Volume II of Love, Death & Robots is less than half the length of Volume I and doesn’t really have as many highs or lows for the first set. To be fair, I am writing this set of reviews a year after watching this because it didn’t initially inspire me enough to review it, but Volume III did make me want to write about it and I figured it would be a little odd to write about Volume III without also adding Volume II into this review. So sorry that the reviews for these segments will overall not be as thoughtful as the rest and will include a lot of “from what I remember” kind of language (explicitly or implicitly). And there is actually not a single segment that I felt the need to include spoiler tags for, either because I didn’t care enough about any of the twists to talk about them or the story didn’t have any major twists worth discussing. But anyway, here we go....

1 “Automated Customer Service”
We start off with a 3D CG segment in a style similar to Despicable Me following an old lady being attacked by robotic appliances.... And honestly, that’s about all there is to say about this segment. It was really a rather weak way to start Volume II. I mean, it wasn’t “bad” but I wasn’t particularly interesting either. It had some slightly unique bits to it I guess, but nothing that really stands out. Really, it’s just barely above “meh”.
Score: 6 / 10

2 “Ice”
The best thing I can say about Ice is that it has style. It is the only segment in this volume that uses fully 2D-looking animation. It also has a pretty neat world with some cool visuals and a decent amount of spirit. However, while it seemed to want to convey a strong theme of adolescence and the bond between brothers, I was largely left wondering what the point of it all was. Still cool, though.
Score: 7 / 10

3 “Pop Squad”
This segment is about.... baby killers??? Something like that. Basically, we follow an agent whose job it is to investigate and execute children and bring their parents to justice because humans have found the secret to immortality so overpopulation is a big problem now. So yeah, kind of an interesting dystopian concept, but it does feel a little difficult to connect with the characters here for most of the segment. When our lead finds and interacts with an outlaw mother and her daughter we do get a bit more humanity to latch onto which is nice, but felt like a bit too-little-too-late for me. Still a pretty nice story, though.
Score: 7 / 10

4 “Snow in the Desert”
This is one of only two segments that I REALLY got into and is the big “I’d watch a full series based on this” one for me. This goes full super-realistic 3D CG and is a rather cool story about a wanderer going across a desert landscape. While there’s a lot more action and the setting is very different, this segment feels very reminiscent of “Beyond the Aquila Rift”, which makes sense as they were both animated by the same studio (they also revolve around the relationship between two people and have a sex scene). However, this one ends on a much brighter note than “Beyond the Aquila Rift” and that is pretty nice. I like it quite a bit.
Score: 9 / 10

5 “The Tall Grass”
Another “barely above meh” segment for me here. It does have an interesting style to it, with weird almost-painted/almost-claymation CG look. But man, I really didn’t care about this story of a train going through a field of tall grass.... Yeah, I don’t know. Not bad, but not really all that good either.
Score: 6 / 10

6 “All Through the House”
Okay, so this might come off as kinda weird to some people, but this might be my favorite segment in all of Love, Death & Robots!! Seriously, I just LOVE this segment!! I mean, it’s really pretty damn basic, feels pretty derivative of The Nightmare Before Christmas and tales of Krampus. It’s also one of the shortest segments in the series. But man, this simple little story about a young brother and sister walking in on “Santa” is just so well done and charming as all hell! And the cartoony 3D CG is adorable. I just love it. I’d like to make watching this a Christmas tradition. Wonderful!
Score: 10 / 10

7 “Life Hutch”
And here we have another segment that is rather aggressively mediocre.... This should seriously be better than it is, but I simply found myself not caring at all about it. Another super-realistic 3D CG segment, this is basically just “Helping Hand” and “Lucky 13” from Volume I squished together, but isn’t as good as either. This time around we have a CG model of Michael B. Jordan (much like Samira Wiley in “Lucky 13”) fighting alone for his own survival (like in “Helping Hand”), but this time it’s against a malfunctioning security bot. It has some nice tension to it which helped keep it from being a total-meh for me, but man, it really felt like this should have been better.
Score: 6 / 10

8 “The Drowned Giant”
And we end this volume on an interesting note. This somewhat-realistic 3D CG segment about the corpse of a giant washing ashore was actually stated as my friend David’s favorite segment out of this block. But for me, it was “just good”. This one falls squarely in the “I appreciate it more than I love it” category. The main character/narrator pretty much spends the entire segment philosophizing about the meaning behind this huge creature and its death and how humans treated it over time. It was initially this huge spectacle, this crazy thing that rocked what everyone thought they knew, but then it eventually just became another thing that exists and was mostly ignored. It does make some pretty interesting points, but I largely didn’t connect all that much with it. But yeah, still interesting.
Score: 7 / 10




So this might partly be me coming fresh off of watching this, but I’m gonna come right out and say that I think this is overall the best volume of Love, Death & Robots! While I didn’t give any of these a full “10” this time around, I only gave one “7” and the rest were either “8” or “9” scores. Nearly all of them made me think or at the very least were successful in entertaining me. I did not feel the 2+ hours of watching these and was surprised when it was all over. Especially when I did the math and this was a full 30 minutes longer than Volume II. All in all, very good stuff and feels like the best distillation of what Love, Death & Robots “is”.

1 “Three Robots: Exit Strategies”
So we start off this volume with the series’ first every continuation!! We get another story about those silly little robots exploring the world where we stupid humans have all went extinct. I’d say it is pretty much just as good as the original. The commentary of the robots is still amusing and they do a bit more social commentary this time around which I enjoy. However, the “twist” ending this time around wasn’t as good as the original. It was so cheesy and eye-roll-inducing that I was almost tempted to take off a point....
Score: 7 / 10

2 “Bad Travelling”
Oh boy, this shit was pretty damn gruesome. A ship at sea is attacked by a big ass crab monster, ripping apart a few of the crewmembers in the process and then taking up residence in the lower deck. One of the surviving crewmen gets sent down there to check it out and the monster talks to him (in a really gross way) and they strike a deal for him to take the monster to a specific island so that the monster can feed on the inhabitants there. What ensues is a brutal examination of humanity that is very tense throughout. While it’s hard to latch on and really connect with any of the characters and the themes in the end were pretty basic, overall this was a very well done story.
Score: 8 / 10

3 “The Very Pulse of the Machine”
The first of two segments that I just REALLY loved, but again not quite enough to get the full-10 score. In a way, this is “Helping Hand” done better and mixed with a bit of “Fish Night” (my least favorite segments in the entire series). We have an astronaut having an accident in her rover on Jupiter’s moon Io. She had a partner with her who dies in the crash and has to drag her body behind her so that she can use the air supply of the suit because her own was damaged. She uses drugs in her suit to get through the pain of her own injuries and keep her awake and energized as she tries to make it to a way-point for rescue. But then the body of her dead partner starts to talk to her, claiming to be the moon itself. Is Io really talking to her, or is it just hallucinations from the drugs? I found this segment to be very thought-provoking and it had a nice cell-shaded 3D CG style that was able to do some really cool things with the hallucination imagery and other stuff that would have been difficult to do in traditional 2D animation or realistic-style 3D CG. Just a really good story.
Score: 9 / 10

4 “Night of the Mini Dead”
This is pure silly stupid fun. The volume’s shortest segment, we get a super-speed look at the creation of a zombie apocalypse. As the title suggests, this is done in the style of stop-motion animation with minis. Really not much else to say about it. Just good dumb fun.
Score: 7 / 10

5 “Kill Team Kill”
Oh man, speaking of dumb fun, this is just ridiculous! The only pure 2D-sytle animation in this volume, we follow a military strike team which comes across the total massacre of another team. Then they quickly find out what caused this massacre: a rampaging killer cyborg bioweapon grizzly bear created by the CIA!!! Seriously, I probably shouldn’t like this as much as I do. This is for real the second of my two favorite segments of this volume. But this is basically “Sucker of Souls” from Volume I done RIGHT!! If you’re going to have the stupid dumb mercenary cursing and shit, then make the story so stupidly over the top that the dumb cursing is the least out of place thing in the fucking story!! The characters are stupid and over the top, but they also have a nice charm to them. It’s just a fucking blast!
Score: 9 / 10

6 “Swarm”
This feels a bit like this volume’s “Beyond the Aquila Rift” (complete with sex scene) but doesn’t quite fully stick the landing for me. The story is very interesting as the male lead is guided through the titular Swarm by the only other human in the story. She’s been living in this hive for a while, learning about their ways, but the guy who’s visiting wants to basically create his own swarm for humanity to use as a bioweapon/slave labor. He just needs an egg from the queen as the “seed” for his own hive. How well do you think that’s likely to work out for him, being a part of this series? But, before I get into spoilers, I will say that this is a solid “8” for me. The different creatures that are part of the Swarm are rather cool and there is some pretty major tension at parts. The social commentary is also rather interesting. Good stuff!
Score: 8 / 10

7 “Mason's Rats”
This is a pretty damn cute story! At risk of being repetitive, I feel like this is basically “The Dump” done right. The cartoony 3D CG is kinda similar to “The Dump”, just not as nasty looking. The story is about an old farmer who has a major rat problem, but these aren’t your normal rats; they’re evolving, using simple tools and weapons, including crossbows that shoot nails. So the farmer needs some serious pest control. He gets sold some hardcore rat killing robots for the job! But is it really right to massacre these rats who seem to be kinda smart and shit? Again, this story is just weirdly cute and I enjoyed it a lot. Good stuff!
Score: 8 / 10

8 “In Vaulted Halls Entombed”
And here’s another rough one.... So in this super-realistic 3D CG segment a military team is on a mission to rescue a hostage. They follow him and his captors into a cave, but get more than they bargained for. They find the empty bloody bones of the hostage and two of his captors. But for some reason instead of saying “fuck this, we’re out” they decide to continue going deeper into the cave, running into the creepy little spider creatures who seemed to have killed those guys. This is another very tense segment as they fight for survival and there’s a constant deep air of mystery around everything. Once again, just another very solid segment in this volume.
Score: 8 / 10

9 “Jibaro”
Now this is a weird one. I was honestly convinced that this story must be some kind of folk tale in some culture or something. But that doesn’t seem to be the case. It was likely inspired by siren stories, but aside from that it looks like it was fully original, even apparently being the only segment in this volume not based on a pre-existing story. Anyway, this was made by the same people who were behind “The Witness” in Volume I and I think this is another rotoscope animation, but the rotoscoping done over the live action looked like it was mostly 3D CG?? It had some pretty crazy effects. And the story itself was pretty haunting. The main character is a deaf knight traveling with a squad and is therefore the only person not taken out by the siren’s initial song. The rest of the story is a back and forth between the knight and the siren which is pretty brutal. So is this basically a successful version of “The Witness”? Eh, kinda, but not really. While this story has some pretty psychedelic imagery, the story itself (while clearly supernatural) is rather straightforward with no mind games. What you see is pretty much what you get. Really interesting stuff, especially as there is practically zero dialog. Good stuff and a very interesting way to end the volume.
Score: 8 / 10