Netflix has a slew of releases every month and well-known shows often grab so much of the spotlight that it’s easy to miss out on some truly great releases. LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS is one of them.
What is LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS?
Think Black Mirror, but animated and shorter. LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS is a science fiction anthology of short adult animated stories independent of one another. Emphasis on adult. Yes, I wouldn’t watch this series at work. Some episodes are not safe to watch if you have a co-worker that tends to walk behind you. That being said, this series is not one meant for adult “pleasures” either.
Produced by a total of seven producers and with each episode animated by a different team from a range of countries, this makes each episode a unique experience. 18 unique experiences, in fact. These episodes don’t even have the same running time, ranging from just 6 minutes to 17 minutes.
Each LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS episode introduces new plot, new characters and a different art style, but they also revolve around the same main concepts which are, well, Love, Death, and Robots, either in part or in combination of all three.
The LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS anthology mainly focuses on ridiculous concepts; not bothering whether something like this can happen, but rather what it will look like if it happens. For example “When the yogurt took over” is an episode in which a yogurt develops sentience and eventually surpasses human intelligence.
Due to this approach of multi-faceted scenarios and directions, there are bound to be episodes which fall flat and episodes that are so beautiful that you wish they could be a series on its own.
The Good
An anthology such as this presents the opportunity to tell various stories and, for me, this is the main selling point of LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS. From sentient robots exploring the ruins of a post-apocalyptic world without humans, to what that starts out as an ancient world turning out to be a steampunk world, LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS surely went wild with what they can do in this series.
This series also brings you on a crazy emotional ride. There are many heart wrenching moments, with some episodes making you forget that it is just a few minutes long. There are action-packed episodes such as farmers protecting their families from an invasion of aliens, to an astronaut mission gone terribly wrong. There’s something for everyone.
The Bad
For me personally, it is the overly gratuitous nudity scenes that seem to appear more often than I would have liked. Seemingly occurring in most episodes, it feels like female nudity should be the fourth underlying theme of LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS (and boobs).
I am sure that some will argue that we should not shy from using female nudity in media as it is the natural human form and I fully agree. However, there is so much needless sexualization of female nakedness that it pulls me away from the story it is trying to convey. Over the course of 18 episodes, 14 of them feature some form of nude women.
LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS does so many things right but it feels like when they need to fill up some portion of the series, they turn to sex. It left me just feeling absolutely embarrassed when I was watching this series, although admittedly, it might work on some. Take what you will from this.
Verdict: Definitely worth a watch.
LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS is something that you need to put on your watchlist. Every episode feels fresh and new with most episodes bringing in a plot twists that you might not expect. There is literally something for everyone, but this also means there is some things that are not for everyone. You can’t win them all.
LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS is available now on Netflix.
