by Toussaint Egan

Last week, news broke that Netflix had formally withdrawn from talks of acquiring Warner Bros., essentially guaranteeing that Paramount will step up to purchase one of the largest media conglomerates in the world. My Re:Frame colleague Kambole said it best last week, the industry feels as though it's shrinking, "in terms of what can be made, who can make it, how they make it and where it’s shown."

However, in the wake of this positively demoralizing development, there is at least one faint ray of hope for animation fans to savor in. A slew of Warner Bros. Animation, including some episodes and films that haven't been made readily available in years (or ever), are now streaming in the United States for free on Tubi.

The sheer breadth of shows added to Tubi this month is astounding. The Looney Tunes catalog alone would’ve warranted a newsletter, but previously unaired episodes of Powerpuff Girls, Dexter's Laboratory, and Kids Next Door? Now we’re cooking with gas. The online streaming service, subsidized by regular ad breaks, is slowly but surely becoming one of the de facto repositories of classic animation during this ever-narrowing period of media consolidation.

Dexter's Laboratory: Ego Trip

In my previous life working at [REDACTED], I had the opportunity to interview Genndy Tartakovsky about his then-upcoming original animated series Unicorn: Warriors Eternal. Being the fan of his work that I am, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to ask him why Dexter's Laboratory: Ego Trip, the made-for-television movie based on his hit series of the same name, had never been released on home video or made available to stream. His answer: "I dunno!"

You can imagine my surprise and utter delight when I learned that Ego Trip, long thought lost to the dustiest forgotten corners of Warner Bros.' archives, had been added to Tubi along with the original series. With an operatic opening sequence that calls to mind the silhouette animation of Lotte Reiniger, Ego Trip is a time travelling odyssey that follows everyone's favorite boy genius as he battles his nemesis Mandark across the ages for possession of a MacGuffin capable of ushering forth either a utopian era of renewable energy or a unending dystopia of feudal stupidity.

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex

As a long-time fan of the Ghost in the Shell franchise, I couldn’t pass on the opportunity to recommend one of my favorite adaptations of the series, especially seeing as how it can be streamed both on Tubi and Criterion Channel this month. Stand Alone Complex is not only my favorite iteration of Ghost in the Shell; it's one of my favorite anime of all-time. This is due in large part to how the series — set in its own separate continuity from either Shirow's manga or Oshii 1995 film — expands the aperture of the latter to afford space for the worldbuilding previously glimpsed in the former. With "Stand Alone" episodes centered on thought experiments rife with allusions to Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless, Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver, and Kathryn Bigelow's Strange Days interwoven with a "Complex" serialized story inspired by one of the most notorious kidnapping cases in Japanese history, Kenji Kamiyama and co. crafted an immaculate cyberpunk spy thriller that boldly expanded on the precedent set by Shirow and Oshii's aforementioned masterpieces. Do yourself a favor and set aside the time to watch this before Science Saru's own adaptation premieres on streaming this July.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure

Later this month, David Production's ongoing adaptation of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure returns for its sixth season based on the manga’s Steel Ball Run arc. The multi-generational supernatural action anime centered on the scions of the Joestar clan is well worth revisiting in the lead up to this latest season, and even more so if you haven’t yet made the time to experience it firsthand. With eclectic characters, eccentric humor, and dizzying amounts of idiosyncratic style and substance to spare, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is a saga well worth immersing oneself in. While Tubi only has access to the first four seasons (Thank Netflix for that), each one is a unique, riveting, and worthwhile watch.

Dead Leaves

If you don’t know who Hiroyuki Imaishi is, you should. If creating Gurren Lagann — indisputably one of the greatest Giant Robot anime (if not anime, period) of the 2000s — weren’t enough, Imaishi is also the co-founder of Studio Trigger and the director of the 2022 breakout hit Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, to say nothing of his work as an animator of such classics as Neon Genesis Evangelion and FLCL. If you count yourself an admirer of any of Imaishi's work, Dead Leaves is absolutely requisite viewing. A fast and frenetic sci-fi prison break adventure that furiously channels the gonzo aesthetic stylings of underground ‘90s comix, Dead Leaves is an effervescent explosion of crassly creative energy that absolutely demands to be witnessed firsthand.

/out of frame

🎬 Toussaint: Archipel just published a gorgeous hour-long documentary on Mahiro Maeda, the prolific Japanese animator and director known for his storied career working on such classics as Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Blue Submarine No. 6, Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo, and The Animatrix: The Second Renaissance. Do yourself a favor and set aside the time to bath in the artistry and wisdom of one of the modern masters of animation.

⛰️ Kambole: The latest Gorillaz music video, for "The Mountain, The Cave and the Sad God" (yeah, 3 songs in one), is incredible – a love letter to the painted backgrounds, Xerox copying, cel animation and practical effects of animation in the 50s and 60s. It's done through a combo of analogue and digital methods, and the result looks gorgeous. I have an interview with Max Taylor and Tim McCourt, who co-directed the short along with Jamie Hewlett, out in Cartoon Brew real soon, so watch this space. In the meantime, in my free moments I played the Marathon open beta over the weekend and man, that game is a real looker.

🧟 Rollin: Primal is still airing! Easy to forget given the 100 million atrocities since it first started in January, but Season 3 is just about to wrap up and if you've been waiting, now's the time to immerse yourself in the continuing adventures of Spear and the gang.