Rick and Morty Just Shook Things Up With the Antiverse

Rick and Morty: The Anime has been adding all kinds of wild shake ups to the wider Rick and Morty multiverse, and the newest episode took things even further with the introduction of the Antiverse. Rick and Morty Season 8 is now in the works for a release some time next year, but Adult Swim has been scratching that new Rick and Morty itch this year with the debut of its brand new spinoff anime series. Rick and Morty: The Anime has been playing around with space and time in the first half of its debut thus far, and it’s had an impact on our understanding of its wider multiverse too. 

Rick and Morty: The Anime has introduced fans to a new take on Rick and Morty as they exist within the multiverse of the original Adult Swim animated series. For all intents and purposes of writer and director Takashi Sano, these are to be looked at as the same Rick and Morty that fans have seen in the original animated series as well. It means that each new anime adventure could have some major ramifications across the wider canon for the franchise, and Rick and Morty might be including more of the Antiverse in the future. 

Rick and Morty: What Is The Antiverse? 

Rick and Morty: The Anime Episode 5 brings back Cronenberg Jerry for a new adventure. In this universe, he spots a mysterious sword within Rick’s garage and soon finds himself transported to the main universe when he touches it. Anime Jerry and Cronenberg Jerry then bond over the usage of the sword, and Jerry himself eventually becomes a full superhero powered by a swarm of tiny machines and the power of the sword itself. But the real interesting twist is where Jerry goes when he touches it. 

Rick explains that Jerry has been transported to the Antiverse. It’s not outside in a different universe, but instead in a different space within the same universe. As Rick explains, their universe and the antiverse exist within the same plane but have delineating wavelengths that are the exact opposite of one another. It’s possible to travel in between the two timelines (as time flows backward in the antiverse) by pointing out where the two wavelengths cross with one another. They do this and head to a different version of their house. 

What Does the Antiverse Mean for Rick and Morty? 

The Antiverse doesn’t seem to hold a lot of differences to the main universe as of the fifth episode of Rick and Morty: The Anime. but it seems like it will continue to play a role in the future. Rick and Morty: The Anime has used its central entropy device to tell its story out of order and across different timelines, and now it seems there’s an entire universe within their universe that does just that. It’s also another layer to the overall multiverse that fans will need to keep track of when it becomes relevant again. 

It’s hard at this point to guess which of the concepts (if any) will carry over from Rick and Morty: The Anime to the main series, but the Antiverse seems like the perfect way to mine plots for the main series. Rick and Morty has been steadily digging into new elements of Rick’s past with each new season, and the Antiverse seems like a great place to do so if time moves backwards. It could lead to a much different kind of challenge than seen in previous seasons, and thus open the franchise up to all sorts of new enemies and more.