South Park Unleashes The Most Disturbing Anime Crossover of All Time

If nothing else, South Park has made quite a few headlines thanks to the controversies surrounding it. While the Paramount series almost didn’t air thanks to the legal battles born from the recent Skydance battle, Matt Stone and Trey Parker eventually won said conflicts and were given carte blanche for the sleepy Colorado town’s episodes. In the latest season twenty-eight episode, not only did South Park remain political, it brought in one of the greatest figures from anime history. Unfortunately, said anime character didn’t arrive on Comedy Central to celebrate the medium of anime.

Warning. If you have yet to watch the third episode of South Park’s twenty-eighth season, be forewarned that we’ll be diving into spoiler territory. In the recent installment, South Park is struggling with artificial intelligence, as Stan, Kyle, Kenny, and Cartman deal with the fallout of the technology. As all the kids use A.I. to place one another in compromising positions, Studio Ghibli’s My Neighbor Totoro makes an unfortunate appearance. Paired with Butters, Totoro, and the classic South Park character are placed into a skin-crawling scenario. Hilariously, the Ghibli favorite is far from the only animated character to appear in the new episode.

To start, not only was Totoro featured, but the animators at Studio Ghibli visited the Colorado town themselves, demanding that their intellectual property not be abused. In traditional South Park fashion, the authorities misunderstand the situation, placing the animators in prison themselves as they believe the Butters/Totoro interaction was real. This anime crossover is far from the only crossover that the episode unleashed, with the likes of Bluey, Rocky And Bullwinkle, Popeye, and more making appearances. While South Park certainly isn’t an anime itself, the Comedy Central juggernaut has had its fair share of nods to the medium.

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Surprisingly enough, this isn’t the first time that we’ve seen the beloved Studio Ghibli character appear in South Park. Specifically, Totoro appeared in the eleventh season of the animated series as a part of the two-episode special, “Imaginationland.” With Butters and the gang visiting a world that brought fictional characters to life, Totoro also made an appearance, along with countless characters from movies and television. On top of the Ghibli character’s debut in South Park, the series has also poked fun at the anime genre in general in the past. The eighth season’s “Good Times With Weapons” imagined the boys with an anime makeover after they acquire ninja weapons, causing some serious headaches for themselves and Butters in the process.

As for the future of this twenty-eighth season, only two episodes remain before we once again say goodbye to South Park. The episodes, as of the writing of this article, are set to land on November 26th and December 10th, respectively. Even when this current season ends, there’s plenty more South Park to look forward to, as the animated series is confirmed for four more seasons.

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