33 Years Later, This Forgotten ’90s Cartoon Looks More Like a Prestige Sci-Fi Series

October 11, 2026, 9:30am

There were plenty of animated shows in the 1990s with spaceships, giant robots, and armies of colorful characters. Most of them were built to keep the action moving. This cartoon was different. It wanted you to remember what happened last week. Characters carried injuries. Planets changed hands. People died. And the war didn’t politely reset when the episode ended. This formula definitely made for a great animated sci-fi show that not enough people remember.

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That alone makes the series unusual today. But go back and watch it now, and another thing stands out. This wasn’t really trying to be a children’s version of a space adventure. It was telling a sprawling war story about humanity, slavery, prejudice, and the consequences of creating a race of people and then treating them as property. Somehow, that series aired in 1993. And 33 years later, it feels less like an old cartoon and more like the kind of ambitious science-fiction drama television would spend years trying to make.

Exosquad Was a ’90s Cartoon That Took Its War Seriously

Exosquad arrived in 1993 with a premise that seemed prime for Saturday morning cartoons until you actually think about it. Humanity expanded across the Solar System and gave birth to the Neosapien race. These genetically engineered humanoids were designed to work in harsh environments. The problem was that humans also treated them as slaves. Eventually, the Neosapiens rebelled against the humans, and the series dropped viewers into the middle of the resulting war.

That’s where Exosquad stopped behaving like a typical kids cartoon. The Neosapiens weren’t simply the bad guys who needed to be defeated each episode. Their rebellion came from something humans had actually done to them, making them victims in their own right. At the same time, the series didn’t make every human character a good guy or every Neosapien character sympathetic. Politics, betrayal, and prejudice kept complicating the conflict. Even the members of the main Able Squad had their own problems to deal with. The show also wasn’t afraid to let characters die or to show the psychological consequences of war.

That gave the series a surprisingly mature foundation. But the colorful visuals and stylish characters easily convinced kids that the show was simply about the good guys defeating the bad guys at the end of the day. On the surface, anyway. And that wasn’t a bad thing by any means. The cartoon had to be entertaining for audiences, after all. There were still giant robotic E-frames and huge space battles—but the story was deep. Overall, this series is easily deserving of being a cult cartoon.

Why Exosquad Still Feels Surprisingly Modern 33 Years Later

The biggest difference with the cartoon series was the serialization. Exosquad didn’t spend 52 episodes pretending nothing had changed. The story kept progressing. The first season followed the rapid collapse of the human Homeworlds after Phaeton launches the Neosapien uprising. Next, the second season expanded the conflict and followed the consequences across the Solar System. Characters who were important early on could change dramatically later. Alliances could shift. Decisions could come back to haunt people. Even the intro sequence felt like it was introducing a live-action cast of actors.

These are reasons why this cartoon was a great show and was ahead of its time. Prestige science fiction has trained viewers to expect long story arcs, complicated villains, and consequences that carry from one episode to the next. Exosquad was already doing much of that in 1993 before other cartoons. It even had the sort of uncomfortable moral questions that many children’s shows simply avoided. What happens when oppressors suddenly find themselves fighting against the race they oppressed? What does liberation look like when both sides have committed terrible things? And how can a war of that magnitude truly end?

The series also had a fantastic toyline that almost proved to be cooler than the cartoon. Exosquad didn’t always answer those questions perfectly. It didn’t need to. The ambition was enough to make the series stand apart. And that is the reason why this forgotten cartoon still deserves another look. With its rad characters, vibrant ’90s sci-fi style, and anime-ish animation, this cartoon makes you feel like you’re right there with Able Squad and Captain Butler right before a mission. And you’ll be yelling “Arooha!” with them.