It’s not the best animated series of the year, it is the best new series of the year – bar none.

It is late in the night and so this will be short – but suffice it to say the series creators have pulled off a shocking blast of art – a series that is difficult to process because it feels just too wonderous to process.

The opening scene indicates our heroes have been abandoned on this beatific alien planet due to a larger mystery that will later be identified. But what we have on the initial episodes are characters that are easy to buy into – I won’t list them – but they are astronauts all struggling to survive on this new and biologically challenging planet. It seems open to experimentation – scientific, electrical, biochemical. This is a Rick & Morty planet fucking dream! But where the show really excels are the visuals –

What we witness is a somber, seemingly very well planned out (we shall be the judge as the series progresses) world that absolutely feels designed by the holy deities of Moebius and Miyazaki.

The art is most certainly 2-D, and wondrously so. Colors that wander the wheel but for the primaries. Clean lines that are reminiscent of Moebius. And not just the lines – the mechanics. SR draws upon elements of the machines of Ridley Scott’s Alien and Blade Runner designs. All the while tapping into the nature of Miyazaki. Nature is alive and functioning well beyond what our human heroes are aware of. But they are working diligently to decipher the riddles of the planet and it is wonderous to see.

Scavengers Reign takes the tone of the Moebius comics and brings them to life in a way never seen before.

Miyazaki films carry the Moebius torch beautifully – but it’s a different tone, And good for Miyazaki. They were friends and their respect for each other is obvious. But Scavengers Reign pivots against Miyazaki’s overwhelming style and takes the plunge into a new and unexpected pool – that of the Rick & Morty biologic as machinery storyline. This is not the James Cameron *Avatar* mother gaia – this is a Herzogian heartless nature that is demanding to be decoded, deconstructed, and machined before it overwhelms and destroys.

And our heroes seem very up for the challenge! Whatever secrets they have that sentenced them to be cut from society and plunged into this new and beautifully toxic planet we will have to wait and see. But if the first few episodes are any indication – the journey will be well worth it.