Short films
A six-minute short film titled Samurai & Shogun aired unannounced on Adult Swim's Toonami programming block on March 29, 2020, during the hiatus of the fourth season of Rick and Morty, before being uploaded to Adult Swim's YouTube channel the following day. Written and directed by Kaichi Sato, and produced by Koji Iijima and Studio Deen and executive producer Maki Terashima-Furuta, the episode features a different animation and art style than usual, and is heavily themed around anime, specifically Lone Wolf & Cub. The short stars Yōhei Tadano as "Rick WTM-72" and Keisuke Chiba as "Shogun Morty", the pair reprising their roles from the Japanese dub of the animated series.[9][10] The English subtitles were produced by Sentai Studios, who would later produce the subtitles the rest of the short films.
Another eight-minute short film titled Rick and Morty vs. Genocider aired unannounced on Toonami on July 26, 2020, debuting on YouTube slightly after. Written and directed by Takashi Sano, produced by Sola Entertainment, animated at Telecom Animation Film, and starring Tadano and Chiba as Rick and Morty, Manabu Muraji as Jerry, "AI Driver", and "Hologram Transvestite", and Yuki Minami as "Hologram Girl", the episode explores the conflict between President Morty and Rick C-137.[11][12][13]
A third short film, titled Summer Meets God (Rick Meets Evil) and also written and directed by Takashi Sano, was released on YouTube on August 2, 2021, and aired on Adult Swim the following day. A fourth short film, titled The Great Yokai Battle of Akihabara, directed by Masaru Matsumoto and written by Naohiro Fukushima, was released on YouTube on October 10, 2021, and aired on Adult Swim the following day. A fifth short film, titled Samurai & Shogun Part 2 and featuring the return of Samurai & Shogun's Kaichi Sato as writer and director, was released on YouTube on November 12, 2021 as part of the 2021 Adult Swim Festival.
