Exosquad Ratcheted Up the Body Count for Our Enjoyment

[originally written for overtimecomedy.com on 11/21/06]


Simply put, Exosquad was a cartoon about war, World War 2 to be precise. Quick history: 50 years previous, the artificially created Neosapian slave race rose up to free themselves from their human oppresors, until humans created exo frames to kick their asses, and now in the present, Phaeton, the neosapian leader of Mars has used neosapians’ anger and feelings of inferiority to lead them into war against humans. See, exactly like WW2. Look it up, it’s history.

Let’s run down what it takes top put on the most epic cartoon war ever.

Giant battle armor, each equipped with enough, lasers, missiles, and grappling hooks to take out a small army. Check.

A Hitler-like ambitious, fascist villain who is, by the way, 10-feet tall, super strong and has the ability to clone himself. Check.

Story lines dealing with the distrust, betrayal, loyalty, and the array of deep moral issues related to war, all told in a kid-friendly way. Check.

The most spectacularly violent battle scenes ever seen in a cartoon. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check.

Having just finished watching all 52 episodes in a row, I can say I have never seen so much violence. There must have been a per episode death quota, not to mention far too many hospital scenes, full of amputees and other victims of horrible explosions. Hell, in one of the first episodes, they, in the span of a minute, introduce a character and kill her. Oh yeah, and then her commanding officer spends the next two years mourning her death and blaming himself. What the hell is wrong with these people? Did they really think young boys want to watch this level of carnage?

Holy crap, this show was so fucking sweet!