Good Hunting starts out in early 20th century China, on the cusp of colonized modernization. The son of a spirit hunter, Liang, manages to befriend a shape-shifting fox spirit named Yan and they meet over the years as steampunk technology develops and advances. When Liang’s father passes away, Liang moves to Hong Kong and becomes a skilled engineer. He encounters Yan again, only she has lost the ability to shapeshift, due to the magic of the land being disrupted by the progress of machines. After Yan is maimed and transformed into a cyborg against her own will, Liang helps to replace and upgrade Yan’s mechanical body that allows her once again to transform into a fox, albeit a cybernetic one, and she sets out into the city to hunt once more.

On a distant planet, a rural community of farmers fight for their livestock as well as their lives, against an alien monster threat, using homemade mechanical suits loaded with guns, missiles and lasers. When their numbers prove to be too great, the more vulnerable families retreat to an underground bunker while the mech drivers buy them time, sometimes with their lives. Finally, as a giant-sized alien monster threatens the bunker, the mech pilots and their families work together to defeat it and save everyone.

When a woman witnesses a murder taking place in a room across the street from hers, she flees from the murderer to the sex club where she works. She gets on stage to do her act, but when she notices the murderer in the crowd, she promptly runs again, this time taking a gun from her boss’s office. The chase goes through city streets and back alleys until she manages to enter a room in a tall apartment building. But the perpetrator finds her even here. During the struggle she shoots and kills him. When she looks out the window, she notices the very man she just killed is observing her, this time as the murderer.

In an underground archeology dig, two researchers and their hired security team of mercenaries stumble upon what they are looking for, the tomb of Dracula. But surprisingly, the Sucker of Souls is not dead and immediately attacks the crew, killing the junior archaeologist. As a chase through the castle catacombs ensues, the crew discovers that the vampire is afraid of cats. This buys them enough time to set up a trap with an explosion that the crew hopes will destroy their enemy. But as they are fleeing the castle tunnels they find not just one vampire but scores more. The short ends in darkness as the vampires descend on the crew.

Set in Siberia during World War II, “The Secret War” follows a Russian squad of soldiers as they track an infestation of demonic beasts. We learn that the beasts are the result of a failed cultist ritual that was meant to create demonic minions to fight in the war. The team does find the source of the infestation, but when a bomb in the tunnel fails to destroy it, the team must hold out as long as possible as one messenger is sent back to request Russian planes to bomb the area. The team is lost, but in the end Russian bombers arrive to destroy the demonic lair.

In a cartoonish version of a world not unlike our own, an unfortunate mistake with a science experiment leads to the development of a sentient yogurt culture. The yogurt uses its high intellect to bargain for control over Ohio in exchange for knowledge. Eventually the yogurt is given full control of the government when it is shown that humanity cannot follow a plan for its own self improvement and despite some initial resistance to the yogurt’s takeover, humanity is eventually led to utopian bliss. In the end, the yogurt leaves earth to travel amongst the stars and humanity is left to wonder what it will do without its yogurt overlords.

“Sonnie’s Edge” is set in a futuristic cyberpunk world, where humans telepathically control huge beasts that fight to the death in gladiatorial games. Our protagonist, Sonnie, is the human controller of the beast, Khanivore. Before a match, Sonnie is approached by a fight organizer, Dicko, who asks her to throw the fight. When she refuses, her backstory of sexual assault gives us perspective into her motives for fighting. In the ring, Sonnie and Khanivore are victorious, despite a dramatic and close match. But after the fight, Sonnie is approached and seduced by Dicko’s mistress, who lures her into a vulnerable position before stabbing her in the head. Dicko enters the room as Sonnie appears to be dying. But to everyone’s surprise, Sonnie only laughs as she reveals that her consciousness is not inside the human body, but rather inside the beast that she fights with, and she promptly exacts her revenge.

“Ice Age” tells the story of a couple that moves into an apartment and they discover an antique ice box left by the former occupants. While getting some ice, they discover the remains of a tiny mammoth frozen in an ice cube. Further exploration leads to the discovery of an entire civilization living in the ice box. Over the course of the day, the couple observes them moving through the stages of development up to what would be modern times, and even a nuclear war. Despite their fears, the small civilization survives and develops to a point where their technology is far beyond our own, and the civilization disappears into a singularity. The couple goes to bed assuming the micro civilization is gone, only to find that in the morning proto-humans and dinosaurs living in the box, starting the cycle over again.

The Love, Death and Robots Plus podcast is a Retrozap network podcast, discussing the hit Netflix animated anthology series Love, Death & Robots. On our weekly podcast’s drops, we discuss one episode from the show. We’ll talk about the story, art, and origin of the episode, as well as our thoughts on each. We hope to touch upon the elements that we think make Love, Death & Robots an engaging and unique anthology story experience. And stick around until the end for our Love, Death, Robots score.

“Beyond the Aquila Rift” tells the story of a spacefaring cargo ship and crew who have a navigational error strand them at a friendly starbase off their main travel route. While technicians look into the ship, the ship’s captain, Thom, is reunited with an old love interest, Greta. But all is not right, as Thom and Greta rekindle their relationship, Thom begins to suspect that something’s amiss with the station and Greta’s presence. It all comes to a head when he wakes from his sleep pod to discover he is actually on an alien hive starbase and everything he experienced was a simulation in his mind provided by its arachnid inhabitants.

The Love Death and Robots Plus podcast is a Retrozap network podcast, discussing the hit Netflix animated anthology series Love, Death & Robots. On our weekly podcast’s drops we discuss one episode from the show. We’ll talk about the story, art, and origin of the episode, as well as our thoughts on each. We hope to touch on the engaging elements that we think make Love Death and Robots a unique anthology story experience. And stick around until the end for our Love, Death, Robot score. 

Episode Overview: Three Robots follows the sightseeing adventures of, surprise surprise, three robots on a post-apocalyptic Earth. In this future where humanity has destroyed itself, the robots XBOT 4000, K-VRC, 11-45-G check out the places where people lived and worked and speculate about humanity’s culture. Their tour takes them through a few different landmarks of human society, such as a high school gymnasium, a diner, a home and a department store. Their final destination takes them to a nuclear missile silo where they have an unexpected encounter with a talking cat.