I'm detecting a level of coherency in the narrative that wouldn't survive Ms. Vanity's tender embrace.

Not to mention a lack of object clipping.

I really don't know the background of the show, but it seems like a bunch of disenfranchised videogame designers took the shenmue engine and ran with it. Some of the jokes seem straight out of the butt of a shenmue qte actually. I wish they made more of this show, but it seems like everything I like gets cancelled for good while everything others like gets cancelled but then revived, for the sole purpose of becoming the target of "used to be good" criticism. Oh well

Seconded. Xavier was (and still is) one of my favorite of the Adult Swim offerings. It took me a bit to get into it, but I'm in love with it.

It's also mind-blowing to watch on the hallucination of your choice, if you're into that kinda thing. It's broken my brain a time or two.

I'll also add that after a few watchings, I fell in love with 12 Oz Mouse too. The animation turned me off, but the absurdity and dialogue made it.

I always assumed the shitty CGI was unquestionably on purpose.

Fucking hell that banana gag!

SP,

yeah, of course it is. The play between the concept of pure virtuality/spirituality/whatever and its manifestation as really bad CGI is fucking hilarious to me.

Not to venture too far down the rabbit hole, but I get the sense that John and/or Vernon is/are some breed of theory/philosophy weenie/s. In season 2 there's a direct reference to Baudrillard and their website, PFFR, is riddled with little allusions to Lacan. So go figure. This has to be one of the most polarizing shows ever to air on Adult Swim.

I thought the bad CGI was a knock on "Second Life"?

Anyway, this show was awesome. It was like a strangely enjoyable fever dream.

I said it above, but I think it's ripping on Shenmue more than anything else.. like there's some backstory but he just goes around asking people questions who don't really care or are too busy, but he tells them his story anyway. Maybe Second Life's like that too, but I thought people used that game to get laid in real life. Nobody who likes Shenmue has ever gotten laid in the history of sex.

John and Vernon did a few interviews with the AV Club and in one of them, if I remember correctly, Vernon said that the show is "a warning about the dangers of spirituality."

The entire series is built around two central issues: 1) the new-age pseudospirituality that comprises what Xavier thinks is the "ethical" core of his values--altruism, pluralism, etc.--is always blind to the blatant solipsism and harm it causes others that attends such moral convictions, hence, a huge part of the show's humor, and 2) is Xavier's quest to find out who killed his father (season 1) and his mother (season 2). Insert Freudian humor here with Lacanian overtones in ep. 10 of season 1, especially. This shit's great, I'm telling you.

These guys also did Wonder Showzen, which I'm sure most of us are familiar with. But what you may not know is this gem, a film called "Final Flesh." Check out the trailer. Try to find the whole thing if it's your cup of tea.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlcrsAZUC-E