The 30 best cartoons even adults can enjoy

29. Samurai Jack

After making his name as a crew member on Tiny Toon Adventures and Batman: The Animated Series, and creating the animated series Dexter’s Laboratory, Genndy Tartakovsky made his masterpiece – the animated series Samurai Jack. The series made its debut in 2001 for Cartoon Network and lasted four seasons. In 2017, the series returned to Adult Swim for a fifth season and had produced a total of 62 episodes.

The show had an interesting opening, with the evil Aku as the narrator of the story. He explains how he unleashed evil and found a samurai opposing him. He launched the samurai into the future where he now ruled but found that the warrior was trying to find a way back in time to stop him once and for all.

Yes, Samurai Jack was a cartoon, but with the Tartakovsky-styled artwork and the fact that this is just as much a samurai epic as it is a kid’s cartoon, it is something everyone should go back and revisit. The fact that Adult Swim brought it back for the fifth season to finish the story shows that this is more an adult cartoon than one for younger audiences.

When it comes to the first four seasons, this is easy enough to recommend. However, it finished with no end to the overlying story as Tartakovsky moved on to Clone Wars. A planned movie never happened, but the new season finally gave them a chance to conclude Jack’s journey – and Adult Swim allowed them to do so in a manner with more mature elements. It was a fitting end and makes this a cartoon that all adults should seek out and enjoy.