The Adult Swim animated series Get Jiro perfectly captures Anthony Bourdain and Joel Rose’s graphic novel. It’s seriously bloody, unashamedly snarky and a hell of a lot of fun. With a stellar voice cast, this is a chaotic ride well worth taking.

Bourdain was as brilliant a fiction writer as he was in everything else he accomplished, and Get Jiro is his best work. It encapsulates him in a sense, fusing crime drama with the underbelly of the culinary world that he first wrote about in Kitchen Confidential, capturing his sharp sense of humor, and yet also having a genuine appreciation of people. It’s smart, funny, at times uncomfortable and always unapologetic. (The show has a red band trailer for a reason.)

For those who have not read the source material—and you absolutely should—Get Jiro is still accessible. Everything is explained efficiently at the top: in a dystopian future, food is currency and food is power. Jiro is just a mild-mannered sushi chef until he decapitates a customer for a faux pas, plunging himself into the middle of a war between the city’s two culinary powers. It’s a gangster epic, it’s a little bit sci-fi, it’s a commentary on food and economics. And it never really slows down.

Chicago Med alum Brian Tee is an inspired choice as Jiro; the character is a man of few words, so Tee has to make every one of them count, and he gives Jiro the gravity the character deserves. Likewise, there’s no better actor to play the carnivorous villain Bob than Bosch and The Westies star Titus Welliver, who’s been doing fantastic voice work for years. He has his own intense presence that works as a perfect contrast to Tee’s Jiro. In a fun connection, Courtney Taylor—who stars in the Bosch spinoff Ballard—also stars in Get Jiro as Cynda, the obligatory detective who has to clean up the mayhem.

Elsewhere, Bob’s rival Rose is voiced by Star Trek: Discovery and The Newsroom star Alison Pill, who seems to be having a lot of fun with her character’s sass. The cast is rounded out by Emmy nominee Justin Kirk (APB), who likewise has a certain flair. Voice acting is just as layered as live-action acting, and Get Jiro has a core cast who can find the nuances to make their characters feel alive.

But even superlative voice actors need a world to flourish in, and the scripts for Get Jiro give them plenty to play off of. The words can be as cutting as the blades, yet there’s room for a couple of amusingly corny chuckles, too. The character dynamics develop quickly so the audience has something to sink their teeth into. Visually, the show doesn’t look too much different from other Warner Bros. releases, but the muted color tones work for this story, and the animators never flinch away when things get violent. The biggest issue with the series is that some of the more obvious comic relief gets old quickly, but that’s not a major distraction.

With 22-minute episodes, Get Jiro can throw a lot at the audience without overwhelming them, and it does. This is a show that doesn’t hold anything back. But it’s not just chaos for chaos’ sake, like some other animated series; the writing keeps everything on track with the precision of, well, a sushi chef. Anthony Bourdain’s episode of Archer, in which he played the “bastard chef” Lance Casteau, was an instant classic. With Get Jiro, he, Rose and the creative team have created their own animated classic.

Get Jiro premieres Oct. 3, 2026 at 12:00 a.m. ET/PT on Adult Swim Photo Credit: Courtesy of Adult Swim.

Article content is (c)2020-2026 Brittany Frederick and may not be excerpted or reproduced without express written permission by the author. Follow me on Twitter at @BFTVTwtr and on Instagram at @BFTVGram. For story pitches, contact me at tvbrittanyf@yahoo.com.