Murder Drones: A Microcosm Of A Bygone Era Of Internet

nearing new year's eve, my friends and I decided it'd be funny to watch all three hours of murder drones in one sitting, syncing up the final second of the final episode to 11:59pm officially rolling into the first 12:00 am of 2025, and between the bite me drinking game nearly killing us and watching the show while one murder drones worshipper argued with two murder drones haters i'd say it was a great way to experience what the show had to offer

this wasn't my first ever experience with murder drones. in the months prior i'd watched a couple of episodes by myself or on calls with her but it was mostly casual non-commital watching episodes out of order types of viewings, but i knew mostly what to expect going into this full viewing.

i went into murder drones expecting it to be dogshit. i expected a fun romp with my friends making fun of the show for 3 hours over call. i expected to shake my head at all the dumbshit that happened and lambasting the confusing hard to follow plot, but murder drones gripped me in a way nothing has in years, and i wanted to write about that

on a planet seemingly rendered inhospitable overnight, worker drones employed by humans now seek to live their lives on their own terms, only this is thwarted when a group of drones known as murder drones drop down from outer space, racking up killing sprees and forcing survivors to take shelter. abandoned almost post-nuclear buildings litter the landscapes, as does an endless winter that coats the lands in a thick pile of snow, creating the setting this show takes place in.

the story follows Uzi, unpopular emo teenage girl robot dissatisfied with her door-loving dad and her colony that chooses to hide behind the doors that protect them. she wants to murder the murder drones and set herself free, but as her journey continues, she realises the murder drones are just a small piece of the puzzle, a precursor to a threat far greater than she could've ever imagined

i have trouble describing what exactly it is that gets me about murder drones but if i had to squeeze out a comparison, murder drones feels like an extremely high budget independently made fan project au in the style of a really well animated disney xd show. 

i sort of grew up on things like this. i went through a massive undertale phase back in 2016 and i remember immersing myself in fan comics and fan comic dubs and undertale aus and murder drones kind of just feels like home to me.

murder drones has legitimate spectacular qualities. the animation is painfully detailed practically dripping with passion, insanely creative with character expressions and dozens of visual gags crammed into each scene, the setting feels distinctive and suitably otherwordly enough for a post apocalypse planet inhabited by robots, i love especially how there was a pretty clear conscious decision to not include a single regular looking human in the show which i think adds to the setting, if anything the animation itself  coudl've literally almost carried the entire show for me that's how impressive i found it

and even if it's bad i couldn't help but form a really weird attachment to all the characters, especially characters like N, Cyn, Uzi, J, almost all of them. each character has both a distinctive look and a personality that feed into each other and make almost every character manage to be really strangely charming even without time given to proper development. i cannot understate how much i just fucking love the expressiveness and body language of each character, it makes every scene so fun to watch just to see the little details in the way they move it's magnificent

but it's bad. boiled down to its most basic form, murder drones is kind of bad. the writing is all over the place messy with the plot being somewhat confusing to follow episode by episode, a lot of characters as i said suffer from chronic underdevelopment, the humor can be annoying

but murder drones isn't just simply kind of bad, it's bad in a really really really hyper specific way, it's bad in a way where all of its negative qualities kind of meld together and mix with the positive qualities to make this show feel like the most authentic, masterfully made microcosm of everything that ever made me fall in love with cringe-y undertale aus. it evokes these warm cozy feelings i used to get watching people dub the ask mercy or drunk chara blog. the quirky humour and subtle tinge of cheesy shipping culture romance makes me feel like a little kid again, wrapped up in my blankets staying up past bedtime watching youtube videos while trying to not get caught by my parents, and the way things are now, with examples of shows like that in the modern era being almost non-existent, and my last experience with a show that made me feel like that, that kind of feeling is extremely precious to me.

seeing the credits roll struck me with the same emptiness and heartache i felt watching the final episode of any one of those unfinished aus i used to watch and hopelessly wish to get closure for. yet again i let my heart get captured by a show that ended after one season with no second season anywhere in sight. i kind of fucking hate myself for falling in love with this show the way i did, the same way i was terrified people would find out what i watched back when i was 11 years old. in my relatively limited catalogue of shows i've seen, murder drones stands out as something extremely unique, which (as ashamed as i am of it) i would proudly place near the top. so much love and passion was clearly poured into this show's production it almost becomes infectious and gives the show that cringe-y fanmade labour of love quality. i really just can't enjoy anything unless it's so extremely unique to the point that nothing else in the observable universe will ever make me feel the same way. cat soup eat your heart out i guess, of all the things i've seen murder drones slides just nicely into 2nd in my list of top favourite things i've watched and if you know how much i adore cat soup i think thats a pretty massive achievement

anyways i love this show it sucks adam azlin daniel is gay thank you for introducing me to this show hahaha thanks for reading