Rick and Morty slices up portal-jumping ninjas in anime-inspired (and very bloody) short

While we eagerly wait for the rest of Rick and Morty Season 4 to arrive, Adult Swim has wisely whetted our appetite with a 5-minute, anime-inspired short based on the hit sci-fi series.

Also drawing influence from classic mangas like Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima's Lone Wolf and Cub, the highly stylized project (entitled "Samurai & Shogun") finds a samurai version of Rick (voiced by Yohei Tadano) completely wasting a clan of portal-hopping ninja Ricks looking to reclaim their Shogun Morty (voiced by Keisuke Chiba).

You can take a gander at the short (written and directed by Kaichi Saito) below. See if you can spot the nod to "Goodbye Moonmen" from the Season 2 episode known as "Mortynight Run."

Please be warned that there is a lot of violent and bloody imagery that may not be suitable for younger viewers.

A solitary Rick (voiced by co-creator Justin Roiland) being hunted by Ricks from other dimensions (played by Roiland as well) is a familiar staple of the show. The Rick we're all familiar with, Rick C-137, is often targeted by the Citadel's Council of Ricks, who resent him for not joining them.

However, "Samurai & Shogun" offers a refreshing deviation from C-137's usual sci-fi methods for dispatching his enemies. It's cool to see Samurai Rick (referred to in the short as "Rick WTM-72") simply using a katana against a group of hostiles. Even without a portal gun or a grab bag of wacky gadgets at his disposal, Rick can still cause plenty of over-the-top bloodshed and mayhem.

The second half of Rick and Morty's fourth season debuts sometime this year, although no specific date has been revealed just yet.