Western Animation / Unicorn: Warriors Eternal

An adventure a lifetime in the making.

"It seems we caused the very thing we tried to prevent... the Unicorn has awakened once more. But perhaps all is not lost, for they are not the way they were in the past, and this resurrection might be their last..."

— June Way

Unicorn: Warriors Eternal is a 2023 action fantasy animated series with scifi elements created by Genndy Tartakovsky. Studio La Cachette animates the show.

The series follows the Order of the Unicorn — Melinda, a powerful sorceress, Edred, a warrior elf, and Seng, a cosmic monk — a team of heroes assembled by the wizard Merlin who are reincarnated through the ages by a soul-carrying robot from the future named Copernicus, inhabiting the bodies of unsuspecting humans to aid in an eternal battle against an evil force.

This time however, Copernicus is attacked by the evil force's minions sooner than expected, in a steampunk-styled version of London during the Industrial Revolution. This forces him to hastily initiate the soul transfer early, leading to these newest reincarnations — Proper Lady Emma Fairfax, traveling magician Dmitri Dynamo and young orphan boy Alfie — being largely unprepared to take on their new identities and powers. Regardless, they'll somehow have to sort through this messy arrangement and unite to do battle as always, whether they like it or not.

The first episode of the series was given a sneak preview at New York Comic Con 2022, and the series received its proper premiere with its first two episodes at midnight, May 4, 2023, on [adult swim]. The first episode can be streamed on YouTube. All episodes were placed on Max following their airing, and they would rerun on Toonami and Cartoon Network's ACME Night block as well.

Not to be confused with Unicorn Wars, although we do not recommend showing either to children.

Previews: Trailer

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Unicorn: Warriors Eternal includes examples of the following:

• Alternate History: The version of Industrial Revolution-era London depicted is far more technologically advanced than it was historically, with the skies dotted with airships and the city surrounded by a steampunk-equivalent to a monorail.
• Amazing Technicolor Population: Edred and the other Northern Elves have light blue skin. The Eastern Elves are a slightly greener shade of blue.
• Anti-Magic: The northern elves have runic circles in their prison cells which negate the use of magic within. The cosmic powers of Alfie/Seng, however, aren't affected.
• Arc Words: "Something is not right". Said multiple times by several characters who notice the strange going on in this reawakening.
• Asian Fox Spirit: The current form of the great Evil. In the mortal realm, she takes the form of a humanoid fox woman. In the cosmic realm, she appears either as a cute fox spirit or a more monstrous gigantic fox form to do battle.
• Battle Couple: Melinda and Edred were this in the past. Things get complicated with their present reincarnations due to Emma/Melinda being in love with and engaged to another man and having no memories of her prior relationship with Edred.
• Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: It is mentioned one of Melinda's first incarnations was St. Genevieve, Protector of Paris
• Bolivian Army Ending: The end of Season 1: Emma/Melinda fails to defeat the Evil after combining the souls of everyone in Unicorn (and were-Winston's) when she holds back once learning that Morgan is still alive but is being used as the heart of the Evil. They're all expelled from the Cosmic Realm only to see that the Evil's gone crazy and has gained time powers that misplaced many people and animals from different eras into the present, causing chaos of vast proportions. However, Emma/Melinda is undeterred, and she proclaims they'll find a way to rescue Morgan and defeat the Evil once and for all.
• Came Back Wrong: The trio of heroes have been reincarnated many times throughout history, though each time Copernicus finds them as adults to awaken their souls and restore their memories, along with full mastery of their powers. This time, however, the Evil found Copernicus as he was resting and attempted to destroy him, so he was forced to reawaken the heroes before they were ready. Emma/Melinda doesn't understand what's going on at all and only has vague blurred instincts of her past lives, conflicting with her life as "Emma". Alfie/Seng is just a kid, and it's outright stated that the awareness of the astral plane that comes with being a cosmic monk is utterly overwhelming to a child's mind (to the point he verges on Mad Oracle in his dream-like stupor). Dmitri/Edred fared the best out of the three, but while he has most of his memories and mastery of his powers, even he notes that some key memories are blurry to him.
• Childhood Friend Romance: Emma and Winston had known each other since they were children, and they were about to be married before Copernicus awakened Melinda within Emma's soul.
• Creator Thumbprint:
  • As just one example, the dynamic between Edred and Melinda is reminiscent of Genndy Tartakovsky's previous projects (namely Samurai Jack and Primal). A very determined and skilled Badass Normal warrior in comparison to a much stronger female co-lead. As a bonus, Edred basically is a time traveling swordsman like Jack, and Melinda/Emma is a black-adorned supernatural witch struggling with the influence of another character like Ashi.
  • Detailed expression (wrinkles, creases, etc.) on stylized cartoon characters, a particular aesthetic Genndy picked up in recent years of his 2D animated works.
• Demonic Possession: They may not be demons, but the way reincarnation works for Unicorn is similar to possession: Copernicus carries their souls until he finds a suitable human host, then their souls merge with the host and essentially take over. They normally leave their hosts once the Evil's current form has been defeated, however.
• Do-Anything Robot: Copernicus has built-in weapons and is able to transform itself into a variety of transportation.
• Foreshadowing:
  • During the battle against The Evil at the beginning of the series, Melinda fights off the serpent-like spirit and she hears a female voice calling out her name before she fights it off. This implies there's a certain connection between Melinda and The Evil which the Unicorn are fighting against. Not only that, Merlin returning with Copernicus is shown to be rather callous of Melinda despite that she almost got killed in the battle. Turns out, Melinda is connected to both the Evil and Merlin by blood as everything can be traced to her own powers that turned her mother Morgan le Fay into The Evil and her father Merlin being cold to her.
  • The Fox Woman wears a mint-green dress along with carrying a parasol as part of her disguise posing as a woman in Victorian England. Morgan le Fay wears a similar colored robe which shows that there's a connection between the two.
• Genre Throwback:
  • In terms of its character designs, the series is styled after the Fleischer cartoons of the 1930s and Osamu Tezuka. Emma/Melinda's design in particular is highly reminiscent of Betty Boop.
  • Ironically inverted with how it was produced: Golden Age 1930s cartoons were developed with storyboards instead of scripts, but by the late 20th century most cartoons switched to the script format. Then there was an avant-garde switch by some animators to storyboard-based development: Tartakovsky's own Samurai Jack and Primal used the storyboard format. With Warriors Eternal, however, Tartakovsky switched to script-based development — apparently because, despite rave reviews about the animation quality, Tartakovsky feels the focus of this show is more on the characters and story.
• Got Volunteered: Whether you like it or not, if a robotic Soul Jar detects that your body is meant to house the reincarnated soul belonging to the Unicorn order, you're out of luck, regardless of what your life up until that point had been like. Emma is pulled from her wedding to house Melinda's soul, Alfie leaves his abandoned school after having Seng's soul shot into him, and Dimitri is quickly merged with Edred's.
• Hidden Elf Village: The northern and eastern clans of elves live in fortresses within the woods, some miles from human civilization.
• Hopeless Suitor: Edred and Winston have the bad luck of loving two separate women occupying one body and fighting for the driver's seat. And while each soul reciprocates its original lover's feelings, the personality that actually manifests due to the clash is emotionally confused and unable to properly process both its current situation and its perception of either man. So, while they both try to reaffirm their devotion to the new Emma/Melinda amalgam, neither is currently accepted.
  • The episode "A Love's Last Light" seems to indicate that she favors Winston more to Edred's disappointment, and is more comfortable and happy around him even as a werewolf. Seng also points out to Edred that he's never heard Melinda laugh the way she does in that same scene.
• How Do I Shot Web?: Dmitri/Edred seems to be the only one who retains all his memories and control of his powers, being the oldest of the trio. Emma/Melinda's powers go haywire at the slightest emotional outburst and Alfie/Seng is practically cuckoo.
• Hugh Mann: The Fox Woman doesn't do an especially great job of passing herself off as human. Even in the shadows of her hat and parasol, her snout is obvious from the side, and she has glowing green eyes anyway. It's implied that the extra bulk to her bustle is from her nine tails, too. Though since she sticks to deserted areas and the shadows in chaotic scenes, she doesn't have to.
• Innocently Insensitive: The Unicorn members are so used to swift and smooth soul transfers into their new hosts that they don't even consider that when a host acts different than usual, it's not a case of temporary shock or amnesia, but that the body's original personality is still active and fighting to resist the transfer. Especially Edred misses this point and constantly acts towards Emma as if Melinda's already there as the only driver, which continuously aggravates and alienates Emma who tries to run away from the group in fear for her own existence. It also does not help when Merlin reveals that once the Evil is defeated in that century, Copernicus recalls Unicorn's souls to him, and the hosts are presumably free to return to their normal lives. Melinda not bothering to explain this crucial detail to Emma when they merge makes the latter resist the transfer even more because she has no idea that Melinda's residence is temporary, and she's afraid she'll stay that way until death.
• Levitating Lotus Position: Seng does this a lot. Alfie/Seng does it upside down.
• Love Triangle: A very complicated one. Emma/Melinda is in love with her childhood sweetheart Winston, but when Dmitri merges with Edred he also falls in love with Emma/Melinda, who doesn't remember their history.
• Meaningful Name: Copernicus is named after Nicolaus Copernicus, a Renaissance scholar who first proposed that the Earth orbits around the Sun and not the other way around. The Copernicus is a spherical robot with a golden shell that finds Unicorn's new hosts and imprints them with their souls, making him crucial to the continuation of their resurrection cycle. In other words, he is literally the group's sun: their existence revolves around his, and they can't carry on with their mission without his ongoing presence.
• Mystical White Hair: Edred and all of his reincarnations have long white hair.
• Mythical Motifs: Unicorns, the symbol of purity and hope, thus used as the symbol and title for the group.
• The Needs of the Many: One of the central themes of the show so far is what matters more: your own happiness, or the long-term wellness of everyone around you; as displayed by the Unicorn group, and especially the newest host of Melinda, Emma. The former has been fighting the Evil for thousands of years and willingly embraces being effectively trapped in an endless loop of semi-immortality, firmly believing that her and her hosts' sacrifice allows the whole world to live on. Meanwhile Emma just wants her old life back, but Melinda's very presence in her body makes it progressively more unlikely every time she and her powers manifest. Melinda berates Emma for this perceived shallow-mindedness and egotism, but to the latter's defense, her entire life was safe and wealthy, with no tragic events to widen her perspective ever taking place; what Melinda accepts as normal and necessary for the bigger picture, for Emma is a nightmare that contradicts everything she knew and believed in and destroys her future the way she wanted it.
• Nonstandard Character Design: Most of the characters have a loose, stylized design drawing inspiration from Fleischer Bros. toons or perhaps Osamu Tezuka. Copernicus and the zombified elephant, on the other hand, resemble characters from Hellboy, while Merlin and Melinda in the past resemble characters from Franco-Belgian Comics and their cartoon adaptations.
• Past-Life Memories: After merging with their new hosts, Seng and Edred get their memories back. Melinda struggles with her conflicting identities while Seng isn't fully there mentally thanks to reincarnating into the body of a child. Only Edred has most of his memories but even he admits some key moments are blurry.
• Pointy Ears: Edred is described as a warrior elf in the trailer, so naturally he has these.
• Police Are Useless: Scotland Yard is totally unprepared to deal with destructive supernatural beings.
• Polite Villains, Rude Heroes: The Big Good Merlin (who dismisses Edred's protest of Melinda almost dying with a self-righteous "But she didn't") has Copernicus invade the lives of the reincarnated heroes without any regard for the potential changing times or the lives they might lead apart from their duty. The audience doesn't question it until the current plot, because we never delve deep into the previous cycles of people whose lives were stolen by this process.
  • The only hero who has the awareness of what's going on, Edred, actively causes a ruckus and earns the ire of the local police during a chase (as opposed to Melinda/Emma, who looked strange to the officer she encounters in episode one, but otherwise doesn't break the law and tries not to be disruptive when she can).
    • Seng is not much better, as he's so detached due to his powers that he leaves his current reincarnation — a troubled child to their own devices, which not only leaves the kid a confused Cloudcuckoolander in awe of the power to see things in a fantastical way but makes him detrimental in a fight since he can't think straight or give helpful information.
  • Copernicus averts it the most. He was awoken too early and is performing his programmed duty. He does hurt people, but mostly in self-defense, and is the most kind to most everyone, doing things like trying to ease Emma/Melinda into her new role, tipping his hat in greeting, and stopping his fight with the elephant to evacuate some bystanders unintentionally caught up in its rampage.
  • Melinda/Emma is in confused confliction with herself. She's upset due to her life as Emma creeping into her duty as Melinda in various ways. She can be rude, but only to others who aren't making sense and/or pushy, or whom she wants to protect from her dangerous new circumstances.
  • The Fox Lady, in contrast, has evolved to not just rampage at large/random, learned mechanics and integrated in society in a way that leaves people's day to day lives largely unaffected unless it pertains to her enemies. It's notable that the most damage she caused was destroying the elephant's grave, and the elephant itself is more focused on the team than the buildings and people around it, and leaves Seng's reincarnation alone when he lets go of it in his own confusion.
• Power Dyes Your Hair:
  • When Copernicus sends Melinda's soul into Emma she goes from blonde to black-haired.
  • Similarly, those that Edred reincarnates into gain pure white hair in addition to blue skin and Pointy Ears.
  • Seng's reincarnations subvert this as they all lose their hair (or at least revert to a buzzcut, as in the current one) the moment Seng is awakened.
• Power Trio: Melinda, Edred, and Seng are shown to be a heroic trio from the beginning.
• Proper Lady: Emma comes from an upper-class family and acts the part.
• Reincarnation: The three main characters have been reincarnated across history multiple times, all tasked with fighting a great evil. The third episode reveals that several of the trio's prior hosts actually did have children over the centuries. There are a pair of spiritualists in London who bear a striking resemblance to their ancestors Melinda and Seng but are annoyed that they weren't chosen as the new hosts.
• Reincarnation Romance: In multiple lifetimes, Edred and Melinda have been in love. In this current incarnation, Emma/Melinda struggles with accepting this idea while the current incarnation of Edred embraces it immediately upon his awakening.
• Robot Buddy: Merlin brings Copernicus from the future to serve as this for the warriors.
• Shout-Out:
  • Copernicus' design greatly resembles that of Tik-Tok of Oz, though he doesn't speak and is a whole lot more heavily armed.
  • The Terrifying Tyrannosaur that Seng bumps into when visiting the past has a teal, striped coloration very similar to Fang.
  • The white lion whom Seng acquires as a mount in the Cosmic Realm is a shout out to Kimba the White Lion by Osamu Tezuka.
• Sickly Green Glow: The evil entity Unicorn must always fight appears in many forms, but it always has glowing green eyes. Its undead servants also have the same eyes.
• Soul Jar: Copernicus functions as this for the souls of Unicorn.
• Steampunk: The story is set in a steampunk version of Victorian London.
• Story Arc: When the series premiered, Tartakovsky went on record that he pitched it as a sprawling four season story arc — though he thinks the storyverse is so rich that they could potentially go for more than that. He also noted that given the reincarnation plot mechanic, if they ever got bored with this specific set of characters, he could potentially make new seasons about their past incarnations in different time periods, or even in the future.
• Supernormal Bindings: The northern elves have shackles that can negate Melinda's powers.
• Take a Third Option: Edred is torn between his oath to become king of the Elven kingdom and continue the Unbroken Line and his oath to fight the Evil. His solution? Have his brother Aelwulf take his old body and assume his identity while Edred leaves the forest, unable to ever return again.
• Technicolor Fire: Melinda's powers manifest from her body as black flames.
• Time Crash: In the last episode of the first season, the Evil's infiltration of the Cosmic Realm has caused all of space and time to get mashed together. We see skyscrapers, Egyptian pyramids, jets dogfighting with lasers, a medieval castle under siege by a dragon, and roaming dino- and pterosaurs, all in the same landscape.
• Tin-Can Robot: Copernicus, a tin robot from the future with a rotund design and a stove pipe hat designed to watch over the warriors.
• Vagueness Is Coming: After merging with Alfie and meeting him in the cosmic realm, Seng tells him "The future has been altered, but there is still time". It isn't clear yet what this could mean.
• Warrior Monk: Seng appears to be the Eastern variant.
• Wham Episode: Episode 5, "The Past Within". Not only is it revealed that Merlin is Melinda's father, but her mother is Morgan le Fay, whom Melinda accidentally transformed into the Evil that Unicorn has been fighting against. Also, Copernicus was completely dismantled by the giant sea monster, with the Unicorn warriors now uncertain what to do next.
• Year Inside, Hour Outside: Without an anchor, time in the cosmic realm passes much faster than in the mortal realm, and not always at consistent rates. When the Evil possesses Alfie and uses him to get to the cosmic realm, mere minutes for his friends is decades for his spirit, which has aged to adulthood. When Emma is separated from Melinda and cast out, it takes her about a day to get back, during which four years have passed inside.
• You Can't Go Home Again: Edred lets his brother take his original body and identity to ensure the Unbroken Line isn't broken again, meaning Edred can never return to the forest.

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