5 adult animation series that tackle serious subjects without missing a beat

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If you want personal stories of survival, family trauma or just how to get over a breakup, look no further than adult animation.Even better: Sometimes these shows do all that and are still funny.

We’ve rounded up some of this season’s best examples in the genre.Set in an anachronistic world where prehumans and dinosaurs fight for survival, “Primal” is told sans dialogue and focuses on a Neanderthal named Spear (whose vocal grunts are provided by actor Aaron LaPlante) and a female Tyrannosaurus rex known as Fang.It’s raw, bloody and, somehow, tear-jerking.“There’s drama, there’s violence, certainly there’s a bit of lightheartedness … we’re not trying to do it like a live-action thing, but we’re trying to get cinematic,” says creator Genndy Tartakovsky.

“And because it’s dramatic and there’s no dialogue, we’re leaning into the visual storytelling of it all.This makes it seem a little bit more sophisticated.”Tartakovsky says he even tries to make “the blood spurts look beautiful and designed”: “We’re not doing it for shock value.” The show also added the escaped female slave Mira (voiced by Laëtitia Eïdo) at the end of Season 1 because the creator felt it worked for the story.Talking cats are not new to animation.

But this one is going through the very human roller coaster of a relationship rebound and self-discovery.Joe Wengert co-created “Kevin” with ex-girlfriend/series voice actor Aubrey Plaza as a cathartic thought experiment about their actual pet cat, Kevin.(Jason Schwartzman voices him in the show.)“It’s more fun to write for the animals,” says Wengert, whose credits include Netflix’s animated “Big Mouth” and Fox’s live-action “New Girl.” “They have another level of crazy.”The show also doubles as therapy.“I’ve always been too into my relationship and I sort of neglect my friends,” he says, add...