I don't remember watching Happy tree friends..(maybe I might have. My mom didn't get Internet til 2001) But As someone who's been watching anime and adult cartoons for most of his life..from watching Yuckie duck, Spawn and the Third pig from tales from the crypt on HBO at age 5 to being 7 playing mortal combat to watching X/1999 and inuyasha I'm no stranger to moments when both genres dresses up like something you would see on a prime time TV-Y7 slot and add violence and profanity and straight up mayhem....take courage the cowardly dog for example...
In this case, more like TV-Y setting with a TV-MA rating. If I had kids, would I wanna show this to them? Probably not..younger kids..most definitely not..then again I grew up watching HBO at it's very peak in a family of horror/gorefest action movie fanatics...so shame on them...
In my opinion, it's like they took almost every scenario from every gorefest flick..mostly SAW franchise, Final Destination, Hellraiser and Texas chainsaw and put it through this deceptively bright, funny furry cute, cuddly medley of a razor sharp blood soaked smoking meat-grinding machine of a hell ride...
I guess..you say my distastefulness stems from growing up hating horror movies ..yet my appreciation stems from growing up with stuff like Toonami, Adult Swim, G4, sci Fi, and encore back when they showed animidnight (ironic, huh?) I somewhat appreciate the liberty to create something this ..morbid yet intriguing work.
In my opinion, yeah.. seeing it can be a bit unnerving (and downright disturbing) but is it anymore disturbing then other stuff we see in other movies on TV, on the news..or life in general?
All and all, I do love the animation, the cute animals and different colors and personalities..
I kinda wished I cought on earlier..not for the faint of heart if I mind ya....