Transformer: Animated

Alright, so I decided to write about this one as a dedication to my friend.

"Transformers: Animated" is a Japanese/American animated television series produced by Cartoon Networks Studios and animated by The Answer Studio, MOOK DLE., and Studio 4°C. The show's continuity is seperate from any other previous "Transformers" series, despite using footage from the first series in its first episode as a historical film (Which seemed really out of place). The Japanese version was slightly rewritten to tie into Michael Bay's "Transformers" film series. It debuted on Cartoon Network in 2007 and ran for three seasons until its sudden cancellation in 2009.

"Transformers: Animated" unfortunately didn't receive a particularly positive response when the previews first came out, as compared to "Transformers: Prime", possibly due to the fact that it came out alongside the first Michael Bay movie (While the first one turned out to be pretty decent, fans still disliked the somewhat ugly and overly complicated designs of the bots)... One thing that immediately turned off most fans was its incredibly cartoony and rather exaggerated design of the characters.

It is not just the humans that look noticeably different in this style, but also the bots themselves, they just looked childish, silly... and just far too kiddy when compared to the first series. It was however a considerably unique direction for them to take in terms of their character design, especially after sticking to a more 'realistic' style in the original 80s series as well as the Armada trilogy (Yeurgh...), and well, I suppose one issue about the designs is the fact that some of them... didn't really look like robots.

There are just some parts of him that don't look very robotic.
But he's still an awesome character nonetheless.

The art style definitely gave the animators more opportunities to exaggerate and mess around with the characters a whole lot more... and again, it is just so unexpected to see these normally blocky mechanical aliens being so... malleable when it came to their faces and bodies (And again, that makes them even less mechanical looking than ever).

But eventually, the style soon enough grew on me, and I found it appealing in the weirdest sense, despite the human-like traits and features they tend to have now and then (... they have human tongues apparently), this turned out to be... a pretty alright change. They definitely had to try something new, and this was it. 

Since shows like "Beast Wars", I think this was also the first series where the characters were given the chance to be a lot more expressive. The style that was used in most 80s cartoons definitely limited the types of expressions that could be used on the characters (That sometimes even an emoticon is more expressive than them), even the human ones, and I can see why they decided to go with something a little more 'anime' to make these characters more interesting. I mean it's nothing compared to "Transformers: Prime", but it was still a really good starting point, plus the show truly had numerous moments where the bots were given incredibly well designed expressions.

This is not really one of them... so go watch the show to see what I mean.

It wasn't surprising to see that there were some anime elements added into the show (Some scenes bore similarities to transformation or action sequences from various mahou shoujo and shonen animes), considering how the art style already resembles one to some degree. While it probably makes some scenes more appealing or entertaining, I can't really say that it contributes all that much to the overall animation (But of the Armada trilogy was anything like this, I might have actually give them a chance).

And they definitely took the easier way out most of the time when it came to animating their transformations (Either they reuse one sequence a couple of times or simply turn it into a huge blur, which I thought was a smart choice), these supposedly simpler designs of the characters made transformation scenes a lot less tedious and more straight forward, but all the same still pretty appealing and entertaining to watch.

The show was definitely off to a rough start, especially when it seemed really childish with the gimmicky human villains, and the fact that the writers were forced to make these rather awkward connection to other continuities (Such as the original series and the live action movie), but it really was one of those shows that fans simply had to give a chance, because things really did take off by season 2 onwards, and the show soon enough proved itself to be surprisingly... dark.

I soon began to think that the childish style was just a way to attract a larger audience of kids before they got to the nitty gritty, to fool their parents into thinking that this was a friendly, silly, kiddy show with no death or torture whatsoever... While they will most definitely have the old fans to watch it, they needed to get more people to watch this show somehow if they wanted to continue for a couple more seasons.

As the show also progressed, I also felt that the designs for new characters got even better, and it is just a pity to know that we won't get the chance to see them again as season 4 never came to be (Characters such as Perceptor, Wheeljack, Hot Rod were all positively received despite their brief appearances throughout seasons 2 and 3 and are just only some of many fun redesigns shown throughout the show)... 

There are some absolutely amazing character designs used merely as background
characters alone here.

After the unfortunate end to this series, fans were definitely more welcome and open to other "Transformers" series that were released later on. Because from what we have learnt, the cartoons and comics will always be leagues above the movies themselves, and that fans need not fear that they will ever be like them.