f13.net

Aaigh, they've gone all cute and animeish! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18MrBT8X15Y)

(http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd256/geldonyetich/Transformers-Animated-Cartoon-Netwo.jpg)

Is that a FEMALE Decepticon just over top of Optimus' left shoulder?

Looks like black arachnia(sp) to me, extra eyes and all.

Edited to add not only does this seem to fuck with any kind of continuity the franchise had but also...it looks like complete and utter shit and was that optimus' voice?! jesus christ at least get someone who sounds like they've gone through puberty. 

This cartoon makes the live action movie seem like high art.

Seems like Teen Titan with rounded robot skins.

A part of me was hoping for a serious, moody Transformers resembling the old Spawn animated series. That's not Cartoon Network territory, but it would have worked with the war the two sides were having. Heck, the original series had some serious undertones if I remember correctly- it's been twenty years since I watched it at 7AM every morning.

Didn't we do this thread ?

Over here. (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=7835.msg319146#msg319146)

No wonder I couldn't find it, it was buried in a thread about the movie.

That looks like something an Asian man shit out after a bout with bad sushi.

Looks a lot like a robot version of this:

(http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/p/powpuff1.jpg)

To much Fish eye lens.

Who is driving?  Oh my god,  :pedobear: is driving, how can that be?

Complaining about Transformers becoming too anime is amusing, by the way.  :grin:

Why is that?

Giant fighting robots?

More likely this:

Ok. Point? Giant fighting robots are the sole realm of anime?

You guys know there is a difference between cartoon and anime ....right?

Or is all animated anything now anime?


Irrelevant, as the original style of the show was not anime.

Unless someone wants to tell me that everything animated is now considerd anime.

anime is a style.

(http://blog.800hightech.com/wp-content/uploads/transformer-cartoon.jpg) VS (http://forevergeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/transfomers-animated.jpg)

No, it's animation.  From Japan.

(You can maybe quibble about being Anime from Japan for Japan.  It's still just Japanese cartoons though.  There is no style as it covers everything.)

English, main dictionary sources define anime as "a Japanese style of motion-picture animation" or "a style of animation developed in Japan".

It most definitely is a style. A Technique even (Falling under the category of Limited animation), if you will. But not all things animated are anime, regardless of there use of the word in japan. Regardless, most sane people would not agree with you, even more so if they are artists. This whole "Everything animated is animie" Concept only came about when it started becoming pop culture in the western world. You dont need to take my word for it, ask any art professer... Its a style, and a sub genre of Animation.

Sorry.

I even lifted this from wikipedia, since its being used as an authoritative source for this thread.  :ye_gods:



I will even direct you to this. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animation#Other_techniques_and_approaches)

 :google:

Google seyz:  Bloodworth WRONG!@!!

http://brianscache.com/unseen/

(http://www.action-hq.com/store/images/Macross_VF0S_listing.jpg)

Anyways, this thread was bad, next thing you know I was on /m/ @ work and going anywhere near 4chan while at work is a bad bad bad idea.  Let me be clear, the point is while "anime" is used to mean overly sleek stylized robots to teh intrawebs there are plenty of anime that use bulkier more realistic looking rides.  So basically, those transformers look ghey, somebody obviously told them to do it in that fugly style.  That doesn't mean all anime looks like that.

Uh, using robotech to say im wrong is the amusing part.

Art School says im right.

When did people around here start thinking that referencing meatspace credentials/friends/anecdotes automagikally proves they can't be wrong on a given subject?  Go give Broughden a handjob and fuck off with that logic.  Art school says you are right?  You went to art school?  You've been inside of one?  Your best buddy's refrigerator repairman's girlfriend works for MoMa?  I care?  Wtf.

I, for one, can see the irony of this.  The original Transformers cartoon was made in Japan and Korea and stylized to look somewhat western.  This Transformers Animated cartoon is being produced here, in the United States, the characters were likely designed to look that way before they were sent overseas to be animated.

And here's the Spike equivilent we get this time around:

(http://www.mkbmemorial.com/TOTS/main/Sari_Sumdac.jpg)
Could have fooled me, Mrs. Strong, she looks like some kind of muppet!

"Unanimated anime" had a word for it too: Manga. Which is what the "style" of anime cartoons are all mostly based on.

Now all of the sudden the medium that is largely an adaptation of manga literature is the word to describe the artwork of manga itself? Doesn't make sense.

Anime is just animation -- just like the word itself would suggest

I honestly don't care, what i do care about is the use of the term to describe all animation, becouse its incorrect.

As far as the characters being styled in the US to adopt the look of animie (Previously referred to as japanimation) is simply an adoption of a style, just like it was the reverse for the original show.

I understand the word originated from a translation for animation. However in practice Animie (and manga) is a reference to a style of animation in most art circles.


You are all quite free to disagree with me, And yes, i went to art school.

Hurray, more semantic quibbling.  :awesome_for_real:

I think Strong Bad put it best (http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail57.html).

My family is full of artists. Some rich and famous (as much as one could be these days). I am unfortunately employed in the field from time to time. I'm not so bad myself either.

It also doesn't matter.

Ok, lets keep focusing on the fact i said i went to art school. w00t!


I'm not the ones focusing on it.I only brought it up, becouse this is what animie is classified as when your study different art styles, specifically animation.

My point (wait - I make points now?) My point was that it doesn't particularly matter what you call it, just look at it - that's heavily Japanese animation inspired, much like the Teen Titans before it.

Of course, this is just a sign of the times.

Well whatever..

I do agree that it isn't a term that shouldn't be applied to everything.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO CARTOONS?

I agree. Have agreed, and will still agree. Just like i agree that the original cartoon was just that, a western (styled) cartoon. Simply becouse it was shipped off to japan or Korea does not make it anime, anime is a style in my book.

If you looked at that link, or if you knew dick about Robotech/Battletech/anime you would know that every 'mech design in Battletech (DECIDEDLY WESTERN ROBOTS) was ripped directly from Robotech (JAPANESE ANIMATION AKA ANIME) which I was trying to show proves that while people -myself included- use the word anime as an adjective to describe a loose set of styles (big eyes, small mouths, SD comedy, sweat drops, magical girls, stylish skinny robots, crazy hair, colored hair, moe and countless other things) that its really a bullshit term when used that way and that using it to define a type of giant robot was silly and ignored some great anime series that had very western robots...

Anime as an adjective = an internet thing

All the characters were designed and initially drawn by US artists. Most animation is actually produced in Japan and Korea, including stuff like The Simpsons. The individual animators are not important, what is important is the art design. The original Transformers, while animated by Asians, was very much a US production.

I've seen some clips of the new one, it looks better in motion. Very similar to Teen Titans.

I can't watch Teen Titans, but damn that theme song is really catchy!

Get this retard into the politics forum, stat!

Anime or not, it looks like shit.

You are doing yourself a major disservice imo, I really get a kick out of the cast of that one, villains included.  It does have its fair share of cheese but its a great deal of fun, I was pissed as fuck when it ended.

I'm not a fan of that art style either but Teen Titans was a very enjoyable show.

I hate that most cartoons are voiced by the same 15-20 people.  Someone needs to retire Tara Strong.  And also Mona Marshall (http://imdb.com/name/nm0551065/).  I have a palpable loathing for that woman.

Mona Marshall is 60 and still playing the voice of young girls. That is fucked.

You are hating on the VA (Tara Strong) who played Raven & Bubbles?  The problem with most voice actor/actresses is you can always tell that its them.  I don't think I would have guessed that was the same person ever.  While I agree they dont seem to go outside the known quantities nearly often enough I looked at those two imdb's and seriously worried about what you've been watching.  Anime dubs are terrible (even subs aren't great about this) but who cares if the same person is in Ben10, Jake Long, these new shitty TMNT's, Foster's & Digimon?  Ok Digimon is not like the others, if we're talking 1st or 4th seasons, those were ok.

Ben10 --- Another great theme song!

Really, I thought good theme songs died until I heard those two.

Anyways, maybe I'll give Teen Titans a shot. Haven't seen Justice League either.

Justice League had a pretty good overall plot. Unlimited was just fun. Plus the Question is just fun.

One series i really liked, was batman beyond. The art style was very cool.

Justice League was fantastic. Teen Titans... not so much. It went too hard on the over the top anime cheese factor for my tastes.

But this new Transformers? Even in motion?

Pure shit.

Batman Beyond was sexy s3x, loved it. Justice League has great multiple ep storyarcs but most of its one-off eps were pretty meh for me.  Unlike Teen Titans which has juvenile humour and style Justice League really falls flat when your just listening to Superman and Martian Manhunter go on about dumbass shit.  The heroes are just less human and more boring.

There was an arc in Justice League where they ended up fighting with Batman Beyond and old Bruce Wayne versus future joker and some other guys that was pretty damn awesome if I remember right.  Somehow Static Shock was in that too, which was weird as hell but he was less lame then usual.

@Stray:
Finding all five seasons + the movie for Teen Titans shouldn't be hard unless you suck at internetting, if so pm me and I'll link you to a good place from which to acquire them.

P.S.  Listening to Haemish on this subject is not recommend, he reads comic books that he knows suck, based in sucky universes that just spin off shitty marketing ploys and dumbass resets all day and yet he still gives them gobs of money.  Clearly his tastes are questionable when it comes to comic related properties.  I accuse him of being too tolerant of shitty superhero accepted norms and possessing anti-anime sentiments.

In conclusion:  Teen Titans > Justice League

Justice League, especially JLU, is mostly for DC fanboys. The plots are all over the place and the characters are really thin and once they get to JLU they get that much thinner now that there are 50 of them.

They tried way too hard to please everyone by throwing in everyone under the sun.

I'll be honest, if it wasn't for the absolutely EPIC storyline where Darkseid is wreaking havoc and the Hawk-people show up and shit goes crazy I wouldn't really have much nice to say about Justice League.  That was some great stuff though, which kept me watching it and there were some other decent arcs like the Batman Beyond crossover.  There was also a decent arc where the US turned against the JL because they had a giant death satallite in the sky.  While that storyline has been done to death (hello Genosha) I found JL's version to be pretty fun.  Esp with the superhero's "built" by the US government angle, that was sort of well played.  But most of the inter superhero drama was just lame.  Hawkwoman & Green Latern lover quarrels, Batman being a hard case, Supes being a boyscout douche, MMH being cryptic for the sake of god knows why.  Yawn.

I also recommend the Giant Robot show from CN that was set in New Jersey, if your into giant robots, that was pretty awesome at times also.  Fucking totally spacing on the name though.  Theme song was great too.

Ah that's it.  Megas XLR was the title, pretty good fun.

Lyrics:
Living in Jersey
Fighting villians from afar
Ya gotta find first gear in your giant robot car!
You dig
(giant robots!)
I dig
(giant robots!)
We dig
(giant robots!)
Chicks dig
(giant robots!)



Nice!

I only caught one ep of MegasXLR, and it had me in stitches most of the time.  One scene has them trying to find the activation switch for somethin on the dashboard, and they are scanning past all these other buttons / switches, and there is a big bunch of them labeled "Missiles", "Missiles", "More Missiles", "Even More Missiles".  Great tongue-in-cheek stuff.

Yes, I dig superhero universes. The stuff you are talking about with JL, especially the character stuff, is that way because they are staying true to the original material. Titans? Not so much, which is why I hated it, along with the art style. It just didn't mesh with the established characters in the comics, which is fine except that it's an adaptation of a comic book. I didn't say it SUCKED, it just was not for me in anyway.

And you like anime. Your taste is suspect.

I don't know much about the comic book Teen Titans, so that wasn't a problem for me.

I don't know much about the DC universe in general, which is why I'm not thrilled when JLU creates throwaway one-shots about Bird Woman, Lion Woman and Big Barda or whatever the fuck.

Correction, I go through the occasional anime phase, I do like the look of the artwork though.  I came from the giant robots but stayed for things like Welcome to the NHK, Black Lagoon & Samurai X.  I own very little anime, I only pay for the top shelf stuff or things that really work for me, stand by my anime dvd purchases and my list of shows to purchase.  I've read your comic threads, the fact that you keep buying Avenger comics alone makes everything you say suspect  :-P

I do miss Sleepwalker from time to time, but they ruined that book when they had a whole bunch of them invade earth and things just got stupid in a hurry.

Ack...she did Ken's voice in Persona 3. Creepy.

And this new Transformers looks just as shitty as the Clone Wars and the new Star Wars animated series. (Which I think is a new version of the Clone Wars actually.)

The guy who voiced Junpei, not surprisingly, looks like a douche. 

And Yukari was the voice of Etna in Disgaea 2.  IMDB is fun.

Surprising how many big-name voice actors/actresses end up in video games these days.

MegasXLR was indeed da bomb, but (much like Invader Zim) I think their audience was too young to really appreciate it.

Again?

Umm. Battletech has a few HUNDRED mech designs.  About 20 of them were lifted from Macross, Crusher Joe, and Dougram under a wierd liscensing deal that was screwed up.

As to this Transformers?

Being a Transformers fan I no longer care what any non Transformers fan thinks as its always NOT 1984-1986 TRANSFORMERS about everything made since then.  You know, the OTHER TWENTY YEARS OF TRANSFORMERS.
The original Transformers cartoon was pure grade Z SHIT.  Try watching it now.  Its horrible.
I give each later show a chance instead of insisting it sucks without ever watching an episode.

Ouch.  The truth just punched my childhood.  :ye_gods:

K.O.?

The original shows are very watchable and quite enjoyable. After the movie things got very uneven but there were still plenty of great episodes.

me grimlock . smart. me leader.  :pedobear:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=2-aTbHsZJ9g

i still love this fan re-dub!

This one is incredibly funny:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=bq1_6D9QS9Y

I realize you like to post battlereport write-ups in random threads but I hope you don't think your learning me or something...   :roll:

Those 20 designs were the heart and soul of the first 2(?) editions of the game if I remember right.  The one that came with grey hex-based plastics used either entirely or 95% Harmony Gold mechs and the version that game after with the cardboard chit mechs was a 50/50 mix or so with shitty designs like the Grasshopper, Firestarter, Hermes etc being featured. 

Those 'mechs are the heavy and medium weight classes, it took them forever to come up with cool alternatives.  Shit they made IIC versions of damn near every one for the clans and eventually they redid the readouts to incorporate new art along w/ new metal models.  Ironically considering this thread those designs are hella "anime" per bloodworth's art class definition.  I'll still take Shadow Hawk, Pheonix Hawk, Griffin and Wolverine over any of the new mediums...  Those 'mechs are way more then 20 of 200.

Thread winner.  If it came down to which overseas company was being hired to draw all eleventy-billion individual frames, then pretty much every cartoon in the world would be "anime".

Also, anyone who can watch the Teen Titans episode "Revolution" with Malcolm McDowell trying to take back the US in the name of England and NOT be amused has no soul.  Especially the bit where the Titans get mashed by the giant Monty Python foot.

EDIT: Speaking of Teen Titans and Transformers... You've got the powerrrr! YEAH! (http://youtube.com/watch?v=NUBK0YxiGBE)

The Harmony Gold mechs as you call them?  Not all the designs.  Maybe... 8.  11 if you count LAMs as a seperate mech as opposed to a refit.  Wasp, Stinger (VF 1S and 1A), Pheonix Hawk (VF 1S with FAST Pack), Crusader (VF1 with GBP armor), and Marauder (Glaug Officer's Battle Pod), Rifleman (Raidar X), Warhammer (Tomahawk), and Archer (Spartan).  And Harmony Gold did the same bullshit Fasa did, cept not being a hobby game they got more cash and can thus deal with it better.

(Technically there were 2 other Macross designs used, but not very often and they aren't in any of my Technical Readouts.  I believe they were mostly in Battledroids, which was first edition Battletech with serious differences.)

The Griffin and Wolverine were not in Robotech.  (They were in the Robotech model line however.  Robots were liscensed all over the damned place in the 80s.)  The Griffin was a Soltic Roundfacer from Fang of the Sun Dougram which was pretty much a 90 odd episode anime version of Battletech before Battletech anyhow.  (Which is probably why so few Weaboos know or care of it.  Its got realistic looking robots in it and not a bunch of underaged characters being emo.)  I forget what the Wolverine is called but its fucking ugly and I don't care.  I have a little PVC capsule toy of it, but I forget its name.  Blockhead maybe.

And Battletech is pretty much under the same dealie as G1 Transformers.  Except Battletech has mostly been novels and a cartoon most people try to forget (Mech Assault wasn't the first time they took creatively stupid liberties with the story!).

They both took some Japanese robot designs, and gave them a good story.  Though Transformers had a kickass comic book and a bad cartoon.  Hell, Robotech is pretty much the same thing.  They took 3 shows, edited it, and made something new and generally better than the source material.  Regardless of what Collection DX or Macross World might say.   (Macross 7 sucks ass.)

There are plenty of good BT mech designs, even back when the Unseen as they are called were part of the game and in widespread use.  The Atlas, Catapult, Jenner, Panther, Hatchetman, Dragon, Awesome, Charger, Zeus, and Banshee were all cool mechs.  We start adding in Clan Invasion era up to 3055 (soon after is when the Unseen and any mechs whose artwork was not entirely owned by Fasa took a siesta) and there are plenty more.  Mad Cats and Daishis ring a bell?

And they have added in even more cool designs since.  Hauptmann, Sagittare, Shadow Cat, Cauldron Born, Bushwhacker, and Axeman come to mind.

Im not dissing the contribution of the J mecha to the game.  Hell, I have toys and models of quite  a few of those rides.  In the case of the Shadow Hawk (Dougram), I have like 5 different ones! 
But they weren't the only cool looking mechs nor were they the heart of the game.
Hell, the redesigns in some cases look better than the anime original versions.  (This would be in TR Project Pheonix.)

And some fun facts: The Macross designers at Studio Nue redesigned all the Battletech mechs for the Japanese version of the game, some of which would come back to the US as Solaris 7 arena mechs.  The Dougram mechs (Shadow Hawk, Goliath, Scorpion, Wolverine, Battlemaster, Griffin) were in whole or partially designed by the same man who did the mech designs for the original Mobile Suit Gundam.  Robotech got its name because Revell was releasing Japanese model kits under that name and when Harmony Gold needed a name for their now 3 anime series combined thingie, they entered into a partnership with Revell.  Which was handy since it got them merchandise in stores to move for Revell, and product to buy for the fans of the show.  Later on Matchbox would release a haphazard set of toys, but it would pretty much be the reason the sequel series got canned.  Their shitty toys (at least the ones they didn't just import from Japan) weren't selling so Matchbox bailed.  The models did ok for Revell, but let's face facts.  Models don't sell in insane quantities anyhow.  Another interesting fact is there was a Robotech comic based on the models that just used the Dougram designs.  It was only 2 issues, and I am quite possibly the only person on the planet who likes them.  They were sentient robots with pilots fighting invading aliens.  It was actually kinda cool.  Just too short.

Apart from the part where they're directly based on two lines (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaclone) of c1980 Japanese toys (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_Change), you mean?


Oh, the plots and everything were certainly All-American, but the actual character designs themselves were Japanese, by people who then went on to design transforming robots for another anime.

I agree, i couldent have said it better myself. (Really i tried)

And for the record, no Robotech was decidedly "anime".

And i quote
The only real "Western" component was some of the writing changed. Other than that, the style was through and through anime.

Random tangent:
System Change! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hS_Esyb2vBE)
Symmetrical Docking! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkiJafyonwM)

Sadly, i cant see youtube =(

Sorry, had to take a few day nap there.
Anime is still not a style.  Your art school is wrong, at least given its origin.  Maybe they're being stupid and have co-opted the word.  From the wikipedia article you mentioned:
Some history: The reason Western audiences even know about anime is thanks to a handful of people bringing a few series over and Americanizing them. (Yes, Robotech is one.  Not for the reason you think, and despite being completely rewritten by Macek.)  These shows stuck with the kids who were amazed that cartoons could be mature.  With the wonders overseas friends with video recorders, it became very popular for college kids to 'import' and dub every series released by Japan in the early to mid '90s.  Categorically, the word 'anime' was used to describe any animated project originating from Japan.  It was a simplistic way to recognize the things with good writing, art, and fun to watch versus the absolute crap being peddled over here.  But anyone into the anime scene at the time knew the origin of the word, and was 'weeabo' enough to know that it was just the Japanese word for animation.

The entire thing was done by an underground network of geeks until it reached enough critical mass to become mainstream.  I know because I was there.  I partipated and helped run animation clubs before your art school had ever heard of the term.

It. Is. Not. A. Fucking. Style.

(http://iria.chem.uh.edu/smiley/motz.gif)

FINE, let's say MANGA style then.

Which still mostly sucks, especially when it flows from designs by American artists who are weeaboo cunts.

I'm not opposed to saying anime-style.  We all know what someone means when they use it, even if technically everything is anime, or one wants to use it to mean Japanimation (which never caught on for a reason).  Insisting it is a true style though is incorrect.

I have already explained this. So have others. Its a sub forum of animation.

Not all animation is anime. The term is used to describe a form of animation based on magna. It has its own techniques and commonality's.

Little history for you: Lonny toons is animation (Specifically Cartoon, it also has its own set of techniques, and commonality's), its also not anime, and they were all written for adult audiences. But, again, subject matter and content have nothing to do with what i'm talking about.

And you seemed to have missed this part.





No, its not incorrect. Anime has its own set of techniques and commonalities. You wont find them in Cartoon animation. While most of Anime style comes from magna, the animation techniques are different than other animated art. (of course every rule has an exception especially as time goes on).

That picture is done by western artists though.  Udon Studios.  
You couldn't find any art by Kawamori or Mikimoto?

(Yes, Udon has an anime influence.  But depending on what weeaboo you talk to, its not anime unless someone from Japan draws it.  Because if we count influences, then anime is Walt Disney influenced.  And the weeaboos can't worship Japan that way.)

County of origin has nothing to do with it. When you classify things, its done by common features and techniques. Not nationality of the person who drew, or animated it.

The word anime in English and the word anime in Japanese are completely different words that just happen to sound the same ;).  In English, anime means Japanese cartoon style.  Everything from Japan uses that god damn style (there is alot of diversity within that style, but you can still look at any of it and easily say its anime).  I would just say Japanese cartoons, but so many people copy that style now, it doesn't need to actually have anything to do with Japan anymore. 

Its best if you just think of anime as a totally English word, that has no correlation to the word in Japanese, which just happens to be spelled exactly the same by some fluke, non-related chance. ;)


Oh, and for the love of God, stop calling them Harmony Gold mech designs.  Harmony Gold had absolutely nothing to do with the way anything in Robotech was designed or looked.  They are MACROSS designs.  MAAAAAACRRRROOOOOOOOSSSSSSSSS!!!!!1!!!

Not gonna happen since when I learned the word, it just meant animation.  It wouldd be like redefining the term "live-action".

Wait, wait, wait...


Most people on this board speak English.  Not Japanese.  English definition wins.

Can they just retire the Transformers now?  20 years is enough. They can revive it in 10 and it'll be awesome.

I've already said that.  Then again in the above thread I am quoted then someone says the same thing I do only in a nice way instead of my bitter aches and pains my doctor seems unable to do anything about make me angry manner.

And as I mentioned, the Battletech designs everyone on a nostalgia trip seems to spooge over (which is semi understandable since they are very nice designs.  I have many of them in various toy and model forms..) are from THREE DIFFERENT SHOWS.
Macross
Dougram
Crusher Joe

Harmony Gold took Macross, Southern Cross, Mospeada, and Megazone 23 and made one show out of em.  (The latter only in the barely seen 80s movie.)

Like Fasa, they subliscensed the stuff from a company that really wasn't supposed to be doing so.  21st Century Imports for Fasa, Tatsunoko for Harmony Gold. 
(However Tatsunoko owns Mospeada and Southern Cross which is why those designs are seen heavily in Sentinels and Shadow Chronicles.  HG kinda has to tiptoe with the Macross stuff.)
Fasa and Harmony Gold got into a pissing match and Fasa being a game company had to give up or watch their company die in a lawsuit even though they had a chance to win.
In a strange bit of karma biting one on the ass, Harmony Gold now faces similar problems.  Just like Fasa its not really their fault, but its a problem nonetheless.
Fasa after all this dropped ANY mech design that was outsourced even if they commissioned the art in the first place.  Which is why the Solaris 7 and 3055 Clan IIC designs disappeared.
They didn't want any chance of getting fucked again, so the designs FOR them by Studio Nue and Victor Musical Industries also went away.


Can anyone tell I like giant stompy robots?

I've been interwebbing TT episodes off and on for a couple weeks now, and I gotta say the fifth season kinda sucked.  It wasn't a total loss or anything, but it just came off as jumbled and full of weird shit that only fanboys wanted to see.  I can buy throwing in a Doom Patrol episode since it ties directly into the backstory of a central character, but making the brain in a jar and the talking ape and all that shit the main villains of the whole final story arc was weak.

I mean the show always had stupid campy villains, but previously it seemed to KNOW those villains were stupid and campy and it treated them as such.  In the fifth season, they actually seemed to expect the audience to take the brain and the talking monkey seriously.  Before when they wanted to be serious, they broke out a serious villain like Slade.

Meh, I know, kiddie cartoon.  But they wrote at a certain level, and that level dropped in the last season.

Mallah and the brain are AWESOME DAMMIT.  A big gay french gorilla and his evil brain in a jar lover.  (Ok, that's more in the comics, but still...)

Yeah I'm not sure if there was some writer turn over or if they knew the show was ending or what.  But your right, some of the charm wore off at the end.  Early eps with Doctor Light & Brother Blood were total high points, also I remember liking the mothra ep.

I looked at the Wikipedia entry for the Tokyo movie just now, and found this.


I did like the very last episode, though.  Particularly the final scene.  Taking a wacky superhero cartoon and ending it on that sort of note was an interesting move.

This what anime is or isn't discussion is interesting.In the early 90s I was only able to see most anime at roleplaying conventions and such in the "anime" room until I got my own sources. (Yeah, I was one of those geeks.) Anime to everyone I know who had those experiences means Japanese animation. It's a style and one you can easily recognize.

I find this whole argument really, really bizarre since this is the first time I've heard anyone say anime is anything other than Japanese animation and the style it uses.

It's the "style" bit I am protesting.

There are dozens of styles, which vary depending upon the studio, the original manga artist, the character designer, the decade it was produced, etc.  Just like there is no one genre for anime, there isn't one style used.  No one would claim US animation is all done in the same style, yet a person who supposedly attended art school is claiming anime is just that, a singular style.  Is all European work only Impressionistic?

Even calling it a "movement" is silly, as we're talking about an entire body of work from a single country (and various imitations) spanning decades with highly varied looks.  It is all anime, and we only call it that because it's far easier than saying "Japanese produced cartoons" every time we refer to this collective whole.

Yeah, it is a bizarre argument to get my bloomers wadded up for.  I spent my young adult life immersing myself in the anime culture though, and to see someone get it so friggin' wrong because their art teacher is ignorant of fairly recent (albeit underground at the time) history, then defend it, annoys me to no end.

Thanks for that tidbit, it always seemed like something had gone wrong.


/m/ weighs in.

(http://home.pacbell.net/mr_h/masterpiece.jpg)

Here is the part your missing. Its a style of animation, a Technique used IN THE PRODUCTION. I think the miscommunication is is that i'm looking at it from the production and creation side, and your looking at it from a consumer side. Specifically in the reguards of the Animation its self.

Im not sure why its even worth crying over the style. Batman TAS looked dumb on first glance, but once it was actively seen in motion and how good the actual stories were nobody cared.
Hell, the style became influential and the show is considered one of the best cartoons out there.

I'm willing to give the new series a chance.

Everyone else should too and stop jacking off the original shitty cartoon that really wasn't any good ever.

Sheeeiiit... The original cartoon was badass. The fuck?? Especially the movie. That was shocking then, and shocking now.

The movie was glorious cheese, one of my favorite movies of all time.  (Its under Aliens, Fight Club, and Seven.)

But the original cartoon was awful shit.  Try watching it.  Its really really dumb, with terrible animation riddled with errors.
And continuity errors to an insane degree.
The US/UK comics were pretty good though.

I rewatched the movie awhile back when it was released as a special edition or whatever to tie in with the movie release.  I'd forgotten just how brutal it was, especially the opening fight.  As a kid, Optimus dying made me cry like a baby. Even more than the end of Charlotte's Web. 


As to the cartoon series, while parts of it don't hold up so well, I still say it's better than a large amount of the shit they've got coming out these days. 

I was always surprised by the Transformers Movie, then and now.  If someone had put some of the scenes in there live action, it would never have seen release.

I mean, seriously, the toy line and cartoons got us loving the hell out these characters and identifying with them like family.

Then you see them blasted apart, Ratchet with smoke coming out of his mouth as he topples backwards, Arcee dragging the lifeless, grey and mutilated corpse of Wheeljack.  Ultra Magnus violently pulled apart (something cut from the movie, strangely, but kept in the comic adaptation), and many many favourites actually throwing into melting pools where they screamed their last agony as they glowed white hot and ran. Hell, we even had sympathy for Megatron as he and his zombie like casualties were thrown from their ship to die in outer space.

Seriously, those who don't get the Original Transformers movie scare me.  Serial Killers, I tell you.

Saddest death to me is Jazz... That sucked! Jazz was a black man. And a beatnik. The dude deserved better.


And to make matters worse, he dies like a punk in the live action movie too.

[edit] wait.. err.. did jazz die in the cartoon? now I can't remember. maybe i'm thinking of ratchet getting blasted by megatron.

Jazz survived the movie, but Scatman died shortly thereafter and so we never really saw Jazz again.

And yeah, the original Transformers was a fucking harrowing yet awesome experience for its intended audience.  When autobots started getting shot and falling over dead, my brain took a minute to process WTF was going on.  That just wasn't supposed to happen.  Ever.

I was... 8?  when I saw it, and yeah, it was an incredibly jarring experience.  I don't think it was because the death scenes were that traumatic, and I think watching the opening scene from Saving Private Ryan as an adult was harder to take.  What hit like a brick is what WUA said - that wasn't supposed to happen.  Prime, dead?  The fuck? 

Good thing came out of it, though.  I realized that everything I'd been watching was horribly sugar coated; all these guns, bombs, and whatever and nobody died.  It's an obvious thing, but something you take for granted at that age, just like the coyote falls off the cliff or crushed under a house sized boulder and gets up again.  You know things don't work that way in the real world, but there's just a disconnect between that and cartoonish storytelling.  I think the movie killed cartoons for me after that, because I started to realize how horribly predictable they were. 

So good job to the writers for waking up some sense of literary criticism in a kid, even if their intent was only to wipe the slate for a new toy line.  Bad job for making the same kid shit his pants in terror. 

One could argue that the movie is another tick on the 'Transformers = Anime' side of the ledger: Saturday Morning Cartoons did not generally kill off their heroes, whereas the Japanese analogue of Saturday Morning Cartoons does so with distressing regularity (Kamina! Nooooo!).


...if one were so inclined.  :awesome_for_real:

 :ye_gods:

Not really influenced by that, since the stated goal was to kill off everyone so that they could sell a new toy line next year. 

My first viewing of that movie held more tension for me as a kid than practically anything else ever has.  It took all of my expectations, all of the rules that my nine year old self "knew" it was supposed to play by, and wiped its ass on them right out of the gate.

I mean sure, it was a pretty routine "hero's journey" once they got done killing off all the old characters in the early going, but I hadn't had time to figure that out yet as I was sitting in the theater.  All I knew was HOLY SHIT GOODGUYS CAN DIE IN THIS MOVIE!  Kup and Hot Rod are fighting a bunch of shark assholes?  Will they get their faces ripped off and die?  Well they really shouldn't since they appear to be the heroes, but this movie killed OPTIMUS FUCKING PRIME so who the hell knows?

It couldn't have been like that if I weren't that age, if I didn't have that pre-existing stake in the characters, and if they weren't willing to just kill them all willy-nilly.  It was this weird little perfect storm of circumstances.

I think Robocop did the "Holy shit, good guys can die" thing for me.

Also, the horse from Neverending Story. Lol

Who died in Robocop ?

I was raised on R-rated movies, but this was different.  Sure people got blown away all the time in dad's movies, but this was Transformers.  This was mine.  People didn't say stuff like "Oh shit!" or get shot and die in stuff meant for me.  It was mind-blowing.

God, that bit where Megatron shot Ironhide in the face as he was crawling up and grabbing his leg.  It was so hardcore.  lol

Such Heroic Nonsense...

I'm just kidding. We knew Murphy had it coming.

But just the way he died. Jesus. That was way too much. I was raised on R rated movies too... I mean, I think my Dad dragged me to Scarface when I was like 7.. But it was pretty damn sad seeing a cop get his head blown off by a shotgun back then (it's been edited out in some versions... not sure if everyone's seen it like I did).

Similar to Transformers was Duke in the G.I. Joe cartoon movie. The body count wasn't nearly the same, but as far as G.I. Joe goes, he was similar to Optimus Prime.

Watching Superman get his ass kicked by a trucker was pretty traumatizing, if I recall.

2 Things :

1 - Murphy didn't die.  That's kinda the point.  Did you get dragged out before the end of the film ?

2 - When was it you were taken to see Robocop ?  'Cause I'm already concerned at anyone who might think Scarface is suitable for a 7 year old.  Lol.  And whatnot...

I remember Murphy getting fucked up as being pretty gut-wrenching as a kid, but then Murphy was just some guy at that point and not a character I had any real investment in.

I saw Robocop when it came out. Must have been 8 or 9.

I really didn't know the premise all that well back then, wasn't sure about Murphy, and who he was going to be... All I remember is seeing a cop (the good guys!) getting bucked like a motherfucker (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBuBBEVD_Ug).


Anyways, Scarface. Yeah. Heh. My dad was a movie buff, just wanted me to see a Pacino movie. He regrets taking me to all of that violent shit now, but he took me to a lot good movies in general. Can't complain.

Robocop at 8.

 :ye_gods:

And sadly, I joined a gang by 13. Never shot any cops though.  :uhrr:

You're like a walking poster child for why kids shouldn't go see R-rated movies.

That isn't normal?  :headscratch:

More of the R rated stuff I saw when I was young just had nudity and such. In fact, the first movie I remember seeing in a theater was Breathless (the great, but corny Richard Gere remake). That was really young. Like 5 or 6. Also remember staying up late at night watching corny beach flicks like Hard Bodies. But whatever, titties are good.

Most of the truly bad stuff was at the cusp of my teens, I think. I think I saw Goodfellas at 12 -- and I immediately went out to a bookstore and stole the Wiseguy book it was based on (still have that same book too lol!). I mean, that was immediately inspiring in such a bad way. I wanted to be like that Henry Hill kid. Which is a pretty fucked up thing for a 12 year old to think.

But anyways, point is, nudity shouldn't have R ratings. Realistic violence (like mafia movies) -- yes. Might not even be appropriate for teenagers. And movies like Robocop shouldn't really have fucked up violence like that period -- then again, it's a classic, isn't it? I think the same director made Total Recall too. Which was equally violent and worth seeing. My youth would have probably been less thrilling without them.

I'm with you on the nudity vs violence thing. My daughter is 9 and I'd be much less worried if I found out she watched late night cinemax than something like Robocop.

Correction: Apparently, I was 10 when Robocop came out.

See, I don't get parents who do this. Take their kids to the wrong kinds of movies. I remember Beowulf almost being ruined for me by the 9 year old who cringed during every violent/scary scene and hid her face behind her hands. Not because she was distracting me but because I wanted to beat her mother for being Britney Spears stupid and probably giving the kid months worth of nightmares.

Shit, I wasn't terrified. I was just shocked. In the following weeks, I even made my own comic book based on it (with ducks....it was called Roboduck... because ducks were all the rage back then).

I remember seeing Poltergeist when that came out though. That screwed me up. Especially the trees.


[edit] I gotta say though...

Even though I might not have had the most ideal childhood exposure to pop culture, I still think people are wussies about a lot of shit. Way too protective of kids. Remember -- you were a kid too. Did you really see yourself as so fragile back then? They're not some special breed of human being.

I'm about to go on a rant here about the way people try protecting kids in general, but I'll cut it short. Needless to say, they don't need so much handholding. Let them fight, let them ride their skateboards without that dumbass helmet on, let them see an action movie every once in awhile. Also, stop spending so much time with them.  :grin:

This is veering towards the political.

Short Version :  I don't want my 10 year old seeing Officer Murphy Executed by Psychopaths.

But it builds character!  :grin:

We coddle children and protect them from seeing violence and death, when less than 100 years ago they'd be out on the farm helping to slaughter the livestock at 7 or learning to shoot the feral dogs.   Times are indeed different, but is it better?

Fuck.. political thought. Out out out..

Anywho, Stray and WUA aren't all that unique.  I knew several friends in 6th grade who thought I was a super-pussy for 1) not cussing and 2) getting ill when we watched Robocop at on of their birthday parties.  (and had my mother ever found-out that would have been the LAST time I'd ever been around that lad.)

Murphy getting his shit ruined was pretty gut-wrenching, me being a little kid and all.  But after that was a bunch of cool shit with a robot cop owning people, and I forgot all about it.  /shrug

My mom wouldn't let me watch Gremlins 2 when it came out.  I was the only kid in my class that didn't go see it.  Traumatic stuff.

I agree with most of that except the action part. And that only because kids don't seperate reality and fantasy as well as adults. Hence my werewolf phobia after seeing an American Werewolf in London at around 8 or 10. Something like that.

I agree with her decision.  I was older and therefore wiser and I still found myself whacking off to Pheobe Cates.

 :grin:

Geez, Gremlins 2? I think I had already watched Fast Times a gajillion times by that point.  :awesome_for_real:

Then it's just like anime...

That's why I liked the movie.  It felt  more logical.  People die in wars.  Even fixable robots can only take so much.
I remember being 7 or 8 and being totally depressed on how lame and wussy the He Man cartoon was.  Nobody got stabbed or genuinely hurt at all.  It was shit.
GI Joe was about the same, made even worse since people did die in the comics which were really kickass.  (Before it became HOLY SHIT NINJA TIME!! anyhow..)

Transformers dying was how it was supposed to be to my then 11 year old eyes.  People died in Star Wars and it didn't break my little born in the mid 70s brain, yet every cartoon was a wussfest with a lameass message at the end.  (Most of which were dumb, common sense anyone should already know, or one useful one about where to put your hand before petting a dog.  ONE USEFUL MESSAGE OUT OF HUNDREDS.)

Luckily Robotech showed up and then became my favorite cartoon on TV ever.  (Though its not perfect, and many modern cartoons are its equal if not superior these days.)

I grew up watching war movies and James Bond and westerns and stuff.

I never liked being pandered or coddled, especially because I never was done so by my parents.

Heck, I am still that way.  I don't want to be talked to like I am a moron or something.  Give it to me fairly, but give me the straight deal.

Its also why Lion Team Voltron was this fairyland bullshit while Vehicle team had massive fucking space wars and no goddamned pastel colored mice.

...I somehow think it had more to do with the scary puppet monsters than sexual issues.  I was only 8 at the time.

I think most kids knew enough to resent "parachute syndrome" on some level.  But still, Prime biting it was like if Luke got loose on Jabba's sail barge in Return of the Jedi and then suddenly someone just blew his head off.


The mice were weaksauce, I grant, but Lion Voltron owned the fuck out of Vehicle Voltron.  Come on.

You = crackhead

The Lion Voltron had Fatty McPorkskins and that little perv in training as characters. It was the gayest thing since gay came to Gaytown. It was Super Gay. Vehicle Voltron had enough characters that the shitty ones could be hidden in the background for the most part.

So, the hour-long pilot of Transformers Animated aired the 26th.  It's definitely different, it reminds me more of Astroboy than Transformers, but it's not hideous.  The characters seem to have a bit more personality this time around, although this might diminish their robot-ness somewhat.  It's also probably going to bother a lot of purists that the little girl protagonist apparently runs around with the capacity to ressurrect dead autobots around her neck (some kind of allspark connection).

Ruined!

It was alright.  Nothing too special either way.  Wasn't bad, but wasn't all that good either.  Typical kid show to sell toys to kids.
Eh.  Ill watch it on TV I guess.

I'll third vehicle Voltron > lion Voltron.  Fuck Hunk, fuck Lance, and double-fuck Pidge.

You people are all insane.  Even with Hunk and Pidge and all the fucking mice, Lion Voltron still beat the piss out of those 40 indistinguishable guys flying a knockoff Voltron made out of cars and shit.

GaoGaiGar >>>>>>>>> Voltron, anyway. :drill:

To be more specific....

(http://www5c.biglobe.ne.jp/~tokituka/tokituka3/favarite/gaogaigar/genesic1.jpg)


> All

Well, yeah.  But how many people have seen it or care to see it?  I've only seen some eps on Hong Kong shit subtitles.
(I may get the series in its US release when its on clearance.)

And at least from the active Transformers fanbase it seems as if the new TF Animated is a hit.  They overwhelmingly seem to love it, outside of the G1 nostalgia fucksocks.

As I said I found it decent but nothing great either way, but the fans seem to like it a lot.

I saw Robocop at 8 also.  In fact, between then and the time I tuned 10 I had seen Street Trash, Bad Taste, Night of the Living Dead (and Dawn & Day), Nightmare on Elm Street 3, the first six Friday the 13th movies, Predator, Alien, and Aliens, etc...

Never really seemed like a big deal to me.

There's not enough Transformers Animated rage here.  I'll start us off with my impressions of the characters from the pilot episode:

Optimus Prime: "I... really have no idea how to lead, but I mean well.  If only knew what it's like to be a 'hero', that's so important to me."
Bumblebee: "Look how cute and speedy I am.  I'm just such a young, innocent, go-getter that my bumbling is what gets us these nifty human friends of ours."
Ratchet: "I'm soooooo old.  Old, old, old, old.  I have old man whiskers on my face.  No, I really do, old man whiskers and age lines on my robotic face.  The rest of the autobots are such young, impetuous morons compared to me that I tend to ignore Optimus Prime's orders and give him a better plan instead, which he dutifully obeys."
Bulkhead: "Me big.  Do heavy lifting.  'Dats about it."
Prowl: "I think I'm way too cool to hang out with these other losers, and so tend to act like I've a serious case of teen-angst instead."

Humans: "We all think the Transformers are superheroes who have come to our city, televise their every action, and treat them as celebrities.  We're quick to forgive them when their presence causes widespread destruction from the inevitable giant robot battles."

Starscream: "I'm... really quite insane.  Megalomania is my god."

That thing rules, what is it?

That would be Genesic GaoGaiGar, the final form* of the GaoGaiGar mechanoid and...fourth? fifth? most  :drill:/powerful Super Robot in the history of all things. (Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann, Ideon, Getter Emperor, and maybe Gunbuster).

*at least, until Project Z finally gets made.

I like that thing.

IAt first I thought it was the giant robot the Predacons would form. Predaking (http://www.botchthecrab.com/archive/decepticon/1986/predaking.jpg)

Too cool for them.

And dammit.  People are already beginning the trip to rule 34 with the new TF show.  This is some dude's sig pic on one of the TF forums:

http://kaeae.deviantart.com/art/TFA-bumble-and-sari-73160034

NOT.
EVEN.
A.
WEEK.

This is why I hate the Internet. :(

Edit: Its Worksafe (thank god!), but its still wrong.  WRONG I TELLS YA.

STABBY STAB STAB STAB  :drill:

I watched 10 minutes of the 90 min special, this is the worst crap since the invention of crap.  Fucking travesty.  I also re-watched some of the original movie, was pretty cool but I got bored about halfway through.  The old animation was amazingly solid but the fight scenes were pretty passe by my current standards.