Transformers Animated (franchise)

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Transformers Animated is a television-supported Transformers franchise that began in December 2007. This iteration of the Transformers brand brings a highly dynamic and stylized look to the toys and fiction.

The franchise consists of the following components:

• A cartoon series
• Three comic book series
• A toyline
• Several books
• A Nintendo DS game
• A manga
• Two arcade games

The cartoon began with a 3-episode mini-movie, first aired on Cartoon Network on December 26, 2007, and followed by a full 13-episode season, which started airing in January. The toyline, however, did not hit stores till the late spring of 2008, due to the ongoing popularity of the 2007 movie toys.

The series adopted a new visual art style and form of storytelling which has not been used before in Transformers. The changes in design were created in an attempt to attract the modern youth viewer. The new art style incorporates a more "organic" feel to the Transformer characters. This style of art and character movement was introduced to emphasize dramatic movements and to allow the animator to express more emotion than in previous series.

Reception

On January 25, 2008 the first regular episode of the Transformers Animated cartoon premiered as the #1 boys show in its time slot, significantly better ratings than the previous CN programming.

On February 24, 2009 the seventh wave of Animated Voyager-class toys was canceled for unknown reasons. All other size classes aside from Activators followed soon after, leaving a large number of figures unreleased.

Homages

Raise your hand if you are one! (Come on, don't try and lie, Flareup.)

Even more so than Energon, Animated is saturated with frequent and obvious references and homages to Generation 1 and other lines, possibly intended as a celebration of the Transformers' 25th anniversary year. It would, in all seriousness, take less time to list the characters who are not homages to past series: Bulkhead, Lugnut, Sentinel Prime, Lockdown, Dirt Boss, Jetfire, Yoketron, Lightbright, and Lickety-Split. Out of that list, the last two (both girls) deliberately borrow their names from other, girlier Hasbro products, Dirt Boss is a visual homage to Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, Sentinel paid homage to The Tick (Townsend Coleman voiced the Tick previously), Lockdown's design homages rubsigns, Yoketron is named after Hideaki Yoke, and Jetfire's transformation may be a homage to King of Braves GaoGaiGar!

The vast bulk of homages are to Generation 1, though some other franchises are also represented. See individual character pages for specific details. Most of the humans are original, though the Witwicky family are exceptions.

Of course, there's also the theme song and every given page of The AllSpark Almanacs, where some homages are turned into double-homages (Huffer homages Huffer and Nintendo's Mario, Searchlight homages Searchlight and Batman).

Japanese release

In 2010, TakaraTomy released both the Transformers Animated (トランスフォーマー アニメイテッド) toyline and the Animated cartoon series in Japan. The series retains its English title and, as with the Movie franchise, retains most of the Western names ("Optimus Prime" rather than "Convoy", "Decepticon" rather than "Destron", etc.), though Bulkhead has been renamed "Ironhide".

According to a preview article in Figure Ō magazine, and one in TV Magazine, Animated was to be heavily altered in order to make it take place within the continuity of the 2007 Transformers feature film. According to TakaraTomy marketing director Masahiko Yamazaki, it takes place chronologically before the movie. However, content within the actual dub of the show contradicts some of Yamazaki's statements (such as Bulkhead having his "world view" modified to be inline with Movie Ironhide's), so the extent of this alteration is contestable.

The cartoon's Japanese version is directed by Yoshikazu Iwanami, who previously directed the Japanese versions of Beast Wars, Beast Wars Metals, and Beast Wars Returns.

The cartoon began April 3 at 8am on the TV Tokyo affiliate, TV Aichi, with a regular Saturday morning timeslot. TV Aichi have set up a website for the series with the not-at-all melodramatic tagline: "The world will change. A future will be born..."

Additionally, a manga series by Naoto Tsushima, Transformers Animated: The Cool, was serialized in the pages of Kerokero Ace from May 2010 to May 2011.

Notes

• This is the second Transformers series (the first being Beast Machines) wherein a strict separation is made in the type of weaponry used by either side. According to Derrick J. Wyatt, "To me the Autobots were built as a labor force, and the Decepticons were created as the Military. This is one reason that the Decepticons use military weapons, while the Autobots use 'tools' to fight with."
• An early working title for this incarnation was Transformers: Heroes.
• The series features a similar animation style to Ben 10, a brand Wyatt also contributed to.
• An edited 10-minute preview of the first episode was shown at the NTFA Mini-Con fan convention held in Arlöv, Sweden, on November 3 and 4, 2007. The full episode had been promised and secured by Hasbro Nordic for the event, but Hasbro US overruled them at the last second, allowing only an abbreviated edit created specifically for the event to be shown.

External links

• Transformers animated press release
• Exclusive Transformers Animated Executive Producer Interview
• Exclusive Transformers Animated Director Interview
• Cartoon Network Transformers Animated site
• Hasbro's official Transformers Animated homepage
• TakaraTomy's official Transformers Animated homepage (site is in Japanese)