Studio Series discussion

[Princess Viola]

Y'know, I sometimes wonder if the fact that every mainstream Transformers cartoon since the end of the Unicron Trilogy has been American-lead is part of the reason for the decline of Transformers in Japan.

I'm not saying that to dismiss these shows but IIRC isn't it typically pretty damn hard for non-Japanese animation to catch on with audiences over there just because of how much domestic animation they already have? (Obviously there are exceptions, Japan's love for Tom & Jerry is well-known, but in general)

Honestly with how popular and mainstream anime has become in the US, I'm surprised that Hastak haven't tried doing a US-Japan anime co-production again to take advantage of this popularity. Sure, I know the UT was...mid at best (and that's being charitable and taking all three series as an average - Energon drags it the hug down obviously lol) but that was also over 20 years ago, they could make something decent nowadays.

 

[Gizmoboy]

That is actually a very interesting take @Princess Viola. Not one I've really considered before.

 

[Sabrblade]

I feel like the decision to move away from Japanese-led Transformers animation and more towards American-led cartoons was twofold.

First, Armada came about as an attempt to not only cash in on the Pokemon craze of the late 90s/early 2000s, but also to ride the growing popularity of kids anime during that same era. But, with the hindsight we have now, it is apparent that Hasbro faced obvious struggles during the whole Unicron Trilogy. Not only did they struggle to keep everything under control (e.g. - Galaxy Force deviating so much from Hasbro's intended vision for it) and of decent quality (e.g. - Cartoon Network rushing the Armada and Energon dubs before either the Japanese scripts and animation were completed). And while the three shows were airing on Cartoon Network's Toonami block, most of the other anime that they aired alongside tended to skew toward much older and more mature audiences than the younger kid demographic that Armada, Energon, and Cybertron were targeting, meaning the three were instead more like the kinds of kids anime that were airing on Fox Kids, Kids WB, 4Kids TV, and Jetix. It's kinda no wonder Cartoon Network eventually pulled all three off of Toonami one after the other and shoved each of them to the 6am deadslot of the weekday mornings.

Second, with the runaway box-office success of the 2007 movie, Hasbro suddenly became much more protective of the Transformers brand and set about creating the Aligned continuity so that they could have not only a more consistent lore made for the brand (one centered around both the AllSpark and the friends-to-enemies backstory of Optimus Prime and Megatron, both of which originated with the aforementioned 2007 movie), but also much better creative control over the cartoons, avoiding the back-and-forth struggles they faced with the overseas-produced Unicron Trilogy cartoons.

 

[Magnusblitz]

Y'know, I sometimes wonder if the fact that every mainstream Transformers cartoon since the end of the Unicron Trilogy has been American-lead is part of the reason for the decline of Transformers in Japan.

I'm not saying that to dismiss these shows but IIRC isn't it typically pretty damn hard for non-Japanese animation to catch on with audiences over there just because of how much domestic animation they already have? (Obviously there are exceptions, Japan's love for Tom & Jerry is well-known, but in general)

Honestly with how popular and mainstream anime has become in the US, I'm surprised that Hastak haven't tried doing a US-Japan anime co-production again to take advantage of this popularity. Sure, I know the UT was...mid at best (and that's being charitable and taking all three series as an average - Energon drags it the **** down obviously lol) but that was also over 20 years ago, they could make something decent nowadays.

Especially given the explosion in popularity of anime over here in the US. I would think they could still make the younger audience-aimed cartoons in the West and then design a join US-Japan anime designed for adults that, if done well, could probably be really popular in the US (thinking something like Arcane). Since TV show seasons on streaming are way shorter (5-10 episodes instead of 13, 26, 52) it'd probably be easier to avoid all the rushed production UT had.

Then again, I guess that goes against what unluckiness was pointing out in that sentient robots in general are seen as a kid thing in Japan, so still wouldn't work for Japan (or you'd have to do something like what happened with Beast Wars where the different dub completely changes tone). Not sure if having an anime-based show would make up for that.

 

[Undead Scottsman]

Miko

Prime had the best human cast by far.

I dunno, for all the talk about how serious Prime was, I feel like the fact that the Autobots not only let Miko stick around the third or fourth time she snuck through the ground bridge without permission or even against explicit orders, but also didn't even put up the cybertronian equivalent of a baby gate or something around the Ground bridge, started getting a bit grating to me. (And I say this as someone who has Prime as their #3 favorite TF show)

 

[CoffeeHorse]

Maybe Takara could try aiming a Transformers show at slightly older kids and see if the issue with sentient robots is real or a self fulfilling prophecy.

 

[Sabrblade]

They had the chance to make their own Transformers anime for a modern audience without any input it all from Hasbro about a decade ago, and what they chose to make was the very-Japanese-centric Transformers: Go!, which was still bright, colorful, and slightly on the wacky side, even without having any non-Japanese audiences in mind.

 

[unluckiness]

Especially given the explosion in popularity of anime over here in the US. I would think they could still make the younger audience-aimed cartoons in the West and then design a join US-Japan anime designed for adults that, if done well, could probably be really popular in the US (thinking something like Arcane). Since TV show seasons on streaming are way shorter (5-10 episodes instead of 13, 26, 52) it'd probably be easier to avoid all the rushed production UT had.

Then again, I guess that goes against what unluckiness was pointing out in that sentient robots in general are seen as a kid thing in Japan, so still wouldn't work for Japan (or you'd have to do something like what happened with Beast Wars where the different dub completely changes tone). Not sure if having an anime-based show would
make up for that.

It’s an obstacle that’s been overcome in the past. The problem is that Japan’s child population is the smallest it’s ever been and the adult fandom, while dedicated, is not all that big due to Transformers being a second-stringer franchise. IMO, they’d need to appeal to the general population to become a success and personally, the Transformers media of late aren’t gonna cut it. The attempts at making the good guys more morally gray do not mesh with the simple good vs evil Japan’s kid shows favor and due to the episodic, continuity-light nature, they lack the storytelling and overarching narrative to draw an older audience. It doesn’t help that regardless of cultural tastes, the shows and movies are aggressively middling.

This is what I gather from watching import toy trends and occasional forays into Japanese fandom/social media. My Japanese isn’t great and I don’t spend much time on there admittedly.

 

[Princess Viola]

They had the chance to make their own Transformers anime for a modern audience without any input it all from Hasbro about a decade ago, and what they chose to make was the very-Japanese-centric Transformers: Go!, which was still bright, colorful, and slightly on the wacky side, even without having any non-Japanese audiences in mind.

That was also direct to DVD or some jive wasn't it lol.

 

[unluckiness]

They were DVD pack-ins with a magazine or book series IIRC. I had the ninja team toys for a bit and they didn’t even bother including episodes with the dumb things.

They were also only like 12 minutes apiece and only like ten episodes divided among two teams.

 

[Sabrblade]

Actually, I stand corrected. The last Transformers cartoon series Japan made wasn't Go!, but rather Q-Transformers, which was basically a 26-episode Flash-animated comedy talk show.

 

[LordGigaIce]

It wasn't dark. It was just pompous.

This. It was a show that tried to be epic rather than let itself earn epic status with good stories.

In an interview Jeff Kline did with the TFNation 2021 virtual con, he revealed that the Prime creative team at the time was trying to make a Transformers show that was more like The Sopranos than otherwise.

Last month at BotCon, I told Aaron Archer that Kline had said that in that interview, and Archer's reaction to hearing that was a baffled one, along the lines of "We didn't ask them to do that," or "That's not at all what we asked for them to do," implying that Hasbro at the time wasn't pleased with how dark the show was.

My sympathies are limited due to two factors...
First, the entire Aligned project was doomed because everyone who made the media was interested in doing their own thing. I know I just threw shade at Prime's writing, but you can't blame them for wanting to tell their own story. The Aligned stuff was Hasbro attempting to hire creative folks and then reign in their creativity.

Secondly, I don't think the issues with Prime as a toyline was necessarily the fault of the show. It fell on the toyline just seeming like it was more interested in being a curated Very Important IP than a fun toyline.
Armada and TR are two of my favourite toylines and they're both very toyetic. Which may seem redundant but it was a quality that Prime's designs and toys could lack.

This is a very vague point I know. It's more a feeling than anything. But Prime's toyline, for me anyway, only really got interesting in a good way once Beast Hunters happened and the designs stopped taking themselves so seriously.

 

[Undead Scottsman]

Actually, I stand corrected. The last Transformers cartoon series Japan made wasn't Go!, but rather Q-Transformers, which was basically a 26-episode Flash-animated comedy talk show.

With the most incongruous show theme in the history of show themes.

 

[Sabrblade]

It was a show that tried to be epic rather than let itself earn epic status with good stories.

Truer words have never been spoken.

 

[Shadewing]

Secondly, I don't think the issues with Prime as a toyline was necessarily the fault of the show. It fell on the toyline just seeming like it was more interested in being a curated Very Important IP than a fun toyline.
Armada and TR are two of my favourite toylines and they're both very toyetic. Which may seem redundant but it was a quality that Prime's designs and toys could lack.

This is a very vague point I know. It's more a feeling than anything. But Prime's toyline, for me anyway, only really got interesting in a good way once Beast Hunters happened and the designs stopped taking themselves so seriously.

Prime's toyline issue was: This was designed to be a TV series first, a grand epic TV series to be taken seriously like Star Trek, Star Wars, or Stargate; and a toyline second. The toys were meant to capture the show and be stuff people wanted because they liked the show. Not because they were good toys.

 

[NovaSaber]

That describes the First Edition ones better than the later ones.

I mean, the mainline Voyagers in particular actually had a weapon gimmick that made them worse as toys (literally just a worse version of a gimmick that was already bad in DotM), but also didn't have any basis in the show.

 

[Dake]

I've always said Prime gave us some of the best characters in the most boring stories. Aside from Miko; Miko was tiresome.

 

[GodSentinelOmega]

My three nitpicks with TFrime that held it back are:

1. Miko, while a fun character most of the time, got really frustrating really quick. I think it was the fact the her character never seemed to evolve or Learn any lessons. Her, yeah let’s go has some fun!’ attitude kinda clashed when the show wanted to really be serious. I mean, they did have her come up against big thins, but the always reverted her back again.
2. Their big season Enders were grand and epic and set up big consequences… that were very speedily resolved when the show came back. Or things like Vulkhead getting seriously injured and beginning to lose his mind.
3. They really wanted Optimus to be deadly serious, all the time. The whole ‘Primes don’t party’ There are some moments where you glimpse a lighter Prime, but mostly they just had him talk in Epic Speeches.

 

[LordGigaIce]

I really dislike Prime for wasting Peter Cullen's last "peak" years as the voice of Optimus. The movies are whatever but Prime could have been the show to give him one final sendoff and instead they turned Optimus into a boring movie trailer line reader.
"Primes don't party," "Optimus never uses contractions."

First, he's not Data from Star Trek. Secondly G1 had Optimus playing basketball and cracking dad jokes at the word "boobies"
So I have no idea what the hell they were thinking.

Prime's toyline issue was: This was designed to be a TV series first, a grand epic TV series to be taken seriously like Star Trek, Star Wars, or Stargate; and a toyline second. The toys were meant to capture the show and be stuff people wanted because they liked the show. Not because they were good toys.

That actually makes a lot of sense.
My favourite drama of all time is nu-Battlestar Galactica. The toys for it are bad. Really bad. But people who like the show buy them because you know... you like the show. These are characters from the show.

So if you look at Prime like that... yeah I can see it.

That describes the First Edition ones better than the later ones.

I mean, the mainline Voyagers in particular actually had a weapon gimmick that made them worse as toys (literally just a worse version of a gimmick that was already bad in DotM), but also didn't have any basis in the show.

That's the baffling thing. The one time the pre-BH Prime toyline tried to be toyetic they gave us these blocks of indeterminate tech that could fold out into guns, but never locked in place. So if I wanted a Prime shelf congrats all the Voyagers are wielding engine blocks I guess.

Except Magnus, who managed to get a cool hammer/gun out of it. But then he didn't even get to show up in the show with that character model so

 

[Shadewing]

That describes the First Edition ones better than the later ones.

I mean, the mainline Voyagers in particular actually had a weapon gimmick that made them worse as toys (literally just a worse version of a gimmick that was already bad in DotM), but also didn't have any basis in the show.

No, that still counts; if anything imo it PROVES it true. They didn't try to give the toys gimmicks, they threw in the laziest more unobstructive gimmick they had on hand that could still be consider toyetic but wouldn't actually effect the toy directly and called it a day.