I can't speak for anyone other than myself, but from what I've observed, the opinion of the majority of posters on the TF boards I frequent is that G1, BW and BM are more highly regarded than RiD and the Armadaverse. There are certainly exceptions, but it seems that those who prefer the Japanese-produced shows are very much in the minority.

Of course, the boards I frequent are all English speaking, and therefore the members of these boards may have a cultural bias that makes the western TF shows more identifiable. But upon watching episodes of Armada and the other Japanese created shows, I find it tough to believe that even a Japanese audience prefers this sort of thing, even after acknowledging that the dialogue has to be better than the dubbed garbage we're getting.

So I'm hoping that there are Japanese speakers on this board who frequent Japanese language equivalents to this board, and that they can perhaps answer: What shows to the Japanese in general prefer, eastern or western? Does the same sort of praise/criticism occur with Japanese fans? Was the dub of western shows as mindless as the dialogue we got for the Armadaverse? And anything else that you might add.

I'm not expecting more than one or two people to actually fall into this category, but as English is mandatory in Japanese schools, I figure there should be someone this applies to.

 

Good question, peteynorth! I would also suggest including in the discussion the Japanese only G1 shows Headmasters, Masterforce and Victory. They were not western, but are generally as highly regarded as any other G1, or held up as even better than the G1 that preceded them.

 

The thing is, the G1 jap shows, started to evolve at the same time the public started to grow up. Thats why Masterforce was darker than any of the previous series. I would say thats the reason why the japanese keeped getting new molds and shows, unlike the west

In the case of the BW Jap era, from what ive read, the jap shows were pretty much like the armadaverse, aimed to chidren below the age of 10

It was more obvious with Car Robots and the Armadaverse, aimed to yonger children, they never intended to make deeper storylines, or in more cases, coherent storylines

 

It's a shame about the general opinion of RiD, since that had tremendous voice acting under rediculous anime constraints.