Transformers Animated is an incredibly divisive chapter in the history of the brand among collectors. For every fan who loved the cartoon and was touched by the depth of the story telling, continuity and homages to prior eras of Transformers, there are those who simply can’t understand the love for this highly specific aesthetic and style, both toys and cartoon alike. You can often find collectors liquidating everything from vintage to modern day releases, but even the most thorough collection clearout posts can have a massive gap in chronology where the Animated toys should be. Either because they are keeping this most special and unique of TF lines, or because they never got on board with it in the first place. And that says a lot about how Animated is seen even today, just as at the time.

A Voyage Of Animated Discovery – Part 1 | Source Blog <- CLICK TO READ





All the best
Maz

 

Blurr is the only Animated figure I own, and I'm not super likely to own any more, but it has an important place in my collection. It's such an awesome figure.

 

I remember having that "what's gonna happen to my toys?!?" feeling when animated happened. Then I got my hands on voyager starscream and was hooked.

 

nice article, this is definitely a time for fans new and old to rediscover this toy line.

Do people remember when the Hasbro website leaked and revealed animated toy listings last year?

Animated Activators Hot Shot and Rodimus??
Animated Deluxe Hot Shot
Animated Blackout

combine this with official statements by Hasbro that the Generations line wanted to encompass all different toylines from all eras. Definitely Botcon will reveal some more information on this matter.

 

^didn't see that...Wonder if we will finally get the hydrodive bee? i have the jetpack japan version, but i am not a fan of the shiny on these toys, one of the few toylines that i can say without question hasbro's were the better line over takara's

 

I'm actually in the same boat as Maz, having skipped over a few Animated toys that I'm now regretting not getting. Good to see Animated get some love, and Ultra Magnus is awesome.

And Maz, if you still haven't gotten an Animated Rodimus, I have one available  

 

My question is...


Does everyone had a working Swindle soon? I felt the clear purple arms cracked easy. I broke 3 Hasbro Swindles just by moving its arm.

Lame   Easily, my favorite figure of the entire line. It captured everything Swindle should be 

 

Nice read  ...^^ Swindle is the last Animated figure l believe l own and he has held up well...no cracking, etc....

 

Ha, seeing your Animated reeducation firsthand I knew an article wouldn't be long in coming.

I've always found the smaller TFs more impressive then their larger brethren, Deluxes and above (no matter how great they are) it was always something that was expected (in those days anyway) but when the smaller figures were good it was like Hasbro were going above and beyond.

Nowadays I can appreciate them even more, because while Activators Ratchet is still such an amazing toy, AoE One Step Prime just shows me that he really could have been a lot worse.

One thing though, your Magnus 'guns out' shots are missing the front headlights that turn into guns too! We don't want another PM Prime trailer door scenario do we?

 

Maz, as you can imagine I loved this article. Such a pleasure seeing you finally enjoying Animated as much as I do, and for tolerating my nagging enthusiasm for the line this past year.

I really do feel that its a line that becomes increasingly rewarding the more you delve into it. I don't think any other line has had so much effort put into each size class as this. Legends, Activators and main line all stand up brilliantly in their own right and nothing seems like a 'cheaper' option. Even the Bumper Battlers are amazing in the sheer amount of dialogue recorded by the real voice actors for what is essentially a toddlers toy.

Thanks for (re)joining us on the Animated adventure.

Now buy Wingblade Prime.

And Jet Pack Bumblebee

And remember to flip out those gatling guns on Magnus ;P EDIT: damn your fast fingers Kit!

 

I like the article, and I continue to like my Animated toys. Blurr is a favorite of mine as well. I have my Swindle selling my Animated Legends figures as toys.  

 

So im geting a database error when try go into the page.

 

Odd, me too now. Maybe the TFsource site got attacked again? Apparently it happens a lot?

 

Now the thing is I've come into some information which may be related to this. Because of the re-runs of Animated on the Hub, there were a bunch of toys that were to be penned in for release this year, 2014, to coincide with those reruns but retailers did not show an interest in carrying the toys so the project was canned. That may mean we don't get Animated moulds in mainstream lines, but as has been suggested there's nothing to discount more club exclusives.

In the case of Ultra Magnus, Rodimus, Grilmlock and Oil Slick, I'd have to say the Takara versions are quite a bit nicer in my opinion.

I don't have one yet, is yours sealed? Hasbro? Takara? PM me, let's talk  

No brainer innit  

The question was should I do an overview of the line like I did with Masterforce or make it more personal to me, and I chose the latter because I don't feel completely confident that I've got the whole picture in my head in order to do it justice as an attempted resource as opposed to just an article related to the toy line.

Hahaha as I said on Allspark where someone noticed it too, my articles have become a running joke with the mistransformations and obvious ignorance of things others knew for years. Magnus's hammer switch, the flip out headlight cannons, Blurr's waist being reversed, PM Prime's head storage, MP Prime's smokestacks, Oil Slick's head storage....just wouldn't be the same without a delicate dose of subtle incompetence  

Yeah yeah get in line!

I still can't believe I didn't know the jet pack Bumblebee was a new mould. I'm so on that now. And Wingblade was a real stunner, I was quite affected by that one and have designated that as my priority purchase...after a sealed Takara Lockdown and a BotCon Wildrider  

Either that or it's because the weight of all the pictures and near-200 articles have started to butcher the server. It's been regularly going down in the last 2 weeks so they're doing their best to address it.

I hope it's up again soon. I don't imagine the window of interest for this one will be as wide as Neal Rochman's collector interview that still had thousands of views despite the blog being down.

All the best
Maz

 

The comics makers of TFW2005 are responsible for getting me into Animjated figures. I have nearly the entire show cast now.

 

Article is up again  

All the best
Maz

 

Animated appeals to me more from an engineering standpoint. The designers managed to capture non-angular alt modes and bot modes without sacrificing much in the way of show accuracy, which in modern toy convention seems to be something lacking. It used to be that the toy designs dictated the cartoon designs. But with Animated, we managed to get a fairly accurate representation (size withstanding for some characters like Bulkhead) of the characters on the screen. It makes them likable, because the writing helped develop that and the toys furthered it. Swindle smiling, Bumblebees smarmy smirk, Starscreams' arrogant grin, even the faceplate sliding over Voyager Primes's face, all made for some of the best head sculpts on a toyline in a long time. The series gave us one of the best original characters-with-a-meme in Lugnut, and we got a toy that is hard to beat for representation. It introduced Dinobots and provided all the characters to us in hand. And gave us one of the best Megatron figures in the Leader class.

Activators Cliffjumper was one of the few that never made it to the US too. I got one from Canada back when. But the saddest non-US release is probably Blackout because even though he's chunky, he's part of that Team Charr crew. Thankfully, I've been able to relish in Tabtiurf's collection of Animated figures, both official and scratchbuilt.

 

If you continue doing articles on Animated, please don't forget to include one of the best figures ever made in my book. Since you already included one of the best Megatrons Hasbro has ever given us, I would like to nominate, Black Arachnia. How much more perfect you can get then this is highly questionable. Best Arachnia to date in my eyes. Especially after Airachnid. Shivers....





Also, please remember the brilliance that was these guys. Before the movie, it was almost unheard of to get more then Grimlock!





But that is the beauty of the line, you can almost have something good to say about all the figures.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the line.

Oh something else I thought of. This line had no wasted gimmicks. Each toy had a weapon, which may or may not have had a gimmick, and all of these were tied into the show. From Prowls Ninja Star Hub caps, to Primes water gun to the headmaster throw in on Voyager Bulkhead. You can tell a lot of love went into this line.

I keep editing this. But it would be cool if you did an interview with the Radicon on here who has done a shit ton of animated customs. One more beautiful then the next. I forget his name, but his work is top notch!

 

Okay okay!!!! Give a guy a chance for Pete's sake, it's only Part 1  

Keep in mind, it is not a review of the line or in any way definitive or complete or all-encompassing, just a personal experience and journey.

Astoundingly good photos by the way!

All the best
Maz

 

I felt the same way Maz did six years ago. When Animated was in retail I usually ignored the entire series. Currently I am trying to capture anything I missed about this piece of of TF history. It is a fantastic series.