Well, as much as I'm not fond of the art direction in terms of more stylized design, I DO enjoy the Voice Acting tremendously and most of the stories have been decent, though I really want to go back to the Autobots warring with the Decepticons. Not really a fan of the All Spark key. They really should leave magical nonsense devices out of the beginning of Transformers and have them introduced later as more meaningful pieces of the overall story as opposed to just being cheap plot devices.

Still, Animated is better than the Japanese anime series, so on that note, I'm a happy camper.

 

First let me say, G1, is what it is, I will watch the dvd's and enjoy them. Beast Wars, was awesome, it pay homage to G1, and then evolved with some awesome storylines, charachter development, and made us proud of the fact that it is carrying on the Transformers name into the future.
Then we have RID, Animated, Energon, and Cybertron. After those four shows, I was sure that this would be another attempt to carry the name further, and then have crappy imported shows for us to do the VO with.
Boy was i wrong.
This is not G1, but with the nods it gives, from the one episode that hade the quick picture of Kremzeek, to the recurring roles of Daniel. It is awesome. The caharchter development is very well. I mean when In " Home is where the Spark is" when we saw how prowl watched observed and appreciated nature. To where in : Nanosec, we see the development of Bumblebee. To the episode Today " Headmaster" to see Bulkhead's growth. This is good writing, that is making me appreciate and look forward to new episodes, and to let my kids enjoy them with me.
Sure it took me a while to get used to the teen titans animation, but once I got past that, its really good.
I am really pleased, and I am proud of this show, and this show makes me look forward to see what comes down the line for the Transformers line. But to be honest, after this show, if they go back to the imported stuff that they have been doing for the past 7 years, i will be a disgruntled fan.
** PS I didnt mention Beast Machines because I am still seeing a shrink, and doing therapy, to try to make me forget about that****

 

For an interesting comparison I watched the first episodes of both Animated and RiD one after the other. The idea being to compare the two shows.

I found that I enjoyed both of them on very different levels. RiD has some of the funniest smack talk and ludicrious cut aways and in a strange way I enjoyed the almost DBZ like battle methods.

Animated has a nicer and more coherant story and a different sort of humour. Less lunacy, more satire and gentle wit and a more continual style of battle.


All in all, Transformers is Transformers is Transformers.