Animated is the New G1

I am hooked on Transformers Animated, the new transformers cartoon series that's got a heavy Cartoon Network style anime art. At first, it turned off allot of elitist Generation 1 (G1) toy collectors (myself included tho strictly speaking I don't consider myself a G1er but anyway) but after watching the series, I must say it's even better than Transformers Beast Wars so far. And I loved the Beast Wars series.

The show is quite ambitious in that it tries to appeal to everyone, a new generation of kids as well as older fans of every Transformers series with its cute art direction and the use of a girl as the Autobots human point of contact seems to suggest Hasbro is again trying to recruit girls into the Transformers fandom instead of just focusing on the boys. The show so far is an homage montage of everything Transformers, with references to G1, Beast Wars, Armada, the recent Transformers Movie and with some episodes featuring the dark flavours of the 1986 animated movie.

The bots all have a unique personality (some more than one heh) and special powers and gadgets that fit their personality. The character development is tight, the writers are competent in weaving a plot as well as telling us who these 'newly reformatted' Autobots and Decepticons are. Megatron and the Decepticons are truly menacing and when they appear I feel a sense of dread for the good guys. The supporting human and superhuman cast are also excellent, they're not just one-dimensional screaming, helpless people in need of rescue from the Decepticons. In fact, their roles carry a weight in the plot.

The toys are show accurate to a very high degree and some accessories are interchangeable between Autobots and Decepticons, mirroring episodes in the show where said interchanging actually occurred. Nice! But most importantly, this series is making me feel like a 10 year old again! :)