cereal:geek TV - Transformers: AKOM-edy!
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- Опубліковано 11 вер 2024
- EPISODE #95 - In this video James Eatock showcases one of the most visually infamous productions relating to The Transformers during the 1980s!
If you want to support this channel (and get your name in the end credits) please check out the cereal:geek TV Patreon page - / jameseatock
According to the recent interview with Transformers series director and Toei Animation chairman Kozo Morishita, he respects Nelson Shin a lot and still is in contact with him 40 years after the movie. Apparently Morishita had to explain the mecha anime 3-tone shading to Marvel Productions that Toei opted for, which Marvel initially didn't understand or like. As you can see with AKOM's work, they didn't use such shading techniques.
That's awesome to hear that Shin and Morishita got along, despite the bad blood South Korea had with Japan during the 1980's. (Things are much better now though). :)
Was tge movie released in 1984?
@@MutantsInDisguise 1986
"Apparently Morishita had to explain the mecha anime 3-tone shading to Marvel Productions that Toei opted for, which Marvel initially didn't understand or like."
Looking at the interview, he likely refers to initial Toei models for the movie as those are done with 3 tones. On Blurr especially I can see what they may have interpreted as "tree rings".
@@MutantsInDisguise No. There was a movie 'planned' for 1984, but this obviously got turned into the TV series instead. But Toei were all ready contracted to produce the movie and not AKOM, despite the studio's founder being a producer for it. That was James' point.
Another fantastic video James. What I would give to see Season 3 reanimated with Toei or in a similar style. Add in some of the deleted scenes, make continuity corrections, and even make a few new episodes if possible. Especially considering AKOM's abysmal work on their episodes.
I'm still kind of surprised that we've never had an official dub of all those Japanese exclusive Transformers shows that Toei worked on...because that would be like watching NEW episodes! :)
Hey, if you ever get on Kirkman's good side, maybe you could get him to hire Guido to draw an adaptation of season 3? :D
(Really, it's so weird that at least adaptation of FFOD hadn't happened after such terrific homage cover by Guido)
@@cerealgeekTV I think those dreadful Omni Productions Hong Kong dubs were technically official, as they were included on some DVDs. This isn't meant as a correction (or an "actually..." or "you forgot about..." comment), by the way, as the quality is so terrible that they are unacceptable. Like AKOM did with animation, Omni made the story incomprehensible. These guys also did all the English dubbed Godzilla movies where everyone calls the titular monster "Godziller". They similarly called Rodimus Prime "ROADimus Prime". That's not as bad as calling Blaster "Billy" and Spike "Sparkle", though.
@@KasumiKenshirou - Back in 1997, someone in the US sent over a VHS with two hours of cool animation-related stuff on...one thing was a rather infamous episode of Transformers: Headmasters ("I Risk My Life for Earth") - I was VERY excited to see NEW Transformers episodes...and then my jaw-dropped at the voice acting - As you can imagine, to this day, my friends and I still quote from it, "You're dead!" "Not likely!"...and yeah, Billy...Sparkle...Metroplex/Phillip...bloody hell! :)
Nelson Shin, according to Flint Dille’s book The Gamesmaster was also one of the animators that animated the light sabers for the original Star Wars.
I'm sure you're right! :)
Yes, I've read that elsewhere in a news article. I have both Dille's and Ron Freidman's books, but haven't got around to reading them yet.
The title of Freidman's book is "I Killed Optimus Prime...". Freidman appeared on Gilbert Gottfried's podcast a couple of times and plugs this book, so if you ever wanted to hear what it would sound like if the late Gilbert Gottfried confessed to killing Optimus Prime, you can. They don't talk much about Transformers, but Freidman has a lot of very interesting stories about his very long career.
For those who don't know who Gottfried is, he voiced the parrot in Aladdin and Mr. Mxysptlk in Superman: The Animated Series. His last role (as far as I know) he recorded before he died (but released posthumously) was in the animated direct-to-video movie, Mortal Kombat Legends: Cage Match. I didn't know he was in that until I heard his voice when I watched it, so that was a very pleasant surprise. Since he was dead, I wasn't expecting any new material from him.
Unfortunately, Shin's lightsaber rotoscoping in Star Wars was removed and replaced in the Special Edition.
@@KasumiKenshirou - My goodness...I didn't even think about that...poor ol' Shin! :(
Hasbro should make a animation error line for the toys
That would be a good line...give them names and a back story. Other transformer colonies exist on other planets, so maybe all these "errors" were transformers coming back to cybertron and joined sides.
I fully support that! :)
Takara has at least once recolored Grapple green, named him Hauler, and gave him the backstory of being a former Constructicon, one of the extra ones in the scene where they are building Megatron.
This is also the same Hauler that only appeared in a single scene of the first season, where he was ordered to pull another Autobot who had been damaged after being forced off a cliff. After this one scene the character vanishes and is never mentioned again. (I guess this would be a case of "Chuck Cunningham syndrome") But this character wasn't green and was based on the toy that eventually became Grapple, but wasn't part of the Transformers toyline yet.
@@KasumiKenshirou - Yeah, as a kid, Hauler confused the hell out of me...especially since he never transformed, and never appeared again - And when Grapple popped up on toy shelves, and then in the cartoon, it made even less sense! :)
I would buy Dirge-Clonus so quickly!
To be fair, the Aerialbots hanging out with Decepticons is kinda in-character for them.
That's actually a good point! :)
Only at the beginning of "War Dawn" because they were essentially naive teenagers (but technically less than a year old) who didn't understand how the world actually works. By the end of their time-traveling adventure, they understand who the Decepticons truly are, and due to their nature they cannot coexist together.
AKOM's animation was so bad at times that it made the stories difficult to follow.
For most of my childhood and into adulthood I thought that in the galactic Olympics that they were referring to Jazz as "Munka Spanka from the Argenon Cluster". Then my brother told me that he was discussing this part with some other people online and they determined that "Munka Spanka" wasn't supposed to be referring to Jazz. You were supposed to be seeing Jazz compete, then some time elapses, and then the announcer is talking about some other event that happened off camera that this "Munka Spanka". It's only due to the way the scenes are edited together that it looks like they're referring to Jazz. (And the not child friendly joke behind "Munka Spanka" flew over my head when I was in the target age range for the show.)
There were space battles where characters were completely obliterated and exploded, but they were just meant to be generic characters and AKOM just picked character models at random and threw them in there. And even in the opening credits, there was weird stuff like multiple Blitzwings all lined up together. Takara actually came up with an explanation for this in the backstory for Overcharge, a recolor of Blitzwing. They did the same with the character Hauler, a green recolor of Grapple, who was one of the extra Constructicons who was in the scene when Megatron was created. He later joined the Autobots where he appeared for only a single scene in the first season (now colored like Grapple). (In reality, they just needed a crane to haul an inured Autobot who'd gone over a cliff, so they used the Diaclone crane that later became Grapple)
You're spot on...it's rare in animation when the visuals can actually take away interest from a story because they're negatively distracting...but AKOM managed to do that on many an occasion...:(
it's a shame that Five faces of darkness was given such poor thought in the animation when it's pretty much the mopst important set of episodes in the cartoon. Also to be fair to the transformations, there was a fair bit of morphing in nonsensical ways in the Toei episodes and the movie, we all remember optimus' magically disappearing grey stripe
I'm pretty sure that the stripe being removed in the first place was an error that became official, as Optimus actually has the stripe in truck mode in the commercial bumpers ("We now return to The Transformers"). And the stripe is always there, demarked by two parallel lines drawn on the cell, but the stripe is just colored red.
@@KasumiKenshirou most likely
Don't get me wrong, Toei could botch a transformation...I just feel that AKOM took it to another level! :)
Akom-edy is the perfect description BUT I am so glad things turned out the way it did because as a kid I didnt care, it was just transformers and now I get to laugh at it all the time. Kind of has a charm to it. And yes, many of those mistakes, I wish hasbro would make by doing repaints. By retconning and saying they were different characters , basically background fodder characters, it just builds the world out and makes it seem like cybertron was an actual planet with a lot more beings on it than what the 100-200 transformers we know.
Also, I think the charm stems from just how incredibly well season three of The Transformers was written - Those comic book and traditional science-fiction writers working on the show knew what they were doing, crafting worlds and characters that modern pop culture continues to pull from! :)
"BUT I am so glad things turned out the way it did because as a kid I didnt care"
What a bizarre thing to say.
@@Grim2 I meant I didnt care about animation errors , quality of the animation or even how much sense a story made, it was transformers so it was still cool
@@cerealgeekTV Most of the writing did make up for Akom's shortcomings.
@@Grim2 I DID notice the drop in quality. Even if I didn't know exactly why or the language to describe the problems, it was obvious. All the other boys in school had stopped watching during this season, although, to be fair, I think that had more to do with the fact that none of them had seen the movie so didn't know what the hell was going on anymore and all their favorite characters were gone. But the terrible animation certainly didn't help.
The Transformers should get re-animated someday, just to look the potential it has.
Definitely season three, for the most part, could use a nice visual overhaul! :)
Just the Akom episodes, all the other episodes are gold.
@@jakeproven256 Not true...the amount of animation errors & just bad animation overall in The Return of Optimus Prime episodes is ridiculous. Akom did a good job on a handful of episodes in season 3 too, it wasn't all as bad as Five Faces & Carnage in C Minor.
@@TF80s I’m not saying those episodes didn’t have mistakes, I’m saying they’re very well animated, even the best artists screw up now and then, and if you bothered to look longer at the g1 episodes not done by akom, they are freaking beautiful for 80’s animation despite the mistakes.
@@jakeproven256 some are.
Standing out like a sore thumb? That's one way to put it. A shit on a snooker table. Or a tiny Bruticus in the midst of a gang of Combaticons.
Not sure I can remove that visual from my brain the next time I play snooker! :)
@@cerealgeekTV Blame me if you like, but I'll quite happily admit to nicking it from the pages of Viz. Or the Profanisaurus, which is pretty much the same thing.
@@slacknhash - My goodness...I haven't thought about Viz in years! :)
I only have a vague idea of what "snooker" is, but based on the other word in the phrase, I know it's an accurate description.
@@KasumiKenshirou And that table's covered with green baize too, so that's never going to scrub out completely. Have to get it reupholstered.
I love the scene on chaar when the deceptions are celebrating the fact that they are getting Galvatron back (with Galvatron himself celebrating as well). So goofy. The insane smiles they all have while celebrating is crazy.
It's my favorite...that's why I kind of included it twice! :) - And yes, THOSE insane smiles...
This whole thing seems like he got his company hired with a quality demo reel, and promises of completing episodes in ridiculously short amounts of time. So when the final product came out, it looked rushed, because it was, a lot of these mistakes are easy to fix with a little more time.
I don't think you're too far off the mark...:)
Great deep-dive on the animation, James. In the '80s, I just chalked my dislike and disinterest in seasons 3 and 4 to the fact the movie scrapped all the charachters I knew and loved, and replaced them with ones I just couldn't bring myself to like. But this enlightened more as to why my love waned.
That movie turned more than a few fans away from the series...:(
"Five Faces Of Darkness" was actually a good story and a decent follow-up to the animated movie, but AKOM did it's damndest to derail the quality of these episodes with awful animation.
Yup - As I say, for the most part, season three has some great scripts...all let down by the, at times, incredibly hard to watch visuals...:(
If there's ever a case to actually remake old episodes into a movie, this five parter is it.
@@rayvenkman2087 - My goodness...to see this brought to life once more, but with animation worthy of the script, would be SUPERB! :)
The closeup of green and grey Shockwave shows him apparently holding his arm cannon like it's a pistol. Brilliant work.
That's just how Shockgreen...um...Greenwave operates! :)
Shockwave has at least 3 doppelgangers in the original cartoon
Green & Grey Shockwave toy recolor could be released under the name Shockblast, now that I think about it.
I think we need to name the episodes that Shockwave recolors appeared in.
@@oddguy5356 - There's another one that appears in the introduction sequence to "Five Faces of Darkness"...:)
For some reason the way Trypticon flies away after Metroplex threw him just reminds me of the Godzilla dropkick. If you don't know what I'm talking about, feel free to look it up here on UA-cam. I promise, you won't be disappointed. ;)
That aside, I'm actually very glad to watch a full episode dedicated to this. As I child mistakes like these always felt weird to me but somehow I tried to cope by saying the recolors are new characters. I guess I was stuck in the first stage of grief for a long time back then.
Yeah, I know of the Godzilla dropkick - It's a classic! :)
You're referring to the one from Godzilla vs. Megalon, I assume. I think these battles were intentionally a homage to movies where Godzilla would fight another monster like King Kong.
"Sub-par animation Mr. Shin, this is bad AKOM-edy"! :D (Nice job on the title by the way).
Ah yes the misplaced Constructicons, well I have a theory about right. The Heavy Metal War Constructicons, were indeed destroyed in the pool of molten lava at the end of the episode, off screen the Decepticons are reunited with the original Cybertronian Constructicons at the start of season 2, who then somehow travelled back in time (again off screen) at some point to construct Megatron in the past, mystery solved. ;) LOL. :D But yeah this was a great video that really showcased how an animation studio can have a bit of a rough start in it's early years, but we know from time, they did get better, but it doesn't mean to say that we'll ignore all the mistakes that happened during the production of this show. :D :) Oh and yes, I had that same video tape too. I think that was one of M.S.D./Tempo's more common releases and both Dark Awakening and Grimlock's New Brain were of course AKOM episodes. How appropriate. ;) Some of those colouring errors though would make for interesting repaints of existing figures. ;) Keep up the good work sir. :)
Speaking of compilation VHS tapes...I owned that bumper one (Galvatron was on the cover)...I think there were four or so episodes on it - Imagine my shock when I stumbled upon "Call of the Primitives" expecting to see more AKOM visuals! :)
@@cerealgeekTV I had that one too and experienced the stunning animation the same way. ;)
@@cerealgeekTV That was shocking, even on TV. It looked completely different to what Toei had done, too. I thought they looked cool, but wondered why they all looked so different, and IIRC, the animation studios weren't listed in the credits after season one.
It's hard for me to imagine anyone from Akom studios ever watching more than a episode or two of the series. I mean, when you have MULTIPLE shots of a miniature Bruticus standing or running along side of the Combaticons.......that's pretty bad. 🤣
It was up to Marvel Productions to ask for retakes to correct errors...but for some reason, with AKOM, they rarely did - Unless they actually did and what we see are the "fixed" episodes...which is a terrifying thought! :)
@@cerealgeekTV God, I hope it's just "Marvel didn't ask for fixes" instead of "These ARE the final and fixed episodes". Because how AKOM even survived past Season 3, let alone work on shows like X-Men, The Simpsons and Tiny Toons would be astonishing if the latter's the case.
@@cerealgeekTV The horse was already out of the barn with season 3 of Transformers. They knew that they screwed up *ROYALLY* killing Optimus Prime and a lot of kids left the show and never came back. I think that if Hasbro actually had more synapses firing in their brains, Marvel Productions would have been more stringent on the quality of the show.
@12:44 I'm now reminded of the Energon O's commercials that were done by Randall Ng and Dr. Smoov. Optimus wonders repeatedly how he's supposed to eat them with out a mouth. SEE THAT, PRIME? THAT'S HOW. Heck, Grimlock doesn't have a mouth in robot mode, and he's smart enough to transform to solve that problem. Simple brain indeed.
(Sorry, had a flashback with that visual. 😂 )
And now you have me going back to watch "The Rude Awakening of Optimus Prime"...never fails to make me laugh! :)
@@cerealgeekTV wish I could feel like a gold bug...
It really is so disappointing how a season with so many good stories will be forever known as the bad one, thanks to its horrendous visuals. I suppose, to an extent, the verdict is fair, but there are some real gems in this season that many will never give the time of day. At the very same time, however, this season contains some of the BEST animated episodes of the whole series! So odd.
Yeah, season three really is just one big oddity...that we may never be able to truly explain! :)
My mom used to record the show for my brother and me (because for some reason the TV station stupidly aired Transformers while the target audience were still in school). One day we came home and my mom was talking about how weird the episode was, and that the good guys barely were in the episode at all.
The episode was "Webworld", where Cyclonus takes Galvatron to a psychiatric hospital planet to treat his mental illness. Cyclonus feels conflicted, doing what he thinks his best for his leader, but he has to deceive him in order to do it. When Galvatron understand what has just happened, he feels betrayed and is outraged, but this once powerful figure he looks up to is completely helpless. This will all sound familiar to anyone who has had to take an elderly relative to a nursing home. The episode was co-written by former psychiatric nurse Diane Duane, so this was no doubt intentional. (The other co-author was Len Wein, creator of Marvel's Wolverine among other popular characters.)
You would never see this kind of story in Hanna Barbera Scooby-Doo clone #256.
I really liked it when the villains actually showed concern for each other's well-being. There was one with energy vampires on Cybertron. Cyclonus implores Galvatron to leave him behind, and Galvatron looks back and actually hesitates for a second before fleeing. Villains in real life don't see THEMSELVES as being evil, and fictional ones are better when they embody this.
@KasumiKenshirou thanks for sharing! One of my absolute favorite episodes of the whole series.
@@KasumiKenshirou - You know, I haven't watched "Webworld" in a long, long, LONG time - Methinks I need to watch it VERY soon! :)
@@CarRobots Webworld is a fantastic episode and the animation style they went with for the episode, suits it perfectly.
5 Faces of Darkness and Carnage in C Minor really look like half the animators were off work ill, or there was no time to do the work so the cartoons were rushed through to make the deadline.
I'm guessing there must've been an element of rushing involved...AKOM weren't great...but overall there work wasn't as bad as what we see with this five part story! :)
Oh gawd that animation of Galvatron transforming, it looks like his cannon goes up his bum/back and all the way through him to reappear where it's supposed to!
Honestly, I think that's what AKOM animators were doing on occasion! :)
Gulp! 😂😮
@@cerealgeekTV They didn't have the animation models, so they were "pulling it out of their asses" (almost but not quite literally). I don't know if you have that phrase in the UK, but it basically means to make something up on the fly or "pull [something] out of thin air". I'm only explaining it because I never heard that phrase until I was in college and it took me a few seconds, via context, to realize what the person who said it was talking about.
@@KasumiKenshirou - Have no fear, I know the phrase - VERY appropriate for that Galvatron animation, too! :)
That warning wasn’t strong enough. Even the mention of AKOM is enough to bring bile to the back of my throat.
Maybe I should've put a WARNING on the thumbnail! :)
I think we should get Akom-Colored repaints of any Legacy/United/SS86/Evolution/Earthrise figure, just for the sake of it. Constructicon Shockwave, Wildrider Beachcomber, Dirge Cyclonus, and all the rest!
I never thought to ask this in the video...a name for Wildrider/Beachcomber could be...Wildcomber...or even Beachrider?! :)
Carnage In C-Minor, is without any semblance of a doubt, is the most horribly animated Transformers episode in history.
YUP...I remember it being given the honor of the worst-looking episode back in the days of the Transformers newsgroups...and rightly so! :)
@@cerealgeekTV The fact that Devastator, Brawn, and Huffer were fighting on the Autobots' side was enough for me.
19:02 some other funny mistakes in this shot is, jazz colored cliffjumper, ratchet colored percepter, and shockwave colored bumblebee, look very classy and you will see it!
I NEVER clocked the Shockwave-colored Bumblebee! :)
As a kid who grew up with easy access to anime (I'm from the Philippines), the opening of season 2 is hands down one of the best animated because it has the same quality of the anime I saw on Betamax, especially if it had 3 tones and shadows (along with shows like Thundercats, Silver hawks, Tigersharks, Visionaries and Bionic Six) I kinda have a bit of bias as I think shows that were animated in Japan or that were handled by a Japanese studio were superior during that time. AKOM's quality really couldn't compare to even Filmation standards, almost like they were rushed with little quality control. Maybe they had very little budget and a tight production deadline because it really showed.
Yeah, that introduction for season two is just STUNNING...the staging, the direction, the timing...it's perfect! :)
14:34 a constructicon Shockwave!! Wow!!
Yup! :)
Such a shame that Toei didn’t work on all of them. Did they work on the Japanese exclusive episodes?
They spearheaded all of the Japanese seasons, having access to all of the animation models and transformation charts from the first series.
I agree, alot of season 3 would have been better if Toei did the episodes akom did. And yes Toei would work on every Japanese exclusive season, along with Scramble City and Zone. But they would still work on the US commercials up til action masters.
Speaking of the commercials, I want to know WHO specifically at Toei directed that gorgeous Punch/Counterpunch ad - The animation, timing, shading, and detailing on the sequences we see are wonderfully ABSURD! :)
@@cerealgeekTV Satoshi Urushihara confirmed it was he who animated that commercial in the Transformers Generations 2020 book, along with the Autobot/Decepticon clones commercial.
@@KazuyaMithra - AWESOME - Thank you! :)
Being in England I thought that the season 3 and 4 cartoons were “knock off” cartoons. Obviously I was a child then so I had no idea no one would do that.
That's interesting - I remember when those season three episodes began showing up on VHS...getting excited to watch some new material...and being somewhat perplexed by what I was looking at - I didn't even like the theme song to season three! :)
Actually, they WOULD do that.
South Korea made several terrible, very boring knock-off cartoons of Japanese and western media that occasionally end up in US dollar stores, and I assume the equivalent types of stores in other countries. Regarding Transformers, there's one South Korean knock off called Phoenix King in which the titular robot is a slightly modified version of the fire truck Transformer Inferno. There was apparently a corresponding toy as well. If you're thinking of watching this cartoon, know that this robot does not appear until the very end. Literally the only interesting thing in the movie is the knock off Inferno.
There are dozens of these South Korean knock off cartoons, as there was some kind of ban on all Japanese media in South Korea, so South Korean animators were free to make their own bootlegs. But they also had knock off cartoons of Tron, E.T., Batman, and Wonder Woman, and I don't think they had a ban on US media, so I guess they also just didn't care much about international copyrights. These are all mildly amusing for a minute or two, but they drag on for WAAAAAAY too long, usually over an hour, and the novelty of seeing bootleg versions of your favorite characters in some weird cartoon you didn't know existed wears off very quickly. You can probably find them on UA-cam or elsewhere pretty easily by searching for "Korean _________", with the blank being filled in by whatever you're looking for. (E.g., Korean Tron.)
The Batman one is actually a combination of Batman and the Japanese superhero that actually predates Batman and Superman. So you end up with Batman in a golden version of his costume who laughs all the time. It's very strange, but again, only for a minute or two.
@@KasumiKenshirou - I feel like you've just introduced many of us to a very dangerous new rabbit hole! :)
16:00 The constructicons also had a different / alternate origin in The Secret of Omega Supreme. They were already on Cybertron in the early days and turned into Decepticons by Megatron.
VERY true - The Constructicons have three origins in the cartoon...and one in the Marvel comic...and I'll bet a random storybook or two (a canon unto itself) has yet another origin! :)
Which was the result of David Wise's tactic of submitting the scripts at the very last moment to there's no time for anyone to do heavy rewrites. When he was notified what a screw up he made, he only had time to insert dialog to explain why Omega suddenly has a normal speech pattern.
@@cerealgeekTV Two in the cartoon. The FFOD script makes no mention of them constructing Megatron, it's entirely Akom's mess and is thus in no shape or form canonical.
@@Grim2 - Well, sadly, whatever is on-screen is FACT - Thus Galvatron is ready to search for himself - Please accept AKOM into your life! :)
@@Grim2 Why was he so late, when he just recycled earlier scripts he'd written for other cartoons? I know it wasn't as easy with a typewriter as it is now with computers where you can just search and replace "Powerglide" with "Michealangelo" in seconds, but it still should've been faster than creating an entire new script. Or was he doing it deliberately so he wouldn't have to make the changes?
These videos are so much fun! Especially after a full week of assisting a friend who had been illegally evicted.
I'm glad I could cheer you up...and I'm sorry to hear about your friend...I hope they've found a roof over their head...X
@@cerealgeekTV well they are couch surfing for now and housing is a pain to find here - the newest apartments that are "cheaper" were renting for 1680 CAD for a 1 bedroom! (as opposed to like say, 2000 CAD). They had been living in a caravan on some guy's property but that guy was trouble!
That sucks to hear. :( Hopefully things improve soon.
@@David315842 yeah, definitely hope so!
@@shebakoby - Hopefully, happiness is on the horizon for them! :)
This is epic. The Metroplex "Hail Mary" was absolutely ludicrous and hilarious! Besides the hideous job they did on the animation, the stories were just way too different. As a kid the stories in Season 3 seemed like they lacked heart and were kind of awkward. Now as an adult it makes a lot of sense. I blame it all on that 90 Minute New Toy Commercial they called Transformers the Movie 😅.
As an adult I appreciate what they tried to do with the storytelling in season three...but it was SO much of a departure from what we had known, that it was hard to watch...hampered even more by THOSE visuals...:(
16:24 They’re coloured like the movie Autobots!
I think you're right - Arcee, Wheelie, Kup, Magnus...oh, AKOM...
16:33 actually, I think I want color variant toys for each _"error"_ you pointed out in this video.
I think we all do...even the all white Seeker would be a nice addition to any collection! :)
Looking at that Galvatron transformation it looks suspiciously like the *particle cannon* (not fusion, that's Megatron) goes up his arse and comes out the other end.
Pretty much! :)
fun video. incidentally I had a "Dirgeclonus" custom painted from a Kingdom Cyclonus. It's a great color scheme for that mold.
Ah, so someone HAS made this AKOM color scheme a reality - Do you have a link to it or something?! :)
@@cerealgeekTV I shared links but it appears they were removed. If you look up Dirgclonus on the TFW2005 forums you will see a subforum called unicron9 custom workshop
Your comment about Hasbro taking these characters on, it got me thinking. You could do a store exclusive capsule or generations selects 5 pack of these, most of the tooling exists in recent lines. It would be great! Especially dirgeclonus
What you suggest kind of reminds me of those awesome mini Autobot repaints Takara did back in the early 2000s, turning the lil' guys into GoBots! :)
@@cerealgeekTV Hasbro made some recolors of new toys based on those "GoBots". The original Takara ones were originally given the names of the GoBots they were meant to represent, but they took those names away before they were actually released. I assume they were doing this to avoid potential legal issues with Bandai, who still owns the Machine Robo toys that GoBots was based on. I would think that Hasbro would own the names that Tonka invented, but maybe they just didn't want to risk it.
@@KasumiKenshirou - Oh, I never actually knew that they took the names away...awww...I did like them having that direct GoBot connection! :(
Maybe Dirge was reformed to become one of Cyclonus’ Armada? 😆
I'm happy to go with that! :)
Thanks for the laughs; will check out the other G1 content. Big question tho, because I've been researching this stuff, and I won't go into it here about which episodes in the whole series they've actually "animated" (everything in season 3 covered here was produced by AKOM, which does count, but may have been animated by a helper studio of their own called Sam Young). 39 episodes in total are claimed by AKOM, but has anyone thought to ask Nelson Shin or someone there exactly which 39? There's been decades of confusion, because season 2's "The Autobot Run", The Core" and "City of Steel" were wrongly believed to be animated by AKOM. Produced by them? Possibly, but since they're more like Mihahn/Dong Seo of "Amazing Friends" or Pion of "GoBots", I doubt it. I'd like someone to ask Steven Hahn about this too, if he's still around.
I think it's because AKOM's website states they did 39 episodes is why the fandom at large thinks that's the case. If AKOM did do that number, then it's either including
- Those three season 2 episodes; which are very un-AKOM like in general, errors not withstanding. Mihahn feels more correct in this regard as the moments of fluidity reminds me of Star Wars: Droids, also worked on by them around that time. The fact that XAM! Productions worked on those episodes too seems to lend some credence in the Mihan case.
- Some of those "Unknown animation studio" episodes, though I'm more convinced those were handled by one or more of Toei's season 2 contractors through Marvel themselves, not AKOM.
- Some Toei-Helmed episodes; which is unlikely, given they had Sei Young, Daewon and Shin Won helping them out, a fourth would be overkill.
- The Movie; which Shin only directed.
Part of me is assuming this is just an error on AKOM's part, given some of the other errors their site makes, like how they claim to have been working on the Simpsons since 1986, and somehow managed to duplicate their list of "other credits" twice at one point (since been fixed), so there'd be two instances of shows like GI Joe Extreme, Batman and Exo-Squad. And the "39 episodes" error just kind of became fandom lore.
i had great memories of season 3, as i rewatched it sometime ago i found it painfully bad. i was so dissapointed at my memories, but then i saw previous seasons, and the movie, and is only season 3 that is awful with the exception of maybe call of the primitives episode. well stories on season 3 were great, but as you pointed out the animation was ugh.. the movie on the other hand is a great piece of art. a full length musci clip on my opinion, but a great one, and i just keep watching it whenever it jumps here on youtube.
The movie still gives me goosebumps to this day! :) - Specifically this scene ("ATTACK!"): ua-cam.com/users/shortsrtp7_IPZclQ - And of course this one: ua-cam.com/users/shortsCSZ8U7YAPVA
There were many well animated episodes in season three, not just call of the Primitives. Chaos looks amazing as does Web World among many others.
@@TF80s Chaos has to be the episode that i most enjoyed because aside from 5 faces of darkness is the only one i recalled from my very first watch of season 3.
Seaaon 3 waa my favourite, but it could have been amazing if a lot of thess episodes had better animation
100% agree! :)
I'm really hoping for more akomedy episodes. Honestly some of the repaints would be fun. Can't help but wonder how good the episodes would be if they stayed with the same company.
I'm sure I'll dip back into the work of AKOM next year...:)
Akom. Where continuity goes to die.
SO true! :)
The only time I can recall AKOM doing animation that looked good was for the show Spiral Zone. I dunno why it was just for Spiral Zone, but it's there all the same.
They worked on The Simpsons and it was OK, but I assume they had a much larger budget in that case. And Nelson Shin was not amused when one episode depicted the South Korean animators of Itch and Scratchy working in poor conditions with soldiers pointing guns at their heads. And again in Banksy's couch gag sequence, which did the same joke but much more extreme, and with the animators drawn in a really racist manner and not even of the correct race (as if he thinks all Asian cultures are the same). His original racist designs were rejected and were made slightly less racist.
And I'm someone who thinks the banning of Apu from the show and recasting of characters after several decades so the actors match the characters' races is idiotic, but I agree with the opinion that Banksy's designs were racist.
Gee, it turns out hiring a guy that spray paints stencils on other people's property wasn't such a good idea.
I cannot recall the last time I even watched a second of Spiral Zone...looks like I have some long-overdue catching up to do! :)
@@KasumiKenshirou Actually, that was their partners on the Simpsons, Rough Draft, who got offended by the I&S bit. AKOM was offended by the Banksy opening.
Reanimated season 3-4 would be amazing! Save for the good ones like Call of the Primitives.. etc
Absolutely! :)
season 4 wasn't that terrible..in fact, it was some of Akom's best work imo. Dark Awakening also looked really good and was one of my favorite episodes in terms of story and animation.
@@TF80s - I praise "Dark Awakening" in this video... - ua-cam.com/video/0k-IkW6u_oQ/v-deo.htmlsi=xxV5TC1YFVxnCtV5&t=237
to be entirely fair, I can see a faceplate "working" sorta like that. In _Microbots_ Soundwave is shown drinking energon despite having a faceplate. The jello-jigglers energon in FFOD is hilarious though. I wonder if Transformers can eat (unignited) napalm.
The face plate is definitely one of the least offensive errors...but if we saw Optimus Prime do that...my goodness...AKOM would never have lived that down! :)
@@cerealgeekTV I assume you've all seen that storybook where an otherwise normal looking Optimus Prime has a weird grinning face?
@@KasumiKenshirou - Oh, yes! :) - ua-cam.com/video/-sRyYAX_lNk/v-deo.html
16:30 - Yes! I too would love to own a "Dirge-Clonus". Generations Selects?
Dirge-Clonus...I like it! :)
If Transformers were like this from day one it’d be considered a GoBots rip-off or companion piece to that toy range.
VERY bloody true! :)
84-85 All Day. 86, meh. I still can't get that image of Prowls eyes going up in smoke from the movie. Brutal scene.
For me, it was that shot of Windcharger and Wheeljack...two memorable characters (especially in the case of Wheeljack) killed off-screen...:(
To this day I’m shocked at the lack of quality control. I wish I knew what went on behind the scenes. I get that Akom was new, but how did Shin go from seeing Toei’s quality in the movie to allowing such egregious errors to happen in S3 with his own company? Does anyone have any clue?
Honestly, I think that's one of the great mysteries about AKOM's work on season three - Some people would say "It's just a cartoon" implying that no one in production cared - But if that were the case then why did SO much of season one and two (and especially the movie) look SO bloody good?! :)
@@cerealgeekTV The people saying “it’s just a cartoon” are just writing it off as disposable commercial trash rather than a true art form that people can work hard and passionately on.
I wonder if the case of AKOM was that Hasbro/Marvel was looking to cut costs on season 3 since they put so much money into the movie (before it bombed) and Shin told them he can do it for X amount of dollars hoping to be competitive and looking for work for his new company. The animators were inexperienced and were hired to save money and because of their slow (?) performance there wasn’t anytime for adjustments/corrections and so we got what we got. Hasbro was like “well, it’s just a kids show and we made an expensive movie. This is the budget and schedule, so run with it.” and let it go.
@bonorbitz this just makes sense 100%.
It is said that even all the animation errors in season one and two were known, but there was just no time to correct them, the schedule was so tight
@@cerealgeekTVHey just curious- where was the final shot of your intro with Unicron exploding taken from? Call of the Primatives? I don’t recall seeing it before…
@@bonorbitz - Yup...that's from "Call of the Primitives" - I remember as a kid being astounded by how amazing that sequence looked! :)
This was a fun little vid to watch some of AKOM's animation errors do jump out pretty badly even if you don't slow down and look at scenes on pause.
I do think a bunch of their errors down to just being SUPREMELY rushed and thus some episodes obviously were just flung out the door barely ready(Carnage in C Minor; their WORST product)
On rare occasions I feel they can do okay or decent work(Dark Awakening, Rebirth and a few others coming to mind)
Some of the transformations are very stylized and not using remotely accurate transformation schemes.
Then again I feel some of them are just very much so meant to look stylistic from an angle or such.
The S2 episodes you cited IMO are some of their ROUGHEST work(Autobot Run, The Core, City of Steel)
Those 3 in particular I rarely if ever re-watch them just due to how bad they are.
On a different note, enjoy your He-Man stuff and if you ever get time it would be awesome if you and Chris McFeely team up for a collab little fun episode down the road!
Yeah, I made a video a while back (ua-cam.com/video/0k-IkW6u_oQ/v-deo.html), and actually stated that I think AKOM's animation work on "Dark Awakening", the awkward movements, lack of shading, etc., actually makes that classic episode even creepier! :) - I think in the hands of Toei it may have looked too "clean"...if that makes sense...
"City of Steel"...AMAZING storyboards...ATROCIOUS-looking episode...and I never cared for the story too much either! :)
Yeah, I've chatted to McFeely over the years...GREAT guy! :)
I agree with all that and I think Rebirth gets way to much negative criticism by fans.
@@TF80s - I mean, the core premise of the three part story is good...but it's weighed down by SO many new characters and exposition - If someone ever wanted to criticize The Transformers as being nothing more than a toy commercial, those last three episodes make it easy for them...:(
Petition for green-grey shockwave to be named Constructive Interference.
I'm good with it! :)
can you PLEASE do a breakdown of Call Of The Primitives? The animation and the score in that episode is (imo) only matched by The Movie and the original 3 part miniseries that kicked off the series. Love what you do! Thank you!
Already done! :) - ua-cam.com/video/T9-U3hX1qZ4/v-deo.html
Long haul :chill out human! My metal hide was being used as parts to build Trypticon! And I got plastic covers as replacement
And NOW it all makes sense...poor Long Haul! :(
@@cerealgeekTV AKOM mixed up Long Haul and the "U-Haul Robot" (a description used internally by the animators and other staff and not the character's name), one of the former historical Autobot leaders that Rodimus Prime sees for a few seconds when he travels "into" the Matrix. In more recent years, this guy has been retroactively named Sentinel Prime. AKOM would also sometimes mix up Soundwave and Shockwave for the same reason: their similar names.
@@KasumiKenshirou It's been suggested elsewhere that this is why Long Haul is also blue in "Fight or Flee", overseen by Toei, but a close look for that episode shows no orange on him, making that likely a concidence and supporting the theory that some assets were not shared by the different studios/subcontractors.
All fair criticisms. I still like the "into the matrix" animation in episode 2.
The premise and visual staging of that scene is AWESOME - AKOM do the best they can with a rather complex scene! :)
@@cerealgeekTV It's no Pink Elephants on Parade, but not bad for a daily animated series.
@@rjz4329 - I mean...it's CLOSE...:)
On finale celebration shot left from Sunstreaker, is that Blast Off?
The jury is kind of out at present...it could be Blast Off...but with AKOM who knows?! :)
Prowl in season 2 at times was gray not white and even at times changed places Blue Streak in the episode . there is a episode there is 3 Prowls on the screen in the episode it's in the Autobot base but i don't remember the episode . i think it was to be Prowl, Blue Streak, Smokescreen . how but the episodes where Kup drives backwards i find that the funniest thing in the word the saddest is the not getting the Transformers sizes or even factions right at time either . there was a toy that was a yellow Chliffjumper in the season wave of the mini bots after the movie and don't forget getting Jazz's name wrong . Transformers Energon had a character who's name was Six Shot kind of in the purple and green colors in the series he was the brother to Shockblast . i forget the reason but the series couldn't use Shockwave
Yeah, even though AKOM took coloring errors to a whole new level, Toei weren't above making errors here and there, dating all the way back to the first three episodes - Most were obviously corrected...until Rhino "remastered" them - ua-cam.com/video/OXEBN7BH6dw/v-deo.html - GAH! :)
Yep, A komedy of errors!
I was rather pleased with my title pun! :)
I would have been happy with less episodes if only Toei made them all.
Yeah, I can get with that - It would've been great had Toei animated "The Rebirth"...and book-ended their work on the original series (prior to their work on the Japanese exclusive shows that followed)! :)
You would have to define "made". Remember that Toei had their own garbage helper studios from Korea. Those female Autobots also did a lot of "morphing", for example.
Aw... You didn't discuss the football match with Metroplex's transformation cog 😅
LOL - I should've mentioned that memorable scene! :)
For some younger viewers out there… You have to understand these poorly-animated TF episodes (hot on the heels of the much better animated Seasons 1 and 2) aired at the same time as Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers, Robotech, and Voltron. Not to mention G.I.Joe and He-Man, which did not have a drop in quality of animation. So, yeah, these TF episodes looked REALLY bad in comparison with everything else that was being shown.
IMHO, TF Season 3 led to the downfall of the brand (at that point in time). And if you thought Season 3 was bad? The Headmasters miniseries that followed was even worse. Truly the death knell for G1.
Perfectly said - Also, those final three episodes, "The Rebirth", even when I watched them as a kid I remember wincing at just how heavy handed the toy advertising nature of that story was - But, in defense of David Wise, I'm guessing he was pretty much ordered to introduce ALL of those new characters...so he could only do so much! :)
@@cerealgeekTV Plus it was reduced to three episodes, so that's an even worse situation to be in.
Ahh the animation for season three it's so bad it's good on akom,part.If anything i find it hilarious for when i do watch season three for transformers.
It's frustrating when you watch an episode with a clever story...and yet the characters have that Pat Lee "dull surprise" look...mouth open...sad eyes! :)
Ngl… Cyclonus in Dirge colors is kinda sick though. Like that would be a fun recolor to see
Yup...AKOM's random coloring would, on very rare occasions, result in something rather pleasant! :)
@@cerealgeekTV And then other times… You get “Rodimus”, “Magnus”, “Arcee”, & “Springer” cheering as Trypticon stomps the Ark/Autobase flat 😅 … Or was it when Trypticon first awakened? I know we had Main Autobot-colored Constructicons at one point
@@dylanfrancis5996 - I had to showcase that, though (at the time), I didn't clock the color schemes - ua-cam.com/video/pWumh5KfgdM/v-deo.htmlsi=AUQRTFSC-A-TgeM9&t=983
Oh yeah, it was when Trypticon came to life. As if getting colored like your mortal enemies wasn’t bad enough… Well, Carnage in C Minor anyone? If you know, you definitely know… 😅
@@dylanfrancis5996 - ONE day...I may...MAY...talk about that episode - But therapy, in my experience, is expensive! :)
We probably need a "Transformers Kai". Color corrections and new animated scenes where necessary. Actually, season 3 isn't bad at all. Just poorly made. Even "Carnage in c-minor" could be good if it didn't look so cheap.
Completely agree - As I say, for all of its visual flaws, the stories are some of the best! :)
And yet it is my favorite season. Yup.
I genuinely understand why - I LOVE that first season of The Transformers...but (as I say int the video) season three has some VERY intelligent and clever stories...with numerous characters that seemed to be teetering between good and evil! :)
Yes, same! And to think as a child, I hated it! There are some absolute, absolute gems in season 3. One and two take me back to childhood, but three is what allowed my interest in the franchise to exist into adult hood.
Akom was not A good studio when it comes to creating detailed action animation, and season 3 of 'Transformers' is proof of that. Even when I first saw part one of 'Five Faces Of Darkness', I know they took the ending footage from the movie, and just spliced it in to recap where things were with the main plot. It's as if Nelson Shin had the advantage of Toei having already finished the movie, itself before his studio was up, and running, but while that was going on, Akom was doing one half of the 'My Little Pony' Movie while Toei was doing the scenes with The Witches in their castle. Ben & Neil of the 'Animation Aficionados' podcast LOVE roasting Akom any chance they get, and not just their work on 'Transformers', but on other cartoons since that series ended. Also, the scream at the beginning of the video made me laugh.
Yeah, I just had to use Linda Gary's Teela scream from "Into the Abyss"! :) - Also, I REALLY need to check out My Little Pony: The Movie at some point...
@@cerealgeekTV I'm one of those guys who scoffed at the previous iterations, and the brand as a whole until Lauren Faust changed all that, and created an entire generation of male pony fans with 'Friendship Is Magic'.
Love Galvatron as the undercover boss in that group shot.
Weren't AKOM fired from Batman: TAS later? And The Simpsons, come to think of it.
Fired from Batman: The Animated Series, but still worked on shows like Tiny Toons...as for The Simpsons, I believe they've been working on the show (on and off) to this very day! :)
@@cerealgeekTV Yeah, booted off Batman, but are indeed involved with Simpsons to this day.
Ah! Maybe I was mixing them up with Klasky Csupo
@@HelloMisterJAMWAH - Yeah, Klasky Csupo were absolutely fired - I remember first hearing that story on a DVD commentary for The Simpsons...
@@cerealgeekTV AKOM were almost responsible for the show not existing, however. So there's that dubious honor.
Apparently 8 Constructions built Megabum.🤪
I believe the 2 others have been named hauler and grave digger
Yeah, the Constructicons known as "Trevor" and "John" never left Cybertron...mainly due to their rather normal names! :)
The terrible animation is part of why I didn’t get into TF season 3 when I was a kid. As an adult I appreciate it more.
And AKOM would go on to produce subpar animation for other popular shows like X-Men and Batman TAS. IIRC, they had to redo much of the animation for the first few X-Men episodes because they were so bad, and they were FIRED from Batman for their lack of quality.
Yeah, even as a kid, the lackluster visuals turned me away from season three (numerous AKOM episodes were released to VHS over here in the UK) - As I say in the video, the stories for that season are some of the best - And so, as the years have passed by, I've learned to appreciate them more! :)
On X-Men, they actually managed to find a studio even worse than AKOM. Haim Saban tried to save a few pennies by outsources a few episodes to a studio in the Philippines. They botched it so badly that the episodes had to be completely reanimated from scratch. The second version didn't really look that much better, and both versions aired. The version you got depended on what part of the world you lived in. One of the episodes was "No Mutant is an Island", which was supposed to air during the period of time after Jean Grey was thought to be dead and when she came back as Phoenix. But it ended up airing years later. Penny wise, pound foolish.
Will Meuginot actually went to Japan and worked out a deal with Sunrise to to take over animation of X-Men for a slightly higher fee than AKOM, but Saban refused to pay any more for the animation and Sunrise never animated the show. (This was detailed in the book, "Previously, on X-MEN".)
If you watch the special openings for Five Faces of Darkness, you can see what Akom was capable of. They look way better than the episodes. Maybe not as good as Toeis episodes, but they were better than what they did
As I showcase with that close-up of Blurr...they knew how to create good-looking visuals...I guess that maybe time was always against them...or something! :)
@@cerealgeekTV time and money😄
That green Shockwave reminds of Shattered Glass Shockwave. Just looks so wrong. i dont mind seeing new colored seekers, theres supposed to be a plethora of them. But green Shockwaves, I hope becomes canon, as New Decepticon Drones fielded by Shockwave. I mean he had millions of years safeguarding cybertron as Prime and Megatron were in stasis lock on earth for so long.
And let us never forget that Shockwave had a little miniature version of himself!, too! :)
@@cerealgeekTV true. I believe that's his kink. (cyberverse) though Prime Shockwave would be disgusted and repulsed by it and would rather dissect Cyberverse Shockwave as well as Metrosexually Coward G1 and Spy Changer anatomy of Animated.
Another tale from the 80s
It's what I live for! :) - Well, I do live for other things, too...
@@cerealgeekTV Hm
This is what I’m totally in to great video
Thank you! :) - Please check out my Transformers playlist to see more deep-dive videos, as well as original voice recording sessions - ua-cam.com/video/d2oCWugPYR0/v-deo.html
Season 3 was such a mix bag. There was some good stuff in there but more than enough blandness. But the episode Call of the Primitives was some of most stellar animation of the entire series. It’s the one that has the anime flair.
"Call of the Primitives" is SUCH a wonderful oddity - If you haven't seen my deep-dive video on it...check it out on this channel's Transformers playlist! :)
If only that team could've done the whole season from the start.
The few episodes Toei made post-movie all look quite good, like Dweller in the Depths had some fantastic shading. Some other good ones are The Burden Hardest To Bear, Chaos, Fight or Flee, The Ultimate Weapon, ans Money is Everything. They don't go so off model as CotP did, but feature great action, effects work, and shading.
Did you mean Bad Akom-edy?
Although Galvatron's line was in the back of my mind the video was originally titled A-KOM-edy...as in "a comedy", like a comedy of errors...I just thought those not familiar with AKOM would be somewhat confused! :)
As a kid I remember seeing this episode after having watched and loved the movie, and being incredibly confused as to why the animation was so awful in comparison!
Yeah, to go from the movie to THIS...it's a shock to the system! :)
Same here! At 10 I was so shocked and disappointed.
I wish there was some project to fix all these because the things shown in the Season 3 and 4 episodes do seem promising
Often, it's the fans that put in the work for these specific types of fixes to happen...maybe one day! :)
Is your opening sequence long enough? Pad it even more, already.
I don't know, Denny...that could possibly be overkill and maybe the work of a mad man - But I'll take your suggestion on board and see abut padding it out..."already"! :)
JAMES!!! I have a 9-part 3.5 hour retrospective on "The Return of Optimus Prime" on my channel... including "Dark Awakening", which was animated by AKOM. (as well as a re-cap of "Five Faces of Darkness"). I tried to edit around the animation mistakes by sneaking in shots from the Japanese "Headmasters" cartoon, plus some Original Artwork by my brother.... but I'd love for you to check it out sometime, please! 😁
Great video on AKOM! I loved your one on the amazing "Call of the Primitives" as well!!! Keep up the amazing job as always!!!
Oh, man...I'm DEFINITELY going to check out your videos...because those are some wonderfully crazy deep (and creative) dives you're going on! :)
That's just mini Bruticus. Motormaster watched too much Austin Powers and he demanded a tiny version of Bruticus be made. I thought you were the expert. You should know that.
You know, I'm willing to go with that as 100% canon! :)
Seeing that scene again it reminded me of the Action Master Transformer toys, where Devastator and Bumblebee were the same size and their proportions are not quite right.
@@KasumiKenshirou - Action Masters...SUCH a bizarre idea...
Summary: Akom sux.
At the time, they weren't the best...they got better! :)
I remember getting the Transformers season 3 DVD boxset and sitting down to watch The Five Faces Of Darkness.
As soon as I started to watch it I could see just how poor the animation was. Wasn't at all up to the same standard as previous seasons.
Then the one that really stuck with me and you did mention it James. Was the creation of Megatron and the presents of the Constructorcons. So I said to myself they have a third origin now.
So there is the one. Where they are from Cybertron and had been friends with Omega Supreme. Before Megatron had turned them to evil. Or the one stated during the video. Where the orgin is earth based.
So wow what a video totally fascinating.
Glad you enjoyed the video...and yes, you're right, the Constructicons have some crazy differing origin stories! :)
Maybe there were many constructions, ones that knew omega, and upgraded, not built, megatron. 6 were taken offline, and megatron rebuilt them on earth with earth modes. I believe starscream used sparks stored on cybertron and brought them to earth to make Bruticus. (Excuse me If I'm remembering wrong). My explanation sort of works...lol
Coronation, Starscream? This is bad A-Komedy! (yeah yeah i know, they probably didn't do any TFTM scenes but some of that coronation stuff looked like at least Toei's Z team if not AKOM lol)
Huh??? Thats scene had some of the most detailed anime proportioned Kanada-style animation of the movie! Starscream and co all had awesome linework, dynamic shading and little mechanical details like panel lines, joints, wires etc on close ups. A huge far cry from AKOM, and Toei's Z-team? Toei literally brought their A-team of veteran animators like Shigeo Matoba, Toshio Mori, and Koichi Tsunoda along with many Sunrise animators and upcoming talents like Satoshi Urushihara.
@@KazuyaMithra I do not like how Starscream was designed in those scenes. Particularly the weird face/neck, squared off fingers rather than rounded ones, and AKOM-ish lips plus weird proportions (when he's bending down with a clenched fist). It was a jarring departure from his design in the earlier part of the movie. Ramjet in those scenes looked 'off' to me too. But yeah, the _animation_ (and shading) and line work etc was fine.
@@shebakoby The proportions were different, but we're definitely not AKOM-esque (ie badly drawn), if you look up Jun Arai's art you'd see the same style. His face and lips resemble Dancougar, where the upper lip is shaded in close ups and the lower lip is a line which AKOM never did. Look at stills from ZZ Gundam or Machine Robo, that's they style the artist of that was going for. Very muscular, wide shoulders, thin waist, long legs, etc. It's definitely intentional because he looks more imposing and authoritative in that sequence. That way of drawing robots is still done by studios like Trigger.
@@KazuyaMithra ah i see, my brain goes to a specific place when i see those fully-surrounded lips and squared fingers. IDK Dancougar so I didn't know about that but the fully surrounded lips on TFs (or humans for that matter) has always been a pet peeve of mine.
Still have a problem with SS's design there but maybe some day I'll get over it lol.
@@shebakoby It's not a style for everyone, it's the Yoshinori Kanada influence that became popular in 80s anime. Another place you see it is in Studio OX artwork, where people less familiar with the style of the era often make fun of the proportions and crazy poses. You see those same lips, poses, and square pointy fingers.
It was the 80s man. Nothing had to make sense
You MAY have a point...:)
It was AKOM, wasn't it, that had Sideswipe stood beside Megatron in the 'con base in s2? "Day two of infiltrating the Decepticon Base. Megatron still thinks I'm Soundwave".
No, that was by a studio that is yet to be identified. (If Optimus' backpack ain't white, then it ain't Akom)
@@Grim2 ah i see.
I've clearly removed that image from my brain - I can't recall that! :)
@@cerealgeekTV the episode was "the Secret of Omega Supreme"
Even if Five Faces of Darkness had amazing animation, it still wouldn't have saved it. Take Call of the Primitives, for example; a fantastic episode to look at, but a truly awful story. I hate the idea that Unicron or the Transformers were simply built by another alien race. It really diminishes them, and makes them seem like mere robots rather than true life forms. I much prefer the comic book origin story for them.
Whilst I love Furman's work (heck, I grew up with those weekly comics) I kind of checked out with his origin for the Transformers themselves - But hey, I get the appeal...and each to their own! :)
Seekers with the colors of onslaught look weird
No doubt weird...but I kind of like it! :)
I give Five faces a pass its just so fun but Carnage in C Minor is the absolute worse animated ep
Oh, yeah - I mean, dating all the way back to the old Transformers newsgroups people were "celebrating" the awfulness of that episode! :)
@@cerealgeekTV I was there at A.T.T I go that far back I still got old printouts from there
@@tec5x5 - That's awesome - I remember names like rockman666, Steve-o Stonebraker...I think they may have bought UK VHS tapes from me...or UK comics - But yeah, back then the Internet was like a library, and so, like you, I would print SO much material out! :) - I won't lie, I do miss those simpler days...
@@cerealgeekTV other names..Urac "Ratbat" Sigma, Wonko.. wheres that damn time machine take me back
@@tec5x5 - WONKO...I remember that name! :)
Borderline Hanna Barabara style
Thankfully, as the years went by, both AKOM and Hanna-Barbera improved greatly! :)
@@cerealgeekTV Hell, ironically at this time Hanna-Barbera began eyeing Japan... :D (if I'm not mistaken, their Ultraman pilot movie is the first colab with Japan)
@@Grim2 - Nah, I think Tokyo Movie Shinsha worked on Rubik, the Amazing Cube...:)
@@cerealgeekTV I don't think Ruby-Spears ever used TMS, And the show looks like much of their output during that period like Mr. T. and Turbo Teen.
Not saying they used Hanho like those shows, but it definitely feels Korean.
@@Newsystuffs - Oh no, I was just messing with @Grim2...the idea of the legendary Tokyo Movie Shinsha working on Rubik, the Amazing Cube tickled me...:)
I Call it TMNT style drawing
Obviously not the earlier seasons which featured Toei-Doga's Japanese handiwork! :)
This is pointless. And, you guys can give Season 3 all the storytelling praise you want, but in reality it had no heart. Without the familiar faces to help it along, it was a futile attempt.
You won't find me disagreeing here - Whilst I believe the stories were better, those characters that we had all come to know and love for the first two seasons were the very HEART of the show - Without them, season three feels like a show full of unknowns...
It's just a cartoon so why are you being so damned nitt-picky? As long as you were entertained it did what it was supposed to besides sell toys!
Why are you so annoyed, Rollin?! :) - Like many fans of these properties I like to look at those talents who were involved in production, the writers, the artists, the studios - Other videos on my channel celebrate studios that worked on The Transformers - Also, as this has been my career over the last two decades, why would I stop now?! :)
So, being nitpicky is bad, cuz of negativity I suppose... but going along with the "it's a toy commercial" mindset is being positive?!
Maybe I'm going senile, but we cared about STORY and CHARACTERS. We weren't going "Golly gee whiz, I wonder which toys will be advertised in this ep"... And with that care comes nitpickiness, cuz we wanted this stuff to be GOOD.
If you only see it as a toy commercial, why are you watching a UA-cam video about a specific animation studio that animated episodes of the toy commercial, and then complaining about the criticisms of the toy commercial animation studio?
Also it's "nitpicky" or the less common variant, "nit-picky". They hyphen is optional, but there's only ever a single "t".
Thanks, John! :)
@@cerealgeekTV your welcome bro.
Thanks for the love! :)