Kids are used too watcing every epasode to gety a full story, moast animies are like that.

Well, let’s look at those popular “kiddy� animeis; take the three shows that have been mentioned so far (Yu-gi-oh, Poke’mon, and Power Rangers) for example. Sure, they all have an overall story arc, but each episode has it’s own coherent story as well. They all begin and end every half hour (or more depending on whether it’s a two or three part episode). In Yu-gi-oh, the newest big bad-guy shows up, challenges Yu-gi to a magic card game almost defeats him and looses against Yu-gi’s very last card, or something like that (I’ve only seen like 2 ½ episodes). In Poke’mon, (or at least back when I still watched it) Ash was always trying to make it to the world championship match and in every episode Team Rocket always did something stupid to try and steal his Poke’mon. In PR (though technically it’s Super Sentai, not animei) same thing, overall they’re trying to save the world by destroying the big bad guy, but in every episode, they fight a new monster nearly defeat it the “boss� revives it and makes it grow large, then the kill it with the zords.

 

With all of those example a child can watch a single episode (unless they come in at the middle of a multi-parter) and be entertained and know exactly what’s going on. They COULD watch every episode and get the even bigger picture, but they don’t have to. They can come in half-way through the season, be entertained in one half hour, and say, “this show rocks� then watch the rest of the season, and beg their parents to buy the toys and DVDs so they can see the begging of the show.

 

With the new Transformer shows, you can’t do that. I know I tried with Energon. Only after a week I tried watching an episode and said WTF is going on, and never watched another episode.

 

Now, if you look at the other animeis that are more of a continuous story like DBZ, Cowboy Beebop and the like; you see that they are not marketed for children, their aim is at teenagers and young adults with more of a “collector� run toy line. They have a good plot, with good writing, good translation, and good voice acting. And Energon’s story might have been good, but the average ep-to-ep content was far too stupid to capture the attention of anyone in that age group who aren’t already Transfans.

 

It’s like they’re tying to go half way and get bot markets, in which case, they get neither.

Your point is very well done and I agree with it.

 

Episodic shows really make the overall appeal of a series better. Sure certain elements and events can be broad across a few episodes, like in the new TMNT or what was done for Beast Wars. But overall most of the episodes are single 30-min stories.

Sure there is an overall story arc going on in the past 3-4-5-Whatever episodes, but if they aren't Multi-Part episodes then the single episodes can be viewed easily with no problems.

 

*Shrugs* I see very little kids in my toy aisle buying TF's...most kids are buying Spider-Man, TMNT, Yu-Gi-Oh, or Pokemon. And I have never seen a kid buy GI Joes or Star Wars...it's always been Young to Middle-Aged Adults buying them.

i am 17 and live in the uk. i live in one of the medium citys in the west midlands and in my life i have met well over 20,000 people and not one of them like transformers. i have collected them all my life and its practicallly all i buy and its stuck with me as a kind of nastalga of my childhood and watching the story develop. i think the biggest problem why kids dont like transformers is what i keep coming back to in all topics is our increasingly dumbing down world where this sort of violence as its seen about war is trying to bread out of kids and wrapping them in a security blanket and not letting them see what the real worlds like and so all they are exposed to is tweenies and other corprate money spinning material just to sell merchandise trying to make everyone in to pleasent,happy,obediant,church going zombies an so because of all this corprate brain washing transformers are scarser over here in the uk and if it wasent for my family over here i would be in america so fast as i cant take anymore dumbing down as its making GB into a hell hole by not getting me my transformers making me pay over the price on eBAY.

If you think Great britain is being dumbed down, you haven't seen anything yet. Wait 'till you get to the USA>

 

Conservatives are against violent cartoons and toys because "It teaches violence! And D&D makes you Satanic!"

 

Liberals are against violent cartoons and toys because "Violence is bad, m'kay? And animals are people too!"

 

Good GAWD< I can't wait for a "Common Sense" political party to cut the extremists outta the action... Good ol' moderates, the silent minority...

id have to say form recent experience, the real reason kids dotn really buy Tfs is because... distribution sux. harbo ships like 3 different firgures, abotu 20 at time , the kid gets all three, then he has no more to get and after seeing the same ones forever they just give up... just like me a few weeks ago. freaking Toys r us had a wall of absolutely nothing but offshoot and e. strongarm

Your point is very well done and I agree with it.

 

Episodic shows really make the overall appeal of a series better. Sure certain elements and events can be broad across a few episodes, like in the new TMNT or what was done for Beast Wars. But overall most of the episodes are single 30-min stories.

Sure there is an overall story arc going on in the past 3-4-5-Whatever episodes, but if they aren't Multi-Part episodes then the single episodes can be viewed easily with no problems.

 

*Shrugs* I see very little kids in my toy aisle buying TF's...most kids are buying Spider-Man, TMNT, Yu-Gi-Oh, or Pokemon. And I have never seen a kid buy GI Joes or Star Wars...it's always been Young to Middle-Aged Adults buying them.

That is a very valid point.

Even in Armada and Robots in Disguise, you had a general "theme story" going through the show, but a majority of episodes could be watched in any order and you could still enjoy them.

Energon tried to do the big story, but (at least in the dub) weak writing, awkward animation and the slow pace of the story really turned people off.

 

Galaxy Force seems to be correcting this issue, while we have the big "Save Cybertron" story, from what I've seen, each episode can stand on its own without one being overtly familiar with the preceeding events, unlike in Energon where if you miss a couple episodes, you are lost.

 

And Hornet, WHERE did you pull that drivel from? Takara DOES market a lot more to collectors than Hasbro, but the cartoon (and associated toyline) is designed and written for kids.

The shows have been written for kids, but Japanese kids, and therefore there IS a cultural gap.

god i hope kids still like transformers, lets face it has/tak would never support a line for adults, even if everyone on this board bought from the line, it just wouldnt be enough, no tv station would buy the show, and marketing would die within days (the only place i have seen commercials for energon is YTV and teletoon).

I've seen kids telling their parents many a time to buy them TFs at TRU. I've even heard them say "Look Transformers!" and stuff like that. At least there are some kids that like em still.

Agreed. I just saw a little boy today at Target holding a E-Skorpinok and telling his mom he wanted it. She told him lets check the price first. :tflaugh Anyways, I still see kids looking at the toys but I rarely see them buying it and likewise for the parents. The only people I see buying them are teens or older.

:pfx

id have to say form recent experience, the real reason kids dotn really buy Tfs is because... distribution sux. harbo ships like 3 different firgures, abotu 20 at time , the kid gets all three, then he has no more to get and after seeing the same ones forever they just give up... just like me a few weeks ago. freaking Toys r us had a wall of absolutely nothing but offshoot and e. strongarm

:pfx Distribution may not be that bad in The States but here in Canada it sucks. Searched for TF's today in Winnipeg and only now repaints are showing up. Energon Hound, Dreadwing, Landquake etc. As for deluxes Roadblock, Highwire/Kicker and several of the Combiner bodys limbs, however the repaint limbs are nonexistant as are any of the combaticon limbs. This is really frustrating especially for a kid who keeps returning to the local Walmart to only find restocks of the second/third wave of Energon. On the retail front of this issue you'd think respectively speaking Walmart would know how to keep up with the newest releases and in time relize nobodys interested anymore in buying Ironhide, Jetfire, Downshift, and Snowcat. Anybody who collects TF's already owns these and in no sense interested in buying the same toy again. Hell I bought my Energon Demolisher and Snowcat nearing the end of last Summer and yet I'm still seeing these on shelves collecting dust. The worst part of it is when the already outdated releases don't sell (for obvious reasons) :roll the retailer cuts back on supply. So rather than bringing in new releases which in all common sense should sell they instead restock the shelves with Power Rangers and Yugioh crap. This weekend I've been from one corner of Southern Manitoba to the other and most of the Walmarts and TRUs have done just that.

It may be the cartoon turning younger viewers away from the toys but for us adult collectors it's the distribution that's screwing us over. :tdown

I really can't stand the amount of inaction present in Energon. Did you ever see that episode of Futurama where Bender(hes a robot if you haven't heard of Futurama) adopts like 12 kids, and at one point a kid says "Yay! Our daddy's a giant toy!"? Well right there is the thing: the character's appearances and actions sell a lot of toys. In Energon there is a lot of standing around and talking, and when someone does decide to move their @$$ its usually just to run to another room to shout in someone's face "I want to go with you"(Ironhide?), or "no you can't do that 'cause I said so"(Kicker). Then Megatron walks around talking to himself; "where am I supposed to go", "where do I go now Alpha-Q", "I'm here for a reason what is it?". Boring. Action figures need to be active figures(and they need to interact with one another the way that the toys are designed: i.e. a guy with cannons on his shoulders shouldn't stand around for 30mins). I know that someone mentioned that they kill hundreds of terrorcons per episode, and thats all fine and good- but what about action? Two missiles and a laser bolt= screen full of generic enemies is gone. Now lets talk about it Optimus. Please draw it out as long as you can without any silly plot points or even music to interrupt it. When I was a kid I know that I wanted to see short(the time table doesn't need to have any impact on the complexity), action packed programs. Something that could be broken down into a simple brawl between my Autobots and Decepticons, while still rationalizing the need for these toys that cost more than G.I. Joes or hot wheels. As Prime: 'Sure lets go to Cybertron to stop Megatron from reaching Vector Sigma. Oh no, its Devastator! Cliffjumper, Bumblebee, Sideswipe distract him! Grimlock help me knock that tower(stack of blocks or a cardboard box) onto him!'. That is what my toy experiences were like in the '80's. With Energon, I would've been like: 'this sucks I'm gonna go watch curling, atleast they won't shriek: "no Optimus" in a distinctly testosterone-free voice'.