[Kiwami]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Annuga

Anything I should watch to see if I like the franchise?

That's difficult considering even though it's a franchise every iteration is completely different.

From the standpoint of what is the single best thing ever, it's Beast Wars. It has the best characters and the best stories to tell. But the animation - it's not pretty to look at anymore, there's no way to sugarcoat this. Whereas the old cartoons still retain a certain charm Beast Wars is just butt ugly these days. Not that there isn't a certain style to behold, but it's still very much outdated. Still worth watching though, it's still the best thing Transformers no matter how bad it looks.

If you like campy 80's cartoons then the original series might be for you, however, I think that one is too boring to watch in its entirety, the campiness wears off very quickly. If you want to watch G1 I'd say take a look at the Top 10 best episodes someone put together and give those a try.

The original movie might be worth watching, it's pretty good. It's very 80's though, cheap one-liners, hair metal in the background and random dancing. Plus, they tried to introduce a lot of new characters in this one, while making sure to get rid of the old ones at the same time. It's a bit jarring in certain scenes, to say the least.

If you like old-school anime then you could check out the Japanese exclusive shows which followed up G1, they are called "The Headmasters", "Super God Masterforce" and "Victory". Headmasters and Victory are rather generic, Masterforce breaks away from the formula a bit more. I watch a few episode of these three from time to time but like G1 they wear off rather quickly and then I'm just too bored to continue.

I'm not a huge fan of Car Robots / RiD, I just think it's lame. It's your cookie cut out early 2000 anime and nothing else. Same goes for the entire Unicron Trilogy, I never cared for those.

Animated might be worth watching if you like newer cartoons, it's got heart, isn't stupid and a lot of fun. I haven't watched all of it but I plan to, the episodes I saw were really good.

I have watched the all of Transformers Prime and I thought it was okay. Some things I really like about it, especially how it modernized G1 and tried to make a new continuity around it, but it's not for everyone. I do think it's the best Transformers show we've gotten recently, the new Robots in Disguise is just a plain and mostly boring cartoon for kids.

So my advise: Check out a few episodes of each. Beast Wars is the only show I can recommend in its entirety. Season 1 can be a bit of a slog but Seasons 2 and 3 are on fire. Some of those episodes won awards and for good reasons.