Animated Popularity

[Jinto]

I had never seen Transformers Animated until very recently, I just hadn't been interested and I never bought a single figurine. I was doing a little browsing and there doesn't seem to be a very big market for second hand figures around.
Are the figures extremely popular and therefore not for sale so much? Or were they not produced as much as other lines?
Having almost no knowledge of TF Animated I'm curious.

*Begins episode 3...*

[GoktimusPrime]

It's a relatively recent line, so I imagine it shouldn't be too hard to find sealed figures at regular retail prices. There might still be some stores with Animated toys still shelfwarming now.

But I'd say that the line is too recent for a significant aftermarket demand for second hand loose toys. Besides, always better to buy toys current and mint! (often cheaper than waiting years later too )

[liegeprime]

The thing is, Animated came out kinda like a "filler" line to tide the shelves by of retailers so that Tf wont appear to have disappeared while Hasbro is cooking up for their Movie line toys... it may not be like Generations/RtS which is "purely filler line" since Hasbro deemed to have a cartoon show for it, even media and franchise products with the Animated designs but nonetheless its a "in the mean time" line which actually has gained a good following and has in some cases lost some fans ( not all people will like the Powerpuff look of animation and toys - I like it very much though).

So, having that in mind. In it's recent heyday when it was the line being the prime thrusted toyline of Hasbro there was flood of toys, but, with the emergence of the movie, most of the toys vanished and was pulled off the shelves with only a few figures shelfwarming here and there in some obscure store space, then the 3rd Tf movie came out and everything just got phased out to make way for these ugly, smallbots. So, your best bet to get them would be online stores, and toy stores who keep/sell old stock. As recent a line as it may be, once the Tf movie stuff was out, this was old news and as such regarded as much as a "filler" line

[kristofferrer]

Good to see you take interest. Initially, i wasn't too keen on the series. They art looked a bit ... weird. After watching the first 3 episodes however i was hooked and i slowly started to appreciate the overall engineering of the toy. The toys were accurate representations (in both forms) of the series.

The toys didn't appear very popular but there are a gems circulating in some retail stores. For second hand, I'd buy from toy fairs, and from the forum. For brand new, id resort to robot kingdom and Ebay for the hard to find items. The best bit about the animated series is that the Hasbro releases of the toys are actually very good! The toys are relatively cheaper as well.

IF you're trying to kick start a collection, I have a megatron (leader class) i'm selling (pm me if interested).

[5FDP]

I love the Animated series and it's second to only G1 IMO. Unfortunately it ended before it's time.

If you do decide to start collecting the toys, I guarantee that you won't regret it.

[GoktimusPrime]

Good to see you take interest. Initially, i wasn't too keen on the series. They art looked a bit ... weird.

The artwork is unorthodox, and whenever Transformers takes on an unorthodox aesthetic, there are portions of the fandom who can't accept it.

Transformers traditionally bases its aesthetics on Japanese mecha (which indeed is its origins - Diaclone, Macross, Dorvack etc.) which is often rich with detail. Animated uses the more contemporary "Cartoon Network" style which is all the rage in American cartoons now (e.g. DC, Powerpuff Girls, Clone Wars, Ben 10 etc.) -- and it's a style that is intentionally very simplistic. I'm personally not a fan of this style of cartoon, but if the story's good I can overlook it. And technically there's nothing wrong with this style, it's purely a matter of personal taste.

After watching the first 3 episodes however i was hooked

I was the complete opposite. I didn't like the first 3 eps. In fact, I don't like Season 1 in general... too childish and lacking in story-telling sophistication for my tastes. But the final eps of Season 1 (Megatron Rising) were the first that really peaked my interest. The human villains are just teh suck. Season 2 -- there were eps that I absolutely loved, and others that I hated (SUV = collective suckage). Season 3 on the other hand was just pure win... it's the only season that I consistently liked. Then it got cancelled!! And of course, I'm still waiting for Season 3 to come out on DVD!

So yeah, I started disliking the show, then came to like it. But even now I'll more often re-watch episodes from Season 3 and select Season 2 eps, but I hardly ever re-watch Season 1. I want Season 3 DVDs!!!

and i slowly started to appreciate the overall engineering of the toy. The toys were accurate representations (in both forms) of the series.

Well that would be because the toys were engineered in tandem with the cartoon. i.e. Hasbro would make character designs which would be given to both the animators and toy designers at TakaraTOMY - so both the animators and the toy designers were basing their designs off common concept sketches from Hasbro.

This is an unusual way for Transformers to be developed; usually Transformers are created as toys first, then later on artists will design comic book or cartoon models based on those existing toys. So generally speaking whenever you see a visual discrepancy between a Transformer toy and cartoon, it's not the toy that's show-inaccurate, but the cartoon that's toy-inaccurate!

Now there are pros and cons to designing Transformer toys in tandem with animators (or even based on animation models, as is the case with many movie toys). The advantage is of course that the toys do look more like what you see on screen. The disadvantage can be in the engineering, because toy designers are suddenly restricted by having to design a Transformer toy and "forcing" it to look like something that a cartoonist has envisaged. And it's a LOT easier for a cartoonist to design a Transformer than it is for a toy designer... griffin recently described Hasbro's concept sketches and TakaraTOMY's design sketches as comparing a child's crayon drawings with a Picasso. Because cartoonists don't have to worry about things like:
+ Reality - where do all these parts go in robot mode? How do they get there?
+ Cost - all toys must adhere to a controlled budget and conform to a size and price point
+ Play issues - is it intuitive for a certain part to move this way? Would it require a tiny part that is easily broken and present a choking hazard? (e.g. Masterpiece TFs; which is why they're marketed at mature collectors in Japan). If Hasbro wants TakaraTOMY to engineer a gimmick into the toy, then further compromises must be made as well.

I'm personally not a huge fan of Transformers being designed as cartoon models first and toys second, I much rather prefer them being freely designed as toys first then let the artists worry about how to design them as cool looking animation models. Nowadays animators are able to do three dimensional scans and use those 3D renders to build animation models. This is what Mainframe did with Beast Wars -- Hasbro sent them toys, they scanned them and built their show models based on those scans. And it also shows that the animators played with the toys that Hasbro sent them too! This is particularly evident in Transmetal Optimus Primal's "assault" robot mode -- it's NOT an official part of that toy's transformation; there's nothing on the packaging or in the instructions that elude to this, but the toy can transform that way! It's like a fan-mode that the animators made up and incorporated into the cartoon!!

I don't know about you, but I remember after watching "Aftermath," the first thing I did was grab my Transmetal Optimus Prime toy and transform him into that assault mode!

The toys didn't appear very popular but there are a gems circulating in some retail stores. For second hand, I'd buy from toy fairs, and from the forum. For brand new, id resort to robot kingdom and Ebay for the hard to find items. The best bit about the animated series is that the Hasbro releases of the toys are actually very good! The toys are relatively cheaper as well.

You can still find some Animated toys shelf-warming in stores today. Just last Sunday I found an Animated Skywarp at Myer. About week or so before that I found Wreck Gar, Shockwave, Atomic Nut Convoy and some others.

And yeah, collector fairs should have them at fairly cheap prices... don't pay above standard retail prices for these toys, because they are still pretty recent. Also, the Leader Class toys where shelf-warming so bad, didn't TRU slash their prices down to something really REALLY cheap? I don't remember the exact price, but I remember seeing and thinking "Damn! I bought those toys at full retail!" and wished that I'd waited for that sale. Ah well. And even on sale they still took a long time to sell off.

Unfortunately it ended before it's time.

+1. They axed it just as it was getting really really good! The same thing happened with the G1 Marvel Comics! And Beast Wars! I really wish Hasbro would stop doing that!

[liegeprime]

I don't know about you, but I remember after watching "Aftermath," the first thing I did was grab my Transmetal Optimus Prime toy and transform him into that assault mode!

.........


+1. They axed it just as it was getting really really good! The same thing happened with the G1 Marvel Comics! And Beast Wars! I really wish Hasbro would stop doing that!

Well, I didnt have ( still dont have) the toy so after watching ... I did nothing heheheheh

Yeah I hate the way Hasbro axes out the series and it just dissapears from their books, sigh. Animated still has soooo much potential as shown by the tons of info in those Almanacs released.

[bowspearer]

I tend to agree with the others here that the line was hit and miss in its appeal. Some love the style of the figures, while others like me, were never really hooked on them. That's not to say they're badly designed toys though- Shockwave for example, has a highly complex transformation scheme. It literally with these guys comes down to personal taste.

Likewise with the show- it wasn't one of my favorites (then again, I love Beast Machines as a series and I'm in a tiny minority on that one), but I didn't hate it either and actually quite enjoyed it.

It's one of those series where you can say "to each their own", not be that hooked on the toys and still think the person collecting it has good taste in their choice of TF poison.

Who knows, throw nostalgia into the mix and 20 years from now it could be a cult hit. Time will tell...

[UltraMarginal]

It seems to be a common theme, that I fit into, initially not really being fussed with animated at all. The style of the art in particular. As for the toys, I was collecting other transformers and didn't want to branch too far down the animated line at the time for fear of not being able to afford the "entire set"

Then I got talked into Botcon 2011, watched all 3 seasons, got totally hooked, I have both almanacs and you can tell by the acquisitions link in my sig that I have gone fairly nuts getting hold of figures that I don't have.

As for getting hold of figures:

I was lucky in that I started really collecting them as they were heading to the clearance bin in a lot of places so I picked a lot up there.

for the remaining few I'm after I'm keeping my eyes open on the boards here and eBay. most of the online stores BBTS, RobotKingdom etc are generally out of the harder to get stock.
it will be cheaper at the moment to collect the Japanese version of a lot of the figures from eBay though the japanese versions are shinier, which a lot of people don't like due to the show being more of a matte finish like the US/Aus release of the toys.

Some items like samurai prowl and electrostatic soundwave and activators cliffjumper are particularly hard to come by and their aftermarket price for MISB is very high compared to original retail.

we may perhaps be able to co-operate on a larger purchase and split it is the opportunity arrises, I'll keep my eyes out and keep you in mind.

[Jinto]

+1. They axed it just as it was getting really really good! The same thing happened with the G1 Marvel Comics! And Beast Wars! I really wish Hasbro would stop doing that!

I agree. I feel that frustration with a lot of shows in and out of the TF fandom. Poor Stargate Universe. :P

Everybody pretend not to notice Transformers Prime and maybe it'll stay around for a few extra years