Better toyatic cartoons: North American or Japan

[??????o??]

Teen appeal characters?

[OneOfAKind<3]

What upgrades? The only upgrades I saw happened in the final season. Animated also had the terrible practice of introducing a character then dropping him off the face of the Earth until they came back for their next episode. Soundwave, for example. Why bother buying his toy if he pops up in one episode? He pops up after two seasons near the end, but that's still weak writing. Sari was a plot device more or less, and didn't do anything worthwild until the final season. I think the main problem with Animated was that nothing realy mattered until the third season. They started doing upgrades (like for Prowl and Sari), kept the characters around, and other stuff. But before the final season, they didn't. If the kids in Unicron Trilogy were teen fufillment, then I'll argue Sari was kid fufillment. Especially during the first two seasons. I think a better example to use would be Beast Wars. No (fully developed) humans, permenate upgrades throughout the series, death that drives the character development and story in addition to making room to sell new toys. Beast Wars mashed selling toys and story wonderfully, and is probably the best toy commercial I've seen. Though that being said, Beast Wars is the only good American one I've seen, the rest are in the vein of He-man and Chaotic, and My Little Ponies. Japan just has more to pick from in the end.

[sade80]

Whoa there. You basically listed ALL the GOOD NA toyetic shows to air recently so I don't see it as any "vaster" than your list of DB, OP and Naruto. And people forget that mecha anime Gundam is still pretty toyetic, and tons of people watch those.

Quite frankly, I think toyetic shows suck these days, doesn't matter which side of the world you're coming from. I can barely watch Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon without falling asleep these days. And I need sedatives to get me through another of today's oversaturated selection of superhero cartoons. People here tell me how great Spectacular Spider-Man is, and maybe they do have a great creative staff. But all I see is the same old cliches recycled over and over, except taken more seriously (which basically means LESS FUN) I guess to fans there's some difference in quality between shows, but for me I don't get ANYTHING out of these toyetic shows today, with the exception of maybe One Piece. They're either unfunny when trying to be or take themselves way too seriously. At least the 80s had that campy earnestness lacking in today's toyetic cartoons.

[a€??Maca€??]

lol I'd have to second you on that. To this day, both of those series are the largest and fondest collections of merchandise/figures I own. (And still actively collect. And watch...)



I also have to agree with that one. I used to enjoy the kids "BUY THE TOYS!" kind of animes of years past because they were pretty good and did stuff other than simply advertise cards and junk. They made me want to go out and buy things. These days I can't really stand much of the anime they play on places like 4Kids and CN today. (Ugh. Sorry, I know there seems to be several persons who do enjoy those kinds of things here. I'm not saying anything bad.) I just don't enjoy those types of shows. And there seems to be 'minic' type shows selling cards/monsters made by the US now. Ugh.

I think the old US 80s cartoons were pretty good at selling toys, yet the toylines were kind of shabby in some of them. Not all. I had a zillion TMNT toys as a kid, and Batman, and I don't even remember what else cartoon related.

I'm still not sure if you mean better at by simply selling stuff or having a decent show as well...but if it's selling merchandise, I must go out and say Japan. Simply because they actually aim their animations at larger ranges of audiences than the US does. Remember, there are shows in Japan that sell model kits, figurines, ect. to people other than children. So that's whole bunch of product movement right there. Some of those more teen-to-adult figure/whatever aimed shows are even kind of annoying, though.

Arg, the quality. It comes and goes...

[Lauren*]

This is strictly about the quality of the shows, not who does a better job of selling merchandise.

[Gemini chic]

You may have a point but some people like Clone Wars and Alien Force too and some others.

Japan certainly has plenty of mecha that sell toys but that doesn't mean they're good. This was merely my opinion afterall. I guess I haven't really looked into Gundam 00... though I suppose in the same sense Gurren Lagann is toyetic and if that's the case then Japan wins cause well... it's Gurren Lagann.

Though in all seriousness it's my opinion that North America has better toyetic cartoons at the moment but that could easily change especially since those good cartoons are not all that easy to see and certainly not all in the same place.

[Boy Puddles]

Gundam 00 makes me buy many toys and models because the story and characters are just...that.....AWESOME!!

[NoSurprises]

Considering the ammount of merchandising that goes on in Japan one could argue that any show from there is 'toyetic' to an extant XD eventually they'll just win out of the law of average. More swings means chance to pull a homerun ya know.