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Description
There we are, second to last step in the chelonian exposure !

I would go on and on to introduce this series, but I already kind of did in my Mirage review.

TMNT 2003 is brilliant for its first 4 seasons ! It is up there with BTAS as one of the greatest comics distillation ever (even improving upon the source material!), it is as it stands THE cartoon to surpass (I'd sacrifice an entire forum of people to whatever malevolent deity there is if my favorite comics could get a similar treatment through animation !).

Of course, I fucking INSIST on first 4 seasons ! Say anything about whatever's next and I'll go Ch'rell on you !

PROS

+ Well I'd say, they've got one considerable budget to make this show look good ! (Yay for merchandising and royalties !) The animation seasons is among the best for a cartoon series. Plus, the looser censorship on TV by that point really helps.( You don't see many cartoon characters getting their legs broken or stabbed. Or do you remember the best on-screen decapitation ? Goes to Leo without hesitation !)

+ Unlike the 80's show, which was more of an episodic type, this one is clearly about story-arcs and sagas intersped with the occasional one-shot episodes (which do wonders to explore the characters individual traits !). And it helps that it started by adapting the Mirage arcs or (even better) EXPANDED upon those concepts, like any good adaptation would do !

+ As for the Turtles I'd say Leonardo and Donatello benefitted the MOST from this show. Granted, it could be attributed to this show's genre (mainly Sci-fi and feudal japan tales making the bulk of the most ambitious stories...). Well, for Leo they made him a nice amalgamation of Mirage & 80's aspects (mostly his rivalry with Raph and his willingness to kill when necessary from the former and the steadfastness and will to do the right thing from the latter). Now for Donnie, he's Peter Laird's favorite, so you know they won't fuck that up !

+ April is awesome as always ! (the way she dresses reminds me of another redhead I like a lot. Coincidence ?)

+ Splinter is as cool as ever. Funny how his feud againt the Shredder took galactic proportions as time went on ! Who would have predicted that ?!

+ Nice twist on the Rat King. I thought the 80's one was an improvement over the Mirage one, but this one NAILS the horror approach.

+ Good use of Mirage characters like Savanti Romero, Renet, Lord Simultaneous, The Triceratons and the sympathetic Leatherhead.

+ Improvement of the Purple Dragon Gang. While Hun is a bit stock, he still gets the job done as the regular heavy .

+ I love how the Utrom situation went to gigantic proportions, having the Turtles as the underdogs and unexpected allies in a war that's far bigger than them.

+ Nice of Miyamoto Usagi to drop by !

+ Now for the Shredder... Music Please www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qi_e8…
The whole Utrom twist is not that surprising in hindsight because, well... in Mirage, Shredder/Oroku Saki is more of a concept than an actual character.In fact , Peter Laird has this to say about Shred-head :

" In truth, though many TMNT fans who became fans via the first animated series see Shredder as a REALLY important part of an ongoing, long-running battle with the Turtles, I don't think Kevin or I ever did. Yes, he was an important part of their history, and they probably would not have come into existence without his involvement in their world (or more accurately Splinter's world)... but that's about it. Other than bringing Shredder back for "Return to New York" (and the few issues preceding that set that arc up), I never missed him in any of the other TMNT books I worked on. "

And as I stated, James Avery's Shredder was the first fucking time he ever got a full-blown PERSONALITY and nuances ! Ch'rell now, was actually a nice mixture of Mirage Shredder (though WITHOUT the sympathetic element) and Lord Dregg (especially for the whole Villain with a good publicity). No, his similarities with Krang are actually superficial. Krang is much more insidious and subtle while Ch'rell is Waaaaay more direct in his approach !
As for being One-dimensional, come now, the intent was never to see Shredder here as a character but more as a cruel and intelligent monster. Plus, while his motives are simple ( 1) making cash. Well he's a space pirate after all ! 2) Send the Utroms to fucking hell for not electing him... Or because they're annoying to him...), the escalation of his rage and the way his facets are presented are definitely well-executed !
At first , Oroku Saki was built up as this threatening guy who was in control of the Foot Clan, Purple Dragons, and was looking for the elimination of the Utroms and the guardians (and at this point , the show does not really tell !).
He was brutal and blood-thirsty, killing and maiming his subordinates (poor Baxter !), and everytime he wore the Shredder armor, you knew shit was going down. In Season 2, we discover that he's way older than we think, how he was leading the Foot and at the end we discover that he was an Utrom. Then in Season 3, we see his manipulative side (actually my favorite part) as Mr. Oroku Saki the business man. And "Exodus" is the best finale ever for the Utrom Shredder ! That was an excellent curtains fall for him !
So, Turtles Forever aside, Ch'rellder was an awesome monster and on par with Avery Shredder and Movie Shredder (my favorite I must say !).

+ Baxter Stockman. Holy shit ! The TMNT universe fucking HATES the guy ! Now, what happened to him last series ? He was turned into a fly and then sent into friggin' limbo.... alive and lonely....till his life span runs out...Damn.
And here, it's just as BAD ! For every littel mishap, he gets amputated piece by piece until he became a brain in a jar. Thankfully due to dedication, optimism and the patience of Job, he manages to create himself a new body... which rots away fairly quickly while he has flashbacks reminding him of his dead mother ! Of course, using Venom's school of thoughts, he decided to blame it on April.... Ouch ! That, my friends, is what I call an epic progression (or regression in this context)!

CONS

- The humor. The show writers did not always seem at ease when writing jokes and as such it often felt forced. And whoever came up with the quote "What The Shell ?" shall be skinned, dripped in honey and thrown on a fireant nest.

- Raphael is a watered down iteration of Mirage Raph and that works against him I fear, considering how the 80's and Movie Raphs were much more polyvalent in their approaches . It has to be said but Raph as the "loose cannon" and "GAH ! I am da rebel !" gets fucking old very fast. And as someone who's aware of the awesome Image Raphael, THIS 4.bp.blogspot.com/-Enp4UkJ3IbA… is a fucking tease to me !
To his credit though, the one-shots that focus on him are pretty good and round him better.

- The episode that introduced Casey felt like a huge missed opportunity. Casey is blandly introduced as a vigilante. Then he and Raph fight until they kinda just stop How the fuck do you make Casey Jones forgettable ! HOW ?! He's just that unremarkable compared to his predecessors !? In fact he feels watered down compared to the Humoristic 80's Casey ! Come on guys, isn't this show supposed to have LESS restraints ? And Casey was hands down the best character in Mirage ! How did they miss the mark, I really don't know ...

- Michelangelo FUCKING Suffers. In season 1 and 2 , He's fine; he still has some one-shots episodes where they can make him work. When they get serious with him, it's fine too (they should have done that a lot more !). But when they try to be humorous, ALL the bad jokes fall on Mikey's shoulders at the expense of his other traits like the sensitivity, the mellowness or the humbleness of 80's and Image Mikey or the optimism and great sense of humor of Movie Mikey, here this Mikey is cocky, boastful, hyper active, without the wit or eloquence to balance things out. Add to that the lack of focus and the fact that the voice they picked for him does not have that wide a range...

- Karai... Okay, I can be forgiving for Michelangelo , but here ? Holy shit does she get FUCKING annoying even on the best parts of the show ! In case you don't know,the "Shredder's daughter" angle started here (Mirage Karai was pretty much ANOTHER Foot boss.).
Now, granted she adds to Ch'rell's manipulative/demagogue aspect since he was able to raise her as a nigh-absolutely loyal soldier, but they didn't seem to take advantage of making her her own character. Either she's VERY faithful of Ch'rell OR friggin' retarded because she seems to totally forget that Shredder had no qualms with killing her during the "Exodus" story-arc for dare trying to talk him out of killing the Turtles when they were already knocked out. Had they tried revamping her from that point it could have worked, but instead, they go DIRECTLY with the whole "REVEEEENGE" stuff ! Were they in such a hurry for another Shredder ?

Oh well, mishaps aside, it's still a great series.

Now just you wait for the big finale ! It'll be a killer, NYAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA !

Description
There we are, second to last step in the chelonian exposure !

I would go on and on to introduce this series, but I already kind of did in my Mirage review.

TMNT 2003 is brilliant for its first 4 seasons ! It is up there with BTAS as one of the greatest comics distillation ever (even improving upon the source material!), it is as it stands THE cartoon to surpass (I'd sacrifice an entire forum of people to whatever malevolent deity there is if my favorite comics could get a similar treatment through animation !).

Of course, I fucking INSIST on first 4 seasons ! Say anything about whatever's next and I'll go Ch'rell on you !

PROS

+ Well I'd say, they've got one considerable budget to make this show look good ! (Yay for merchandising and royalties !) The animation seasons is among the best for a cartoon series. Plus, the looser censorship on TV by that point really helps.( You don't see many cartoon characters getting their legs broken or stabbed. Or do you remember the best on-screen decapitation ? Goes to Leo without hesitation !)

+ Unlike the 80's show, which was more of an episodic type, this one is clearly about story-arcs and sagas intersped with the occasional one-shot episodes (which do wonders to explore the characters individual traits !). And it helps that it started by adapting the Mirage arcs or (even better) EXPANDED upon those concepts, like any good adaptation would do !

+ As for the Turtles I'd say Leonardo and Donatello benefitted the MOST from this show. Granted, it could be attributed to this show's genre (mainly Sci-fi and feudal japan tales making the bulk of the most ambitious stories...). Well, for Leo they made him a nice amalgamation of Mirage & 80's aspects (mostly his rivalry with Raph and his willingness to kill when necessary from the former and the steadfastness and will to do the right thing from the latter). Now for Donnie, he's Peter Laird's favorite, so you know they won't fuck that up !

+ April is awesome as always ! (the way she dresses reminds me of another redhead I like a lot. Coincidence ?)

+ Splinter is as cool as ever. Funny how his feud againt the Shredder took galactic proportions as time went on ! Who would have predicted that ?!

+ Nice twist on the Rat King. I thought the 80's one was an improvement over the Mirage one, but this one NAILS the horror approach.

+ Good use of Mirage characters like Savanti Romero, Renet, Lord Simultaneous, The Triceratons and the sympathetic Leatherhead.

+ Improvement of the Purple Dragon Gang. While Hun is a bit stock, he still gets the job done as the regular heavy .

+ I love how the Utrom situation went to gigantic proportions, having the Turtles as the underdogs and unexpected allies in a war that's far bigger than them.

+ Nice of Miyamoto Usagi to drop by !

+ Now for the Shredder... Music Please www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qi_e8…
The whole Utrom twist is not that surprising in hindsight because, well... in Mirage, Shredder/Oroku Saki is more of a concept than an actual character.In fact , Peter Laird has this to say about Shred-head :

" In truth, though many TMNT fans who became fans via the first animated series see Shredder as a REALLY important part of an ongoing, long-running battle with the Turtles, I don't think Kevin or I ever did. Yes, he was an important part of their history, and they probably would not have come into existence without his involvement in their world (or more accurately Splinter's world)... but that's about it. Other than bringing Shredder back for "Return to New York" (and the few issues preceding that set that arc up), I never missed him in any of the other TMNT books I worked on. "

And as I stated, James Avery's Shredder was the first fucking time he ever got a full-blown PERSONALITY and nuances ! Ch'rell now, was actually a nice mixture of Mirage Shredder (though WITHOUT the sympathetic element) and Lord Dregg (especially for the whole Villain with a good publicity). No, his similarities with Krang are actually superficial. Krang is much more insidious and subtle while Ch'rell is Waaaaay more direct in his approach !
As for being One-dimensional, come now, the intent was never to see Shredder here as a character but more as a cruel and intelligent monster. Plus, while his motives are simple ( 1) making cash. Well he's a space pirate after all ! 2) Send the Utroms to fucking hell for not electing him... Or because they're annoying to him...), the escalation of his rage and the way his facets are presented are definitely well-executed !
At first , Oroku Saki was built up as this threatening guy who was in control of the Foot Clan, Purple Dragons, and was looking for the elimination of the Utroms and the guardians (and at this point , the show does not really tell !).
He was brutal and blood-thirsty, killing and maiming his subordinates (poor Baxter !), and everytime he wore the Shredder armor, you knew shit was going down. In Season 2, we discover that he's way older than we think, how he was leading the Foot and at the end we discover that he was an Utrom. Then in Season 3, we see his manipulative side (actually my favorite part) as Mr. Oroku Saki the business man. And "Exodus" is the best finale ever for the Utrom Shredder ! That was an excellent curtains fall for him !
So, Turtles Forever aside, Ch'rellder was an awesome monster and on par with Avery Shredder and Movie Shredder (my favorite I must say !).

+ Baxter Stockman. Holy shit ! The TMNT universe fucking HATES the guy ! Now, what happened to him last series ? He was turned into a fly and then sent into friggin' limbo.... alive and lonely....till his life span runs out...Damn.
And here, it's just as BAD ! For every littel mishap, he gets amputated piece by piece until he became a brain in a jar. Thankfully due to dedication, optimism and the patience of Job, he manages to create himself a new body... which rots away fairly quickly while he has flashbacks reminding him of his dead mother ! Of course, using Venom's school of thoughts, he decided to blame it on April.... Ouch ! That, my friends, is what I call an epic progression (or regression in this context)!

CONS

- The humor. The show writers did not always seem at ease when writing jokes and as such it often felt forced. And whoever came up with the quote "What The Shell ?" shall be skinned, dripped in honey and thrown on a fireant nest.

- Raphael is a watered down iteration of Mirage Raph and that works against him I fear, considering how the 80's and Movie Raphs were much more polyvalent in their approaches . It has to be said but Raph as the "loose cannon" and "GAH ! I am da rebel !" gets fucking old very fast. And as someone who's aware of the awesome Image Raphael, THIS 4.bp.blogspot.com/-Enp4UkJ3IbA… is a fucking tease to me !
To his credit though, the one-shots that focus on him are pretty good and round him better.

- The episode that introduced Casey felt like a huge missed opportunity. Casey is blandly introduced as a vigilante. Then he and Raph fight until they kinda just stop How the fuck do you make Casey Jones forgettable ! HOW ?! He's just that unremarkable compared to his predecessors !? In fact he feels watered down compared to the Humoristic 80's Casey ! Come on guys, isn't this show supposed to have LESS restraints ? And Casey was hands down the best character in Mirage ! How did they miss the mark, I really don't know ...

- Michelangelo FUCKING Suffers. In season 1 and 2 , He's fine; he still has some one-shots episodes where they can make him work. When they get serious with him, it's fine too (they should have done that a lot more !). But when they try to be humorous, ALL the bad jokes fall on Mikey's shoulders at the expense of his other traits like the sensitivity, the mellowness or the humbleness of 80's and Image Mikey or the optimism and great sense of humor of Movie Mikey, here this Mikey is cocky, boastful, hyper active, without the wit or eloquence to balance things out. Add to that the lack of focus and the fact that the voice they picked for him does not have that wide a range...

- Karai... Okay, I can be forgiving for Michelangelo , but here ? Holy shit does she get FUCKING annoying even on the best parts of the show ! In case you don't know,the "Shredder's daughter" angle started here (Mirage Karai was pretty much ANOTHER Foot boss.).
Now, granted she adds to Ch'rell's manipulative/demagogue aspect since he was able to raise her as a nigh-absolutely loyal soldier, but they didn't seem to take advantage of making her her own character. Either she's VERY faithful of Ch'rell OR friggin' retarded because she seems to totally forget that Shredder had no qualms with killing her during the "Exodus" story-arc for dare trying to talk him out of killing the Turtles when they were already knocked out. Had they tried revamping her from that point it could have worked, but instead, they go DIRECTLY with the whole "REVEEEENGE" stuff ! Were they in such a hurry for another Shredder ?

Oh well, mishaps aside, it's still a great series.

Now just you wait for the big finale ! It'll be a killer, NYAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA !