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Where do I begin with this masterpiece. I cried with tears of joy when I was able to bear witness to pure beauty. Truly such art is not worthy to be seen by such lowly eyes as mine.

SPOILER WARNING

This show will make you reconsider everything you thought you knew about the world. The layers of depth and understanding it possesses are beyond human comprehension.

The show starts with a full minute of low res earth footage over a monotonous heartbeat. This is a clear reference to low fi hip-hop beats to relax/study to. And is clearly an criticism of man's over-reliance on such vices. The monotonous ... sound works its way into your brain through repetition as it slowly drives you insane. This puts you in the mindset of the author who feels like he is being driven mad by society.

The VN intro provides insight on how fake and plastic our society has become. Relying on such images of cute girls in still poses to satisfy our impulses and desires. The music is off-key to give you a sense of unease that these girls might just be plastic and fake and the reality that this show presents may be hyper-reality and these girls are actually just a fake representation of man's desire for objectification.

This leads into the shows direct commentary on objectification culture by making the girls literally artificial clones who's only purpose is to satisfy the desires of their masters. Note, the appearance of this backstory in the middle of a battle scene amplifies the conflict created by society between men and women and this battle is perfectly exemplified by the Lins declaration of "I love you" which is only met by awkward silence. Misaki's desire to be seen as worthwhile is another example of this show's feminist message.

The artificial beings don't fear death because the are simple programmed to subsume themselves to society. This is a clear message about how society breaks down the individual and turns them into a mindless drone only to exist as a service to society. This a marxist critique of capitalistic society and systems through which needs are met through objectification and pandering. This patriarchy.

The editing is confusing and sublime in its presentation, you are expected to read deep into the abstract symbolism it displays. The mashing together of scenes in a way that seems chaotic. The long pauses between dialogue symbolises the absurd nature of our reality. The repetition of lines is to drive the message of the show home. The deep message about consumer culture and a message about how the girl is a tool used by society to destroy the squid monster. Exemplified by the line "It is not the tool that is at fault, it is the user."

The squid itself is a direct representation of the scapegoating immigrants as the real problem with society, the squid however does not attack until provoked. This shows our misguided approach to foreign policy. Our decisions to attack those who are different will result in only in a greater cycle of violence emphasised by the squids return in greater numbers.

The anime then circles back to the heartbeat to emphasis that al these problems are secondary to the plague of lo-fi hip-hop beats to study/relax to upon society.

This anime truly changed my life. Maybe I have shared with you just some of it majesty. But this shows is so abstract and divine that it cannot ever be fully understood. Evangelion pales into comparison to this masterpiece. Evangelion wishes it could be as profound as this show.

This show was my favourite show growing up, I used to watch it all the time on CITV. I recently re-watched all of it and despite being by no means a masterpiece it is still a very enjoyable series with some intense battles and some memorable characters.

Story: This is the weakest suit of the show as the overarching narrative isn't hugely engaging for most of the show. However I can say this series does have a plot which is better than a lot of shows that being they have to collect all 4 cyber planet keys from all around the universe in order to save ... their home-world cybertron under the instruction of vector prime, a time travelling autobot who exists primarily outside of time. The battles are for the most part extremely enjoyable, not hugely well choreographed but still just a lot of fun.
6/10

Art: A lot of CGI which will piss off some people but I honestly don't really mind it.
6/10

Sound: watched in it in English. The English voice actors were fine but the soundtrack was actually really good with a remixed version of the original "robots in disguise" song it's a pretty hype battle theme that I never get tired of hearing. The rest of the soundtrack was fine.
7/10

Character: A huge cast of characters with more interesting new ones being introduced every few episodes. Almost all of the transformers have at least one interesting personality quirk that saves them from being dull and scourge has a really interesting dynamic with the human girl by the end of the series and has a really good character arc. My other favourite characters are sideways, vector prime, soundwave, starscream and of course megatron. The good natured autobots rarely get any character development which prevents most of them being interesting with the exception of overhaul. But overall a very enjoyable cast.
7/10

Enjoyment: My personal enjoyment factor just has to be an 8 because I grew up with the show and it heavily influenced me and my likes and dislikes.
8/10


Overall: If you're looking for a Gurren Lagann or neon genisis evangelion you won't find it here, but instead you'll have an enjoyable kids show with a coherent plot and decent characters. If you like transformers at all I recommend this series as a watch. Also note that you do not need to have watched the rest of the unicron trilogy to watch this. This is frankly its own show and is only very very very loosely tied to the other 2 in the trilogy and is considered by most to be better than either of them. Also starscream is a badass in this one.