Among the artists involved in the original designs are Shōhei Kohara and Floro Dery. The original 30 or so characters were heavily modified from their toy designs for aesthetics and ease of animation. Nobody on Earth noticed this for millions of years. The show also featured an enormous cast of characters in comparison to the more limited cast of future shows, likely due to the cost of developing CGI models as opposed to hand-drawn animation. It is not the best animated series ever to air, but it stimulated viewers with its concept at the time, and continued to do so in the years to come.īeing the first series of Transformers ever, some episodes tended to be very, very, weird and 80sish compared with later shows. Through its 98-episode run, this series took viewers around the globe and to many strange places and times: across the alien Cybertron, the Earth's prehistoric past, the Earth's then-future of 2005, the Metropolis-like society of Nebulos, and more.

Plots became a bit less formulaic during Season 3, though character death and true plot upheaval remained a rarity.

At most, a new character or team was added to one side or the other. Most of the time the Decepticons were forced into retreat, and the Autobots drove off victorious. Plots generally centered on a Decepticon plot or invention of the week, which would be used to gather energy or Defeat The Autobots FOREVER!!, and the Autobots' efforts to stop the plan. Once established, the cartoon rarely took any steps to upset its status quo.

The factions crash-land on Earth and, millions of years later, begin their battle anew in Reagan-era America and across the globe. The cartoon (along with the Marvel comics) set up the basic story of Transformers that most other incarnations were to follow: two warring factions of robots on the planet Cybertron leave in search of resources. aside from the power source that lights up the entire core of the planet.

Transformers 1984 animated series