#electronicsuperjoy

(Sorr this is late)

I was tagged by regalaia-of-wisdom

1. Edward Elric (FMA)

2. Magnus Bane (Shadowhunter Chronicles)

3. Ronan Lynch (The Raven Cycle)

4. Nora Valkyrie (RWBY)

5. Fakir (Princess Tutu)

6. Kyoko Mogami (Skip Beat)

7. Artemis Crock (Young Justice)

8. Dipper Pines (Gravity Falls)

9. Agent Washington (Red vs. Blue)

That’s the thing, it’s not. Beyond some simple characterization and basic stuff, like the villains, like, existing, it ignores almost all previous continuity. It’s not a continuation, it’s more like a re-imagining, or an alternate universe. You can literally know nothing about the first series or ignore it all together, and it only slightly makes any episode of ttg confusing. It’s not meant purely for people who have watched the first series and never was (and one complaint people have made is that some people working on it actually HAVEN’T seen the original series). 

It really has almost nothing to do with the first series past a few mostly superficial things, and in absolutely no way does the continuity of either show affect the other. It’s actually really, really, really annoying when people ALWAYS bring it back to the first show for two reasons:

1) It makes it like how it was a couple years ago when the show first started. Remember? Everyone was up in arms before the show even AIRED because they were still whining about how it was too silly, or too comical, had a different tone and art style, wahwahwah, it’s all DIFFERENT. It had nothing to do with the quality of the show itself and everything to do with it just being not as “serious” as the old cartoon, and you knew it wasn’t because of the quality because episodes hadn’t even STARTED yet. Even after a few episodes came out, people were still criticizing it PURELY based on comparisons to the old series without even watching the show, or only watching one episode and deciding the goofy tone meant it was worthless. Which is stupid, because your old show is STILL THERE. You can just watch it again and this series in no way affects the old show. At least people who didn’t like Ben 10 Alien Force, Omniverse, etc., were complaining about something that actually changed the canon and DID have an affect on the series they previously loved. Some people claimed the original TT was cancelled and were bitter about TTG being brought ‘in place of it’ but that’s not true, TT just ended. Six seasons is a pretty good lifetime for a kids’ cartoon. There was no behind the scenes mysterious cancellation, no one’s existence harmed the other. Complaints besides that were mostly superficial. Pretty much it was just that it wasn’t dark, or serious, or they didn’t like the jokes. Which is also bothersome because those are the exact complaints the comic fans had when the first cartoon came out. “Everyone’s OOC, the art is bad, the jokes are bad, it’s not serious enough”- all comments said about both the first and second cartoon by old fans the series is no longer made for because they’re not the kids. Who cares if Starfire is playing with kittens instead of fighting to save the world- it’s supposed to be fun. It’s trying something different, and if it makes kids happy, what’s the problem? The stuff you prefer is still there, this doesn’t change any of that.

2) It’s ineffective and keeps us from moving forward. Constantly bringing it back to the first series not only makes you just sound like the people I’ve described above who only complain about the superficial differences and things just being different from what they want or liked as a kid, but ignores problems with the current series that are actually PROBLEMS. Not just superficial things, but having an episode basically saying it’s okay to stalk girls, having sexist messages, having sexist characters that are never corrected on their behavior, being just plain mean-spirited, and I’ve even heard people complain about it being racist. THOSE are real issues, because they’re more than a matter of taste, they’re things we don’t want being taught to our kids. Even complaints about lazy writing or predictable jokes would be more legitimate than just comparing it to the old series. An adaptation is supposed to stand on its own. This isn’t a sequel, it’s an adaptation, so it has to do that. If you said you don’t like it because it’s characters are written in a way that’s sexist, that is a problem with the series. If you said you don’t like it because the old one wrote Robin better, that doesn’t matter as much. Yes, the old one was good, but does it matter here? How does it affect the stories HERE, how does it affect the messages in THIS show. We’re not talking about the old show, we’re talking about the fact that this show has problems, this show needs to change, this show is being harmful. If all the criticisms are based purely on comparison, it’s pretty much a derailment. Instead of the focus being on why the current show needs to change, it’s turned to why the old show was so good, which does nothing to help the situation and is just a distraction. This show is still here, it’s the one that needs attention, because it’s the one that’s still running and can still be changed. Criticizing the new series by saying ‘it’s not as good as the old one’ does NOTHING because it’s like you’re saying ‘Just do it like the old thing’ when this ISN’T the old thing. It’s not trying to be and never was. It’s not trying to be serious, or dark, or deep, or even have an over-arching story. To criticize something this different from the first series, you have to look at it by itself. By constantly pointing backward, people aren’t making good or accurate criticisms, making criticisms anyone on the show would ever listen to if they heard them, and is, by definition, not moving forward. We can’t just go back and get what we did have, we have to change what we do have. They have and are making a light, goofy, episodic comedy based around the Teen Titans. That is what they set out to do. Comparing it to the old one ignores the different intentions with each series, and carries the implication that people just don’t want to let TTG do its own thing. The problem is the way it’s doing its own thing is bad for kids, and just saying “do the old one again” does nothing.