I grew up with Batman: The Animated Series, and this, the follow up. While I never saw as much of this as I did the Batman TAS, I have recently begun watching both of them. In the end I have to say The New Batman Adventures don't quite hold up. As noted earlier, batman's character is much darker, normally I would let this slide but it reaches a ridiculous point. The animosity between batman and Robin, Dick Grayson and Bruce Wayne seems to have come out of nowhere, and while you see an episode explaining this, it doesn't quite hold up, despite the episode that was supposed to explain it. I found myself thinking, Batman wouldn't interrogate a thug in his own living room inf front of his wife and young son. It annoyed me to no end. The way that Bruce Wayne is portrayed annoys me. He is no longer the tortured soul. He's just moody. Where you may have once sympathized with him, you no longer feel the same level of sympathy.
One of the biggest issues I have is with the animation. I just don't like it. They use the intro sequence from TAS but feature none of the animation. One of the things that I absolutely hate is the new Batmobile. Its ugly. I love the horribly impractically long Batmobile of the animated series, the one USED IN THE OPENING CREDITS which is nowhere to be seen. Additionally all of the characters just seem uglier with the new animation, less human. Especially the Villains, the Joker, Mad Hatter, Killer Croc, Mr. Freeze and the Ventriloquist/Scarface in particular are just ugly. I liked the way they did Scarecrow in this, he reminded me of the art style of Mike Mignola, but it felt out of place here. Also Catwoman is just wrong seriously wrong her whole design is awful.
On the plus side, I enjoyed most, if not all of the stories in here, except for the fight sequences where it seemed Batman's sidekicks were just sort of shoe horned into the story for those scenes. A great deal of the stories were amazing and went on to further explore the batman universe quite nicely. Additionally the voice actors were kept. And, as odd as it may sound I liked the fact that they showed blood. It seems odd, I know but it was a nice touch and reminded me of the Mask of the Phantasm, an amazing Batman TAS movie. The blood showed that these fights you see episode after episode have an effect.
Pros: Good Stories, Amazing voice acting.
Cons: Shoehorned-in sidekicks, bad animation style across the board, a new ugly bat mobile, inexplicable personality shifts. Animation and art style used in the opening credits appears no where in the show.
Watch this, its better than most modern cartoons, but watch TAS first.
One of the biggest issues I have is with the animation. I just don't like it. They use the intro sequence from TAS but feature none of the animation. One of the things that I absolutely hate is the new Batmobile. Its ugly. I love the horribly impractically long Batmobile of the animated series, the one USED IN THE OPENING CREDITS which is nowhere to be seen. Additionally all of the characters just seem uglier with the new animation, less human. Especially the Villains, the Joker, Mad Hatter, Killer Croc, Mr. Freeze and the Ventriloquist/Scarface in particular are just ugly. I liked the way they did Scarecrow in this, he reminded me of the art style of Mike Mignola, but it felt out of place here. Also Catwoman is just wrong seriously wrong her whole design is awful.
On the plus side, I enjoyed most, if not all of the stories in here, except for the fight sequences where it seemed Batman's sidekicks were just sort of shoe horned into the story for those scenes. A great deal of the stories were amazing and went on to further explore the batman universe quite nicely. Additionally the voice actors were kept. And, as odd as it may sound I liked the fact that they showed blood. It seems odd, I know but it was a nice touch and reminded me of the Mask of the Phantasm, an amazing Batman TAS movie. The blood showed that these fights you see episode after episode have an effect.
Pros: Good Stories, Amazing voice acting.
Cons: Shoehorned-in sidekicks, bad animation style across the board, a new ugly bat mobile, inexplicable personality shifts. Animation and art style used in the opening credits appears no where in the show.
Watch this, its better than most modern cartoons, but watch TAS first.