Which Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Cartoon Was Best? (1987 vs 2003 vs 2012 vs Rise)

[Music] [Music] [Applause] is [Music] they're heroes [Applause] teenage mutant ninja turtles one of the most recognizable and beloved franchises of all time that has been going on since his initial release in 1984 when it was created by kevin eastman and peter laird and became a worldwide phenomenon with the help of fred wolfe the producer of the 1987 teenage mutant ninja turtles series which was the spark needed to bring our heroes in a half shell to the mainstream lovable characters great comedy and thanks to this cartoon a massive action figures video games movies snacks new comic books taking elements from the series and even a crossover drug out of it you psas it let's see if joey's that smart i'm not chicken you're a turkey the series had become a gold mine but as all good things must do the original 1987 series concluded in 1996 but you can't keep tmnt down it was quickly followed a year later by a certain live-action fox kids show which is honestly more hysterically bad than i'm getting angry watching this bad which spawned the first female ninja turtle and also had a crossover with power rangers but it was so poorly perceived that they had to reincarnate both with badass versions in the future comics but at this point the tmnt was just in limbo sure games and comics were being made but nothing gets that coin like an animated series and a movie so we got the great 2003 series this series was darker and more in line with the original comics and actually took a handful of stories from them and added on to them in future episodes the reason for that was because this one was heavily supervised by peter laird and produced by lloyd goldfein who loved the charm of the original series but he felt that they missed the whole ninja assassin vibe they had in the comic books and so he reworked the series to have more adult themes better actions and less comedy well until later seasons but we'll get to that this show ran from 2003 to 2009 and is considered one of the most beloved ninja turtles series to this day and three years later we were followed by a cgi 2012 series which took the best of both worlds to become an amalgam of the comics 1987 and 2003 turtles since in this series there was heavy comedy writing phenomenal action and some of the most emotional moments you could ever experience in an animated series and this one went on until 2017 but instead of having the usual two year plus gap of time in between series this one was immediately followed by the 2018 rise of the team and tease turtles which originally received a ton of backlash for you know character designs and toonish comedy and changing many of the characters personalities and origins but on the flip side it has some godzilla kill a kill trigger style animation all the way through this series was heavy on the comedy and anime influences and it shows but sadly this series was cancelled slash put on indefinite hiatus because of its poor performance on nickelodeon which we'll get to later now the reason i worked so hard on this video and i wanted to talk to you about it today is because each of these four series have something of great quality but certain tmnt fans just get so insanely tribal over their personal favorite and will actively diss the other series without even watching them all the way through or just because this is their favorite and this is what they will stand for the rest of their life just go to the tmnt facebook page and you'll see a bunch of ignorant ass fools on every rise tmnt post there are some fans of the 1987 series that dismiss every other tmnt because they aren't the ones they grew up with and we'll say 2003 tmnt is too dark and to emo and blah blah blah and then 2012 has cgi that is ugly and ryze the tmnt is just stupid with ugly character designs then some 2003 stands will say their series is the goat and belittle each and every other series because the 1987 was too lame the 2012 was men designs weren't that great in 2018 rise was too goofy then some 2012 fans come along and say 2003 has crap fight scenes and the characters weren't as likable they are mostly cool with 1987 tmnt since they had a crossover with them in four different episodes with the original voice cast but they don't give them as much respect and for ryze they feel it's a spit on the name of the tmnt since every character is far more different and then for most of the ryze fans i've talked to they're really chill but quite a few i've talked to have only really watched rise of the tmnt because they are cartoon fans in general but they haven't watched the other tmnt series all the way through and that's why i decided to make this video i've been a colossal tmnt fan since i was about two three years old so i've seen like literally every series list all the way through in various times and for this um back in like late 2019 and early 2020 i actually decided just to re-watch every series fully and then rise the team and t finish recently too so it was fun to just watch all these back to back and like marathon them i rewatched all 193 episodes of the 1987 cartoon and yes that means the red sky arc which was weird which i'm gonna have fun talking about later i also rewatched all 156 episodes of the 2003 cartoon and yes i did include a fast forward and back to the sewers and that as well and of course i rewatched the 1987 2003 crossover turtles forever movie which was just a fun little thing when watching all these back to back then of course i rewatched all 124 episodes of the nickelodeon 2012 cartoon and then recently i just rewatched the entire series again because i really wanted to and it's so short of all of rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles and that had an amazing god tia final fight but i rewatched every episode of each series to form a non-biased perspective because for me while i genuinely love each tmnt cartoon i do think i gave certain ones buffs because of my nostalgia bias and nostalgia is like the most powerful genjutsu anyone could ever experience besides crushing on a woman who's not good for you and it gets to the point where you can talk up a big storm of why you think the thing you love is great but if it keeps coming down to oh i just enjoyed it a lot as a kid but you haven't rewatched it recently i encourage people to rewatch things you love without those nostalgia goggles cause here's the thing it's completely fine to take your nostalgia goggles put them on and enjoy a show from the past and be like oh my god yeah this is really a fun time but as much as i enjoy wearing these things i'm able to take them off and look at a show objectively and be like all right this does not hold up as much as i would like to believe i have the self-awareness enough to realize that but some people have their nostalgia goggles like fused to their head and they keep them on too long where it fuses to their brain stem where it starts to affect rational thoughts so they can't actually talk on a subject without their bias for example if you tell me any of the previous iterations of tmnt are the goat and put down future ones but the primary reason you do that is because of all the fond memories of watching the one you love as a kid and you haven't watched that series without nostalgia goggles on then you completely invalidate your argument because you clearly got a bias going on and that's making you close-minded and obstinate on the topic so with that said after watching every single episode of every single series which took a very very long time i wanted to do this little competition between them and put them in categories to see which categories they truly beat each other in now i want to make this perfectly clear this is not an original idea i've seen this done countless times over the years from a few of my favorite youtubers by the way and by all means check out their channel and everyone is always going to have like their different opinions of what they think you know is the best series no matter what even with what stuff i say now this is just me giving my uh unbiased opinion on this subject because i feel like i just i've been such a fan for so long and i generally love each and every show and i can just talk on it like without like you know being blinded by nostalgia or bias at this point and i had to train myself to do it so this is just a fun little test for me now again if we don't agree on stuff cool cool cool i'm curious to see what people think in the comments below and all that stuff but let's get right to it now i'm gonna try and be as non-biased as possible and of course everyone is always gonna have different opinions and by all means i truly encourage that but i will state my opinion and why i think it as best as possible now this isn't a hundred percent concrete definitive winter type deals but like more of what i noticed when re-watching all of them and being a fan of it for practically my entire life so for this the way we're going to do this i'm going to split them up into categories and this is going to be the first category we're going to talk about characters but we're only going to talk about characters who appeared in every single version of them and that they're like main characters like super main characters so like we're going to go through all four of the turtles so leonardo dantello michelangelo raphael we're going to talk about splinter we're going to talk about shredder we're going to talk about april o'neil we're going to talk about casey jones now i am contemplating putting baxter but i don't think we'll put baxter in like that could be like a bonus thing for next time and for each character that wins they get one point for their team and for the team that has the most points at the end of this category they will win that category and following those categories we'll talk about best theme song best designs best fights and then best overall story and which holds up the best but without further ado let's start off with category one category one characters who better to take the lead than our boy leonardo whose personality went from being consistent to drastically different in the current iteration so let's just go in order going through all of them 1987 leonardo this version of leonardo was like the charming superhero type a la superman and all might and felt like he could always save the day with his team and he was also a very competent leader so competent in fact that when he decided to give up being the leader none of the other turtles could accurately work together until he came back he was always helpful and always wanted to do good things was a dedicated student of the martial arts but sometimes he would get very carried away with things like reading and playing video games but he was always the one you could count on even if he was afraid to do something and something i have to bring up is the fact that the 1997 turtles and future series seem to get the shaft a lot for example in turtles forever fun movie love the movie think it's great on the rewatch and stuff like that if you watch it as just a casual fan you'd enjoy a lot of stuff but boy do they throw the 1987 tmnt under the bus in that film they make them all goofy to the point where they are nowhere near as competent as their true selves just for comedy they turn themselves into cowards at multiple points just to show how cool and badass the 2003 turtles are in comparison when they would never ever run away crying from a fight like that boy and they even changed the voices but that was due to a licensing issue at the time but thankfully when they appeared in the 2012 series they were given the respect the first time at least and they were competent albeit eccentric fighters but in the last two episodes of the 2012 series they make them into jokes again like they can't use their weapons i mean since they rarely use them in the 80s due to censorship and also cartoon gags but it's a shame because there are so many things you can make jokes of from the 1987 series but making it seem like they aren't all that competent when it comes to fighting when you have them competent the first time is kind of whack in my opinion but at the end of the day 1987 leo was a great leader now on to 2003 leonardo this version of leonardo went through a lot he was very serious but respectful and constantly focused on his training but when you see the hell he went through you understand why throughout the show after his beating at the hands of shredder in the foot he becomes more and more obsessive over training for fear of being too weak to protect his loved ones and even later on gets a permanent part of his shell removed in battle and has a scar on his back until back to the sewers were magically healed this version is so dedicated to protecting his family you can't help but feel for the guy and due to all the excessive training he was also an extreme badass in combat for a period of time his seriousness became too much to handle to the point he even got fed up with splinter for not helping him further in this training until he got what he needed and calmed down and he wasn't stoic all the time i want to make that clear like this leo like he was very stoic at points but he wasn't stoic all the time he could make jokes and have fun especially in fast forward but at the end of the day this leo went through a lot to become the leader the tmnt needed next up 2012 leonardo this leonardo is definitely more like an actual teenager than the other two he's a big nerd loves anime and star trek knockoffs and use them as inspirations as he's aspired to be great leaders like them though he is still a badass when it comes to combat and sometimes he can be a little bit of a jerk but it's understandable when your brothers don't listen to you and other times it's because he is a teenager and acts like him later on the series he undergoes massive character growth after being temporarily crippled by shredder like the 2003 leo which is based off what happened in the comics and after that he truly becomes the competent leader of the turtles following this point he has led them into space without splinter and further on later into the series after a series of unfortunate events happen his voice changes too it starts off as jason biggs you know that one dude who burned a pie and oh dear but then it was replaced by dominic cantrebone catch around i hope i'm saying this dude's name right he did a great job in the last seven episodes of season two but then he was replaced again by robot chicken seth green and they even made a meta joke out of it and honestly i just like leo a lot more when he's voiced by seth green he just brings out a lot more of the leader aspect to leo which is fitting since he has undergone tremendous growth at this point following that we have rise leonardo this leo is incredibly different than all the other leos as it's pretty much just ben schwartz can you direct us to the local science fiction convention that we are currently dressed for don't get me wrong i love ben schwartz but i'm pretty sure the last few blue characters he's played are all the same character just in different dimensions by the way ducktales 2017 is one of the best anime series of the entire decade go watch it but this leo is very much a laid back pun making joke telling teenager he rarely takes anything seriously and likes it that way initially he trade his own broken twin katanas for a sword that let him slice portals through dimensions but eventually he gets the twins back though this leo is a master tactician and has shown numerous times he has the brains to be the leader but is just too lazy to be which makes me question that ending even more i think if they ever do turtles forever two where all four generations meet the comedy that would ensue between this leo and the other three would be such top tier stuff as he is so incredibly different than all the other ones like basically at the end of the day is ben schwartz doing what he does best and is incredibly entertaining to watch the winner of this round again i rewatch this series without personal bias because for years 2003 leo was my favorite leonardo and he is still honestly my favorite version of leonardo to this day but i cannot sleep on 2012 leo and here's why spoiler warning up we constantly have to see this leo grow from nerd to competent leader and after splinter is killed by super shredder and does not come back he has to step up even more and become the leader his brothers depend upon because their father is now gone his final battle with the shredder you can feel the emotions of confusion anger and sadness in his voice of what rokusaki has done and when he finishes him he really comes into his own as a leader of the group i love every leo for various reasons but the character growth in particular for this one that he had to go through was just phenomenal so was the 2003 leo's character growth for what he had to go through and honestly for this very first one i gotta give it a draw because they both have outstanding qualities now don't get used to this though like i know some people may be like oh draw that's kind of bs but don't worry don't get used to this it's only for this one because i have genuine respect for each of the characters but because this is the draw that means they only get partial points so half a point each for um 2003 to 2012 leo next up the pizza obsessed party dude wild one of the group good old michelangelo and my personal favorite ninja turtle in most series first up 1987 michelangelo bro i'm gonna say i just freaking love this mikey he's so likable he's so funny and his freaking voice i i don't know what it is i've just always loved surfer dude voices like cha dude cowbunga let's go grab a slice you know and no one can give a battle cry like this cowabunga became a household saying when i was a kid at the beach and pool thanks to this one this michelangelo had a tendency to be lazy and overly obsessive to pizza in earlier seasons but later on became more mellowed out it was more of a competent team member the only bad thing i can really say about this mikey is the fact they took his nunchucks away in later seasons because they were deemed too violent and replaced them with a grappling hook which they all had also you're telling me nunchucks are more dangerous than katana in size you could have been like the next mutation and given them tanfa like rise raphael has if you didn't want to keep them but hindsight is 2020 i suppose on to 2003 michelangelo what i liked most about this mikey was the fact he was one of the most competent fighters out of all the turtles he was creative it had a spider-man way of talking so much his enemies could not concentrate especially wrath matter of fact this is one of the rare times mikey consistently was able to defeat raphael in their fights in every other series ralph was constantly shown to be stronger and sparring against mikey but here because of his never shut up personality he always threw raphael off which i thought was cool for a change though this mikey had some qualities that were a bit annoying at times if i'm being real nah don't get me wrong i love my death but this one would always make these corny jokes references and then brag how he is the champion of interdimensional tournament since he won the battle nexus sometimes the lines he would say would come off kind of try hardy and irritating at times but he was still one of the best fighters and got to keep his chucks all the way through so nothing but respect let's move on to the boy 2012 michelangelo greg sypes of beast boy fame was perfectly cast as michelangelo he was born to be and this mikey is a pretty fun and likable dude his catchphrase is boo yakasha instead of the usual cowbunga but every now and then he would sneak that line in another amazing thing about this michelangelo is the fact he is a natural fighter and can move without thinking on some ultra instinct badassery and technically this came years before ultra instinct in dragon ball was even a thing so he is even more goaded now i guess a cool little thing they added to this mikey as well is the fact that not only does he keep his nunchucks but they also come attached with blades in them for when he gets serious and has to transform into a kusugumi kazu i i'm sorry i don't know how to pronounce this lesson name i am such a bad student of the martial arts okay so i'm just gonna call it this swinging chain blade yeah swinging chain blade can we all agree uh all the japanese people in the comment section probably yelling at me right now but hey i'm sorry i don't want to mess up this name but yeah it is pretty awesome weapon in which he can use them as a swinging chain with knives and swords attached to it and it works as an extension to get out of areas fast or attack at a longer range my only gripe with this michelangelo is the fact they make him out to be a straight up idiot at times like he needs someone to hold his hands this is my legitimately only gripe with him mikey is my fate and i get that he likes to goof around but he should always have a filter of when it's right to and when to be serious and throughout the show he becomes more and more mature still goofing around but he was still one of the best iterations of mikey i've ever seen following that we got ryze michelangelo this michelangelo is just as optimistic as the other mikeys has a very kind heart at times and can be incredibly naive he is also very sympathetic and empathetic as originally he was the only one who wanted to help john c i mean um baron jackson yeah baron jackson get back on his feet after the shredder absorbed all his energy and played an integral part in draxon becoming an ally in this series his main weapon is the kusari fundo and i really hope i'm saying that right because for some reason the last two mikeys have these fancy name weapons when they just had awesome nunchucks before and that was easy to say but whatever like he has this kusari fundo which i hope i'm saying right but at the very end he gets his chucks back and uses them even more buffed up than ever what i like about this mikey for the most part is he's a rather chill dude always looking to help out where he can but sometimes that can be a bit overly obnoxious as when he was stepping on donny's toes in the wrestling episode or when him and leo got into a unicorn fight what trying to be the best servers to some mutant mob bosses he also can be a bit of a jerk at times like when he becomes doctor delicate touch where he delivers bad news while crushing people's hearts and also when him and ray of sunshine todd were hanging out and he ditched him to go hang out with meat sweats a gordon ramsay want to be villain of whom mikey was a fan of before he got mutated into a killer pig i i know it's weird who had absorbed todd's kindness and had temporarily become a good guy this mikey also had insane anger issues when he was wronged and lose all that nice guy demeanor if it meant getting revenge which was hilarious to watch but at times he could be selfish and do more harm than good for his team but at the end of the day he was always there for his brothers and always helping him out winner while mikey is my fave and i love each version i gotta go with the most likable throughout the entire series which was the 1987 michelangelo 80s michelangelo made kel bunga mainstream and like literally he was so popular that they put him in cartoon all-stars to stop a kid from getting baked up though ironically he clearly would be bacon in this bear time and i don't mean pizza [Music] 80s mikey wasn't so dumb that he needed to be coddled but he also wasn't so irritating that it made me actually want to stop watching a few times he was just a generally likable dude all the way through so i gotta give him the win for this one up next let's look at the brains of the operations for our lean green ninja team donatello now this first one we're gonna actually do a bit different because 1987 dontello in 2003 dawn yeah he was called don and that version was kind of funny uh in all honesty when i went back to go re-watch through both of these series i found that both 1987 dontello in 2003 dontello are like mirror counterparts to each other the main differences between them were that 1987 donnie wanted to be accepted by the whole world for his knowledge science and tech while 2003 don didn't and just cared for making inventions to expand his knowledge and to help his brothers also i think it's funny how in the 2003 series they rarely called donatello donny it was always dawn i found that fascinating like he was a secret mob boss for them also when it came to tech 1987 donnie would make some outlandish inventions out of some random stuff that made no technological sense which sometimes worked and then sometimes had an issue while 2003 donatello would make a bunch of inventions that weren't so unbelievable but they always worked which honestly was a great little joke and turtles forever when they had the two work together they are both incredibly charming likeable and similar and some of the best versions of donnie to bless the tv screen next up we have a boy who's vastly different 2012 donatello this donnie is very eccentric excitable socially awkward and he's full-on in love with april in this version which was always kind of weird to me but hey this is coming from a dude who would gladly smash any anthro girl voice by cass souzie and all these babes so i de-gaff if son he's always making inventions like the previous two but his main focus was to make a retro mutagen to stop the crane this donnie also had a bit of a temper at times and bickers with his brothers when they don't respect his intellect but it's all love between them honestly though some episodes he can get on my nerves a bit but one episode i really loved him in was app where he was teaching timothy aka the pulverizer aka mutagen man we never got our boy fixed did we how to use a bo staff and how to train for ninjitsu and throughout the show he grows more and more as a character but now let's finish off with ryze donatello where do i start with this donatello in addition to being the brains of the group his personality has changed tremendously rise donnie is cocky in his tech abilities knowing he is smarter than any of his brothers and most people in general for that matter is a massive adrenaline junkie loves to dance and is obsessed with working on tech one of the coolest aspects of this dontello is due to the fact that not all his brothers are the same species of turtle this time around he is a mutated spiny soft shell turtle and having more of a delicate shell caused him to make a tech suit of armor specifically for his back which works as a jetpack and hoverbike for april also what i love about this donnie is how great his bow staff is instead of just being a typical wooden bow this time around his tech bow as he calls it can do many bad ass things along with his amazing drill which can guru and lagaan attack folk like shredder and when it comes to comedy this donatello is easily the funniest out of all the incarnations my literal only gripe with this donatello is at times he can come off as overbearing and a jerk at times but for the most part he's always there for his brothers like the rest the winner while all the donnies are great i gotta give it to ryze for this one because he's the most memorable the most enjoyable to watch and also he has just some of the most insane badass tech out of all the donnies out of any incarnation of ninja turtles so without the question rise on italian takes the win here now on to the rude crude buff dude of the team good old raphael starting with 1987 raphael this wrath is way different than raphael usually is he's still cynical but he's comedic with it he's very similar to michelangelo and is constantly breaking the fourth wall he also has some of the best one-liners in the series don't panic michelangelo i'll set you free gosh you're a regular a blanket even though he's different from other raps i like him though at times he was really lazy and didn't like fighting like you know how raph is supposed to love like it was just weird like this rap was always like oh i don't feel like fighting i don't do it like that and that's just like to people who know raphael just as a character in general that's just like what the hell are you talking about though later on he got himself a hot lizard girlfriend in one episode named mona lisa emphasis on mowing them all right i'm sorry that's terrible it's scaly to me who they probably get rid of the next step and then even later on in the series they tried to make it more aggressive than the others to mimic that darker tone of the 1990 movie and comic book raphaels for the red sky arcs and even in the 2012 crossover with the tmnt raph was shown to be a bit more aggressive than usual when compared to the earlier seasons but he was still pretty dope on to 2003 raphael i'm just gonna really all this raphael was just a pure badass he loved to fight and was constantly trained to get stronger and you know how i feel about that he was such a force to be reckoned with that mikey called him their secret weapon he also had that tough brooklyn accent which i love because it instantly reminded me of the first live-action movie rafael and this one also had berserker rage out moments for when he got too angry and couldn't focus and would just relentlessly attack and at times it would get him into trouble with his brothers when he couldn't control it but later on he mellowed out but he never skimped on his training and enjoying a good fight on to 2012 raphael this raph like the others is one of the strongest fighters and is a great asset to the team he's more of a smart ass and a bit cocky in himself and has such a terrible temper that he would also have these berserker rage out moments in which he needed his brothers to calm him down this version also got to hook up with his lizard bae kuvira i mean foot so i mean casey i mean mona lisa as well and their dynamic was oddly adorable to watch but on the other hand this rap can just be a straight up a-hole bully at times if he's angry you know i get it but sometimes because he's the strongest he does pick on his bros but i guess it's realistic as some siblings do that with each other and as the series goes on he grows as a character as well so i can't fault him too much for it and he also became more and more likeable as the series goes on though one of my favorite episodes with him is when we find out he's terrified of roaches and the villain they are fighting happens to be a mutated roach and he is acting so organically scared i watch it all the time because it's just hilarious to see the freaking buff his turtle just freak out over something so tiny but it was oh my god i crack up remembering that episode but i gotta say this raph is beast nuff said now on to our final turtle of this group rise raphael this raft is the leader of the books and surprisingly throughout the series it fits he's not the angry one in this series and isn't even all that rude he's actually a very kind older brother who just loves to smash bad guys get rowdy eat and work out i mean this wrath is massive being a mutated alligator snapping turtle and the oldest brother of the group he always acts like it he tries too hard not to hurt people's feelings he's terrified of muppets the only time he gets rage boosted is when he gets isolated since he can't handle being alone from his brothers honestly going into this series with the turtles forever mentality of each dimension has different versions of the tmnt i would honestly say this wrath is my favorite character in ryze for the most part in the last two episodes he has to come with terms with being the leader for the time cause he's the oldest and his brothers are counting on him and is one of the main reasons all of them got upgraded with mystic powers to fight the demon shredder at the end though he could be so very stupid ignorant and goofy at times he always did mean his best the winner gotta go with 2003 rafael he's a freaking badass loves to fight has so many pros very little cons and honestly the biggest thing is he reminds me of the 1990 live-action raphael from the very first ninja turtles movie and that's honestly my favorite incarnation of raphael so i just gotta give him the win here next up the true leader sensei and father of the ninja turtles splinter aka hamato yoshi aka lujitsu in rise who is actually himato yoshi as well spoiler ha ha 1987 splinter this splinter was very wise and had a great voice that fit him he did seem like an actual martial art sensei you could have and he treated the turtles more like students rather than as a father but he still clearly cared for them and when they were in trouble he would help them out though overall he just didn't do that much sure he got into fights every now and then and had some episodes centered around him but it was nothing too spectacular the one noticeable thing about this splinter which is great is the fact that instead of just being a mutated rat who mimicked the moves of his master this one was actually himato yoshi who got mutated into a rat though in the idw comics there was a whole deal with reincarnation but that's a story for another day next up 2003 splinter this splinter had a much deeper story and even had a few arcs of his own which were very entertaining he originally started off as a rat like in the original comic and fell into his sewer after the shredder killed his master yoshi this splinter was an incredibly competent fighter helping the turtles for most the series in their battles and was even the former battle nexus champion so this splinter was not one to be slept on my only issue with the splinter on the re-watch which is very very minimal was that with his voice it seemed very much like he was trying a bit too hard to sound like an old martial arts master while the original splinter very much sounded very organic i've heard other people make this same complaint or little just saying on it because it's not even that big a deal because the character's so great but again i love this splinter he is badass but that was just one little itsy bitsy nitpick i noticed through the entire thing but besides that love it on to 2012 splinter where to start with 2012 splinter this splinter is just incredible his voice is done amazingly by hoon lee you can tell he was a badass martial arts master and now that he is a rat he incorporates that into his fighting style another thing i love about this splinter is the fact that he was hamato yoshi who got mutated into splinter and it makes sense why he is so formidable and knowledgeable with his ninja skills as you see in many of his fight scenes but the absolute biggest thing i can say that i absolutely love about this splinter are his iro level stories of wisdom he gives so many gems of knowledge and speeches that can be applied to real life that you feel how genuinely he loves his children and how he is a great parent to them finishing off with good old rye splinter this splinter is far different than the other splinters as is still hamata yoshi who turned to a rat but in this iteration he is now a celebrity going by the moniker of lujitsu a famous martial arts movie star a la bruce lee and jackie chan he actually is quite the formidable fighter and was also a champion of the battle nexus like the 2003 splinter but he is more so lazy than his other counterparts he likes to eat snacks watch tv all day and refer to the turtles by their colors instead of their names in fact while it is shown that he generally loves his kids he's not the most affectionate early on as he tells the tmnt if they complete a simple mission they will get a hug from him that they all got overly excited for and it seems initially he didn't tell them he was proud of them at first as fricken rise donatello developed the complex of wanting to hear his dad say he was proud of him which is honestly pretty sad to be honest but in the end he comes around also this one is probably the strongest splinter we've ever had so far as in this universe the hamato clan had powers that boosted their abilities and while the splinter learned the techniques as a young man he became very arrogant and cocky when he lost his mother and didn't take them seriously enough until it was too late as the series goes on you grow to like and love this smart ass smarmy splitter and his catchphrase hot soup next up the turtle's best attractive gal pal april not that one good old april o'neil 1987 april o'neil damn girl i'm just gonna be blunt here all right i had the biggest crush on this april as a kid she was just too freaking fine in that yellow jumpsuit and those tickle bitties lawd which makes sense she was modeled after fujiko from lupin iii though to be honest she was kind of a shallow character always just trying to get a story for a job doing a lot of things out of self-interest and always getting into danger to be saved by the team and t not to say she wasn't helpful at all as she was always trying to help the tmt be known as heroes and always help them out in certain situations but overall as a character herself besides being the hottest air below neil we've ever heard and i will stand by that all day yeah i know what i said she really didn't have much going on for her for most of the series besides looks but damn did they work next up the pale i'm sorry uh next up 2003 april o'neil but i'm just gonna say this one was really pale i had nothing against that it's just i always thought that was funny like this april was pretty cool i did like this april a lot i love the fact that this april was a scientist and could match dawn in technobabble and intelligence at times this april was quite competent in herself and could also help out the turtles in many different ways and wasn't shallow in the least for the most part another thing i really dug about this april is she didn't stay being the helpless girl who needed rescuing she actually takes initiative and starts training under splinter to learn how to fight and becomes a character who can handle herself and is a natural survivalist later on she gets married to casey jones but still has the turtles back whenever they need her now on to 2012 april o'neil unlike the other ones this one is actually a teenager and also part mutant what she's got a likable personality and confed herself since she's learning from slender she's also intelligent and because she's half mutant she now has telekinetic abilities and becomes stronger using them over the course of the series to the point at one time she even becomes so obsessive over a one ring type crystal that boosts her abilities before her friends snap her out of it this one can come off whiny at times but she always gets the job done though she does have some annoying teenage tendencies as the whole almost love triangle thing between her donny and casey was rather mad to watch in my opinion as i mentioned earlier but besides that she was a fun chill character the turtles hung with now let's finish off with rise april o'neil now this april this april this april right here is far different than all the previous april's on this list she's strong she can sing she's brave she's hot-headed she can fight it's over excitable can handle things on her own and of course and i'm blacker than black and i'm black y'all now to me again this was never a big deal thanks to the multiverse line that was established in the original turtles forever movie but something i do want to address is there is a common misconception going around that april was originally black in the comics that is not true she was a white woman and later on got a perm like many women in the 80s did there was an elseworld chapter where she was a black woman in the comics but it was a non-canon story written by a guest writer since they did this a few times now april was named after a black woman eastman dated but she wasn't specifically designed to be a black woman now i'm not saying this is a shamankarakus dude because i freaking love ryze april especially near the end but i bring it up because a lot of people spread false information and if someone cordially corrects them on it they get called racist because they interpret it as why do you have a problem with april being black well that's not the case it's just the fact of the matter now someone actually does go around saying race is bs because of this but anyways back to rise april who was also a teenager who goes to high school who is very sassy and quick to jump into action she's like a sister to all the turtles in the series and actually joins their hamato clan later on and always tries her best to be selfless and helpful to those she cares about although she's quite loud and spunky she's not as annoying as you initially think and is always there for the turtles when they need her and is always trying to find a job since she can't hold one down thanks to the mutants rampaging the city which i can respect her work in okay okay while i still do have a crush on 80s april because god damn i'm really in between 2003 and rise april and i would probably give this one a draw between both of them since they were both incredibly helpful to the heroes not to say that others weren't but at times 1987 was pretty shallow and distanced herself from the turtles later on the red sky arc a little bit and 2012 april was great with her powers and her character but sometimes her teen angst came off as a bit irritating to me personally on the re-watch 2003 and rise april did the best they could one was very chill and tech savvy the other one was very energetic and a thrill-seek and i really don't have anything negative to say about either of them since they both got my respect so gotta give it a draw oh my long next up the buff jason voorhees want to be casey jones 1987 casey jones all right so 1987 casey is a legitimate nutcase he talks like freaking dirty harry for those kids out there don't know think clint eastwood in the 80s has a fetish for breaking things and loves saying the word lawbreaker here's all the dough you'll get lawbreaker all lawbreakers must pay the price he's also the strongest casey jones we've ever seen and can chuck full refrigerators bench sets and ragdoll full grown adults and ninja turtle this one never removes his mask and while he is helpful to the turtles he's incredibly extra and will even attack people for loitering every time he showed up it was always a riot but there wasn't any nuance to his character like future versions 2003 casey jones this casey is way more fleshed out than the previous one we get to see his origins of how he became a teacher in class is paying 101 your instructors casey jones how he learned to fight thanks to a meeting with the turtles when he was a little kid and it's funny he didn't realize it was actually them helping him out at the time which was just hilarious on the rewatch and how he becomes an ally to them with his catchphrase google and how he meets falls in love and marries 2003's april got nothing bad to say about the dude he's a big luck who just wants to help people and has a bit of a temper but he's always there for his friends he's much better ally than the previous casey jones and just like raph he reminds me of the kc from the 90s movie which is always a bonus on to 2012 casey jones this casey is a teenager like april who loves hockey face painting and is voiced by a member of the second best duo josh peck of drake and josh yes i did say second best duo because he and kell are the undisputed goat duo of nickelodeon don't at me this casey also has a lot more diverse arsenal for attacking rather than just random sports equipment he has taser gloves spray paint grenades fireworks and much much more making him be able to fight mutants on par with the tmnt my only gripe with this casey is sometimes his teenager act can get a bit annoying at times as well and also look at his frame compared to the last two cases not trying to body shame at all but this dude is skinny not even lean tissue skinny but just skinny skinny and i'm supposed to buy he's fighting villains on par with bebop and rocksteady razar tiger claw with that physique yeah i'm not buying it he still was a helpful asset and helped the turtles through many conflicts finishing off with i guess this one is a bit of a spoiler so i'll put a time frame of when the spoiler's over so if you want to just mute and come back at that time frame sure thing but um yeah i just want to say that because this next one is a shocker to some people finishing off with ryze casey jones now this version of casey jones was the first ever female version of casey again this didn't really bother me as much thanks to the turtles forever multiverse scenario but i will say it was a bit of a hit out of left field that they went there for most of this series this casey was just called foot recruit and was adamant about serving the foot clan and awaking the shredder getting very over excited at the process of doing missions for them she honestly reminded me of a very hyperactive kuvira from legend of korras and zelda williams even provided the voice for her she starts off on the villains team but then transitions over to the good side in the very last episode overall she's very entertaining and quite a new take on casey but i can understand and empathize how this change would not be for everyone who really loved the character casey jones 2003 easily takes a win here for being the most likable the most helpful the most nuanced and also no one says goon gala like this dude like he's like the goat at that and yeah he's just like the best overall hits every category and i think he's just you know undisputed now it's time for the most iconic villain of the tmt franchise and yes i said that [ __ ] ukraine 1987 shredder this shredder was only really intimidating in the first five episodes of the show and then it became a joke but then funny enough in the red sky arc in later seasons he became much more of a serious threat again and actually blew up the channel 6 news station but for the most part this shredder was a typical winer 80s villain he was incredibly entertaining and had creative insults that i still quote to this day and he was voiced by the late great james avery aka uncle phil from the fresh prince of bel air for all y'all out there the character became too much of a wimp to be taken seriously later on but he was still an incredible martial artist who could hold his own when he appeared in the 2012 series he easily handled 2012 bebop and rocksteady who are a lot more competent than their 80s counterparts and if i had to be a thousand percent real here i always had the most fun watching this shredder particularly because he always made me laugh like every other 80s cartoon villain so you know like freaking skeletor megatron and cobra commander in the end i thought he was great and memorable on to 2003 shredder or aka krell i've said it before on my channel and i'm gonna say it again this shredder has the best goddamn design out of any shredder in all the history of any teenage mutant ninja turtles series i do not care this design is just so aesthetically perfect to me in every single way and is one of my favorite designs just in general for a character props to michael ryan for the design you deserve a raise for this but i guess i should mention that this shredder i'm talking about is not the true shredder in the sense since he was an utrom alien named krell who was this war criminal posing as a rokusaki the real orokusaki became a tengu demon shredder and was known as the one true shredder but he was only the main antagonist for season five and following krella shredder was his adopted daughter karai but she became an on and off again ally to the turtles whenever they faced off against each other sort of like catwoman and batman hell she was even invited to april's wedding at the end of the series and you know damn well they ain't doing that with krell but then not to mention there was cyber shredder from fast forward and back to the sewers because not to mention him i feel like krell is the true shredder of this series since he was there from the start came back for turtles forever as the main antagonist there and has the most connection to the turtles since he was the one who killed yoshi when splinter was just a pet rat this shredder's evil voice is superb and the fact he can manhandle multiple opponents at once is so badass nearly every time the tmnt fought him he was able to decimate them single-handedly and constantly upgraded his suit so he could find him better and i'm gonna be real here at first as a kid this bothered me that he was just an alien in a suit fighting because it just came off as like some fat dude who's really good at video games fighting against people who actually trained in martial arts for years and that was pretty whack to me originally until i realized no this is like frell is in a mecca fighting against kaiju sized turtles gamora style and whooping their ass i dig giant robot so that won me over though my only criticisms of this shredder was at times he was very quick to flee from a fight he knew he would lose which i can completely understand you know tactical retreat but compared to who we were talking about i noticed that he ran away a lot as well on the re-watch and and something i honestly have to admit here there's really not much going on for this shredder besides i want to conquer the world and destroy the world [Music] sorry but besides that this version of shredder was damn near perfect following him the 2012 shredder now a scarred up human like the first live-action movie shredder this arokusaki one is one of the most fascinating and intriguing shredders he grew up as an adopted brother to hamato yoshi they started out as friends then became rivals over a beautiful woman named tang shin who if you're familiar with the comics the movie and that one flashback episode of the 2003 series where they switched out shredder for this sim since you can't have a technical monster loving asian woman on kids tv she fell in love with yoshi leaving heroku distraught and angry that's rough buddy and in addition to going through this he also found out his true origins were quite similar to two of our favorite norse gods and he becomes more and more angry as he realized he was stolen from the foot clan as a child this fills him with such rage that he attacks the temple he was raised at kills tang shen and stole yoshi's daughter but something i really do love about the 2012 shredder is the fact that he generally did love tang shin and karai like he generally did love them there was like nothing malicious about that he didn't like flip out because she turned him down and then like kill her like these two in cells he basically was like no i love you i want to be with you she said no and he was like okay i i don't understand but whatever and the only reason she died was because of an accident when he was trying to kill yoshi now i'm not condoning that at all and he still killed her but the fact that he didn't mean to do it like the other ones it's just it says a lot more about his character but again i'm not condoning that because shredder trying to kill a man to get in the girl's cheeks because he wanted them for himself makes you not only an incel but a [ __ ] simp too bruh after this battle leaves him burned and blinded in one eye he covers his entire body in shredder armor which has some pretty cool attachments not only does this have a cape but the blades are retractable and come out to sword length this shredder is also one of the most brutal badass shredders we've ever had in combat he also wanted all the smoke and could back up his abilities like quite a few times he soloed all the tmnt and their friends by himself even when the odds were against him he'd just stand there and be like bring it he was also surprisingly deep and watching him we saw him go through emotional turmoil of the fact he did generally love tang shin and his adopt stole um kidnapped yes kidnapped that's the word daughter karai whose real name was meanwhile we see him actually have a mental breakdown of his emotions where all the lies he told her growing up he actually starts to believe himself seeing this highly powerful and formidable enemy have a mental breakdown all the way through to him being a mutated super shredder was just such a fascinating journey to witness before the end they truly put a lot of work into this shredder then to cap off the categories rye shredder this shredder is the most powerful shredder we've had to date and also the most animalistic in his first few appearances this shredder originally was some mystic alien armor that fused with the rokusaki who in this version was actually related to the hamato clan and therefore related to the turtles because their blood was from yoshi and he turned to this demonic entity who was just opie like damn later on he was able to speak again and fun fact he was voiced by the 2012 splinter hoon lee which made the shredder even more badass i enjoyed watching this shredder a ton as it was cool to see how much of a threat he truly was easily the most formidable shredder to date but again i gotta be real here while i love the design it always low-key bothered me that we always saw his mouth and besides that ferocity there wasn't really much to this shredder compared to the other ones he was very much like a boogeyman for all of season one and once he was revived he only had a few episode appearances overall unlike the other shredders we all grew to know this was the only traitor to ever body john c baron jackson who was more like the true antagonist of rise before he was rehabilitated and the star are you sure about that winner while shredder is one of my top 10 favorite villains of all time i gotta give the point here to 2012 shredder he had the most character would never back down from a fight and seeing his story tragically play out was loki heartbreaking in a way i love the other shredders and i know people are shocked i didn't pick 2003 shredder and again this shredder design and voice wise is the best no contest he is the best when it comes to design and voice but as a character comparatively it's not a contest okay so far let's tally up the points category 1 overall winner 2003 wins this category category 2 opening theme song worth 2 points i can't play the opening themes because copyright is just a mega issue right now and it would not let me do it at all like without this video just getting taken down so what i'm going to do is i'm going to leave a link to a thread on my twitter account at jaxplay fitness if you want to follow me by all means that'd be great follow me there and what you i'm gonna do is you can listen to every song for yourself so i'll give you a minute to like go listen to everyone for yourself or if you want so if you want to pause the video go listen or if you just want to continue if i don't know if i'm probably doing a live stream right now but if you're watching this on live stream it's cool too we're just gonna get right into it but that'll be for afterwards when you know we get done with this the 1987 openings the original tmnt song is just downright iconic that's the easiest way to put it it has such ridiculous lyrics but everyone can identify that theme song when it is played just by its instrumental the animation for the intro is superb and it's super catchy and has become a part of mainstream pop culture and is constantly reference slash parody the red sky arc changed it up a bit when the turtles got more edgy and that was a downgrade in my opinion but that original og theme song is just pure perfection next the 2003 openings the 2003 opening has phenomenal animation and has a good opening song but it's not as memorable or catchy i still enjoy it and i enjoyed when they switched up the intro adding character introductions for the four main turtles and switching up the watch out for shredder when he was defeated and when karai took over but then there's fast forward and back to the sewers intros for when the show became a brighter version and honestly let's let's just not talk about that on to the 2012 opening the 2012 opening had a really dope rap verse that i memorized entirely here we go it's a lean green ninja team on the scene cool teams doing into things so extreme mothers who will like lazy beams get rocked with a shell-shocked pizza kings can't stop these radical dudes secret of who's made a chosen few emerge from the shadows to make their move good guys win bad guys lose leonardo's leader in blue does anything it does gets ninjas through dantello was a fellow has a way of machines raviel's got the most attitude on team michelangelo he's one of the time and he knows when the final one is potty time my splitter tell them every skill and skill they need to be one lean mean green incredible team teenage mutant ninja turtle teenage mutant ninja turtles and had a pretty cool intro that has nods to the 1987 2003 and original comic books later on as new characters were added the intro was updated to show them and even updated completely in season 4 when they were in space with the fugitoid which was a nice touch they completely changed the theme song for season 5 which is full of elseworld stories called tales of the tmnt and in my opinion that one was not as great though it did give a cool spy aesthetic to the turtles finishing off we have the 2018 openings the animation for this one is sick the best animation so far for a tmnt intro and it's rather catchy but it's heavily influenced by the 1987 intro with the same type of beat for when you hum it but the lyrics are catchy and it's very energetic here's the thing the 1987 theme is so iconic casual people or normies recognize it because it's everywhere yo is that the ninja turtle scene yo i love that oh my god classic yeah man you hyped for that shredders revenge game oh i'm mega hype mega hype i'm gonna be playing all day bro [Music] what the [ __ ] are you saying ninja turtles man that is not ninja turtles yes it is no one is not bro literally it is noah is really not ninja turtles 2003 ninja turtles on fox box remember that i know what ninja turtles is that was not the song all right that's not what are you singing what the hell are you singing dude ninja turtles dude that is not ninja turtles at all okay look it literally is ninja turtles no it is not a nickelodeon which one a nickelodeon was like cgi and stuff like that oh that [ __ ] you actually like that okay but yeah that was so ugly dog what the hell are you saying that with a classic what is wrong with you yo was that from freaking ninja turtles my dude yeah ninja turtles dude i love that show as a kid man well actually this one's from the rise of the tmnt what's that new one that came on nickelodeon oh you mean that ugly cartoony looking one i mean it didn't really look that bad oh my god i hated that crap dog it looks so bad fight scenes were actually oh my god look like trash straight trash like how could they do that i really do enjoy the 2003 2012 and rise themes a lot and bump him on my ipod all the time but this is a no contest when it comes to the most influential and memorable of the theme songs i know some people may comment well i didn't know that theme song i didn't know that theme song either yo it's new to me congrats you're in the minority because the majority of people recognize the ogtmnt theme since it's constantly used and remember a lot of people can be in a minority as one percent okay let's tally up the points again category two winner 1987. category three character designs starting with a 1987 tmnt the 1987 turtles look pretty much the same besides their colors belt buckles and voices but even the latter can't tell them apart at times they started off looking adorable and cute until the red sky arc happened to fill them with edge geez give them a slice of pizza or something no i'm dead ass serious in the red sky arc they rarely ever eat pizza and it kind of makes sense why they look so grumpy april's design was banging as i've gushed about already and this design is honestly my favorite design for april o'neil ever and honestly the hottest one we've ever had in my honest opinion splinter looks pretty cool and i always love shredders simplistic design with the gray shirt and purple cape the foot clan their purple henchmen outfits are superb and even including characters like bebop and rocksteady and all of these very memorable mutants made for great action figures back then and whenever you see these you feel the nostalgia hit you hard up next 2003 tmnt designs i've already gushed about the 2003 shredder as well cause god it's such a badass design and even all the different variations of the foot clan look great from normal ninja to stealth to these dudes with the nice hats but let's talk about the turtles in this version they are all different shades of green just like the original 87 figures but in the 87 show they were all the same color another thing i love about these 2003 turtles is that early on they have their weapons wrapped in the same colors they wear but this was later changed out and back to the sewers and turtles forever to be closer to the myth 2007 movie yeah i called that movie mound the rewatch it does not hold up for a variety of reasons another really cool thing about these turtles was that their eyes were pupils when they wore their masks just like the original comic books and other superheroes at the time it added greatly to their intimidation but partially took away their emotions so later on they gave him pupils through their mass and back to the sewers which was a terrible design choice in my honest opinion and thankfully they fixed it when turtles forever came around when they met the original comic in 1987 tmnt april although a bit pale and very reminiscent of a certain disney princess hey wait a minute corporate needs you to find the differences between this picture and this picture they're the same picture and casey looked great as well while splinter looked decent the strength of this series designs was that it blended the seriousness of the original comic books with the colorfulness of the 1987 series it didn't try to change anything to the extreme like later iterations and was solid for the first five seasons because of it and these are pretty much the quintessential tm t designs when you think about it when you just think tmnt from a perfect amalgam created next up the 2012 tmnt now this series was the first series in cgi and fun fact originally the series after next mutation was going to be cgi but they pulled the plug on it and went with the 2003 tmnt not that i hate cgi but for team t i always do prefer the 2d animation over the 3d animation and these did take a while for me to personally get used to especially in the first season when the models were sometimes quite a bit stiff but later on they became a lot more fluid the turtles in this series are not carbon copies of each other for a change they all have their own distinct looks like leo for instance has an average muscular build this time with blue eyes donnie is the tallest and a bit lanky with a gap in his teeth with reddish brown eyes raph is the most muscular has cracks in his shell and piercing green eyes like he's about to cause a copyright issue and then there's mikey who has a freckled face and the shortest bandana mask and innocent blue eyes what i love about these variations is that they all look vastly different with or without their masks and when they get serious their eyes will go back to the original pupillus design which is a great way to blend both worlds in addition to those changes these turtles all wear tape around their fingers and feet now and have more than two toes to their counterparts the shredder though is massively scarred up in this series and has those baraka blades in his gauntlets which are pretty dope april is a redhead teen with a woody that they constantly put in your face and casey jones is a skinny kid who likes face paint hockey and skating splinter in the show looks fantastic he's the tallest we've ever seen him and the way his furs design just makes him look so badass as well also the mutants and new characters looked awesome in the show and each time a familiar character was introduced we were excited to see what they look like now on to rise of the tmnt this series just said f the formula we're making each turtle super distinct raph is a giant gamer looking [ __ ] and he's a snapping turtle yeah let's make him all different types of turtles donatello can be a soft shell but he has a jet pack shell and goggles like the 2014 movie kids love that right and then leo leo leo can be deaf be a red-eared slider yeah he has those cool markings on his face extra ninja looking it's super cool dude and then mikey mikey can be let's make him something basic like a box turtle and splinter can be a small rat but in his human form he can be based off a fusion of bruce lee and jackie chan and then shredder shredder let's say shredder shredder can be this massive monster demon right we gotta make him scary af but not too scary because we gotta sell figures and then we can make april black i mean she was black in the comics right no well let's make a statement and casey casey jones hear me out hear me out on this casey can be a woman yo okay so as someone who loves rise of the tmnt i can understand that why it can be a turn off to certain people who only have like a surface level understanding of what teenage ninja turtles is because i can understand the confusion because if you're just getting into this series and you're so used to just like this general design of what team t is and you're just plopped into it people have to be guided like a child like you have to introduce them like gradually you can't just plop them into a new thing like this and even though i love designs and all the designs of like the yokai and various creatures and while the comedy will grow on you i can see why if you only understand tmnt from again this surface level of just like it needs to have the turtles look like this they have to be like bad ass like this and then like half the characters act like this then i can completely understand why it's a turn off and i can see why that did turn off quite a few watchers from initially giving it a chance but in my honest opinion if you're going to go so vastly different to get people who are more close-minded to watch this new show having something like that seen prior from turtles forever with all the multiverses being a thing and helping them understand would be best because just making casual fans in general understand multiverse theories can always be a challenge just ask dc but overall each design is unique stands out and is really quite charming in their own way and i like them all for what they are now for me personally aesthetically the 2003 designs are just my favorite designs in general for all of tmnt just because i think it's like the quintessential team and t design like when you see these designs you pretty much think oh yeah that's tmnt that's tmnt looking great that's tmnt looking badass i love it but there are certain aspects from the other series which i do generally like a bit better because like of how creative they were with it and then various other things that they do so right now what we're going to do with this category is we're going to go back to those characters we ranked before you know leo mikey donnie raff splinter casey april uh shredder and then we're just gonna look at them and like see like which is the best design for each of them um from each respective series all right leonardo best version 2003 in my opinion because it captures that badass stoic leader vibe that he represents the best michelangelo best version i'm torn between 1987 and 2012 here but i'd go with 2012 because his design fits his younger but more excitable brother personality perfectly with the shorter bandana than his brother is the freckled face and being the smallest one who can whoop your ass i think that just fits the character the best donatello best version easily the ryze 2018 version of donny because all his tech seems valid and helpful and makes sense for him plus he's got a kickass jetpack bro and that is just like raw and raphael for the best version of this design i'm honestly torn between the rise raft snapping turtle and you know 2012 raph but i think i have to go with 2012 raphael as aesthetically you can tell he has bigger muscles than his brothers but he's not like a ridiculous like gamer size looking creature and he's shorter so that makes his rage a bit more understandable and plus he has those hulk green eyes that just fit rap perfectly so like sort of like a buff chihuahua turtle if that ever made sense which it probably doesn't but i just think just aesthetically this design fits rap perfectly for someone you know not to mess with best looking splinter again easy another win for the 2012 splinter as this tall martial art sensei gives off an intimidating aura but also a caring father presence april o'neil 1987 cuz i mean let's just be real god damn woman oh next up casey jones and best design as much as i love the 1987 casey design i think i gotta go with the 2003 here just for the fact that we got to see him look badass in a mask and outside the mask while the other one looked like harry jeremy in a mask if you know who harry jeremy is you a goat all right all my british fans stand up treader okay why why am i wasting time you all already know this i've gushed about it so many times alright we all know that this is the godliest design ever this 2003 version and i'm tempted to give it two points but i've gushed on this version enough so again let's tally up the points for this round category three winner it's a draw between 2003 and 2012 who both got three points each now we're on category four with the fight scenes worth two points let's be real here for a second everyone who watched a certain one knows that this is gonna be a blowout but let's just you know talk about the others let's start off with the 1987 tmnt the 1987 fight scenes were pretty decent in the first five episodes after those first five they started using more props to fight instead of their weapons or martial arts skills and occasionally we'd see an 80s level cartoon strike to knock out opponents but as the series went on the fighting devolved and like i mentioned earlier they got rid of michelangelo's nunchucks because they were too violent a similar thing happened in the original live-action movies when in the first movie the turtles used their weapons and actively beat up criminals with martial arts well in the second they toned it down a bit so they primarily use goofy things to fight in addition to their martial arts skills in the later seasons though they rectified this a bit since the turtles were more edgy and had to use their weapons and combat abilities more often to fight rather than using random stuff but if i'm being real it wasn't all that impressive on to 2003 tmnt this series had much better fight scenes than the 1987 tmnt the user weapons they had cool choreography at times and it felt comfortable doing for kids tv level violence which was more than the 1987 series but the biggest issue with this series fights was they were rather repetitive on the rewatch sure there were some great ones but most of the time the fights went like this punch to screen punch to screen flash of light person flies back and lands on floor or very rock'em sock'em style combat those were cool for the time and they did have some other cool fight scenes with well choreographed stuff but it was very much like later on they just get outclassed by future series 2012 tmnt all right this series had some of the best fights overall with the choreography doing a lot to show the skills of every individual fighter in the series which is perfect because every character in tmnt has unique fighting style all to their own and if you youtube any big main fight in this series you won't be bored by it the animators really brought their a-game with this and it was even more of a bonus when the tmnt acted like actual ninjas in the shadows to make them more intimidating i honestly have nothing bad to say about the fights in this series besides the fact that in the first season due to the early cgi they're a bit wonky at first but later on they became more fluid and a hell of a lot more enjoyable to watch this series would most def take the win here if it wasn't for the next contender rise of the tmnt fights bro bro bro whatever people think the series lacked it more than makes up with it with its god tier fight scenes this show is seriously like if kila kill and naruto had this mutant baby freak that became a goat in its own right there is so much going on in every fight with the animation the dynamic movements and the choreography being displayed so much care was made to make these fight scenes stand out and excite you and i love and respect the team that worked on them even more for each time i rewatch it look if you need a reason to give rise a chance this is the number one thing it has going for it and i know some people make the excuse of their digits the z warriors this is too much well in my opinion this was a cool way to give ryze its own flair because remember multiverse and it's cool that this version has its own hype fights if you want more grounded realistic fights there's always batman vs tmnt which had great fights as well but if you honestly don't look at this and go oh my god that is dope then all i have to say is shut up [ __ ] category 4 rise of the tmnt wins this easy not a contest in the slightest let's tally up the points again next up category 5 the best overall series and how well it holds up and as we've seen through this entire video every tmnt series wins at something for valid reasons like they are really great at what they do in certain categories so for this one we're going to be just going over the entire series 1987 2003 2012 and rise and just see like okay which one holds up the best now again they're going to be certain things that i just can't cover because i feel like if i covered it this would be like a four hour epic video and while i would love to do that i feel like some people will be like just get to the point and also there are so many other videos that have done this so incredibly well like so many other tmnt videos that i've seen like again you can find them on youtube you can find them on like google or anything like that and i think they just do it a great way but also something i want to mention is i want to keep the mystique of this a bit because i want you to go watch these series for yourself if you're not interested or if you're a tmnt fan who's just got the surface level understanding i want you to watch it and be like oh okay i can see what they were talking about here because each of them have something of quality so again i want to apologize if i don't talk about every single little bitty detail like for certain things like oh why didn't they mention this or this or this like i'm sorry i just want to say that right off the get-go but for right now let's just talk about each tmnt series and how well they hold up let's start off this final round with the 1987 tmnt this show only had five episodes in the first season and they were all following a coherent plotline we are introduced and get to see various characters meet each other and find out the main plot for most the series what's great here is that each of the villains they introduce are much more threatening here than in later seasons and actually made shredder crank and bebop and rocksteady a lot more imposing as antagonists but later on in the show they become more comedic until the red sky seasons matter of fact after season one the show started to become a lot more comedy based and would have the turtles fight with various objects around them rather than their weapons and as the series went on it became clear that most of the characters inventions introduced were primarily for merchandising as most of the episodes were very episodic though it was cool they introduced us to a lot of popular non-comic book characters that would be reintroduced in the 2012 show and later comic book runs and even brought in some characters from the original live-action trilogy like toca and razar but they were only in there for one episode of season seven it's always cool to see references like that the series became full on comedy in season three and introduced cool characters like casey jones rat king and leather head but then in season four again like i've mentioned numerous times they replaced mikey's nunchucks with just a grappling hook and mostly humor was pretty meh but we did get introduced to mona lisa who admittedly was fun to rewatch it made me appreciate whenever we saw her in later series but then we get to season five and nothing really memorable happens and the dialogue is crappy and it becomes very clear this is just to sell toys and we've got to have money season six started to gradually improve with better writing and dialogue and most of the apps were pretty fun to rewatch season seven was another massive improvement and had certain episodes that made up for the abomination that was teenage mutant ninja turtles 3 the movie they also had this weird season called the european vacation season which they marketed as season seven and where certain actors didn't reprise their roles as certain characters and the season was honestly it was it was pretty mid not gonna lie it was pretty mid but we had a cool segment when the tmnt actually get mistaken for the artists they're based on and the hijinks i found fun to watch we also had meeting the triceraton alien race which we get to know a lot more about in later series and a cool fact we get to see what krang's species actually look like though like i mentioned earlier they retconned that in 2012 but i like dino crane then we get to the edgy red sky arc which was darker had much more mature themes made the turtles look angry all the time like their comic counterparts and action figures may shred her into more of a threat instead of a goofy villain since he blows up the new station april works at and the turtles get blamed for it and then they become enemy number one before redeeming themselves later and it gets to this point that i really enjoyed where they start questioning why even help people if they think they're monsters and the comedy noticeably went downhill now this is the problem i think 1987 tmnt faced so basically they started off as the action cartoon with some comedy and then as later seasons progressed they became more of a comedy series with a lot of action so when they go to this tone shift of the red sky arc where they go from this to this like the tone shift is just so incredibly massive that a lot of people were actually off put by it but what's interesting is the red sky turtles are actually more in line with how the turtles actually looked in like the freaking original comic books the video games the action figures the live action movies and stuff like that that more aggressive serious look but if you're only a fan of the 1987 and you're used to like the cutesy look and like you know you see them teaming up with alvin and the chipmunks you see them on freaking snack containers and stuff like that then you'd be like okay why is this stuff taking itself too seriously and that's actually what happened with the red sky arc it lost a lot of fans because they felt it was taking itself way too seriously at this point which is kind of sad because here's the thing about the red sky series while it was not great it wasn't like by no means like god-awful terrible it wasn't like oh my god i hate this with a rage of 10 000 suns like certain other series we'll get to but then in season 9 we get introduced to lord drake voiced masterfully by tony j and he becomes a much more intimidating final villain than shredder was in addition we meet this new black brother named kata who becomes an ally to the turtles who are undergoing mutagenic hulk out turning him into monsters which they gotta find a cure for and this storyline goes on for a while until in the final season the turtles finally defeat drag krang and shredder and master splinter tells them that they are all now masters and he has nothing left to teach them and that was all the 1987's cmt overall it has its merits a lot of great comedy lovable characters and great scenes but it's by no means a masterpiece without your nostalgia goggles on it really was a product of the 80s and meant to sell merch but later on came through by adding an overarching story though a lot of the episodes left a lot of plot points unresolved or just ignored them next episode like for instance up with mona lisa she shows up at the end like she's gonna stay with the turtles and be like a regular but literally never shows up again same with toca and razar they like hint that toca is gonna come back in the later episode when razar goes to rescue him but it's never resolved on screen there were a ton of episodes like that so overall if your nostalgia bug is kicking in or your kid who's like interested in the original tmnt those first five episodes still hold up tremendously but later on i will just be upfront about it those episodes don't hold up as well during certain times now there are tons of people who will say they will but again like notice if you're wearing those nostalgia goggles because they do have such a great effect on your now on to the 2003 tmnt one of the most beloved series for team mentee and rightfully so like this series has like great characters great art great action great story all engaging to a certain level until like we'll get to that this series starts off incredibly strong reintroducing us to these new versions of the turtles their allies their enemies while also introducing us to new characters and honestly it still holds up tremendously well this time around there are no bebop and rocksteady henchmen but they give nods to each of them so if you love the comics the video games the live action movies and the action figures this show came back with a force because it would straight up adapt certain comic book issues into full episodes and even do references and nods to previous ninja turtle work heck they have an entire epp in honor of jack kirby with him and donatello hanging out that was really well done season one of the show primarily focused on the tmnt meeting familiar faces and showing us just how intimidating this new version of shredder was the story tones were darker like the red sky arc of the 1987 cartoon and the original comics but not so dark that kids would be traumatized by it that comes later there is a lot of great action writing and story that goes on in the season that i had fun re-watching from beating up the purple dragon gang baxter stockman and his mouse was trying to take them down early on and to see baxter fail and get punished by shredder and the big muscle man hun over and over was played off as dark humor but honestly he was an unlikely character i always had a lot of sympathy for especially later on he was a scientist with selfish goals sure but seeing shredder mutilate him each time he fails to the point he was just left a brain in a jar was just sad to be honest the fly one from the 1987 series got off easy in comparison we also see leo get effed up just like in the comics and how raft in the first movie before healing and coming back stronger and season one ends with an all-out assault on shredders headquarters fighting everything and every creature and every mystical being he can throw at them before a final confrontation with shredder being decapitated by lee before his body walks off indicating he's more than meets the eye but also during the final battle they temporarily lose splinter before tracking them down to this tcri facility that's the ooze place that turned him into mutants and they proceeded to meet the utrom these crane looking aliens who were trying to heal splinter and fun fact krang actually makes a brief cameo i hate walking on my tanker oh shut up craig but a mistake happens and they get transported across the galaxy to the end of season one on a cliffhanger then in season two we meet familiar characters like the fugitoid the triceratons usagi and much much more what was great about this show was that it continually had an ongoing storyline with very few episodes being just one offs or american filler the turtles fight in a massive tournament called the battle nexus tournament which would later be revamped for the rise of the tmnt cartoon and we get to see a tournament awk ninja turtle style with the winner being our boy mikey whose annoying ass would brag about it constantly as the series went on but the biggest thing to happen in season two was that we learned that shredder is an utrom as well and the reasons the writers did this was because no one saw it coming and they thought it would be a cool surprise and a change that would shock the audience which it did so many were mixed on this change that they did with neutron shatter myself included as little kid like i was just like why the hell did they turn them into a freaking crank how dare you disrespect shredder like chargers supposed to be this badass martial artist whooping turtle ass but all the stuff they did with utrom shredder more than made up for it like this guy is basically a metal tank with freaking martial art skills whooping these turtle creatures and other mutants like with ease like he was such a badass force of nature in this show we also meet karai krell's adopted daughter who he taught martial arts to and became his most trusted ally we see an actual good version of leatherhead in this series instead of like the last 1987 series who could guarantee a bad time then in season three we get even more crossovers and meet new characters like the badass bishop who will become integral later on as an antagonist and later ally but we also get the phenomenal episode same as it never was which if you're reading tmnt the last ronin you should appreciate it honestly initially this show got better and better after every season and still honest to god still holds up tremendously well today as an adult like with absolutely no bias this show holds up incredibly well for the first five seasons and that is probably what led to its downfall so let me explain at the end of season three the turtles finally defeat shredder and the utrom banish him to this ice planet and you think oh snap the big bad's gone who are they gonna fight next season and guess what cry becomes a new shredder for a period of time before making peace with them later on hun the big muscle man is running the purple dragon gang and baxter is coming back from the dead is okay okay so season four was great and i can appreciate a lot more as an adult but there are a lot of disturbing graphic episodes this season matter of fact some of these episodes got pulled because they were really upping the ante each season and while season five we got a pretty cool spiritual magic demon fight since this turtles had to fight the original demon shredder who turns into this dragon monster and is threatening to destroy the world and the turtles go dragon mode themselves to fight him trust me it's really hype bit delayed showing season 5 for here we go teenage ninja turtles fast forward this is when the show took a noticeable drop in quality since it had to be a lot more kid-friendly and so the writing and dialogue was pretty mid like other four kids cartoons at the time the villains and characters introduced had their moments but weren't all that and it was you know very goofy now if you were a kid during that time and rewatch it when nostalgia goggles on i can see you having a fun time but if you're trying to watch it just objectively when you're older it it don't hold up that well i mean it was cool for the tmnt since in the future world they got transported to they could just walk around like normal people but overall this season was a process to get through on the re-watch it wasn't god-awful terrible it was just a noticeable decrease in quality which can hurt a show immensely you know it's actually kind of funny how inverse this show is to the 1987 series because the 1987 cartoon as we mentioned started off as like these cute comedic characters before turning into these grumps in the red sky arc while this 2003 turtle started off you know dark and moderately action-paced before they had to brighten them up because they had to protect the children then after this season we head back to the sewers which was cool to have the tmnt back home but overall the quality never regained that of the first five seasons they even redesigned the turtles they have pupils now i mean look at this anime [ __ ] they did this to match the designs of the mad 2007 film that came out and yes i'm still standing by i rewatched it and only the first 30 minutes of that film hold up four drops badly just like this series did and for the plot of this season they just need to get splinter back because when they were heading home the bad guy they fought in the future was chasing him and made him get lost in another dimension before becoming the new shredder because back to sewers means we need shredder back so some apps are fun but most of them were just pretty lackluster like for instance they have three shredders fight and that's cool and every single character shows up for april and casey's wedding in the last episode which is great i love last episodes like that when everyone gets back together and beat the bad guy but overall this was a major downgrade from earlier seasons you see this show was honestly a top dog in his first five seasons and if it ended there it would easily take the goat spot but problem is those last two seasons tarnish his overall quality before turtles forever which was a good time with a lot of great references but ending up making complete fools of the 1987 turtles which was a bit mad especially after re-watching each series fully still a fun show to watch on to 2012 tmnt now this was the first series where tmnt officially became a nicktoon since they bought the rights to it this show got a lot of flack at first when following the 2003 series mainly because of the artistic choice of making cgi which nickelodeon had been using for a while which they did pretty well with with you know the adventures of jimmy neutron and penguins of madagascar but then they had series like back of the barnyard butt ugly martians fanboy and chum jump planet sheen i think i made my point so a lot of people were like how dare you take tmnt to be one of your cgi monstrosities but luckily when the series premiered it was pretty decent all the turtles looked different from each other splinter was the tallest he's ever been shredder was incredibly imposing and for this series they introduced the reoccurring alien antagonist known as the krang which we later learn are evil versions of the same race of utroms but taking the 1987 titular villain's name for all of them the fight choreography was also much better than the previous iteration and it had a nice overarching story but this series started off far from flawless rewatching season 1 the cgi was a bit rough at times with the character movements and sometimes the story felt a tad slow another big thing for me was that a lot of characters personally took a while for me to warm up to compared to the last two series where i immediately liked each turtle and their different personalities right away they also did a lot of teen titan style anime humor which i will admit for me personally took a while to get used to and was always hit or miss for me but one big thing i will say about this show was that it was consistently decent and only got better as it went along i think the reason for that was not just for the writing but the fact that they truly made an amalgam tmnt series for all fans to appreciate they have references in the show from the comic books 1987 cartoon 2003 cartoon video games live action movies old and new and then added their own distinct flair for example one small nitpick i had with tmnt 2003 was that there was no bebop and rocksteady and through the whole series as a kid i really wanted them to show up now as i learned later on the 2003 series was mainly based on the original comic books so that's why they never had them so i was always a bit salty because i felt how i did with tm t secret of the ooze where instead of live action bebop and rocksteady we got toka and razar so in this show for the first couple seasons we meet shredders mutant henchmen and we get dog pound who later becomes razar which is cool i guess fish face and tiger claw who are all imposing foes for the turtles to take on then in season three they take characters introduced in season two who i thought were just minor bumpkins and it turns out they were bebop and rocksteady all along and when they mutated my level of hype was astronomical because for a while i felt like i was being faked out i was just like oh you're gonna tease me you're not gonna actually you know finish me off right here but then they actually turn into the characters and 2012 did this so incredibly well they did this numerous times with characters not only from the comic books but from the 1987 show like it was great blending both of these together and they did it so perfectly and they did it in such a way that even if you never saw the 1987 cartoon you could still appreciate them as characters for how they were built up as for seasons they gradually improved one after another in season one we meet splinter and the turtles again and we get to see them actually taste pizza for the first time instead of just having an innate love for it we then meet a young version of april and her father who probably get kidnapped by the main antagonist of this series the crane and with their mutagen have caused a bunch of action i'm sorry about that i mean random mutations to run around the city and wreak havoc so this season is pretty much just the turtles trying to rescue april's dad fighting monster the weak type mutants fighting the krang and of course fighting shredder in his goons we are also introduced to karai again but this time around she's the blood daughter of splinter but she's been manipulated into thinking shredder is her real father and that yoshi murdered their mother because shredder is the most badass incel you'll ever face and to be real this season starts off pretty slow but it gradually picks up as we go along and actually has a few great comedic episodes like they have this one episode right where rap is terrified of roaches and it they make it so organic and so realistic that it's just hilarious to see this dude deal with the fact that they have to deal with a roach mutant that they caused him to be chased by ah we also meet my favorite version of leatherhead sure we've seen him before in the 1987 with aguero on t and we see him in 2003 as this intelligent guy but the reason i love this leather face specifically is because he has not only this heart of gold but he has these like hulk out rage moments and he becomes a major player later on but the season ends with the turtles fighting the krang in their 2012 technodrome attack in the city while shredder and splinter face off the heroes of course win rescuing april's dad and splinter is left heartbroken once he finds out the truth about karai in season 2 the crane come back and thanks to a flub up with the turtles they spill a bunch of mutagen in the city causing a lot more innocent people and creatures to turn to mutants including april's dad which makes her piss for a while before rejoining the turtles later on and the main premise of this season is donatello trying to make a retro mutagen to cure april's dad we're also introduced to casey jones and irma and we're also introduced to many new awesome mutants such as you know slash a familiar face from the past and of course the mighty mu channels before they become that team in season three various aliens and villains from previous generations like a terrifying version of the rat king and fly baxter stockman this season i'd honestly say was better than the first season because the cgi was less choppy the fight scenes were more on point and the story was getting more engaging and interesting when we were following along with it and i was generally curious how things were going to go like one of my favorite things this season is when karai learns that splinter is her father and because of how she was raised and trained she doesn't believe it right away so the way she reacts is very realistic and organic and she has to be guided to believe it and then when she finally does realize that he is her father it's a very beautiful scene and the thing about this show is like the emotional moments like that are so organic and well done that i really do appreciate it they also cure april's dad this season but inversely karai gets mutated and becomes this snake mutant hybrid and things go to crap when we find out that shredder and krang have actually joined forces thanks to this [ __ ] irma who actually turns out to be a crying herself and yet this one can speak pretty fluently instead of in the robotic tone that the other crank do 80s irma is disappointed in you and get this he's voiced masterfully by iago himself gilbert godfrey kneel before the genius of frank's soft crime alright so everything is going crazy krang is attacking the city and the shredder is insanely driven to murder the turtles and splinter and at the season 2 finale we see leo put up such a phenomenal intense battle before being crippled by the shredder and being thrown through a window completely incapacitated shredder also completely bodies leatherhead in a fight and throws splinter down a drain while the turtles look on in horror and wrath's rage and sadness can be felt permeating through the screen while they escape to april's old house on the farm this season finale kicks so much ass and it proves that the 2012 series was absolute best at making you feel not only empathetic but emotional and also it had like superior fight scenes and fight choreography compared to the previous shows as i mentioned before but also i really just want to capitalize on the fact that the emotional scenes that this show brings i'm gonna go further in depth later on because if people have watched it you already know what we're gonna talk about like it does it so well and i would say it's vastly superior to the others in that regard when it just comes to pure emotional scenes like sure there were emotional scenes in 2003 and heck there was a couple in 1987 but like nothing to this level whereas like i feel this like is a piercing stab to my heart season three starts off at april's house in the woods and i actually love these batch of episodes because they reference certain horror movies i love and if you've been subbed to me for a while you know i love fry of 13th movies because of jason and they fight a jason-esque monster they also fight dream beavers voiced by get this robert england aka freddy krueger and john cassier the voice of the crypt keeper from tales from the crypt this is where they changed leonardo's voice actor to seth green for the rest of the series and i honestly really liked his version more than their previous versions because not only was he more serious but he was also hella nerdy still and it was just perfect for this version of leo they go through training scenes come back find splinter and come up with a game plan and there are just so many solid episodes in this season from bebop and rocksteady's first appearance the purple dragon gang getting hun as their new leader who's pretty much just an evil bruce lee the mighty mutanimals forming their gang a time travel episode where the turtles go back and get to see how hamata yoshi splinter and arokusaki shredder fought over tang shen and the introduction of the most intimidating triceratons yet again when re-watching this season i was invested for a majority of it like there were only a couple times where i was like all right this is dragging a bit i don't like how this is going or this is a bit irritating but for majority of the season i was invested and it just gradually improved in the writing and the story as we were going along the season ends with the crane getting banished back to their home dimension and it also ends with this massive battle of the triceratons trying to activate a weapon that will eradicate the earth and the turtles have to team up with the shredder to stop them but shredder being the scum sucker he is kills splinter quote unquote and the planet apparently blows up before doctor who i mean um scrooge mcduck i mean um the fugitoid yes the future toy dr honeycutt voiced by david tennant himself rescues them to help him stop the triceratons by going back in time six months prior and this takes them into their space season and technically their final true season now season four i actually really like a lot because we get so much quality stuff such as the turtles crossover we should have gotten in turtles forever with the 80s turtles actually being competent we get a bug version of lord dragback a space street shark bounty hunter raf's girlfriend mona lisa voiced by zelda williams of kuvera fame snake karai and her girl shinigami becoming allies giant ass toca super shredder and an amazing final battle season 4 for the 2012 series gave some of the highest highs and most emotional moments i've ever experienced in any team in t series again after watching through all of them back to back i can without a doubt say without hesitation no cap this one dominates when it comes to emotional content again not a hundred percent perfect there were some flops but this season had some emotional moments i have my grown ass crying hard just from how well they wrote these scenarios and being invested with these characters for so long the main points of this season were the space travels to stop the triceratons from destroying earth reuniting with splinter again april dealing with her powers that i mentioned earlier and of course the final battle with super shredder where saki's mind has deteriorated so much from losing his adopted daughter being wounded by splinter and then being mutated into a monster that actually ends up taking the life of splinter for good and this genuinely shocked me they did fake out deaths all the way through the series with splinters several times but to see the master actually die and become this force ghost mentor was something i commend them for having the balls to do the season ends with a final battle between leo and shredder where leo kills him and so the city is saved the bad guys are defeated and this is pretty much the series finale since everything was wrapped up but they gave us one more season called tales of the teenage mutant ninja turtles with a bunch of side stories including shredder and splinter coming back from the dead thanks to a demon resurrected by tiger claw a mad max apocalypse style episode portal hopping to meet our boy usagi again and then ending with a crossover with the 1987 tmnt where the 80 shredder wants to hire the 2012s bebop from rocksteady while the 80s tmnt learn how to be great fighters which again i didn't care for because it made the 80s tmnt seem like they were less competent when in previous episodes they showed they were very competent overall this series was good all the way through but i wouldn't say great all the way through or like just be overall great series in that regard like it did improve season after season but there were some pieces where i was like okay this was never resolved these things just weren't that well done and this could have been done a lot better but i would recommend it to anyone who wants a solid good time watching a teenage mutant ninja turtle series now onto the most recent tmnt series rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles which is the shortest team in t series to date with only just two seasons now because this certain series is so short and easily rewatchable hell they have a movie coming out later this year i'm not gonna go super in depth with it as i did with the ones that were like 100 plus episodes like each series cause you can burn through this show relatively fast and see if it's for you but with that said i'll tell you what you get with this series as i mentioned earlier this series got a lot of flack from the majority of people initially the character designs personality changes of mainstay characters and very nictoonish comedy all around this show after watching it is very much trying to be its own thing and now after watching it i can say i totally respect that the turtles in this show have magic super powered weapons fight a dude named baron draxum for most of it and encounter a ton of interesting villains from recognizable faces like the purple dragons who became more tech thieves than gang members baxter stockboy a brilliant take on baxter stockman a magical hippo a worm reporter flaming foot ninja not like that a gordon ramsay monster pig and the battle nexus tournament is hosted by a sexy spider lady that makes me want to go back to watch monster misumi don't you judge me and tons of other mutants which have their own full-fledged society called yokai which is a brilliant reference for people who know the lore of the yokai and what we've heard the turtles called before in previous series this show is mostly comedy with god tier fights so if that appeals to you you're gonna love it the problem it faces though is from people who are expecting the same initial story quality of tmnt 2003 and tmnt 2012 right from the get-go and it does get pretty goddamn great later on but the majority of the first season is just the turtles going through random monster of the weak creatures with a ton of comedy that will either grab you or make you roll your eyes that's a sad reality with this show though like there is so much greatness in the comedy humor and most definitely the action but if you're trying to get someone new to watch it it's understandable that the over-the-top goofiness can be a bit off-putting to certain people and that is a shame because like it is one of those shows you really have to stick with to get to the treasure at the end so once shredder is introduced this series picks up immensely in the writing department and heck there are scenes in season two that actually made me tear up because there is a certain trope i can't handle with certain family stuff and seeing that stuff with splinter and his family have to go through was incredibly incredibly heartwarming with this series you'll get the best action tmnt has ever been blessed with tons of lovable characters references to past series done masterfully for big tim and t fans and an easy to digest series with a great hype ending go watch it if you get the chance because there's a new movie coming to netflix this summer the winner so which series is the best overall again i had so much trouble picking through this because each of them greatly win in various categories 1987 has the most iconic theme song that's become a mainstream pop culture reference just every time you hear it 2003 has the best character designs best artwork and best atmosphere for the teenage mutant ninja turtles that we've ever seen so far in animated series 2012 has bar none the most impactful emotional moments in any of the tmnt animated series and this show had so many moments that made me just said man tears and rise of the tmnt easily demolishes even some top tier anime with their fight scenes and just animation in general i have nothing but love and respect for each and every one of these series but if you want to go for best overall quality then honestly it's a toss-up between two of them which you've already expected the 2003 series and the 2012 series but i have this to say tmnt 2003 is without a doubt a great show it holds up even to this day even without nostalgia goggles and if it had ended at season five it would be the clear victor here in my honest opinion but fast forward and back to the sewers tarnish its overall quality and when a series is great and dips it becomes so much more noticeable especially when you're marathoning the entire thing back to back now sure if you want to say those who are their own things since they have different subtitles and they felt different to the original five seasons then yeah sure definitely it wins no cap you can take that but if i'm being non-biased and fair and looking at the entire overall series they are still a part of it and i know some people really like those seasons and again i don't speak for all tmnt fans so if you liked them good for you but i want to ask you this and you have to be straight up honest with me right now did you rewatch them without your nostalgia goggles on because like i mentioned earlier nostalgia is the most powerful genjutsu anyone can ever experience and if something makes you feel really good when you're re-watching it that's great but i want you to honestly realize why and while i'm not gonna lie and say every episode of those seasons were trash because no that'd be a complete lie there were some episodes that were very like okay that's actually good that's actually smart i'm having a good time with this one but more often than not a lot of the episodes were just like man used to be so great in those first five seasons what happened and i was just watching it without that non-biased flair of watching it as a kid because even as a kid i thought these episodes were kind of wet well for tmnt 2012 while i wouldn't consider it super great series it was consistently good all the way through and got better each season and improved each season and it had a pretty solid ending where like they ended in season four but also like that final season was pretty damn good as well with all those you know other world stories that they did they were actually really damn good and so when i look at overall quality i would say like overall the entire series it takes a win there so for example let me give you an analogy say you have to eat four pizzas and finish them before the week is up and you win ten thousand dollars one tastes good then decent but it's warm and cold in some places one tastes absolutely great but the last two slices taste like [ __ ] and one tastes good and gets gradually better as you eat it and one that tastes really kind of funny at first but then ends with three great slices if something tastes great and then your last bites are covered in crap it's gonna ruin the past taste and you're gonna wish why did i continue going when that could have stopped but then if something is good and tastes better as it goes along you're gonna have a better memory of that pie i even asked this on twitter what's better and it seems a lot of folks unanimously said what i was thinking and so for this i'd give it to tmnt 2012 because i'm looking at the complete series overall on what holds up and again i know people aren't going to agree with me and i know people are going to be upset and this was hard for me because tmnt 2003 when i'm re-watching i was like yeah i think this is my personal favorite series for those five seasons and i have all the action figures for it too and it was like so awesome just to re-watch those series and just be like yeah this is super hype but if i'm looking at it at a completely non-biased way like looking at all the stuff we've talked about through this mega video then yeah i would definitely have to give it to tmnt 2012 and that's okay like it's okay for people have different opinions you may have a different opinion that's completely fine the winner is the 2012 teenage mutant ninja turtle series but i hope you enjoyed this mega tmnt video god it took me months damn near a year to work on this thing like from re-watching every show like getting all the stuff together right in the script getting my editor henry who's a godsend i have nothing but love for this man who like helped me make this video and avoiding like viacom and all this stuff so we could upload it but i just want to say thank you all so much you watch this to the end and uh yeah definitely hit that like button to help this video out a lot because i just spent so much time on it and i'm so grateful to go back to regular videos but before you go i want you to type turtle power in the comment section down below and also i want to see a couple things who's your favorite ninja turtle and which is your favorite animated series and why let's get a discussion going like i'm curious to see all the turtle fans i got here or if you're new here if you don't know what ninja turtles is and you decide to watch this again thank you so much for your support this was just a fun video i'm so happy that i was finally able to get this out and i really for years just want to get this done and so i've got nothing but love for like everyone who helped me with this from matt henry uh all the people who are watching this just thank you all so much i am going to be going back to regular videos i cannot wait but anyways remember like i always say keep calm booyah on and don't forget momentai now go kick some ass and eat some pizza boo yakasha or should i say cowabunga dudes rocket you

Channel: JaxBlade

Views: 666,678

Rating: 4.9339628 out of 5

Keywords: Which Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Series is the best, 1987 TMNT, 2003 TMNT, 2012 TMNT, rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles, TMNT, JaxBlade, Mega TMNT Video, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, 1987, 2003, 2012, Rise, Ninja Turtles, Best Ninja Turtle Cartoon, Cartoon, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, Raphael, April O'Neil, Splinter, Shredder, Hamato Yoshi, Oroku Saki, Lou Jitsu, Casey Jones, Review, The Last Ronin, Shredder's Revenge, which tmnt series is the best

Id: wLzbny8wSBs

Length: 102min 23sec (6143 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 09 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/RitaROTTMNT]

Yeah Boy! Rise Donnie is the Best!!!! I love Donatello!