An individual in the know states a new animated series in development. Bandai is making a play for the license or now has acquired it. I believe he is hinting at Joaquim Dos Santos is doing the designs, who also worked on JLU/DCAU and Joe Resolute.
Linked discussion about T’cats.
http://www.actionfigureinsider.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17150&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=30
P.S. You may already be up on this, just thought I’d pass it along.
Sounds more like wishful thinking to me… though I will stand corrected if wrong.
Mmm… It’s def interesting and I hope the line continues to pick up enough steam for the property to take off and warrant an actual quality cartoon. Here’s hoping!
Interesting. This is actually the first I have heard about Bandai chasing the license
Bandai is a leading Japanese toy company and it has the licences to many popular properties like Dragonball,Gundam,Evangelion,Godzilla and the American distribution arm of Bandai that makes toys for the U.S market manufactures Power Rangers, Ben 10,Digimon and others. Now, i have seen though i don’t own any of Bandai toy products and my impression is i can’t imagine Thundeercats produced by a Japanese toy company. The japanese philosophy of toys and model kits is slim,thin with many articulation points,relatively short, assorted weaponry and a variety of colour appliance. I really like how they make the mecha,robot toys,giving them a human-machine aspect. However, Thundercats wouln’t fit in any Japanese technique, despite having evidently the anime element on their design,there are also the fantasy features as well. The characters could follow the design type of the famous Japanese title Final Fantasy,yet again there are differences which will alienate further from the original image. For instance the mascular body is totally new to japanese toys, the faces are made more often that not angular and small with great emphasis at the hair.
Same guy?
Isn’t Joaquim the same guy that did the recent background art for the WB games site?
As most fans would agree Mattel makes better products, Bandai markets products better than Mattel. That is why the new He-Man failed, due to Mattel lack of advertisement to the new generation of kids. Thundercats deserves better treatment!
While Bandai is Japanese toy corporation, they do have a US subsidiary as was pointed out earlier. The line is most certainly being aimed at Children as opposed to adult collectors. The Four Horsemen could have done a fantastic job, if the line could have been split up into Thundercats Classics line of figures for Mattycollector.com. I won’t say never in collecting a bandai line if this indeed comes to fruition.
[COLOR=“Blue”]I know Joaquim dos Santos drew the Thundercats: Heroes and Villains issues for Wildstorm, and he did an impressive job.
A new, quality series would be nice, but I’m not getting my hopes up. We’ll see what happens…
I would love for Thundercats to get a reboot. Transformers has gotten it. GI Joe has gotten it. He-Man got it. Ninja Turtles got it.
T-Cats is really the only major 80s cartoon to NOT be brought back, re-done, or rebooted outside of the newer comic series.
I’d be all for a new T-Cats cartoon.
It would be amazing if Larry Kenney reprise his role as Lion-O for the new series. What new designs should WB go w/ Thundercats?
I am not too sure how I feel about Bandai releasing a toyline. I guess I am too invested in a Mattel/4 Horseman style
As for the animated series, they need to be very careful how the present it. The only thing that is keeping Thundercats alive now is the adult base. The new animated series must be aimed at kids without alienating the adults (us)
There is a huge demand for Thundercats reboot and as the years go by keeping the series in limbo will cause the request for something new to grow drastically. This is a common fact everybody knows and agrees. I’ve read many ideas and speculations over how, when and what it should be like, i think this conversations can go on forever,personally i care more about the directions the new production company will follow. The Rankin/Bass Animated Entertainment company doesn’t exist and ever since 1989 the year when Warner Bros(whose television syndication arm later assumed distribution of the show) purchased the series original distributor Lomirar-Telepictures and eventually gained rights to the whole franchise from that point on, Thundercats future lies totally on new producers and creators. I don’t think any of the old production parts whether it is the animation which was provided by the japanese studio Pacific corporation,writers or voice actors will be involved in the new cartoon. And i am referring to this because we shouldn’t forget the innovational and still rare blend of components which bore to fruition the successful Thundercats series. The American idea, plot and voices with the Japanese animation. I believe this combination was the reason of achievement behind the Thundercats creation. None of the other 80s cartoon had such progressive teams, collaborating and mixing their best elements. He man,G.I. joe and TMNT didn’t have such a sophisticated and elegant design and even though i enjoyed as a kid very much the TMNT i want to be objective and consider all of the aforementioned series generally one class below. I believe that Thundercats new step should stick to the old recipe and follow the same formula. But WB isn’t Rankin/Bass and as far as i know has its own American animation studios,certainly it is one of the major companies in television entertainment and movies with some amazing works but Thundercats are unique and should receive a special treatment. On the whole i wouldn’t trust even in modern standards a non-Japanese animation group making Thundercats. How does this sound to you?,considering that most likely WB will produce it, Thundercats without the artfull presencee of japanese animation in the designing process? it will be too risky.
It may be that the Warner Brothers animation department will let Japanese influence remain in a new ThunderCats cartoon because of anime’s huge popularity with lots of American teens and young adults (trust me, it is huge and currently shows no obvious signs of fading). New designs for the Cats’ Lair, ThunderTank, Feliner, the characters’ outfits, and even some tweaking of the characters’ appearance are a given. But, like Lordore says, this is 2010, not 1985. Warner Brothers is not Rankin-Bass or Pacific Animation Corp. And with the movie juggernaut that is Avatar (it was Number One at the box office for the fourth time!), the chances of a TV reboot of ThunderCats looking and sounding like the cartoon we know and love from the mid-to-late 1980s grow smaller and smaller every day. But who’s to say that Larry Kenney won’t reprise his old role as Lion-O? It might not appear that way at the moment, but anything is possible in this day and age. And until we see and hear otherwise, it never hurts to hope. 
[COLOR=“Blue”]However they look, I would just like them to be recognizable, unlike that proposal from a years ago that made them a teen rock band :rolleyes:
the possiblity of new thundercats is the only thing that gets me up in the morning. if it sucks i’m gonna shoot myself. ^^v
Sounds great, they should hire Yoshiatka Kawajarri of NInja Scroll, Wicked City, Animatrix and Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust fame as a guest director even Korean anime maestro Peter Chung of Aeon Flux and Animatrix fame.