Although we may be watching the last official season of Nickelodeon’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the results have been undeniably entertaining so far. The recent inclusion of Usagi Yojimbo is something that many fans have been awaiting for several years. That being said, there’s still a lot to look forward to this season, and it’s clear that Nickelodeon has no intention of dropping the franchise entirely. If you need proof of that, look no further than these turtley awesome videos!
TURTLES VS USAGI | “YOJIMBO” ANIMATIC
In this first video, Nickelodeon has given us a closer look at the process of creating storyboards and animatics for animation. Although the show itself is rendered in CGI, someone has to plot the actions out beforehand and feed that information into the correct program. Here we get to see how a scene began and how the finished product turned out in the bottom left corner. Needless to say, they did an excellent job with this episode, and the results were absolutely fantastic. Check out our review of the episode here.
SPLINTER NAMES THE TURTLES
The Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles continue with an episode written by co-creator Kevin Eastman himself — an origin story for our heroes in a half shell. In this clip, we get to see Splinter naming his mutant turtles after his favorite artists. Interestingly enough, this is not very far off from the actual story of how the turtles got their names. Although we’ve all probably seen enough TMNT origin stories to last a lifetime, something tells me this episode is going to be great. Who could possibly say no to baby turtles?
TMNT SUMMER SHORTS: WE STRIKE HARD & FADE INTO THE NIGHT
Despite the fact that some shellheads didn’t know how to feel about these summer shorts, I think we can all agree that this one was pretty darn awesome. The style of animation is definitely different, but there’s plenty of excellent action in this video. There’s a saying in filmmaking: “show, don’t tell.” Although we don’t hear anyone explicitly state what April O’Neil has in her hands, they eventually show us what the object does and reveal why it might be so important to the Foot clan. I love this animated short, and I hope they make more just like it!
orders temple. The episode brought the now trademark combination of silly humor, character development, and dark encounters in spades. Honestly, despite the random release schedule, it’s impressive that the show runners continuously put out episodes of such solid quality. The animation is gorgeous, and “Osoroshi no Tabi” gave us more beautiful landscapes and interesting character design. I was consistently blown away by what appeared to be hand painted backgrounds in and out of the yokai forest. There was also one moment, where the Turtles, Usagi, and Kintaro are walking into the lair of Joroguma (the spider yokai), where the light and shadows were so good, it almost looked like a live action recording. I’m really going to miss this series when it’s over.
