A few days ago, I found out that a fair amount of time in the live-action Michael Bay Transformers movie coming out next year would be dedicated to human characters, played by Shia LaBeouf and Jon Voight among others. While the director alone was enough to get my hopes lowered, finding this out dashed almost all my interest in seeing this upon release. Kiddy Sidekick Syndrome has claimed another victim in American cinema.
KSS is a common disease in Japan. Symptons include the following: An adaptation or new iteration of an established franchise, be it a TV revamp or an anime series based on a video game; a completely new child character, often announced out of the blue following initial press releases or with no announcements at all; and said child character proceeding to fuck things up by having plodding subplots, needless focus, and a tendency to get in the way of things and attempt to make the viewer forget what the show is based upon.
Famous franchises such as Sonic, Kirby, Viewtiful Joe and Gundam have fallen prey to this baffling disease, and Transformers was once afflicted previously with Armada. The cause of KSS is still unknown, as no people seem to want these kids to exist, and they tend to turn viewers off. Some theorize that executives and writers may be the root of the disease, and hopefully these can be sterilized in the near future. Until then, look for more signs of KSS in future shows and avoid them.
If anyone reading this cares, Wario Ware Tooned 4 has been finished for a while and can be viewed here:
Part 1
Part 2
