I will preface this by saying I grew up watching reruns of the original series and watched a few other remakes here and there, along with the Bay movies, so I am a huge fan. (I even had three pet turtles named Leonardo, Raphael, and Michelangelo! I only had three and Donnie was my least favorite at the point, sorry.)
And I'm not rating this 10/10 only because I believe there's always room for improvement in anything and I know Rise isn't done with the story it's telling.
Short and Sweet, it's amazing and DEFINITELY worth a watch or two.
The overall style and animation is incredible to watch and lends to insanely good fight scenes and beautiful cityscapes. The villains are fun and unique and the fact that Shredder isn't the main baddy right away lends to a greater story line.
I've seen people having issues with the story, or in their words a lack-there-of, but take those accounts with a grain of salt. Like the majority of cartoons, the first few episodes are 'filler'. I use quotations because while they don't add to the main plot line that unfolds, they're very useful in introducing this new iteration of the ninjas. There's a lot of character interaction and by the time the main plot kicks in, you've gotten a feel for all the main characters and understand them. Grant it, it is a complete divergence from the gritty 'dark' versions of past but it does such a well job of balancing serious moments with lighthearted ones. It's very organic and at this point we've got enough grim-dark reboots.
The stylization of the turtles is great and gives us more personality at just a glance, and speaking of personalities, the changes made to the Turtles' personalities are great! A lot of people say that we've ended up with just four Michelangelos but that's hardly the case. Yes, they're more goofy and not as serious as their but this feels super organic and makes much more sense as after all, they're TEENAGE mutant ninja turtles. They act more their age while steering clear of the obnoxious fart jokes and potty humor. The brothers feel like actual brothers and it's much easier to relate to them now. It also put the danger of every fight into perspective, they're teenagers first and ninjas second.
I had a lot more in-depth analysts written but it was reaching term paper length and no one will read that so,
tl;dr It's incredibly inventive, fun, and a fresh breath of air to a series that was dying out. Give it a shot and if you don't like it nbd. It can't be any worse than the Bay movies.
