April O’ Neil is Awesome: Veronica Taylor
Hey fellow Expressionists. Due to circumstances probably within my control, but not enough so that I was willing to make the effort, I am a little behind everyone else on the April O’ Neil articles, but I am trying to make up for it by getting mine on the 2003 animated series’ iteration of this character. Let’s begin.
Voice Actress
Veronica Taylor is probably much better known by many people reading this for another role she played around the same era. She voiced Ash Ketchum in the early run of Pokémon. I have heard the voice work she did there, and I give her credit for making the two voices very different from each other. She also has some anime credits that I admit to being completely unfamiliar with. Honestly, there isn’t much to say about Taylor. She has been a voice actress almost strictly as her IMDB page has no live action credits. She is skilled, but I have nothing to add outside of that.
First Appearance
I never understood the belly shirt? It seemed like pointless skin to me.
April first shows up in the 2003 series as an assistant to Baxter Stockman. She is a professional in science! Yeah, I think she is specifically a computer programmer as she deals with computers through most of the rest of the series, but her expertise varies as the series demands it. From the beginning, she does prove smart and just as she questions Baxter’s questionable practices in building the mousers and allying with the Turtles after meeting them. Her importance for the series really is being the first contact in human world for the Turtles.
Personality
This version of April is smart and tough and that is about it. As the series progresses, she works as a give and take with her love interest Casey Jones and the occasional sarcastic remark toward the Turtles as she helps them relate to the human world. April does take on a warrior’s mentality as the series progresses and learns to fight with a sword to keep from being the damsel in distress. The problem with her character development in this series is that she is not always essential to the story lines and takes on very tertiary role in several arcs. She completely disappears in couple such as the Turtles adventures underground and into alternate dimensions.
Relationship with the Turtles
As I have mentioned, April is the first contact for the Turtles in the human world. She attempts to introduce them to the human world, aids them when she can, and along with Casey Jones, fights alongside the Turtles. As the series goes along and Donatello can handle science issues, April becomes less integral to the plot. As I said before, she disappears from several arcs.
My Final Thoughts on Veronica Taylor
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Overall, I do like the 2003 series for many of its upsides, but April is not one of them in this series. She doesn’t take on the central role she did in the other two animated series or the movies. Her appearances seem incidental or unnecessary at moments in the run of the show, but she is still fun when she appears. She even homages the early series in one episode by pretending to be a reporter in a yellow outfit. I don’t want to deride this character as she is fun, but just not that important to the story as other versions.
