The Barbara Gordon Batgirl has a pretty flexible origin story, since it's not rooted in a specific Tragedy the way other Urban Vigilante Superheroes are. What's important is that she's the daughter of Commissioner James Gordon, but what prompts her to first don the Cowl changes more then any other well known Bat Family member.
When the Comics themselves reboot this story they tend to keep at least the initial premise of Killer Moth being the villain of her origin story. But we haven't seen this Batgirl's origin on the Big Screen or in a modern Live Action TV show yet. And both major Animated versions we've been given choose to use a different villain. So I decided to compare them.
I know to most Millennial Bat Nerds it's not even a competition, Batman The Animated Series provided the definitive version of everything it covers, while The Batman is mostly forgotten today eclipsed in cultural importance by all the DC Animated Shows that surrounded it.
But in the case of specifically Batgirl's origin story I actually prefer The Batman's take in the two part episode titled Batgirl Begins.
The Shadow of The Bat two parter of Batman The Animated series is at face value a more realistic story. And yet it's scenario makes it really implausible that anyone would fail to know Batgirl was Gordon's Daughter, her introduction is at an event showing support for Gordon and everyone sees she has the same relatively rare hair color as his daughter.
Villain wise I'm kinda tired of Two-Face being the villain of the origins of Batman sidekicks. And I know in September of 93 most examples of that hadn't happened yet, but it's with the Robins that it works in a weird way, Batman's fallen ally creating his true partner. And on a series I want Two-Face to be the villain in episodes that actually focus on Harvey, this one didn't do that at all.
Batgirl Begins creates a much more natural circumstance, and using Poison Ivy works surprisingly well.
I suppose Batgirl Begins should also be compared to other Poison Ivy origins, but we never really see her origin on BTAS actually. BTAS is kind of responsible for everyone thinking of her as an extreme environmentalist (in the Pre-Crisis cannon she wasn't even a Pamela Isely and was basically just Catwoman with vines instead of whips), but Pretty Poison did not actually present this as something ideological or a potential reason to sympathize with her, it's presented as only a lunatic would value Flowers equal to much less more then Human Life.
Batgirl Begins tells their origin together and has Barbara actually caring about the same issue and for that reason is the version most actually sympathetic to Ivy's motivations.
I find myself actually liking The Batman's art-style more now then I did back when the show first aired. It has a look kind of similar to the 00s Teen Titans show which is partly why some fans theorize they're in the same Universe. But again it's not as well remembered now which is why it's mainly just Teen Titans that gets brought up as being an allegedly "Anime Style" American Cartoon. Some other Western Cartoons with a related style of the era are W.I.T.C.H. and Winx Club.
Thing is I'm too much of a fan of the real Teen Titans lore to be okay with that weird version., while it is with Batman I'm a lot more flexible. So now that I've been an Otaku for several years I can appreciate The Batman's style. Still it is a very specific kind of Anime these shows resemble, mostly late Gainax and early Trigger stuff, but perhaps a few select things Toei did. BTAS itself was inspired by Anime that came before (Akira and some Lupin III) and an inspiration on Anime that came later (The Big O), and none of these looks are what I'd ideally want an Anime DC Universe to look like.
I've rambled off topic a bit. The point of bringing the Anime stuff up in this post is because on this show Barbara looks kind of like an Anime Girl, and that's pretty cool.
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