My thoughts on Headmasters

[GoktimusPrime]

...my least favourite incarnation of Fortress Maximus. He was way cooler in the G1 comics (he once tore at Galvatron's wound with his bare teeth! Phwoar!) and I much prefer his Headmasters counterpart over his appearance in The Rebirth. Blecch.

The announcement of moves (abilities, attacks, transformations) is really lame, but it's a regular part of Japanese animé; and certainly not as bad as in post-G1 Japanese TF series. It can be cool at times; like with big transformations; e.g. Fortress Maximus, gestalts... very Voltron-esque. But logically it makes no sense to make a song and dance; _announcing_ moves is utter stupidity. The art of war is all about surprise and deception, which is completely lost when you tell everyone what your next move is going to be by screaming, "CROSS HEAD ON!" Imagine a sniper yelling out "HEADS UP!" before shooting.

And sadly enough this kind of craziness _does_ happen IRL; I've seen it so many times in martial arts demonstrations where someone will say out loud what kind of attack they're going to do, like "straight punch to head!" and then deliver a straight punch to the head, only to have the defender execute a perfect counter and the audience is amazed and clapping at the defender's skill. Of _course_ it was a perfect counter, he _knew_ what was coming!! Sometimes they'll yell it in Japanese so most members of the audience doesn't know what the attacker is saying, but it's usually the _name_ of the move (e.g.: they might yell "Maegeri!" (前蹴り) which means "front kick"). :/

I'd love to see a demo where the attacker yells "roundhouse punch to the head!" and then proceeds to kick the defender in the groin.

I suspect that this practice originated from the 1930s/40s during WWII in Japan where Japanese Imperial Forces made some _weird_ reforms to Japanese martial arts as part of their propaganda and conditioning of troops. Either way, it's a fairly ingrained and staple part of Japanese "fighting" culture and yeah, it's frequently seen in manga, animé, games etc. HADOUKEN!

[snaketales]

Nightbeat what have they done to you!?!! You're a GIRL!!!11!!1!

And where's Optimus Prime? He keeps showing up in the opening titles and ad breaks but he hasn't appeared yet!!!!

(yes I know the reasons... but these are the questions my kids are going to ask when they watch it)

[liegeprime]

Good for you, I think I fast forwarded a lot of the episodes in Headmasters, especially when there's Danny and wheelie on the scene. I grew up watching it on StarTV in Phils but they didnt really show it so chronologically at times, and the actually stopped it and went straight to airing Victory which confused the heck outta me. It still amuses me hearing only what, say 4 people doing the dubbing and just trying poorly to change their voices for each character hehehehe.

[heroic_decepticon]

I grew up watching it on StarTV in Phils but they didnt really show it so chronologically at times, and the actually stopped it and went straight to airing Victory which confused the heck outta me. It still amuses me hearing only what, say 4 people doing the dubbing and just trying poorly to change their voices for each character hehehehe.

at that time, i probably watched the same StarTV dubs like you but from Singapore. Man, the dubbing was and still is atrocious. But at least we still got to watch them back then....

[GoktimusPrime]

StarTV dubs... hard to believe that any dub could be actually _worse_ than Macross Clash of the Bionoids!! <extreme.shudder>

[mightyant]

I watched an episode dubbed just for a giggle... it reminded me of the old Golden Harvest kung fu movies... with my eyes closed it was bruce lee shouting "transform"

[ITZTRU]

I'd love to see a demo where the attacker yells "roundhouse punch to the head!" and then proceeds to kick the defender in the groin.

Oh man, that just made my day.

I was in your boat. I bought the Jap G1 box set...I just couldn't get round to finishing it. I was desperate to watch something else, so i posted up on here for advice and got overwhelming support for beast wars, so off i went to buy it. Still in the middle of watching...so far so good.

But Headmasters. God. Dunno if i can get myself to watch anymore. I might try to get back into it once i'm done with beast wars as im assured that victory is a good story...but yeah...