A journey through the JP Gen1 cartoon.

[kup]

Looks like sitting through these eps is becoming more strenuous than you had initially hoped Griff

I gave up after about 10 mins skipping through one episode. Found it too irritating and difficult to watch. I suppose the japanese series wasn't made for a US G1 worshipping audience though?

I personally feel that the problem with Headmasters is that the Japanese tried to make it too 'American' without a proper understanding on how to do it and this caused it to become really odd and nonsensical with hybrid elements that don't go well together.

Masterforce and Victory have characters and stories more in line with Japanese Anime without trying to be 'Sunbow G1' and although to an American audience they may seem odd, the story works much better as it's largely consistent with the Japanese style of animation and story telling and therefore more coherent even if somewhat distanced from 'Marvel style' Transformers.

[GoktimusPrime]

I 100% agree with this Goki - Swords are well and above better weapons than guns, IMO for this reason predominantly: There is no honour in killing a person with a gun, an infant can kill with a gun, but it takes true skill and technique to properly use a Sword/Kitana or their derivatives.

For me, as far as romantic fantasy action is concerned, I prefer swords. As far as reality is concerned, I prefer guns!

And yeah, when it comes to fantasy, it does become kinda silly when people use melee weapons like swords when everyone else are using range weapons like guns. That's part of the reason why George Lucas had to invent the Force for Star Wars, cos otherwise Jedi and Sith would easily get cut down by blaster shots. Likewise only Force-users can use light sabres, because a non Force-user would lack the ability to effectively use it to deflect blaster shots (they'd most likely just get shot and die). Basically light sabres only work because Jedi/Sith are "magical" warriors. But IMO The Headmasters portrays Fort Max's sword in a somewhat mystical light, ya know, with the whole song and dance sequence that happens every time he summons it.

Besides, who's ever heard of someone raising aloft their magic gun?
(Alucard of Hellsing Excluded )

And Bruce Campbell (^O^)

I personally feel that the problem with Headmasters is that the Japanese tried to make it too 'American' without a proper understanding on how to do it and this caused it to become really odd and nonsensical with hybrid elements that don't go well together.

Masterforce and Victory have characters and stories more in line with Japanese Anime without trying to be 'Sunbow G1' and although to an American audience they may seem odd, the story works much better as it's largely consistent with the Japanese style of animation and story telling and therefore more coherent even if somewhat distanced from 'Marvel style' Transformers.

That's a very common viewpoint about The Headmasters compared with the other Japanese G1 series. It's kinda like "weening" Japanese audiences off the US series, then by time we get to Masterforce things get a lot better because all ties with the US series have been severed and thus the stories in Masterforce and Victory are notably better (note: Masterforce and Victory were also principally written by Kaneda Masumi). Some fans (like Chris McFeeley (re: audio commentary) have described the final climactic battle between Star Sabre and Death Zaras as being of comparable awesomeness to the final fight between Optimus Prime and Megatron in Transformers The Movie. On the last day of school last year, I showed the final battle to my Year 8 class and despite the fact that (presumably) none of them had ever seen Transformers Victory before and probably had next to no knowledge of G1 (let alone Japanese G1), all the boys in the class (and some of the girls ) really enjoyed watching it.

[Hursticon]

And Bruce Campbell (^O^)

OMG, 1AZRAEL1 is going to kill me for forgetting "The Boom Stick" - Well, Hara-kiri it is then...

[griffin]

Ep 14 - Explosion on Mars! Maximus is in Danger!
Ep 15 - Explosion on Mars! Scorponok Appears!

Mars is rigged with explosives so that Zarak can capture the energy released, and power up his new 'weapon'. The Autobots fail to prevent it, and the new weapon appears in the form of Scorponok.


Size consistency is a problem with Zarak/Scorponok. We have a whole planet (Planet Zarak) with the new Scorponok body filling the entire interior when it breaks away like an eggshell, but then when he arrives on Mars he's about the size of Fortress Maximus. And when Zarak is the head, he's huge (the size of a regular bot), but then shrinks when transforms back to Zarak. I guess odd size shifting isn't new to Transformers.

The larger bodies of the Headmasters are suddenly given a name - Transtectors. And everyone suddenly starts using it as if it was common knowledge.

Zarak has been quite successful as a leader, destroying 2 whole planets... 3 if you include his own Planet Zarak.

And does this mean all those Beastformers slaves were all killed in the destruction of the planet? Nobody cared about them.

Destruction of Mars has upset the balance of the (whole) Universe. One small insignificant planet is destablilising the entire universe???


Ep 16 - Return of the Immortal Emperor

Zarak attempts to draw the Autobots into a trap by hosting his own coronation as Decepticon Emperor, but Galvatron arrives and instead of finishing them off, he lets them leave so he can take back his leadership.

Introduction of Punch (Spacepunch in this series), as the Autobot doublespy.
Although, his first scene has him drawn as Decepticon and then Autobot while in the room with Zarak... I guess his cover would be blown.

Return of Galvatron... huge dramatic build up throughout the episode, but was spoilt by the title.

The Autobots wonder if the UFO are aliens... um, that just didn't make sense, as everyone are aliens to them, including the Humans.

Zarak is having a coronation... I was half hoping Galvatron would say 'coronation Zarak, this is bad comedy' and shoot him.

Nice to see all six of Soundwave/Soundblaster's cassettes in one shot again, and having Ravage and Laserbeak (Jaguar and Condor) speaking. When they all transformed and went into Soundblaster's chest, I was laughing at the thought of him falling over backwards from the sheer weight of them all landing in there at once... but the scene changed.

Again Fortress can't transform without the Master Sword being fully charged. At least it wasn't a problem in the US cartoon.

The one thing that does bug me most about this series is the amount of wrestling and close quarter combat that occurs. They have weapons... use them and defeat the enemy quickly, or even at all. But I guess the episodes would only be about 4 minutes long if that happened.

Daniel tries to contact the UFO with his keyboard (like the movie 'Close Encounters'), and later he has a cry like a little girl when the UFO turns out to be Galvatron.

[Bartrim]

The one thing that does bug me most about this series is the amount of wrestling and close quarter combat that occurs. They have weapons... use them and defeat the enemy quickly, or even at all. But I guess the episodes would only be about 4 minutes long if that happened.

That totally annoyed me too!!! It's almost as bad as energon when Megatron would just shoot and shoot and shoot Optimus and he would just stand there and talk about teamwork.

[GoktimusPrime]

The one thing that does bug me most about this series is the amount of wrestling and close quarter combat that occurs. They have weapons... use them and defeat the enemy quickly, or even at all. But I guess the episodes would only be about 4 minutes long if that happened.

From a story-telling POV they want to have 'romantic' and interpersonal melee fighting - but you're right, it's something that's nearly impossible in a situation where you have automatic firearms. I think they went with the whole "Bushido honour" thing where mortal enemies put aside the ability to shoot each other and go melee... which is complete bollocks and even the Samurai never adhered to that (as mentioned in a previous post, even samurai happily used imported Spanish/Portuguese guns until they were outrightly banned (conveniently during a 250 year period of peace - as soon as war came back, so did guns )

It's much better when story writers try to create a reason as to why opponents can't shoot - something as simple as either losing their guns or the enemy has somehow managed to come in close enough where shooting no longer becomes viable. e.g. in Optimus Prime vs. Megatron in TF:TM, Megatron begins by crash-tackling Prime, thus he drops his rifle, and Megatron shoots at an unarmed Prime with his fusion cannon, then Prime tackles him into a wall which makes Megatron lose his cannon, thus the two of them go into melee fighting. But of course, as soon as Prime is able he picks up his rifle again ("Finish him off Prime!") - and likewise the moment Megatron spies a gun he attempts to stall Prime until he can grab it (thankfully Hot Rod provided him with the opportunity in the end).

It's just lazy writing... Kaneda's thinking that he wants to have them fighting close quarter, which is fine, but can't be bothered writing in a semi-plausible explanation for why they would bother to do so (which is a lot easier to do with Transformers since they can actually take a shot or two, allowing them to get close).

Destruction of Mars has upset the balance of the (whole) Universe. One small insignificant planet is destablilising the entire universe???

Butterfly effect? Or maybe Mars was a load-bearing planet.

[Hursticon]

Butterfly effect? Or maybe Mars was a load-bearing planet.

Ha! LOL!
That's Good!