(FEB-2013) JP Exclusive Gen1 Cartoon - Comments and episode reviews

[GoktimusPrime]

Watched any of the Japanese Transformers cartoons?
If so, what did you think of it?

Yes.
+ Headmasters: IMHO a lot better than The Rebirth (Yes, the Rebirth had potential and was good in concept, but poorly executed - JMO). Admittedly it is certainly the weakest of the JP G1 anime series.
+ Masterforce: love it. Great animation, good story with a unique premise (that admittedly can take a bit to get used to, but once you accept it the story is pretty good)
+ Victory: Also great, though Dino Force kinda bug me as a team of comic relief Decepticons (still, way better than Wheelie). Epic battles.

When did you first see it?

1991 -- saw Masterforce, albeit in those horrible StarTV dubs. *shudder*

Is it recommended viewing for others?

Yarp!

[Tetsuwan Convoy]

Headmaster was bore-tastic. Such a rubbish show. The famous start dubs are the only way I could get through them.

luckily I found the other series much more engaging.

MOst of them I watched as they were coming out on DVD box set released from th UK.

Personally I'd recommend all of them after Headmasters. Masterforce was good as was Victory and as for Zone, well it was only 1 episode, so you're not really losing anything by watching it

The thing I really liked about Masterforce was that they justified the Pretenders rather well, especially the Decepticons which were the horrid beast of mythology. That really gave the monster modes of the deceps some grounding. After all, a giant reptile skin isn't a good disguise. Unless you're hanging out with Godzilla

There wasn't a cartoon for return of Convoy and Operation Combination was there?

[1orion2many]

Yes.
+ Headmasters: IMHO a lot better than The Rebirth (Yes, the Rebirth had potential and was good in concept, but poorly executed - JMO).

Your joking aren't you Headmasters was an Insomniacs dream, No way known you were going to stay awake through that I could at least stay awake for Rebirth

[GoktimusPrime]

I never said the show was great, I just prefer it over The Rebirth which I find even more tiresome. I recognise that Rebirth had more potential - and it's a shame that Hasbro forced David Wise to butcher the story up to squeeze what was originally a 5 parter into a 3 parter... but the end result is that Rebirth is, to me, just a showcase of the toys and not much more. And to top it off, the animation quality was so appalling that it's not even visually appealing either. I know that all G1 cartoons are fundamentally toy adverts, but Rebirth to me is not much more than that. e.g. Sixshot appears briefly ONCE, transforming to each mode to shoot down Autobots and then we never see him again! In an effort to feature the entire 1987 cast in only 3 eps we had lots of "Hi then Bye!" characters, which I wasn't fond of. Yeah alright, Zone was also just a one episode big toy advert too with not much of a story to boast about either - with a lot of the Micromasters just making similar "Hi then Bye!" appearances... but at least it was pretty well animated! (and the fan debates over Akira's ambiguous gender amuses me (not the idea, but the fact that fans bother to have arguments over this )) Sixshot in The Headmasters was much better developed character - someone who became morally conflicted and went through character change. Yeah alright, it was pretty cheesy and contrived, but it had more characterisation than Rebirth IMO. I also found Daniel to be slightly less annoying than in the Rebirth... I've never been fond of the idea of Arcee becoming a Headmasters being binary bonded to Daniel (even at the time I first saw it I thought it was incredibly lame) -- and Arcee's head just happens to transform into Daniel's Exo-Suit with no alt mode kibble?!? And sometimes Daniel's the same size as Arcee... right. The Hive are supposed to be complete cripples, yet Zarak is buff as! Shouldn't his body be wasted away like Davros in Doctor Who? Although I do like how they made the Nebulans look more alien (with the green wrinkly skin and hair) instead of just making them all look conveniently human like in the comics. But Headmasters Arcee and Daniel were both lame in another way (but for me not quite as lame as the binary bonding in Rebirth) -- Arcee somehow became the Autobot's secretary who'd sooner serve tea than see combat, and Daniel wasn't as annoying as in the US series, but there was that one episode where Spike needs rescuing, and instead of sending Carly (who has survived previous encounters with Decepticons before, including Shockwave), they send Daniel. Yes, send the boy to rescue his father instead of the next available adult... what?!? These moments of chauvinism where women are portrayed as being incapable of heroic action and even a boy is preferable over a woman was something I find objectionable... but not surprising given the more chauvinistic nature of Japanese society.

One thing I do like about both series is how they made arguably the most uninteresting figure in the 1987 line the most interesting characters in the series -- Cerebros and Fortress. Cerebros the staunch pacifist, and Fortress the principle leader of the Autobots (with Maximus essentially being an extension of his will and body). In this case Cerebros is the more interesting character from an adult's POV, but from a kid's POV Fortress is more exciting. I first saw the Rebirth in 1988 (I don't recall seeing it aired here in 1987, got it on VHS a year later) and as a kid I didn't find him that interesting. Another thing that kinda spoiled Rebirth for me was that, for some odd reason, on the VHS copy of Parts 2 and 3 the music and sound effects track was way louder than the vocal track. So I'd hear all this loud music and laser blasts, rockets, explosions etc., but the Transformers sounded like they were whispering in the background! (and it's hard to understand/appreciate a story when you can't properly hear what the characters are saying) It wasn't until I got the DVD copy that I was finally able to watch those eps with the vocal track in the foreground, and the background track in the background! Whereas I first saw The Headmasters in 2000, and it was on VHS that was recorded off Laser Disc, so the quality was as good as you could possibly get on video.

I'm not saying that Headmasters was good -- as I said it's definitely the weakest of the Takara series. And the Rebirth had potential that was unfortunately unrealised due to Hasbro swinging the axe around. It'd be neat if say IDW did a comic mini series based on Wise's original script for The Rebirth and we can finally see how that story was meant to be. But I can see how The Headmasters wouldn't be everyone's Cube of Energon.

The thing I really liked about Masterforce was that they justified the Pretenders rather well, especially the Decepticons which were the horrid beast of mythology. That really gave the monster modes of the deceps some grounding. After all, a giant reptile skin isn't a good disguise. Unless you're hanging out with Godzilla

+1 -- very well done indeed. I also like how they can mass-shrink when inside their Pretender modes, whereas in Anglophone continuity the Pretenders were either giant humans and monsters, or they had to go off-Earth to places where giant humans didn't seem out of place (like planet Snoo-Snoo ).

There wasn't a cartoon for return of Convoy and Operation Combination was there?

No, there wasn't. Those story are only told in the manga... which aren't very exciting to read at all, and the quality of the artwork took a massive nosedive.

[Sky Shadow]

Masterforce is the best cel-animated Transformers series. I just wish there was a decent dub - I like to multi-task and put TV shows on in the background, which I can't do with subtitled shows (they demand my full attention.)

[GoktimusPrime]

Masterforce is the best cel-animated Transformers series.

+1 QFT. I remember the first time I saw the opening sequence... had to pick my jaw up off the ground!

I just wish there was a decent dub - I like to multi-task and put TV shows on in the background, which I can't do with subtitled shows (they demand my full attention.)

It's a shame they never got the original US G1 cast to do the voices. I've heard a rumour that this was the original intent for the Generation 2 cartoon, only to "spice it up" with that Cybernet Space Cube and intermittent CGI, but then someone decided to do select episodes from the US series first... supposedly to 'reintroduce' younger kids to G1 again. I don't know if there's any truth to this story at all... but it would've been cool if they could've done that.

I wonder if it's not too late to get some of the surviving members of Sunbow G1 to come aboard, and maybe enlist some of the newer voice actors too (like Steve Blum, Jeffery Coombs, Fred Tatasciore etc.). I... don't know if I would want to see Peter Cullen play Ginrai though. I really didn't like how the Star TV dubs decided to "Hasbronise" some of the characters like calling Ginrai Optimus Prime, Minerva Nightbeat etc. I'd like to see a new dub stay true to the original characters' names/personas (although some of the Trainbot and Dinoforce names may prove tricky for English speaking VAs to pronounce). Perhaps Coombs could voice Wheeljack as a roundabout tribute to Don Messick etc.

Here's a crazy idea for Hasbro -- do a proper dub of Japanese G1, then release Generations toys based on the characters!! They've already done Black Shadow (Sky Shadow)! Why not give us Generations Blue Bacchus, Ginrai, Overlord etc etc.? (yeah, I know they had that exclusive Gigatron toy as Overlord... but I mean a proper Classicsverse style Overlord -- like based on Roche's style with contemporary design/engineering etc.). The show itself would be cheap as chips to make, since the animation's already done. There's no new production that would need to be done. Oh look, Arcee appears in The Headmasters... better make a toy pronto!

[Paulbot]

I bought the God Ginrai reissue as my super Powermaster Optimus Prime. Then I watched Masterforce. Now I can't look at the toy and think it's Optimus, it's Ginrai.

If a dub was to call him Optimus Prime or use an Optimus Prime voice it would just be wrong.

If there were acceptable dubs of Headmasters and Victory I would have watched them by now too, but having to give my full attention to those series wasn't working.

[BigTransformerTrev]

I have a friend who was shagging a guy at Madman so she got me all the boxed sets of these cartoons for free. To be honest I watched most of them, but even with subtitles half the time I wasn't sure what was going on or who's honor was being questioned. I was like a turtle watching the construction of an atomic rocket - wasn't quite sure what I was looking at