Just curious to know if Transformers Masterforce was ever, however remotely, considered to be aired for the North American/Western marketplace? Reason I ponder this is I’ve been watching it a lot today and it dawned on me that quite a lot of the locations and characters used in Masterforce seem to take place in North American (Canadian and US) and some European settings. For example when Black Zarak first arrives on Earth we see him attacking NYC and Overlord going after Paris and Western Europe. Another is the whole arc when they are building Godbomber which takes place in Canada (as well as the opening shots of Masterforce which supposedly takes place off Canada’s West Coast). And the episode which triggered this thought is were Ginrai is fighting Hydra and Buster in the Grand Canyon, were the episode also incidentally starts off in Alaska.

Character wise I look at Ginrai who’s suppose to be Japanese, starts out in the show as a truck driver in the US, which if you think about it could have easily been adopted in a US adaptation as an American character without much effort. That and the bulk of the cast seems to be of non-Japanese origin, which is unlike many Japanese anime’s. May seem crazy, but it just seems to me that a lot of these aspects when looked at by enlarge, leads me to believe that the writers of the show may have had “Western” markets in mind when developing the show. Even if they didn’t have anything going directly with Hasbro, maybe there was some intent to incorporate many of these aspects with the prospect or hope that Hasbro might bring it over for the North American/Western market.

Anyway like I said I maybe just be talking crazy but just some food for thought. Just by watching it recently with all these signs just leads me to belive that this show might have been intended for a wider audiance market, but who knows.

 

Interesting thought. Perhaps it was planned to be translated into English to relaunch Transformers on TV?

 

They'd have had to do some MAJOR reediting (not the content, but the story) as EVERYTHING in Masterforce contradicts what happened in Rebirth. Considering that Optimus was alive and well at the end of Rebirth, explaining a 2nd non-sentient Optimus on earth would be difficult.

Plus (and if I'm incorrect please correct me) Masterforce was after Transformers 2010. Yet if I'm recalling my VHS episodes correctly, Masterforce wasn't really that furturistic. In 2010 they had hover cars, EDC and warp gates. Yet no sign of that kind of tech in Masterforce.

But when I was a kid (meaning pre-teens) I always hoped for the Powermasters to get an American cartoon. I had a friend who SWORE he saw a Powermaster TFs cartoon where Prime punched off Getaway's head   Of course he had a rep for being a notorious liar so I never believed him

 

Well just because Masterforce doesn't flow all nicely together with what was shown in Rebirth doesn't necessarily mean it couldn't have been done. I mean Armada, Energon, and Cybertron were marketed as being all connected to each other in terms of the general universe and storyline yet that connection was spotty at best.

All I'm speculating is a bunch of maybe's as for me watching the show it just seems that perhaps all this was in the back of their minds when the series was being developed to keep it open so that it could possibly be imported into a market were by the late 80's the TF franchise was floundering.

 

Hey Soundwave, sorry if it sounded like I was trying to shoot your idea down in flame. That honestly wasn't my intent.

And truthfully yes, with a little tweaking. It would've been cool to see the Powermasters in a cartoon meant for North American audiences  

Would you have wanted them to keep the Overlord character too or replace him with another villain?

 

I wish it had. that series, story-wise, is ages better than g1. and maybe we would've gotten overlord.

 

The mere fact that stories are set in places around the world doesn't mean that it was intended to air in those places. Otherwise we'd probably have a somewhat more accurate depiction of foreign countries that aren't full of stereotypes.

 

Isn't it also a cliche in bad anime to use legends (of other cultures) to show some kind of alien civilization or ancient technology? Like those sunken continents and lost cities that seem to keep popping up in japanese TF productions.

 

they were from all over the place in masterforce, i know lightfoot and road king were both from Britain though (only know the japanese names apart from getaway)

 

And the Darkwing brothers were from East Germany. I can't really figure them talking with a Saxon accent, though...