Question for you knowledgeable folks. Would I enjoy the Japanese Transformers (G1) cartoon? You know, Headmasters/Masterforce/Victory/Zone? I managed to get through Robots In Disguise, but barely. I never really got into Armada/Energon/Cybertron. I'm most certainly not against Japanese shows at all, but for whatever reason, when they handle Transformers, it seems...odd. A different vibe than the North American-produced shows. Maybe they target the kids more? I don't know. But I guess the original G1 was for a young demographic too, so I'm not sure what it is. Regardless, I'm wondering if I should pick up the Japanese Transformers series (and should I get them from SHOUT! Factory?). I'm willing to give it a shot as it is, but maybe you guys have an opinion?
Headmasters is painful. It's slow, boring, and all the new characters have little depth. That being said, it's the only direct sequel to US G1, so it has some value there of seeing what happened to some of the characters (like Soundwave and Blaster's epic battle). Masterforce and Victory are stand alone though. Masterforce is very human-centric, but the humans ARE the fighters, so it's not like they're useless. Very enjoyable, but very different from US G1. Victory is a little more similar to US G1, but still has it's own Japanese feeling to it. Overall, very enjoyable too. If you do decide to go into the Japanese G1 and really dislike Headmasters, skip on to Masterforce and Victory - you won't miss anything major and they're nearly universally considered better.
I wish the Japanese show would have some of the music from the US G1 show. I only saw Headmasters, though not all of it, cuz I found it really boring after midway. There is quite a bit of swearing plus the fighting (hand to hand) combat is much better than the G1. It was good to see some of the Ark autobots as well.
Masterforce and Victory aren't stand alone shows. Masterforce follows Headmasters, and Victory follows Masterforce.
Japan has always aimed Transformers at an even younger audience than the US does. I think they have always had trouble with the premise of sentient robots. There was pretty much none of the human drama in the original G1 Transformers series that is typical in anime, so when the time came to translate and dub it into Japanese, they just aimed it at the youngest possible audience... One that wouldn't mind there being no human drama, no overarching story, very little violence, etc. It certainly shows when compared against other cartoons being run at the same time. During its first Japanese broadcast, Z Gundam was going on, and the difference between the shows is night and day. It's easy to see how the people responsible for marketing and whatever could take one look at Transformers in comparison to the other stuff on at the time and think, "Oh, okay, this is supposed to be a show for very young children." And I think that just carried over when it came time for Takara/Toei to produce their own follow-up series. It certainly showed in Takara's handling of Beast Wars and in the creation of their Japan-only Beast Wars sequels. And we seem to be seeing it again with their handling of Prime. And Prime is supposedly being aimed at an older audience in Japan than previous TF series. But still... On the flip side, the Toei G1 sequels are probably a little more sophisticated structurally than the original cartoon...while simultaneously being aimed at a younger audience. It's a weird combination. As to whether you'd enjoy them... It's impossible to say. Even having watched them, I kind of go back and forth on them. I kind of think you should just give them a chance, as the individual series dvd sets are pretty cheap. They might grow on you. But it definitely does feel like a separate continuity, and they definitely do not feel like the same characters as from the Sunbow cartoon (for as long as those characters even stick around). Kind of. At least Victory follows Masterforce. The Masterforce/Headmasters connection is a little more iffy, supported only by a couple tacked-on scenes unconnected to anything else. Otherwise, Masterforce almost starts its own brand-new continuity. Masterforce somehow jumped backwards in time from the future back to the present day, and nobody seems to have ever even heard of Transformers or Cybertrons or Destrons before at all. The whole war and intergalactic community that Earth belonged to in G1 Season 3 is completely wiped clean in Masterforce, and all the crazy clothes and flying cars are gone. Then you have a Cybertron force on Earth for thousands of years, and their origin is told as if they and the Destrons they were chasing were the first Seibertrons to ever come to Earth. Nor did the Pretenders get involved at any time during any of the battles that would have been going on in the 1980s-2010s if they shared a timeline with regular G1 (which makes sense, as apparently there weren't any battles on the Masterforce Earth previously). And if Megatron was the founder of the Decepticon cause, who the hell is Devil Z (other than a low rent Sousai X knock-off)? Too bad they never really explained too well who he was or where he came from. Or how he was related to Seibertron or the Destrons at all. But it's okay because it wouldn't have made any sense within the context of G1 anyway. Masterforce makes juuuuuuuuuuusssst enough half-nods to Headmasters to quell any questions from their target audience of 5 year-olds. "Here's Chromedome!" "That's Chromedome?" "Yep!" But it doesn't really hold up that well as a sequel under the slightest scrutiny from anyone else.
If you didn't like RiD, you probably won't like the others either. Watch Headmasters if you're really thirsting for more G1 (and enjoy anime), watch Masterforce if you like sentai shows, and victory if you like old-school super robot anime.
Personally I enjoyed Victory. Masterforce was problematic, and Headmasters looks far better on paper then in execution.
Headmasters is very dull as others have said, and the characters lack any real personality or characterization and the story draaaaaags. The attraction is almost entirely in seeing S3 of the US cartoon continued with most of the 1987 characters. Masterforce is the Best of the Japanese shows easily IMO. It's characters just have loads more personality and characterization then the other two shows. There is a large human factor but at least they're humans with personality and story making them interesting and fun. Victory is a step down from Masterforce. It's more robot centric again, but the robots and story aren't quite as well developed, fun, and interesting as MF was. But it's not the snorefest of Headmasters either. So there's that. Also there's almost no US released characters here so few familiar faces either. -ZacWilliam, if your a huge TF fans all are worth watching of course just for having done it. But if you were prioritizing I'd personally put Masterforce first, unless you're really against humans in TF stories.
Um, how should we know what you will or won't like? I'm always baffled at threads that basically ask the fandom abroad to make a preference for a boardmember, moreso the "What should I buy" threads. Still...
Oh I'm quite aware that they all are linked one after another in one continuity. I just meant that their plots are rather independent of the other series. Masterforce is about a small bunch of Transformers on Earth and 99% of them have little or no ties of previous characters. You'd be able to watch Masterforce without having seen any Transformers before and understand 95% of it. Unlike with Headmasters which clearly is a direct continuation of TF 2010.
I just finished the American G1. I was interested in The Headmasters after watching The Rebirth because it had some interesting new characters I wanted to see more of. After watching the first three episodes of The Headmasters, it was alright but to me it was a bit confusing at times. I'd say its worth a chance, just remember, the movie didn't come out in Japan for a while and The Rebirth was ignored in favour of The Headmasters. Still in typical G1 fasion, there are a lot of stupid moments in The Headmasters. Spoiler (Such as Cybertron blowing up and Galvatron dieing in the worst possible way.) Masterforce and Victory look better, and while they may be sequels they look as if you might have little trouble following them without watching The Headmasters completely.
Just watch it for yourself and be the boss of your own view. I gave it a shot, albeit, the animation was 80's for the time I watched it in... I still enjoyed it.
Exactly. How are we supposed to tell you if you'd like something? That's something you have to decide for yourself. Watch a few episodes and see how it goes. That being said, Masterforce starts slow but begins picking up with the introduction of Hydra/Buster and Ginrai, around episode 9 or so. Don't give up on it so quickly if you decide to watch it.
