Some of the best voice acting in the world is in Japan. Up until maybe 10-12 years ago, they had been kicking the living shit out of American voice acting for decades. And the state of their voice acting scene is still above ours, generally.

It's just that they took one look at the Sunbow TF cartoon back in 1994 and figured it was meant for 3-5 year-olds, and voiced it accordingly.

 

1994? Typo error?

 

I was due for one.

 

ummm I don't believe the G1 Japanese dub was dumbed down....you're thinking of Beast Wars and perhaps Primes.

I've really grown to like seiyuu's a lot more as of late thanks to actually watching more subbed anime.

 

Little things are spelled out more clearly for the younger audience. It's recorded fact that Transformers was aimed at a younger demographic in Japan than here. It was natural that it would happen. Cartoons aimed at 10-12 year olds in Japan at that time all featured human drama, characters that developed, and over-arching storylines with beginnings middles and endings. And G1 had none of that. With G1's sentient robots, no character growth, no overarching, developing plot, and mostly just a bunch of random, one-off stories, it's not surprising they'd think it was meant for kids 6 and under.

I love G1 and think it has a lot of charm, not to mention all the nostalgia I have wrapped up in it. But the first time I lived in Japan back in the mid-1980s, I could see my classmates' attitudes towards it compared to all the other shows that were on at the time.