I guess Headmasters is the darkness and most serious of the lot but not in a good way. It's like if Simon Furman wrote the entire series while in a massive emo phase and the rest of it was written by someone that thought it was targeted at 3 year olds. The Headmasters constantly switches from the Autobot's darkest hours of death, defeat and despair, to Daniel and Wheelie's wacky and stupid safe for children adventures.

I haven't completed the other two shows, but so far they're better in terms of quality in my opinion. Super-God Masterforce is probably the most serious of the shows, little kids are still present and the main focus but thankfully they aren't idiots 100% of the time like Daniel. The third show, Victory is like the original American G1 series, light hearted in tone but still has it's serious serialised moments. The fourth series, Zone, is easily the most childish but that was only one episode anyway so it's mostly worthless. It has a talking bunny rabbit in it who hates metal and LOVES flowers. Hippy.

If you're curious it's worth getting all 3 Japanese seasons maybe for a cheap price somewhere.

On the topic of the poll, I can't say fairly because I'm not done yet, but I find Victory to be the more appealing of the two. Design wise, Star Saber and Deathsaurus are easily the best successors after Optimus and Megatron, their designs kick ass, Leozack fills in that spot that Starscream left for ages, and I'm more of a fan of traditional Autobots vs Decepticons as opposed to that weird ultra Energon type of thing plot Masterforce had.

 

Definitely Masterforce, which has more 'story arc.'


Victory has a couple serious parts, especially when Liokaizer first shows up, but it's more focused on episodic confrontations, the Decepticons squabbling, and Star Saber being cool. Masterforce has the balance of power swing back and forth several times, and when the Decepticons get an edge, things can get rough- though it's still not exactly a dark show, it does have more seriousness.


Btw, as the thread starter, I can fairly definitely say that having now seen both, I found both enjoyable, but Masterforce is my solid favorite. And Masterforce Overlord one of my favorite Decepticon leaders of all.

The kids in Masterforce, being Headmasters, are normally assigned rescue duties, which they do, and are useful without usually saving the day. They're viewpoint characters, especially early on, while Ginrei is the main character, and they tend to not get involved in the more serious bits, unless it's putting out fires and such.

 

Any fan of the G1 series should do themselves a favor and watch MF and Victory. And while not the most enjoyable, you might as well watch HM too just to see how G1 "ends". MF and V are pretty far removed from G1 in terms of timeline so they're pretty much standalone series's with a few bridges just to connect each series to each other.

 

On the plot stuff, and part of why I preferred Masterforce to Victory (in spoilers because we have a new person in the thread now):

Spoiler

In Victory, one of the really fun things was watching Leozack plan up on Deathsaurus, and then Hellbat try and do the same to Leozack.

When Leokaizer was formed, there was even hints Leokaizer would be used for a takeover.

Then once Leokaizer had a counter and started getting a few failures, Deathsaurus pretty much just beat the rebellion out of Leozack, and the final episodes were spent in Leokaizer mode, so there wasn't any real resolution to the attempted-rebellion plots, we didn't see any last-attempts by Hellbat or Leozack. For all that the Breast Force were the primary threats for most of the series, there wasn't much resolution to their infighting, nor did Leokaizer pull out all the stops in his later duels with Victory Saber like he did earlier on. In the end, he faced Victory Leo and lost- a relatively easy lose for such a fearsome foe.

Liokaizer's arrival arc was the most Masterforce-esque the series was, and very dramatic, and the resolution to Liokaizer and the finale felt a bit of a let down in comparison- and due to the lack of individual Hellbat/Liozack, not just in the serious stuff.

Masterforce, on the flip side, delivered a very strong finale, from when Overlord hit the Autobot base to the final showdown. The series resolved strongly.

 

I always felt that Masterforce had more of a complete, self contained story, and as a series stands on it's own better than Headmasters and Victory.

 

One thing about both of them is, they give more a sense of a wider war beyond what we see.

The series going on is the most important front of the time, the pivotal deciding factor. Meanwhile, the Headmasters are messing around with some Decepticons and keeping them busy, and so on. Victory does this, with the talk of multiple sectors, and Masterforce, reinforcements from space for each side is a key plot point.

 

Masterforce is more entertaining to me.

 

It does strike me how Masterforce has no Starscreams- the enemies are mostly pretty loyal, with some ideological conflict between the two big commanders- while Victory had two. Dunno what that says ^^

 

You don't need "staples" to have two very good TF shows? 

 

Both of them suffer from those horrible Japanese anime tropes - but out of these two, Masterforce clearly features superior designs imo, and it feels somewhat more cohesive.

 

Ya gotta love 'em *for* the anime tropes IMO ^^

Yea, that's something I like about both of them, they have original casts.

 

I really liked Masterforce, but I can't get through Victory. I've tried several times, but I lose interest in it pretty quickly. Oh yeah and the end credits are really fucking weird.

 

Masterforce easily.

Both shows are undoubtly Japanese in their structure but Masterforce simply has the most interesting cast.

 

Definitely Super God Masterforce. It has an excellent story and gripping characters. The series starts off slow, but builds up along the way really well with overarching plots that builds up to the climax. The characters are all pretty likeable; from the Transformers to the humans, everyone is developed well.
I always like to regard Masterforce as a parallel world to the main Transformers-verse; what if Megatron and Optimus Prime didn't come to Earth, but instead it was Devil Z and Metalhawk in their place?

IMHO Victory was incredibly dull and episodic as the plot is pretty much "We have to stop the Destron's Enerugii stealing plans!" of the week format. The story never really took off until the end, and even then another problem with Victory was that it was plagued with waaaaaaay too many clip shows and stock footage being repeated again and again.

 

Masterforce had the balance of power go back and forth, so tension would rise and fall. Not just at the end, but the first Decepticon Godmaster arrival, the major need to get a Godmaster of their own to counter the Decepticon's power, and such.

Victory, the tension mostly stayed at the same level, with only one notable arc rise. Individual episodes were often fun, but it's not written with the arc in mind as much. The Leokaizer-through-Victory Leo arc being the exception.

 

I think that's originally what the series was meant to be. There's nothing in the history Metalhawk relates to Shuta that suggests any Transformers ever visited Earth prior to his team, nor does anyone on Earth seem to have any memory of Transformers wars having been fought all over Earth for the past few decades, any memory of the human-Autobot alliance, or any memory of any Cybertronian in general ever appearing before at any point, anywhere. Then add to that the fact that the human race has inexplicably given up their intergalactic exploration of space, any outposts, given up their futuristic vehicles, futuristic fashion, and have somehow jumped back in time to the 1980s again.

It's only partway through the series that they seemed to have second thoughts about their reboot, and suddenly shoehorn an appearance by Chromedome into an episode in an attempt to link the two series. But again, it doesn't really work, because like I said, somehow we're back from the future (where Sunbow season 3 and Headmasters take place) into the present day, so how can Masterforce take place after Headmasters? And who is Devil Z? How does he relate to any previous iteration of the Decepticons? (He doesn't) How is this completely non-Cybertronian alien entity become supreme leader of all Decepticons millions of years ago, without Megatron or Shockwave or whoever ever being aware of it somehow? It only works as a separate story in an alternate universe.

 

At the same time, the presence of Zarak does speak to a link, which the manga goes into a bit.

It is sort of a side-story. Millions of years ago were the Pretenders of each side fighting. One was sealed away, the other stayed on watch- and thus stayed out of the rest of the war. A mysterious force shows up and takes advantage.

Note that while Devil Z is called a Decepticon God, he wasn't seen ruling over most of the Decepticons, but only those he woke up or created or modified. So it could be viewed more as an opportunist who felt a kinship to the Decepticon cause. And of course, took over Zarak/Scorponok, leader of the time.

Perhaps, it was the absence of Megatron/Galvatron that made it think it was time to step forward and strike, knowing it could use Zarak to it's advantage and that Zarak wouldn't resist like Galvatron would.

 

Except there's nothing I can remember in the actual dialogue of the show itself to suggest Zarak is even the same Zarek from Headmasters.

All the connections or explanations come from outside the show itself. And most were after the fact. Things like, "Why does Ginrai's transtector look exactly like Optimus Prime?" Yeah, they created a reason to explain the unbelievable coincidence... AFTER the series had already ended. During the series? Nothing.

 

A fair enough argument.

Victory goes a way to tying things in closer of course, what with having Minerva, Wheeljack, and Perceptor work on God Ginrei.

 

victory > masterforce

i think that people like the living robots and they didnt get that they didnt want them to be piloted. not to say the idea wasnt sound, at least for the headmasters, but the powermasters and target masters it doesnt make as much sense right?

i liked victory as a final days of the war series. the decepticons were weak, and very much struggling. the autobots were in-exp'd but that was okay. i felt starsaber was a bit over powered, but tht may have been due to it being in part how defeated the cons were. i mean they were at best trying to revive a war engine, and barely succeeded with it. sure they got it up and running, but hell if they really got to use it.