We’ve received a bit of Christmas news from Shout! Factory! They’re sending out a special present to those who preordered the Transformers Japanese Collection – it’s shipping out early, and some people are already receiving theirs! Originally scheduled to be released early next year, Shout! Factory has released the set early to those who preordered. This set includes Headmasters, Masterforce and Victory, three series that have never seen a US release until Shout! Factory brought them to the US. The set also includes a limited edition lithograph.
Runamuck
Cool. So, say that I order a couple months from now…..that set will absolutely be the corrected version?
bourdon
Got this message from Shout Factory: A few have written in to us about errors in the subtitling on a couple episodes in your Transformers Japanese Collection set. We are moving quickly to fix those errors and manufacture two replacement discs for your set and will ship them to you in about two weeks. They will ship automatically to anyone who has purchased the set from ShoutFactory — you do not have to make any special requests or respond to this email. In the event you’re planning future purchases for friends or recommending the title, please know that our entire inventory in the warehouse and all future runs are also being corrected simultaneously.
We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.
Sincerely,
Shout Factory
karaokeninja
Brian Ward said to email [email protected] when the replacements come in.
Sky-Byte
Oh I don't think its bad either, even tho it reuses some Headmasters cues. I just think the Victory music is better.
FAKER II
That's good news. I wonder if we will have to contact them or they will just automatically send them out. I hope we get all the necessary corrected discs and they don't do something terrible like cheap out and just give us one disc that has all the messed up episodes.
SouthtownKid
I don't think the Masterforce music is bad at all. The Headmasters musak, on the other hand, is playing in dentist offices in Hell.
Sky-Byte
Yes, I forgot to mention Dinoforce about being one of the good parts of the show. Music is not bad either (better than Headmasters and Masterforce).
Finished Victory today, and my opinion on it pretty much stays the same. The show does get better about the time they arrive on Micron, but still not enough to make me want to watch it ever again.
karaokeninja
Victory seems to me to just be recycled Headmasters. Jan = Daniel (the boy), Holi = Wheelie (the robot sidekick), Wingwaver = Chromedome (the hothead), Star Saber = Fortress/Cerebros (the wise leader/daddy/finishing move), Blacker/Gripper = Blanker/Pointblank (the experienced veteran who is a total condescending jerk to the hothead), Deszaras = Galvatron (the main bad guy), Leozack = Scorponok (the schemer who wants to become leader) et cetera.
The only stand out characters to me are Dinoforce, who I looooove. Robot caveman who rides an actual dinosaur and is a comedy relief idiot bad guy? Love it.
EDIT: Oh yeah, and regarding the subtitle errors, I asked Brian Ward on twitter about replacements and he said: "There are replacements being made." So my presumption was correct.
SouthtownKid
Yeah, that one was already mentioned earlier in the thread. That's the flaw in the Victory set.
Sky-Byte
I found another fatal flaw in the subtitles, this one far worse. Disc 3 of Victory, the episode entitled "The Deadly Battle" or "Battle at the South Pole". The subtitles are completely wrong, and appear to be from another episode entirely.
Between this, lack of Headmasters bumpers, and no Zone, really poor job by Shout. Then, between that the flat-out boredom that is much of the shows, I officially can't recommend this set to anyone.
SouthtownKid
It's kind of a problem with the Japanese shows in that, with the US TF cartoon, you have a set of characters and each episode puts them into situations to see how they play off each other. But in the Japanese shows, there's a constant ramping up of power levels…eventually to ridiculous degrees.
Audiences here are probably most familiar with this kind of thing being epitomized in Dragon Ball Z. It's not enough that the characters be strong and great fighters… They have to train to be able to fly, then turn into ridiculously strong Super Sayans briefly… then indefinitely… then as the series goes on, train to become Super Sayan Level 2… then Level 3… then Fusion… all the while with the villains getting stronger and stronger until you get to Majin-Bu, who is able to kill all life on Earth in a single attack (and does). How can you keep telling stories from there? Things get ramped up beyond the point they are interesting anymore. And in the Japanese TF shows, it's kind of the same thing. The characters have to keep getting stronger and bigger. By the time you get to Zone, they are all giants wearing capes and it is super boring.
I'm about 2/3 of the way through watching Masterforce right now, and I still really like it… But if I'm being honest, I'm not enjoying it quite as much as I was earlier in the series. I really like the Headmaster Jr. characters, especially the bad guys, but at the point I'm at now, they and the Pretenders are completely pushed aside for the Godmasters, because the Pretenders and Headmaster Jrs. are now too weak to be relevant to the story. If they are in the story at all, it's to kind of stand around and talk about how great the Godmasters are, which is too bad. I'm hoping they make a bit of a comeback towards the end of the show.
Anyhow, I did watch the first episode of Victory to test it out, and… eh. I hope it gets better. But one thing I do have to say is holy crap, the new scene change noise is obnoxious. The one where you have the Autobot logo flipping around to the Decepticon logo. Yeah, the original music for that from the G1 cartoon could wear on your nerves after hearing it 13 times in 30 minutes. But the Victory version of that sounds like circus music on meth. It is REALLY obnoxious, even after hearing it only 1 time. At first, I thought it was a joke. But nope, they meant to do that.
Sky-Byte
Its no wonder Victory is boring. Star Saber is so overpowered, there's no drama at all. I mean I just watched him take an Energon reactor into space, it blows up, and he comes back without a scratch. wtf?
The only saving grace is the animation and some of the comedy.
Interro
It picks up a bit when Hellbat is introduced and when Deszaras's goal is revealed. But not by much.
Have fun!
Sky-Byte
Man, I'm over a disc into Victory, and I hope it gets better. A lot better. Right now the "story" is so bland its making Headmasters look good. We've gone from the useful Masterforce humans to the totally pointless Jean.
Animation is very good tho, but not quite as good as I've seen people claim in the past (its not better than Primitives or the movie, and in some cases Masterforce was just as good).
SouthtownKid
In either case, probably wait to hear how they handle the QC issues with Masterforce and Victory.
LegendAntihero
I want the set but at 90 dollars, I'm going to have to mull this over.
SouthtownKid
Yeah, I noticed that, too. In that sometimes the episode listed first on one disc was actually the final episode of the previous disc. But the order of the episodes was still correct, so it didn't bather me, either. I agree it's weird, though.
bradforj
I recommend tracking down a full set of the Madman release of the three series. I had two of them but sold my extra recently. They can be found for around $90 and they are well worth the money! Just get a region-free DVD player and you're set!
FAKER II
At first I was upset that we weren't getting the Star TV dubs. But I couldn't fault Shout Factory for that because that was Hasbro's decision. But all this set has is subtitles and they couldn't get that right? And this set was delayed a half a year. I gotta say I'm pretty disappointed. They better be replacing those discs.
I also just happened to notice that the episode list for the individual DVD's that is on the inside of the cover for the Headmasters set is incorrect. This is not a major error. But still, how do they not notice this stuff?
SouthtownKid
Well, you know what happens when you presume. You make a pres– no, that's not right.