No apologies necessary. and don't feel compelled to catch up or whatever if you don't want to or don't have time or anything. It was just that given what's going on in the world when went offline for a while, it was easy to fear the worst. Glad you're doing better now.

 

Well, he's still not feeling beholden to others, sorta, in that he's acting like a gigantic tool that's endangering everyone else. And seriously, in this case he's being dishonorable for letting his ego get in the way like this.

Which gets old and repetitive and just plain dumb.

That's their 'official' mission. They're really building giant space battleships for the EDC Navy.  

The sad thing is, there are some Decepticons who would try and claim that.

"What do you mean you're a giant robot and can't turn yourself off and on again? Void the warranty?"

Ginrai! The man with the attention span of a hamster hyped up on Jolt Cola!

EXTREME CAPITALIZATION!

Okay, that's some legit cool-looking armor.

Which pisses me off something fierce. Especially since they've established this is in the same timeline.

Shuta needs therapy!

He's just anticipating the inevitable repaint of Titan-clas Scorponok into BLACK ZARAK!

Maybe they're trying to get rid of Ginrai?  

And I have a bridge in Brooklyn for sale. But seriously, yeah. This kind of macho posturing bullshit pisses me off something fierce.

At least it looks like by the end of the episode it turns out he fucked up big-time.

Indeed. Cooperation and teamwork! Make it happen! Cooperation, working together-dig it!

He read the toy packaging.

So he's still a fucking idiot.

Well, to be fair they are children.

As Liege said, we're just glad you're all right.  

 

Ok, reading through what I've missed, this stood out as a particularly amusing thought to deflate Ginrai a bit.

*Enters TV studio, transforms dramatically to robot mode.*

Ginrai: I have something shocking to reveal! I am really a Transforming alien robot from outer space with super powers that let me heal from almost any injury!

TV Presenter: Oh, yeah, hi Optimus. Back from the dead for the summer again? Nice weather for it this year. So, what was it you wanted to say?

Ginrai: Uh.....

I'm actually sincerely wondering now whether the Pretenders are basing their deference to him on the fact that he looks like Optimus Prime.

Ginrai, you've had enough. That way Chromedomeness lays.

 

Checked episode 26.

Although the introduction of God Ginrai is good and the episode has some nice animation, I feel it just plods along.

There's not really much happening. I like that Ginrai is actually having a crisis of faith (that already makes him better than Chromedome in my book), but honestly, it just felt too sidelined and really not addressed too much. But hey, at least he knows that he is fallible and vulnerable, unlike friggin' Chromedome.

The rest of the stuff was mainly exposition, and a bit too much of it. I would have liked if only a small segment was exposition and the rest of the episode just focused on Ginrai's crisis of faith, but nooooo... exposition took a lot of time here.

The sense of urgency was there, so yeah, at least I was on the edge of my seat, but I do wish there was more story and less explaining in this episode.

So yeah, not as weak as Sixknight's introduction, but I really feel it's a rather weak episode.

 

It's only when you quoted the line that I realized the massive and funny freudian slip of me writing "whine" instead of "wine"  

Ginrai is basically Diet Chromedome. He has the hero complex and arrogance and the belligerent, swaggering ego. He just also has the advantage that he's not always an abusive prick and at least he hasn't quite gotten to the point of being abusive to his own teammates the way that Chromedome was and at least he can be likeable at times when he's not screaming that he has to be the one to do the important stuff because he's the leader.

 

Mind you, we've got a 19 year old who, by his own account, fled his birth country out of a desire for "freedom", and who seems to react very badly toward told what to do; I'm assuming some sort of family dispute and that, although he's no longer a child by this point, I suspect he probably ran away from home whilst he still was. Give a 19 year old with a probably troubled family history control of an immensely powerful alien super weapon, turn his world upside down, kill his friends, and give him the opportunity to take control of his life by playing hero- whilst at the same time having to learn on a very steep learning curve what being a 'hero' is actually about, and Ginrai doesn't actually do that badly- the ego does largely come across as insecurity writ large.

That doesn't absolve blame, but rather shifts it, to the one who put him in charge. Once again, as with Shuta, Hawk seems to continue his display of an appalling grasp of parenting.

At this point, the science is basically magic without much window dressing to the contrary.
Now, there's a thought... if the show is fantasy, and if Hawk and co are accustomed to think in those terms; alchemical rather than reductive reasoning- and we should remember the mythic quality of those they fought (before the Decepticon Pretenders turned into people who would be intimidated by Dick Dastardly) - maybe their reasoning is right. Ginrai "is" Optimus Prime- his transtector's appearance is an omen, a sign that he'll learn and grow into that path. One day.

 

EPISODE 27: God Ginrai - Showdown on the Surface of the Moon

THE SHORT VERSION
Ginrai saves the day because he's not only the only one who figuratively can (becuase he's the hero) but also because he's the only one who literally can (because the fight is isolated away from basically everyone else in the cast except the big bad and the two new guys)

REVIEW
The battle from last episode comes to a head. And again I have to give them high marks for a mostly interesting fight and the addition of Grand Maximus doing something for once. But that's not to say there aren't ongoing issues.

From the standpoint of the story, this fight somehow manages to feel anti-climactic in spite of taking place over two episodes. Especially when you consider that this is meant to be a the payoff of the last major batch of story threads in terms of Devil-Z's plan, the appearances of Overlord and Black Zarak, Grand Maximus, and the production and debut of the Godbomber. But while the fight certainly gets time and style, it rarely feels like it has the stakes. And then it ends in a somewhat underwhelming way and I'm left to feel a bit of "that's it?"

It also suffers for the fact that the inclusion of Grand Maximus is disappointing because although he tilts the battle back in the Autobots' favor, the fight is still made to feel like this is all on Ginrai and he's the ultimate hero who drives the victory and deserves all the credit. Yes, by now we know this is a shonen/sentai style series and that it wholly embraces all the tropes that go along with that, up to and including the singular paragon of justice type hero that has to be responsible for anything and everything the good guys gain.

We're also left with the majority of the characters stuck on the sidelines doing nothing and now that Ginrai is on the moon to start the episode, then there's not even any real necessity of having them involved in the plot at all. So the Decepticon army is all but ignored and the Autobots get a few cursory scenes of them sitting around their base fretting about having nothing to do before we go back to the fight. It feels like a kind of disappointing forced shoehorn for them, with little point other than to fill time and remind us they exist.

Still, the action is enough to make me like the episode more than the average. This one just feels like it had all the pieces in place to earn an A grade and couldn't get there through its own structural and implementation shortcomings.

THOUGHTS AND MUSINGS

Spoiler

-The episode actually begins with a full recap of everything that just happened in the previous episode. It's weird seeing these things after Headmasters cut all of it.

Last time on Super God Masterforce! ​

-But what is odd about the recap is that it includes things that we knew already, like the fact that Overlord is the combine transtector of Giga and Mega.

-If you've been following along you'll know that I have wondered at times if the extreme ghosting in some of the animation has been the result of me sucking at ripping my DVDs to watch this or choices of the animators in how they portray action. It seems like it's the latter, as this small batch of episodes in the late 20s and early 30s are inexplicably in a different format (I appear to have altered the rip settings for a bit, switching the container format from .mp4 to .mkv and switched the subtitle track to default to 'on' instead of 'off'. This is mostly because I was still learning the ins and outs of the program I was using and had originally intended to keep the file format consistent.) This episode in mkv is a little bit crisper and free of artifacts and compression issues, but the ghosty animation in some scenes remains.

This is apparently a stylistic choice. Constantly.​

-The episode is barely a minute old and we already have a weird continuity error: After clearly showing Black Zarak was in robot mode when he fought with Ginrai, the episode begins with him in scorpion mode before he transforms to robot mode to the visible awe of Overlord. It mostly seems like they did this now as an excuse to use and show his full stock footage transform sequence and give him a big moment even though it makes no narrative sense.

-Yep, still ghosting for sure.

-But enough about ghosting. The freshly transformed Black Zarak also shows himself to be a jerk when he grabs Overlord by the shoulder and shoves the Decepticon field commander out of the way so he can go over and kick the downed Ginrai.

-Zarak speaks! And he is voiced by the same actor as he was in Headmasters.

-Overlord also introduces himself to Zarak and asks for his name in exchange. Again, it was seemingly already established that the two Decepticons, if not familiar with each other, were aware of each other

-Here's something I haven't heard in a long time. Star Wars sound effects! Zarak summons his gun with the noise of an igniting lightsaber.

-In spite of the ghosting, some of the animation in this episode looks very detailed and crisp. Even something as simple as a run cycle for Overlord looks nice.

-Meanwhile, Ginrai shows off a new ability: He can shot his fist and forearm as a rocket punch style move.

Who needs a laser gun when you can punch someone from hundreds of feet away?​

-Also suddenly Ginrai has the upper hand again even though he was being soundly crushed by the numbers disadvantage before.

-Zarak also summons his "Tyrant Spear" with star wars sound effects as well.

-Meanwhile on Earth, everyone desperately tries to get into contact with Ginrai and laments that they can't help. "If only we could leave the atmosphere too". Indeed. If only they had figured out a way to build a ship to carry the other Godmasters or some rudimentary booster rockets or whatever instead of just more superpowers for the one guy who doesn't need any more shonen superpowers.

-Lander rationalizes that since they can't do anything they might as well stop worrying and have a glass of wine. It's a flippant suggestion, for sure, but not out of character and it's a guy trying to make the best of a bad situation. So of course Cab acts like a little shit and screams at him for not being more concerned about Ginrai. The same Cab who has been more than happy to screw around and not take things seriously when it suits him.

-Zarak's transformations are called out by him shouting "Big Transform!"

That's not a joke. That's really what he says.

-Meanwhile as he strangles Ginrai, the Autobot wordlessly thinks about the building of the Godbomber and all his comrades. It's only afterwards that he seems to remember that he's in a giant robot body and thus being strangled around the throat is a meaningless gesture since he doesn't need to breathe.

-Being chased by Mega, Ginrai fires the world's slowest moving missile, which in spite of having all the time in the world, Mega makes no effort to dodge. But Ginrai is paid back when Giga shoots him with an obviously telegraphed shot of his tank cannon and Ginrai doesn't get out of the way in spite of the fact that he probably could've.

-Back on Earth, Cab plays with a Rubik's Cube (an off-color rubik's cube to avoid lawsuits) before Shuta steals it from him, fiddles with it like a madman, then tosses it back when he can't get the solution in 4 seconds. I guess Cab gave up on his anger over anyone distracting themselves while they all sit on Earth unable to help.

He can't even get a single side right. But I guess at least he's not day-drinking like Lander.​

-They're interrupted by a signal, which causes all 3 Headmaster Jrs to leap off the couch, with a ton of ghosting as the run. WHY?

-It turns out that the transmission is from Grand Maximus, who is on his way to the moon. The best part is that Hawk answers the radio by saying "It's me."

-Ginrai is once again ambushed, but he manages to turn the tables by... separating from the Godbomber. It works on Overlord, as the independent Godbomber is able to fire a missile at Overlord from behind, but predictably the less powerful Super Ginrai proves no match for Black Zarak.

-Fortunately Grand Maximus arrives on the scene and fires to get Zarak away from the downed Super Ginrai. This is immediately kind of ruined by the fact that he, like Zarak, uses the "Big Transform!" call. It sounds dumber than I can convey here through text.

-Ginrai responds to Grand Maximus by name. I might just be forgetting, but I don't recall any of the Autobots besides the Pretenders being aware of his involvement in anything that's been going on. I seem to remember when he reported to the Pretenders earlier that he asked to keep things under wraps.

-GM then takes out Zarak in a bunch of lazy, unanimated 'dynamic stills' type scenes. I guess they used up their budget on the earlier fight portions.

-And now Ginrai finally has communication with Earth and tells them that Black Zarak is present. He also does so by acting as if Black Zarak's identity is unknown, that he only knows the name by the fact that Overlord said it (Ginrai was there when Zarak introduced himself) and nobody mentions that "Black Zarak" sounds suspiciously like "Mega Zarak" from Headmasters. This is like someone from Season 3 of G1 not recognizing who Megatron was.

-Ginrai even says he's a giant scorpion. Becuase there's been sooooo many of those in the past.

-And now we stop the plot so Ginrai can talk all poetically about Earth and how he has to summon the spirit to be able to keep the fight going and prevent the Earth from becoming a dead world like the Moon is.

-In the background while Ginrai is having his deep thoughts moment, Grand Maximus is getting beaten up by Zarak. So it was important for him to waste all that time having an inner monologue.

-And no sooner does Ginrai intervene that Overlord and Zarak bail and try to head for Earth. You had one job, Ginrai...

-Now Overlord fails to dodge the slow moving missile from Ginrai's gun. Seriously, you guys, all you have to do is move like 10 feet to the left and you'd have been fine.

-It's funny that we still get commercial bumpers for the likes of Buster/Hydra, Hawk, and Shuta given how irrelevant they are to the major fights in the story.

-Back from the commercial break, it's time for another insert song. This one is Kiseki No Transformer. It's actually pretty decent if you ignore the nonsense lyrics.

-Ginrai sees Zarak heading for him and the only way to fight is apparently to climb aboard Grand Maximus' spaceship mode like a vehicle, grab a gun off its hull, and ride this mighty steed into battle. At least this doesn't warrant a combination name and silly attack announcement like "Grand Master Shot Rider!"

Every hero needs a gallant horse to ferry him into battle. Also no, it's not a scaling error. Grand Maximus is supposed to be this small.​

-Realizing that they can't let Zarak reach earth, Ginrai launches a blast of Chokon power that knocks the 'con back to the moon. Ginrai and Grand Maximus then land on the moon by sliding into frame from above with no movement. It's like they just moved a static cel of the characters standing at attention. Like... you remember that Simpsons bit where Poochie gives the "I have to go now. My planet needs me." line and flies off screen? That's what it looks like except in reverse.

-Zarak and Overlord spontaneously get into a fight about what their next move must be, with Zarak showing by far the most personality he's demonstrated in the episode so far. We're not supposed to know that he was basically brainwashed by Devil-Z since that wasn't discussed within the TV series, but for a brainwashed bot, he's awfully chatty.

-While the two Decepticons bicker they let the Autobots get the drop on them, and then Overlord spontaneously bails on the fight saying "if only I wasn't damaged." This is like that guy that stands behidn his buddies and yells "if only I didn't have this injured wrist I'd totally kick your ass" at a guy who slighted him while hoping nobody finds out that the "injury" is just that he burned it trying to get a piece of toast out of his toaster that morning.

-Once again Zarak tries to choke Ginrai to death. I'm starting to think that Devil-Z's mind control actually did break his brain a little bit.

Ginrai also reacts with panic. As if he forgets his giant robot form doesn't need to breathe.​

-*sigh* Ginrai has named his rocket fist move. "God Punch."

-The one cool thing about the rocket fist... sorry, "God Punch" is that the hands on him in God Ginrai mode are formed from Godbomber and fit over the existing hands/forearms of his Super Ginrai mode. So when he shoots the God Ginrai hand, you can briefly see that he still has his Super Ginrai hand intact underneath. So it's not like he shoots his arm at someone and would be totally screwed if it was interrupted, leavig him with just a handless stump to fight back with.

-After scoring a hit, Ginrai unleashes yet another new super attack: Chokon God Fire Guts, where he causes a big bright surge of energy that blinds the screen and saves them animation until it cuts to him flying at the enemy (without moving) as he's cloaked in literal fire. This is... what, the 3rd? 4th? 5th? new special power he's had and named since getting Godbomber?

-Zarak takes the hit, and burns because of the righteous fury of Ginrai (overcoming the fact that fire can't burn in space through sheer force of will, apparently) and then a pan reveals that the burning Zarak isn't his whole body as the shot just before this showed. Instead he managed decapitate the Decepticon and it's just his head that's burning. And in spite of the decapitation, Zarak's body moves and speaks to Ginrai before grabbing the head and retreating.

This makes no sense considering that Zarak is a Headmaster and the head IS the whole sentient portion of him and the body is just a lifeless transtector...


...unless you read the Manga, which shows that the redesigned Black Zarak body integrates the Zarak Headmaster bot into his chest to control everything from within. The visible head on Black Zarak's shoulders is, more or less, a decoy. Chalk another one up for "necessary information the show only gives you through supplemental materials because why didn't you read Japanese Fan Club documentation from 1989 or a set of manga volumes that weren't released in the west until literally this very week."

-To make this even better, Zarak retreats without picking up the flaming, separated head. He just files away as a headless body.

-With teh battle over, Grand Maximus takes the opportunity to shill hard for Ginrai, calling him a "great commander" because he drove the Decepticons off. And when Ginrai objects, Grand says "it's because you're great that they were driven away". Mighty fine circular reasoning there, Grand.

-The rest of the Autobots celebrate on earth in the most budget-conscious way possible, with only Cab and Shuta jumping up and down while nobody else moves. Cab also gets his underwear exposed again. It's really weird talking about underwear shots when Minerva is standing right next to him not being treated as a sex object (which is good since she's only 15 and looks like she's 12)

-Lander walks through the door and repeats everything we just saw happen. Clearly he's already drunk

-He then takes a moment to shill Ginrai. Becuase he "sure is something else" and then suggests a toast even though it's the middle of the afternoon. Yep. Drunk.

-Everyone laughs at Lander's casual alcoholism.

-Ginrai and Grand Maximus then shake hands on the moon and Grand heads off to stay the hell out of the plot so he doesn't upstage Ginrai (the only hero this series needs)

-The closing line of the episode:

Oh Ginrai. You're so cool. *swoon*​

Final Grade: B-

 

There's a certain added absurdity to Ginrai's new obsession with randomly naming his attacks, in that this episode, he's doing it in space (In SPAAACE!!!). So, is he talking to himself, or is he actually using radioing (God-Space-Talk!) Grand Maximus, Overlord, and Black Zarak to tell them, every time he makes up a name for something he just did?

Ginrai: This is my special new Super-God-Master-Chrome-God-Dome Punch Attack!

Giga: ...WTF? How did you get this number? Please get off this line.

Ginrai: Super-God-Pelvis-Thrust!

Mega: If you radio me again I'll be speaking to your parents, you little pervert.

Ginrai: God fire guts!!!!

Grand Maximus: I don't care that you farted, will you just concentrate on the battle, please?

Meanwhile, on Earth, Lander's laid back attitude continues to be good value for money.

You know, I'm actually seriously pondering whether were giving the writers insufficient credit for one aspect of their work here. One thing that's historically rankled with almost everyone with this series is how the more interesting and well-drawn (characterisation, not art) heroes early on get shunted out of the way in favour of bland relative non-entities like Road King. However, equally, Road King is a Godmaster race car with umpteen superpowers, owns his own chest shield, etc etc. Lander is encased inside a barely posable fat astronaut, and emerges to transform from spindly grey stick-figure robot to spindly grey stick figure robot folded up... and back.

I cite these two because they're both the designated ladies' man of the group (well, and both the designated horrid yellow plastic toy, but that's probably not relevant), but out of the two, Lander certainly requires more characterisation effort to sell him- and he gets it.

Similarly, the factions. We can bemoan that, risible comedy badass decay of the once fearsome Pretenders notwithstanding (not to mention that, at this point, Pis could probably take out a Seacon with one bark),the Decepticons get by and large more personality and nuance than the Autobots, and it will have far more impact on the plot, but, note that also, in Japan, "hero" toys infamously sell far better than "villains", hence the bizarrely lopsided faction strengths in later series, so, perhaps its understandable that far more effort goes into, say, Hydra and Buster, and their weird, and ultimately tragic, dynamic, than is given to Ranger and Road King, and that Overlord is a compelling character with a nuanced personality, whilst Grand Maximus (or, as Ginrai knows him, 'Horsey')... isn't.

Or maybe not.

 

Okay, I'll give tem points for not having it just be, "This is something he's gotta do himself!"

I really do hate the ghosting. I'm not sure I can put it into words, but it just looks bad.

A Decepticon being a jerk to other Decepticons? This is my shocked face.  

Now Ginrai shall pay the price for his lack of vision!

Considering this takes place-apparently-in the same G1 continuity as the previous series? They could call up Dirk Manus or some other tramp freighter captain to shuttle them there!

That'sa one of the more gonzo things about season three of G1, IMHO. That by 2006 there's enough space travel and it's cheap/easy enough for there to be guys like Dirk. I love it.  

Points for consistent characterization and him not going off half-cocked like that.

At this point they're not even trying with some of these attack catchphrases, are they.

The funny thing is, this can't even 'date' the episode. There's three-four people where I work that play with Rubik's cubes, and they're all younger than I am.  

And remember. This does take place in the same contiinuity as Headmasters and G1-mostly on the latter.

Is there anything Chokon power can't do? Besides be sensible and/or not an asspull?

Okay, massive points for that.

Anyone else have the mental image of Ginrai sitting alone with a notepad, dictionary, and thesaurus trying to think of cool-sounding attack names?  

Which as mentioned before, is something I fucking HATE!

 

Checked episode 27.

Alright, now this is more like it.  

I honestly enjoyed this episode. I liked that God Ginrai and Grand Maximus teamed up to fight Overlord and BlackZarak, and Grand Maximus proves to be a very worthy ally.

I liked how Lander provided a bit of levity to the Earth scenes. However, why everyone has started calling Ginrai "commander" just seems so tacked on and like it came out of nowhere.

I also enjoyed the voices for BlackZarak, Overlord and Grand Maximus. They sound so epic and powerful.

However, the one thing I didn't enjoy... the friggin' asspulls. Even though the whole Fire Guts gimmick looks a lot better than the friggin' Head Formation, it still is pretty much an asspull power.

So yeah, an improvement over the last episode, but I still feel I could have done without the asspull powers.

 

I'm hoping to have both episodes done tonight but I might have to take a small extension into tomorrow to get everything up. My original plan was to spend the afternoon watching the last episode and a half for this week, but I ended up getting pulled away all day, literally from noonish until about 15 minutes ago, so now I'm not sure I'll get through everything I wanted to.

Which sucks because even though the coronapocalypse means there are a lot more days spent at home, today specifically was a holiday Monday for Canada and I thought maybe it would be a good excuse to tell everyone that it's a 'me day' and I'm occupied.

Upside is that I now believe I'll have most of Wednesday afternoon free, so I plan on watching at least 2 or 3 episodes of this coming week's batch on that day to try and get myself back ahead.

 

Welp, I totally lied about getting through Episodes 28 and 29 on Monday night. I didn't even get through them last night. And all that free time I thought I'd have to day went by the wayside. So today I've finished 28 (Overlord - the Chokon Tornado) and was working on 29 right now until I got distracted and spent the last hour having an utterly superfluous discussion on the nature of written Japanese (a language I have no formal training in because like all good Canadians I took French in high school and now remember precisely none of it because I don't ever use it in my daily life since I don't live in Quebec or the weird Acadian portions of the Maritime provinces) and then writing this post.

I likely won't post the reviews to either episode tonight, but I swear I will get them up by tomorrow and will try to blow through this week's scheduled 4 episodes (eps 30 through 33) between tomorrow and maybe Saturday so that I won't fall any further behind than where I am. I thought about just giving up on the 'x episodes per week' setup so that I don't feel like I'm trailing off quite so hard on my schedule, but if I ditch it entirely that feels like an invitation to slack to the point of doing 1 or 2 episodes a week and never finishing this series. And considering that I'm like 3 weeks from the finish line I find that unacceptable from a personal standpoint. I am a legendary procrastinator if I believe I have the time to afford to slack off, so not having a schedule is basically saying "I'll wait until the end of the month and then try to cram 8 hours of Transformers into one day and write up every review in the 48 hours following that, as if this was some sort of giant term project that I left until 2 days before it was due.  

This series is also the last major hurdle for a little bit since it is easily the longest Japanese series until the Unicron trilogy and by that point I'll likely be debating whether to watch each series in Japanese or English while weighing the value of the better storytelling option (Japanese) vs the greater mocking/riffing comedy potential (English). Beast Wars II is apparently 39 non-clipshow episdoes and Beast Wars Neo is 32 non-clipshows. vanilla Beast Wars and Beast Machines are looking mighty inviting right now with their wholly English dialogue and much brisker pace of me reviewing them (Especially Beast Wars since I'm so familiar with that series)

Victory is going to be interesting because it appears that different releases of the series include differing amounts of its clip shows. Shout includes EVERY piece of its 38-episode run from pilot to story conclusion, including 5 clip shows that aired along the way and episode 39, which is apparently the entire series' plot condensed down into a single 22-minute infodump. Madman and Metrodome seemingly don't include any of the clip shows, which in turn means that my bootlegs with the Omni dub also don't feature them (for however complete TFWiki's info is, it appears these episodes may not have even been dubbed by Omni to begin with), shrinking their episode count down to 32 shows. And none of these releases include episodes 40-44, which are all post-script clip shows that were home video releases in Japan way back in the day but which apparently haven't even been included on any Japanese DVD releases of the series since then. So I'm going to have to make a decision on which version I watch from, or at least try and pretend for a little bit that I won't just take the easy way out and ditch all the clip shows because they add nothing to the story and I don't need to take up my time watching retellings of events from a few episodes prior.


So.... yeah. tl;dr is to expect 28 and 29 reviews tomorrow and then hopefully 30-33 by the weekend if all goes according to plan. But of course there's a good chance that it won't because if things went according to plan I would've probably had at least 2 of those episodes finished already.

Upside is that it only took me like 165 episodes worth of Transformers to hit a major scheduling snag. Which actually reminds me:

counting the movie as one "episode" and factoring in the number of times I wrote combined single reviews for multipart episodes of G1 (all multipart episodes of seasons 1 and 2 and The Rebirth), episode 24 of this series (Super Ginrai gets blown away in the desert) should be right around my 150th review post for this project. Damn, I never thought I'd get this far in a silly, underestimated attempt to watch and talk about a lot of Transformers stuff  .

And just think, there's only just under 800 to 850ish episodes of significant(ish) material to go after I finish Masterforce...

...oh god, this project is going to kill me. I shouldn't have done the math  

on the flip side of that, it makes me realize that without clip shows to pad out the episode counts, I might not be able to make it to a vaunted 1,000 episodes of Transformers before the project ends unless I were to start counting supplementary shorts or the really oddball stuff like Q-Transformers, Kre-O, or *shudder* Universe. And even then it's probably iffy if I could hit the threshold. The key factor right now seems to be whether or not Rescue Bots Academy finishes its run before I get there (which it should) and how much of the WFC Trilogy series is out by then. Because as of right now, accounting for the planned 52 episode second season of RBA, there should be about 1,040 non-clipshow episodes of various major series across all iterations of the franchise (counting a 'major' series as one that has its own franchise segment listing on TFwiki's home page and has a 'cartoon' sub-section. This includes stuff like Go! but not the oddball things I mentioned above like Q-Transformers or Kre-O).

 

EPISODE 28: Overlord - Terror of the Chokon Tornado

THE SHORT VERSION
Overlord developed his ultimate technique after a fateful afternoon stuck in a carnival ride for 4 hours.

REVIEW
There's a big reveal about Godbomber and its abilities in this episode, but between the title and much of the episode focus, it seems like that's a less important than what amounts to round 2 between Overlord and Ginrai. For a show that's generally been quite trigger-happy in terms of blowing its big reveals and dramatic balance-shifters, it's jarring that this time they instead underplay it so much that it works out like an afterthought.

With that odd whiplash of a reveal, we're left with a battle-centric episode that has some really cool parts and some nice animation, but also has to deal with a bit of unfortunate flat-ness in the fact that the fight takes some cheap shortcuts and engages in a bit of chicanery when it comes to how it recounts past events or how certain aspects of the last few episodes play out. Toss in the Headmasters getting the short end of the stick in terms of their role (especially after they got a fun introduction to the episode) and weirdo craziness of Overlord's apparent ultimate ability
and I just came away from this episode thinking it was kind of "meh" as yet another showcase of how awesome Ginrai is and how little he needs anyone else's help.

THOUGHTS AND MUSINGS

Spoiler

-The episode begins with Giga and Mega watching a bit of a recap of the fight in space between them and God Ginrai. But the bit they show seems a little bit different than what we saw, recapping a bit that has Ginrai floating around and seemingly beating Overlord with a shot from his gun. That's not how it happened, but far be it from me to prevent the Decepticons from engaging in a bit of revisionist history.

-Then, out of nowhere the pair decide that they need the Decepticon Godmasters to raid an oil refinery somewhere in the middle east because.... they want Black Zarak to join them on earth and this will help in some way that they don't entirely explain.

-Giga also displays a bit of a death wish as he says that he's prepared to die in the service of completing this job and the Godmasters must be willing to do the same. Mega seems a bit freaked out by this, but not enough to stop things from going ahead.

- flash forward to the Godmasters attacking the oil refinery and it's a weird eclectic mix of people inside. There are a lot of guys dressed in work uniforms, but there's also one random woman in veil and head covering and then outside a family of stereotypical desert-dwellers in loose linen robes runs away from the dust cloud the assault kicks up. So what are these random civilian types doing hanging around a huge oil facility?

-In the midst of this Buster and Hydra have a discussion about Giga's orders, feeling uncomfortable with the suggestion that they should be ready to die in a seemingly frivolous fashion. It's a surprisingly rare bit of introspection for a pair of characters who rarely evolve beyond being sadistic jerks.

-One odd bit of design aesthetic that I've just noticed in this episode is that it's the return of the hyper-detailed robot parts. Except... it's being done in the wrong place. Hydra's hands while manning the cockpit of his transtector show visible hinges in the knuckles. That's cool and all, but this is just his Godmaster armor. His human hands are literally inside those gloves, so there shouldn't be space for a hinge-like design in them unless they're also crushing his fingers.

It turns out those hands are robot arms. Hydra's real hands are folded up around his torso, so he can smugly cross his arms at all times.​

-Meanwhile, still in Canada, the Headmaster Jrs travel through the Rockies I guess?

This isn't a terribly interesting shot. I just wanted to post it becuase now I know how to write Canada in katakana. ​

-Out of nowhere Shuta shouts "let's take a shortcut!" and everyone does a siiiiick jump off a cliff so they can transform and slide down the mountainside in their robot forms. Even Minerva gets in on this silly diversion. It's a nice change of pace from the usual situation where Cab and Shuta act like kids and she just gets exasperated by their immaturity.

*Insert sweet guitar riffs*​

-At the bottom of this cliff is apparently a parking lot and the BMC factory they've been at the last few episodes. Once inside Minerva even gets to be guilty of keeping up the frivolity as the gang races to get to the bottom level of the base to meet up with Ginrai and as they charge down the stairs Minerva hops on the railing and slides down it, taunting them as she goes.

*Guitar riffs intensify*​

-This all leads up to the reveal that the Godbomber can serve as a transport vehicle for the Headmaster Jrs, fitting their transtectors in the back and giving them spots in what amounts to a cab to be able to sit up front an I guess drive it?

-And just in time too as Lightfoot storms into the room to tell them the Decepticons are attacking and that Ginrai needs to move out. So we get a weird and extended "roll out" sequence that features the Godbomber driving independently before it takes the time to link up to Ginrai, have the whole vehicle stop just so it can blow its horn, and then roll out again.

-One commercial break later, the gang is suddenly in the middle east, having miraculously driven from western Canada over the Atlantic and through Europe to get there. In mere minutes apparently.

-It took me until now to notice that Ginrai's transformation sequence is kind of awkward. He has to transform and God On to get his base transtector into robot mode, but then super Ginrai requires the transtector to be back in truck mode to combine. So that initial transformation is rather pointless as he has to transform, then transform back, then combine and transform again.

-This battle (and this episode in general) are making liberal use Buster and Hydra's missiles in plane mode. A good change of pace from how they usually use their lasers.

-I guess the stronger Ginrai gets, the more weak we have to make the other Autobots in order to balance the scales. As soon as they're dropped off, all 3 Headmaster Jrs forget about their mission to protect the humans and the oil refinery as they instead just stand there and scream about Ginrai facing two Decepticons at once. Minerva even crumples to the ground in tears as their great "commander" gets pummelled by Buster and Hydra.

-and for the suggestion that Ginrai is getting stronger, somehow having extra power ups is making his earlier modes weaker. Super Ginrai used to be enough to handle a threat like Buster and Hydra. But now he's getting easily trounced by the pair, likely to justify the need later on to transform to God Ginrai and rebalance the fight (though by 'rebalance' I probably mean 'suddenly he's able to obliterate the two Decepticons unopposed.')

-We don't even get Ginrai in a situation where he gets continually beat up to necessitate the God Ginrai transformation. A few shots by buster and Hydra are all it takes for him to just up the ante right away.

-Suddenly Ginrai's voice in God Ginrai mode is extra modulated and processed. Almost to the point that Soundblaster's was in Headmasters. It makes it sound a lot deeper and significantly unlike his normal voice.

-Randomly Overlord is portrayed as being on the battlefield, albeit away from the front and the battle between Ginrai and the Godmaster planes. How did he get there? Who knows? But Giga, in his tank, suddenly demonstrates the ability to bury himself in the sand and seemingly travel through it with ease, emerging at Ginrai's feet for a sneak attack.

-We also get a random bit of visual retconning. Remember how a couple episodes ago I mentioend that when Ginrai uses shoots his Godbomber hands/arms off as a rocket punch (I think it was called the "God Fist" though he doesn't call the attack this time) and it exposes that his regular Super Ginrai hands and arms fit underneath the God Ginrai armor additions (so that the God Ginrai arms are less of a fresh set of arms linked to his body and more like a set of gloves and bracers fitted on top of him like a suit of armor)? Welp, that's gone in this episode, as he fires off a shot of his rocket fist and when it returns to him we see that his underlying arm is now just a stump with a connector that the rocketed-out hand reattaches to.

"Hey, you right there! Stop!... Dammit, this'd be easier if I still had fingers."​

At least the returning arm is shown to slide over top of the existing forearm, implying that the God Ginrai forearm is hollow and functions somewhat like a bracer with the connection point of the parts being at the wrist. I was waiting for a galling animation error that had the whole returning God Fist attaching to the end of his stump, giving him an extra long and triple-jointed arm.

-Giga emerges from the desert sands and shoots Ginrai in the back. Nicely crafty and evil. But oddly it shows that he's able to blow a piece of God Ginrai's wing clean off in the attack. An odd change of pace/power from their first showdown where Ginrai simply eats a ton of blasts from the combined Overlord while taking little damage (and what little he takes is almost immediately healed by their trippy Godmaster powers)

-In fact, Ginrai gets shot a few more times and takes progressively more damage, causing progressively greater ongoing damage, up to hte point that a downed Ginrai is appraoched from behind by Giga, who points his tank barrel at the back of Ginrai's head and challenges him to say his last words.

-Back from the commercial break the narrator tells us that "While God Ginrai was struggling in battle, Shuta and the Headmaster Jrs were valiantly carrying out rescue operations. But in a hilarious budget-conscious move, most of this was shown through a set of pastel stills, one short clip of Cab putting out a fire with some workers, one unmoving shot of Minerva tending to injured workers, and a wide shot of the refinery where the only animation is the smoke vanishing. Because why show any of this stuff when we can use all our animation budget on the super-cool and heroic Ginrai getting valiantly kicked across the desert by Giga?

All their funding went to the kick-ass, playful scenes on the mountainside and stairwell​

-Suddenly out of nowhere Shuta says he has "fire blast shots" that somehow put out fires. That makes sense for Cab to have since he's a fire engine, but why does a police car have fire suppression gear? It's also a rather cheaty way to deal with the fire easily since he just has to shoot one blast at a raging fire and it's magially put out. All except the one flaming oil geyser that he and Cab encounter.

-As a positive to all this, at least the HMjrs are doing their stated job of crowd control, rescue, and emergency services rather than itching to fight.

-The bits of the rescue that are now being animated are also fairly well done.

-Meanwhile, at the "important" battle, Ginrai sits and silently mopes to himself about being trapped by Giga until he manages to use his Chokon powers somehow to jump out of the way of Giga's cannon fast enough to dodge the blast. Because sure, why not let his magic space energy give him one more asspull power that he's never demonstrated before given that all his other Chokon powers have been big giant laser beams or a burning justice aura.

-And then we get one more asspull power: Godbomber is separated from Ginrai and reveals that it can transform into a robot on its own. What? Why? How? This raises all sorts of questions given that Godbomber is not a sentient bot. It's a trailer that turns into armor. So is Ginrai controlling all of its movements on his own? Does it have some sort of rudimentary intelligence to function like this? Is it like some sort of symbiotic being like Roller to Optimus Prime? Or was it meant to be like a Megazord style pilotable ride given the fact that the Headmaster Jrs are capable of riding in it? (I know the answer, according to the wiki, is that Godbomber is loosely controlled by Ginrai's Chokon power, because it's space magic, and that it responds to his emotional needs and directions and has no consciousness of its own. But that's the wiki talking, not the show which has at several points decided "screw explanations, things do whatever becuase reasons and LOOK AT ALL THE EXPLOSIONS!!! ISN'T GINRAI AWESOME!?!!?"

"Yeah, I could always do this. I just didn't feel like it before now."​

-This also causes some issues with power balance. Full on Overlord was powerless against God Ginrai. But Tank-mode Giga caused several instances of significant damage. But somehow just Godbomber with no link to Ginrai is now strong enough to overwhelm Giga. Consistency!

-Mega arrives on scene and she unites with her husband to form Overlord. They then announce "witness our fearsome might!" Again, in spite of the fact that we've seen God Ginrai being utterly unphased by Overlord's attacks, they're quite confident.

-Overlord then unleashes their apparent ultimate attack: spinning around like Wonder Woman transforming to generate a gigantic sand cyclone. At least he doesn't give it a dorky name like Ginrai, who would've called it "Chokon super God Cyclone!"

Co-starring Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton.​

-Also this actually also validates the episode title, which otherwise seemed like overly poetic nonsense.

-I was wrong, Overlord does name it: Final Attack, Chokon Tornado! Meh...

-These references to Overlord also make me realize that it's hard to figure out pronouns for the 'Con. They're technically both Giga and Mega piloting, and seemingly not a gestalt form like a proper combiner, so does a plural pronoun make sense? Giga seems to do most of the talking, so does that make "he" acceptable? Stop making me think linguistic/philosophical issues, silly robot cartoon!!!

-As Cab and Shuta watch the tornado close in, a voice that sounds like one of the Decepticon Godmasters shouts out "Lord Giga! Lady Mega!" But I'm not sure who says or where they are since the shot is of Shuta, Cab, Ginrai, and Godbomber.

-Ginrai's solution to deal with the giant tornado? Punch it really hard. Multiple times with the God Fist. And when that doesn't work, he just punches it harder.

-In the background a new song plays which is mostly someone singing "come on! Come on! Come on!" over and over again. In English.

-Ginrai then reveals his trump card: God Punch Two! It's just a rocket fist flying up from underneath the tornado and hitting Overlord at the bottom of the twister. But if you get to the point where "God Punch 2" is the go-to name, I think it's a sign that you've named far too many things and are running out of ideas.

-Anyway, God Punch II: Electric Boogaloo works, knocking Overlord out of the tornado and driving the Decepticons to retreat. Just like that.

-And in our weirdest twist yet: Ginrai questions the fact that Godbomber turned into a robot, shocked at the turn of events. So you're telling me that everything that happened was a random, spontaneous occurrence that Ginrai didn't cause intentionally? He literally got saved by his own powers acting independently seemingly for no reason other than protecting their valiant commander out of sheer idolization and awesomeness. Blech.

-Ginrai meeds up with the Headmaster Jrs, letting Minerva state that she saved al lthe workers thanks to Cab and Shuta putting out the fires. But we didn't need to see that.

-Ginrai congratulates the Headmaster Jrs, then says he has "high expectations of them from here on out". This sounds all proud and leader-like as he demonstrates his faith in his comrades, but then he punctuates it with an awkward laugh that just makes it all sound kinda disingenuous.

-And that's pretty much it. The narrator once again sings Ginrai's praises as we fade out over a sunset in the desert.

Final Grade: C+

 

EPISODE 29: Escape!! The Underwater Volcano Erupts!

THE SHORT VERSION

REVIEW
This episode is a lot of nothing. Seriously, I get more mileage out of my lengthy discussion of the linguistic nature of the title card than I do out of most of the plot.

The basic setup of the story seems interesting at first, but it ends up all being almost like string of coincidences and barely-related waypoints. The use of characters is grossly limited, and in the end there are long stretches of time spent stalling and killing time to cover for the fact that precious little happens.

In theory the idea of a showdown between King Poseidon and Ginrai sounds like a great idea, but we've already seen Poseidon reduced to a joke, and with Ginrai now having his God Ginrai upgrade the combiner shouldn't even pose a threat. So it's hard to get too excited about the prospect of their duel.

And by episode's end, nothing of value has happened. No aspect of the over-arching story has changed. And we don't gain anything for what went down except the narrator's mentions of the commander/lieutenant relationship between Ginrai and Lightfoot, except that relationship was seemingly already in place and didn't need this episode to help establish it any more than it already was. So in the end, what was the point? It's just a middling, but boring episode that doens't stoop so low as to be bad, but never moves above being merely OK.

THOUGHTS AND MUSINGS

Spoiler

-Things open up with... still painted frames of destruction to tell us an earthquake occurred off the coast of Australia causing significant damage to "cities and towns." This lasts for all of about 15-30 seconds before the music hits its crescendo and we go to the title card. I see what they're doing, saving budget and time on what is just a bit of framing and setup, but it feels so rushed and glossed over that the transition to the title card is about as jarring as it possibly could be.

-The title card itself is also kind of silly. In spite of the title itself clearly stating that it's an underwater volcano, the animated build to the title reveal on features an erupting volcano spewing out flaming boulders that arc and fall as if they were in the sky, not underwater.

Strap in, we're about to go for a ride (warning about the massive off-topic discussion below)​

-Disclaimer that I can't write Japanese to save my life and that my only vocabulary of the language are maybe 15-20 diverse and disparate words I've picked up through anime and video games, but I want to stop and talk about rather odd language quirk that I don't think I ever noticed before this episode's title. That said I do so as a rank amateur and fully expect that someone more properly trained and versed in Japanese could easily correct me for the base mistakes I'll probably make in my explanation: Maybe it's because so many titles use proper nouns that require katakana to write out (basically all the Transformers-y terms like Cybertron, Destron, Headmaster/Godmaster, character names, etc) but every single kanji in the title is accompanied by furigana. Observe:


For those that don't know, Furigana are the little tiny characters above each kanji meant to serve as a guide to the definition/meaning of the kanji (since one kanji can have multiple different readings and pronunciations based on what the intent of the author is. Take, for example the first word in the title: 脱出. It means "dasshutsu" (pronounced without the 'su' at the end, but that's a whole other kettle of fish that is absolutely not worth getting into) or in English "escape", but individually the 出 kanji could be read as any of "shutsu" (as it is in this word) "shuchi", "sui", or several other readings that I don't want to list because I don't understand the mechanics of them and as such I'll probably sound like an idiot. The furigana above it, "しゅつ", indicate the intended pronunciation as "しゅ" = "shu" and "つ" = "tsu".

Maybe it's because I rarely take the time to read the titles' assorted kanji and kana, and maybe it's because I always just sort of assumed that furigana were a "sometimes" thing only meant to be used when a reading of a word might be tricky or unusual, and perhaps it's because, as I noted earlier, so many titles include katakana loanwords that don't require the furigana translation guide (because furigana are composed of either of katakana or, in this case, hiragana and both of those character sets are essentially phoenetic "alphabets" meant to convey one and only one specific pronunciation per character) but for the first time in the 29 episodes I've watch, I actually took notice of the fact that every single kanji in that title has a furigana guide above it and how cluttered it makes the title look. Since these are pronunciation guides and part of my research on the nature of kanji readings indicates that because of the intricacy of kanji reading and difficulties, Japanese speakers in a Japanese education system potentially learn new kanji and their meanings all the way up into high school (a drastic departure from what us westerners are used to when you consider that it'd be considered unusual if we hadn't at least mastered the entirety of our alphabet by the time we're out of kindergarten, to the extent that within only a couple of years we would be expected to at least be able to sound out most words just based on knowing all the letters in them and have a pretty good chance at being correct except for the fact that English is a demon tongue full of rules that often make just enough sense for you to be royally confused when each and every one of those rules is vacated so many times that you wonder why they even bother to exist in the first place. Because ours is the bastard language of seemingly a half-dozen other languages, crammed together in an ill-fitting package that strives to humble anyone who dares consider themselves its master.  )

..where was I? Oh yeah, furigana. I was getting to the point that since it seems that education and expansion of a kanji 'vocabulary' is an ongoing thing for years of a Japanese person's life, perhaps the excessive amount of furigana here are a consideration for this being kids' show. Your average member of the audience is far too young to know what every one of those kanji is, so they all get furigana to help the kids sound out the ones they'd have yet to learn and understand the meaning since they would likely have knowledge of the vocabulary in a spoken context if not in a written/spelling one.

That concludes Liege Nemesis' totally unnecessary and probably incorrect tangential discussion on the nature of language in a Transformers series. If you'd like some continued reading, I suggest hitting up Wikipedia's basic articles on the various Japanese language forms and syllabary (including charts and tables for katakana and hiragana which you can ctrl+f search for characters to discover pronunciations) as well as Wiktionary, which will let you plug in various kanji and whatnot to get a list of readings and potential definitions
Furigana - Wikipedia
Hiragana - Wikipedia
Katakana - Wikipedia
Kanji - Wikipedia
Furigana - Wikipedia

And now that this has taken me like 45 minutes to get through and I'm less than 3 minutes into the episode, let's see if I can make it through the rest of the runtime without any significant other distractions or tangents.

-In the Decepticon base, Turtler (the Seacon leader, who I routinely forget is supposed to be the only sentient Transformer of the group and the only one who exists solely as a single unit without clones. I tend to treat all the Seacons as disposable drones) explains to Giga that the earthquakes were the result of demolition charges being used to carve out underwater space for a new Decepticon base. The blasts inadvertently caused an underwater volcano to become active. Giga reasonably surmises that this could be bad if the Autobots choose to investigate the source of the tremors and find the site of their new base.

-I'm not getting sucked back into the Japanese language rabbithole, but it's interesting to hear Mega refer to Giga using the word "anata". Since Japanese is a language heavily constructed on notions of politness and contextual appropriateness in how people refer to one another and themselves, there's a wide array of pronouns to choose from to convey all sorts of levels of respectfulness, familiarity, and importance. "anata" is often used specifically as an intimate form of "you", most commonly known to be used specifically by women to refer to their husbands/lovers. To the extent that it is sometimes translated to English as the girl addressing her significant other as a generic pet name like "darling" and indeed that's how it's rendered here, with the subs rendering Mega's sentence as "my darling, you don't need to worry." It is one of the rare words of Japanese that I recognize, but it also makes it funny to hear in this context because given their generally evil nature, it's oddly refreshing and endearing to get the impression that Giga and Mega are still an emotionally close couple who really do love each other underneath their shared desire to take over the world for the glorious Decepticon cause. For the record, I'm fairly certain that Carly often addressed Spike with "anata" during Headmasters as well.

-In that same conversation, Mega's imploring for Giga not to worry is because "the advanced base is protected by a battalion of Seacons."

Uhhhh, Mega? Have you seen how gloriously ineffective the Seacons are? The Pretenders were gunning down swaths of them as far back as episode 1 of the series, and we're now so far beyond the Pretenders in terms of power of characters like the Autobot Godmasters that I wouldn't be surprised if any of Ranger or Lightfoot or Road King could cut down dozens of drones singlehandedly without breaking a sweat. The Seacon drones aren't protecting shit, least of all your super-secret new evil base.

-Lightfoot is dispatched to solve the mystery of the earthquake, and he tracks it to the underwater volcano. Vowing to take readings with his sensors, he tosses a small device down an open crevasse and it unfurls some tether lines and tendrils to take readings, or something. More importantly, how have they never released a new Getaway/Lightfoot toy with this sensor drone accessory? Don't you guys at Hasbro/Takara like money? If Transformers fans are willing to buy 6 bots of the same WFC Siege seeker mold, chances are we're desperate enough to buy an obsure character mold just because it's packaged with a weird random tie-in accessory to a specific episode of a specific series. Tell me that you couldn't sell a repackaged version of Earthrise Wheeljack just by having him be given a modified head sculpt with translucent ear-flap light thingies and who also comes with an Immobilizer or a couple of cubes of Cybertonium...

-Lightfoot's sensors detect that the volcano will erupt within 24 hours and cause greater damage. But no sooner does he reach that conclusion than the Seacon drones blow everything by attacking him unprovoked. Good job, Seacons. Now you've not only wasted the element of surprise, but also given up that you're guarding something in the area, tipping Lightfoot off to the fact that the Decepticons are somehow involved in everything (when before this point he had no reason to suspect anything other than the volcano being a totally natural occurrence).

-Not only that, but the Seacons chase Lightfoot directly to the secret base they're supposed to be protecting. This is why you don't trust mindless drones to do stuff. At least the G1 'cons used generic Reflector/Insecticon/Seeker copies that seemed to be capable of some degree of independent thought.

...not suspicious at all.​

-On the upside for the Decepticons, Lightfoot is so distracted by the fact that he's found a big, suspicous spiky ball of Decepticon design that he seems to forget he's being chased and shot at, giving the Seacons an opening to shoot him in the back and down him. And Lightfoot has so far been characterized as "the smart one" among the Godmasters.

-The kind of dumb thing for Lightfoot is that he lets himself get surrounded and shot at repeatedly, but earlier in the fight he fired off one blast and destroyed multiple drones. If he had just fired wildly into the crowd he could've probably taken out a fair number of them.

-Instead he stands there in indecision and gets shot repeatedly until the ground mysteriously opens up and swallows him for some reason.

-Back at Autobot base, Ginrai and the Headmaster Jrs mobilize to figure out why they lost contact with Lightfoot. This happens in a weird fashion: Ginrai transforms to Super Ginrai, the Headmaster Jrs load up into Godbomber, but then Ginrai is somehow able to take just the wings and big gun from Godbomber and attach them to himself, letting him then pick up and carry the bulk of the trailer-mode Godbomber with the Headmaster Jrs inside instead of attaching all the Godbomber armor pieces to him at once. I had no idea he could do a half transformation like this. Weird.

Beats flying coach.​

-Giga and Mega command Turtler to eliminate Lightfoot right away. But he won't even be able to find lightfoot anymore since he fell down that underwater crevasse.

-Seeing that Ginrai is approaching their base, they command Turtler switch focus to taking out Ginrai. Because that'll go so well given that Ginrai is now strong enough to go toe-to-toe with Overlord...

-On the Australian coast, the Headmaster Jrs want to accompany Ginrai into the ocean to look for Lightfoot, but Ginrai tells them not to because of the danger of the volcano. Instead they're to conduct rescue operations in the disaster areas nearby. Everyone sounds disappointed by this. Even Minerva.

-Ginrai also leaves most of Godbomber with them as he dives into the ocean. And I'm left to question why he even took Godbomber in the first place given how frequently he and the Headmaster Jrs have traveled without it.

-Suddenly Gilmer is shown underwater with Tutler. There had been no indication that he was there at any point before.

-Turtler merges into King Poseidon so he can face Ginrai. I have a feeling this won't go well for him.

-Ginrai finds Lightfoot at the bottom of the crevasse, only to be immediately buried by a landslide presumably caused by Turtler. One that somehow snuck up on them. And was apparently caused by King Poseidon throwing boulders down the crevasse one at a time.

-A thought just popped into my head: Why was Lightfoot, of all people, the one investigating this? I know, I already said he's "the smart one" of the Godmasters, but the Autobots already have a guy on the team who specializes in marine work: Diver. I guess his toy is just too old to allow him to do the job he was meant for anymore. Why get the aquatic guy when you can get the nerdy Canadian/British auto manufactuerer to do it instead?

-Huh. now back at Decepticon HQ (the old one), Gilmer is standing there behind Giga and Mega. How is he in two places at once? He even talks so this wasn't an animation error or someone grabbing the wrong model for background use.

What do you mean "where did I come from? I've absolutely been here the whole time."​

- , Mega and Giga assume that King Poseidon's rockslide of doom managed to kill Ginrai and Lightfoot, even though they should damn well know better. So they and Gilmer all start cackling wildly with the expectation that the rest of the Autobots should be easy pickings now. They certainly do shift gears from stunningly competent to laughably overconfident with no warning.

And then the credits flash up: "Executive Producer: Michael Bay"​

-This cackling also drags on for shockingly long amount of time. Between that and some stock footage transformations, it seems like they're filling for a lot of time.

-up on dry land, the Headmaster Jrs patrol and help out in the shockingly devastated ruins of Sydney. According to the intro to the episode, the quake that struck was a 7.0. Not that a magnitude 7 earthquake isn't serious business, and Australia probaby isn't exactly Japan when it comes to Earthquake frequency and preparedness, but records say that the 2005 Fukuoka Earthquake was a 7.0. It killed exactly 1 person and whiel it caused a reasonable amount of damage, images of the after-effects don't exactly line up with the barren, ruined hellscape that this show applies to Sydney. You'd think a show made in Japan of all places would have a solid handle on relative Earthquake damage levels. Someone clearly took the time in Headmasters to do a bunch of astronomy research for astroid names and whatnot, but nobody could figure out an appropriate quake severity to get the damage level they were looking for?

Not actually a deleted scene from Mad Max​

-Shuta saves a little girl from being crushed by a collasping freeway overpass. Neither the girl nor her mother voice any sort of thanks to him for the rescue, and I'm surprised he seems to take it in stride rather than having a hissy fit about not being appreciated.

-Ginrai and Lightfoot dig their way out of the rock pile they were buried in and Lightfoot offhandedly comments with gratitude that Ginrai shielded him from the rockslide. That Ginrai, always being a true hero. Especially off-screen when nobody's looking and they don't have to show him being heroic.

-Suddenly there's another rockslide, now Ginrai does visibly shield Lightfoot and they get buried again. And then the chasm shifts and seals up because sure why not.

-So.... Godbomber is a drone, right? With no intelligence of his own? He just responds to whatever Ginrai wants? Then explain how it's sitting on the cliffside over the ocean when the Headmaster Jrs return and after being asked by Shuta if Ginrai is back yet, Godbomber transforms to robot mode and shakes its head to indicate "no." how is it capable of communicating with the HMjrs when it's just a drone and Ginrai is buried under the ocean? And beyond that if it responds to Ginrai's emotions and wants, how come Ginrai didn't think "Gee, I sure don't want to be buried under tons of undersea rocks and debris" and have Godbomber come running (or swimming) to dig him and Lightfoot out?

-Also, the head-shake animation on Godbomber is gloriously wonky. It's less a smooth side-to-side shake and more like he's having some kind of severe neck spasm, making his head twitch and jitter irregularly and in different directions, mostly like he's wagging his chin. It's so awkward that it looks like they took a static cell of his body, cut the head off, then just sort of slid the head around in the shot without having to draw smooth frames of the head turning distinctly to either side.

-At least he doesn't talk. He could've had R2-D2 beeps like Roller did though. That might've been fun.

-Deciding they have to figure out why Ginrai is missing, the HM jrs transform with full stock footage to eat up time.

-But no sooner do they try to depart into the ocean that Godbomber steps in front and grabs them to prevent them from leaving.

Like any young kid (Godbomber is just a few weeks old), he likes to make his action figures 'fight' by smashing them together while making sound effects with his mouth.​

-Minerva asks what he's doing and the robot waves its arms in a crude sort of attempt at a gestural language, which Minerva immediately deciphers as him telling the kids to stay put while he goes and rescues the two missing Godmasters.

IRONY! (It's Shuta saying the line)​

-Without warning, giant water spouts erupt straight up into the air from the ocean. Because that's what underwater volcanoes cause: endlessly tall, perfectly vertical streams of constant water.

-Meanwhile, Ginrai and Lightfoot try to dig their way out of their predicament. Except Ginrai isn't trying very hard as he's using his rifle, but not the big guns on his shoulders. What a leader, letting his flunkies do all the hard work.

-He also implores Godbomber to hurry. So I guess that means he actually did summon the drone to him and Godbomber isn't displaying some sort of nascent sentience in trying to go and rescue his master on his own accord?

-In spite of never having seen him before, King Poseidon immediately recognizes Godbomber and the two engage in a spirited volley of lasers and missiles. This is now the longest King Poseidon has gone in a fight without losing.

-But as we get to commercial the volcano finally erupts and takes out a bunch of Seacon drones with its spew of flaming rocks (which are falling and moving as if they're in the air instead of underwater just like the the title card showed)

-After the break, things take a weird turn. Still trapped, Lightfoot makes a drastic choice: he's going to sacrifice himself by self-destructing to blow open the wall and free Ginrai. Not only is this incredibly over-dramatic and totally in keeping with the Japanese series' love of self-sacrifice as the noblest of traits. But the thing that strikes me the most is that it's Lightfoot that makes this suggestion and not Ginrai. Not very noble of the leader and Totally-Not-Optimus clone to make the most Optimus-y of decisions to give up his life for the greater good.

-The one thing this does is seemingly establish that Lightfoot is the "Lieutenant Commander", firmly placing him as the second in command of the Godmasters, and I guess the Autobots as a whole.

-Man, Lightfoot really wants to kill himself to get Ginrai out. It takes Ginrai slugging him in the back of the head to finally get him to stop.

-Back in the open sea, the erupting volcano destoys the Decepticon base, meaning this whole Autobot excursion was for naught since the Decepticons would've been foiled without their interference.

-And just like that Godbomber breaks the pair of Autobots out of their prison.

-Now it's finally time for the ultimate showdown of destiny: God Ginrai vs King Poseidon. And the less-destined showdown of Lightfoot vs the entire army of Seacon drones by himself.

-Hilariously, Lightfoot actually does a staggeringly good job beating the drones by himself. So why did he have so much trouble earlier?

-And at hte same time, God Ginrai struggles to best King Poseidon even though the Decepticon had been easily trashed by lesser Autobots than Ginrai's ultimate form at multiple points in the past.

-On shore we switch to see the Headmaster Jrs just sitting around and waiting, wondering what's going on below the surface. Becuase it was important to know they weren't doing anything.

-Ligthfoot takes out the last of the Seacons by himself, then uses his ass-pull spinny super power Chokon ability to pull King Poseidon off of Ginrai, saving his bacon too.

-And giving Ginrai the opening to use his super mega ultra Chokon asspull infinite power God super duper MasterGodForce Cannon God's God Cannon to blast King Poseidon to smithereens.

-sorry, it's just the "God Cannon" And it's just the rocket blaster on his shoulder.

-That's it, the battle's over.

-So back at Decepticon base (the original one, since their new one is trashed) Giga spontaneously crushes a wine glass that he has in his hand solely so he can crush a wine glass in fit of villainous rage as he chews out Turtler for his failure.

-But Mega sees fit to defend the underling, claiming that they underestimated Godbomber and God Ginrai's power. It's a nice thread through the series that Mega is the even-tempered one who protects her underlings. A big change of pace from most other Decepticon leaders.

-And the episode ends with the Autobots flying back to base while the narrator talks about how there's now a greater bond of trust between Ginrai and Lightfoot

-And it took me a couple of tries to write that last line since I kept referring to Lightfoot as Getaway. Then noticed I'd been doing it for half the episode. I blame the subtitles.

Final Grade: C

 

The diminishing returns on Ginrai's cab mode transtector (as opposed to Super Ginrai, God Ginrai, Uber-Mega-Kick-Arse-God-Chokon Ginrai, or whatever he names his next power-up) might actually make internally logical sense.

After all, Godmasters are powered and animated by Super Space Magic Chokon power, of which one third portion (according to one thing which was actually explained* on screen) is "Jinchokon", the power of the human spirit, and Ginrai apparently has a superer strongerer purerer humaner spirit than anyone else**, then he would be able to get a lot more out of a base transtector than anyone else, if we assume that all the transtectors started out equal on their "Chichokon" (Super Space Earth Magic) and "Tenchokon" (Super Space, er Space Magic, the one of the three that Sixknight focused on mastering) power absorption.

However, he had the potential to do far more with his Jinchokon, enough to enliven Super, and then God Ginrai's add-ons, but there doesn't appear to be any kind of off switch. Thus, when he's Godded On***, his Super God Super Spirit Magic is warm and fuzzily enlivening and awesomifying**** all three of his components; hence Godbomber's unexpected stirrings of animation and random robot mode; though it's left unexplained***** whether Godbomber just somehow "grew" those robot-specific parts, or whether British Motors built them in from the start as an Easter Egg of sorts.

Maybe all cars made in Canada come with robot parts built in as standard just in case Space Magic helps them evolve into Transformers? Or is it just an exclusive British Motors special feature? I don't know, you're better qualified to answer that one than me.

At any rate, returning to the regularly scheduled actual point of this post, Ginrai's Super Unvincible****** Space Magic is now being used to effectively power three transtectors instead of just one, so even with his Super God Awesomeness, the basic cab robot probably has less Jinchokon to draw on than it did back in the early days.

Or, alternatively, maybe Ginrai's just got less good at fighting because he's far too preoccupied with thinking up new Super God McAwesome names for his attacks.

Imagine Transformers : The Movie with Ginrai instead of Optimus. There wouldn't have been any need for Hot Rod to get in the way during Prime's duel with Megatron.

Kup: Finish him off, Pri--er, Ginrai, do it now!
Megatron: No more, Super Ginrai, grant me mercy, I beg of you...
Super Ginrai: You, who are without mercy, now plead for it? I thought you were made of sterner stuff... (Takes deep breath and shouts) Super-Chokon-God-Master-Ultra-Ion-Chokon-Rifle-Pointy-Megatron-Shooty-Chokon-Super-Bang-Bang-Super-God-
Megatron: (Gets bored waiting, picks up pistol and shoots Ginrai)

I know, I know, it's wrong to mock the power of Chokon. Every time a child stops believing in Super Space Magic, Primus kills a Seacon*******, and all that.

* This is, of course, blasphemy against the Super-Gods.
** Yes, Chromedome, even strongererer than vodka with a twist of meths and a slice of lemon.
*** To verb, oddly.
**** As above.
***** Quelle sur-f***ing-prise.
****** Thank you, Whirl, we'll let you know.
******* This explains a lot.

 

I hate you this was too funny and made WAY too much sense.  

 

Checked episodes 28 and 29.

Episode 28 was tons of fun, I liked seeing Godbomber transform into robot mode and aid Ginrai, and seeing the Autobot Juniors having fun and going on a mission was a pleasure. The episode was pretty well animated and really was exciting.

However, whenever the word tatsumaki (tornado) was uttered, I just giggled, as it reminded me of Street Fighter and the hurricane kick.  

29 could have been a great episode (especially considering that the Seacons are in it), but it just ends up being meh. King Poseidon is used effectively at times, but it still isn't enough to get the bad taste of some of his previous defeats.

Also, the animation in 29 feels kinda weak, especially compared to the awesome sequences we got in 28.

However, 29 did give me a priceless moment with Giga, Mega and Gilmer pulling a Dr. Evil on us:

So yeah, one rather enjoyable episode, but the other ends up being meh with some nice bits added on.

 

That's an incredibly well-thought-out, rational, and logical explanation for what would otherwise seem to be frustratingly arbitrary decision-making and writing on the part of the show's staff.

In other words, it's far too smart of an explanation. There's no way the group of writers that came up with Chromedome drunkenly swaggering around the Autobot base, engaging in a gearbox-measuring contest with every bot that looks at him cockeyed would have put that much thought into the planning of how to deploy shallow vs deep characters in these series.  

When I thought it was just bad recording or perhaps bad ripping on my part I was willing to accept that it was a price to be paid for watching a 30 year old series. But now that it seems to be that it was an intentional stylistic choice on the part of the animators, it's baffling. It doesn't make things look more dynamic, it doesn't seem likely to be able to cover up cheats or errors in the animation, and it doesn't feel like it serves any meaningful purpose other than to save them the necessity of making smooth in-between frames to with the key frames. So I guess that means that it's merely a tool laziness, saving them the effort of spending money on smoother animation.

It's funny if you consider the information I shared earlier about how Black Zarak is supposed to be brainwashed and subservient to Devil-Z. He shouldn't have need to be an ass to perhaps the one other Decepticon who is equally loyal to their master. And he shouldn't be an ass if he is meant to be a mind-controlled good solider. But it's kind of like a bit of the old Scorponok is still rattling around in his brain (which is now in his chest)

 

It's actually surprising how much I notice when classic sound effects pop up in this series. The Star Wars effects were shocking to hear the first time, just like it's jarring whenever I manage to hear the classic Transformation noise now since the Godmasters and Pretenders mostly just use random other sound effects when they transform.

The fact that Transformers lied to us and we don't have intergalactic space bridges, bases on the moon, and exo-suits is every bit as disappointing as Back to the Future lying to us about hoverboards and that most people will still use fax machines.

The Pretenders have been fairly consistently portrayed all series (aside from maybe Phoenix, who seems to have inherited the Brainstorm position of being "the guy who's also there", setting aside that his whole schtick might just be that he looks like Wolverine). I assume that's why they've been dispensed with in favor of the Godmasters. We can't have interesting characters distracting from fawning over how super special awesome Ginrai is.

I think it's just the case that they figure "it's in English, so it sounds so cool!" kind of like the way people get random tattoos of kanji or kana or whatever and don't always know if what they want and what they get are the same thing.

I was planning on discussing this more at the bottom of the post, but I recently finished reading Volume 1 of Viz' release of Transformers: The Manga and as it focuses entirely on the manga that ran concurrently with G1 (a pre-movie series, post-movie series, and short series focusing largely on the movie-introduced Autobots specifically) and one of the things that I noticed is that it loves bad attack names just as much as Headmasters and Masterforce has, even though it was never a thing in the G1 works they adapted. Bumblebee at one point does a flying kick into Soundwave's chest (and shatters his cassette door in the process, preventing the cassetticons from returning to him) and as he does he shouts "BUMBLE KICK!!!!"

Yeah, I see them in stores all the time. A couple of Christmases ago I even got one for my mom as a joke because when I was really little I "solved" her Rubik's cube that she had owned since she was young by taking all the stickers off and rearranging them to fill several sides' colors (but because I didn't fix every side it meant I borked it to the point that it couldn't be completed properly). So in addition to reapplying the stickers on that one I bought a brand new one that's just 2x2 on every side instead of the standard 3x3. It turns out a) like other new cubes, it no longer uses stickers, and b) the 2x2 one is harder than you'd expect given its visual simplicity. I know there's also a giant 5x5 or 7x7 one as well

Yep. You'd think the super gallant hero Chromedome would've told them about Scorponok given that he was the previous series' big bad and he escaped at the end of their climactic battle. But I guess Chromedome was too sloshed to think straight when he sent that message and Headmaster Jr transtectors to the Autobots.

Let Ginrai share the stage with others?

It's apparently correct to the construction of the toy too, which is really cool. Too bad as the next couple episodes show it the more usual way: with him having a plain stump when the fist is fired.

He's probably got one of those coil-bound notebooks with band stickers and aggressively-scratched writing on the cover that says "Ginrai's awesome notes"

I haven't read Volume 2 of the Manga yet, which is the part that covers Headmsters and Masterforce. I look forward to seeing how it lines up with what we see in the show. Especially since it's written by the head writer of all 3 JPG1 series and was seemingly crafted alongside the series rather than shoehorned in to pre-produced material like was done with the G1 segments.

The next power-up is probably Gin Ginrai. It's made by Chromedome and provides the rarely seen "Shuchokon" (酒超魂, Super Space Booze Magic)* as it runs on bottles of Gordon's Gin. Why else do you think Ginrai is such good friends with his old boss, Sam?



This would, of course, be succeeded by Lightfoot's upgraded Godbomber Equivalent, which would create Gin-Rye Ginrai, running on a combo of Gordon's Gin and, in a suitably Canadian twist, Crown Royal. It would also come wrapped in a giant purple cotton drawstring bag.

*Yes, I went and looked up the correct kanji and possible pronunciation for the sake of this joke. 酒 is the kanji for sake or booze/alcohol in general and one of its readings is in fact "shu"

If Canadian cars do come equipped as such, then my life has been a grand disappointment as I've never noticed.

This is fantastic  

28's battles were well done, but I'm kind of getting bored just watching Ginrai and Overlord go at it again and again and again. They've even already tossed aside the other Godmasters besides Ginrai, and that's a disappointment.

29, I agree. It's a visually flat episode and a bland plot. King Poseidon suffers from already having been made to look weak in the past and that carries forward in a weird way where he both gets to be stronger than he has been, but still too weak to do anything really threatening.

 

Yeah, I kinda liked the variety in the previous eps, 'cause you had the Pretenders, the Juniors and then the Godmasters were added into the mix, but now that God Ginrai has been brought in, it's just him and Overlord and the other characters either go on rescue missions or stay back at the base. At least it had variety, unlike Headmasters, but it kinda falls into the same trap once God Ginrai comes in.

Yeah, it's a weird sort of disconnect because this is the most active he has been in an episode, and yet, you basically know that he's gonna get his ass handed to him as seen in previous episodes, so it kinda takes out the menace factor, and if it was an ordinary Decepticon, I could get it, but this is a freakin' Combiner!!! It's just disappointing. The debut is supposed to be where he gets to show how menacing he is.

 

I forgot to add it to the last post, but like I said, I finished reading Volume 1 of the Manga release by Viz. From a story perspective it's... a thing. I'm not sure the story is worth the price tag on its own (about $25 US, $32 Cdn, or £19 according to the back of the book. That's about what I paid, I think) but the book itself is a nice hardcover volume and the paper quality is very nice and glossy (Far better than the cheap pulp that most manga magazines and tankoubons are printed on) and it includes not just the story volumes, but a bunch of supplemental art including episode preview images that were published in TV Magazine, such as the source of my avatar, the image for "Grimlock's New Brain".

As for the stories themselves:

The first one, simply called Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers (aka the title of the series) follows a kid named Kenji who's around when the Decepticons attack Japan and he's saved by the Autobots. From there it mostly follows a loosely connected batch of stories of Autobot/Decepticon clashes in Japan that kind of work around the first two seasons of the cartoon without really intruding on any canon events. We see a bunch of characters from the first couple seasons, early debuts for Metroplex and Trypticon, and a few plots and gags that are similar to stuff from the cartoon itself (including the "kid being pulled over for apparently driving a car while underage" gag from The Immobilizer or "some dumb humans believe the Decepticons are the good guys and the autobots are evil. And the Stunticons are confused for Autobots" stuff from The Key to Vector Sigma and Megatron's Master Plan.)

Also the Decepticons murder a dog in what has to be the single most evil act they've ever carried out. And it's not like when one of the godmasters kicked Pis in this series. They open fire on the dog and shoot it to death.

The second one, "The Story of Super Robot Lifeform Transformers 2010" takes place after the movie and features the new characters in such wacky hijinks as "Galvatron builds an army of Megatron drones or the debut of "Gilthor" a Quintesson creation that was a fusion of Optimus Prime and Megatron and did... some generically evil stuff and then leaves as quickly as he arrived, never to be seen again. Also Arcee shows up a couple of times and in spite of being in the middle of the battle she never fires a shot or does anything of consequence.

Finally there was "The Great Transformers War", which again featured the Movie cast and season 3 bots and introduces Sixshot and the like before segueing into the lead-in to The Headmasters.

It's a fun look into how the characters are portrayed in Japan, the art is really cool (including the fact that a lot of characters have models that are an interesting amalgam of their Floro Dery cartoon animation models and a set of slightly more toy-inspired design aesthetic) and there are even some fun little twists like how Smokescreen specifically identifies what model of car his alt-mode is (a Nissan Fairlady-Z, though some sources indicate that Smokescreen and his mold-mates are supposed to be a make of Datsun). There's also something called the "Autobot Road" which is like this vast network of underground tunnels they made at some point to travel between points on the planet at high speed, explaining all the "how the hell did they get halfway around the world in a couple hours?" bits from travel in G1.

I'll probably try to read the Headmasters and Masterforce stuff in Volume 2 over the next couple of weeks to be able to mention them and how they line up with the shows before I wrap on Masterforce's rewatch. Then I don't think Volume 3 of the Manga (which would feature Victory and Zone) is supposed to be out until later in the year.