I just recently finished watching all of my Shout! U.S. G1 boxset, and really enjoyed it.

I've watched 2 or 3 of the Headmaster episodes online, and I love the art, but am not crazy about the voice acting or reading the subtitles. I don't have much exposure to the other Japanese G1 series.

Is the Shout! G1 Japanese Boxset Worth Buying? What is the best Japanese G1 series? How would everyone rank the different Japanese series? No big spoilers please.

 

First, a heads up: If you buy the Shout! Japanese boxset, you WILL be reading subtitles. There is no English dub of anything. My recommendation is to get used to subtitles. After you do, you won't even notice you are reading anything, and it really is the best way to enjoy most foreign movies/tv shows.

If you can still find and get the boxset containing all three shows, you will get an extra lithograph of Fortress Maximus (from the awesome original G1 box artwork), which is not available in the single series releases. So there's that.

Of the three series, I rank Headmasters as the least enjoyable, although it wins for being a direct continuation of the original cartoon & characters (minus season 4).

I rank Masterforce as the best, with the best overall continuing story and the most interesting and enjoyable characters.

Many people like Victory best, with a lot of fun characters.

They're all worth watching, imo, and set the stage for the rest of Japanese G1 continuity, which is strange and convoluted and fun...and is still continuing to this day.

 

Thanks! I'll probably buy the boxset. Reading subtitles doesn't always bother me. I watch a lot of live action stuff with subtitles. But it can be distracting for stuff like this, when I rather be looking at the art.

When I watched some of the Headmaster episodes, the biggest thing that bothered me was the voices. It just felt wrong when some of the characters I know from the U.S. series sounded different than what I'm used to. And I think they used some different names too. I guess I would get used to it the more I watch.

From what I understand, Victory and Masterforce don't really have any of the U.S. characters, so I guess I won't be worried about the voices at all watching those.

 

Shout did kind of a weird thing and changed some of the Japanese character names back into their English names for their subtitles. On the one hand, it's kind of nice for people watching Headmasters right after the US Sunbow cartoon. But on the other hand, it's weird sometimes hearing someone called a different name than what you're reading.

For the voices, I think you'll get used to them as you go along. The only one that really stands out for me is Optimus, because the Japanese actor has a completely different take on the character. More of a traditional super hero voice, and none of Cullen's John Wayne-type swagger. And Soundwave just sounds like a normal guy without the voice effects. But everyone else is good. And Japanese Wheelie is an improvement lol