Transformers Headmasters clips

Image via Wikipedia

When Hasbro and Sunbow stopped producing their Transformers cartoon, Takara (the toy company that released the Transformers toys in Japan, as well as created the toylines that early Transformers figures got their molds from) decided to begin putting out their own. Transformers: Headmasters ignores the three-part finale of the US series, “The Rebirth”, presenting an alternate origin for the Headmasters and Targetmasters (which doesn’t involve planet Nebulos), and gave the series a Japanese makeover while continuing in the same continuity as the previous US cartoons.

You may have found fansubs, a fairly decent fandub, or most likely a rather poor dub by an Asian group for Singapore. Bootlegs of those are easy to find, and are quite frankly hilarious, but kind of kill the mood. US distributor Shout Factory, who has the license for Transformers cartoons (except possibly Robots In Disguise, which was a Saban translation of Car Robot and is currently owned by Disney after their purchase of Saban Entertainment), has licensed the original Japanese version for US release, with a subtitled release. (A dub with all the surviving actors would also be awesome, but a bit costly.) They’ve released three clips of their translation to give you an idea of whether or not you want to get them. Had I money, I would be one of those people. (Although it is my birthday on Wednesday hint, hint.)

One thing I can tell is that they’re going with some Japanese names and some US names. For example, in Japan Cerebros is referred to as Fortress, with Fortress Maximus being the title of his combined form with the ship. However, Scorponok is the name of the bigger form in the US toy with “Lord Zarak” as the smaller robot/guy. As I noted in the intro, Japan ignores the US version entirely. Here they are not a fusion of human and machine. (This would come later with Masterforce, if you ignore the fact that in that series the “transtechtors” are lifeless machines, much like the usual anime “mecha”.) They are just small robots who wear big robot suits. I find that disappointing.

The Japanese cartoon was produced by the same studio that did the animation for the US series, but whether it’s time or the lack of nostalgia, this fight scene seemed rather stiff compared to the US stuff.

WARNING: The third clip is a spoiler for episode 3, which was itself spoiled by the episode title, but that’s how it goes in Japan. This annoys me.

Again, US names used, although this one is kind of funny. In the original series, he was Hot Rod in the US, and became Rodimus Prime in the movie. In Japan he was just “Rodimus” with his Matrix-powered form “Rodimus Convoy”. (“Convoy” was the name of Optimus Prime in Japan. They’ve only started using the US name in recent translations like the Dreamworks films and Transformers Animated. This leads me to ask if the new series will be renamed Transformers: Convoy? :lol:) However, Shout Factory is using the Hot Rod name for the not-Prime form. The funny part is that Hasbro doesn’t have the “Hot Rod” name because they didn’t use it for so long that another toy line snagged the name, and the current US version of the character is called “Rodimus”. I mean, it’s not fall down laughing hilarious, but still…

Transformers: Headmasters is available in stores, online, and direct from Shout Factory. Not having seen them I can’t tell you if they’re any good, but I’m feeling lazy tonight so this is my article. 🙂 At the very least, it should be interesting to fans of the original cartoon, and probably more interesting that the live-action films.