Review by: Nortallica
Date: 5th May 2008
The eighties bought us many varied and phenomenal things. Freddy Krueger, Metallica, and myself
for example. But beneath the surface, fuelled by the obsessions of childhood wonder, something
else was brewing. Whilst the adolescents, and adults were stewing with what this decade had to
offer them, the younger of us, were privy to some things that would offer us a separation from
the rest of Generation Y, and garner us our own title as “The children of the eighties“.
Fun Fact: The 1986 animated Transformers movie didn’t air in Japan till after season three
(which follows AFTER the movie), so Japan created an episode to bridge the gap between season
2 and season 3, called “Scramble City”.
This revolution came in the form of cartoons, which went on to become classics in the minds of
the then youngsters, and even capturing the hearts of selected adults at the time. GI Joe, My
Little Pony, Jem, MASK, Thundercats and He-Man (and sister show She-Ra) were amongst
the headliners, but amongst them was a show that unlike the rest, would never leave the limelight
in one way or another. Transformers, the American fictional tale based upon Japanese toy lines
Diaclone and Microman, would gash out such a place in history that since its evolution from
Takara’s original toys, to the character laden “Transformers” (courtesy of Hasbro), has been in
consistent and constant production since 1984, whether it was Hasbro or Takara taking the lead
at the time, not a year has passed without Transformers.
Unfortunately this is a fact, some of the more casual, but still die hard, fans of the eighties
original may not know. After the original Transformers series ended in America at the end of the
three episode season four (ironically titled “The Rebirth“), most fans could be excused for
assuming that it was absent till the advent of Beast Wars and Beast Machines, which are the
direct sequels to the original show, or the Unicron Trilogy (Armada, Energon, and Cybertron),
some had even thought it was completely dead up until the recent Live Action Adaptation.
But alas no, when Transformers in America had ceased, Japan took it upon themselves to
continue the series, having already made at least one episode strictly for themselves, “Scramble
City”, they decided to do away with the three episode season four of America and create a much
fuller season four purely of their own original content. This is what we now know as
“Transformers Headmasters”.
Headmasters takes place some time after the resurrection of Optimus Prime at the end of
Transformers: Season Three, Cybertron never reached its golden age as it did in “The Rebirth” and
is drastically close to decay. Galvatron begins to lead his final assaults against the planet with his
new and powerful warriors, and it is up to Optimus Prime and Hot Rod to stem the tide of
destruction, leading to Hot Rods search for the Matrix and his reformatting back into Rodimus
Prime, and when all hope does seem lost for the Autobots, a new race, or rather, a forgotten
race, of Autobots arrive, The Headmasters, led by Fortress Maximus.
Fun Fact: The term “Scramble City” is also used to describe certain types of combiners where the
four (or five) non leader components can be used as any limb, example, Superion can be a
scramble city type combiner, whereas Devastator is not.
This DVD collection is about as close to having a complete package as you can get with what
little it “appears” to offer. Within this package not only do you get the full 35 episode collection of
Transformers: Headmasters, you are treated with Toy Galleries, Character art, Japanese Toy
advertisements, the making of the cover gallery, and a guide book full of episode breakdown,
character name translations (some characters had different names in Japan than they did in
America), and a short introduction explaining Headmasters place in history.
Also featured, and by far what seals the deal with me as an avid fan, are the multiple languages
and subtitles, you are treated with both the original Japanese dialogue, the StarTV English dub
(not the same voice actors as the cast of the original series), and two choices of subtitles. The
StarTV dub is very poor, and almost unbearable to hear, although a night on the drinks and a
couple of creative drinking rules could fix that, and the Japanese dialogue is just as effective as
the English was in expression the emotion and character of the various icons. The two subtitles
are the core or my love of this set though, one featuring a more, how should I say, strict
translation using the Japanese names for characters, and one using the Western names, so in one
version you will have characters like Convoy, Meister, and Broadcast, and in the other they will
have their Western names such as Optimus Prime, Jazz, and Blaster respectively.
Story wise, the characters here get a bit more fleshed out and explored than in America’s season
four, and maybe even three, and although some characters may not share their original
characterisations true to the original cartoons, they still share the same spirit, and are just as
recognisable, even Hot Rod, although not the unsure self he appeared in season three, he bears a
personality more akin to his comic book representation, and is portrayed as a much more capable
leader and value to the Autobots. Even Blaster and Soundwaves rivalry is played up a bit more,
and the respective cassettes of each that were previously mute are giving dialogue and
characterisation.
Fun Fact: Recently a new show “Transformers Animated” has begun, this marks the return of
Transformers animated fiction to American soil, where it hasn’t been since the end of the original
series.
Apart from a few moments when the visuals appear faded, and or unclear, the graphical quality is
pretty good, although the years have aged it, it still stands firm, and a fan or the original series
will find it hard to find too much grievance with it.
The subtitle option that incorporates the western names suffers a little bit also, although not
enough to worry about too much. A couple of instances one could mention would be the episode
“Birth of Double Convoy” which in the “western” subtitles option gets translation to “The Birth of
Double Optimus Prime” which I assume is because of Convoy being the Japanese name of Optimus
Prime, but the title is actual referring to Double Convoy as Convoy (Optimus Prime), and Rodimus
Convoy (Rodimus Prime). Also Galvatron is mistakenly referred to as Zarak (the leader of the
Decepticon Headmasters) in one instance also.
Fun Fact: Transformers: Headmasters was followed by “Transformers: Super-God
Masterforce”, “Transformers: Victory” and “Transformers: Zone”, this combined with the
original American cartoons, Beast Wars, Beast Machines, and the Japanese Series' “Beast
Wars: Second” and “Beast Wars: Neo” comprise the animated G1 continuity, the “Beast”
series’ are referred to as the “Beast Era” of G1.
Sure enough Madman (who have released this box set in the region four format, as well as much
other Transformers product) follows through again, by providing a solid DVD collection, making
available to us what was once a chore to either import, or not worth the price (cheap sales bin
DVDs featuring poor quality, single languages, and no subtitles), with very little wrong with this
set, I can find little reason why an avid fan wouldn’t want this set, casual fans may find it a little
unsure at first, but I am certain most will come to love it.
Fun Fact: Even in America the Transformers toy line didn’t release as “Transformers” at first,
Takara (The Japanese creators, and producers of the toy lines that became Transformers)
originally released the toys in North America as Kronoform, it wasn’t till Hasbro later on obtained
the rights for American release and created the “Transformers” brand name and fiction.
Date: 5th May 2008
The eighties bought us many varied and phenomenal things. Freddy Krueger, Metallica, and myself
for example. But beneath the surface, fuelled by the obsessions of childhood wonder, something
else was brewing. Whilst the adolescents, and adults were stewing with what this decade had to
offer them, the younger of us, were privy to some things that would offer us a separation from
the rest of Generation Y, and garner us our own title as “The children of the eighties“.
Fun Fact: The 1986 animated Transformers movie didn’t air in Japan till after season three
(which follows AFTER the movie), so Japan created an episode to bridge the gap between season
2 and season 3, called “Scramble City”.
This revolution came in the form of cartoons, which went on to become classics in the minds of
the then youngsters, and even capturing the hearts of selected adults at the time. GI Joe, My
Little Pony, Jem, MASK, Thundercats and He-Man (and sister show She-Ra) were amongst
the headliners, but amongst them was a show that unlike the rest, would never leave the limelight
in one way or another. Transformers, the American fictional tale based upon Japanese toy lines
Diaclone and Microman, would gash out such a place in history that since its evolution from
Takara’s original toys, to the character laden “Transformers” (courtesy of Hasbro), has been in
consistent and constant production since 1984, whether it was Hasbro or Takara taking the lead
at the time, not a year has passed without Transformers.
Unfortunately this is a fact, some of the more casual, but still die hard, fans of the eighties
original may not know. After the original Transformers series ended in America at the end of the
three episode season four (ironically titled “The Rebirth“), most fans could be excused for
assuming that it was absent till the advent of Beast Wars and Beast Machines, which are the
direct sequels to the original show, or the Unicron Trilogy (Armada, Energon, and Cybertron),
some had even thought it was completely dead up until the recent Live Action Adaptation.
But alas no, when Transformers in America had ceased, Japan took it upon themselves to
continue the series, having already made at least one episode strictly for themselves, “Scramble
City”, they decided to do away with the three episode season four of America and create a much
fuller season four purely of their own original content. This is what we now know as
“Transformers Headmasters”.
Headmasters takes place some time after the resurrection of Optimus Prime at the end of
Transformers: Season Three, Cybertron never reached its golden age as it did in “The Rebirth” and
is drastically close to decay. Galvatron begins to lead his final assaults against the planet with his
new and powerful warriors, and it is up to Optimus Prime and Hot Rod to stem the tide of
destruction, leading to Hot Rods search for the Matrix and his reformatting back into Rodimus
Prime, and when all hope does seem lost for the Autobots, a new race, or rather, a forgotten
race, of Autobots arrive, The Headmasters, led by Fortress Maximus.
Fun Fact: The term “Scramble City” is also used to describe certain types of combiners where the
four (or five) non leader components can be used as any limb, example, Superion can be a
scramble city type combiner, whereas Devastator is not.
This DVD collection is about as close to having a complete package as you can get with what
little it “appears” to offer. Within this package not only do you get the full 35 episode collection of
Transformers: Headmasters, you are treated with Toy Galleries, Character art, Japanese Toy
advertisements, the making of the cover gallery, and a guide book full of episode breakdown,
character name translations (some characters had different names in Japan than they did in
America), and a short introduction explaining Headmasters place in history.
Also featured, and by far what seals the deal with me as an avid fan, are the multiple languages
and subtitles, you are treated with both the original Japanese dialogue, the StarTV English dub
(not the same voice actors as the cast of the original series), and two choices of subtitles. The
StarTV dub is very poor, and almost unbearable to hear, although a night on the drinks and a
couple of creative drinking rules could fix that, and the Japanese dialogue is just as effective as
the English was in expression the emotion and character of the various icons. The two subtitles
are the core or my love of this set though, one featuring a more, how should I say, strict
translation using the Japanese names for characters, and one using the Western names, so in one
version you will have characters like Convoy, Meister, and Broadcast, and in the other they will
have their Western names such as Optimus Prime, Jazz, and Blaster respectively.
Story wise, the characters here get a bit more fleshed out and explored than in America’s season
four, and maybe even three, and although some characters may not share their original
characterisations true to the original cartoons, they still share the same spirit, and are just as
recognisable, even Hot Rod, although not the unsure self he appeared in season three, he bears a
personality more akin to his comic book representation, and is portrayed as a much more capable
leader and value to the Autobots. Even Blaster and Soundwaves rivalry is played up a bit more,
and the respective cassettes of each that were previously mute are giving dialogue and
characterisation.
Fun Fact: Recently a new show “Transformers Animated” has begun, this marks the return of
Transformers animated fiction to American soil, where it hasn’t been since the end of the original
series.
Apart from a few moments when the visuals appear faded, and or unclear, the graphical quality is
pretty good, although the years have aged it, it still stands firm, and a fan or the original series
will find it hard to find too much grievance with it.
The subtitle option that incorporates the western names suffers a little bit also, although not
enough to worry about too much. A couple of instances one could mention would be the episode
“Birth of Double Convoy” which in the “western” subtitles option gets translation to “The Birth of
Double Optimus Prime” which I assume is because of Convoy being the Japanese name of Optimus
Prime, but the title is actual referring to Double Convoy as Convoy (Optimus Prime), and Rodimus
Convoy (Rodimus Prime). Also Galvatron is mistakenly referred to as Zarak (the leader of the
Decepticon Headmasters) in one instance also.
Fun Fact: Transformers: Headmasters was followed by “Transformers: Super-God
Masterforce”, “Transformers: Victory” and “Transformers: Zone”, this combined with the
original American cartoons, Beast Wars, Beast Machines, and the Japanese Series' “Beast
Wars: Second” and “Beast Wars: Neo” comprise the animated G1 continuity, the “Beast”
series’ are referred to as the “Beast Era” of G1.
Sure enough Madman (who have released this box set in the region four format, as well as much
other Transformers product) follows through again, by providing a solid DVD collection, making
available to us what was once a chore to either import, or not worth the price (cheap sales bin
DVDs featuring poor quality, single languages, and no subtitles), with very little wrong with this
set, I can find little reason why an avid fan wouldn’t want this set, casual fans may find it a little
unsure at first, but I am certain most will come to love it.
Fun Fact: Even in America the Transformers toy line didn’t release as “Transformers” at first,
Takara (The Japanese creators, and producers of the toy lines that became Transformers)
originally released the toys in North America as Kronoform, it wasn’t till Hasbro later on obtained
the rights for American release and created the “Transformers” brand name and fiction.
| "TRANSFORMERS! HEAD ON!" |
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Transformers: The Headmasters Collection
BOXSET/APPROX. 875 MINS/1987/JAPAN G
BOXSET/APPROX. 875 MINS/1987/JAPAN G
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