Alden Bates' Weblog

As previously mentioned, I've been watching the Generation 1 Transformers cartoons which Japan produced after the American series wrapped. Lately I finally got around to watching Transformers: Victory, the last of these.

Representing the Autobots are Star Saber and his team of Brainmasters. There's an obligatory human kid named Jean whom Star Saber has legally adopted, and his annoying Wheelie-esque Autobot friend Holi.

On the Decepticon side are the improbably-named Deathsaurus and his Breastforce (they have chest plates which turn into animals). They're "aided" by the Dinoforce who are mostly around as comic relief.

It's... not really a deep series. The Decepticons turn up somewhere, cause trouble, and are fought off by the Autobots. It's only towards the end of the series that things begin to get interesting. It's perhaps telling that at least a dozen of the original episodes were clips episodes (The Madman release doesn't include them).

Something that is included on the DVD set is the one and only episode of Transformers: Zone, which barely has time to introduce a bunch of new characters, including new Autobot leader Dai Atlas, before there's an extended fight scene and it ends. I have to wonder why they bothered. Oh, yeah.

Also among the stuff I've watched recently: the 2002 series Transformers: Armada. TV2 either didn't play the whole series or I missed the end of it, as I hadn't previously seen the last nine episodes or so. Most of Armada is taken up with relatively self-contained episodes concerning the search for Mini-Cons, smaller Transformers which link with the larger ones to give them extra power. The last dozen or so are taken up with one long storyline, which sets the scene for the later series Transformers: Energon, which is more or less one epic 51 episode storyline.

Despite the obvious problems they seemed to have translating the show from Japanese (there are very few occasions where Mini-Cons are referred to by the correct names, for instance, and often the dialogue doesn't quite match the visuals) there are some pretty good character arcs and it was entertaining most of the time. It's interesting to see the difference in story telling that some 13 years made.