Review of Transformers: Takara Headmasters

Introduction

It`s time for some more nostalgia, as we delve into my favourite decade of them all, the `80s. Oddly, the Transformers bug never bit me, although I avidly watched the first series when it was shown on Saturday mornings. I even bugged my parents for a toy, although I had to make do with a Zoid. I was at that cusp age though, and by my next birthday, I was asking for a computer (I asked for a C64 and got a Spectrum. You can see something of a trend in my life). The thing is that while my exposure was limited to Optimus Prime, Jazz, Hot Rod and Spike, Megatron, Soundwave and Starscream, as well as the intriguing Energon cubes, the rest of the fandom moved on with the subsequent series, with new characters as the toy lines diversified, and new storylines as the characters aged. Frankly before this Headmasters series, I wouldn`t have known a Galvatron from a galvanised dustbin. Western audiences exposure to Transformers was greater than my own, there originally were three full series, a feature film and a final fourth series consisting of three episodes that tied up the storyline.

These animations were massive in Japan, dubbed into the local language of course, and when the show ended in the US, the fans were left clamouring for more. So the Japanese studios ignored the final fourth US series and carried on from where the third left off. Three further series were produced in the subsequent years, and collectively are known as Transformers Takara. Masterforce and Victory are scheduled for 2006, but the first volume in the Takara saga, Headmasters comes to the UK now, consisting of 35 episodes over 4 discs. Made long before CGI was a glint in a programmer`s eye, and before shows like Beastmasters reinvented how Transformers were perceived, this is very much Transformers as you remember from the eighties, but with the occasional Japanese twist.

It is the year 2011, and the battle between the heroic Autobots and the evil Decepticons rages as hotly as ever. When the balance of power begins to shift on Cybertron, Optimus Prime`s suspicion is that the main computer Vector Sigma is beginning to malfunction. Galvatron believes that by controlling the computer, he will reign supreme, and Optimus Prime battles to get there first. But there are new players about to enter the scene. 4 million years ago, at the height of the war, a group of diminutive robots escaped from Cybertron and fled to the planet Master. While there, they perfected their transformation skills, and built large transforming vehicles to pilot. In vehicle form, these robots were the pilots, while in robot form they became the heads. The Headmasters have returned to Cybertron, and now, while Fortress leads Chromedome, Highbrow, Hardhead and Brainstorm to the aid of the Autobots, Zarak leads Skullcruncher, Mindwipe and Weirdwolf to the side of the Decepticons. The world of Transformers will never be the same again.

Video

For a 4:3 image of a cartoon nearly twenty years old now, Transformers Headmasters doesn`t fare too badly on its DVD release. It`s fairly clear and the colours are strong throughout. It hasn`t been too badly afflicted by print damage either, although there is the occasional juddering frame. Also when action gets too frenetic on screen, there is the abrupt pixellation, but this is a rare occurrence. One thing that is initially apparent is that the production values are quite high. Where US animations of the period would often rely on stock footage, with transformation sequence, hero poses, effects animations recycled from one show to the next, with Headmasters there is the feeling that each sequence in the show is animated anew, with each scene taken as a clean slate. That vanishes halfway through the series though, where either the budget, or the desire to cut corners bites, and there is a sudden appearance of stock shots, and the quality of the animation declines visibly.

Audio

You have a choice of DD 2.0 English and Japanese. Transformers Takara was first released to an English speaking market in the Far East, and the dub that was done was atrocious to say the least. Poorly translated and amateurishly performed, they don`t even get the character names right. I doubt that anyone knew anything about the show they were working on. It apparently is a common opinion shared among Transformer fandom, and to hear Chris McFeeley speak of the dub in his commentary, you get the feeling that it is only included on the set for completion`s sake. It really has little to recommend it beyond comedy value, and that in small doses. I did occasionally switch over to listen to it, and it never improves. Indeed in most of the episodes, it is actually out of sync.

The Japanese track on the other hand is the way to listen to the show. The dialogue is clear, and the actors actually sound as if they are creating characters and emoting. Aside from the familiar scene transitions, most of the music for Transformers Headmasters is new. It isn`t all that exciting to be honest, and very quickly becomes repetitive. Listen to the Japanese track long enough, and you`ll notice that there are differences in the nomenclature. Optimus Prime is known as Convoy in Japan, the Autobots are the Cybertrons (confusing when the planet is known as Cybertron) and the Decepticons are called Destrons. There are other minor differences too, but this is a cause of a significant problem with the discs, the subtitles.

There are translated subtitles with the discs quite naturally, and in the commentary, Chris McFeeley states that to avoid confusion, the original English names and terminology is adopted. This isn`t actually so, as from time to time, the Japanese terminology slips through, and you can see Autobots being referred to as Cybertrons and so on. It`s an added degree of confusion to the occasional grammatical error. Finally, one thing I noticed was that if you have old audiotapes, you may have come across the phenomenon where you can hear a quiet echo of a sound before you hear it for real. It becomes more apparent the older the tape gets. You can also hear that effect on some of the episodes here. I guess that explains the occasional hiss too.

Features

I received the test disc for review, so I`m unaware of the packaging for Transformers Headmasters. I also missed out on a booklet. However, the discs have some nice animated menus with the Transformers logos given a 3D polish.

For episodes 1-3, the show`s opening trilogy, Transformers fan Chris McFeeley offers his thoughts, it is quite a fan-focussed commentary and the layman will miss many of the references. It is still interesting to listen to as McFeeley points out some of the differences in style between Japan and the US. In an error, while he commentates on the second episode, the soundtrack of the first episode can be heard in the background.

In a move that mirrors the other Metrodome animation releases that I have seen, you can find the episode scripts in a DVD-ROM section of the disc. As long as your computer is so equipped you can look at the original dub scripts in the form of PDF files. However there are also Word files of the subtitles scripts that offer a handy compare and contrast.

Conclusion

I`m in over my head and there`s no lifeguard in sight. When I was little, Transformers made sense. The Autobots were the good guys, they transformed into cars that drove along the ground. The Decepticons were the bad guys, they transformed into planes that flew, except Megatron who transformed into a gun, and Soundwave who transformed into a tape deck. It was simple, made sense and followed the laws of cartoon physics. Missing three years of the franchise, I return to find that there are so many different Transformers that I can`t keep track, and regardless of what form they are in, they all fly! The Headmasters (I can`t help thinking of my schoolteachers) are only the latest addition to the roster, the Autobot recruits number a jet fighter that looks like nothing ever seen before, a helicopter, a car and a tank, the Decepticons number a bat, a wolf and a crocodile, all heavily mechanised. The principle of `robots in disguise` seems to have been discarded long before. They simply add to an ever-expanding list of Protectobots, Terrorcons, Dinobots, Predacons and other imaginative names. Typically Japanese additions to the Autobot ranks are the Trainbots, robots that basically serve as transports, and strike me as the least wanted Transformer toy ever created. Logic takes a flying leap here as well, as I have only seen them once on terra firma, then travelling without benefit of rails, as they usually take to the sky like an anime dragon.

Since this is the Headmasters show, the older Transformers quickly make an exit, graceful or otherwise, to let the new stars take centre stage. The stories are your typical Saturday morning fare, good versus evil, machinations versus hard work, with plenty of robot fighting action to keep eighties kids entertained. In fact fighting takes up a fair percentage of the run time, with robots of all sizes doing battle, from the smallest Transformers to world spanning behemoths. The Japanese influences become apparent at the sight of robots combining to make larger robots and so on ad infinitum. Fortress gains his power when he draws a magic sword and recites a mantra of power, "By the power of Cybertron… I have the power!" or words to that effect. I had the strange experience of seeing Transformers with facial hair, pencil thin moustaches and goatee beards, and the narrator will most likely end each episode with an exhortation for the Autobots to do better next time. There is the appearance of the odd lightsaber, and the Decepticons have recruited a Ninja staff officer called Sixshot. Soundwave and Blaster get upgraded to twin cassette decks (I suppose by now they`d be mp3 players). There is also human interest, with Spike`s son Daniel tagging along with his Autobot sidekick Wheelie to get into trouble. Only this child appendage is the most annoying character I have seen in animation. Whinging and whining constantly, and prone to burst into tears at the drop of a hat, I kept hoping that an Autobot would accidentally step on him.

Transformers Headmasters is almost unrecognisable from the old Transformers cartoons I remember. While the style of the animation remains similar, as do the character designs, the story has become ridiculously bloated and overfilled with characters. I just couldn`t keep up. It`s epic in nature, characters die, worlds are devastated, but it felt to me more akin to Power Rangers than the cartoons of my childhood. It`s also a curse of the reviewer that watching these things at leisure is rarely possible. Watching a 35 episode, 13-hour series in 8 or 10 episode blocks is definitely not the way to watch these things. I`ll admit that I soon found these episodes, repetitive, tedious and even annoying.

Objectively speaking, there is too much back-story required for a new viewer to find an easy way into this series, and the older cel animation may put devotees of the CGI medium off. But given the current resurgence of Transformers mania, with new series in production both in the US and Japan, as well as a promised feature film, I`m sure there will be a sufficient number of hard core fans who will be willing to give this boxset a home. The subtitles aren`t perfect, the English dub is atrocious, the show follows the new characters, and the stories are formulaic to say the least. But it does give a rather askew worldview to a familiar property. One for fans only.