Transformers: Victory

As a russian watcher born in 1983, I got a chance to watch TF only in 1994 (because of soviet "iron curtain"). But as a kind of "compensation", russian kids of my generation got all american G1 and japanese JG1 series as one big content pack. It was extremely fun time! As a consequence of watching all TF products in very short period, I had no reverence for american G1 series as for original story, and did not feel japanese series being "secondary", but what I really felt was admiration for the quality of japanese drawing, animation and fight choreography in all JG1 series. And this TF: Victory series were my favourite, it was (and is) special. Now I try to be unbiased, and if as a child I would have rate TF: Victory 10/10 and american original G1 1/10, now I give TF: Victory 8/10, and 2/10 or 3/10 for american G1. In my childhood I was a bit of fanatic of japanese transformers, so I start with criticism to be as fair as possible. What JG1 lacks is deep detalisation of transformers lore. And in Victory series I feel it the most, because of tiny number of characters and small number of places. It's is defenitely weak side of Victory. Also some people don't like japanese gags, but to be fair, all TF products to date do not contain deep intellectual humor, it's all about gags, whether it japanese or americal gags, and it's up to you what style of gags do you like (or tolerate) more. I felt japanese anime-styled gags OK. Nowdays, visual style of TF: Victory is not as splendid as before, because of modern quality standards, so it lost part of it's advantage over original american G1. They both look dated now, but they're not even comparable still - in TF: Victory I can see detailed spots of sunlight on metal skin of characters, joint mechanisms of every finger and facial expressions in every ordinary episode, this is what american G1 achieved only in The Movie. And this is important, because it's fantastical setting. I expect robots and aliens to look impressive in cartoon about them, and TF: Victory does it's thing good. All japanese JG1 Transformers have really good music, which I don't feel dated, especially on contrast with lazy and extremely dated G1 tracks, but now, as an adult person, I feel a bit weird when rewatching because of child chorus in some tracks. Perhaps it's the strict division of the audience, which is traditional for Japan - if kids were supposed to be the audience, then it was taken a bit too literally. Anyway, tracks are marvelous - very energetic in dynamic scenes and mysterious in scenes where characters explore or investigate something. Light effects make this world look real, and nicely written personalities of characters like Leozack, Liokaiser, Deathsaurus, Goryu or Victory Leo make this show feel real. Okay, some characters (like serious and responsible war veteran Blacker) are much simplier and forgettable, but hey, this is anyway not as bad as "this character speeks quick, and this one speeks in rhymes". Story of TF: Victory could be deeper, but it have one quality which very few TF products have - it's about development and moving forward, but not about seeking for answers in some ancient relics. Unfortunately, development is what JG1 under-received, this continuity was cut short on Zone (which was not very good cartoon itself), and I'm struggling to decide what is worse - complete lack of sequels (which is what happened), or weak sequels like Zone or Operation Combination, if they were not cancelled. I would definitely prefer something fantastic - a good japanese sequel of TF: Victory - over countless modern reinventions of "Optimus Prime and his troops". But sadly, it's just my dreams.

Transformers Victory is what I consider to be the best Transformer series to date (although I haven't seen Armada yet). I say this because it has the best animation, it has vibrant colours, the transformation sequences and music are faultless for their time. The central focus characters are adequately explored. When some of the characters face life or death at the end, I certainly felt moved. May I also add that the battle scenes are very impressive. In regard to negative aspects which explains why I describe the series as "Almost Great!" are the fact that the humor hasn't travelled very well from Japan to the west leaving more to be desired. The slapstick humour however is acceptable. This is mostly performed by Dinoforce. Some of the music has been carried forward from Masterforce and Headmasters the previous series'. Some of this is good and some not so good. Back to the good side again, the series flows well. At first the episodes are entertaining but really go much further. This however picks up later when their is a lot of continuity and the last three episodes are brilliant especially as some of the main characters are "knocked off", this doesn't usually happen in most other Transformers series which I think is an improvement. Some people do not prefer the series so much as there are very few familiar old characters but I certainly don't mind. I recommend this cartoon series as it is a rollercoaster of emotion ranging from joy to deep sadness (when characters die!). Masterforce I would also recommend but not as much because the series isn't so consistent and the plot contradicts occasionally.

By far the best of the japeneese transformers show with a killer theme song

I remember watching this show in my childhood days, me and my cousin used to watch it all the time and sometimes we recorded episodes we loved the most while watching them over and over.

My favorite Autobots were Star Saber, God Jinrai (God Bomber) and Victory Leo. But the best part was when they combined and turned into Victory Saber like in Transformers: RiD when Optimus and Ultra Magnus became Omega Prime like the Destrons Leozack, Hellbat, and others became Liokaiser or Liocaesar.

I give Transformers: Victory a 10/10

For this viewer, Victory is the only series in the franchise that is on the same level as Armada as a particular low-point and being close to being worse. Energon and Cybertron were no great shakes either but were a little better, and Beast Machines and Robots in Disguise were only mixed bags. The original Transformers series and Beast Wars were outstanding and Prime and Animated(as well as Headmasters and Masterforce from memory) were very good, Rescue Bots is unconventional but I'd take that over this and the Unicron Trilogy-Armada, Energon and Cybertron- any day. The animation is decent, more fluid than that of Robots in Disguise and the Unicron Trilogy and the characters especially Deszaras are decently designed, Leozack is interesting and quite dangerous and devious and the Dinoforce have moments where they are funny and easy to sympathise with. The music is inconsistent though, at times it is fitting but quite a lot of the time it's repetitive. The writing consists of stilted dramatic moments and ill-paced humorous/slapstick ones. The stories suffer from a lot of unoriginality, being blandly predictable, having a significantly lacking sense of drama, and feeling like the same thing over and over with a sprinkle of good ideas that were lot in the banality. The final couple of episodes were quite good but that was nowhere near enough. The characters are poorly written and there is little that Victory does to help us root properly for them. The Dinoforce have their moments, but the Autobots have no personality and can be annoying and while the Decepticons are a little more interesting they could have been more threatening, Deszaras had potential but came across as a pale imitation of Megatron. The action is the most exciting Victory gets story-wise but even that's not exceptional or well-done, the animation could have been smoother and the thrills and energy are seldom there. The voice acting is at its best okay and sloppy at worst, too often falling into the latter end. Overall, really lacking and a low point in an overall decent(excellent when at its best) franchise. 3/10 Bethany Cox