Transformers: The Headmasters

This series starts out promisingly. New adventures featuring Jazz, Optimus Prime, Ultra Magnus, Hot Rod, Galvatron and new transformers like Chromedome, Sixshot, and Fortress Maximus. Transformers live or die, some go away for good. Action packed and filled with funny dubbed dialogue by the infamous Hong Kong people who did the 70's Godzilla films and the early kung fu films of Shaw Brothers. Especially funny is Galvatron's voice, sounding like one of the more infamous kung fu villains in cinema history. Unfortunately, the Japanese show contempt for the old school American Transformers, killing them off or sending them away or keeping them in cameo or supporting roles, thus making space for the Head masters. The one old school transformer they chose to keep is Wheelie along with his human partner Daniel, thus emphasizing the Japanese' love of little boys. Fortress Maximus, who becomes the new Autobot leader is easily the worst Autobot leader ever, almost not even fighting when the Decepticons attack, and his final fight scene with Scorponok in the series is the worst contrived fight ever in a Japanese cartoon. The first 25 episodes are good. After that, it's all a failure from there.

Transformers: The Headmasters has its good and bad points. While it doesn't cram all its new characters into three episodes like "The Rebirth," it doesn't devote a lot of time to any of them except the Autobot Headmasters and one or two others. It's also a bit intense for a kids show, not to mention that several episodes feature female characters in revealing clothing, though with the exception of "Head Formation of Friendship" such characters are background and the scenes they appear in can be skipped without losing any vital plot information. Also, way too much Daniel and Wheelie-and I thought they were annoying in English. The subtitling on the Shout! Factory version is also fairly disjointed at times.

Ok this series just hurts my head to think about. In the dubbing they screw up names Rodimus Prime = Roadimus Prime, The Matrix = the power pack, vector sigma = the sigma computer, Blaster = billy and Blur = Wally. The stupidity doesn't end there. In one epesode Sixshot tries to get energy from earth so he hides in the shadows in each of his six forms to hide himself. Which ACTUALLY WORKS. He fools the autobots and the decepticons into thinking that its some mystery robot. When its obvious its him. The dubbing sounds like its by five guys in there basement. I'm a transformers fan so that tells you something about this. If your going to watch it don't watch it in a serious frame of mind because you'll just end up with a headache. Its good for a laugh thats about it!

The first Transformers series produced entirely in Japan, "Headmasters", is worth watching and purchasing if, like me, you're interested enough in seeing more G1-style Transformers episodes to overlook some serious flaws. It is not for people who liked the 2007 movie and want to try some earlier incarnations; for that look to the original 1984-87 series. I might even say it's not really for people who lost interest during the 3rd series of G1, as it carries down an even more esoteric path. This is not to say some of these people definitely wouldn't enjoy it, but in my own personal estimation it has some flaws only a serious Transformer fan could love. Of course, every other version of TF has had serious flaws, but many have reaped far greater rewards for getting past them.

The series is infamous for its poorly produced, ill-researched and risible English dub. It is often very funny, but I couldn't help but think how great the series could have been with a dub from the G1 cast. Unfortunately there are problems with the series no matter what language one watches it in. The show has a continuing plot throughout the 35 episodes, which is initially promising but it gets muddled quickly with some truly far-out concepts. Several familiar characters (chiefly Galvatron's henchmen Cyclonus and Scourge) seem to have had their IQs diminished in the move to Japan, which is a shame because most of the new characters aren't that interesting. The score is often grating; not a patch on the original series and especially not Vince DiCola's inspired work.

But I digress; there are some nice things about Headmasters. The censorship restrictions in Japan are nowhere near as severe as they are in America leading to some interesting scenes; chiefly some deaths which while they are not a patch on the famous scene in the 1986 movie, are quite effective in their own way. The animation is not great, but it adapts more overtly Japanese motifs to the style of the classic series quite nicely. Of course the main appeal for many fans will be to see many TF characters in the classic style for the last time. Though their behaviour and movements may be different, all the characters from the G1 series who appear here are based on the same animation models they always were. "Headmasters" does allow us to get a closer look at many characters who were underused in the original series, such as the Gestalt teams and most notably Fortress Maximus and Scorponok, characters based upon the two biggest toys in the original line. If that last sentence interested you, "Headmasters" is worth watching, if not necessarily going too far out of your way to do so. If it didn't, don't bother! BTW, the theme song contains lyrics which roughly translate to "This current suffering we are going through will be of benefit to future generations". Catchy!

Actually "The Headmasters" do get introduced in the last eps of US Version of the Transformers unlike one critic said.

The writing is much better in that the writers finally killed of Galvatron once and for all, but in the same breath Optimus Prime too, but Primes death is really weird. He and Galvatron fight for the Matrix, Galvatron is thrown to it, but Primed dies anyway? Weird.

Its not really the weak part of the Trinity, its good. Theres an ode to Voltron as Autobots start using Swords as weapons as well. If your lucky enough to find a good copy consider yourself lucky, most of the dubbed copies are in horrible condition. The person with a good copy of the subtitled version can be very rich seeing as there is a shortage of good quality episodes on tape.