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.
