From: kendrick@io.com (Kendrick Kerwin Chua) Subject: TF Weekday: Headmasters - Four Warriors from the Sky Date: 1996/03/26 Message-ID: <4j96gq$c1m@pentagon.io.com> organization: Illuminati Online newsgroups: alt.toys.transformers For those of you not in the know, this begins a set of reviews of the Japanese cartoon series which promoted the Transformers toy line. 'Transformers: Supere Robot Life Form' and 'Transformers:2010' were essentially identical to the American series, with the omission of the movie and a few episodes like 'The Rebirth'. The Japanese series begins with 'Transformers:Headmasters' continuing with 'Transformers:Super God Mastrforce' and 'Transformers:Victory' and finally wrapping up with 'Transformers:Zone.' TF Weekday: Headmasters Episode 1 - Four Warriors from the Sky *The Contendors: Ultra Magnus vs. Sixshot Wheelie vs. Trypticon Metroplex vs. the Constructicons Jazz vs. the Combaticons Daniel vs. Tantrum Superion vs. Abominus Optimus Prime vs. Devastator Sunstreaker vs. Blitzwing Mindwipe vs. Grimlock *The plot: The story so far is that two warring races of robots from the planet Cybertron left on a quest for energy. Landing on Earth, they fought until Autobot commander Optimus Prime was killed; rising up to replace him was Rodimus Prime. Decepticon leader Megatron was rebuilt into the maniacal Galvatron, and his forces retreated to the burnt out planet Charr. Optimus Prime rose again to end the war with an uneasy truce. It is the year 2011. On a Cybertron unused to peace, the old Decepticon Space Bridge mysteriously activates itself, and out of its portals step the Combaticons, the Predacons, the Terrorcons, Galvatron, and three new warriors not seen before by anyone. Galvatron gives orders to his troops, who go flying through the glass ceiling of the space bridge building. At Autobot Headquarters on Cybertron, Spike and Carly are having tea when the room shakes. Massive fireballs are being thrown out of nowhere to knock over the landscape, and Kup, Blurr ("YoshuYoshuYoshu!"), and Wreck-Gar are trying to figure out the situation. While Spike sends a distress signal to Athenia Base on Mars, Grimlock and the Technobots go outside to combat their unseen enemy. At Athenia Base, Optimus Prime barks orders to Hound, Jazz, Hot Rod, Smokescreen, Prowl, Sideswipe, and the Aerialbots. Prime, Jazz, and the Aerialbots go to Cybertron while the rest go to Earth to help out Ultra Magnus, all travelling via the Autobot Space Bridge. Hot Rod stays to receive the security detachment from Cybertron. On Cybertron, Mindwipe uses his telepathic powers to put Grimlock and the Technobots to sleep. He also accidentally puts Skullcruncher to sleep, much to Galvatron's annoyance. Kup, Spike and Carly watch the viewscreen; it's an image of the Vector Sigma chamber, which the Decepticons are trying to reach. Apparently, nobody has been to Vector Sigma ever since the legendary journey by Prime and Megatron ages ago. Wreck-Gar arrives to rush everybody to the Autobot Space Bridge. On Earth, Ultra Magnus, Hound, Sideswipe, and Prowl fight the Decepticon Triple-Changers and Soundwave, led by a new Decepticon. It's the Dinobase Ninja Commander, Sixshot. In a river valley on Earth, Daniel and Wheelie are exploring and looking for the way to the Autobot Space Bridge when they happen across Trypticon. Wheelie tricks Trypticon into trying to cross a narrow bridge, and Trypticon falls miles into the water below, while Daniel looks on scared out of his wits. Sixshot takes a few blows but otherwise is able to pin Ultra Magnus down, who would have lost the fight if not for the timely arrival of the six Trainbots, who transform from their airborne train mode and distract Sixshot. The Trainbots come with new orders; everybody needs to be on Cybertron to protect Vector Sigma. The Autobots transform and hightail it to their Space Bridge. Sixshot attempts to cut them off, so Ultra Magnus sends the Trainbots up in the air where they're shot down by the Constructicons. The Trainbots are helpless until Metroplex arrives and shoots the Constructicons down. He transforms into mobile base mode and carries everybody over to the Space Bridge. Daniel and Wheelie join them. Cybertron burns. Jazz and Prime fight the Decepticons while trying to figure out what they're after. Jazz picks off the Combaticons one at a time, grounding them. The Autobot Triple Changers join the fight as well. At Athenia base, Hot Rod and Kup argue the virtues of not participating in the fight when they detect a strange spacecraft headed for the solar system. Kup tells a story of the war and why protecting Vector Sigma is important. On Cybertron, Daniel wanders around bored until he literally runs into Tantrum, who chases him until being run over by the Trainbots and then beaten senseless by Wheelie. Superion takes on Abominus head on, holding his own. Devastator tries to interfere except he's knocked over by a kick from Optimus Prime, and Devastator's shot goes wild and knocks over Abomius. Devastator gets up only to face Defensor. Sunstreaker is chased and strafed by Blitzwing, who crashes into a tunnel after being faked out by one of Sunstreaker's nifty maneuvers. The Decepticon Headmasters introduce themselves to the Dinobots and the Throttlebots; Mindwipe and Skullcruncher are the specialists, and they're led in the field by Weirdwolf. Mindwipe puts all of them to sleep, and Galvatron declares victory until that strange spacecraft arrives. It's the Maximus Cruiser, which parks in orbit and opens a door. Out pop four warriors wearing Autobot symbols ("Transform! Head on!"), all of whom Weirdwolf recognize but Galvatron doesn't. They announce themselves as Chromedome (the commander,) Hardhead, Highbrown, and Brainstorm. The Headmasters all stare each other down, and it's a face off. To be continued... *The characters: A few preparatory notes here - it'll get explained more in the next episode, but it should be noted that the Headmasters in the Japanese series are not robots 'Binary Bonded' to human beings. They are in fact smaller robots who merge with their vehicle to transform into larger robots. But this notwithstanding, the Headmasters seem very much the same characters. Hardhead is still a rough-and-tumble tough talking muscle guy, and Chromedome is still a technician pressed into war because he has to. The real loss is the Decepticon characters; not only are they not the same personalities, they're mostly different names. Weirdwolf's name is untouched, but Mindwipe becomes simply 'Wipe' and Skullcruncher's name is also shortened to 'Skull.' Speaking of names, it's worth talking a bit about Kup's Japanese name, which is the seemingly inexplicable transliteration "Cha." Like Arcee (*R*ace *C*ar) and Ho Rod, Kup's name is a reference to his vehicle mode, short for pickup truck. "Cha" is a loose, shortened version of the Chinese word for 'internal combustion engine automobile' or something to that effect. In this shortened form, 'Cha' can also be translated as 'Windbag' if you like. :) The combiner teams have some STRANGE things going on in their command chains. Rippersnapper is the one giving orders to the Terrorcons on Cybertron, and Long Haul gives the order to shoot down the Trainbots on Earth. It seems like that to the Japanese audience, it's not important who the team members are as long as they stay a team; this is evident in the fact that the Triple Changer groups NEVER break up, and the combiner teams, the Throttlebots and the Headmasters are always seen with their respective groups whether or not they actually do anything. Prowl is alive! Since the movie was not broadcast in Japan until Transformers:Victory was on the airwaves, a lot of 'casualties' could be either glossed over or ignored. For purposes of the Japanese continuity, lots of deaths simply didn't happen. They were saving them to kill off now, you see. :) Wait until the next episode... Blurr and Wreck-Gar have the most untranslatable speech gimmicks. Thankfully, they don't appear much after the first four episodes or so. Wreck-Gar is presumably talking in Japanese TV cliches, but your guess is as good as mine. And Blurr doesn't speak quickly so much as he stutters and repeats himself. I guess in a language where tonality and inflecton are so important, it's hard to speak more quickly than you already do. Speaking of speech gimmicks, it seems that the Dinobots don't quite say 'Me Whoever' as a prepend to every sentence. More often they stutter their name and turn it into what sounds like a directive sentence. IE, they're telling themselves to do something before they do it, which fits the Dinobot mentality within the framework of the language. Please feel free to complain about the fact that Wheelie defeats Trypticon in battle. I was whining about that for WEEKS after seeing the episode for the first time. :) *The plot holes: No adequate explanation is given for why Optimus Prime is still alive after we spend two minutes of airtime explaining that he's dead. Viewers may correctly divine that Headmasters happens just after 'The Return of Optimus Prime' and ignores 'The Rebirth' relative to US cartoon continuity. Blitzwing appear on Cybertron fighting Sunstreaker. Wasn't he on Earth fighting along side Soundwave just moments ago in the Sixshot/Magnus duel? The Trainbots appear with no introduction and no word of where they got their new orders. Also, the Vector Sigma chamber is shown as a gigantic sphere with lots of cables and conduits running out of it, which is slightly inconsistent with the portrayal in 'The Key to Vector Sigma.' *Moving pictures: Wonderful animation of stuff that doesn't move. The Maximus Star Cruiser and the burning Cybertron long shots are very well done and fully detailed, with lots of tiny effects and flashing lights and stuff. The fight scenes are pretty good, especially the shot where Prime takes a flying leap off a ruined precipice and knocks over Devastator with one kick. For the most part though, the first episode of Headmasters suffers from a lot of anime cliches: faces that don't move while the mouth pumps up and down, sketchy detail on big moving robots and lots of metal rending and bending as if this were a Disney cartoon. The scene of the Trainbots running into Tantrum is espeicially comic, with the train bending upwards at the resistance as if it were made of foam rubber. TF:Weekday (C) 1996 by Kendrick Kerwin Chua. The names of places and characters mentioned above are TM Hasbro Inc., Marvel Entertainment Group and Takara Inc. where appropriate. KKC, oh boy, time to post it now... -- "If I knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called RESEARCH now, would it?" kendrick@io.com - Kendrick Kerwin Chua - WTB: Hasbro/Takara Transformers toys home webpage at http://www.io.com/~kendrick - also available at kchua@unf.edu NOTscape Friendly! Use less graphics in web pages to speed up info retrieval!