#Japanese G1 continuity

[cleverthylacine]

Japanese G1 continuity is absolutely not normal about girls but damned if they don't give us some of the best ones

There was a significant amount of Transformers continuity released between 1987 and around 2007 that was produced in Japanese and is really only known to most English-speaking fans through fansubs, dubs that were only released in Australia, and the like. Shows like Headmasters, Victory, and Zone. Manga like Victory and 15 Go Go Go Teletraan (which was really mostly Kiss Players). Radio shows like Kiss Players.

I'm gonna be super up front. Japanese G1 is not normal about femmes in any way, shape or form. At the same time, it gave us some of the BEST and most underused female characters in the Transformers universe.

Headmasters, which came out right after the US G1 show ended, is particularly egregious. In Headmasters, Arcee has been reduced to Fort Max's administrative assistant, uses ridiculously polite and subservient language, and is also the only medic. And being a medic would be kind of badass if they let her be as badass as Ratchet, you know? But they absolutely do not.

Also, in Headmasters, Carly (now married to Spike) allows her son--a freaking child, not even a teenager--to go on missions when Spike can't and a human is needed, because uh, for some reason it's better for a 12 year old boy to go, not an adult woman?

But most of the good femmes don't come from Headmasters. And some of the best femmes we have are from Japanese G1.

Super-God Masterforce made it up to us by giving gave us Minerva, a human girl who is a Headmaster with a robot body (transtector) making her basically a bad ass mecha pilot, and who actively does fight.

The Victory manga gives us Esmeral, Deathsaurus' incredibly classy wife, and Lyzack, Leozack's twin sister, who is in charge of defending the homefront but really does want to go out and fight. Illumina appears in both the Victory manga and the anime. She's a little human girl who has a crush on Jan Minakaze and is always trying to get people to choose nonviolence.

(Lyzack later appears in an English-language comic - the Wings Universe--wherein she's basically Deathsaurus' servant and Starscream hits on her. I don't like that.)

There are a number of great femmes who were only ever toys. The Cobalt Sentries set gave us Howlback, leader of the Decepticon military police (called the Cobalt Sentries). She is basically Ravage's twin sister but instead of being super stealthy she can turn your attacks right back on you.

(Later she appears in several English language comics and in at least one she is canonically trans. I'm not a fan of her depiction in the SG Recordicons Batman tribute arc, though.)

The Unite Warriors toyline - Takara's response to Combiner Wars, basically - gave us the combiner Megatronia, made up of Megaempress, and her four guards, Lunaclub (sometimes called Luna Clover or Luna Trefle), Flowspade, Moonheart, and Trickdiamond. They are incredibly awesome.

(IDW 2019 used Trickdiamond, but none of the others. Tricky was one of Swindle's contacts.)

Then there's the elephant in the room that everyone pretends isn't there...Kiss Players.

So, okay. There is nothing normal about Kiss Players whatsoever. On the other hand, I'd rather listen to KP than watch RID2015 which is just blatant copaganda from hell.

Kiss Players had an interesting plot involving little bits of Galvatron and Unicron getting into humans and creating the Kiss Players--humans who could give TFs a powerup by kissing them and then merging with their internals somehow. Then there are the Legions, the dick-tongued monsters that everyone who hasn't actually listend to the show or read the manga thinks are Megatron.

The dick-tongued monsters are gross. It is also gross that some of the Kiss Players are barely teenagers and definitely not adults and are constantly ending up in Situations.

But the plot centres around the apparent rise of Convoy, or Optimus, from the dead, and his transformation into a weird groomery dude, which many people don't understand there was an actual reason for, because it's not Optimus, it's someone else riding around in his body.

Melissa Faireborn is like if you chopped Marissa Faireborn's IQ in half, dyed her hair blond and threw out any pants or skirts that covered her knees. She is nothing like Marissa and I treat them as cousins, but Xiaoxiao Li is amazing and her real lover.

Anyhow, this female scientist (Dr Amaou) lost her mind over the loss of her daughter during the events of the 1986 movie et sequelae, and she's got to be stopped from turning Atari and her Autorooper robot pal into a permanent fusion to reincarnate her daughter Shizuku (whom for some reason I always want to call Setsuna instead).

It's a little confusing because most of the really good parts of the plot got jammed into a few episodes near the end of the season, although once you know what it is, it's clear that it's being set up. That artist just likes borderline lolicon way too much.

The second season of KP is very squeaky clean and sends the girls out to collect what they think are Allspark fragments, and they are very annoyed because Ravage, whom they call "black panther man" keeps getting in their way and fucking with them, only to later find out that the bots who gave them this task are Unicronian heralds and Ravage is trying to stop them from helping Unicron do what Unicron does.

Rosanna, everyone's favourite robot pop idol, comes from the second season of KP, although you don't see very much of her or her companions Glit and Sundor.

Incidentally KP sets up the Unicron Trilogy and some of its characters end up in the UT--which did come to the US, and gave us Alexis Thi Dang.

(This post is brought to you because I just wrote an Esmeral thing and someone was musing separately about Megaempress as a parent and I almost ended up writing this post while reblogging them, because I'm a nerd with a hyperfixation).

[kaontic]

Came up with this AU (subplot?) where Megs and Star struggle to care for their earth pets, the “Battle Dog” (really Megs? 😑) and, um…

*Checks TFwiki*

Sure, we’ll call ‘em Meowgatron—

While still tryin’ to survive on/take over Earth ‘n stuff.

Or in other words, if Megs was just a little less of a douchebag, towards the dog that he tried to weaponize and end all of humanity with.👌

*Realizes how that sounds* (ﾟ ヘﾟ)

Listen, this is the same episodic manga that has an entire underground highway system that spans worldwide, an island full of predators and prey that live together in peace, and Rumble and Frenzy disguising themselves as hooded figures to hate on Autobots (seriously guys…wtf?).

Make of that increasing ludicrousness/questionableness AND the tonal whiplash case that is the final chapter as you will.

[theneptuneflytrap]

B* said I was ugly, I said, "B* where???"

"Back in the 80's,"

I said, "B* WHERE???"

[The top two are from Transformers Legends and Transformers More Than Meets the Eye (IDW) respectively. Clockwise from the top left are Transformers: The Headmasters (Toei Animation/Takara), The Transformers (Sunbow), The Transformers (Marvel US), and Transformers: The Headmasters (TV Magazine/Takara).]

[cherrytimemachine]

Character breakdown for any of the G1 Stunticons? Motormaster or Dead End, Wildrider, etc? Whichever you feel implored to discuss?

Imma do Breakdown for this one. There will be some overlapping of other continuities and I will talk about the other Stunticons, so no worries.

How I feel about this character: Nervous himbo energy. I. G1 he's an anxious boi who just follows what the others are doing. I was surprised by that since I grew up watching TFP and I knew him as the buff fighter who doubled as his husband's partner's medical assistant. It makes sense given his name is Breakdown, and I guess G1 and TFP took that word and used different meanings for it.

All the people I ship romantically with this character: Nobody in G1, I'm a KOBD shipper all the way. They're adorable in IDW1 too. Wish they showed more of how Knock Out cared about him when he died in TFP. One of the only things the United Warriors comic did kinda well.

My non-romantic OTP for this character: The rest of the Stunticons. Motormaster is just a big angry himbo, Drag Strip is that bitch who always makes fun of you, Dead End is literally dead inside and frankly I can't blame the guy I would be too if I looked like a light switch, and Wildrider is batshit insane and they should contain him bro is like a rabid dog ready to bite somebody. All of them are chaotic in their own ways and as a whole, which is why they're probably my favorite of the Decepticon combiner teams in G1.

My unpopular opinion about this character: Not an unpopular opinion really, but Breakdown shouldn't have been killed off like that in TFP. If they wanted to kill him off, it could've been done so much better. And I'm kinda interested in Emperor Kumquat's idea of Autobot Breakdown.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: This applies to a lot of characters in G1 to be honest, but I wish we got more character development with them. A lot of characters have the bare minimum of a personality, but I think the Stunticons are some of the most diversified characters when it comes to combiner teams. Most of the characters we get more nuance for are Autobots, so it's nice to have some more Decepticons that stand out. I wish they were more expanded on in the show, but I wasn't expecting it to happen since the show only existed to sell pre-made toys.

[bigangrytrev]

Who became Cyclonus? Skywarp, Bombshell or an Insecticon Clone?

There are certain debates that run in fandoms, sometimes for decades. Star Wars: Why didn’t Anakin’s rich princess girlfriend ever buy Anakin’s mother out of slavery for him, and why when he was a powerful Jedi did he wait so long to go back for her? Star Trek: How was it Kirk could spend decades surviving every danger in the galaxy, even getting into a fight with God, yet was killed by a rickety…

[gelu-the-babosa-multiversal]

Ok so I want to know just for... just because I want to know

I know that there are some that I'm not considering, but Tumblr polls are limited in options XD

[lambda-core]

you're telling me the japanese g1 continuity has a combiner team called the trainbots who are all trains and they just ? don't appear in any american transformers timeline? they're exclusive to the japanese g1 timeline?

[decepti-thots]

5 tf fandom pet peeves?

when people assume G1 fanon soup is something 'we can all agree on', but especially when this expectation is pushed onto people talking about non-G1 (as in, cartoon/marvel) continuities. i've seen sooo many people get annoyed at those of us who write for idw1 canon directly and who do not incorporate old fandom fanon soup headcanons they feel 'everyone' has miraculously agreed on at some point as being Better. also a problem for those of us into TFA, tbh.

people bringing up Kiss Players as though it's some 'haha, Japanese fandom/canon is soooo disgusting and awful always and forever, those waaaacky Japanese are so gross!!!' as though a) it's not like pointing to the 'romeo and juliet law' in the Bayverse movies and saying the same about Western TF fandom as a whole and b) not, like. actually widely hated among plenty of sections of Japanese fandom specifically because everyone is like 'god, everyone's gonna assume this edgelord bullshit is what we all actually want, huh'. KP was a deliberate attempt to be shocking and controversial and niche in a bad way; it is not considered Mainstream Content in japanese fandom anymore than it is anywhere else, stop being weird and xenophobic about the deliberate bait shit.

people constantly tokenizing idw1 arcee, anode and lug in ways where they exclusively bring them up for Diversity Points TM but never outside the 'and my favourite comic even has a trans character, please be Impressed!!!' thing... like, yes, fellow MTMTE/LL fan, i also think lug and anode (the latter especially) are fascinating characters i enjoy a lot, but do you exclusively bring them up when trying to dunk on someone on twitter and not. like. as actual characters in their own right worth exploration (anode has a whole character arc! it's good!!). please consider doing that more perhaps. it's lonely out here trying to actually talk about the trans characters in idw a lot of the time! ngl! this has been a really consistent thing since i got back into the fandom in 2017 and i'm mildly annoyed we've made so little progress on it since, tbqh.

the general tendency of the IDW fandom to treat word of god as gospel. please. it's fun to know writers' headcanons; if it's not actually in the comic, we don't have to treat it as much more than headcanons without specific reason to.

stop doing weird biological essentialism about the robots that no canon does about the robots. we do not need weird biological essentialism adding in. i promise we do not need more of this. goes across the board. what if- and hear me out- we even strove to do. less weird biological essentialism than some of the canons. about the actual literal robots it is already annoying that canon sometimes does even a little biological essentialism about. yknow. What If.

[shnowyfox]

Okay so u ppl like the horseformers it seems heres some more designs :D

swindle isn't even rlly in the story tbh but here he is. he should NOT have an insignia because this is moreso a civilian swindle. he's a strong and resiliant little feller but really probably shouldn't carry all that shit around on a battlefield. i just dont feel like going back and fixing it. also! combiner teams uhhh they exist! but i think maybe instead of combining they're just in a herd together like soulmates but its besties u know what im sayin. heavily taking from his wfc design (why he has cloven hooves... i love his silly pedes) since we don't get any CONFIRMED visuals on him in tfone..

considering changing jet wings to "feather" wings? and making megatronus prime a griffin because the seekers are griffins.. The two chains across the chestplate btw are like a motif in his court. Megatron, Ironhide, and the high guard all fall under his court

and a d-16 :) dont mind why he looks so judgmental.. this was supposed to be a comic. giving arcee the side eye... glad i focused on the designs first i fucking love his shin guards he's so pretty

griffin seeker! specifically starscream here :) there is lore reason why they get a mane and organic wings btw

hound! under liege maximo's court, and like megatronus' chains, liege's court has a motif in the horns. again, no cogged form so i had to kinda blend his cogless one design with his idw and foc designs? i really like his funny chestplate in g1. forgot his insignia but he is a decepticon in this one he was one of the first teehee

still going between horse and lion for optimus. heres pax though with victory leo's body as his lower half :) he was born under alpha trion's court and also all the lions in the japanese continuity?? forgot his insignia but maybe this is also civilian era (drops my head on the table and screams) also theres no reason for him to have a halberd he doesn't use one i just.. put it in his hands.

and alpha trion these last two admittedly arent great because i drew them just now when i woke up. way too top heavy but i'll fix it later when i start finalizing everyone's refs (this fool thinks he'll be interested long enough to finalize designs).. forgot hsi fucking autobot insignia too </3 also might give those under his court a cape which would mean i could give orion pax a cape too teehee.

ty everyone for encouraging me btw i was straight up about to redesign them to not be centaurs (cringe) but i kept them as centaurs and i'm figuring out how to make it work in the story (based)

[woradat]

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So, what’s this blog for? A bit of everything, honestly, sometimes I post art/drawing/3d model, show off my models and paintwork. But mostly, it’s about writing - fanfiction

Feel free to send in any questions or just dropped by for a chat, I'm cool with neither

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and for the writing request I'm alright to do it. You can dropped the req by comment or ask-box, both work, but please make sure your request doesn't violate the following:

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That's all for now, I may add more later if I think of anything, so please check back everytime before you make a requests — And please make sure that whenever you send a request, please include the plot/idea/trope/vibe (or whatever/anything you can think of) + continuity + characters everytime

But any additional details are welcome too! such as personality, theme (or even song fic/any references. I can work with that)

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IDW 2005&2019 (MTMTE, LL etc), TFP, TFO, WFC, G1, Beast war, Eartspark, Bayverse, ROTB (will add more)

also willing to do brave of gold goldran, brave police j-decker + other japanese show as well

enjoy!

[swapauanon]

Idea: A post-war, repentant Megatron winds up getting hurled into the world of Transformers One, and decides to try and do what he can to stop D-16 from making the same mistakes he did.

(Note: Megatron shouldn't be from the Transformers One continuity, but from any continuity where Megatron has a heel realization. So Earthspark, Aligned, 1DW, or Japanese G1 will do.)

[snap-oversteer]

maybe the thing that drew me into transformers besides the wonderful Drift and Perceptor is also the choice of cars for the G1 continuity. I am so heavily sick for cars in the 90's-00's and I like that most of them have some relevancy to the car culture that is displayed now. Like Sides and Sunny are both Countaches, which is still a really beautiful car in this day and age, Prowl is a 240Z (aka the best Z ever, fight me on that), Hot Rod is a concept race car (possibly meant for endurance racing) called Dome Zero, Beetle Bumblebee is literally so iconic, Jazz being the Martini Racing 935 (self explanatory), Mirage being a Ligier JS11 (F1 nerds rise up), even the newer movies like ROTB making Arcee a Ducati 916 (AN EXCELLENT CHOICE OF DUCATI), etc.

and Drift is on trispoke rims. Which i am so heavily biased towards. and i could get into a whole deep dive of japanese car culture and Drift specifically

[masterdetectivexx]

Amanda Hughes' Dying Message Theory

After the latest anime episode (1165) of the Kohji case flashback adaptation, where we finally got Amanda Hughes' dying message picture in colours, I think I may have figured out a hidden layer to what she could have been trying to tell with the lipstick-smeared Knight piece.

As some may know, I have speculated that Amanda's Knight piece with wristwatch dying message wasn't completely deduced by Conan and that there was unresolved things with other elements in it, like the chessboard it was on. I had speculated that Amanda could have been trying to implicate Rum's identity through the knight piece (as potentially foreshadowed in Wakita's intro in File 975 with the "Pirate's spirit" [Rum] horse) and deduced that Amanda may have mixed japanese and english in her dying message out of desperation (similar to the victim in File 1057), since we learned in File 1106 that she was learning japanese and could speak fluently). It does make for a harder challenge to realize that such a mix of languages was implemented in the message when there's already limited resources for her dying message. After looking at the knight piece again however, but this time in colour through the anime adaptation, I realized there could have actually been a direct hint in Amanda's message on how the knight piece was intended to be read, and this is not the first time Gosho has done this in this arc.

In File 969-971 (Swimsuit dressroom case), the victim of that case left a dying message that was very similar to Amanda's, in that she smeared lipstick from her mouth on her right hand (similar to Amanda) in order to guide how her left hand gesture was meant to be read.

It was revealed that she smeared the red lipstick on her 5-star-painted nail on her thumb to indicate the flag of China, in order to guide the reader in what language the dying message was meant to be read. If this was foreshadowing to Amanda's dying message technique, then it's possible that when Amanda smeared her hand with lipstick and transfered it on one of the knight piece horse' eyes, she was also trying to indicate the language in which the knight piece was meant to be read through. When you look at the colours, you can immediately see that the white knight piece with the red dot on its horse eye(s) was most likely meant to hint to the flag of Japan!

This would mean that Amanda indeed was trying to indicate the japanese word for "horse" in her dying message, which is "Uma".

If she took account of the Knight piece's white colour, then it further fits with the continuation of my deduction on how the chessboard was used in the rest of the message. The red lipstick-smeared right hand of Amanda that was facing the chessboard was not only trying to guide the reader to the language of the knight piece message ("horse" in japanese), but it was also trying to guide the reader on how to factor the chessboard into the message. The white knight piece has 2 fixed starting positions on the chessboard (Left B1 & Right G1), and so with her guiding lipstick-smeared right hand facing the chessboard, she was indicating that the right starting position of the white knight piece (G1) was a part of the message, represented with the letter "G", and together with "UMA" (horse in japanese) making out the letters of MUGA (as, in Momiji's current butler "Muga")

This could be further highlighting that Rum's parting words for Amanda (File 1107), where he left her with a loaded line about his father's long history with Karasuma Renya (the boss) as the former "Rum", indeed carried more weight than it appeared and could have been what made her figure out that the current Rum is not truly the same Rum she met 60 years ago, but rather his son (whose first name she may have known beforehand) in disguise as his father, as mentioned in my File 1106-1109 Review.

[iconuk01]

(Want to put this one out for public) What would you say is the most impressive action figure you've personally bought?

"Impressive" is a tough word considering the… let's be charitable and say "significant" number of figures I've collected over many, many years.

I have many I consider beautiful, or iconic representations of characters I love, but that's not the same thing, though there is heavy overlap as I tend to only buy figures of characters I like.

I have even been gifted with some extraordinary unique ones, in the form of unreleased versions, or custome mad figures by incredibly talented people.

But you didn't ask for "Favourite" or "Most valuable", you asked for "Impressive" and even then I can only narrow it down to a few

I own an original G1 Transformers Japanese box set of the Predacons. (It was more of a complicated international (three continent) swap between different fandoms, but I did the co-ordinating, and money was involved in getting this as my end result)

This one isn't mine, but it's the same set

The individual beast modes look great, their individual robot modes are cool and Predaking himself is freaking awesome.

It might be cheating as it's not a single figure, its a combiner but it was SOLD as the combined figure so I'm loopholing it in! :P

The Figma Table Museum series is amazing, with action figure representations of figures from art and history, including DaVinci's Vitruvian Man, Botticelli's Birth of Venus, Michelangelo's David, Munsch's The Scream and Rodin's Thinker amongst others

But my favourite is their Tutankhamun, which has a staggering level of detail. The regular version has the mummy with a beautiful sculpt of the famous death mask. The DX version includes one of the sarcophagi that the mummy was found in, which the figure fits inside and, again, the sculpting is remarkable.

Plus a random shout out to Figma's other figures, which are never less than impressive

And I would be remiss if I didn't include at least one of the Saint Seiya Myth Cloths (So, I'm going to include two).

Andromeda Shun is one of my all time favourite characters, and the figures they have created for him are stunning, especially once the geeks who grew up on the roginal anime grew up and started working on making action figures themselves

This is what the original mass market 1987 figure for Shun looked like which, I should add in case I seem churlish, I remain inordinately fond of.

This is what the 2010 Myth Cloth looked like

Bit of a glow up, isn't it! :) (Pricewise too, but that's neither here nor there)

And the Gold Libra Saint remains a remarkable creation, the representational form of a pair of weighing scales transforming nicely into not only the Cloth itself, but the six pairs of weapons it contains, one for each of the Gold Saints

Honourable mention to several of NECA's lines, like Gargoyles and Fraggle Rock, which are impressive sculpts

Oh, and a shoutout out for sheer mechanical creativity goes to the BeastBox series from 52Toys. The main gimmick being that each figure, no matter how large or complex, unfolds from a standard modular 1.5" cube shape

I only have a few of them, because I suspect I could get VERY hooked on these, but these include White Noise, the owl (looking like Bubo from Clash of the Titans got an upgrade)

and Ironblood and Loyalheart, the twin battle bunnies who share a cube between them

However, I suspect I will surprise no one in that perhaps the one that continues to impress me each and every time I see it is one related to another characterI am forever associated with.

Which is of course, Robin, the Boy Wonder!

This is the Hot Toys Batman 1966 version, which is a superb 11" figure generally (allowing for some of the ever present issues with fabrics on smaller figures, meaning his cape is rather over-stitched so it's not too fragile)

But it's the face sculpt which gets me every time, this is way beyond the uncanny valley and right into the downright eeriely lifelike (And no surprise there, Hot Toys are legendary for their likenesses)

THIS is a plastic sculpt and paint job? They've even given him freaking FRECKLES!! (He probably has nose hair too, though I admit I've never checked for that... I'm weird, but not THAT flavour of weird)

Though, me being me, you might also not be surprised that I am also fond of the sculpting on this other Hot Toys Robin, though in that case, it's not just the face ;) !

[energonshot]

What are good pieces of media to see Blaster content?? I’ve been scrapping around looking for stuff and I’m clinging to the G1 cartoon but idk where to find more???

Hi!

Sadly i think the G1 cartoon has the most animated Blaster content 😭 He’s also in the Japanese continuation of the cartoon, The Headmasters, but it’s really mostly as Twincast (if you do watch headmasters i recommend the sub rather than the dub LOL)

He also has some cool moments in some of the marvel issues!

[redfoxdude07]

Idk if this is a hot take or not, but I really hate how IDW made certain characters completely unredemable monsters.

Like, making Star Saber a bad guy is cool and all, but make him at least a little bit moral so you don't completely betray the character.

Getaway is a neat character, but I can't talk about him without someone bringing up the fact that he's a groomer in a SINGLE continuity.

I wouldn't have a problem with these two if they were discernably different from the original versions, like an actual redesign or something, but instead when I see Getaway, I don't see that one escape artist from mid G1, I see a fucking dougebag. Just pull a Unicron Trilogy and make a new character with the same name at that point because you're just making the characters unusable for any other continuities. Star Saber at least has Japanese G1 to save him. Getaway is forever tainted. This is his legacy now.