As a tenderfoot reviewer for JPP, an old-school cartoon collection fell into my hands. That collection was Gigantor: Volume 1, and you can see that review here. Shameless pug aside, looking over that piece of writing will probably give you insight into how I’m going to approach this DVD review. Transformers: Headmasters comes to us from Japan, where it serves as a follow-up to the beloved original. Whereas American kids in the 80s were treated to a fourth season titled “Rebirth” that took the series in a whole new direction, Japanese fans got the first Japan-exclusive production of Transformers (the series originally was conceived in America and animated in Japan).
The series makes no real effort to put its foot down in the overall Transformers timeline, which has been plagued with more devil-may-care continuity errors than the Marvel Universe. Optimus Prime is somehow leading the autobots despite permanently scarring the minds of impressionable youngsters by dying in the film (come for the robots, stay for Orson Welles as a toy that eats smaller toys!). Headmasters delivers ‘bots that still inexplicably transform into Earth-based vehicles despite no longer needing to camouflage themselves, and a search for a variety of disinteresting MacGuffins. Why does Optimus need the Matrix of Leadership to stabilize Vector Sigma? If you’re like me, you heave a sigh and switch your brain off, thinking “Well, maybe the action will be half-decent."
The action setpieces in the series can actually serve as evidence exactly why “Transformers” wouldn’t work on the big screen, at least in live-action form. Headmasters focuses on the ‘bots and since there’s no real comparison between the transformers and something small-scale (say, humans), you get used to watching machines take on one another and frequently forget that they are significantly larger than their surroundings. Humans pop in and out throughout the story, mainly Daniel Witwicky, whose friendship with smart-mouth Autobot Wheelie mirrors the Sam Witwicky/Bumblebee relationship that would follow on, but the general storyline belongs to that permanently ongoing battle between Autobots and Decepticons, led by Galvatron (Megatron pimping upgrades from the Transformers animated movie).
Command eventually changes hands on both sides, while the series piles on a variety of teams with their own unique transformations. The main addition to the Transformer melting pot are the Headmasters, a group of Autobots who left warring Cybertron to settle on Master, a planet whose harsh climate forced them to adapt by building Transtectors, giant bodies that they could connect their heads to – thus, Headu-mastahs were created. As a Japanese exclusive whose American dub is generally reviled, this DVD features only the original voices, which occasionally reach an irritating pitch but generally are not a distraction, just get used to reading subtitles.
I suppose the best question you can ask yourself is “Why should I watch this?” I’m not sure there’s any reason for you to pick up this set except out of curiosity. It’s not a key entry in the Transformers legacy (then again, I’m not a hardcore fan), and offers subpar entertainment at best. You can’t pick up a random episode and jump in and slogging through a lot of filler through the whole series is exhausting, even at 20 minutes an episode. The action is serviceable, and the music is schizophrenically awesome, sometimes jazzing it up or injecting a dramatic sting into a scene that doesn’t appear to need it.
DVD Bonus Features
An art gallery, but frankly speaking, what else did you expect? The series is a curio, so I would hardly expect much behind the scenes material. On the flip side, less well known properties have had extensive BTS extras, so maybe it’s no excuse.
"Transformers Japanese Collection: Headmasters" is on sale July 5, 2011 and is not rated. Action, Adventure, Animation, Foreign, Television. Directed by Katsuyoshi Sasaki. Written by Toyohiro Andô, Yoshihisa Araki. Starring Hiroko Emori, Ikuya Sawaki.
