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old school fun
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
The Japanese got three series of Transformers cartoons after the American run that we're familiar with ended, and this is the first, in its first official Western release. I first watched the Headmasters series in the unofficial version which circulated on the Internet, with a distinctly dubious English dub, done by people whose lack of acquaintance with the Transformers universe was seemingly only matched by their lack of acquaintance with a coherently translated script. However, even with this disadvantage, I found myself enjoying these episodes more than the American cartoons that I'd grown up with. Okay, the characterization is as ropey as ever, but Transformers cartoons are all about big fighting robots, and the Headmasters series captures that brilliantly, whilst introducing a steady stream of new characters to keep you interested. In addition, the individual cartoons are linked by an ongoing plotline rather than just being self-contained, the Autobots don't come out on top in every episode and characters even die, none of which was the case in the American cartoons. I'm not making any claims for these cartoons being mature adult viewing, but they're cool and they're exciting - what more could you want? Well, decent dubbing for one, but since re-dubbing the series with decent voice actors would have made the boxset prohibitively expensive, we don't get that. Instead, you can choose the worthless dub I mentioned before, or some newly-commissioned subtitles, which are clear and easy to follow, and definitely improve the viewing experience, as do the clearer images compared to the unofficial version. In short, this is a great release of some unjustly overlooked cartoons, and well worth getting if you maybe bought some of the classic American episodes and found them much patchier than you remember them being, or if you saw the unofficial versions for free, and are wondering whether to pay for this new box set. I will say though, don't get it if you object to reading subtitles, because the dub is not even worth considering. The Headmasters series might not be to everyone's tastes, but I really rate it. Many of the characters featured are ones who plenty of people outside of Japan owned as toys but never saw in any cartoons, so there's the nostalgia aspect, and as long as all you want from these DVDs is some cool fighting robots, you really can't go wrong.Read full review
Transformers Headmasters picks up where season 3 of the american series ends after The Return Of Optimus Prime. Fans Of the Original series, such as myself may be a little dissapointed with the disregard of continuity and the absolute murder of the characters names and storylines. The english dub is magnificently horrendous, it sounds as though there were only four voice actors that knew absolutley nothing of Transformers, and are constantly getting characters and place names wrong, and with worse dialogue translations than in a 70's kung fu film, I saw how bad this was by watching a couple of episodes with English dub and subtitles switched on, they just make it up as they go! The storys aren't that easy to follow or that interesting, due to the way they jump from scene to scene, the music is thin on on the ground and when it does kick in, it's not what you'd expect. In fact if you do buy this DVD, it should only be watched with Japanese audio and English subtitles, or the english dub will make it too pathetic and confusing, and make you want to turn it off. I would love to see a re-dub of this series, with some of the original voices back, and some scenes re-edited for pacing and continuity, on the plus side the DVD is value for money with four discs and 35 episodes, plus I kinda liked the cheesy intro song.Read full review
Transformers = Fantastic, American Dubbing = Soul sapping, emotionless, diabolical , inaccurate and destroys the cartoon. only buy if you can handle the sub titlled version as the dubbed version is unwatchable!
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