The Transformers thread (shows, comics, toys, all things TF) (2024)

• Right off the top these subs are going to be interesting because they appear to keep Japanese naming conventions. The Autobots are called the "Cybertrons" and the Decepticons the "Destrons". Good to know that's how it's going to be.
• Second line "a new Destron emperor named Violen Jiger and his Nine Great Demon Generals appear." So even though they didn't know this series was tanking right out of the gate, they still use an info-dump at the beginning to skip through all the origin story for the new guys? Boo.
• Alright, let's get it out of the way now: Violen Jiger. The subs are correct and this is the officially accepted romanized version of the guys' name. The confusion around his name has generally been more fun and goofy than it was with Deathsaurus simply because there wasn't a sensible, "obvious" answer. And at various times (and with various degrees of seriousness) people have suggested the following alternatives: Violin Juggler, Violent Chigger, Bio Ranger Iga, and of course, Valium Chugger.
• Planet Fiminia with the double rings setup. I'm never sure if that's a reasonable astrological phenomenon or just fun-time sci-fi BS. But this is a show about a war between sentient robot species, so I suppose I'm thinking too hard about it.
• The animation for this is smooth so far, but as we go further into the Japanese series, it looks more and more anime-esque. Headmasters was, visually speaking, indistinguishable from western G1 for the most part. Meanwhile this show just gives you a shot of the wind rustling through an alien grassland and it's unmistakably late 80s/early 90s anime. It feels like I'm watching Gundam Wing or something.
• And here's our protagonist kid. And a... flying rabbit thing?
• Also we now have Decepticons with capes and helms and gold bracers and ****.
• Wait. That's Star Saber. I thought we were supposed to be doing new characters.
• And now Star Saber's dead. Man, that was quick/weak.
• And then the Micromaster characters blubber and cry. Literally. Way to ruin an otherwise reasonably dramatic moment
• I feel like these theme songs are getting worse as we go on
• Also now we have a blue haired kid wearing Saint Saiya armor and a girl who looks like Japanese Dora the Explorer. And this weird space rabbit.
• So... are we not explaining the Nine Great Demon Generals?
• Oh. There we go. One of them is Overlord, one of the lead bad guys in Super-God Masterforce
• Violen Jiger is clearly not meant to be an actual Transformer. He looks like some sort of lovecraft monster.
• So... it's called "zone" because Violen Jiger wants to destroy the universe and build a "Destron Zone" whatever that is? I guess it's not the worst way to name something. And no more weird than a lot of other crazy engrish that's come out of Japan.
• Violin Jiger has 3 heads like some sort of skeletal mutant Quintesson? Ok
• 76 days later... 76? That's random.
• And now there's a Planet Zone too? Japan... Guys... seriously, you can't just slap the word "Zone' onto stuff and pretned it makes sense.
• I'll at least give that Planet Zone and the Zone Base looks pretty cool and detailed.
• Oh great, the rabbit thing talks. Jesus
• So the Transformers identify their species as "Super robot lifeform Transformers" huh
• And they use the Defcon system.
• Zone base is made up of the Micromaster building playsets. I have several of those That's great.
• Also now I can see that these "Great generals" are combiner teams. The two attacking are clearly Predaking and Menasor underneath the cape and armor and melee weapons)
• Oh no! They stole the macguffin!
• It's called an Energizer-Z. K. At least it's not "Energizer-Zone"
• This show is moving at a breakneck pace
• Other General: BlackZarak (Japanese variation of Scorponok)
• Oh look, another show where the Transformers are cool bringing a young kid on a dangerous battle mission. At least the western shows now usually make at least a little bit of a fuss over them objecting to kids tagging along.
• Wait, Star Saber isn't dead? He survived a planet exploding? Damn.
• Dai Atlas' face design is distracting. It's like he's supposed to have a goatee piece around his mouth but it's colored white like everything else
• The Micromaster characters all sound like kids. Because that's not annoying.
• And now Trypticon is one of the generals?
• And here's Japanese Dora the Explorer getting rescued..
• So the blue-haired kid's name is Kain
• And Dora's name is Akira. Except that my limited understanding of Japanese says that in using the "boku" version of "I" to refer to one's self (in the introduction "I'm Akira") is usually something boys do. And Akira is usually a male name. Wait. so....
• It's a guy?!?!?
• Clearly the most expensive parts of the episode are the transformation sequences since they can be used repeatedly.
• Yeah, Autobots. Your stupid guns won't work. Use your swords and fight like real men... er, robots.
• Devastator is one of the generals too. And he's got a giant drill arm.
• How convenient that Dai-Atlas also has a giant drill-tank mode.
• So there's giant crystals in the earth called "Zodiac" that's a massive energy sorce or something? Are these related to the Ruby Crystals of Burma (aka the strongest energy source on the planet)?
• Another general: King Poseidon (aka Piranacon in the west, the forgotten combiner team) How many is that now? 6 or 7 I think? Abominus is probably one of the others just to fit the last major 'con combiner team in. Can't think of what the others would be.
• Wait, is Devastator dead all of a sudden? He burrows into the side of a cave wall, then gets blown back out by a lava flow and we see his arm sticking up from the lava with the metal "skin" melting away to reveal his wires and internal mechanisms. Sure looks like he's dead. But if Star Saber survived a planetary explosion, this should be nothing.
• Now this Zodiac thing, which was crystal before, looks like a literal, actual heart with a big glowy red spot. Seriously, what the hell is going on?
• And there's the slapstick comedy moment to undercut a bunch of mostly dramatic bits.
• Oh no!.... that guy! I don't even know what the name of the one who took the blast is. Or if he's supposed to be dead or mortally wounded or whatever.
• So Dai-Atlas holds up the Zodiac heart thing and it just... absorbs Trypticon's laser blast/wave/whatever mouth gun. I need to stop and check if my water bottle is laced with LSD.
• And the zodiac thing now explode into a miniature galaxy. which pulses light and does... something.
• stock footage!
• and the guy who got shot is suddenly OK and not bearing a giant gaping hole in his chest. All so that he can combine with Dai-Atlas
• "Zone Mode Attack!" Stop sticking "zone" in every name!
• Clearly this is the "****'s going down" moment as the theme song is playing.
• And Dai-Atlas' super attack is ... a giant Z-shaped bomerang sword thing called the "zone cutter"...
• The use of said Zone cutter evokes the standby samurai movie trope where he slices at Predaking, you see nothing and we wait patiently until a cut line appears and it turns out Predaking was perfectly bisected as his halves drift apart.
• Also Predaking appears to have a biological brain in the middle of his head. The ****?
• And now he's dead. Remmeber, Predaking was the ultimate combiner team in G1. And he went down like a punk to 1 attack in episode 1
• Akira, the kid, knows about what Zodiac is (it's the primal building blocks of the universe). Because of course he does.
• And he still looks like a little girl.
• Unlike Meekon from Victory, there's no indication that Akira's parents are dead. But the Autobots just kidnap him and take him back to their planet. Pretty sure there are laws against that, guys.
  
• Star Saber is just giving up his leadership role to Dai Atlas because Dai Atlas won one fight. That's weak. It would've been better if he just died.
• Not going to really talk about the credit sequence. It's standard anime fare.Except seriously they're fumbling this apparent friendship between Kain and Akira because instead of making them look like 8-10 year olds on friendly terms it looks a lot more... ummm... let's go with "serious".
  
• If this is how the Transformers series dies in Japan, it's a pretty disappointing way to go. The action (when it was happening) was pretty good, but wow did hte plot make no sense and was there ever a lot of junky portions.
• I just looked up the Nine Great Demon Generals. The ones I missed above were Abominus (which I expected) and Bruticus (which I should've known but I had a brain-freeze on). Also according to TFWiki, BlackZarak/Skorponok was supposed to be very much dead before this story. Huh.

• I'm not going to repeat observational stuff from the content of the episode again. That'd just be pointless. Most of what you'll see will be discussion of the acting/line choice and where they may have changed elements of the plot or narrative in the process of dubbing.
• I can't tell what this narrator voice is supposed to be. Is it a terrible recreation of Vic Caroli? Becuase if it is, it 's terrible.
• So the dub chooses not to translate the on-screen name captions. Dumb, guys. Real dumb.
• They've also added some sound effects. Not bad ones, but it's noticeably different.
• 4 voices in and we have 1 good one (Kain) 2 bad ones (narrator, Holi) and one netural one (Star Saber)
• wow, the micromasters crying was badly done. It was clearly the same 2 second sob sound looped multiple times.
• No dub for the theme song, no subs either.
• I wasn't going to comment on story/plot stuff here, but that rabbit thing is the Jar-Jar Binks of Transformers
• Violen Jiger's voice is so over-processed that I can't understand it.
• So they read out the title card, but not any of the other captions? Christ guys, this is pretty sloppy
• ****, rabbit thing even has a Jar-Jar sounding voice.
• The sound balance is really off. Some of the voices are so quiet that you can't hear them under sound effects.
• One pro for this dub: it's using the traditional transforming sound effect. I don't understand why Japan hates that effect so much. It actually uses a fair number of "classic" sound effects which helps make this feel more Transformers-y than the Japanese original.
  
• Menasor's voice actually kind of sounds like Frank Welker's Skywarp voice.
• I can't decide if this dub makes Omni look good or bad. It's hard to tell.
• Dai-Atlas' voice us blaaaaaand. And the other guy with Dai-Atlas (Sonic Bomber) is even worse. The recording sounds crappy too.
  
• Akira's dub voice totally sounds like the guy who dubs Gohan in Dragonball Z Abridged. (it's not, I looked it up. But the one line I've heard so far is awkwardly similar)
• And now the dub guys are adding monologue narration over quiet scenes as Dai-Atlas holds up the Zodiac heart thing...
• On the whole, yeah that was for sure amateur hour. It makes me OK with not watching the TFCog dub of Scramble City. I applaud fans who make efforts like this, but it certainly shows the gap between professional and fan-made work, but even total beginner pieces like this and polished/well-made fanworks like DBZ Abridged.

Transformers: Scramble City FV
Scramble City 2 - Real Attempt (English, Widescreen) - Fanmade

• So this video opens up with the season 2 western title sequence except with a lady singing a J-pop song over it
• A j-pop song that includes "everyone's heart has a mysterious mind" as a lyric where "mysterious mind" is in English.
• It makes me wonder if this is the actual theme song for the series proper in Japan. (EDIT: I went and checked. It is.)
  
• There are credits over the title sequence too, half of which are in English for some reason, including crediting character designer Frolo Dery (by which I mean "Floro Dery". If you have the time, read some of the stuff about him on TFWiki. He seems like a total nut job. and kind of a dick.
• "Reach out and touch the destiny of the universe that is twinkling".... what?
• Oh. right. I forgot that weirdly while Japan chose to name the Autobot faction as the "Cybertrons", they avoided the awkwardness of them being the same name as the planet by changing the homeworld's name to "Seibertron." Yeah, that's weird.
• And the opening of this special is... identical to the opening of the series pilot? With the same music cues and sound effects?
• This is just entirely a sped-up version of the pilot. Are they intending to recap the entire run of the series up to the point of the movie? So is the new material in this special going to be like 5 minutes long by the time they're done? The special only clocks in at 23 minutes.
• If nothing else, I'm feeling reinvigorated by the fact that they're using music and sounds that I'm familiar with instead of all the new stuff the other series have been using. On the other hand, it makes me almost wish i had just chosen to watch G1 instead.
• This is so much the pilot that it even keeps the pilot episode's "FOUR MILLION YEARS LATER" transition title in English.
  
• The amount of electronic processing on the characters' voices is refreshing given how little of it existed in the Japanese versions of the later series.
  
• "Their regeneration is possible by combining themselves with machines full of energy"... what?
• Starscream's Japanese voice sucks.
• "The Cybertrons (Autobots) counterattack!" as the visuals transition from the oil rig attack at the end of the first part of the pilot to... "The Master Builders" a season 2 episode where Grapple and Hoist inadvertently help the Constructicons build a giant energy collector for Megatron based on Grapple's designs. I love how this special basically just pretends that these events are connected.
• And now, 7 minutes in, the "Scramble City: Mobilization" title card shows up. That was a pointlessly long amount of recap filler. So now they barely have 15 minutes to try and explain how the hell we got from the end of season 2 to the movie and beyond since Japan doens't have the movie yet when this came out
• "Project Scramble City is underway to stop the Destrons from gaining more power. It's a base meant to give birth to more warriors stronger than Devastator." but a) How do they build more warriors without Vector Sigma to give them life? I thought trying that was why the Dinobots are so stupid. and b) How does this account for the fact that Bruticus/Abominus/Menasor are also Scramble City style combiner teams? Did you ever think of that, Japan? Did you?
• at 8 minutes in, who the hell is that welding? I don't recognize that character model at all.
• Ok, according to TF wiki it's Blades, the helicopter member of the Protectobots. Given how little the Protectobots appear in the series that'd explain why he doens't look familiar.
• But wait, how can Blades be here if Scramble City is supposed to make new combiners like Defensor?
• seconds after Blades appears, it's an epic, historical moment: This brief 2 second shot is the ONLY TIME IN THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF G1 ANYWHERE that Chip Chase (the kid in the wheelchair) appears in the same episode/scene as Carly. And look at that off-model Carly!
• This also I guess counts as the final chronological appearance of Sparkplug, who never shows up in the movie or season 3 (his last appearance was a glorified cameo in "Cosmic Rust")
  
• I love that Ravage and Laserbeak are renamed "jaguar" and "condor" respectively. Japan loves its stupidly-on-the-nose-in-English names. But Ratbat keeps his English name.
• Uh, this has a bit of a Blaster/Soundwave fight. Or at least a fight between their cassettes. That's still more they mostly got in the rest of the series. Until they killed each other in Headmasters.
• Also Steeljaw can fly? By pimping his legs like he's running
• Soundwave's distorted/vocoded voice in Japanese is profoundly disappointing. Profoundly.
• Even in Japanese the Constructicons (or "Buildron team") uses he Phase One/Two designation for their transformation to Devastator.
• So Ultra Magnus is here overseeing the construction of Scramble City but with zero explanation of how he got here. So basically it's no better than him just showing up in the movie.
• "Comprised of state-of-the-art Jets, the Airbot squadron (aka Aerialbots) are a new Cybertron troop. What? No they aren't. They've been around half a season. They had a whole episode devoted to their creation. A two-part episode. You got to watch that episode, Japan.
• The stunticons are supposed to destroy Scramble City "along with that secret factory". But I thought they were the same thing?
• So all the incidental stuff like music and sound effects and whatnot is the same, but Japan chose not to use the flipping sigil scene transitions? Instead the logo appears on screen, the music cue plays, and then in a flash it changes from one symbol to the other.
• This is being animated by Toei, who did most of the season 1 and 2 animation for the show, but somehow the transformation sequences for the various characters seem sloppy and slow.
• "SCRAMBLE POWER FULL THROTTLE!" you tell 'em Optimus Prime.
• Ok, the gimmick of Scramble Power is the idea that any of hte limb-bots can be any limb. But there's no justification for why you'd want this. What would make, for example, Air Raid better as an arm vs a leg? Or as a left arm vs right arm?
• I joke about the animation, but it is mostly pretty good.
• "TRANSFORM! POWER FORMATION!" so Superion and Menasor swap which bots are their arms and legs and this vaguely helps... somehow.
• And then we switch to "Attack form" which jumbles the Aerialbots up somehow (I can't keep track of who's who) except they screw up and Menasor fires (I think) Wildrider off from his arm like a rocket and he then becomes Superion's leg, which immobilizes him. It's kind of over-complicated, but a cool idea.
• Ultra Magnus can't launch Scramble City becuase they aren't done with "checks". So basically he's such a stickler that he has to do a frivolous safety check even if it gets his comrades killed.
• Now we clearly see that Scramble City is Metroplex as it's deployed
• I have some reservations about the cell layering as Scramble City mobilizes. It's supposed to be emerging from the top of a mountain plateau, but then rolls under a ring of rocks that shouldn't beh igher.
• Metroplex is "Metroflex" in Japan?
• Also yeargh, that character model is baaaad.
• But now, in spite of the Decepticons never using it, they have a new ultimate weapons: Trypticon! (or Dinosaurer in Japanese)
• Trypticon's roar is that of famous Japanese movie monster Baragon.
  
• Trypticon heads for the coast line to engage Metroplex and the Autobots. "A new battle is about to begin!" fade to black, special over. And they apparently had no interest in following up on this. as there was never any additional material produced by Toei/Takara. Dick move to leave it on a cliffhanger.
• and we end with some more lounge-y J-pop over a mixture of schees from other episodes of the series.

• Not off to a great start. We're starting with some really flash-animated looking nonsense of a logo and basic animation to show the cast. And evne though they clearly just copy/paste the Scramble City logo, the Transformer Logo appears to have been manually reconstructed out of a font set, becuase it looks super cheap like a bad knockoff.
• Also this credit sequence takes up 36 seconds of a production that runs 3:46 in total length. I know I shouldn't make fun of a totally fan-animated project because one-man animation work is super difficult and time consuming, but you'd think that you might save some of your run time on more important features. also maybe leave the cast list for the end where the franchise has always had it.
• OH MY GOD IS THIS ANIMATION BAD! It's like lazy flash animation with static backgrounds. Every character is also just shot from the waist up to save on difficult animating elements.
• I will hand it to the cast though, in spite of being the same amateurs who provided the earlier Zone dub, some of it is already better. That Megatron is actually incredibly close to the real Frank Welker voice.
• "It's Metroplex. And this is where I draw the line..." Wow.... (and not in a good way)
  
• Trypticon's voice, however, is awful. It sounds like a cross between Brad Garret's actual Trypticon voice and someone filtering an impression of that through Donald Duck. His model is also awful, with a very bird-like head shape
• Optimus, Starscream, and Soundwave also have solid voices.
• Wow, this is really badly animated. it's like TFCog has to either have good animation with **** voice acting or good acting with **** animation.
• Jazz doesn't sound bad.
• Blaster, on the other hand, sounds like he fled from the scene of Shaft. And Ultra Magnus can't act.
• Hot Rod is pretty good. Arcee is less so... and she sucks at acting too.
• and now it's over at 3:10 of the video file. So on a 3:46 video, over a minute and 10 seconds is credits and barely 2 minutes is actual (bad) animation.
• I think the intent of this plot was to explain why things were the way they were in the movie (why Metroplex can't transform, where Hot Rod and Arcee and the others were, etc.) but there just wasn't enough going on to really make sense of it all.
  
• I will at least give them credit for some very nice soundalikes in the cast. But that's really about all this thing has going for it.
• Ok, this was animated by a guy from Quebec. Still doesn't make me think any more of its shoddiness.
• So he's ending on a starfield behind the credits, and yet can't manage to make it look half decent. Not great considering this credits sequence reads more like a resume/demo reel.
• Omega Supreme is listed in the cast list in spite of me not once seeing him in the short.

Robotmasters #1

• Oooh, **** custom animation ahead of the beginning of the episode. Way to go, TFCog
• I think that first voice is supposed to be Beast Wars Megatron? It's... not wholly awful.
• The animation itself is like 5-10 years better than Beast Wars, but the low-budget version that ends up maybe looking worse.
• So I think this is a cast list of who's in this episode, character-wise?
  • Beast Megatron
  • Starscream (presumably G1)
  • Gigant Bomb (Who the hell?)
  • Smoke Sniper (double who the hell?)
  • Wing Stun (triple who the hell?)
  • G1 Convoy (I like that they specify "G1" at hte beginning)
  • Beast Convoy (Optimus Primal
  • Star Saver (By which I suppose they mean Star Saber)
  • Victory Leo (Star Saber's combining buddy that makes Gundamus Prime.. er, I mean Victory Saber)
• According to TFWiki, Gigant Bomb and Smoke Sniper are redecos of G2 toy characters Dreadwing and Smokescreen, a stealth bomber & fighter jet duo (which are actually really cool. That was one of the last toys I got as a kid). Wingstun appears to have been a redeco of a Thundercracker/Skywarp figure created for a super obscure aborted G1 relaunch in the wake of the success of Beast Wars. So for a series that's supposed to showcase a sort of greatest hits set of characters, we get 3 super obscure Decepticons. Alright.
• Is this Starscream's voice? It's bad until he shouts.
• Star Saber's voice is a bad actor again.
• Man, the animation is really crappy. I take back what I said about it looking improved over Beast Wars. It looks even cheaper.
• Every time a character transforms they get a symbol-backed vanity plate screen
  
• alright, Victory Saber being able to shoot his gun as it falls to the earth and hit Starscream in the back is pretty fun
• Optimus Prime sounds like a stoner
• Holy balls, the awful texture on that BW Megs t-rex skin.
• Ye gods, the more the animation focuses on character model details, the worse it looks.
• Also Gigant Bomb flies even in his "Tank" mode. Sure, why not.
• Gigant Bomb also kind of sounds like Duke Devlin from Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged.
• After some half-decent soundalikes so far (tone and acting notwithstanding) Optimus Primal sounds terrible.
• But he and G1 Prime have a totally Shonen combo attack: Double Optimus Tornado.
• The added 'til all are one!' line sounds like a total ad-lib by the dub guys.
• also at least one of them doesn't have his mic settings right. There's some peaking and a lot of breath pops. Gotta invest in one of those foamy diffuser disc things if you're going to do proper voice work, guys.
• The 7:29 listed running time ends at 6:10, leaving a full minute and 10 seconds of credits and whatnot.
• Wow the entire credit sequence is just for the dub guys. And a horribly composited "RobotMasters FV2 coming soon" plate at the end.

Robotmasters FV Episode #2

• So this episode starts with a sort of motion comic bit? That's actually kinda cool. I don't know if that's something TFCog did or is actually part of the original Japanese.
• It's funny to see BW Megatron and Optimus Primal portrayed as badasses given that Beast Wars in Japan was turned into a complete nonsense madcap comedy dub.
• And now we transition to.. a stop motion toy commercial for the RobotMasters toyline? Ok...
• This time TFCog is putting their credits up front of the episode. Can't say I approve, but whatever. It's minor.
• BW Megs has a laser breath weapon in beast mode? That's new.
• It's so dark that you can't really see what's happening
• Oh great, now Primal has a southern accent.
  
• And a big King Kong homage as he scales the Tokyo Tower.
• At least the badly animated action is a lot more interesting this time around. There's some cool team-up attacks.
• So "Reverse Convoy" is actually "Rebirth Megatron" and looks like the G2 Megatron toy. Ok, I feel like I'm missing something here.
• And so to save on complicated animation, the ultimate attack is to turn into a giant pillar/vortex of energy that can just move around in a line.
• So the battle ends as abruptly as it begins and the Decpticons vow "We will return!"
• Spoilers: They don't return.
• There's apparently "more Decepticons" out there. But we never see any of this because this is where the animation ends.
• And a ham-fisted shoe-horining in of Optimus' "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings" mottow. This feelsl ike it's where the dubbers decided to take liberties, and it ends up backfiring on them.
• Over a minute and a half at the end of this is credits and cast credit show-off sequences made by the dub guys.
• So Victory Saber is made up of 2 bots and their voice is done by layering both characters' voices over one another (think the fusion characters in DBZ) but the actors couldn't be bothered to make sure their lines synced up right. spectacular.

Transformers Go! Samurai 1 [Subbed] Transformers Go! Samurai 2 [Subbed]

• I'm not even a full 2 seconds into the video and the things people say about TV-Nihon are already showing themselves as the subtitle at the bottom says "Sanjou Gattai! Swordbot - Samurai" and then announces at the top that "Sanjou" is how one announces themselves, except this has the kanji for the word "ride" in it. But what does 'gattai' mean? This appears to be TV-Nihon overcomplicating things for the sake of playing emperors of the weeaboos. And because of this, I'm now like 20 minutes behind where I intended to be in terms of reviewing this stuff. I expected to be done by 11:30 and it's already 11:20 and I have still the two full episodes to go (albeit with them being 20 minutes combined)
  
• The animation at least looks really cool and colorful. I'll grant them that. It looks appropriate to something done in the 2010s
• So this Japanese kid throws a rock down a crater and hits a Transformer in a mountain somwhere in Japan... Did they not pay attention that Prime took place in ****ing Nevada?
• And now it work up... what is that? Evil Dinobots?
• I see this series is continuing the proud Japanese tradition starting in Energon/Cybertron of CG Transformers over traditionally animated backgrounds and humans.
• Only Optimus doesn't look like he's CG
• So the helpful subtitle sign says that wherever they are (a kendo club) is "instructor for the Tatewaki-ryuu" But what the hell does "ryuu" mean? Tatewak is clealry a name given the character introduced before hand. And I know that sometimes ryuu means dragon, but this has no context. **** you TV-Nihon. We're not all literate in anime fan Japanese. Translate so we can understand the god damn material, not just so that you can think you're keeping "flavor" bits. I swear to god, if this series at any point has someone say "baka" (idiot) and they choose not to translate it, I'm stopping. I'm not even joking. I will stop if that happens becuase I'm not putting up with these weeby shenanigans.
• So it's one of those shows. Where the hardass grandfather attacks his grandson because he was happy to get a compliment, with the assertion that he shouldn't let his guard down. Like child-abuse type stuff
  
• Ok, these transformers are CGI.
• I guess these evil decepticons/predacons/whatever are supposed to look like demons? That's sorta cool.
• Also unlike Prime's generally stylized CG look, this more replicates the cel-shaded look of Robots in Disguise (2015). It's actually kind of nice. And will surely make me hate it more when I get to watching the Unicron trilogy of shows and I have to put up with their janky CGI/cel animation combo and the crappy, rudimentary CG character models.
• "The more I run, the more the city gets destroyed!" so he runs into a park.
• Awesome. The transformers talk without moving their mouths. Way to cheap out, guys.
• So the disc thing the kid is keeping from the Predacons glows and zaps him with energy and now he just... manifests Autobots out of nowhere? The ****?
• LOOK HOW JAPANESE I AM
• Yep, none of the transformers move their lips when they talk. So why even give them lips?
• "Come forth, dark Jaki!" (T/N note: Jaki = evil spirits) THEN WHY NOT JUST WRITE THAT IN THE FIRST PLACE, DAMMIT?!?!?
• It's hard to really discuss the characters since they're all so Japanese and have Japanese names and no relation to anything we've seen before.
• "It's time SANJOU GATTAI!" What the hell does that mean? Seriously, explain yourselves.
• The team has a cool mechanic where they combine the 3 into one body, but the order and form that join in results in a different combiner form with different skills and attacks. That's kind of neat.
• As is the fact that they so quickly shuffle forms instead of just hitting one and staying that way.
• The action is very stylish
• And now we're back in time for some reason? Seriously What the hell kind of drugs is this on?
• They also keep referencing the "Legendiscs" that the bots are trying to find, but haven't explained what those are or what any of this means.
• And now we're not back in time? it was just a hallucination/illusion or something.
• The **** TV-Nihon. You choose not to weebify "Cybertron" (the planet) into "Seibatron" to differentiate it from "Cybertron" (the autobot faction), but you do choose to have the characters introduce themselvs as "Super robot lifeform Transformers" instead of just "transformers"? I seriously don't get it.
• At the end of the episode, Inari, the lead kid, gets a call from a friend namde Tobio or Torio or whatever and he has 3 autobots with him too. This is actually where the 4th-6th episodes of this series come in, as they follow the "ninja swordbot team" counterpoint to this episode's samurai swordbot team.

• so right at the start the episode opens up with the Autobots remodeling Inari's house so that they have a huge underground bunker. Somehow. None of this is explained.
• Optimus Prime is actually called Optimus Prime. Not "Convoy"
• I'm getting the sense that perhaps we were supposed to watch the episodes in alternating order (ie this should've been the ninja swordbot team premiere episode)
• Oh ****, that purple butterfly is evil. Because, y'know, it's purple.
• I see this series uses Back to the Future time travel rules. good to know.
• the legendisc works best in front of Akibahara (aka the geek capital of Japan) Of course it does.
• And, as required by time travel fiction law 205.2(b)(iii), we can't go into the past for more than 30 seconds without bumping into someone famous. In this case, Miyomoto Musashi.
• So the autobots aren't referring to themselves as Cybertrons and they can use "Cybertron" for the planet becuase the Autobots are actually calling themselves "Autobots" here. I didn't know Japan ever made that changeover.
• In spite of episode 1 and the title of this episode making "legendisc" one word, the subtitles repeatedly split it into two (legend disc)
  
• HAVE I MENTIONED THIS SHOW IS VERY JAPANESE LATELY?!?!?
• Siiiiick juuuuuuumps!!!
• and siiiiick stooooooock foooootage!!!!
• So somewhere between last episode and now TV-Nihon has given up on translating cultural artifiacts and untranslated terms? They simply don't re-translate any of the "jaki" terms anymore? I guess they figure I watched episode 1, I should know what that all means now.
• And once again the autobots mention "we are touched by your heart" before they combine. Is this like some sort of requirement? They have to have someone clap their hands and believe if they want to merge?
• Aww the honorable autobot samurai are all sad they can't stay in teh warring states period and die with honor instead of being sent back to the slothful present day with all its weak and spineless coward who lack the will of hte warrior.
• And that's that.