After the unsurprising disappointment that was The Headmasters and the surprise hit of Chojin Masterforce, I was absolutely ready to shrug my shoulders at the last of the Takara Trifecta; Transformers Victory.
And I guess after it I can quickly go over the one episode OVA; Zone.
As a reminder, I'm working with the copy I have on Metrodome's Takara Collection, so if there's anything wrong in regards to translation, I apologise; I'm working with what I got.
... I don't have much else of an intro or a segue into the review, so let's just dive in.
In the future of 2025 (I only know that because I had to Google it), the new Destron emperor of destruction, Deathsaurus, has come to Earth to steal it's energy sources as to power up his deadly, planet destroying fortress and free it from the Dark Nebula. Standing in his way, however, is his old rival and new Cybertron leader; the Brainmaster of Courage, Star Saber. Along with his squadron of Cybertrons, as well as the Daniel and Wheelie surrogates Jan and Holi, Star Saber vows to stop Deathsaurus in his tracks and protect the beauty of the Earth.
From the outset, I thought I was going to hate this series. The setting felt rushed, with a dozen characters introduced in the first episode alone. This includes the new leaders, their underlings/allies, their gimmicks, and the annoying human audience surrogate with his sidekick robot. Sadly, as a result, I had little reason to care about any of the characters early on, as none of them displayed any personality beyond the basic "good guy/bad guy" dynamic. This is most prominent with the rivalry between Star Saber and Deathsaurus; they're just the bare bones Optimus/Convoy and Megatron surrogates with little variety or identity. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised of the plan WAS to bring back Convoy and Megatron as one last hurrah. Why not? This is pretty much just a G1 inspired rehash, right down to the stupid kid sub-plots. Masterforce at least had the surrogate kid characters go through an arc and change over the course of the series.
And speaking of, that brings me to THESE two.
While certainly not AS annoying or encroaching on the narrative as Daniel and Wheelie were in Headmasters, Jan and Holi pretty much serve the same purpose; they are the annoying comic relief who are just there because the plot demands it. Jan is meant to be Star Saber's adopted son, but that should mean he's as FAR away from the action of possible. Instead, in the 30's, he ends up getting a fucking assault robot to show off to the kids at his school and he gets the other Cybertrons involved in making it. Hell, he has a sub-plot where he hates the Dino-Force, Deathsaurus' main group of goons, because they killed his parents in an attack on their spaceship. What relevance or pay-off does this have on the plot?
Seriously. He never really goes up against the Dino Force in a meaningful way, the grudge he holds is really inconsistent from episode to episode, and the conflict is never at all resolved. Frankly, it feels as if they just threw in the Dino Force conflict but immediately forgot about it. Granted, the Dino Force are otherwise useless beyond the terrible comic relief for the Destrons, but when a major detail like them being responsible for killing the lead human's parents is brought to light, then you can't just simply pass over it as if it never mattered in the first place.
Honestly, most of the comedy in this show fell flat for me. At least, in regards to when they would tell actual jokes. I have little issue with the visual comedy as it allows the characters, even those with faceplates, to be much more expressive and lively. But actual jokes or running gags just failed to make me laugh as it's just the same joke repeated over and over. For instance, one of the Dino Force members, Kakuryu, is slower than the others and lags behind... that's it. That's all there is to the joke. Even the end credit theme (which is awful, by the way) makes a joke about Star Saber, the mighty, dignified leader of the Cybertrons, might have wet his bed when he was young. What is this, early Dragon Ball?
I also felt that most of the cast was entirely unnecessary. This most notable with the likes of Galaxy Shuttle and the Cybertron Micromasters, the latter forming the rarely seen Landcross. With how often these characters pop up on screen with little in terms of actual character development and plenty in regard to interchangeable personalities, I had little reason to become invested when they would suddenly have a beef with someone either on their team or with a Destron. Hell, Galaxy Shuttle serves no purpose beyond being a duller Omega Supreme surrogate and sometimes being a giant robot. You could take away the "giant robot" thing and nothing would change about the story.
That's not to say that there isn't anything worthwhile in this series. In fact, there's actually plenty to enjoy. The animation is surprisingly good (despite an over reliance on stock footage), making the characters wildly expressive and allowing for some pretty creative action scenes. It's actually nice to see several characters rely on melee combat instead of simply shooting each other until one runs away or dies (looking at you, every fight from Headmasters). This is arguably most prominent with the fights between Star Saber and Deathsaurus, which happens more often than one would think in this series. While Deathsaurus may be bare bones evil, there is at least more of a conflict between him and Star Saber, with the latter being responsible for sealing his all-powerful fortress in the Dark Nebula and forcing him to rely on lesser warriors to fulfil his endgame. It's certainly more believable than what we got with Fortress and Zarak, or even Bumblebee and Steeljaw from RID '15.
I also enjoyed Star Saber as the new leader of the Cybertrons. He has his moments of badass where he singlehandedly takes down his foes with just a swing of his sword, but he still allows to be kind and compassionate to his comrades without ever being naive. While I'm not a fan of him being Jan's adoptive father (how exactly would that work with the human adoption agencies?), I do like seeing him show concern for his surrogate son when he inevitably gets his ass in danger.
As far as I'm concerned, the Breastforce (pfft!) are one of the best combiner teams in Transformers. Granted, a lot if this comes from how cool their combined form, the legendary Liokaiser, is whenever he is on screen. But a good chunk of the fun does come down to the fact that each member has a truly distinct identity. Leozack being a sly schemer, Guyhawk the fallible perfectionist, Hellbat a manipulative coward; these examples allow for a lot of great scenes of seeing these characters interact with each other and other characters. And again, whenever Liokaiser is on screen, he simply steals the show and kicks a lot of ass. I wish the individual members had more importance in the finale instead of just resorting to Liokaiser, but these guys were a delight to watch whenever they turn up. I certainly enjoyed them more than I did the Dino Force who's only gimmick was that they were idiots.
As a whole, Victory is kind of a mixed bag for me. The parts that I found entertaining were legitimately the best parts of the show for me, namely the animation and the action scenes. However, this makes the weaker elements, such as the characters and the humour, all the more distracting from the efforts of the final project. If there was more emphasis of fleshing out the Cybertrons and less of Jan and Holi's annoying antics, then I would probably recommend this show more. As is, it's a middle of the road series for me; better than Headmasters, but not as good as Masterforce. It is what it is, and I can't really say I didn't have fun at points.
Overall rating: 6/10 (Decent).
So, this only leaves one last instalment of the Takara series that only lasted one episode; Transformers: Zone. I'll keep this short, as the only version I could get was with the Metrodome release with a mediocre translation and a piss poor video quality.
In short, I enjoyed the idea; the newest Emperor of Destruction, Violen Jiger, resurrecting nine of the deadliest Destrons (several of them combiners) to begin his conquest of universal domination. Dai Atlas makes for a decent, albeit bland, new leader of the Cybertrons and at least isn't an annoying fuckwit. The action scenes were fun and I liked the opening theme, but something felt missing by the end of it. It might be the lack of a proper continuation, or it could be the rushed pacing. Either way, I felt more could have been done with the idea, which is probably why it only lasted a single episode. As a one-shot, I give a 6 or 7 out 10.
So now, I only need to catch up with the Japanese Beast Wars stuff, finish Armada, watch the Japanese Unicron trilogy and finally give Transformer GO! a chance and I would've caught up with everything there is to watch with the Transformers. I hope you've enjoyed these Transformers reviews and keep coming back for more reviews. If you want to see these reviews posted, please follow me on Twitter @Media_Man18 and consider subscribing to my YouTube channel.
So until next time; this is Callum Lewis, the Media Hood, and let's say GO!
