Anyone else ever see Masterforce?

I've been watching it and I like it quite a bit. Almost all of the Japanese produced TF shows tend to be mediocre or out right awful.

The little bit of Headmaster I saw, I found that too bland and trying too hard to emulate the American toon. Masterforce does an interesting job of reinventing the premise. Plus, it's like watching a practice run for a Brave Robot series.

Not sure if I'd like Victory. I've only seen a tiny bit of that too (it was the bad asian produced English dub).

I think one of the biggest faults the Japanese TF shows suffer from is the overuse of wacky anime styled humor and the drawn out serialize story. Masterforce's length feels right and there's little goofy humor,

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I asked if I have "Time For L-Gaim" but I got "No Reply From The Wind".

I have the bootleg dubs, and Masterforce just bored me for some reason. I never got far enough to see God Ginrai or anything cool, and never got Victory either, even after enduring all of Headmasters to get that far... I dig the characters and the toys, but the pacing of the show seemed really slow.

Introducing Prometheus Rising Studio.
[prometheusrising.net]
I make 3D printed mecha action figures.

Obviously I've seen it. I think the show is pretty slow until Ginrai is introduced, and it gets crazy fun, but clearly I'm biased.

-Ginrai
Golden Gate Riot on dead trees at: [www.destroyallcomics.com]

"This show is slow paced" is code for, "I watched 8 episodes in a row of a 50 episode show for children from the '80s that was intended to be watched one episode a weekday for months."

-Ginrai
Golden Gate Riot on dead trees at: [www.destroyallcomics.com]

Yeah, MF seems easy to marathon several eps at a time.

Too bad the show didn't use the other Pretenders that were realsed in the U.S., like the beast or vehicle ones.

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I asked if I have "Time For L-Gaim" but I got "No Reply From The Wind".

Ginrai Wrote:
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> "This show is slow paced" is code for, "I watched
> 8 episodes in a row of a 50 episode show for
> children from the '80s that was intended to be
> watched one episode a weekday for months."


You got me.

Introducing Prometheus Rising Studio.
[prometheusrising.net]
I make 3D printed mecha action figures.

Masterforce is the only JP TF show that I was able to watch to completion. The characters are surprisingly complex for a 'toy show'- particularly Overlord.

Headmasters, I agree, seemed a little flat and more of a continuation of US G1 for the sake of continuity. Victory was too formulaic in the episode format. Not unlike sentai shows, I suppose.

Any reason why Overlord wasn't in the U.S. line? I know it got a European release.

Maybe they didn't want another large figure as it's the same size as Scorponok.

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I asked if I have "Time For L-Gaim" but I got "No Reply From The Wind".

Victory (like many Brave shows) has wayyy too much recycled transformation footage. I feel like a fourth of the average episode is Star Saber transforming. But yeah, the same is true of sentai shows.

I think the issue with Overlord is more that Masterforce was made after the US Powermaster line (which is why God Ginrai and Doubleclouder are so different from Powermaster Optimus Prime and Doubledealer), and there was no good place to shove another really expensive Powermaster into the US line the next year, but obviously we can't know for sure. The Euro line kept going when the US one was falling apart. Obviously the US' changing toy fads left Transformers scrambling to keep up instead of leading the way as they had previously. (Micromasters were an obvious attempt to ape Micromachines, for example.)

-Ginrai
Golden Gate Riot on dead trees at: [www.destroyallcomics.com]

The Euro line also got a completely different backstory:
Overlord's basically a time-travelling, dimension-travelling one-man army who gets fought by the Motorvators (Brainmaster cars without combining parts). The Powermaster and Brainmaster figures are simply called "Energon figures" and lack individual names.

The toyline did get some of the most epic Transformers battle art ever: Overlord transforming from base mode to robot mode, his shuttle flying in the background, and trying to grab one of the Motorvators.
For the record: in the art, the Motorvator is smaller than Overlord's hand!

I'm almost done with the show. I'm disappointed that none of the other Japanese TF shows are as good or fun as this one. I liked Zone but that was a one shot OVA.

I might rewatch Armada again just because it was SO bad that it becomes its own form of entertainment. So many mistakes and hilariously inappropriate characterization (the fat kid's character can be summed up as "Fat kid").

Car Robots/Robots in Disguise was a good series if you don't take it too seriously.

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I asked if I have "Time For L-Gaim" but I got "No Reply From The Wind".

I thought Zone was totally terrible, but I also like CR/RiD. It's kind of a Transformers sitcom. I definitely prefer the English dub version though, with great moments like Optimus criticizing a flying, jet-powered shark's poetry for its lack of semiotic cohesion.

-Ginrai
Golden Gate Riot on dead trees at: [www.destroyallcomics.com]

Finished the rest of it today. Great series. I don't think you even have to be a Transformer fan to enjoy it (must like robots of course).

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I asked if I have "Time For L-Gaim" but I got "No Reply From The Wind".

Zone's OVA is pretty stupid, but the comic has good art, and those are pretty much my favorite Transformer toys.

Introducing Prometheus Rising Studio.
[prometheusrising.net]
I make 3D printed mecha action figures.

Get over here Ginrai, your namesake is here.

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I asked if I have "Time For L-Gaim" but I got "No Reply From The Wind".

What's that? Are those action figures? I'm totally down as long as it's not a model kit I have to build.

-Ginrai
Golden Gate Riot on dead trees at: [www.destroyallcomics.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/24/2011 11:11AM by Ginrai.

Yes, action figures. Expensive ones at that. They made Reina Stol from Machine Robo previously.

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I asked if I have "Time For L-Gaim" but I got "No Reply From The Wind".

I could find room in my heart for figures of Ginrai and Minerva... wonder if they'll be 1/3 the price in 6 months like the robot stuff.

Introducing Prometheus Rising Studio.
[prometheusrising.net]
I make 3D printed mecha action figures.

Cool, sweet! I'm down!

-Ginrai
Golden Gate Riot on dead trees at: [www.destroyallcomics.com]

[www.hlj.com]

I SHOULD want this but $90 is a lot for me right now and frankly, not as good look as figma (although this is twice as tall I think).

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I asked if I have "Time For L-Gaim" but I got "No Reply From The Wind".

Where is the Ginraiiiii?

-Ginrai
Golden Gate Riot on dead trees at: [www.destroyallcomics.com]

I really like the CM's figures of Minerva and Ginrai. The fact that they can actually transform into the head and the engine (God?) Mode and be detailed like that is pretty cool.

www.nakamatoys.com

damaged bryan Wrote:
> The fact that they can actually transform into the head

Are there any pics of this? I see how the faceplate opens, but haven't seen any pics of the figure folding up into a head.

-Paul Segal

"Oh, the anger is never far, never far." -SteveH