The Transformers: Japanese Collection includes all three anime series: Headmasters, Super-God Masterforce, and Victory. Last July, Shout! released Headmasters, which I reviewed. The version included in the Japanese Collection is identical to the July release. Admittedly, the storyline of this trilogy is hard for me to follow, being just a casual Transformers fan who hasn’t watched Generation 1 in years. With some regret, I’ll leave it to Wikipedia and other, better-suited sites to give you the details to each series in this Japanese trilogy. Suffice it to say though, that the Autobots and Decepticons, as we Westerners call them anyway, continue to battle of good versus evil, with Earth and humanity on the line.
The progression from Headmasters to Victory is not a linear one. While Headmasters bolsters the story for the Transformers Movie, Super-God wipes the slate clean, keeping the spirit of the Transformers, but also introducing a slew of new characters and altering the names of others. It’s wild and frankly very interesting to see what writer Masumi Kaneda came up with. Victory, created a year later in 1989, is perhaps even more distinguished from the Transformers we’re used to. Star Saber takes the place of Optimus Prime as the protagonist, and he and his allies will face the Deszaras in a bid to protect Earth.
While the series certainly have their differences, they maintain the general idea and spirit of the Gen-1 Transformers. If you enjoy Gen-1, it’s not a far-reach to enjoy these Japanese episodes too. This set certainly looks right at home next to the Gen-1 box set (and Beast Wars set for that matter). Packaging for the Japanese Collection is a sturdy box with three DVD cases inside, one for each series. Cover art for each case maintains a general theme, as do the disc menus. Menu options are very limited; Play All, Episode Select, and enable/disable English subtitles. The last disc in each set includes the Bonus Features which is literally limited to about twenty pieces of artwork from each series. While these are neat, and offer you a nice image of the characters, it’s really too bad there isn’t more here. For people like me, who enjoy the original Transformers but were clueless going into the Japanese Collection, having some series experts introduce each trilogy or better yet, talk about it like traditional extra features, would have been great to see.
In terms of presentation quality, it’s also bare bones. Japanese audio (with optional English subtitles) and a full frame image is included, but I was a little surprised at how dull the image quality was. It’s quite possible that these are the best available transfers of these vintage Japanese cartoons available, or Shout! may not have been in a position to fund a costly re-mastering (especially given the niche audience that this box set appeals to). Either way, while the technical presentation quality might not impress you, it isn’t hard to get swept up in nostalgic look of Toei’s animation.
To the summary…