TRANSFORMERS: THE MANGA VOL. 2, PART 1

"THE HEADMASTERS"
Story by Masumi Kaneda | Art by Ban Magami

The second volume of TRANSFORMERS: THE MANGA delves into the Japanese-exclusive series, beginning with HEADMASTERS. The story opens up with Optimus Prime dead again, and Rodimus Prime back in charge of the Autobots, leading them from their new base on the planet Athenia. The HEADMASTERS cartoon remains the only one of the Japan-exclusive series that I've seen (though I bought all three, HEADMASTERS, MASTERFORCE, and VICTORY, when Shout! Factory realeased them on DVD in the United States a decade or so back). My recollection is that it was somehow simultaneously more juvenile and more mature than the original American cartoons. It had no qualms about killing characters off and serializing its story, two things the first series never did outside of the tie-in movie. But at the same time there was a lot of humor clearly aimed at small children, and some of the story premises felt extremely simplistic.

The manga, meanwhile, continues to be its own thing, advertising characters via huge chapter-length battles rather than telling stories of any great depth. This time around, we get the Autobot and Decepticon Headmasters, the Trainbots (a Japan-exclusve combiner team), Sixshot the Decepticon ninja, and so forth. Strangely, the translated manga has kept the Japanese names for some of these characters, which it had not done previously. I.e., in past stories, Optimus Prime was called by his original American name, rather than his Japanese appelation, Convoy. There was never any point in the early chapters where a Japanese name jumped out at me. But here for example, the Decepticons known in the U.S. as Mindwipe and Skullcruncher are referred to consistently by their Japanese names, Wipe and Skull. It's a little weird.

Here, the Autobot and Decepticon Headmasters introduce themselves via an extra-long first chapter on Planet Beast, a world which also featured in the HEADMASTERS cartoon. Beast is an oddity, featuring the Takara-owned "Battle Beasts" characters in a crossover with the Transformers. In the manga, the good and evil Battle Beasts are referred to as being Autobot and Decepticon beasts, which I don't think I recall being the case in the anime. But anyway -- the Decepticon beasts team up with Predaking and a huge fight ensues, with the Autobots coming out victorious. Oh, and the Headmasters meet a human kid named Kane, who was raised among the Autobot beasts and fights alongside them.

In subsequent chapters, the Headmasters battle it out in Alaska, the Trainbots' combined form of Raiden heads into the sea to beat up a bunch of Sharkticons (shown here to serve the Decepticons rather than the Quintessons as in the cartoon) and a giant robot squid which seems to be based on a smiliar beast from planet Quintessa in TRANSFOMERS: THE MOVIE, the Headmasters battle the Decepticon Headmaster Horrorcons and then save Christmas, and finally the Autobot and Decepticon Targetmasters (including Artfire and Ricochet, Japanese-excluse characters who were repaints of Inferno and Jazz, respectively) all appear.

In the HEADMASTERS anime, Sixshot was presented as a villain who eventually came around to the side of angels thanks to his bond and friendship with young Daniel Witwicky. His spotlight chapter here fleshes this out with an early meeting between Daniel and Sixshot, though it goes to -- in my opinion -- absurd lengths, as Sixshot pays a visit to a forest planet and sits down to relax and talk with the cute little animals, then saves them from a gang of hunters before leaving. Much later, in the final chapter, Sixshot reveals that he's done being a Transformer and wants to become a human (though it's unclear how he plans to accomplish this feat).

Personally, I find the idea of Sixshot changing sides to be absurd in its premise, and it's one thing I really didn't like about the HEADMASTERS cartoon. Though I will fully admit this is my own hang-up. For the most part, I don't like Autobots and Decepticons changing sides. Unless it's something baked into the mythos, such as Jetfire/Skyfire starting as a Decepticon but immediately realizing the error of his ways an joining the Autobots, it just doesn't sit right with me. I know that in the relatively recent IDW continuity, Megatron and Skywarp both spent time as Autobots, and that really, really rubs me the wrong way.

The characters still shout out move names on a regular basis ("Headmaster Grand Laser!", "Take this! Autobot tackle!", and my personal favorite from this go-round, "Surefire master strategy: Head Target Cannon!"), which remains incredibly weird. I get that it's a Japanese trope, but even within the context of these very Japanese manga stories, it just feels weird. This was simply not something Transformers did when I was kid. Like I said a couple weeks back, they didn't even yell anyting when they transformed in the G1 series. The closest thing that show had to any kind of catchphrase was "transform and roll out," which wasn't even said verbatim in a ton of episodes. I think, on the American side of things, it wasn't until BEAST WARS in the nineties that the idea of the good and evil robots all shouting something ("maximize" and "terrorize", respectively) when transforming became a thing over here. And I'm not sure it lasted beyond that series, other than in U.S.-dubbed Japanese shows. But in any case, it's not that I dislike the practice. I find it very amusing! It just feels wrong at the same time.

The Headmasters' saga comes to an end with our heroes having finally driven the Decepticons away from Earth, apparently once and for all. Rodimus Prime, who was written out of the anime about halfway through to search for a new homeworld for the Decepticons after Cybertron was destroyed, returns to Earth and bids the Headmasters accompany him back into space. The heroes have one last fight, this time with Soundblaster (the upgraded version of Soundwave as seen in the television series), then bid farewell to Daniel Spike, and Carly Witwicky, and depart.

I'll say this for the Headmasters saga here: it feels a bit more cohesive than the previous pre- and post-Movie material. I mean, like I said above, it remains a nonstop ad for the toys and very little more, but it's also less haphazard than the original run. It doesn't tell any sort of serialized story, but the choice of characters somehow feels more thought out in most chapters, and the plots are perhaps slightly more fleshed out than those that came before. I'm inclined to wonder if this is because the manga is now a tie-in to Japan-produced episodes, perhaps giving the creators better insight into the TV show's plans. But whatever the case, I think this stretch of chapters is my favorite so far.

Next week, the manga begins to tie in with series I've never watched before, beginning with HEADMASTERS' successor, SUPER-GOD MASTERFORCE. Will the fact that I haven't seen any episodes give me a different outlook on the manga chapters? Stay tuned to find out!