TRANSFORMERS: THE MANGA VOL. 3

"VICTORY" | "ZONE"
"THE BATTLE STARS" | "OPERATION COMBINATION"
Story by Masumi Kaneda | Art by Ban Magami

Now we get to TRANSFORMERS: VICTORY, which represents the largest schism between the American and Japanese Transformers continuities. You'll recall that HEADMASTERS, the first of the Japan-exclusive series, was a direct continuation of the three seasons of the original TRANSFORMERS cartoon. It featured characters from the third season alongside new charaacters, and aside from the Trainbots, there were really no characters unique to Japan in that series.

Then came SUPER-GOD MASTERFORCE, which, while ostensibly still a sequel to the prior series, seemed to move so far past and away from what the Transformers had previosly been, that it felt like a brand-new thing (notwithstanding occasional references to Optimus Prime and manga-exclusve appearances by a few characters from prior series). The MASTERFORCE roster was comprised of many characters who were released in the United States (albeit with different names), along with a number of Japan-exclusive characrers, like Godbomber and Overlord.

Now it's on to VICTORY, a series whose cast seems to be composed entirely of characters/toys who were never released in the United States! In 1989, when VICTORY was broadcast in Japan, the American Transformers line was still producing Pretenders and was introducing Micromasters. But it appears the Japanese line was more focused on new combiner teams (Brainmasters, Breastforce, and Dinoforce), along with a few larger-scale figures: the new Autobot leader, Starsaber, and the new Decepticon emperor, Deszaras. (Note: I'm more familiar with these names parsed/translated as "Star Saber" and "Deathsaurus", but I will abide by Viz's versions for the remainder of this post.)

The story is again, as with MASTERFORCE, focused largely on children involved in the Transformers' war. This time our human protagonist is a boy named Jan, who was raised by Starsaber. Jan attends school with a Decepticon-aligned transfer student named Salon, the ward of Deszaras. Indeed, Deszaras here seems to have a very similar motivation to the Decepticons in MASTERFORCE -- he wants to adopt a bunch of human children and train them as Decepticons. It's... weird, and I'm unsure why the Japanese Transformers creators seemed so fixated on this idea. The story further reveals later on that Starsaber and Deszaras were children together (like, literally child-robots) before they grew up and became enemies. Then we learn that Deszaras has a wife, and she talks him into becoming friends with the Autobots to end the story.

Anyway -- I can't say this manga storyline does much for me. Due to the circumstances outlined above, I have very little investment in it. We're dealng with a bunch of characers I don't know, not even visually. At least with MASTERFORCE, I knew Ginrai on a physical level as Powermaster Optimus Prime, for example. That's not the case here with any of the characters. And when the only link back to prior sagas comes in a few cameo appearances by two of the kids from MASTERFORCE, Carb and Shuta, that doesn't exactly reinvigorate my interest. Beyond that, this thing is so far from what I would consider to be a Transformers story that I would not be able to speak to it without "going negative", and I'm not in the mood to do so.

So rather than dwell much upon VICTORY, I'd like to move along to the handful of shorter follow-up series, and therefore finish my look at TRANSFORMERS: THE MANGA volume 3 in one single post. First up is ZONE, which I understand to have been a direct-to-video production released in Japan after VICTORY had ended. ZONE features a new Decepticon leader, Violenjiger, who recruits nine "demon generals" to ransack the universe for him. The generals are none other than several large Decepticon warriors from throughout the G1 continuity: Devastator, Bruticus, Menasor, Predaking, Abominus, and King Poseidon (all combiners), plus Trypticon, Black Zarak, and Overlord. The generals are opposed by Starsaber (now called Victorysaber), the Autobot Micromasters, and a few other Japan-exclusive characters.

ZONE is a one-shot manga story, and as with most of these affairs, it's nonstop action with a bunch of random human kids involved for some reason. As with VICTORY, it doesn't really do much for me, though it's nice to see a bunch of classic Decepticons back in action, even if they're all wearing billowing cloaks for some reason. Weirdly, the manga is produced to be read Western-style, left-to-right, rather than the usual right-to-left. There's no explanation as to why this is in the TRANSFORMERS: THE MANGA collected edition.

Following ZONE is the final Japanese G1 manga, another one-shot, titled THE BATTLE STARS. And as with all iterations of the Transformers (though it always takes a bit longer in Japan than in the U.S.), this story sees things come full circle: Optimus Prime and Megatron are back to close out the original continuity in Japan. Only, we're kind of missing some details here as to how they returned! It seems BATTLE STARS was a serialized text story in TV Magazine, with only one single manga tie-in chapter produced. There is no translation of the text saga in TRANSFORMERS: THE MANGA vol. 3, so what we get of BATTLE STARS here is basically a non sequitur featuring Prime and Megatron -- now known as Star Convoy and Super Megatron, respectively -- both back in action. And when Prime and Megatron go at it, their battleground can only be planet Earth.

So in a way, this tale serves as a fitting capstone to the G1 continuity, bringing back the Autobots' and Decepticons' original leaders and returning them to Earth for one last big battle. It's unfortunate that we only get a fraction of the story here, especially considering that -- again -- it's just wall-to-wall fighting in the manga tie-in, but nonetheless it's nice to see the Transformers go out as they came in.

(Though why Viz calls Optimus "Star Convoy" here after previously using his American name, Optimus Prime, in the first volume, is a little confusing. You'd think they'd call him something like "Star Prime" instead.)