[Anime review] PSR #104 Transformers: Masterforce Episodes 1-10

As a way to pass a weekend of rest and couch potato relaxation,  I decided to watch as much Transformers Masterforce as I could find: the result is this review of episodes 1-10...

Masterforce is immediately recognisable as a classic super-robot anime saga in contradistinction to the American Transformers series. Most notably, none of the main characters beyond the Pretenders are actually Transformers from Cybertron - the vast majority of the cast are humans. This is possible thanks to the advent of Transtectors in the previous Headmasters saga: giant transformable bodies for the micro-sized inhabitants of planet Master to pilot.

Truth be told, Masterforce's use of the "masters" gimmick from the late 80s Transformers toy line is the most sensible; far more sensible that humans eventually binary bond with Transformers on Earth than that the saga suddenly require a new planet full of organic lifeforms to do so (Nebulon), but I digress. There's far more to Masterforce, beyond kids riding around in super robot Mecha, that lodges it firmly in the super robot anime genre.

When I think of super robot anime, I think of shows like Zambot-3 or Gurren Lagann. But I also think of super-robot anime's sibling - real robot anime - because what sets the two apart is the approach to the robots (scientific vs mystical), but not the general structure of the story (usually some variation of young children taking control of super robots).

This is why, while watching Masterforce, I could not help but think of Mobile Suite Gundam. Shuta is no where as emo as Amuro (let alone Shinji from Evangelon), but the framework is all there: the young and audacious son of the chief super-robot scientist ends up piloting one of the robots (albeit not the most powerful one). The extent to which Masterforce is more or less cohesive with the super-robot genre is debatable, but one thing is for sure: it is a major departure from the basic foundation of the American Transformers saga insofar as it pretty much obliterates the idea of sentient super robot life forms from another planet and replaces them with humans piloting super robots developed on a super robot planet.

Now in fairness, it does this in a very well thought out way - that is to say nothing is retconned. The war between the Transformers continues, they are out there, they are living sentient metal beings - but their war is fought in deep space. All that remains on Earth are the remnants of their technology and their short-lived conflict recently waged on the planet.

That said, it is a bit annoying that the Pretenders are shown as having crash landed on Earth when homo-sapiens were at their early developmental stages, mainly because the idea of every subsequent wave of new Transformers finding their way to Earth via coincidental crash landings every now and then is a bit tedious - but fine. I do like the reason as to why the Seibertron Pretenders adopted human forms - they were impressed by the human heart (compassion, love, imagination and all of the humanistic elements of the rational mind) while the Destrons were uninterested in any of this, preferring power above all else (and what greater power could there be than that of demon monsters?)

 That is actually one of the themes which is most intriguing in Masterforce: namely the belief on the part of the Destrons that technology is not the chief means towards power, but rather than technology is only a means through which the true power of the mystical realm is harnessed. Now, of course, one could argue that this is all mumbo-jumbo, and I suppose one must keep in mind that a great deal of the mystical or even magical elements in this show clash outright with what anyone reared on the American Transformers would come to expect, but here it helps to remember that Masterforce was produced in a culture with religious associations quite different from those one frequently encounters in the West as well as in accordance with a certain anime trope that, even in the case of real-robot anime, often skirts on the boundaries between science and mysticism

In any case, what got me interested in finally getting around to watching all of Masterforce is that I am planning on writing and creating a Masterforce II photo-comic using all of the fantastic Masterforce revival toys that we've gotten in the recent Titans, Legends and Power of the Primes series. Truth be told, watching Masterforce has dispelled in my mind this notion that it's "too bad" we don't get the Transtectors for Minerva, Cab and Shuta. Why? Because those bodies do not define the characters as much as their armour and the heads themselves. That is to say, I have gained a bigger appreciation for the Headmaster concept in the Japanese continuity as opposed to the American continuity and by far prefer the Japanese concept.

In the American Headmasters we find binary bonding between two separate lifeforms: the Transformer and the Headmaster (human or Nebulan). Ergo we have two separate characters cooperating. This is actually kind of tedious when I think about it - from the point of view of photo-comics. Why? Because one or the other character quickly comes to dominate, and it's usually the Transformer. We all know and remember Brainstorm or Highbrow's personality far more than those of their binary bond partners. In a Transformers universe which is usually full of super robots anyways, having two characters in one robot is just impractical, and one of them is always overshadowed by the there. This was especially true of the Marvel comics. By the time we got to Headmasters like Nightbeat, Hosehead and Siren, we weren't even seeing their binary bond partners, much less getting to know them. From a story perspective, it was a pointless gimmick. Not so in Masterforce.

True, we are told that some of the transactectors, namely the Godmasters, are "alive" and by the end of the series they do apparently fully regain their life, but for all intents and purposes it's more like they're non-sentient living metal, capable of self-repair, active, but not endowed with any kind of personality. For all intents and purposes, when Minvera head-ons with her transactector, the transtector is a giant robot piloted by the girl Minerva - and that's that.

It works much better in terms o the story. Some Transformers fans might feel otherwise, because it seems to take the story off of the Transformers, but here it helps to distinguish between Transformers and Seibertrons. Because in point of fact, Masterforce seems to show us that a Transformer is not a sentient super robot from planet Cybertron, but a living being who can shape-shift. Just as the Seibertron pretenders adopt the forms of humans for whom they develop an affinity, so the humans adopt the forms of the robots which they are in awe of.

To me, this is a very interesting dynamic with great plot potential. We see it most clearly in the dialogue between Buster, Hydra and Diver in Episode 10 when Diver is protecting the wounded Ginrai. Diver speaks about the virtues of humans, but Buster and Hydra remind him that he is just a robot, while they - the Destron Godmasters - are in fact humans, and "humans are different!"

It seems the Seibertrons are learning a harsh lesson (one which the Autobot leader, Optimus Prime, learns the hard way in my photo comics): that humans are not all innocent. Or to put in terms more familiar to American Transformers fans: remember that part in Return of Optimus Prime when Hate-plague Rodimus fights Optimus? Optimus Prime calls out "innocent lives are at stake!" to which Rodimus replies "no one is innocent!"

This is a very interesting dynamic because it flouts the over-simplified "defend the humans" trope that defines the good guys of a show as good (since not all humans are worth defending!). The fact that the Destrons fail in their plan to use zombie corpses to become an army, but succeed in recruiting living breathing humans who thirst for power and conquest is another testimony to this harsh truth.

 That said, Masterforce so far (episodes 1-10) does not rise to the level of some of the best super robot anime like Evangelon or Gurren Lagann mainly on account of the animation, which is often rushed. The battles, while certainly more violent and graphic than anything permitted in the American Transformers show, still can't seem to decide whether they are aiming for realism or magic. It's almost as if Masterforce is trying to be a little bit of everything. The Seibertrons and Destrons fight like something out of a Sailor Moon episode, with everyone often calling out magical attacks (this especially goes for the Godmasters), there are a lot of martial arts (American Transformers had practically none of this) and the pace is a bit uneven at times.

The plot, as is often the case in Transformers shows, is largely dictated by the need to successively introduce the subsequent characters in the toy line. Despite this, there is promise here. Aside from the mystery that hangs over the entire saga, the interaction between the characters does become more interesting after the Godmasters appear. This is largely due to the fact that we are dealing not, as was the case in the beginning when the Headmaster Juniors confronted the Destron Pretenders, with good humans helping defend their planet against evil robots from out-space, but with something far more complex: two human factions - one using the power of the Destrons to fulfil the age old dream of human pride (to become a god) and the other joining with the Seibertrons who admire humanity for all of its' finer qualities. This is an interesting story, even though it is very far from the usual in a Transformers tale. Perhaps that in itself makes it all the more interesting.