Masterforce is a Sentai Show?!

[Deathy G1]

After picking up Legacy Evolution Metalhawk yesterday I went down the rabbit hole and binged the Super God Masterforce series for the first time (I've seen Headmasters and Victory several times before, but Masterforce never really interested me).

The Autobot pretenders all appear to be normal humans that strike a dynamic pose and then morph into their power armors and then further power up into their large robot forms. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

The Headmaster Juniors and Godmasters follow a similar battle sequence.

Masterforce doesn’t seem like it wants to even be a Transformers series, but instead an animated Sentai series. Am I missing something? Was adapting Sentai concepts into Transformers intentional in an attempt to save a dying franchise?

 

[Shadewing]

I'm not sure how intentional it is; but I'll admit the sentai-ness of the series is one of the reasons I like it; it's something very different then what we usually get. We even follow a very 'MOTW' structure for the series, until the masters enter the picture. We also got the first instance of drone soilders, before Vehicons, giving the bad guys their own disposable mooks. I feel like Pretenders and 'Masters were the perfect set of toys to attempt this with, and the MF take on pretenders makes MUCH more sense to me then American/Marvel take of 'giant humans'.

 

[ZacWilliam1]

Masterforce is easily my favorite of the Japanese TF shows. It just has better pacing, better writing, and better characterization than any of the others.

The first time I watched an episode or 2 years ago I came away thinking: "This feels to me like the 80s Transformers Cartoon and the G.I. Joe cartoon had a baby." I have no idea if that estimation holds up, but I can definitely see the Sentai influence too.

Just took this pic this morning after getting Metalhawk this weekend:

Mostly he's made me really want large robots of the other Autobot Pretenders to match.

I think you might be able to get a passable Landmine from Tarn with a new head (yes I know we're already getting Bludgeon but I want the Autobot Pretenders to get more love.)

-ZacWilliam, Diver/Waverider is my favorite Pretender and he's gotten nothing yet...

 

[Deathy G1]

I want the Autobot Pretenders to get more love.

I actually think the best way to show the Autobot Pretenders some love is to have HasLab do a set, shells and all. As we have seen from Iguanus and Bomb Burst, Core class inner robots would have no trouble replicating the alt modes, and it's a given that the robot modes wouldn't be an issue either. 3 core class toys plus Pretender shells seems like a good HasLab-level project.

Edit: Also as a funding goal bonus, figurines of them in full human form without armor seems appropriate.

 

[Sabrblade]

I actually once proposed years ago the idea of adapting Masterforce into a live action tokusatsu series. I think it would work very well.

 

[ZakuConvoy]

Yeah, I think it's fair to say Transformers was trying to ride Sentai's wave of popularity a little.

Masterforce came out in 1988-1989.

Years before that, Sentai had been experiencing a little bit of a "golden age" under Hirohisa Soda. Dynaman (1983), Bioman (1984), Changeman (1985), Flashman (1986), Maskman (1987), and Liveman (1988) were all fairly popular, well-received, and well-remembered shows from the time, as far as I know. The characters were slightly more complex and the plots slightly darker than previous shows.

On the other hand, though, there's Kamen Rider. Kamen Rider had been shelved for YEARS before Kamen Rider Black came out in 1987, which while being a VERY good season, didn't really manage to resurrect the franchise for long. The last show before that was Kamen Rider Super-1 in 1980. There was a one-hour anniversary TV special introducing a new Kamen Rider ZX (Birth of the 10th! Kamen Rider All Together! from 1984) but...nothing really came of it.

Ultraman was also in a bit of a dark age, too. The last show had been Ultraman 80 in 1980. Ultraman WOULD get a few compilation movies in 1984. And the American co-produced cartoon in 1987.

And this was around the same time as the rise of Metal Heroes, another Toku show from Toei. You might be familiar with them from VR Troopers and Big Bad Beetleborgs. The first was Gavan in 1982. Mind you, by the time Masterforce would come out in 1988, Metal Heroes was in a bit of a slump. 1987's Metalder got cancelled halfway through it's run (it's still worth checking out, though). Metal Heroes would bounce back with 1988's Jiraiya, which was a fairly popular season, at least until the mid 90s.

It's possible Hasbro Takara smelt blood in the water and wanted to move to take Kamen Rider, Ultraman, and Metal Heroes' place in the toy market. Or maybe they were just fans of those type of shows. Maybe there was just something in the water at the time. ALL the old Toku franchises seemed to try and make a comeback around 1987, for whatever reason. Maybe Hasbro Takara was just trying to ride the Toku hype train. My guess is the hype about Kamen Rider returning got other companies to fast-track their OWN Toku shows, to ride Kamen Rider Black's possible popularity.

(Godzilla also made a return in 1984, after the Terror of MechaGodzilla came out in 1975, almost 10 years before. The next movie, Godzilla vs Biollante, wouldn't come out until 1989, but was probably being talked about and hyped up at least a year before that. Not exactly the same genre, but there was definitely some desire to bring back "special effects" shows and movies in the 80s).

And there are probably TONS of smaller Toku shows from the 80s that I'm not even aware of or that I'm forgetting that were fairly popular at the time. Toku is a popular genre in Japan.

 

[Sabrblade]

And this was around the same time as the rise of Metal Heroes, another Toku show from Toei. You might be familiar with them from VR Troopers and Big Bad Beetleborgs. The first was Gavan in 1982.

Gavan was also adapted into Power Rangers Beast Morphers as the intergalactic police officer Captain Chaku.

Metal Heroes would bounce back with 1988's Jiraiya, which was a fairly popular season, at least until the mid 90s.

Jiraiya was also adapted into Power Rangers Ninja Steel as Space Sheriff Skyfire.

Both of which were possible thanks to Go-Busters and Ninninger having had crossovers with those two Metal Heroes.

It's possible Hasbro smelt blood in the water and wanted to move to take Kamen Rider, Ultraman, and Metal Heroes' place in the toy market. Or maybe they were just fans of those type of shows. Maybe there was just something in the water at the time. ALL the old Toku franchises seemed to try and make a comeback around 1987, for whatever reason. Maybe Hasbro was just trying to ride the Toku hype train.

You mean Takara, right? Hasbro had nothing to do with Masterforce, and probably didn't even know it existed at the time.

 

[Andrusi]

Masterforce has always seemed to me like both obviously a Sentai imitation and a completely logical extension of how Takara interpreted the Headmaster gimmick.

 

[ZakuConvoy]

You mean Takara, right? Hasbro had nothing to do with Masterforce, and probably didn't even know it existed at the time.

...Yes, brain-fart on my part on that.



It's probably also worth mentioning some of the Super Robot anime of Japan. They ALSO have often-brightly colored people piloting giant robots. Super Robot anime tends to have a lot of overlap with Toku shows.

Now, originally, live-action Toku shows took inspiration from anime, like Gatchaman/Battle of the Planets and Mazinger Z and Getter Robo in the 70s, since they all predate the first Toku piloted giant robot (from Toei's Spider-Man in 1978 believe it or not), but ideas from Toku eventually made it's way back into anime. (Although, stuff like Astro Boy, Gigantor/Tetsujin 28, and Space Giants/Ambassador Magma predate ALL of them, but those are slightly different since those robots are not being piloted from the inside).

Probably the most notable of these is GoLion in 1981, which would become Voltron in the west. There are others, like God Sigma, and Daltanious, and Voltes V. But, most of these shows died out around the early 80s. Most of the 80s were really ruled by "Real Robot" anime like Gundam. It's possible there was some nostalgia for these type of shows by 1988. It's notable that Gunbuster came out in 1988, as did Mashin Hero Wataru, which was big in Japan. So along with the return of Toku shows, Super Robot shows would eventually make a return a little later.

I also wanted to mention the Eldran (Raijin-Oh, Ganbaruger, and Gosaurer) and Brave series (Exkaiser, FighBird, DaGarn, Might Gaine, J-Decker, Goldran, Dagwon, and GaoGaiGar)...but both of those started in the 90s, so they're not really relevant. Still, they're fun to know about. And maybe Takara and Tomy looked at what worked in Masterforce and built upon it in these two franchises. (Back in 1988 and into the 90s, Takara and Tomy were still two separate competitors. Takara had the Brave series, and Tomy had the Eldran series. Think of it like Square and Enix back in the 90s, competitors that eventually merged)

...I don't know if there's much point in bringing this up, I just wanted to talk about old Japanese Super Robots a little. But, it's just good to keep in mind that ALL of this stuff tends to influence each other, a little bit.

 

[Sabrblade]

Victory is generally considered to be like a precursor to the Brave Series.

 

[Robogeek1973]

Masterforce is my least favorite series by far.

Seriously...I absolutely hated the show.

 

[Princess Viola]

Masterforce is my least favorite series by far.

Seriously...I absolutely hated the show.

It's OK to be wrong.

/s

 

[MrBlud]

Masterforce is the only Japanese G1 series that’s legitimately watchable.

Headmasters is an absolute slog and you only really get through it because like half of it uses the 2010 characters.

Victory took forever for me to finish because the beginning was so dull. It improves in the second half but it’s still not great.

Masterforce was amazing. It had prettt much everything and unquestionably the best use of Pretender tech.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

I watched Masterforce after the Unicron Trilogy ended. I expected to hate it, because a human dominated series was the last thing I wanted at that moment.

I loved it. It turns out that all you need to do to make the humans watchable is to write them well. I liked them.

 

[Shadewing]

Masterforce being very human centric makes a lot of sense considering the toys they had to work with. Pretenders, Headmasters, Powermasters... sure they could keep doing the "Masters" like in Headmasters; but regardless it was still gonna end up a very non-tradational series, because you have a lot of non-tradtional transformers to work with. I think its also why we don't see Targetmasters in the series, because I don't think they could make the sentai-esque concept work with humans becoming weapons, rather then heads or engines which are more interictal parts of the robot.

 

[Princess Viola]

The only thing that I really dislike (OK 'dislike' is too strong a word, perhaps 'don't understand') about Masterforce is how the setting feels like it was meant to just be the late 1980s instead of the then-future of the 21st century like Headmasters and season 3 of the original cartoon were. Really sticks out and is noticeable when you watch the three Japanese G1 series.

Honestly that + how fairly disconnected the series is from the previous ones does sometimes make me wonder if they were planning on having it be its own continuity early on or something.

 

[Sabrblade]

Masterforce is set in the far-flung distant future of 2020.

 

[Undead Scottsman]

The time between when the '86 movie came out and when it was set is around 19 years.

The time between when it was set and now is around 18 years.

Tick tock.

 

[Lobjob]

I don't like it.

 

[The Mighty Mollusk]

The time between when the '86 movie came out and when it was set is around 19 years.

The time between when it was set and now is around 18 years.

Tick tock.

That's not a clock, that's my knees.