Or just call all the characters by their English names and call the whole thing an alternative reality.
Masterpiece Thread
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Magmatron was just an import of something Takara had already done. Something that Hasbro had nothing to do with.
Being a total outsider to these shows and their fandom, I think the response Sabr got for calling out the fantastically off subtitling is not so much because of the perceived quality or importance or lack thereof of the shows themselves.
It might just be a kneejerk reaction to the nicheness of the complaint? (1) Accurate naming and such in (2) the subtitles of (3) a Japanese series (4) from a while back are a very specific thing, nested a fair few Matryoshka doll layers deep. I'm not saying this means it doesn't ACTUALLY matter, I'm saying this might be what those responses were reacting to. Like the thinking might have been, big picture: we got the series officially released on DVD, which at the time seemed like a distant goal. "Why quibble about the 'smaller stuff' (which seems even more niche than being annoyed by, say, Slag being changed to Slug, or Jazz's car number being changed to 14)", that sort of thing.
And while I don't have the same degree of apathy, I can get why some would be more annoyed by complaints about the thing (which given the above nicheness concern can come off as more nitpicky than intended and thus easier to dismiss or even deride) than the actual thing.
But by the same token, I can definitely understand the hostile reaction to someone going into that niche to deliberately "get it wrong" because of a competing motivation (in this case, seemingly to push a uniform use of branding and terms and concepts). Although I'm far less invested in maintaining any continuity hoopla and more irked by the editorializing. It's a hair less annoying than the sweeping conceptual changes Ben Yee implemented in the BW Sourcebooks, but in that range.
It might just be a kneejerk reaction to the nicheness of the complaint? (1) Accurate naming and such in (2) the subtitles of (3) a Japanese series (4) from a while back are a very specific thing, nested a fair few Matryoshka doll layers deep. I'm not saying this means it doesn't ACTUALLY matter, I'm saying this might be what those responses were reacting to. Like the thinking might have been, big picture: we got the series officially released on DVD, which at the time seemed like a distant goal. "Why quibble about the 'smaller stuff' (which seems even more niche than being annoyed by, say, Slag being changed to Slug, or Jazz's car number being changed to 14)", that sort of thing.
And while I don't have the same degree of apathy, I can get why some would be more annoyed by complaints about the thing (which given the above nicheness concern can come off as more nitpicky than intended and thus easier to dismiss or even deride) than the actual thing.
But by the same token, I can definitely understand the hostile reaction to someone going into that niche to deliberately "get it wrong" because of a competing motivation (in this case, seemingly to push a uniform use of branding and terms and concepts). Although I'm far less invested in maintaining any continuity hoopla and more irked by the editorializing. It's a hair less annoying than the sweeping conceptual changes Ben Yee implemented in the BW Sourcebooks, but in that range.
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I think the changes they made would have made more sense if they had changed things specifically to fit with the Western G1 show. Like... Headmasters is supposed to be the follow up to G1 season three. If they took some liberties to bring it more in line with Sunbow's stuff... ok that's annoying but also it's understandable. The people who would be buying this set would probably be people with the Sunbow seasons on DVD so trying to make it all line up would be understandable, if not wildly off the mark re: the trends in localization.
but instead they made a bunch of random changes to try and tie this stuff into series that it had no connection to. Deployers? Phase Sixers? JG1 has no direct connection to Aligned or IDW G1. And those terms and ideas never appeared in Sunbow G1 these shows are supposed to be connected to. So why all of a sudden are Aligned and IDW ideas being forced into a JG1 localization?
It's the sort of tampering purists will instinctively reject without the benefit of making the overall continuity tighter. Like... at this point just re-record War Dawn to force in references to Functionism and Orion and Megs being lifelong friends if you're going to go that far.
but instead they made a bunch of random changes to try and tie this stuff into series that it had no connection to. Deployers? Phase Sixers? JG1 has no direct connection to Aligned or IDW G1. And those terms and ideas never appeared in Sunbow G1 these shows are supposed to be connected to. So why all of a sudden are Aligned and IDW ideas being forced into a JG1 localization?
It's the sort of tampering purists will instinctively reject without the benefit of making the overall continuity tighter. Like... at this point just re-record War Dawn to force in references to Functionism and Orion and Megs being lifelong friends if you're going to go that far.
I think it depends on how one qualifies it. Magmatron was a Japanese only character Hasbro released in 2000. Even if they did just import him... I donno... it feels like splitting hairs to say he doesn't count.
If you wanna say this is the first time Hasbro, in the Classics/Universe/Generations run re-did a Japanese character as a new toy, well Black Shadow/Sky Shadow got a repaint from that Deluxe Thunderwing mould in Universe 2.0 back in 2011.
Titans Return gave us both Sky Shadow/Black Shadow and Metalhawk in 2017, with Sky Shadow/Black Shadow's toy being the first use of the mould. And Metalhawk got an original mould toy in 2018's PotP, even if it was just a tiny Prime Master shell.
I think that in order for Star Sabre to really be "the first time Hasbro's done a Japanese exclusive character" you need to jump through a lot of hoops. First by qualifying "originally designed mould" which the initial claim IIRC didn't do, and then somehow discount 2017's Sky Shadow/Black Shadow and 2018's Metalhawk.
Meanwhile, in the Masterforce subs, every instance talking about the different kinds of Chokon Power was changed to instead talk about Energon, with all three powers changed to "Earth Energon" for Chichokon, "Star Energon" for Tenchokon, and "Spark Energon" for Jinchokon, removing all of the original mysticism behind the three Chokon Powers since now they're just Energon. Because humans totally have "Spark Energon" running through their flesh and blood bodies.
TBF, I feel trying to find a better name/term for those powers for an American audience isn't the worst idea, but making them Energon certainly is.
I feel like calling BM Magmatron a direct import is a little bit disingenuous, since he was given his own new American packaging and everything to make him feel part of the BM line proper. Prior to his release, Hasbro had done direct imports of some of the Japanese Beast Wars toys, and they literally were direct imports in their original Japanese packaging and everything, just with some Hasbro legal labeling applied to the boxes. Magmatron, by comparison, had more effort in his release than simply slapping a sticker on his Japanese box and calling it a day. And the toy was released well after production of the Japanese figure had long since ended, so it wasn't like it was leftover Japanese stock either.
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Part of me does wish he'd gotten more extensive redecoing like most of the BM-era Dinobots did. But it was also a cool move to release him mostly as is.
A Universe 1.0 version would have been interesting.
The other argument I would make along these lines is this: the name and concept changes would have been slightly more understandable if the series had been dubbed. Yeah, some of the concepts were born well after G1 and JG1, but dubbing the show would have necessarily meant changing things to fit anyway. Dubbed shows are, by their nature, something of a paraphase.
Subtitles, imo, imply a certain level of accuracy. My expectation of a subtitled show is that the subs provide as accurate a translation of the dialog as possible. Was I happy to get the JG1 shows at all? Sure, of course, but the license taken with the subtitles was no less annoying in spite of that.
While a pretty egregious example of Later Western Lore From A Different TF Storyline overriding the original Japanese writing (which is cool and Japanese, or so we said in the Before Times), I feel this overlooks the best descriptor Sixshot ever had....
...I refer, of course, to "Ninja Consultant".
Even a dub most likely wouldn't have had the Aligned and IDW crap shoved in there.
That's what gets me. If you're going to get it wrong, at least get it authentically wrong. Give us the localization we would have gotten if Hasbro had imported the shows back in the day. It would take some guesswork, but that's what would make it interesting. Instead, the subs we got are just nonsense. They don't present the shows accurately as sequels to Takara's G1, or inaccurately but faithfully as lost later seasons of Hasbro's G1. They don't fit anywhere.
That's what gets me. If you're going to get it wrong, at least get it authentically wrong. Give us the localization we would have gotten if Hasbro had imported the shows back in the day. It would take some guesswork, but that's what would make it interesting. Instead, the subs we got are just nonsense. They don't present the shows accurately as sequels to Takara's G1, or inaccurately but faithfully as lost later seasons of Hasbro's G1. They don't fit anywhere.
Yup. Many many moons ago, while they were the current series over there, I picked up BWII LioConvoy and Galvatron from my local comic shop and the only localization was a Hasbro sticker over part of the box. I assume that the guy running the store ordered them from hasbrocollector.com, back when that was a thing, but I didn't ask.
I don't understand that mentality. If you don't point out something's flaws, that means you don't care enough about it to want it to be better.
Complaining about bad translations, and calling for better translations, was a core part of anime and video game fandoms for...basically the entire time that anime dubs and video game translations were commonly bad.
Dragon Ball Z, Sailor Moon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Digimon, Shaman King, Card Captor Sakura, Tokyo Mew Mew, and Escaflowne all had entire sites specifically about covering the changes made by their TV dubs...and the only reason Pokemon didn't was because one of the larger general-purpose sites already covered it.
Every single show that aired on Toonami and wasn't unedited had message board threads listing the edits as the episodes aired.
Even more recently, mistranslations or odd changes have been able to become infamous.
Also, the fact that more accurate subtitles already existed for the UK and Australia releases means that Hasbro actively put in effort into making it worse than if they'd been lazier about it.
And that's less defensible to me than even the most incompetent honest mistake.
(Edited to no longer misblame anyone.)
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Shout received their subtitle scripts from Hasbro, who has used the Metrodome scripts as a base before changing them (and since Hasbro was the middleman here, that's why I suspect Alvarez was involved in the scripts being rewritten).
The truly sad thing is, the Metrodome subs had some flaws of their own, particularly in their subs for The Headmasters. A few recurring spelling errors, some mistranslated lines due to a lack of familiarity with the lore on part of the translators (Metrodome had outsourced their translation of The Headmasters to a company that wasn't Transformers adept and misunderstood a few things), and some technical glitches ranging from small and mildly annoying to as notable as the entire subtitle script for one episode playing in a completely different episode right alongside the subs for that episode too (making both scripts fighting each other for time to appear onscreen). And what's truly sad about all of this is that the Shout DVD subtitles actually went and fixed most (but not all) of these errors from the Metrodome set. So, Hasbro not only improved upon some of the issues with the Metrodome set, but also went and made a whole new set of issues with the Shout set on purpose!
...yes, that's what I was saying. Some people didn't care enough about it.
Or some people didn't care enough about that specific flaw.
Or some people cared about that flaw, but weren't bothered enough by it to discuss it.
Or some people cared about that flaw, but didn't see the point of raising a hue and cry on a message board.
All of which are as valid a response to it as caring about it to any degree. If entirely unproductive by comparison.
Not caring is valid. Presenting reasons for not caring can be very valid.
But the "Wow, why do people care? How embarrassing it is that people ever care. Look at ME not caring. Can't you see me not caring? PLEASE WITNESS ME NOT CARING!" brigade is far more insufferable than any complainer I have ever encountered, and I am glad they hang out somewhere else.
But the "Wow, why do people care? How embarrassing it is that people ever care. Look at ME not caring. Can't you see me not caring? PLEASE WITNESS ME NOT CARING!" brigade is far more insufferable than any complainer I have ever encountered, and I am glad they hang out somewhere else.
I also disagree with the claim that adding entire new concepts like "Phase six" or "the Allspark" into Japanese G1 is somehow a smaller change than merely changing Slag's name (which never has and probably never will be retroactively applied to newer releases of older media anyway).