Transformers: Victory

As a long time fan of Transformers, I have of course bought the Japanese sets. Headmasters was good, Masterforce was excellent, and Victory is just... BORING. Seriously. I have managed to view only two of the four discs so far, just because I can't stay awake.

Yes you have read it correctly. After G1, Headmasters, Masterforce, Beast Wars, Beast Machines and RiD, this was the very first series that seriously managed to put me asleep. Not because I was tired - I fell asleep no later than after a mere 2 episodes each time I tried.

I know that the last three episodes are supposed to be just as good as the rest is bad, but the problem is, I still have to watch the remaining 10+ episodes before I get to it. Not something I think I can manage.

I remember watching this show in my childhood days, me and my cousin used to watch it all the time and sometimes we recorded episodes we loved the most while watching them over and over.

My favorite Autobots were Star Saber, God Jinrai (God Bomber) and Victory Leo. But the best part was when they combined and turned into Victory Saber like in Transformers: RiD when Optimus and Ultra Magnus became Omega Prime like the Destrons Leozack, Hellbat, and others became Liokaiser or Liocaesar.

I give Transformers: Victory a 10/10

For this viewer, Victory is the only series in the franchise that is on the same level as Armada as a particular low-point and being close to being worse. Energon and Cybertron were no great shakes either but were a little better, and Beast Machines and Robots in Disguise were only mixed bags. The original Transformers series and Beast Wars were outstanding and Prime and Animated(as well as Headmasters and Masterforce from memory) were very good, Rescue Bots is unconventional but I'd take that over this and the Unicron Trilogy-Armada, Energon and Cybertron- any day. The animation is decent, more fluid than that of Robots in Disguise and the Unicron Trilogy and the characters especially Deszaras are decently designed, Leozack is interesting and quite dangerous and devious and the Dinoforce have moments where they are funny and easy to sympathise with. The music is inconsistent though, at times it is fitting but quite a lot of the time it's repetitive. The writing consists of stilted dramatic moments and ill-paced humorous/slapstick ones. The stories suffer from a lot of unoriginality, being blandly predictable, having a significantly lacking sense of drama, and feeling like the same thing over and over with a sprinkle of good ideas that were lot in the banality. The final couple of episodes were quite good but that was nowhere near enough. The characters are poorly written and there is little that Victory does to help us root properly for them. The Dinoforce have their moments, but the Autobots have no personality and can be annoying and while the Decepticons are a little more interesting they could have been more threatening, Deszaras had potential but came across as a pale imitation of Megatron. The action is the most exciting Victory gets story-wise but even that's not exceptional or well-done, the animation could have been smoother and the thrills and energy are seldom there. The voice acting is at its best okay and sloppy at worst, too often falling into the latter end. Overall, really lacking and a low point in an overall decent(excellent when at its best) franchise. 3/10 Bethany Cox

By far the best of the japeneese transformers show with a killer theme song

RobtimusPrime and Taketsuo pretty much hit the nail on the head when it comes to this series. I'd add that just about all of the Autobot characters are interchangeable with literally no personality at all. The G1 Hasbro series was bad but at least it distinguished its characters with different ways of speaking and Victory doesn't even bother to do that.

Victory is also the only series where I truly felt bad for the bad guys. If you really want to see a Japanese G1 Transformers series, I'd recommend Masterforce. I'm sorry for all the people out there that like Victory but it truly is a terrible show and the worst Transformers series I've ever seen and that list unfortunately includes Transformers: Energon.