Seibertron wrote:Sabrblade wrote:Seibertron wrote:Yukio
The brain has no personal name. It's just "Brain of Courage" (
Yūki no Brain).
I'll continue to call the Brainmaster "Brain of Courage" master figures as "Yūki", "Riki", "Chie" and "Waza" despite what TFwiki says (which may be correct). Those words associated with those figures came from somewhere. Those figures have been known as those names for quite some time and it wouldn't be the first time that fan made words made the official leap such as "Generation 1", "Seekers" and other words or names.
TFwiki wrote:For years, Transformers fans have referred (and continue to refer) to the Brainmaster components of Star Saber, Blacker, Braver and Laster as "Yūki", "Riki", "Chie" and "Waza", as if they were proper names. These are, in fact, simply the Japanese words meaning "courage", "strength", "intelligence" and "skill"; the Brains do not have proper names, and are simply known as "Brain of Courage", etc.
It also wouldn't be the first time misconceptions became widespread enough to mislead most of the fandom for many years until reality came knocking at the door. Remember the era when people thought the characters of the Beast Wars II and Beast Wars Neo cartoons all hailed from the same home time as the American Beast Wars characters? Or when the Micromasters D-Go and San D-Go were believed to be named "Diego" and "San Diego", respectively (though, the reference is there as a pun)? Or the ever lovingly "Hyper Goldfish Golfball!" phrase from the Fire Convoy toy (which was really "Cybertron Senshi, TRANSFORM!").
"Yūki" is literally the Japanese word for "Courage", "Bravery", "Fearlessness", etc. Same with the other three meaning those other words (though, it's "Chikara" rather than "Riki"). "Waza" was even used again in recent years in Transformers: Go! to refer to GoKenzan as the "Waza no Sanjou Gattai", meaning he's the "Triple Combination of Skill". Fans attributing these descriptors to the Brainmasters as personal names for them was likely another product of the early online fandom of the 90s' lack of full understanding of the Japanese Transformers series. And that is reasonably understandable since both the fandom and its awareness of the Japanese TF series' existence was still very new at the time, and the shows themselves wouldn't be fully experienced until the fansubs of them from TV-Nihon and the official subbed DVD sets of them from the UK and Australia came about in the 2000s.
As for the brains themselves, the Victory cartoon itself would address the terms "Yūki", "Chikara", "Chie" and "Waza" in regards to the brains in its third episode:
Joyce: "Hey, are the Cybertrons powerful?"
Jean: "Of course! All the Cybertrons are powerful, but the Brainmasters are really powerful!"
Joyce: "Brainmasters?"
Jean: "Yeah! There's only four beings in the whole universe who have the Brain Power (Burein Kinō)!"
Students: "Wow!"
Teacher: "Jean-kun! Be quiet and pay attention!"
Jean: "Yes sir!"
Joyce: "What's Brain Power?"
Jean: "I'm glad you asked! Brain Power is... Courage (Yūki)! Strength (Chikara)! Intelligence (Chie)! Skill (Waza)! It's an awesome mecha that gives one's abilities a power-up! When someone has the Brain Power, they become one of the most powerful warriors in the universe! Well, that's what I heard from Holi, anyway."
Jean's hyperbolic excitement aside, it's evident that he's speaking of the Brains as a power (manifested into physical robotic forms) belonging to each of the larger Autobots, rather than as individual persons in their own right.
Not to mention that "Yūki" (勇気), "Chikara" (カ), "Chie" (知恵), and "Waza" (技) are all written in Kanji instead of Kana like the "no Burein" (のブレイン) part is, what with their being native Japanese words rather than a foreign word like "Brain":
- "Yūki no Burein" = 勇気のブレイン = "Brain of Courage"
- "Chikara no Burein" = 力のブレイン = "Brain of Strength" (well, "Chikara" more closely means "Power", but its context in the show pegs "Strength" as the more accurate translation)
- "Chie no Burein" = 知恵のブレイン = "Brain of Intelligence"
- "Waza no Burein" = 技のブレイン = "Brain of Skill"
FWIW, the Kanji for "Brain" in Japanese is 脳 ("Nō"), not to be confused with the Hiragana character of の ("No") that is a possessive like the English word "of".
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We only wanted to know because you didn't explain at the time, or at least that's why I wanted to know.
