The Energon Pub

Hi, just need a little guidance into getting the masterforce (and victory too i guess) series on DVD.

I see 4 options available:

Madman for Australia
Shout Factory for the US
Metrodome for the UK
And lastly geneon universal Entertainment for Japan.

I have tried researching the pros and cons of each set but mostly all people talk about is what cover looks the best. I'm more concerned about content. Can anyone in the know give me a little enlightenment? Personal opinions from people not owning all the sets would be great as well as really i have nothing to go off.

Cheers

I own the UK set. I think it's great, no problems at all. I'll summarize it for you;

Cover: Who really cares? But it's good!

Presentation: To the point. No ads, no drawn-out animated menus. Cheerful and easy to navigate. The "baaa! baa!" of the TV Loonland logo might burn itself into your memory, though, after the hundredth time loading the disc.

Soundtrack: Clear. No added sound effects like on the G1 stuff.

Audio: Japanese. Trust me, you DON'T want the "English" dub.

Subtitles: Important, this one. The dialogue and subtitles match well. Other subs I've seen are rather liberal with their translation. The names are all preserved with the exception of "Cybertron" and "Destron", which are replaced with English faction names.
I don't know why. Seems silly to me. I've heard that other sets replace the names of the CHARACTERS with their English equivalents. So "Lightfoot" is subtitled "Getaway" and so on. Not owning them, I couldn't say for sure, but check it out. I imagine it will be infuriating to watch like that.


So. ^_^ A good set. You'll have lots of fun watching it, there are some awesome episodes on there that'll stick with you.

さぁ! きみも マスタフォースで トランスフォーム!

What is the region code where you are? I have a multi-region player, but in practice it is much easier to go with whatever is native to you, because I often use my Xbox 360 or Portable player. I also have the UK Region 2 version. I only have one issue with it. There are no individual chapters within each episode. At least with the Headmasters DVD, you could skip the title music and go straight to the episode, but with Masterforce, you have to fast-forward and hopefully hit the right moment to start playing again. And the dub sucks! Other than these points, it is a well-presented DVD, just like Headmasters and Victory.

Thanks guys. I am in Australia but all my players are region free and shipped all the sets would cost around the same amount. I was just curious to see if one release stood out above the rest.

Also i'll look into the subtitling... that actually means a lot to me.

I don't mind if they use all Japanese names or all American names but I have a feeling it's going to bug me if they use a mix of both.

Again thanks

If you're in Australia, then just go for the Australian Madman set. It'll work the best for you and is superior to the Shout! Factory set (it's about the same level of good as the Metrodome set).

Geneon's Japanese DVD set has no subtitles, as domestic Japanese DVDs typically do not contain subtitles for non-Japanese languages (just as U.S. DVDs typically don't contain subtitles for any language that isn't English/Spanish/French/Portuguese/etc.).