The Energon Pub

The wonderful folks at Karyuudo FanSubs have been including awesome extras with their subtitled releases. Along with Armada (Micron Legend) they released very hi-res scans of Transformers Year Book 2003. I'm curious, though, about the quality of the original source.

Several of the model sheets included have "squiggly" sections. One example would be Tidal Wave's alt modes. This also shows up in Optimus' Cybertronian robot mode (look at his right foot) and on Megatron.

My question is, are the "squiggles" in the original art or is this an error that occurred during scanning? I've been thinking about picking up a copy of this book if I could get clearer model sheets, but don't want to spend the money if the final product won't be an improvement.

Thanks in advance!

ScottyP, Counterpunch, or Razorclaw0000 would be good people to help answer this.

Right now: I don't know.

Fun fact: I actually ordered this book for completely different reasons yesterday. Coming from Japan on the slow boat though, so will be awhile before I can provide an answer. Some others may know already though.

I've been looking through their stuff and have not come across what you're referring to.

Can you give me a direct link?

Counterpunch wrote:I've been looking through their stuff and have not come across what you're referring to.

Can you give me a direct link?

Sure. First, one of Tidal Wave's alt modes. You may to zoom in to be able to see it, but some of the lines get wavy/blurry. Especially the angled side shot (top right).

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B79N7zmP4aTCWC1wSllsV19jb0E/view?usp=sharing

Another example is Optimus. Most of the model is very crisp, but he gets the same wavy/blurriness in his right leg.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B79N7zmP4aTCSEoyYUR4UDJnYTg/view?usp=sharing

For the record, I'm thrilled that these scans were made available. I didn't even know this book existed before Karyuudo Fansubs released it. Just wondering about the quality of the original publication to see if I want to purchase a copy or not.

Thanks for your help!

It looks to me as if there is an issue with the original book scan and not the group's work.

I think this because nothing about the book's trim work or kana show the waviness. The page lines are straight and the lettering in the margins is entirely unaffected.

Good to see another Armada fan around.

Counterpunch wrote:Good to see another Armada fan around.

Hey, we're around. Just sometimes not as visible...

And I knew nothing of these scans before I read this thread, so I'm pleasantly surprised as well.

Rodimus Prime wrote:

Counterpunch wrote:Good to see another Armada fan around.

Hey, we're around. Just sometimes not as visible...

And I knew nothing of these scans before I read this thread, so I'm pleasantly surprised as well.

I noticed the extras they included with their Car Robots series, scans of Car Robots Encyclopedia, which had model sheets for the Car Robots/RID characters. When they released Armada/Micron Legend I was hoping for more of the same and was thrilled to find even higher res scans of the pages from Transformers Year Book 2003.

My fingers are really crossed that they'll release something like these along with their Japanese Beast series dubs. If I had my way, every Transformers series (or even EVERY animated series) would get a book like Jim Sorenson's Ark book. It's become one of the real jewels of my collection.

xxaMaxx wrote:If I had my way, every Transformers series (or even EVERY animated series) would get a book like Jim Sorenson's Ark book. It's become one of the real jewels of my collection.

With The Complete Ark, The Vault, Legacy, and a couple toy guides, I don't even have to go online anymore to look up G1 info. I'd love to have the time, resources, and probably some talent that I lack in page design, to do something similar for the Unicron Trilogy. I shudder to think how much material might already be lost from that era that isn't in physical, print form somewhere.

ScottyP wrote:

xxaMaxx wrote:If I had my way, every Transformers series (or even EVERY animated series) would get a book like Jim Sorenson's Ark book. It's become one of the real jewels of my collection.

With The Complete Ark, The Vault, Legacy, and a couple toy guides, I don't even have to go online anymore to look up G1 info. I'd love to have the time, resources, and probably some talent that I lack in page design, to do something similar for the Unicron Trilogy. I shudder to think how much material might already be lost from that era that isn't in physical, print form somewhere.

Some of it's still around, somewhere at least. I've seen some Energon models floating around and another book, Galaxy Force Phase Ignition, is supposed to have character models (at least for the first half-ish of the show).

Got the book a couple days ago, need to re-download those scans this evening and compare. Typing this out now to hopefully remind myself to check it later.

ScottyP wrote:Got the book a couple days ago, need to re-download those scans this evening and compare. Typing this out now to hopefully remind myself to check it later.

Thanks for keeping this thread in mind. I look forward to hearing more.

Physical copy of the book is in fact cleaner. If you zoom in close to the Karyuudo pages you mentioned, you can see where the spine of the book isn't flush to the edge of the scanner. Those "squiggles" are the scanner trying its best to compensate for this.

There's no dramatic difference of course, but if you're specifically looking for the quality difference, it is easily found.