The Energon Pub

[Kurona]

I like to remember those molds were a thing when thought of in conjunction with Boosticus

[D-Maximal_Primal]

I like to remember those molds were a thing when thought of in conjunction with Boosticus

And they do work nicely with Boosticus, even the wreckers:


Though, I am interested to see the new Ruination/Baldguy and see what Takara has done with him.

I'm also sad we didn't get a Nexus Prime. I really wanted one

[Jelze Bunnycat]

This release being Baldigus makes sense, yet it does not. The time frame of the UW fiction is placed in 2021, between The Headmasters and Masterforce/Victory if memory serves me right. In other words, it couldn't have been Battle Gaia as he's been built from Onslaught's specs during United EX, concurrently with Operation: Combination, or 2 to 3 series later. That said, when was Baldigus recruited by Unicron? The closest thing to that was with his Viron (RiD 2001, as CR is considered a G1 series) counterpart Ruination being part of the Universe War as a Minion of Unicron (aka a Decepticon).

If it is Baldigus (I'm taking filenames with a grain of salt), why do I get the feeling he'll be part of some story line with Grand Scourge? Also, will we get another "Gregevor?"

[Kurona]

I mean to be honest, why wouldn't Unicron recruit them? He can basically recruit anyone these days; he somehow got Roller's number! Roller's!

You could say anyone's his herald and I wouldn't be surprised. Baldigus? Sure! Energon Slugslinger? Sure! A freak combination of Jackpot, Scrapheap, Universe Frostbite and Joe Colton? Why the heck not, it's Unicron!

[Jelze Bunnycat]

What names to expect....

Mega-Octane, Rollbar, Armorhide, Ro-Tor, Movor?
Dolrailer, Gregevor, Danger (think "Tanker"), Hepter, Shuttler?
Great Cannon, Leland, Sandstorm, Target Hawk, Shuttle Gunner?
Impactor, Roadbuster, Twin Twist, Whirl, Topspin? (nah)
Demolishor, uhm... The rest has no unrevealed heads aside from Brawl...

[Kurona]

Unless there's trademark issues, I see no reason to doubt they'll have their original Japanese names.

[Jelze Bunnycat]

Unless there's trademark issues, I see no reason to doubt they'll have their original Japanese names.

Seeing them romanised them will be a blast. Gregevor, Greejeeber, Danger, Dangar, Dangher...

[william-james88]

Unlike the legends fiction, the UW fiction doesn't feel as cannon or keen on explaining oddities. For instance, they still have yet to reveal how Ironhide is alive. I think that's a bigger priority than explaining the issue with time.

[Sabrblade]

This release being Baldigus makes sense, yet it does not. The time frame of the UW fiction is placed in 2021, between The Headmasters and Masterforce/Victory if memory serves me right.

Between Masterforce and Victory.

If it is Baldigus (I'm taking filenames with a grain of salt), why do I get the feeling he'll be part of some story line with Grand Scourge?

When I had my big continuity discussion with Sakamoto at BotCon this year, he spoke of wanting to continue his LG-EX Black Convoy story with a UW release of Baldigus, so there's a chance we could see LG-EX Black Convoy with UW Baldigus.

Unless there's trademark issues, I see no reason to doubt they'll have their original Japanese names.

True, but, what JelZe was referring to was the fact that, like the Legends line, Takara uses the Japanese names in Katakana and the Hasbro names in Latin script for the Unite Warriors line (i.e. - "Guardian" in Katakana and "Defensor" in Latin script). Baldigus and his components could be a similar case, unless Takara decides to only go with the Japanese names for both languages like they did for LG-EX Black Convoy being called "Black Convoy" in Latin script instead of "Scourge" (and that's also despite their calling Gelshark "Sky-Byte" in Latin script).

Unlike the legends fiction, the UW fiction doesn't feel as cannon or keen on explaining oddities. For instance, they still have yet to reveal how Ironhide is alive. I think that's a bigger priority than explaining the issue with time.

Except that this is Sakamoto we're dealing with. He's an absolute continuity nut who loves inserting new material into pre-established continuity, as well as plugging continuity holes that were never plugged previously (Ratchet and Ironhide being alive are the only things he has yet to explain yet, but Ironhide at least is alive later on in the Japanese continuity, so we know he had to have come back to life at some point anyway).

[Evil Eye]

Now this is just hearsay, but I've heard Greejeeber was originally supposed to have been called "Greenjeeper" but fansubbers got it (understandably) mixed up and dubbed him Greejeeber, and when a new mold of GrimminyJeepers came out with a Romanji translation, Takara assumed the fandom's mistranslation was the "correct" way of spelling it in English...except they then mistranslated it again resulting in "Gregevor".

Eh. Greejeeber is a terrible name. To me he'll always be Rollbar. Really the only Japanese names I prefer from RID are Gigatron and Shuttler. Gigatron because it defines him as not just yet another Megatron (and it's a badass name) and Shuttler less because it's a good name and more because "Movor" is a completely abysmal name. Dolrailer is a cool name too but it sounds less like a Transformer and more like a Zeon mobile suit.

[Sabrblade]

Now this is just hearsay, but I've heard Greejeeber was originally supposed to have been called "Greenjeeper" but fansubbers got it (understandably) mixed up and dubbed him Greejeeber, and when a new mold of GrimminyJeepers came out with a Romanji translation, Takara assumed the fandom's mistranslation was the "correct" way of spelling it in English...except they then mistranslated it again resulting in "Gregevor".

Barring that "Gregevor" mis-romanization bit at the end (which is true), the rest of that is indeed 100% hearsay.

The words "green" and "jeep" are written in Katakana as グリーン ("gurīn") and ジープ ("jīpu"). But to approximate the "per" in "jeeper" in Katakana, the プ ("pu") on the end of ジープ must be replaced with a パ ("pa") extended to パー ("pā") to get ジーパー ("jīpā"). With all this in mind, the Katakana rendering for "Greenjeeper" would be グリーンジーパー ("gurīnjīpā").

Now that we have the Katakana for "Greenjeeper", let's turn our attention to the original Car Robots toy.

The original Car Robots toy is named グリジバー in at least three places on its packaging:




When transliterated into Latin script, グリジバー is rendered as "Gurijibā".

Upon closer inspection, グリジバー ("Gurijibā") is different from グリーンジーパー ("gurīnjīpā"), as its リ ("ri") is not extended as リー (rī), there is no ン ("n"), and it uses バー (bā) instead of パー ("pā").

However, given that the character in question is a green jeep, there is evidently a connection between the actual name and the English words "green" and "jeeper". Taking the Katakana form of both words, we can modify them to equate to グリジバー ("Gurijibā") and then work backwards to find the proper Romanization of the name in English.

For "green" グリーン, the ン and the extension of リ are dropped to leave us with just グリ ("guri"). As the "u" vowel sound of グ is accentuated, and the "i" vowel sound of リ sounds like the English "ee" sound, the proper Romanization of グリ ("guri") would be "gree".

For "jeeper" ジーパー, the extension of ジ is dropped, and the extended パー is converted into an extended バー, to leave us with ジバー ("jibā"). As the vowel sound of ジ sounds like the English "ee" sound, and the extended バー originally being an extended パー that was used to approximate the "per" part of "jeeper" having had its consonant "p" sound changed to a "b" sound, the proper Romanization of ジバー ("jibā") would be "jeeber".

Combining these two would give us the English Romanization of グリジバー ("Gurijibā") as "Greejeeber".


As for the fansub misnaming theory, there weren't any fansubs for the full Car Robots series until Karyuudo Fansubs released theirs in 2014. Before them, there were some subs for the show done by TV-Nohn, but they never got far enough into the series to reach the episodes that Greejeeber appeared in, and didn't start their subs until 2008.

Hope that helps.

[Evil Eye]

Ah, that makes sense. Thanks Sabr.

Greejeeber is still a silly name.

[Sabrblade]

Ah, that makes sense. Thanks Sabr.

Greejeeber is still a silly name.

Silly names are kind of a thing in this brand, on either side of the Pacific ("Sqweeks", anyone?). At this point, best to just roll with them.

[Evil Eye]

Ah, that makes sense. Thanks Sabr.

Greejeeber is still a silly name.

Silly names are kind of a thing in this brand, on either side of the Pacific ("Sqweeks", anyone?). At this point, best to just roll with them.

Good point. I'll be calling them by their American names anyway if I do get them (except Shuttler) because eh, the names are better. But then I've never been averse to "renaming" my Transformers- RID Divebomb has been renamed Pilfer, PCC Steamhammer into Gravedigger, and so on. And that's before we take into account my small collection of 3P figures, who of course had to sneak in under pseudonyms before being properly badged and revealing their "true" identities.

Anyway, topic: I really wish Hasbro would release Ruination in a boxset with his US/European toy colours, as in some ways I kinda prefer them to the anime colours (sand blue Armourhide gives me the doki doki ). It's unlikely though, and the anime colours are still cool.

What I'd REALLY like to see though is either the grey urban camo Wal-Mart exclusive colours, the Energon Bruticus Maximus colours (with bile yellow Swindle, purple Vortex and bronze + orange Blast Off, and maybe a remolded combiner head styled after the frankly awesome Bruticus Maximus headsculpt), or Battle Gaia. There's no chance of any of them happening, but they were cool colour schemes and it'd be nice to see them.

[Jelze Bunnycat]

What I'd REALLY like to see though is either the grey urban camo Wal-Mart exclusive colours, the Energon Bruticus Maximus colours (with bile yellow Swindle, purple Vortex and bronze + orange Blast Off, and maybe a remolded combiner head styled after the frankly awesome Bruticus Maximus headsculpt), or Battle Gaia. There's no chance of any of them happening, but they were cool colour schemes and it'd be nice to see them.

I really want the grey Ruination, simply because that's the best looking one out of the two unified schemes, he'd look great along with Destructicon Scourge as a Decepticon splinter-group, another being Bludgeon with Dreadwing & Smokejumper, Skyfire and Wind Sheer. Though Universe 2003 Ruination does have the same yellow combiner parts as CR Baldigus, so mix-and-match is an option I guess, without switching out the "heart-pounding" blue Armorhide.

And I had a rather silly thought, concerning BotCon 2010 Clench and Train Wars. Bear with me

What if the filename was a red herring? FunPub pulled that trick with BotCon 2010 Clench by putting a fake image of him as a redeco of Universe 2008 Tankor aka Octane in the site directories for people to find. And I can see TakaraTomy pulling the same trick with the same knowledge of fans knowing where to look.
The supposed connection with Unicron has me wishing it was actually the Fallen as seen in Train Wars, as a redeco of FoC Onslaught (with the Ruination head). A new body means a new opportunity to use the alternate Armada Demolishor head.

O well...

[fenrir72]

https://twitter.com/TF_pr/status/790134 ... 56/photo/1

Close torelease

[Dagon]

Just out of curiosity, is anyone getting Ex Megatronia? I've got a preorder in, and I'm STILL super on the fence about her. I really like the way she looks, and I'm way more interested in the brief fiction for her than I am whatever astroturfed stuff there is for Victorion, but for reasons unknown, I'm still a bit iffy. Still time to go before her release, so I'm not too worried about this, but I suppose I'm hunting for others and their committment to the set.

[Wolfman Jake]

Just out of curiosity, is anyone getting Ex Megatronia? I've got a preorder in, and I'm STILL super on the fence about her. I really like the way she looks, and I'm way more interested in the brief fiction for her than I am whatever astroturfed stuff there is for Victorion, but for reasons unknown, I'm still a bit iffy. Still time to go before her release, so I'm not too worried about this, but I suppose I'm hunting for others and their committment to the set.

I'm getting her. In fact, I'm getting two! One set for Megatronia, and one set for each of the individual members. (I do this for each combiner, btw. I have my "big" figures, like the cityformers, combiners, and the likes of Omega Supreme, Primus, and Unicron in their own display together atop my Classics shelves. Individual bots go on the shelves, roughly ordered by year of appearance in the original toy line or cartoon series.) I've got Victorion already, so I'd love for her to have a definitive rival as well, and the individual members of this new Decepticon team look so colorful and fun. I'm a sucker for new G1 characters, honestly.

[Cobotron]

Jake, you should start a collection thread. I would love to see your display!

[Bumblebee21]

Jake, you should start a collection thread. I would love to see your display!

seconded

[Wolfman Jake]

Jake, you should start a collection thread. I would love to see your display!

I should get off my lazy bum and do that some time. I've been meaning to do a little rearranging too. Weekends need to be longer than two days.

[Jelze Bunnycat]

The listing is up, and TakaraTomy just wasted an opportunity to screw with us. Yup, it's indeed Baldigus!

UW-EX Baldigus Listing on TakaraTomy Mall

The listing also gives details on the individual figures. No retooling unfortunately, and no RiD names either, giving the Japanese Car Robots names instead:

Baldigus
Dolrailer
Shuttler
Hepter
Greejeeber (not "Gregevor"? I'm surprised)
Dangar (again, pronounced like "Tanker" and not "Danger")

But we do get US Computron's hands and feet, and newly sculpted weapons!

[Sabrblade]

http://takaratomymall.jp/shop/g/g4904810862628/

[Kurona]

My excitement for this guy just went from 'eh, cool for the guys that want him' to 'hoLY SLAG GIMME'

Scattershot's guns look amazing on Onslaught's cannons... and look at Brawl's new gun!

[Sabrblade]

Greejeeber (not "Gregevor"? I'm surprised)

They evidently realized their mistake with the Adventure toy's name and corrected it with this figure.

Dangar (again, pronounced like "Tanker" and not "Danger")

More like "Dahn-gar", based on how it was said in the show (even though the word "tanker" remains the original inspiration for the name, yes).

But we do get US Computron's hands and feet, and newly sculpted weapons!

Nay. All of those weapons are recycled from the UW Constructicons and UW Technobots.

Dolrailer's Twin Dol Buster are two of Scattershot's guns, the Shuttler Gun is Scrapper's, Hepter's new gun is Mixmaster's, Greejeeber's Jee Blaster is Long Haul's gun, and the Dangar Gun is Scavenger's gun.