The Energon Pub

I'm wondering, have the Japanese Transformers cartoons every been english-dubbed and aired on North American TV?

Short answer: nope.

Slightly longer answer: There's an (absolutely howlingly awful) English dub of the three JTF series, known as the 'Star TV dubs' after the Asian satellite channel which first aired them. They basically sound like a few almost-English-speaking guys with very little Transformers knowledge and even less talent recorded them in a basement. Using buckets. Seriously, apart from all the howler name translations, any Transformer with a faceplate sounds like the 'actor' tried to talk through his hand.

Most Chinese box sets of the JTF series will have the Star TV audio. The dubs aren't in any way official, though they have appeared on Metrodome's UK releases of the series, and no Hasbro-sanctioned dub has ever been produced. My recommendation: watch them in Japanese with subs.

I have the dubbed version of Super God Masterforce and it is horrible. I mean it is good but the dubbing blows. They refer to Ginrai as Optimus Prime when he clearly is human and not Convoy.

It should be considered a crime agaisnt Humanity that StarTV dubbed HM, MF & Victory.

Glyph wrote:My recommendation: watch them in Japanese with subs.

and believe me, its alot better than the dub! it just means that sometimes you have to go back a few frames to catch all the subs!

Glyph wrote:They basically sound like a few almost-English-speaking guys with very little Transformers knowledge and even less talent recorded them in a basement. Using buckets. Seriously, apart from all the howler name translations, any Transformer with a faceplate sounds like the 'actor' tried to talk through his hand.

I've got the Headmasters dub, and to elaborate further on the bad name translations:
-Blaster was renamed Billy
-Cybertron was renamed Cyberton
-Spike was renamed Sparkle
-Daniel was shortened to Danny
-Twincast was renamed Blaster
-Soundblaster was renamed New Soundwave
-Sixtrain just became Robot Train
-All the gestalts had name changes to basic things like Defense Team/Air Team/etc.

And the horrible dubbing! If you've ever watched a dubbed 70's kung-fu film, it literally sounds like they grabbed those voice actors AND script writers to make these dubs.

As said, just grab the subbed versions if possible.