Zambot 3 -
Not the greatest show of all time.
So the overall theme is Bad Things Happen To Kappei. I don't know whether we're supposed to be feeling sorry for him or what? The majority of the show everyone hating/fearing him is completely justified as he is a thoughtless jerkhat who keeps getting civilians involved in battles whenever the battle isn't already. Keeping in mind that at the beginning of the series, before anything has gone down, he's already hated/wanted by the police. And he's 12.
I am divided on whether the show is trying to be clever and showing what happens if you put that sort of power in the hands of a 12-year-old or whether the show is just dumb.
Lategame it pulls a Zeta and starts killing people off, and just as in Zeta it doesn't work well. Kappei has been generally deserving of punishment for most of the show and got nothing except a lot of people hating him which didn't seem to affect him too much, and only start this up once he's started improving slightly and people have a generally more ambivalent opinion? That's just being vicious for the sake of being viscious. Especially since some of the deaths are completely worthless such as when one of the Beal components is sacrificed in order to destroy the Bundock's propulsion but it still manages to escape while the rest are distracted.
The human bomb section of the show was a considerable let-down. The most effective part was when a kid tried to die with dignity but ended up not being able to hack it, followed at a distance by a guy who tampered with his own in order to save a number of other people from suffering the same fate. But for the most part - why should we really be concerned about these unwitting pawns resulting in minor destruction when the Guyzock could have caused vastly more by themselves? The bomb which was presumably supposed to be the most traumatic doesn't really have anything going for it but a handful of scenes where the situation is almost revealed but isn't, and he broke orders to bring them onboard anyway - plus the explosion didn't kill anyone except the unlucky person in question. Sure it may have been disheartening for Kappei, but there wasn't any reason in that episode to cause me to feel anything for it.
Uchuuta gets very little characterisation. He does manage to get more than Keiko. Keiko only really gets any worthwhile screentime in one episode, where Uchuuta and Kappei spend time insulting her on her birthday. So that she will go AWOL and run back to her mother and she can spend her birthday with her mother. Kappei, you are a tool, and the scriptwriters fail at life. This is then followed by her getting some of the hate that the show's populace normally lavishes on Kappei, so she may be in luck that she wasn't often doing anything of consequence.
I am reminded of a segment where Kappei is refusing to drive Zambo Ace because the populace's hate has managed to reach him in some way and the grandfather says that that's fine because they can control it via remote control and have Uchuuta control Zambot 3. Some time later when Kappei has resolved his personal problems he just runs over and flies off in Zambo Ace which
hadn't moved. Even when the show says that it's going to give the second bananas something to do it doesn't.
So there's this guy Kouzuki who hates Kappei since before the series starts, so much so that he pushes Kappei-on-a-bike over the edge of a dock and they have a... rope-anchor fight at one point. After things start happening he hates on Kappei even more because like everyone else he blames him for everything. Then he disappears from the show for some time. Then when he shows back up he has mellowed
egregiously towards Kappei, keeping in mind that unlike the general populace he already hated Kappei. I can't really see any way in which this makes sense.
Keeping on Kouzuki, there's a scene later where he is caught in the inner sanctum of the Bundock by Killer and Guyzock, and Guyzock tells Killer to kill him. Next scene he's just back in the prison cell. Uh.
All up: Show was generally baddish. Also,
Killer the Butcher never did end up being as
fabulous as I had hoped but was sometimes entertaining.
Transformers G1: Scramble City -
Oh deity this was a thoroughly pointless feature. The first third of it is just a recap of early G1 which plays up Devastator as being some ludicrous godmoder for some reason! Combiners keep showing up and overpowering each other! Out of nowhere it turns out that changing the configuration a combiner is using alters its power level! Metroplex and Trypticon turn up and then it ends!
Transformers G1: Movie -
Decent. Would have been nice for some of the new Autobots to have gotten origins like Galvatron et al as opposed to just Rodimus, which is extremely sketchy anyway since Hot Rod was new with no explanation.
The Decepticons have no right being so competent in this considering their lack of such in the series to this point.
Not really a great deal to say is coming to mind.
Transformers G1: Season 3 -
Around halfway through this. Quality has been generally lower than Season 2 so far, although I believe Season 2 still has some episodes which are worse than have been presented as yet. Rodimus is kind of a failure which is distressing as I had always been under the impression that he was pretty cool, but for the longest time I had only ever seen the movie and the final serial from this season. His most sterling example of atrociousness so far was when he ordered an entire planet destroyed so that the Decepticons couldn't get their hands on it. That was certainly the most sane option available.
Bizarre how they take Blitzwing, the guy who took over a football field and who got caught in a trap meant for Optimus Prime, and turn him into the only sane decepticon in the first serial of this season. Maybe they got their files mixed up. Then they write him out. Ah well.
Grimlock has also been turned into more of a dumb-idiot type than a barbarian-idiot type, as well as having been promoted to a more major secondary character. Was it really worth it, Grimlock.
