Anime Goth's Retro Lair

I'm Craig Harmer. I write about retro Anime, Manga and Japanese pop culture. Robot lover. Happy Goth. Japanese Culture FIEND. Co-host of Retro Mecha Podcast.

[Anime Goth's Retro Lair @AnimeGothsRetro]

Hello new followers! 👋😍(Waves excitedly)

I'm Craig Harmer. A 46 year old otaku (and lover of videogames, cult movies, and all things nerdy).

I post here and on my blog Animehead's Retroworld to inform, enthuse and occasionally amuse about older Anime and Manga - because as new shows flood the streaming sphere, the classics get forgotten way too fast.

I consider myself a bit of a historian and I wrote about this stuff before the internet on good old fashioned pen and paper, gaining knowledge from British Anime magazines Anime UK and Manga Mania as a teenager in the 90's.

While I love all Anime genres I also co-host the Retro Mecha Podcast (@RetroMecha) to champion the often misunderstood/maligned Mecha subgenre in the west.

If you love retro Anime and collecting it on physical media you won't regret giving me a follow!

I also talk Manga and figure/model kit collecting and sometimes about Japanese cinema and Toku as well.

I LOVE connecting with fellow fans. I was the victim of a hack here on X recently which meant my account was stolen and it's looking increasingly unlikely I'll ever get it back. I lost over 1000 followers.

I'd really appreciate it if you could follow me here as I'd really love to build back the community I lost.

Love & Peace
Your friendly neighbourhood Otaku
Craig

[Anime Goth's Retro Lair @AnimeGothsRetro]

7? wow! that's early! How were you introduced to the series? I bought the VHS tapes for the OVAs in 1995 after reading about it in the magazines Anime UK & Manga Mania.

[Anime Goth's Retro Lair @AnimeGothsRetro]

Tenchi Muyo! really does have one of the greatest collection of waifus of all time.

All of them are brilliant characters in their own right and further enhance a show already loaded with amazing lore, great sci-fi ideas and the most complex family tree you can imagine!

Before my old account was stolen I was in the middle of several mega threads about the series - Talking about each OVA in turn, the characters and the lore/story.

It was really amazing to see how much interest there still is in this historic series and the fond memories everyone has of the original OVAs, Universe and the movies and the various spin offs.

Despite losing most of my audience in the hack and being unable to continue chatting with a LOT of people since.....I hope people will still find my future megathreads on old OVAs like Tenchi and many others so we can have a fun discussion about them.

[Anime Goth's Retro Lair @AnimeGothsRetro]

@saintseiyagod Love this show (and all of the Braves shows) even put some footage of it in my Youtube trailer.
Still holding out hope we'll get more of them on Blu Ray in the US at some point so I can import them :)

[Anime Goth's Retro Lair @AnimeGothsRetro]

@higana_suzu You look incredible and have brilliant taste in game characters!

[Anime Goth's Retro Lair @AnimeGothsRetro]

@Keith_Leonard I know what you mean. I'm just glad she's a great character across all the continuities I've seen or read that she's in.

[Anime Goth's Retro Lair @AnimeGothsRetro]

While Optimus Prime's death in Transformers The movie obviously had the most generational impact and was the core emotional scene of the film.... as I get older there's another scene that I find really emotional.

It's Arcee pulling bodies from the wreckage of the Autobot city battle. There's a moment where she pulls Windcharger's body out and we realise she's surveying the dead. She stops in the middle of it and just gets this sullen, heartbroken look on her face and rests her hand on her chest. It feels like at that moment she's thinking "I can't stop to think about it right now or I'll break"
It subtly communicates the mundane horror of war, like you've just lost best friends and comrades but you can't even rest to acknowledge that cause you've still got an important job to do.

#TransformersTheMovie40th

[Anime Goth's Retro Lair @AnimeGothsRetro]

@CapitanColombia @Aquaslash2049 @Hell_Jirachi I think there is an earlier script draft that has omega supreme in it so they may have based some of this adaptation on unused scenes that were planned at one stage.

[Anime Goth's Retro Lair @AnimeGothsRetro]

Yeah I really wish there had been more of an effort to document it in the 80's when everyone's memories were still fresh. I'd love a big fat "Making of" book or feature length documentary of archival stuff from the time.

I guess they didn't think there was a market for something like that back then though. The only making of books I remember for movies back then were live action ones and I guess feature length film documentaries have only become more sought after in recent years after many films became cult classics.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

I'm looking forward to the Transformers the movie ultimate visual history book that's coming out even though those books are always more surface level and from a design point of view. Will still be cool though.

[Anime Goth's Retro Lair @AnimeGothsRetro]

In honour of one of the most beloved Animated movies of all time here are some pieces of trivia about Transformers: The movie (1986) for the week of its 40th anniversary cinema re-release.

Because both movies were animated by Anime studio Toei and the animators liked to include little references to their other works and in-jokes there is a blink and you'll miss it re-use of a background from the Fist Of The North Star movie (released the same year) in the scene where Unicron is devouring the planet Lithone. If you look to the left when the debris is being sucked inside Unicron you can see skyscrapers taken from a shot in the film.

The UK print of the film screened in cinemas in 1986 had an altered opening which featured a Star Wars style scrolling credit sequence that has been preserved on certain DVD and Blu Ray releases. it occurred just before the rock version of the iconic theme by Lion. Apparently UK distributors were worried if people hadn't seen the TV series they wouldn't understand the factions or premise.

The UK print also had one more extra narration line with TV series/movie narrator Victor Caroli assuring kids that "Optimus Prime will return" accompanying the shot of Unicron's head floating through space.

Apparently the reason for Spike's famous "Oh Shit, what are we gonna do now?" line was due to the fact that films with PG ratings in the US at that time were allowed more daily screenings so they could attempt to squeeze a bit more profit out of the movie.

Orson Welles health was so poor during the recording of his dialogue as Unicron that many of his voice lines were considered unusable by director Nelson Shin and story consultant Flint Dille. Shin had to put Welles lines through a synthesiser to even be able to use most of them which resulted in the more ominous tone heard in the finished film. Welles died 5 days after completing his dialogue on the film.

Inferno's voice actor is credited on the film yet he doesn't appear. Apparently footage was created but cut and the voice line wasn't recorded but the crew forgot to remove his name from the credits.

During the scene where Hot Rod and Kup are imprisoned by the Quintessons the jail cell contains the destroyed remnants of former unlucky prisoners. Amongst the wreckage you can glimpse recoloured repurposed designs for the Rick Dias and RX-782 Mk II from Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. It's assumed that some of the animation staff were fans of the show and snook them in as a little homage. It's also possible someone at Toei assisted Sunrise on Zeta in an uncredited capacity and had the reference materials on their desk to draw from.

Cybertron's third moon which is attacked by Unicron's hand and damaged in the film still bears his claw marks when it reappears over 10 years later in Beast Wars in a cool piece of continuity.

For whatever reason Snarl is absent from most of the film and there's never been an official confirmation as to why. The script lists four of the five dinobots, Snarl can be seen briefly in some shots and has seemingly been included by accident not having a role in the story. Toei, Takara and Hasbro have never offered any insight into this but it's clearly a continuity error.

Anime legend Satoshi Urushihara is not credited on the film but contributed some mechanical design, promo art and also worked on key animation.

Images: Left - The Epic UK quad poster. I had a poster magazine replica of this on my childhood bedroom wall.

Middle - Japanese cinema poster art by Yoshiyuki Takani

Right - 35th Anniversary Lobby card by Matt Ferguson (2021)

Final - 2011 art by Tim Doyle for a screening at the Blue Starlight Drive-in

#TransformersTheMovie

[Anime Goth's Retro Lair @AnimeGothsRetro]

@Benchpress001 Nice! I have mine in a display case next to some other season 1 characters. I've just noticed mine is standing right next to Wheeljack (sniff) which is a pure coincidence as I just arranged them in a way I thought looked cool.

[Anime Goth's Retro Lair @AnimeGothsRetro]

Yeah definitely. A lot of factors are at play for sure. The fact it went through a lot of different drafts and revisions so continuity changed a lot (possibly leading to some of the odd mistakes in the finished film - see my previous thread) also the fact there was likely some miscommunication between the Japanese and American side and of course the memories of everyone involved possibly getting more hazy over time.

As a bit of a historian on Anime I'd love to see some more from the Japanese side as some legendary animators worked on both the movie and the show and I'd like to know more about their involvement. Feels like a crime that some of them were uncredited on things as major as key animation!

[Anime Goth's Retro Lair @AnimeGothsRetro]

@Benchpress001 Arcee is a brilliant character in every continuity I've watched or read. Crazy that Ron Friedman apparently had to fight to get Arcee and female Transformers into the series. Guess some of the execs had some pretty small minds.

[Anime Goth's Retro Lair @AnimeGothsRetro]

@JoshTaffyLewis I know! Brutal. Wrote a bit about our favourite inventor and Dino dad's demise in a response to a comment from @RedWilliam5

[Anime Goth's Retro Lair @AnimeGothsRetro]

@PastorJAPauley3 Considered mentioning this as well but I just like the subtlety of the Arcee moment... but also a great line.

[Anime Goth's Retro Lair @AnimeGothsRetro]

The thing that made Transformers such an enduring franchise In Japan, America, Europe and the rest of the world was the emotional attachment we all had to these characters. The voice actors and writers imbued them ALL with such personality it was hard not to love them.
It was a cross cultural juggernaut that took the best of Japanese and American creative talent and made something truly beautiful.

[Anime Goth's Retro Lair @AnimeGothsRetro]

@RedWilliam5 Yeah I love Wheeljack as well. Seeing him among the dead unceremoniously for such a beloved character further underlines how brutal the film is. He's not treated with any reverence, he's just a casualty like everyone else.

[Anime Goth's Retro Lair @AnimeGothsRetro]

@Okawari00715218 I have loved it since first seeing OVA 1 and 2 on VHS in the mid 90's.

If Kajishima-Sensei's doujin is available to buy online I will try and find it.

[Anime Goth's Retro Lair @AnimeGothsRetro]

@iixadii @ToyboxSoapbox As far as i know the third moon was created by a continuity error but was later canonised in Beast wars so it's another thing there's debate about.

[Anime Goth's Retro Lair @AnimeGothsRetro]

@Alyssakatpink 13 wins? Wow. Wish I could have seen that!

[Anime Goth's Retro Lair @AnimeGothsRetro]

@UU30 So it is. I knew I'd make a mistake somewhere! I'm a huge Gundam fan as well but I'm bad with numbers.

[Anime Goth's Retro Lair @AnimeGothsRetro]

@eigojon13 Matt Ferguson is an excellent artist. He's a huge Transformers fan and has done a lot of official art for Hasbro in the last 5 years.