Androgyne's 2019 game purchases in review

Heller there! Is this the first guest post on Tets’ blog? I think it is!

I’m in the same boat as Mr Tets, having moved to Japan from Australia a few years ago. I’m an avid gamer, but back in Australia, it wasn’t so easy to find affordable retro games, and my interest waned. But in Japan, it’s a different story, great games can be had for pennies all over the place.

Over the years I've played a lot … and sold a lot of them too, for one reason or another. I can’t play some of my old PAL games here now (or it’s a hassle to), so I end up buying a lot of what I've already played, along with games I haven’t played at all. Scattered amongst those I still get some modern games too.

This year, I may have went overboard, and felt the urge to put a quick comment on everything I picked up. I did play almost all of them afterall! So here it is, a quick comment on every game I bought in 2019, in order of purchase. Enjoy :)

Merry Christmas! and A Legends translation

Again.  I jumped ahead a bit, this after story 15 or so of the legends online manga, but meh, whatever, so far my translations have been jumping all over the place anyway.


A simple one this one, but 5 years late, here is a wishing of Merry Christmas and a happy new year from me, and Sakamoto too!

Legends Issue 5 English Translation

Oh dear, moving on to  he more controversial comics  now.  I am proud to present the 5th issue of the Legends Manga in English.

There are two stories, the first is Rattrap Vs a lover of beautiful girls, the second is part two of the Gender Gap.

Legends Issue 4 English Translation

Hello ladies and gents, here I have a translation of issue 4 on the online legends Manga.  Rattrap is slaving away as an office worker, learning more about life in the corporate structure. Or something. Whatever. Please read and enjoy  (on the right column) Transformation Gap and (on the left) Gender Gap.

POTP Swoop, Quick N Nasty review

Actually, this doesn’t really fall into my Quick N Nasty category as I used my camera and not the phone, but meh, Whatevs.

Ladies and Gents, I’d like to use this post to have a look at Power Of the Primes Deluxe Swoop.    I’ve always had a thing for the Dinobots.  I just really think I love mechanical beast or monster modes.  Beast Wars didn’t really do it for me, but did I love the look of the Transmetals?  (yes I did).

The Power of the Primes line was an odd one in my mind.  It kind of felt like a bit-of-this-a-bit-of-that line.  Lots of combiner limbs, that made it too late into Combiner Wars, some weird change to the headmaster concept so they can keep up with Titans Returns and it added nothing new ( even the pretender shells were a continuation of the little droned from TR).  While I like the Combiner Wars connection process, I think they could have integrated the Primes into the line a bit better.  For example, deluxe figures all came with “Prime Armour” which is a combiner mode hand and you plug the Prime into that.  Whereas the Voyagers (usually combiner main body pieces/group leaders) had a section for connecting a prime or a Matrix of ~~~something~~~ directly into the figure.  I personally would have preferred that the Matrix/Prime just plugged straight into the chest of all characters, or something, instead of having to plug a rather large and not cool looking thing onto them….

Anyway, getting back on track, Swoop was one of the many Dinobots I wanted as a kid and never got.  I only got the Red Slag from G2 back in the olden days, so I was pleased to see a very G1 looking Swoop show up.  How is he overall?

Generations Selects Manga Part 6 English Translation

Star Convoy part 6
Seacons Part 5

The naming for this thing is a bit much ha ha ha.
Here we are with a translation of the Generations Selects Manga that was originally dropped by Takaratomy on their Mall site for Tentakil and Overbite.  This 6 pager begins to get things moving along nicely.  Some things to note after the jump at the end of the post.

Seacons Manga part 4, in English

 Lobclaw and Kraken rise from the depths!

This manga taken from the Takaratomy Mall page has Kraken (Seawing) and Lobclaw (Nautilator) showing up.  I've taken the liberty of translating it.

Slipstream LG16 Manga Translation!

It turns out I’ve actually been sitting on this one for a while.  I initially translated it before, but juts kept it aside for an unknown reason, then fixed up the FX and forgot about it again for a while and here I am now finally getting around to posting it.

Update: Legends Reading order page and Weirdwolf comic

Hello, an update post this week as I have been spending a bit of time trying to set up a Legend Comic reading order page with links to translations I've done. I set it up as a page accessible from the top of any page and wanted to have it looking nice/ Currently it's full of placeholder sections, but essentially anything with a thumbnail image is something I've translated and is linked to the appropriate page. Naturally it's still a work in progress.
Link is here

I've also updated the Weirdwolf comic with a cleaner version, after taking out the Japanese FX. It looks a lot nicer than it did before. Link for that is here.

That's it for now.. I realised that I have a finished Translation ready to go, but am going to save that one for next week.

Have fun and place safe everyone.

Turtler Generations Selects Manga #3 Translation.

 

Hopefully this is it for these guys for a while.  While there isn’t a lot of speech happening in this one, the editing of the effects and stuff was a bit of a pain, but I did learn some new editing techniques, so that was good.  While story wise these ones are weaker than the Legends comics, the drawing style is pretty cool!

I’ve included some notes after the jump, so please have a little look see if you think something is whacky.

Gens Selects Seacons Manga part 2, translated!

Part 2 of the Generations Selects Seacons Manga as taken from the TTmall page.  Nothing very exciting to say in this one, except for some editing challenges for my amateur skills
Read it left to right.  Enjoy.

Interestingly they included the whole thing in one PDF, despite having a page break area at the bottom of where the first page would have ended.   Is that interesting?

Select Turtler Comic Translation

How exactly does a masked mouthed guy smirk anyway?

Hey yo, here is a translation of the little two page comic that was from the TakaraTomy Mall webpage advertising Turtler and the fish guy(only bonus from getting the two pack is extra TTmall points).  I gotta admit the Seacons are looking mighty fine, but my question is:

Where has that Select Armada convoy gone?????
*Oh my, this is embarrassing, I've updated once again, as I mistakenly loaded up the Japanese version pf page 2 instead (facepalm), now it is complete.

Tets Goes to: Summer Wonderfest 2019

and completely changes his mind on something…


I’ve always wondered about Wonderfest and kind of wanted to go, but normally I find out about too late, or something that’s really not a good excuse to go comes up and I don’t go.  This year I decided to go and here’s the report.

Rattrap and the Junioration Gap 1,2. Legends comic Translation

Here we go with what was listed as #3 on the website, it’s Rattrap in young people’s gap (hence the Junioration Gap pun) in opposition to the Generation gap that he had with the older Rhinox in the last issue.  Essentially, Generation gap is when an older person doesn’t understand you.  Junioration Gap is when a younger person doesn’t understand you.  Easy.  Although technically, they are BOTH generation gaps…. eeh who cares, this is more fun.

In another respect, this issue is a clever counter to the previous one.  Before it was the conflict of old skool TF fans with Beast Wars fans, now its a conflict between one who considers themselves a “true fan” and one who just joined recently (specifically, Silverbolt and his comment about liking TFs a week ago because he saw the movie.) using Silverbolt as the metaphor for the conflict.

Now, onto the comic!  Again, this one reads straight down.

Tets goes to the Yokohama Doll Museum (to see Transformers!)

The Yokohama Doll Museum happens to have a Transformers exhibition on at the moment (25 May until 30 June 2019).  Since I hadn’t heard about this place before and a brief look at their website has images linking to a cafe with promising coffee options, I decided to go and have a look.

Legends TF Webcomic #2, Rattrap and the Generation Gap

This little one didn't take me too long and is kind of stupidly fun.  Please read it in columns, straight down as there are two stories for Rattrap's first day at work.  I used the Japanese names in this for Rattrap, as Rhinox ends up comparing the Japanese names to the English names and making fun of them.

Which I can understand... For Japanese people, Optimus Prime is 8 syllables while in English it's 4, as well as having many consonants together, which Japanese doesn't have.  The same issue goes for Decepticons and Autobots (although not to the same extent).

Please Enjoy Issue # 2 

Star Convoy Comic translation

Star Convoy, I love this guy for the plain reason that he is huge and kinda naff.  TakaraTomy are making a new version for their Generations Select series and made a little comic for it.  I've Translated it.  Just in case anyone is interested, I have no intention of getting the Select Star Convoy toy, as the truck mode isn't right and no there is no base mode.  So no thanks.

Link to TTmall page Listing is here.


Also, no arrow version for this, as I'm feeling lazy as wasn't as interested as the story isn't very exciting.  Sorry. (not really) Left to right reading, as stated below.




If I may be completely honest, I get a kind of Almost-but-not-quite-there feeling with this comic.  It feels very much like the comics that come with the e-hobby figures.

Legends 50, Sixshot comic translation complete!

What is Moe? Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me no moe.

Well, what and adventure this turned out to be.  Sixshot's archaic speaking tendencies, manga skill lingo, dimensional shenanigans, battling with otaku words, and pages cut into six.  I guess that keeps in the theme. 

Tets goes to "The World of Transformers"

A Transformers 35th Anniversary Exhibition.



15th of March 2019 Opening day!

Today I hauled my butt out to Ikebukurou (twice in 1 week!) to go to the Parco Museum to see this gallery they had set up.  It only really grabbed my attention when I saw the (catchy) artwork advertising it in the elevator when I went to the Bumblebee cafe.   Boy am I glad I went!

Once again preparations began early, with pants selection:

Luckily the morning wasn't as bed comfy as before, so I was able to arise and wander off a little earlier from my house.

Knowing the gallery is in the same building as the BB cafe, I had no trouble finding it and when I first spied it, I was a little disappointed.



It cost 700 yen and at the counter looked a little sad. I prepared myself for feelings equal to my BB cafe experience. i.e nice but not exciting.

Luckily it was
More than meets the eye!  (Collective groans go here)

Tets goes to the Bumblebee Cafe, 2019

With the long awaited release of the Bumblebee movie here in Japan (the wait for movies here is nuts!), comes the push for promotion.  This time we have a Bumblebee themed cafe.  NOICE.

The cafe is a normal cafe that adopts a theme for a certain while and has some novelty food and drinks set up.  There was  one that did a Sonic theme a while ago that I kind of wanted to go to, but couldn't be that bothered to.  

Anyway, I got up and got my lay butt outta bed and made my way there today!  Just for the record, it was windy and stormy the night before and my bed was extra comfy this morning.

However, preparations started long before!

Siege Micromasters Roadhandler & Swindler Quick 'n' Nasty review

Man with these guys I certainly feel like I’ve been swindled.

When I was a young fella and getting out of Transformers, I stumbled across the Decepticon Race Patrol.  From that moment on, I fell in love with Blackjack, Detour, Roadhugger and Hyperdrive.  To a lesser extent Micromasters as well.  I ended up getting Overload and thought he was pretty neat.  Their size and the fact that they had good base style interaction was pretty awesome.  I didn’t really get anymore than them, but I definitely appreciated their efforts.

When War for Cybertron: Siege line announced Micromasters, I was all for them.  I saw them at the Tokyo Comic Con and they were tiny, but looked all right. Also they had no price listed.

Now I have Roadhandler and Swindler in hand.  I remember these guys mostly from the Marvel comic that led up to the Underbase saga. Or after. I can't remember exactly. Anyway Micromasters are cool!


(Picture stolen from someone's site.)

So with that warm fuzzy feeling of having some new Micromasters I bought them and boy do I feel swindled!

Yearly Wrap up 2018

As is the usual way of my blog lately, a few posts throughout the year and then I bust out a whole list of crap I picked up during the year.

It’s been an odd year for me, as it turns out there were a heap more Legends Transformers came out than I expected.  Work was a tricky taking my precious precious time away from toys and a couple of ripper video games also doing that too.

Toy wise, I naturally enjoyed the Transformers, although I got the definite feel that bot Hasbro  and Takara were phoning it in with Power of the Primes.  The mix of half-assed Pretenders (I actually like proper pretenders) and a random mish mash of combining other figures makes them feel like left over ideas from Combiner War/Legends.   It also feels like a lot has just been holding the fort until the Bumblebee movie toys come out as well.  

Here in Japan, the Bumblebee movie doesn’t come out until April 2019, yet the toys are flooding the shelves, the POTP figures are disappearing (will I be able to get punch/counterpunch??) and the timing of the Siege line (of which I have some interest) starts in February 2019.  Shelf space seems to be limited and I suspect that the movie toys won’t do so well right now, but will pick up when the movie comes out, but will have run out of steam by then, leaving the Transformers shelves in a rather sorry state.  They already take only a small section of shops (assuming they have a section at all) as it is.