Transformers Go! Go!: Difference between revisions

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*[[I Love Surprises!|#49]]
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*'''Collected editions:'''
*'''Collected editions:'''

Revision as of 10:15, 6 December 2025

The name or term "Go" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see Go (disambiguation).
Japanese Generation 1 continuity
Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers »

Transformers Go! Go! (トランスフォーマーごー!ごー!) is a 2020 manga for young readers written and drawn by Haruka Oda published in TV Magazine, on the TV Magazine website, and on publisher Kodansha's comics reader Comic-Days.

Overview

Transformers Go! Go!
Print issues:

Web issues:
  • Collected editions:
Vol. 1:

Transformers Go! Go! chronicles the light-hearted misadventures of the Autobots and Decepticons in a setting strongly resembling the original Generation 1 cartoon for a young audience while somewhat bafflingly promoting various collector-aimed exclusives.

The comic started out in print form in the pages of TV Magazine, typically published on the last Saturday of the month. Beginning with the August/September 2021 issue, the periodical went bi-monthly, before going tri-monthly with the April/May/June 2023 issue, with the exact publication date increasingly varying (confusingly, but typical of this kind of publication, the issue is actually released a month or two before the cover date). Separately from the magazine, exclusive stories have also been published in the "Transformers Fan Book" activity books (kind of like annuals published in the United Kingdom).

A year into its run, the TV Magazine website began serialising the manga digitally, with a webcomic usually being released on the 15th of each month. As the first two issues of the comic in the magazine had been published in black-and-white, they were replaced with a single new full-color volume to match the rest of the run. This put the numbering between the print and web editions out of sync: print issue #3 was republished as web issue #2, print issue #4 as web issue #3, and so forth. The webcomic additionally inserts character profiles calling out the specific toy being advertised in each story.

After ten installments, the webcomic switched to publishing exclusive new strips separately from the magazine, with issue #11 being the first non-rerelease. For whatever reason—perhaps just to give Oda some time off—it would still occasionally dip back into the magazine's material for reruns. Unfortunately, coinciding with the release of web issue #26 to promote the collected edition of Transformers Go! Go!, the preceding twenty-five webcomics were all taken down, simply redirecting to this advertisement—nevermind that many of these strips weren't actually included in the volume!

At the start of 2023, beginning with web issue #19, the comic entered an arc Oda termed "Beast Promo Season"- wherein it switched gears to integrate an iteration of Beast Wars cartoon cast (now contemporaneous with their G1 counterparts a la Kingdom) in the interests of prepping kids for the then-upcoming feature film Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, climaxing that fall with a giant-sized special in web issues #28 and #29 featuring many of the film's cast members (though still drawn with more influence from their original G1 or Beast Wars designs, in a fun bit of dissonance with the actual products being advertised!).[1]

With the magazine and website now publishing in tandem, under two separate numbering schemes, with the collected edition picking and choosing from both, and not to mention the Fan Book stories, the whole thing generally becomes a bit of a headache to document—but we can't stay mad at a comic this cute. Oh Go! Go!, you scamp.

Toys

In a surprising display of attention to detail for a title skewing so young, Go! Go! carries on the grand TakaraTomy comic tradition of aggressive toy accuracy, with each character matching one of their real toys all the way down to their kibble and transformation schemes. As the comic isn't bound to any particular toyline, the combination of advertised toy-of-the-week plus the occasional dip into older toys to paper over the gaps produces a cast cobbled together from disparate Generations toylines resembling a modern Generation 1 (and Beast Wars) fan's real life collection!

...and Long Haul.


War for Cybertron Trilogy Studio Series '86 War for Cybertron: Earthrise TV Magazine exclusive
War for Cybertron Trilogy Bumblebee
TV Magazine Powerful Long Haul
War for Cybertron: Kingdom
War for Cybertron: Siege MPG
Legacy Missing Link Generations Selects The Transformers
Masterpiece Wild King

Collections

In light of its overwhelming positive reception, Transformers Go! Go! became the first TV Magazine manga since Masumi Kaneda and Ban Magami's original 1985 run to receive a collected release![2]

  • Transformers Go! Go! (July 26, 2023) ISBN 4065320852 / ISBN 978-4065320853
    • Collects 19 select issues of Transformers Go! Go!
    • Bonus material includes character profiles and new 4-koma backup strips.
    • Tankōbon format.

Notes

  • The comic's soft, friendly aesthetic creates one prominent exception to the aforementioned toy accuracy: the aspiring Go! Go! superfan is free to swap out the advertised exclusives bearing gritty War for Cybertron Trilogy cartoon inspired battle damage for their barer standard retail versions with arguably increased resemblance to Oda's art.
  • A bit less cute is Kodansha's... shall we say "enthusiastic" approach to litigating assets from the comic appearing anywhere outside their own servers, free webcomic notwithstanding. Beginning in early 2024, Kodansha embarked on a months long crusade of takedown notices against English fan translations, presumably as another component of their aforementioned efforts to "un-publish" the web issues now sold in the comic's collected editions. This climaxed with a formal press statement issued that December wherein Kodansha voiced an intention to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law any "illegal uploads" both in and out of Japan, up to and including translations "without permission."[3] Conduct yourselves accordingly, Go! Go! fans.

References

  1. "「ビースト覚醒」への便乗はまだまだ続きます。ということでビースト強化シーズンです🦍🦖 個人的には映画公開当たりまでみっちりやりたいなあと思っています。"—Haruka Oda, Twitter, 2023/1/14
  2. "【お知らせ】テレビマガジンとテレマガネットで好評連載中のまんが「#トランスフォーマーごーごー」の単行本化が決定しました 皆様のTF愛がこの度、単行本化へとつながりました! 発売は7月26日(水)笑って癒されるトランスフォーマーまんがをお楽しみに ⒸTOMY #トランスフォーマー"—TV Magazine, Twitter, 2023/5/18
  3. "It has come to our attention that there are many illegal uploads of TRANSFORMERS Go! Go! on the Internet. Uploading and distributing manga without permission of the copyright holder is a violation of copyright, and may result in both criminal and civil liability, in and outside of Japan. The same applies to the act of uploading a foreign language version of a manga that has been translated without permission."—TV Magazine, Twitter, 2024/12/22