Protect Freedom! Optimus!

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"Protect Freedom! Optimus!"
Publisher	Kodansha
Published in	TV Magazine
First published	August 31, 2023
Cover date	October/November/December 2023
Manga	Haruka Oda
Editor	Minoko

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Decepticons	Others
Optimus Prime (1) Bumblebee (2)	Megatron (4) Starscream (5)	Bunny aliens (3)

Notes

• This comic was published in the October/November/December 2023 issue of TV Magazine and advertised the Rise of the Beasts Scourge and War for Cybertron Gamer Edition Optimus Prime figures from the Studio Series toyline and the first collected edition of Go! Go!.
• It was rerun as the March 2024 issue of the webcomic where it advertised the Studio Series Optimus Prime and Bumblebee figures, the Premium Finish Megatron and Starscream toys, and of course the first collected edition of Go! Go!.

Transformers references

• Go! Go! is fairly reference light this month beyond the entire issue being an extended riff on Optimus Prime's famous motto first introduced in his Generation 1 toy bio, "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings."

Real-world references

• While the alien species introduced in this issue is all-new for Go! Go!, their body shape and crater-littered planet is pretty transparently drawing on the common association between rabbits and the moon in Japanese culture stemming from their analogue to the "man in the moon", probably best known to western readers from Sailor Moon protagonist Usagi Tsukino (月野 うさぎ, Tsukino Usagi), whose name is an oft-remarked upon homonym with the Japanese word for rabbit (兎). Transformers fans, meanwhile, will likely recognize the association from the Beast Wars II rabbit named. Uh. Moon.

External links

• Scans of "Protect Freedom! Optimus!" at TFRaw
• "Protect Freedom! Optimus!" at TV Magazine
• Translation of "Protect Freedom! Optimus!" at the TF Translations blog