Go! Go! issue 41

« Transformers Go! Go! web issue 41 »
Publisher	Kodansha
Published in	TV Magazine
First published	August 15, 2024
Manga	Haruka Oda
Editor	Minoko

The Autobots embark on a challenge for their bravery, but some ghosts are more real than they think.

Synopsis

Hot Rod and Bumblebee are braving an ominous abandoned hospital on Cybertron to test their courage! And Prowl is there too because he caught Bumblebee sneaking out and followed along to make sure the two turbo-revving young punks aren't doing anything dangerous. With Hot Rod leading the way, the group ventures into the building with great gusto... unaware that Starscream and Soundwave are hiding inside, having planned a prank for the Autobots. Soundwave provides a creepy soundtrack to set the mood, while Starscream dons a ghost costume and leaps out to terrify the trio! Prowl immediately shoots the "ghost," but Starscream slips away and returns in another costume to scare the Autobots' daylights out.

Several successful scary pranks later, the terrified Autobots have no choice but to run away as Starscream and Soundwave share a good laugh over their victory. That is, until they discover the building is haunted by an actual Autobot ghost that materializes and menaces the two Decepticons! Spotting Starscream and Soundwave fleeing for their lives, the Autobots outside conclude that the day's events were just a bad Decepticon prank... while conspicuously trying to ignore the Autobot ghost's presence standing right behind them.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Decepticons
Prowl (1) Bumblebee (2) Hot Rod (3) Autobot ghost (6)	Starscream (4) Soundwave (5)

Notes

• This story was published as the August 2024 issue of the web comic and advertised Earthrise Prowl, Studio Series Rise of the Beasts Bumblebee, and The Transformers: The Movie Hot Rod, the Transformers Fan Book 2024, and the first collected edition of Go! Go!.
• In the opposite of a Transformers reference, series author Haruka Oda has explicitly confirmed that the Autobot ghost with a very specific-feeling helmet is in fact a wholly original design.

Transformers references

• Odds are good that Starscream calling dibs on the ghost costume is a riff on his very, very storied history of playing the spooky ghost in Transformers stories dating all the way back to his posthumous reprisal in the Generation 1 cartoon after his memorable death scene in 1986's The Transformers: The Movie.

Real-world references

• You may notice this spooky scary issue is a bit early for Halloween. That's because it's actually for the Obon (お盆) festival, a Buddhist holiday in August centered around celebrating departed loved ones via bonfires, dances, and various other festivities.
• After he exhausts the traditional sheet ghost, Starscream swaps to a scary wig riffing on more Japan-specific depictions of onryō (怨霊, "vengeful spirit") probably best known to global audiences via Sadako Yamamura, the antagonist of popular horror franchise The Ring.
• The paper lanterns with googly eyes and tongues that Soundwave deploys are chōchin'obake (提灯お化け, "paper lantern ghost"), not-so-folkloric Japanese ghoulies seen pretty much exclusively as decoration in children's books and haunted houses. Appropriate!
• The triangle headband thing wrapped over the Autobot ghost's helmet is a funerary vestment dating to around the Heian period that, while out of fashion for centuries, is strongly lodged in Japanese cultural shorthand for ghosts.

External links

• Issue 41 at TV Magazine
• Issue 41 on Comic-Days