Battle Up of Wrath!!
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 Thundercats, HOOOO! | ||||||
| "Battle Up of Wrath!!" (Ikari no Battle Up!!) | ||||||
| Production company | Takara, Toei | |||||
| Airdate | N/A | |||||
| Writer | Toyohiro Ando | |||||
| Director | Yoshikata Nitta | |||||
| Animation studio | Toei | |||||
| Continuity | Japanese Generation 1 cartoon continuity | |||||
Star Saber unleashes his full fighting potential when the Decepticons make a play for the Autobot power source, Schaeffer Energy.
- Omni Productions dub name: "The Power of Rage"
Synopsis
Braver brings Jean and Holi to the Schaeffer Energy plant in America, where they get to watch as a spaceship arrives with a payload of Martian ore, which is then used to create the powerful Schaeffer Energy. Braver excuses himself to attend a conference, so Jean and Holi watch spaceships taking off, wondering where they might be going. When Holi suggests a ship might be on the way to planet Micro, Jean is reminded of their recent trip there, and Star Saber's defeat at the hands of Liokaiser.
At the Shuttle Base, the Autobots review the Decepticons' most recent activities, concluding that their recent expenditure of energy in the Dark Nebula will only cause their energy raids to increase.
Not unexpectedly, the villains are indeed already making plans for a new attack aboard the Thunder Arrow. Leozack proudly gloats about the Breastforce's victory over Star Saber on Micro, but can't catch a break from Deathsaurus, who instead praises Guyhawk for his role in the battle, and then Hellbat, for his discovery of the Schaeffer Energy plant.
Back in the Shuttle Base, Jean has a nightmare in which Liokaiser kills Star Saber and awakes with a start. Distressed, he hops onto his hover disc and goes looking for Star Saber; Blacker directs him outside, where Star Saber is sitting on the beach, staring out over the ocean. Jean begs for Star Saber to win against Liokaiser in their next fight, and Star Saber says that he will not fail again. This peaceful moment between father and son does not get to last very long, though, as news soon arrives that the Breastforce and Dinoforce have attacked the Schaeffer Energy plant.
Star Saber, the Brainmasters, the Rescue Team and Jean head out, arriving at the plant as the new day begins. With Jean and the Rescues evacuating civilians, Star Saber keeps the Breastforce busy while the Brainmasters head into the plant to stop the Dinoforce from pillaging its energy storehouse. Unfortunately, the Brainmasters are too late to stop them from clearing out the stockpile, and follow them back outside, emerging just as the Breastforce combine into Liokaiser and engage Star Saber in battle. A blast from Liokaiser sends one of the plant's towers toppling over, but Star Saber leaps into action, holding it up and preventing it from crushing the humans below. With their commander thusly occupied, the Brainmasters combine into Road Caesar to take on Liokaiser in his place until Jean and the Rescues are able to clear all the humans to safety. With this task accomplished, Star Saber allows the tower to fall safely, and joins Road Caesar in the fight against Liokaiser.
Holding his sword aloft, Star Saber summons up so much energy that his entire body becomes sheathed in a cone of force, then delivers slash after vicious slash, knocking Liokaiser to the ground. Before the fight can go any further, however, Deathsaurus broadcasts a message from the Thunder Arrow, announcing that they have successfully stolen the Schaeffer Energy and ordering Liokaiser to retreat.
With the Decepticons gone, the Autobots survey the damaged plant, and Road Caesar apologises for allowing the theft to take place. Star Saber brushes it off, saying that while the energy may have been stolen, the fact that they were able to save lives is much more important.
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Decepticons | Humans | Breast Animals |
|---|---|---|---|
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Quotes
"Leave it to my all-seeing eyes and devilish ears."
- —Hellbat
"On this silent night, all living things hold the power for tomorrow. To protect them, we also need the courage to endure."
- —Star Saber
"Just suck on some methane gas!"
- —Gōryū
"Liokaiser! See if you can take the power of justice!"
- —Star Saber
"I can promise you, I'll become King of the Universe!"
- —Deathsaurus
"OK, let's get him down on the ground and then kill him!"
- —Leozack on how they'll defeat Star Saber.
Notes
Lost in translation
Among the changes made by the Omni Productions dub:
- Schaeffer energy isn't mentioned — according to Braver, the ore emits radioactive energy. Both he and Holi produce large chunks of the stuff to show to Jean shortly afterwards, so Jean can pretty much forget about children.
- Deathsaurus announcing they're out of energy turns into him asking Leozack if he's found any more energy. When Leozack replies in the affirmative, Deathsaurus reminds him they need a lot more to reactivate the fortress.
- Deathsaurus credits the victory on Micro to the presence of Guyhawk. Technically, he's right; Guyhawk's presence allowed the Breastforce to combine into Liokaiser and defeat Star Saber.
- Mention of there being residential buildings near the plant are removed.
Animation or technical errors
- Deathsaurus seems unnaturally huge compared to the Breastforce during his opening scenes.
- During Jean's nightmare, Liokaiser throws one of his spiked rings into Star Saber's shoulder. Subsequent shots lack the ring, and the damage also appears and disappears between shots (see the above screenshot for an example).
- As the Breastforce begin their attack on the Schaffer Energy plant, we see a closeup of missiles being launched from what appears to be Hellbat's underside. However, only Leozack and Guyhawk are shown to be bombarding the facility, with the next scene showing Hellbat taking off to join the attack.
- Hellbat's voice is quite distorted as he hypnotizes the guards. It's especially noticeable because his voice is back to normal afterwards.
- When Guyhawk fires missiles at Star Saber, the panels from which they emerge briefly turn green.
- While Star Saber is powering up his attack of burning justice, there's a repeated piece of footage of Liokaiser stepping back and his weapon materialising in his hand.
Continuity errors
- Braver specifically describes the ship that he, Jean and Holi watch arrive as having returned from Mars. Presumably, he didn't get the memo that the planet got blown up back during The Headmasters, but he's not the only one, since this was also overlooked in "A Fierce Battle!! The Asteroid".
- When Hellbat hypnotises the staff at the Schaeffer Energy plant, his normal chant ("Hypnotism, Sleep, Hibernation! Hellbat!") is inexplicably cut down to "Hypnotism, Sleep, Hellbat!"
Transformers references
- Star Saber was defeated by Liokaiser in "Unite! Liokaiser".
- The Decepticons used up their energy stockpile on Deathsaurus's fortress in the Dark Nebula in the "previous episode".
Real world references
- In the first minute of the episode, as Jean, Holi and Braver travel along a moving walkway inside the Schaeffer Energy plant, robots incredibly similar to C-3PO and R2-D2 of Star Wars fame pass by them in the opposite direction. The following shot has another R2 unit some distance ahead of them on the same conveyor.
- Kakuryū holds up a small white flag after Gōryū yells at him.
Trivia
- According to "Transformers Generations", this episode didn’t actually air on Japanese television. Quite why it didn’t is a bit of a mystery.
- The slightly odd-sounding title of this episode refers to Star Saber's activation code for his super mode: "Battle Up!" Japanese fiction has a strange habit of using these English phrases as verbs or nouns, often leading to strange-sounding English translations (for example, "Ginrai: God On of Rage!!", or lines like "Before he was able to Head On again..." or "Ginrai God Onned it...").
- Some of the computer screens display rather strange writing. Just before Blacker says that the Decepticons are out of energy, a monitor displays some Romaji which presumably would be some form of Easter egg to Japanese viewers. Later, when the Decepticons attack, we see a monitor displaying the word EMERGENCY in big red letters; above it are the phrases "Seeing is believing", "It never rains but it pours", and "Come up to the scratch!"
- The Brainmasters don't do a stellar job today; they come across the Dinoforce when Goryu is clearly telling his troops to take the Schaeffer Energy to the Thunder Arrow, but still think that the villains haven't gotten the energy yet, despite presumably knowing the facility well enough to realize that the Decepticons are heading away from the storage room. Their subsequent beating at the hands of Liokaiser isn't exactly impressive, either.
Home video releases
- DVD
2003 — Transformers: Victory — DVD Box 01 (Pioneer LDC) — Japanese audio only.
2006 — The Takara Collection Vol 3 — Transformers: Victory (Metrodome)
2007 — Transformers — The Complete Takara Collection (Metrodome)
2008 — The Transformers: Victory (Madman Entertainment) — Optional Omni dub.
2009 — The Transformers: Japan Generation 1 — Complete Collection (Madman Entertainment) — Optional Omni dub.
