>>6699342I should note that the poster's referencing a longstanding rumor regarding the Japanese Transformers shows, that have circulated since the early 90s when TF fandom in the US first learned of the existence of the Japanese only shows.
The story details varies, but amounts to this: around early 1988, Hasbro's made overtures to get their hands on Headmasters and Masterforce so they could be aired in the US. An English dub for Headmasters was already done for non-English speaking audiences, but it was so supbar that Hasbro informed Takara/Toei they would have to redub it from scratch. So Takara/Toei sent Hasbro their own copy of Headmasters (raw, no sub/dub) and the just finished English dub of Masterforce (who's quality was much higher than Headmasters, once Takara/Toei learned Hasbro wanted to bring the show to the US). However, there was a fire at the building where the tapes were delivered to shortly after arriving. From their, (depending on the story being told), the following happened:
1. Takara/Toei refused to send replacement tapes to Hasbro, because they were insulted when Hasbro turned their noses up at the Headmaster dub.
2. Hasbro executives had seen the tapes before the fire. They already deemed Headmasters unusable due to the way in which Takara ignored all Hasbro lore for the Headmasters; plus the deaths of Optimus Prime, Ultra Magnus, Soundwave, and Blaster among others was deemed both a PR nightmare and a S&P nightmare. Masterforces was considered more marketable, but with the fire and finding a studio to dub the show, it would not air until 1990 at the latest and by then, the Powermaster and Pretenders would be old news.
As such, the series never got a proper dubbed release.
