Note: The following has been double-checked with Doug Dlin, Hydra Custom, Jordan Derber, DrSpengler and even Japanese super-fan Fumihiko Akiyama, five people who undoubtedly know more about Japanese Transformers than the average Joe does. So, if anything in the following list is still wrong, I blame it on them (even Fumihiko-san himself admits that he's not 100% sure about some of the information presented herein).
Additional information and suggestions regarding the possible origins of some of these rumors have been provided by Monzo, Monocle, Rotty and Spark of the Allspark message boards.
1. RUMOR: Cybertrons originally come from Cybertron, while Destrons are invaders from a planet named Destron, as hinted by the name.
FACT: This rumor originally stems from an article a Thomas Wheeler had written for Attic's Collectible Toys and Values Monthly during the hiatus between G1 and G2. According to that article, Hasbro chose not to follow this element of the story because of the similarity between the term "Destron" and G.I. Joe's "Destro" character. Of course, seeing as the story originated in America to begin with and was only dubbed into Japanese later on, this doesn't make a lot of sense. In fact, the Japanese use a different spelling for "Cybertron" (literally "Sa-i-ba-to-ro-n", the faction we know as "Autobots" in the West) and "Seibertron" (literally "Se-i-baa-to-ro-n, the planet we know as "Cybertron" in the West) in order to avoid that confusion. Therefore, both factions come from the same planet in Japanese continuity as well. If nothing else, the flashback in "Five Faces of Darkness" depicting the origins of the Transformers - which was not altered for the Japanese version - should be evidence enough.
2. RUMOR: Scramble City was meant to replace TF:TM in Japanese continuity and served to bridge the gap between "Tatakae" (US season 2) and "2010" (US season 3) and to introduce the movie/season 3 characters to the Japanese audience. The continuation, Scramble City 2, is a stop-motion animation using the toys and provides evidence that Galvatron and Megatron are not the same characters in Japan (see also 4).
FACT: Scramble City is a promotional video for the "Scramble City" toys. The first part consists of a brief recap of the events of "More Than Meets the Eye" (the cartoon pilot) and a scene from "The Master Builders" that serves to showcase Devastator. The second part is a new animation (albeit using a lot of reused footage from earlier episodes) that showcases the "Scramble City" combiners (Aerialbots, Protectobots, Combaticons and Stunticons) plus the two bases, Metroplex and Dinosaurer/Trypticon.
Continuity-wise, the story is set years before TF:TM, in the early stages of the construction of Autobot City. The only "movie" character who shows up in Scramble City at all is Ultra Magnus.
That stop-motion animation thing, meanwhile, is not officially named "Scramble City 2", and neither is it actually part of any continuity. 90% of it are a retelling of the original SC story, and the rest is just meant to promote some more toys (particularly Galvatron) as early as possible. It's a standalone "story", not part of the "official" Japanese G1 continuity.
3. RUMOR: "Transformers: The Movie" is not part of Japanese continuity. The casualties of the movies are still alive in the Japanese follow-up shows.
FACT: Though the airing of TF:TM was postponed in Japan for a few years (probably because it was a huge commercial failure in the US), the events of the movie were still considered valid parts of Japanese continuity. Background articles in TV Magazine (the official companion magazine to the cartoon) would fill in the gaps, and the flashback at the beginning of "Five Faces of Darkness" was left unaltered for the Japanese version.
The alternate flashback to Convoy/Optimus Prime's death at the beginning of the first "Headmasters" episode, as well as the appearances of various movie casualties in "Headmasters" (Ironhide, Prowl) and "Victory" (Wheeljack) are due to the fact that the writers/animators of the episodes in question simply weren't aware of the exact events of TF:TM (yet). According to Japanese super-fan Fumihiko Akiyama, it might have not been easy to watch TF:TM for the "Victory" animators at that time. Plus, they might have not been eager researchers to begin with. While Ironhide and Prowl could easily be written off as "animation errors" (after all, Huffer and Brawn showed up alive in "Carnage in C-Minor" as well, plus Prowl is referred to as being dead in the Japanese dub of "Dark Awakening"), Wheeljack is a little tougher to explain... but then, he pulled a similar stunt in again the Dreamwave comics. Plus, if fans can accept the infamous "origin of the Constructicons" paradox, there's no reason why the "Wheeljack" issue couldn't be "explained" in a similar fashion.
Additionally, the Wheeljack character in "Victory" appears to have a different personality from the original one, he seemed to be a younger character judging from his choice of words and even had a different voice actor ("Tatakae" Wheeljack was Osamu Saka; "Victory" Wheeljack was Nobuo Satouchi). His part in Victory was basically a "Perceptor-like character".
4. RUMOR: Galvatron and Megatron are not the same character in Japan.
FACT: Apparently, in the early days of the online Transformers fandom, there was a particlularly proactive splinter group which was quite persistent in claiming that Megatron and Galvatron were not the same entity, because they couldn't accept their beloved character (Megatron) getting turned into a maniac (Galvatron). For that reason, they were citing every possible instance in order to "prove" that the two were separate characters in Japan.
However, since TF:TM is part of Japanese G1 continuity, this should be self-explanatory... still, aside from unfounded rumors, there are actually a few instances that did technically "support" the "Megatron is not Galvatron" theory: Galvatron being ordered around by Megatron as if he were a subordinate in the "Scramble City" stop-motion toy animation doesn't count, since it's not part of Japanese continuity, as explained above (see 2). The reason why this happened in the first place was that Takara wanted to promote the Galvatron toy as early as possible, and since Hasbro were extremely secretive about the true identity of the Galvatron character, Takara simply didn't know better. The same applies to a promotional image published in Comics Bon Bon that shows Ultra Magnus and Galvatron duking it out on Metroplex's shoulder while Megatron is watching in the back.
Worse yet: Takara, even while developing the toys for TF:TM, originally didn't even know that Rodimus Prime was the new leader and that he and Hot Rod were supposed to be the same character! So they originally made the prototype of Hot Rod in three times the final size (think BM Nightscream). And after being corrected by Hasbro, Takara's developers were disappointed because they had to make Rodimus Prime's toy larger than Hot Rod's...
Back to the Galvatron/Megatron issue: Additionally to the aformentioned examples, the first issues of "The Transformers", the Transformers: 2010 manga printed inside TV Magazine, appear to depict Megatron and Galvatron as different characters. In fact, however, the second issue simply has Galvatron attack Rodimus Convoy (Rodimus Prime) and his Cybertrons (Autobots) with a hoard of Megatron automatons, each of them with its own unique fusion cannon. So the "Megatrons" appearing in this story are simply robots that look like Megatron, not the real Megatron himself. However, people who don't understand the dialogue might still get the impression that Megatron and Galvatron are depicted fighting side by side.
So, in essence, yes: A few early "stories" erroneously depicted Megatron and Galvatron as different characters, but they were quickly discarded, and the "official" continuity follows the Western interpretation of the Galvatron character. Lastly, a fade-over at the beginning of the first episode of "Headmasters" pretty much implies that Megatron became Galvatron. Finally, a last rumor about the "Battlestars" manga is going to be discussed as a separate point (see 8 ).
5. RUMOR: In "Masterforce", Optimus Prime is being controlled by a human (who's also named "Optimus Prime").
FACT: Technically, this should be common knowledge by now. Still, some people might still be oblivious to this, so an explanation might be useful nonetheless: Though at the time "Masterforce" was being produced, 90% of the molds Japan was getting were still the same as used for the toys released in the USA at the same time (minus a few alterations), the characters appearing in the "Masterforce" cartoon were totally different from the ones appearing in the Marvel comics in the US and the UK. In fact, most of the "Masterforce" characters were simply humans using lifeless robots, so-called "Transtectors", as some sort of mecha suits. One of them was a Japanese named Ginrai, whose name, when written in Kanji, can be interpretated as "trust" or "brotherhood" (and also has the same number of syllables as "Convoy", the Japanese name of Optimus Prime, for that matter). Actually, he was originally supposed to be a new Convoy, but that aspect was eventually downplayed, and he was made a different character altogether. Of course, the toy was initially designed to be Optimus Prime by Hasbro, but apparently, Takara already decided to make it a different character in the early planning stages of the "Masterforce" cartoon. Apparently, different people had different ideas, and eventually the result turned out to be quite different from the original idea.
The Japanese "Masterforce Encyclopedia" later explained that the Transtector had indeed been originally meant to be used as a new body for Convoy, who had died in the third episode of "Headmasters", but got stolen by Devil Z and eventually bonded with a human named Ginrai. Later, the Ginrai Transtector (now God Ginrai - a play on words with "Gojira", the original Japanese name of "Godzilla"; the person who decided upon the name of the powered-up version was a huge fan of Japanese live-action shows) gained sentience on his own, separated from the human Ginrai and was eventually upgraded into Victory Leo. Convoy, meanwhile, wouldn't get resurrected until "Battlestars".
As a matter of fact, near the end of the "Masterforce" cartoon's original airing in Japan, Takara released a video called "Master Force Cho Hyakka", which featured an "untold story" by Masumi Kaneda, the cartoon's story planner (and sworn enermy of some Japanese TF fans, because he would engage in discussions with Japanese fans and try to enforce his views about Transformers even after "Masterforce" had ended), which in turn consisted of a conversation between Grand (the head of Grand Maximus) and Shuta (the head of Go Shooter). Grand explained that Ginrai's Transtector had indeed been developed as a new body for Convoy in the G Nebula. The new hero (?) of the planet Master (from "Masterforce") would have combined with the Transtector and become the new Convoy (it's not clear whether this was supposed to mean that he would have had the same personality of the original Convoy or just have resembled his appearance and shared his name). But in the end, the Transtector ended up combining with Ginrai, the human, with an even better result. This dialogue might have indeed been based on one of the many "untold backstories" (of which there are many in Japanese shows), but what's important is that Ginrai (the robot) was supposed to be a character in his own right from the get-go.
However, what really caused confusion was the English dub by Star TV from Hong Kong, who for some reason decided to use the Western names for all characters from "Masterforce". Therefore, the female Minerva (or "Minelba") ended up as "Nightbeat", and Ginrai (the robot as well as the human) became "Optimus Prime".
6. RUMOR: The Japanese title of TF:TM is "Matrix Forever".
FACT: The Japanese title of TF:TM is "Transformers: The Movie" on all the Japanese VHS, Laserdisc and DVD covers. "Transformers The Movie: Matrix yo Eien ni" ("Matrix Forever") was the name of a 20 minute promo video only. It's possible, but rather unlikely, that this was originally intended to be the Japanese title of the movie, but it was never actually used officially. Even the Japanese "Transformers: Generations" book refers to the movie as "Transformers: The Movie" only, as does everything included with the Japanese DVD set of the cartoon (the "Exciting Transformer" documentary, the booklet, the trailers and everything else).
It appears, though, that this rumor is quite widespread among Japanese fans as well.
7. RUMOR: Metrotitan from "Zone" is a zombifed Metroplex.
FACT: Metrotitan got his name because he was created on Titan, a moon of Saturn. Additionally, his name is also supposed to pose a certain symmetry with his adversary Dai Atlas: Atlas from Greek mythology was a Titan. Metrotitan's team of underlings are a group of sentient Transformers that are quite powerful in their own right.
Needless to say, he's not supposed to be the same character as Metroplex, even though a variation of this rumor claims that Metrotitan was somehow mysteriously regrown out of one of Metroplex's zombified legs.
8. RUMOR: In the "Battlestars" manga, Super Megatron is sent to kill Galvatron.
FACT: Though never explicitly stated in the manga itself, Super Megatron is in fact Galvatron, resurrected by Dark Nova from the Arctic (where he got buried during the "Headmasters" cartoon) and rebuilt into Super Megatron. Super Megatron is then sent to kill the resurrected Star Convoy, but fails. Subsequently, he gets upgraded into Ultra Megatron, who in turn eventually merges with Dark Nova to form the Star Giant.
Since Megatron and Galvatron are the same character in Japan (see also 4), Super Megatron (who's undoubtedly an upgraded Megatron) can't be sent to kill Galvatron.
This rumor was apparently born partly out of ignorance, but also because it fit perfectly with the "Galvatron is not Megatron" partisan group's views (see also 4 for the rumors based on "Scramble City 2" and the early "2010" artwork), and to them, it made perfect sense that a reborn Megatron's first act would be killing the "imposter".
But where did the idea that Super Megatron had ever attempted to kill Galvatron originally come from? My best guess would be that this bit might probably be based on some blurred memories of the "2010" manga, where Giltaur (or "Guiltor"), a new body built by the Quintessons for Starscream's ghost, which happens to consist of both Convoy/Optimus Prime and Megatron parts, is indeed sent to kill Galvatron (and about everyone else as well). So, most probably, someone confused Giltaur (who is sent to kill Galvatron) and Super Megatron (who is sent to kill Star Convoy), and for the reasons stated before, the misinformation got spread.
9. RUMOR: In Japan, Beast Wars Convoy (Optimus Primal) and Megatron are the same characters as their G1 namesakes, Convoy (Optimus Prime) and Megatron.
FACT: One theory claims that we're dealing with a case of miscommunication between Hasbro, Mainframe and Takara here again (see also 4). It's a known fact that Hasbro had originally intended BW Primal and Megatron to be the same characters as G1 Prime and Megatron, as hinted by their tech specs. For the CG show, however, Mainframe decided to ignore the tech specs and make them unique characters who simply adopted the names of those two legendary warriors, because Bob Forward and Larry DiTillio, the producers of the BW show, were initially not that familiar with the G1 characters.
According to the aforementioned theory, this piece of information might have been initially lost between Mainframe, Takara and the company that dubbed Beast Wars into Japanese. Therefore, Convoy and Megatron were hinted indeed to be the originals in the dubbed Japanese version of of the first US season. For the same reason, prehistoric Earth was also referred to as "Energois" (or "Energoa", or "Energor") in the dub. However, there's no definite answer to this - the dialogue was rather ambiguous, and since Japanese shows often like to feature a surprise element, these might have simply been "red herrings".
Also, the fact that Convoy (Optimus Primal) was hailed as the "legendary hero" in the BW II movie could simply be due to the fact that last year's heroes are often already viewed as "legendary" in the follow-up show - even though it's rather unlikely that Lio Convoy's crew could have actually known about "Gorilla" Convoy's adventures on prehistoric Earth. It's just a children's cartoon, after all.
Either way, the hints had been left ambiguous enough, so once Beast Wars Metals rolled around, they were explained to be different characters from their G1 namesakes, just like in the US version.
10. RUMOR: In Japan, "Car Robots" is a continuation of "Beast Wars Neo".
FACT: While Hasbro/Saban's "Robots in Disguise" dub references various bits from previous shows ("Alpha Trion", "Vehicons"), Takara's "Car Robots" version didn't have those references. And even though many fans speculate that Gigatron and his Destrongers might originally stem from from the Japanese G1 universe post-BW Neo, this has never been confirmed onscreen. As it stands, "Car Robots" is a standalone show with no ties to anything that came before or after it.
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