When Transformers was bought out in the US it mainly consisted of two different Japanese toy lines: Microman and Diaclone. They were combined into one with new paint jobs, a different plot and names for the characters. Seeing how successful and popular the Transformers line was in the US, Tamara, a Japanese toy company, decided to end their Diaclone and Microman lines and instead bring Transformers over to Japan.
However, Japan was about a year behind compared to the US, so they had some catching up to. The series was given the title of "Fight! Super Robot Life Transformers" and when the cartoon came out, the episodes the Japanese got were simply dubbed versions of what the US had. However, for Japan, seasons 1 and 2 were combined into one massive season. A narrator was added to most episodes to explain things, the title of each episode was re-written in kanji (obviously), some character names were changed, the episode order was severely changed around and two episodes didn't even air at all -"Day of the Machines" and "Attack of the Autobots" were missing from the original Japanese run of the series, but were late released on the Japanese laserdisc and DVD releases of the series.
INTROS
The Japanese version had two intros, each with the song "Transformer" by Shimonari Satoko. The footage used combines clips from the US first and second season intros.
ENDING
Features the song "Peace Again", which was also sung by Shimonari Satoko.
These intros and ending were longer than the US equivalents, but the show was still meant to fill a 30 minute time slot. So in every episode, some footage was cut out so an episode wouldn't over-run. Any scene that could go would, and roughly one minute and ten seconds worth of footage would be taken out of every Japanese episode.
NAME CHANGES
Here are just a few examples of the different names for characters in Japan:
ENGLISH CHARACTER NAME
JAPANESE CHARACTER NAME
Jazz
Meister
Optimus Prime
Convoy
Fireflight
Firebolt
Mirage
Ligier
Cosmos
Adams
Blaster
Broadcast
Sideswipe
Lambor
Rumble
Frenzy
Frenzy
Rumble
Laserbeak
Condor
Bumblebee
Bumble
Devastator
Devastar
Shockwave
Laserwave
EPISODE CHANGES
The names of the episode were also changed. Here are a few highlights:
ENGLISH EPISODE NAME
JAPANESE EPISODE NAME
Enter the Nightbird
The Shadow of the Nightbird
Quest for Survival
Operation: Survival
The Core
Defeat Devastar!
Cosmic Rust
The Terrifying Cosmic Rust!
The Golden Lagoon
Mystery of the Golden Lagoon
The God Gambit
Sky God
A Prime Problem
Two Convoys
Transport to Oblivion
Operation: Space Bridge
The Ultimate Doom
Day of Destruction
As noted previously, the order of the episodes in Japan was switching around quite a bit, For example, the Japanese season ends with "The Ultimate Doom" trilogy, whilst bizarrely, "Countdown to Extinction" is the ninth episode in the season, which creates some problems from a continuity pont of view (Dr. Arkeville going back from a cyborg to a human, for example). Any episode with Skyfire in it was generally pushed back to the end of the season.
Several clip shows were also created. These clip shows usually had some kind of theme to them, and usually combined multi-part episodes into one. For example, "Earth's Greatest Crisis" combined footage from all three parts of "The Ultimate Doom". Most of the clip shows were broadcast after the season had ended.
When Transformers was bought out in the US it mainly consisted of two different Japanese toy lines: Microman and Diaclone. They were combined into one with new paint jobs, a different plot and names for the characters. Seeing how successful and popular the Transformers line was in the US, Tamara, a Japanese toy company, decided to end their Diaclone and Microman lines and instead bring Transformers over to Japan.