« Transformers: Super-God Masterforce ep 15 »
I've done it! Optimus Prime li—oh, wait, never mind.
"Heroism!! The Birth of Super Ginrai" 壮絶!!スーパージンライ誕生 () (Sōzetsu!! Super Ginrai Tanjō)
Production company	Takara, Toei
Airdate	2 August 1988
Writer	Hiroyuki Hoshiyama
Director	Jōhei Matsūra
Animation studio	Toei
Continuity	Japanese Generation 1 cartoon continuity

To rescue a group of kidnapped children and defeat the menace of King Poseidon, Ginrai must discover a new transformation!

Synopsis

Shark repellent sold separately.

On an island off the coast of America, the Decepticon Headmaster Juniors draw a crowd of local children when they perform some impressive surfing stunts. A young boy named Tony is particularly impressed, and gets especially excited when the Juniors offer to show them all something "even cooler"—their Masterforce powers! Unfortunately for Tony and his friends, the Decepticons Pretenders have been watching, and view this as an opportunity to draw out and destroy Ginrai by kidnapping the children to use as bait. While the Juniors hold the children in a cave along the coastline, the Pretenders announce to the people of the island that they have captured their children.

Ginrai, meanwhile, is in his truck on the side of the road, deep in thought, ruminating on his friend Sam's beliefs about his Godmaster powers being the will of God. Diver soon contacts him to let him know of the Decepticons' activities, and Ginrai quickly meets with him and Lander at the Ocean Research Institute. Lander is especially peeved at the Decepticons' timing, since he had a date planned, and winds up tossing his concert tickets to the dolphins swimming in the institute's waters. Diver decides to scout ahead for the Autobots, approaching the island from underwater to observe the situation.

"Wow, Gilmer, what a big right hand you have."

Back on the island, the Decepticon Pretenders take up their positions in preparation for the Autobots' arrival. Wilder and Bullhorn are both rather surprised to spot the little-seen Seacon leader Turtler patrolling the waters around the island—although not quite as much as Gilmer is to see Diver approaching the island underwater. He allows Diver to reach the island and assume his human form, at which point he bursts out of the ocean and seizes him. Dauros fits him with a brace that prevents him from crossing his arms and reassuming his robot mode, and has him tossed in with the captive human children. Luckily for Diver, Wilder and Bullhorn are a little too busy playing cards to notice when he has Tony remove his watch and place it in the water at the cave's edge, sending out a powerful sonic signal that is detected by his dolphins back at the Ocean Research Institute. All the other Autobots have since gathered at the Institute to await Diver's report, and Lander realises that Diver must be sending out ultrasonic waves when the dolphins begin to react to them.

"Hey kid, want to get on my shoulder and rocket out into space with me?"

The dolphins are let out into the ocean so that the Autobots can follow them back to the source of the signal aboard some of the Institute's vessels. Dauros spots the ships approaching, and recognizes Ginrai's transtector sitting on the deck – but unbeknownst to him, Ginrai is not on the boat, but is in fact approaching the island by swimming with the dolphins. It is not long before the ships are attacked by Blood and some Tentakils, but Metalhawk and Phoenix fend them off while the ships draw ever closer to the island. Gilmer emerges as the next line of defence, but Lander takes him on as the Decepticon Juniors open fire on the ships from the coast. A blast from Cancer ruptures the hull of the vessel carrying the transtectors, and sends the ship sinking into the ocean, so the Autobot Juniors transform to robot mode and leap the rest of the way. Ginrai's transtector also starts to slip off the deck and into the sea, but just before it disappears into the water, Ginrai—who has since reached the island—summons it and transforms to robot mode. Ginrai quickly takes out Wilder and frees Diver and the children, but the battle continues to rage between the other Pretenders and Juniors. Minerva appeals to Cancer, trying to convince him to leave the Decepticons and join the side of good, but Bullhorn steps in to strike her down before her words can have any impact.

"Powermaster Optimus Prime Super Ginrai
Greatest hero of his time

Discovering that Ginrai has freed the hostages, Dauros calls in the Decepticons' secret weapon and commands Turtler to emerge from beneath the waves. Ginrai is stunned when the Seacon actually speaks, uttering a command to the other Seacon drones that burst out of the water behind him to "assemble". The five drones link up to Turtler, merging to form the gigantic King Poseidon, who immediately tears into Ginrai while the Decepticon Pretenders pull back. Left abandoned, the Decepticon Juniors are surrounded by the Autobots, and Minerva again tries to reach Cancer, but the three teens quickly flee. Meanwhile, Ginrai struggles against King Poseidon, who attempts to stomp both him and the children. Ginrai seizes the giant villain's foot as it bears down on him and strains to hold it back as Tony cheers for him. Surging with determination, Ginrai begins to glow with an iridescent light...and, out in the shallow waters around the island, that glow is mirrored by Ginrai's transtector trailer, which flies out of the ocean and collides with King Poseidon, knocking him away. Then, the incredible happens—Ginrai links up with his trailer and transforms into a new super-robot mode! With the power of his new form, Ginrai thrashes King Poseidon and slams him into the ground, causing the Seacon drones to explode, leaving only Turtler, who escapes into the ocean. The Autobot onlookers are amazed by (and perhaps just a little jealous of) Ginrai's sudden new power up, and they dub him with a fitting new name: Super Ginrai!

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Notes

Animation and technical errors

Giant Enemy Cab!

• When the Decepticon Headmaster Juniors change into their armor for the kids, Bullhorn's colors are all over the place. His horns are blue instead of bone-colored, his pelvis is the same pale blue as his shoulders, and his legs are the same color as his upper arms.
• Ginrai's truck is parked next to a billboard which appears to be advertising E Cola and, in a magnificent piece of mistranslation, describes its product as "srarkring". An advertisement for the same beverage also appeared in the Generation 1 episode, "B.O.T."
• The insignia on Ginrai's braces flashes to indicate an incoming call. Unfortunately, it's a Decepticon insignia.
• As Diver casts off his human form, the helmet to his armor is completely white.
• When Cab and Minerva leap to the island, their cels are arranged incorrectly—Cab should be in the foreground, with Minerva in the background, but they are reversed, thus making it seem like Cab is HUGE (or Minerva is tiny).

Continuity errors

• Superhuman Ginrai: Ginrai is able to speak while underwater and wearing a scuba mask (see also "Atlantis, Arise!").

Continuity notes

• Ginrai's friend Sam made his overly religious observation on the nature of Godmasters in the previous episode.
• Minerva's attempts to appeal to Cancer come as a result of the connection they made in "A Strange Friendship: Cancer and Minerva".
• Ginrai got his trailer back in "Friend or Foe!? The True Form of the Monster!!" But if you saw the previous episode, then the fact that he was going to combine with it was no surprise, since the commercial bumpers gave it away.

Trivia

• When taking up positions in preparation for Ginrai's arrival, the Decepticon Pretenders highlight the "land, sea and air" theme that they embody in this episode, as discussed on the Wiki back in the article for "Rise Up!! Pretenders".
• There was a two-week break between the previous episode and this one when they originally aired on Japanese television.

Foreign localization

English

• Title: "The Birth of a Super Warrior" (Omni Productions dub)
• Original airdate: September 9, 1990

• Title: "The Heroic Birth of Super Ginrai" (Shout! Factory sub)

• Apparently for this episode someone forgot to swap profanities for their less offensive terms "Pit" and "scrap". It's interesting to note "damn" appears more in this one episode than all previous episodes (The Headmasters series included) combined.

Italian

• Title: "Il grande guerriero" ("The great warrior")
• Original airdate: ?

• In the Italian dub, sometimes the first seconds of the episode are cut out. In this case this is particularly noticeable because the shot of the island in not present at all (the episode starts with the waves).

Home video releases

DVD

2003 — Transformers: Super-God Masterforce — DVD Box 01 (Pioneer LDC) — Japanese audio only.
2006 — The Takara Collection Vol 2 — Transformers: Super-God Masterforce (Metrodome)
2007 — Transformers — The Complete Takara Collection (Metrodome)
2008 — The Transformers: Super God Masterforce (Madman Entertainment)
2009 — The Transformers: Japan Generation 1 — Complete Collection (Madman Entertainment)
2012 — Transformers: The Japanese Collection (Shout! Factory)
2012 — Transformers Japanese Collection: Super-God Masterforce (Shout! Factory)