Transformers - Season Two, Part 2
Based on a line of robots from Takara that was licensed to Hasbro,Transformerssparked a craze for metamorphic toys in the mid-'80s. Each  robot-character could be reconfigured to form a car, a tank, a plane, etc. TheTransformersseries (Tatakae Cho Robot Seimetai TransformersorFight  Super Living Robots Transformers) was written in America, but animated in  Japan. The 24 episodes in this collection, which ran between October 1985 and  January 1986, conclude the second season and lead up toTransformers  2006. Each episode forms a self-contained story, with little in the way of  larger character arcs or plot developments tying them together. Although the cast  has expanded, the Autobots remain the good guys who defeat the bad guy  Decepticons, and no one expects anything else. Although the character designs and  animation are Japanese, the direction is pure American Saturday morning: instead  of creating effective transitions, the filmmakers just cut to a shot of the  logo--a standard practice in Hanna-Barbera kidvid. Web sites, role-playing  games, fan fiction, and a brisk commerce in the original toys have keptTransformersalive in the hearts of its fans. But likeRobotech,Transformerswill appeal most strongly to nostalgic adults who watched the show as  kids. (Unrated: suitable for ages 6 and older: robot vs. robot violence)--Charles Solomon