Transformers GT: Mission GT-R

Transformers is an odd franchise in general - as you might expect from a multimedia franchise dedicated to a toyline where, depending on the character, robots of all kinds of shapes and sizes can be contorted into cars, dinosaurs, rocks, a toaster, maybe even baseball caps.

But there's a unique whimsy to just about anything Transformers-related made in Japan - sometimes it's to its detriment (Beast Wars, an entry widely beloved for touching upon some serious topics, like the ethics of euthanizing a malformed, mentally stunted being with a destructive power, was given a gag dub that completely neutered many of its more serious elements; Kiss Players featured weird evil robots with sausage-shaped tongues that squirted mysterious goo onto the questionably-of-age-heroines and mindbroke the English-speaking internet so badly that it became impossible to discuss Japanese-exclusive TFs without it being brought up sooner or later), but more often than not, it results in spins on the franchise that truly bring something new and fun to the table. Mission GT-R, thankfully, falls into the latter category.

The basic premise is just, as my summary implies, "hey, what if some notable faction leaders from Transformers decided war is stupid and pointless and decided to change into cars and take part in fun, friendly races instead?" - but given it's Japan and moe sells, they were all given race queen-inspired partners (worth noting: designed by someone who worked on the Microman franchise in the past. Indeed, the same Microman that had a very weird Kancolle figurine tie-in line at one point) and we get to see how each of our giant robot protags bounces off a human(?) lady helping them in the race. Yes, even Megatron, the big bad of most iterations of the franchise, gets a race queen partner, as you can see in the top left corner.

And there's also an OC designed just for this comic, named Safety Prime (the best Japanese-exclusive Transformer OC name we got since Yokohama Convoy, clearly), who was marketed as a mascot for this collaboration so extensively that he even had a whole official costume made of him.

Sadly, given this was a one-off short manga, there isn't much to talk about in the way of character development, arcs and all that; but it's just a fun concept that gives you a brief glimpse into what the Japanese can do with the basic "robots transforming into cars" concept.

The story itself is extremely basic and the art is very nice (as per usual with anything Transformers drawn by Naoto Tsushima, even if it's as silly as the tie-in manga I got with my Henkei! Henkei! Suntreaker back around 2009 where, if I understand correctly, Sunstreaker has to save a boy who's about to get shot to death by the Destrons for doodling on their plane parts), but if you're looking for something more complex than "doing things for fun is better than being an asshole about them!", this ain't it; still, it's not bad by any means. It does what it sets out to do, and that is, showing you that there's a cool line of Transformers figurines with little articulated race queens bundled in and these iterations of these characters kinda just have fun races all day instead of doing whatever the hell happened in the average IDW comic.

Nonetheless, I can easily recommend this regardless of whether you're a Transformers fan, a racing queen aficionado, or the concept sounds funny/cool to you. If you can find the raw or fan translation anywhere, that is - a pattern you'll notice with a lot of these Japan-exclusive Transformers manga is that they're hardly ever archived on sites that don't die within five years. But if you can get your hands on it, it sure ain't a bad read.