Shout! Release of Transformers Headmasters Set Will Not Include English Dubs

While many fans have held out the hope that at least one of the fan-made dubs will make it onto the TakaraTomy's Transformers Headmasters DVD box set of the series from Shout! Factory on July 5, 2011, your wish may not be fulfilled.

According to Shout! Factory's Brian Ward, the company has already "tried hard" to lobby Hasbro, Inc. to let them use any of the available fan-made English dubs of the show onto the DVD, but have so far been unsuccessful.

@BWard028
To those inquiring about TRANSFORMERS dubs... Approach Hasbro. Let them know. We've already tried and tried hard.

Hasbro "Dead Set" Against Fan Dubs

TV Shows On DVD also points out a recent post on the company's official message board where Mr. Ward continues that the company is "dead set against including the dubs on the DVDs."

This is mainly attributed to the names of popular characters being changed and being more true to the Japanese names, which will lead to massive confusion with non-hardcore fans.

In addition, Hasbro also objects to some of the content within the dubs, "content they feel to be detrimental to their brand name," Mr. Ward explains.

What About New Dubs?

The next question would be, "what about creating Hasbro-sanctioned dubs?"

The simple answer is that Shout! does not have the money to create them.

First it's all the hurdles as the Hasbro Brand Team would like to approve all of the English scripts, voice actors, and the final recordings, which is time-consuming enough.

One big hurdle: Money

There are even more hurdles beyond the Hasbro team, which I will let Mr. Ward explain (line breaks are mine for easier reading):

For starters, it takes studio time. Then, it takes paying the actors. Everyone asks the same question; would the original voice cast be able to come back and voice the characters?

Simple answer: no.

There are members of that voice cast that charge as much as $10k just to make a public convention appearance. That's a single person. Now multiply that by the number of voice actors.

We don't have that kind of money.

These guys aren't going to do this simply out of love for the show. For you, it's a passion. For them, it's a job.

And once the voice cast completes their task, we then have to remix the entire show. This is all very expensive and incredibly time consuming.

So while there are many that would really enjoy English dubs, it is unfortunately not possible at this time. However, please take comfort in the fact that the set will be packaged with original Japanese audio with English subtitles.