WITH THE EXCEPTION OF JAZZ, who was voiced by Scatman Crothers, the original “Transformers” rarely touched upon issues of race and culture. Or so you thought!

We hereby present THE SECRET ASIANS OF “TRANSFORMERS”!

Wreck-Gar: With his weird psuedo-Mongol Horde of motorcycle robots, Wreck-Gar was the leader of the Junkions, who lived on a planet made of, you guessed it, junk. The Junkions only spoke in bizarre blurbs of broken English: “You talk TV? We talk TV,” and their choice of fighting music was Weird Al tunes, of all things. They were amazingly good with technology and could rebuild just about anything.

Unicron: The whole reason for “Transformers: The Movie.” (Besides the merchandising.) The world-devouring planet was voiced by Orson Welles of “Citizen Kane” fame. But his design is so obviously an homage to Asian warlords we’re left thinking of him as a cross between Genghis Khan, competitive eating champ Takeru Kobayashi and a Hoover vacuum.

Nightbird: Though not technically a Transformer, she briefly appeared in the cartoon as the memorable she-ninja robot kidnapped by the Decepticons. Research dollars should always be spent on building ninja robots, particularly ninja robots that look like women. One obsessive fan (not us) even made a tribute video.

Bumblebee: Okay, technically he started out as a VW Bug and appears in the movie as a Camaro, but he’s yellow, and we confer upon him honorary Asian status. (The same logic also applies to Sunstreaker.)

ASIAN MAKES AND MODELS: It’s our list so we’re including Autobots who transform into cars made by Asian automakers.

A good case can be made with Skids, who transformed into a Honda City Turbo. Described as highly intelligent and always collecting data, he also a perpetual daydreamer.

Smokescreen was the shifty one, based on a Nissan/Datsun 280ZX-R. Calm and easy-going, he was actually the closest the Autobots had to someone who thought like a Decepticon. Smokescreen will cheat to win without hesitation, and often covers his true goals from even his buddies.

Bluestreak and Prowl were also based on the Nissan/Datsun 208Z. Like Ironhide, the gun nut of the bunch, Ratchet, the Autobot doctor, transformed into a Nissan Onebox Vanette. But in the movie, while Ratchet doesn’t get to be a Nissan anymore, he changes into an emergency Hummer H2. A yellow one! Draw your own conclusion.

Trailbreaker and Hoist were representing for Toyota’s Hilux line of compact pickups. Trailbreaker was the joker who deep down had really low self-esteem because he wasn’t fuel-efficient, while Hoist was one of the repairmen for the Autobots, obsessed with efficiency and tight maintenance schedules. In the cartoon, Hoist had a great idea to improve the world with a solar energy tower, but got shot down by Optimus Prime who thought it would be too dangerous if the Decepticons captured it. Go figure. These two are totally Asian.

All that fighting, and something’s bound to catch on fire, so you got Inferno who changed into a Mitsubishi-Fuso Fire Truck. A minor character named Grapple was also a Mitsubishi truck design. Mazda wasn’t completely shut out of the representation (but may as well have been) thanks to Camshaft (whose alternate mode as an RX-7 ironically doesn’t have a cam!)

So now you know! And knowing is half the… Oh, wait. Wrong toyline. •