Beast Wars II: Super Lifeform Transformers (franchise)
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Beast Wars II: Super Lifeform Transformers (ビーストウォーズII 超生命体トランスフォーマー Beast Wars II: Chō Seimeitai Transformer), pronounced "Beast Wars Second", was the first Japanese-only Beast Wars franchise, consisting of the following components:
- A toyline.
- A manga series.
- A cartoon.
- A theatrical-release movie, Beast Wars Special.
- A sausage.
The Beast Wars II toyline consisted almost entirely of redecoes (and the occasional retool) of Generation 1, Generation 2, Machine Wars, and American Beast Wars toys, although all new molds were created for the two faction leaders: Lio Convoy, a white lion, Galvatron, a purple dragon, and Moon an oft-abused robot space bunny anime mascot. Most of the Predacons are mechanical while the Maximals all have beast modes.
The cartoon series aired in Japan between season one of Beast Wars and seasons two and three, in order to fill the gap until the later seasons could be dubbed into Japanese. It was followed by Beast Wars Neo. The Cybertron (Maximal) team starts off with Lio Convoy, Apache, Bighorn, Tasmania Kid, Scuba, and Diver. The Destron (Predacon) side starts off with Galvatron, Megastorm, Starscream, BB, Dirge, and Thrust.
Years later, IDW worked the characters from Beast Wars II and at least some version of the events of the anime into their Beast Wars comic continuity.
Continuity
Where Beast Wars II is situated relative to previous Transformers continuity, the first Beast Wars series, and any contemporary Earth calendar was a source of confusion for many years. Fans in the West spent years attempting to understand a series that was never officially translated into English, which led to a number of misconceptions based on reports from people who spoke Japanese, observing visual media without the context of translated text, and so on. The initial understanding was that Beast Wars II starred characters who were contemporaries to the Maximals and Predacons from the American Beast Wars cartoon, who lived a mere three centuries after the end of the Great War. This was mostly a "default" assumption (as in, there was no reason NOT to think it), and it appeared to be confirmed at first by the first Beast Wars II toy catalog, which depicted Lio Convoy and Galvatron directly interacting with Optimus Primal and Megatron, respectfully.
By the end of Beast Wars II, however, information surfaces that refute this assumption. Like ancient Vok-occupied Earth of Beast Wars, the planet Gaia of Beast Wars II is only later identified as a future version of Earth, while episode 36, reveals that the long-vanished civilization belonged to humanity, who had left the planet behind tens of thousands of years ago, placing it in the distant future relative to both Beast Wars and other works of Transformers fiction. Indeed, during the Beast Wars II movie special, Optimus Primal is pulled out of space and time to Gaia, and Lio Convoy's crew treats him as a legendary figure from the past. The Beast Wars II manga series, meanwhile, sticks to the backstory as established in that early catalog and treats Lio Convoy and Optimus Primal as contemporaries in its third chapter.
IDW Publishing's Beast Wars comics from 2006–2008 incorporates a series of events similar to both Beast Wars II and its immediate sequel, Beast Wars Neo, into its rebooted Beast Wars timeline. In this series of events, however, they take place in the past, at some point before the end of hostilities between the Maximals and Predacons.
