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 has been a source of confusion over the years. Part of the confusion stemmed merely from western audiences attempting to understand a series that was never officially translated into English, with years spent on the internet hearing reports from other people who spoke Japanese, observing visual media without the context of translated text, and so on.
Initial understanding was that Beast Wars II starred characters who were contemporaries to the Maximals and Predacons of the original Beast Era series. In other words, that they hailed from the same future Optimus Primal and Megatron were from before entering transwarp space and traveling back in time to start the Beast Wars. 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 different Beast Wars II catalog images that showed Lio Convoy and Optimus Primal (and Megatron and Galvatron) interacting.
By the end of Beast Wars II, however, information surfaced that refuted this assumption. Like ancient Vok-occupied Earth of Beast Wars, the planet Gaia of Beast Wars II was only later identified as a future version of Earth. A long abandoned civilization was present on Gaia since the early episodes, but in episode 36, it was revealed that humanity left the planet behind tens of thousands of years ago. Compared to dialogue from episode 13 and episode 21 of Beast Wars, which indicated that THOSE Maximals and Predacons were from only a mere three centuries in the future of modern Earth. Beast Wars II therefore seemed to be taking place far in the future from the perspective of both the viewers of the show AND the crews belonging to Optimus Primal and Megatron. This was even further reinforced during the Beast Wars II movie special, where Optimus Primal was pulled out of space and time, and Lio Convoy's crew treated him as a legendary figure from the past.
The Beast Wars II manga series stuck to the back story as established in that early catalog, treating Lio Convoy and Optimus Primal as contemporaries in the third issue of the series. A one-off manga special, however, does not follow the serialized manga continuity and instead takes place in the timeline of the cartoon series. And where the sausage fits into all this, we don't rightly know.
And then there's the IDW Beast Wars comics, which framed a different take on the events of Beast Wars II (and its successor, Beast Wars Neo), establishing them as taking place almost three centuries before the original Beast Wars series. Beast Wars: The Gathering established Lio Convoy and Big Convoy and their crews as seasoned veterans by the time of the theft of the Golden Disk, who fought the last Predacon hold-outs at the time of the Pax Cybertronia's signing which ended the Great War.
And so, the question of where Beast Wars II takes place in Transformers continuity has the same answer as most such questions in the franchise:
Well, it depends.
