Transformers: Kiss Players (manga)
Despite being the "main" Japanese Transformers franchise for 2006, the storyline of the Kiss Players franchise was not rendered in animation. Instead, it was related through two separate media - story drama segments on a Japanese radio show, and a monthly managa in Dengeki Daioh magazine. Additionally, several chapters of the Teletraan Go! Go! mini-comics published in Dengeki Hobby magazine featured tie-ins to the Kiss Players story. The series is set in the Generation 1 cartoon continuity, specifically in the five-year mileu between The Transformers: The Movie and Transformers 2010.
In December of 2006, Kiss Players transitioned into it's second (and apparently final) phase, Kiss Players Position. The story of this series was related entirely through the radio play.
Media
Radio drama
The Kiss Players segment began airing on the Japanese radio show "Lyrian Moe-tchao" on April 3, 2006 in Japan and ended on the final week of September. Each week would feature a 1 to 3-minute story narrated by one of the voice actresses who played the three main characters in the series.
In the first week of October, the format was revised, and the entire half-hour show became "Transformers Kiss Play: Transformers News Center," broadcasting at an earlier time and starring the same trio of voice actresses. Highlights included a brief introduction explaining Transformers to new listeners, a "Tell Me Please! Transformers News Center" section during which Takaratomy employees or related professionals discussed Transformers news with the voice actresses, and a section in which the actresses ad-libbed dialogue based on reader-submitted scenarios. The first-year story drama ended with a cliffhanger (and the first episode ever to feature all three voice actresses) in the third week of December, 2006 and was concluded in the drama CD included with the Autorooper X Atari toy set released to stores the following week.
Manga
The Kiss Players manga by Yuki Ohshima - who also provided the packaging artwork for the toyline - began publication in August 2006 in the monthly Dengeki Daioh[1] magazine and ran to only three 16-page installments. Several installments also appeared in the monthly 1-page Teletraan Go! Go! comic published in the Dengeki Hobby magazine. These primarily served to introduce readers to the Kiss Players story and characters at the line's beginning, and to summarize the final few radio dramas at the end. Teletraan Go! Go! did notably incorporate the further adventures of Glit, Sundor and Rosanna, the Kiss Play Position cassette trio who were rather confusingly dropped from the Year 2 radio storyline in its second week.
Major characters
- Marissa Faireborn (voiced by Lyrian) with Optimus Prime (v. Tesshō Genda)
- Shaoshao Li (v. Yui Kano) with Hot Rod (v. Ryōtarō Okiayu)
- Atari Hitotonari (v. Satomi Akesaka) with Autrooper Ne-04 (v. Keiji Hirai)
- Legion (v. Hirofumi Tanaka)
- Rosanna (v. Lyrian)
- Sundor (v. Satomi Akesaka)
- Glit (v. Yui Kano)
- Angela (v. Lyrian)
- Star Dust (v. Satomi Akesaka)
- Zangetsu (v. Yui Kano)
Storyline
- (Note: The general brevity - not to mention the general lack of any substance of worth - of many of the various installments of the Kiss Players storyline means that individual articles for each radio play chapter would be a bit on the pointless side, so the whole shebang is covered here. For an itemized list of the contents of each radio play and manga chapter, check out this list on ToyVey.)
Series 1
Following the events of The Transformers: The Movie in 2005, in which Galvatron is hurled into space by Rodimus Prime, the Decepticon leader crash-lands on Earth, his impact utterly devastating Tokyo. This event utterly shatters Transformer-human relations, and the government agency known as the Earth Defense Command begins constructing man-made Transformers known as Autroopers, with which they attack Transformers, in order to remove them from the planet. With the establishment of an anti-electron field around the Earth, all remaining Transformers flee the planet. Horrified by what his actions have wrought, Rodimus returns the Matrix to Ultra Magnus, and becomes Hot Rod once again.
As 2006 settles in, Earth is completely devoid of Transformers, and as the rebuilding of Tokyo gets underway, the EDC begins to train "Kiss Players," young girls who possess the power to fuse with their Autrooper units by kissing them. At the same time, a resistance movement against the EDC begins to form; among its members is Marissa Faireborn, who befriended Optimus Prime when she was a child. A new threat to the world's safety, soon appears - the Legion, monstrous creatures created from "Parasi-Tech" fusions of Galvatron's Unicron-empowered cells, scattered into the planet's atmosphere when he crashed, and local lifeforms and objects, from octopuses to cars. To combat these monsters, the EDC forms combat-ready Autrooper squads.
In a Legion attack, the parents of Atari Hitotonari are killed, and she is pursued by one of the creatures. EDC operative Syao Syao Li comes to her rescue, but the time-limit of her fusion with her Autrooper expires. Urged on by squad commander Hitoshizuku Amaō, Atari discovers that she is a Kiss Player when she kisses with Syao Syao's Autrooper and fuses with it, defeating the Legion. Atari subsequently joins the EDC Tokyo Autrooper squad, and proceeds to have several inane, fluffy adventures, including getting carsick, being embarrassed by the Kiss Fusion, and accidentally swallowing a Legion and having to have her Autrooper shrink down and venture inside her body to remove it. Her most significant escapade during this time was when she was possessed by Starscream's ghost, who had her seek out Doctor Arkeville in order to have the scientist create him a new body, only for it to be destroyed by Atari's Autrooper.
When the deceased Optimus Prime's body is transported from America to Tokyo, Marissa Faireborn and her commando squad strike, attempting to liberate the Autobot commander's remains. The whole affair, however, turns out to be a trap when Prime's body is revealed to be a decoy concealing an Autrooper unit piloted by Ringo, who guns down the whole team, save Marissa herself. Realizing that she has been duped, Marissa turns her attention to another truck in the convoy, which conceals the real Prime's body; giving her childhood friend a goodbye kiss, Marissa discovers that she too is a Kiss Player when she merges with Prime, resurrecting him in a new body.
Around the same time, Hot Rod arrives on Earth, badly damaged from passing through the anti-electron field. He crashes into the EDC Headquarters (built on Galvatron's impact crater), arriving just in time to save Syao Syao from some bizarre form of human experimentation that the EDC has secretly been conducting on its Kiss Player operatives and remnants of Legion creatures. Syao Syao kisses Rodimus, and he is reformatted into a new body; like Marissa and Optimus Prime, the pair soon find themselves on the run from the EDC's forces.
A whole mess of trivial adventures ensue, with the most important development amongst tales of lost underwear, seaside dates, and reflections on the summer being a friendship forming between Marissa and Atari. Optimus and Hot Rod encounter each other, and Hot Rod believes Optimus to be an impostor, although as the story progresses, they both suffer from destructive impulses and nightmares, which, coupled with the EDC's human experiments, apparently suggests that the whole Kiss Player fusion process is a variation on the Parasi-Tech fusion caused by Galvatron's cells.
Ultimately, Marissa and Prime attack the EDC, settling their differences with Syao Syao and Hot Rod after a battle and teaming up with Atari to investigate the sinister goings-on beneath the public facade of the EDC. Venturing into the "Genital System" in the basement of the EDC headquarters, they discover that Commander Amaou has been experimenting with Kiss Players and Legions in an attempt to find some way of resurrecting her daughter, who died when Galvatron's impact destroyed Tokyo. Galvatron's remains are also hidden in the basement; Amaou's plan is foiled when all the Legions and Autroopers fuse with Galvatron, bringing all his cells together and reconstituting his body. Consequently, Hot Rod and Optimus Prime revert to their original forms, with Prime returning to his state of death; the anti-electron field is shut down, and Galvatron's body is blasted back into space, where it will crash on the planet Thrull.
Series 2
With the deactivation of the anti-electron field, Ultra Magnus and the three Cassettrons, Sundor, Rosanna and Glit come to Earth in 2007 to make peace with humanity. The EDC is rebuilt, and Marissa and Syao Syao enlist; along with Atari, they and the Cassettrons go on a worldwide goodwill tour to help repair Transformer-human relations, joined together as a singing group named "Kiss Players." After performing at the Brave Maximus Fortress top of their tour, however, the group were approached by the mysterious Sparkbots, who whisked Marissa, Atari and Syao Syao off on a tour through time and space aboard Brave Maximus to gather fragments of the Allspark from various Autobot leaders (by kissing them, of course).
The Cassettrons, meanwhile, hooked up with Teletraan 15.
