Beast Wars: Super Lifeform Transformers
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Beast Wars: Super Lifeform Transformers (ビーストウォーズ 超生命体トランスフォーマー Beast Wars Chō Seimeitai Transformer) is the title given to Beast Wars in Japan. Released in 1997, one year after the franchise had been launched in Hasbro markets, it consists of the following components:
- A toyline.
- Various cartoons
- An accompanying comic
- A Stage-Play.
- And a sausage.
Ten years after the release of the cartoon, the Beast Wars characters were revisited with the Beast Wars Telemocha Series toys, redecoes of Beast Wars figures packaged with DVDs of first-season episodes.
Beast Wars II
The Beast Wars II 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. 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.
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.
Beast Wars Neo
Beast Wars Neo followed (and was a semi-sequel to) Beast Wars II. Of note is the fact that the Beast Wars Neo manga was considerably more different from its anime counterpart than Beast Wars II's had been.
Unlike the Beast Wars II toyline, which consisted almost entirely of redecoes (and the occasional retool), Beast Wars Neo was largely composed of all new original molds with only a few reused American Beast Wars toys to fill them out. The Maximals have organic beast modes of mostly present day animals (with the exception of the Mammoth Big Convoy), while the Predacons featured mainly extinct/prehistoric animals such as dinosaurs.
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.
Beast Wars Metals
The Beast Wars Metals cartoon consisted of the North American season 2 and 3 episodes. While Beast Wars had been fairly judicious in its self-referential humor, even in its last stretch of episodes, Beast Wars Metals was an unrestrained self-parody, constantly breaking the fourth wall and demonstrating awareness of its own status as a TV series.
Ad libbing was done to the extreme and characters all received major personality adjustments to reflect the aggressively comedic nature of the series. For example, Depth Charge was turned into a goofy old man who enjoyed singing fishing songs while transforming, Silverbolt was now psychotically polite with an obnoxious happy-go-lucky attitude, and Rampage now talked in the rough-and-tumble dialect of a cartoon street punk. The show was incessantly self-aware, regularly acknowledging the camera, the TV channel and, in one of the more oppressive gags, Rattrap would constantly smell what the audience was eating (making remarks to the effect of, "Oh, that's Sato-san's curry" as he sniffed). Yoshikazu's dubbing style would become synonymous with all imported Western Transformers cartoons in Japan, as he would be placed in charge of localizing every series through Prime, all with the same overbearingly satirical attitude.
Metals was a smaller line than its predecessors, sticking entirely with characters who appeared in the show (even if not in Transmetal bodies). The first wave of toys had different, more "show-accurate" decoes and, notably, name tampographs were replaced with generic "CYBERTRON" and "DESTRON" markings. However, toys in later waves were functionally the same as Hasbro releases (other than minor changes to Optimal Optimus/Powered Convoy). The line also included a Takara-only retool of Transmetal Cheetor into Ravage (a character that appeared on the show in that design), which was quickly a very sought-after item outside Japan.
Continuity
Where Beast Wars II and Beast Wars Neo are 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 two series that were 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 and Beast Wars Neo 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.
