The Black Lio Convoy
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 And so it begins... | ||||||
| "The Black Lio Convoy" (Kuroi Lio Convoy) | ||||||
| Production code | BWII-18 | |||||
| Production company | TV Tokyo, NAS, Ashi Productions | |||||
| Airdate | 29 July 1998 | |||||
| Writer | Junki Takegami | |||||
| Director | Yūji Hamano | |||||
| Animation studio | Ashi Productions | |||||
| Continuity | Japanese Generation 1 cartoon continuity | |||||
A camera found in some ruins has the ability to create dark doubles, including, but not limited to, a black Lio Convoy!
Synopsis
After their journey to Gaia's East Continent, the Maximals have travelled back to their normal base in the North Continent. But their temporary moment of peace was about to be interrupted...
In the ruins of a city, the Autorollers are exploring to dig for more sources of Angolmois Energy. The collapse of a building's wall reveals a mysterious device that they take to the other Predacons at the Galvaburg II. Starscream explains its discovery and its similarity to a 3D copy machine. Galvatron demands a demonstration, which BB obliges, activating the device. It scans the large Predacon, creating a monochromatic copy right aside him. The two BBs claim the other to be the copycat, and their argument escalates to a fight. Galvatron has enough and orders the Predacons to blast the copy, causing him to disappear into nothingness. Megastorm isn't willing to risk the danger of the Copy Machine and is about to crush it when his older brother stops him; Galvatron has an idea for the device...
At the Moon, Artemis and Moon note that Galvatron is being unusually active and wonder what he's up to. Artemis detects Angolmois Energy activity in the North Continent, but Moon recognizes it as a fake signal to fool others, and the two see that the copy device has been left in that exact spot...
Tasmania Kid is out for a walk in the city's ruins when he comes across the device and brings it to the others, to Artemis and Moon's consternation, as they realize the Predacons want the Maximals to cause chaos within themselves with the device. By the Arimon Falls near the Yukikaze, Bighorn is moaning over his lack of love life, while Diver tries to cheer him up on their day off. Inside the ship, Lio Convoy and Apache confer on the increasing number of Predacon bases over the North Continent—they have the potential to grow after absorbing Angolmois Energy and Apache urges immediate action, but Lio Convoy is insistent they rest after their adventures on the other continent. Apache wants more reinforcement, but the ongoing cosmic storm prevents them from contacting Maximal HQ.
Outside, Bighorn comes across Scuba reading a book and demands he hand it over, but the squid refuses till he's finished. The commotion is dispelled when Tasmania Kid shows up and shows off the copying ability of the device he discovered on Scuba's book. With two books, both Bighorn and Scuba can read it at the same time! (It turns out to be an old collection of haiku poems from the city ruins and that Bighorn can't read Gaian characters.) Kid explains where he found such a miraculous device and, when Apache mentions its potential in increasing the Maximal troops, aims it at Lio Convoy despite his concerns! A dark copy of the Maximal commander is created, and Kid goes on about how useful it would be to have Maximal copies fight in their stead.
Dubbing the clone "Copy Convoy", Lio Convoy welcomes him to the Maximals, but the doppelgänger is incredulous that he isn't the original. Transforming into robot mode (to Lio Convoy's surprise), Copy Convoy gets right to attacking his lighter counterpart. The Maximals are about to jump in to defend their commander, but he tells them to keep back; this is his copy and his responsibility to defeat. The two lions are too evenly matched, so Lio Convoy accepts the other Maximals' help, but the copy reveals that not only was Lio Convoy's physical form copied, but his knowledge as well! Thus, he has full understanding of every individual Maximal's abilities and how to counteract them. Not wanting to sacrifice any of his soldier, Lio Convoy orders a retreat, and the smarmy Copy Convoy goes off into the forest. Back in the Yukikaze, Lio Convoy orders NAVI to keep track of the copy using a tracking robot.
Elsewhere, Starscream and BB are flying about and wondering if the Maximals are in any mess resulting from the Copy Machine. They spot the black Lio Convoy, and Starscream accidentally annoys the duplicate by asking about his origins. He answers that he's the new real Convoy and, impressed, Starscream comes near to compliment him, pet him, and offer an alliance. Copy Convoy is receptive, but when he spots a Maximal tracking robot he pretends to violently reject Starscream's offer and declares himself to be a Maximal. It works to fool the Maximals watching, but as Starscream and BB fly out, the former, realizing Copy Convoy's true intentions, expresses hope for future comradeship after the Maximals are destroyed.
The tracking robot eventually catches up with Copy Convoy, who uses it to relay a message of apology for his earlier behavior and desire to join with the Maximals against the Predacons. The Maximals debate his trustworthiness. Lio Convoy and his soldiers decide to meet with the copy outside, but it turns to be a trap; the Copy Machine is activated nearby and it scans the other Maximals present, creating black copies of all of them! Copy Convoy vows to replace all of the Maximals... permanently. The copies force their originals into a weak position with their backs to the waterfall. Knowing that the copies have all of the abilities and knowledge, the original Maximals bemoan the end, but Lio Convoy notes they still have a power that they don't have... Diver! The frog went off by himself and wasn't among those copied. During the battle, he was busy activating the Maximals' newest weapon, the Niagara Base. Its cannons easily take care of Copy Convoy's subordinates, and the black lion makes a final rush for the Copy Machine. But he's too late, as Tasmania Kid grabs it and tosses it into the sky, allowing Lio Convoy to destroy it with his missiles. With the destruction of his creator, Copy Convoy vanishes into nothing.
Apache chews out Tasmania Kid for being reckless and causing the cloning mess in the first place, but Lio Convoy reassures him, saying that Kid has learned his lesson, and that he should follow Diver's example.
Artemis & Moon II Report
Artemis asks about the ruins, and Moon explains that Gaia used to have advanced civilization; the ruins are the remains of a big city they built. Artemis asks why they would build magnificent cities only to let them fall into disrepair. Moon answers that when people focus on convenience to the detriment of nature, catastrophes happen. Artemis completely misses the point, asking for a hair dryer.
The report is interrupted by the detected arrival of something, and they wait to watch the preview for the next episode for answers.
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Maximals | Predacons | Copies | Others |
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Notes
Continuity notes
- Following on "A Fearsome Combination Plan?", BB is fairly talkative, having few lines but most of them something other than "Roger!".
- Bighorn previously kept his anger in check with a round of effeuiller la marguerite in "Galvatron Rampages" and in this episode uses it for the game's original romantic purpose. It foreshadows the events of "The Tentacular Scuba", at the end of which he'll be picking petals again.
- This is the first time since getting stranded on Gaia that the Lio Convoy Unit expresses concern about not being able to contact Maximal HQ. Previously, this only bothered the Jointrons.
- Bighorn's tail pull-ignited missile system last appeared in "The Insect Corps Arrive". He doesn't get to use it here, though, because he gets cut off by Copy Convoy.
Animation and technical errors
- The first shot of the Combatrons showing Galvatron and Megastorm the Copy Machine has the device aimed at the Combatrons. The next shot shows the device aimed at the leaders.
- When Starscream looks sideways to tell BB to demonstrate the Copy Machine, his nose ends well above his mouth place and has an organically bulbous design.
- Just before BB and Copy BB start punching each other, Starscream's face and mouthplate are black.
- Bighorn plays effeuiller la marguerite weirdly. With the closeup of the flower, the petals left after he starts with a positive pick can be determined to be ten, meaning he should end on a positive. However, he picks another petal without assigning it a value. The closeup shifts to Bighorn and he performs a normal pick series of negative-positive-negative-positive before muttering a negative without picking anything. Another positive pick and a negative pick follow and then he's left with one final unpicked petal that he treats as negative even though it should be a positive. It is likely that the animation and the audio have been out of sync since the petal-less negative, although this doesn't change the fact that only either six or seven of the first closeup's nine remaining petals are accounted for.
- The book Scuba is reading sometimes has no label, sometimes has only one labels, and sometimes has the label(s) on the wrong side. When it's laid in front of the Copy Machine, its angle changes between the shot of Tasmania Kid activating the Copy Machine and the Copy Machine scanning the book.
- Tasmania Kid's snout is missing when Bighorn tells him to pull his tail.
- The yellow around Bighorn's mouth disappears when he jumps into the water after getting shot in the tail.
- Improbable viewpoints:
- The Maximals send out a reconnaissance robot and watch it on their screen from the side as it flies through the sky.
- When they're getting shot at by the copies, the eyes on the face of Bighorn's bison mode are green.
Continuity errors
- How does Starscream reach the conclusion that Copy BB's personality is the opposite of BB's? They act alike and near in-sync, with the only difference of note being that BB threatens to fight Copy BB and Copy BB does the same in return and then actually slugs BB.
- Lio Convoy says that the Maximals are still recovering from their ordeals in the South Continent. They returned from that continent in "The Combined Giant, Tripledacus" and have since been active in the East Continent.
- Tasmania Kid asks the other Maximals for oil, but neither drinks it nor demonstrates the duplicator on it.
Real world references
- When BB gets knocked down by Copy BB, Starscream counts to ten as if it were an official boxing match.
- With "Takitsubo ni / kaeru to ushi ga tobikomu / mizu no oto", Scuba adapts the frog haiku by Matsuo Bashô, which goes "Furu ike ya / kawazu tobikomu / mizu no oto". He acknowledges that the middle sentence of his version contains too many syllables for a haiku.
- From the book he found, Scuba recites the haiku "Yase gaeru / makeru na Issa / koko ni ari" by Kobayashi Issa.
Trivia
- This episode employs some of the manga-like art style used previously in "A Fearsome Combination Plan?", although localized to a few shots during the early scene inside the Galvaburg II.
- This episode sometimes has shots and scenes with very bulbous heads. Galvatron, Artemis, and the beast modes of Apache and Lio Convoy get hit by it.
- Going shot by shot, Tasmania Kid hands Bighorn the book copy and Scuba the original book. If Bighorn truly has the copy, then it's notable that when he destroys it, it gets destroyed like a regular book while copies of living beings dissolve into light effects. Of course, the copy of the book also isn't black, so it might be that the Copy Machine copies objects and living beings in very different ways.
- This is the first episode since "The Festive Jointrons" to star Lio Convoy in the commercial bumpers.
Home video releases
- VHS
1998 — Beast Wars II: Super Lifeform Transformers — ACT. 6 (Pioneer LDC)
- DVD
2011 — Beast Wars II: Super Lifeform Transformers — DVD-BOX (Video Maker)
