Seibertron.com Energon Pub Forums

william-james88 wrote:When does it take place? Compared to the other series.

In the year 2000.

Chronologically, that part of the Japanese G1 cartoon timeline goes like this:

• 1985: Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers - the Japanese dub of G1 cartoon season 1-2
• Late 1980s: Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers (manga) - the manga leading up to Scramble City
• Later 1980s: Scramble City: Mobilization - the single-episode special Takara made to advertise Metroplex, Trypticon, Ultra Magnus, and the Combiners
• Early 1990s: The Japanese dub of the G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero cartoon - The Japanese version shifted this show's events into the then-future of the 90s to explain why they have such high tech stuff like lasers and such. This series is included in the timeline because G.I. Joe member Flint goes on to join the Earth Defense Command, which will later be also joined by his daughter Marissa Faireborn, future ally of the Autobots circa 2010 (2006 in the English version)
• Late 1990s: The Battle of the Star Gate - an epic four-issue manga storyline that resulted in a battle so great that all of the Autobots and Decepticons were either taken offline or went missing for a time.
• 2000: Transformers: Car Robots - the original Japanese version of the cartoon. Its cast of Autobots belonging to a Dimensional Patrol led by Fire Convoy and a small Predacon unit called the Destrongers led by Gigatron all travel back in time from a future era. References to Beast Wars II and Beast Wars Neo are made in this version, which are removed from the English version and are thus lost on its Western viewers of the time. After the series, everyone eventually leaves Earth to return to the future.
• 2003: The earliest chapters of the Story of Binaltech - By this point, the Autobots and Decepticons who disappeared after the Star Gate Battles have all returned. The Binaltech fiction eventually splinters off from the main timeline into its own unique one, but some of its earliest events still happen before the split (we still don't know exactly which chapter the cut-off point for that split should be).
• 2004: RobotMasters - By this point, G1 Megatron has gone missing under mysterious circumstances. New characters arrive from time portals, including Beast Wars Optimus Primal and Megatron from prehistoric Earth, Star Saber and Victory Leo from after 2025, and Lio Convoy from tens of millennia into the future. G1 Megs eventually returns and, by the end of this conflict, all time-displaced participants are returned to where and when they each belong.
• 2005: The Transformers: The Movie - By now, Cybertron is firmly under Decepticon control, while the Autobots have since built Autobot City on Earth (construction first began back in 2003). Optimus Prime dies and is ultimately succeeded by Rodimus Prime. Unicron uses Angolmois Energy to upgrade Megatron into Galvatron, but both are ultimately defeated.

That should be enough info for that part of the timeline.

Have they ever actually given an official timeline date to the Beast Era? 2510 is given in 'Peace' as the last year of the Autobot/Decepticon War (technically). Although I'm sure that isn't within continuity, I'd imagine the age of Maximals and Predacons has to be quite far into the future, near that kind of time.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:Have they ever actually given an official timeline date to the Beast Era?

Only in secondary media, and varying by continuity.

Beast Wars itself only gave "three centuries ago" as a timeframe for how long "the Great Wars" and the Decepticon Shrapnel existed before the home time of the Maximals and Predacons, as mentioned in the Season 1 episode "Dark Designs". Later in Season 3, "Optimal Situation" and "Deep Metal" mentioned "four million years", "the next couple of million years", and "a few million stellar cycles" as the time span between the Beast Wars event itself and the awakening of the Ark's occupants. Said awakening is stated in "The Agenda (Part III)" to occur in 1984, at which point they would "start the Great War". Nothing more precise than this was given by the show, and Beast Machines offered no additional info on the matter.

Outside of these two cartoons, there is more info that can be gleaned from the Japanese cartoons, the 3H fiction, and IDW's old Beast Wars comics (set in their own continuity, of course).



By and large, Beast Wars Second and Beast Wars Neo certainly gave the impression of being set in the same future era that the Maximals and Predacons of the North American cartoon originated from, and which was definitely the case in both show's respective manga series (which form their own separate continuity from the cartoons, like how such was the case for the Masterforce and Victory manga back in 1988-1989). However, while this was certainly the popular belief at the time (even in Japan), Episode 36 of Beast Wars II contained a line of dialogue that revealed that series to actually take place "several tens of thousands of years" after the time of humanity's existence on Earth.

This posed a conflict with the aforementioned line of "three centuries ago" given in "Dark Designs" in reference to how far into the future the Maximals and Predacons of Beast Wars came from. Thus, the two Japanese cartoons had to be reshuffled to taking place that long after Beast Machines when TakaraTomy began putting together the big Japanese G1 cartoon timeline in 2006/2007. Said timeline also dated the Beast Wars to occur 3 million years ago, apparently splitting the difference between the two timeframes mentioned in "Optimal Situation" ("four million years" and a "couple of million years").

As for the home time of Beast Wars and Beast Machines, the timeline dated that to "Approximately 300 years later", keeping the ambiguity of the cartoon's original statement intact.



In 3H's Beast Era, which was produced concurrently to the cartoons' original broadcast and contributed to by such writers as Bob Forward and Simon Furman, more precise dates can be found. Initially, the multi-part epic "Reaching the Omega Point" contained timeline info that, when calculated backwards, places the home time of the Maximals and Predacons as the 30th Century. However, a later piece of fiction, "Apelinq's War Journals", retconned this away by providing more explicit info to date that era instead to the 24th Century, three centuries after Unicron's destruction 2005. Later 3H stories stuck to this date.

"Apelinq's War Journals" is also one of the only pieces of media to ever give us an idea of how far ahead of the Maximals Megatron arrived back on Cybertron between Beast Wars and Beast Machines. The War Journals each use a date index given as 316.XXX AU. The AU likely stands for "After Unicron", while the 316 feels like it would be the current stellar cycle (year) after 2005, and the three digits after the decimal would probably denote the specific solar cycle (day) on Cybertron. The first entry is dated 316.075 AU, and by which point Megatron has already returned to Cybertron and launched some terrorist attacks on the outskirts of Cybertropolis (those being his initial Vehicons attacks, conducted before he unleashes his virus across the planet). Later, Journal 9 mentions the arrival of Optimal Primal's Autobot shuttle, and is dated 316.265 AU. This would mean that Megatron got back to Cybertron at least 190 solar cycles ahead of the Maximals.

As for the Beast Wars event itself, Part 2 of "Primeval Dawn" (a short-lived "season 4" style comic series set shortly after Season 3 on prehistoric Earth) gives a very precise date of 180,000 BC.



Finally, there is IDW's old Beast Wars comics. Issue #2 of "The Gathering" and Issue #1 of "The Ascending" date the Beast Wars event to "circa 70,000 years BC". However, I don't think an actual timeframe for the future era of the Maximals and Predacons on Cybertron was given.



I think that's all of the major tie-in continuities for the two American cartoons.

Impressive as always Sabr
The Beast Era remains as vague and indeterminate as ever.

Sabrblade wrote:This would mean that Megatron got back to Cybertron at least 190 solar cycles ahead of the Maximals.

That gap, post-BW and pre-BM, being what I would have preferred instead of the Gathering/Ascending. Not a brief allusion to it.

Ok, now I get it with RID. I was unfamiliar with the idea what there was time travelling involved.

william-james88 wrote:Ok, now I get it with RID. I was unfamiliar with the idea what there was time travelling involved.

Yeah, that confusion is very understandable.

See, way back before the show began airing in Japan, the first Car Robots toys had pack-in catalogs with the following text description for the show's premise (translation courtesy of here):

These robots are in your town. Surely they are...

TRANSFORMERS CAR ROBOTS

Through dimensional cracks, the mysterious invader group, the Destrongers, have appeared in the present era of the 21st century. In whole, they are a radical faction of the evil Destron race, of the scattered super-lifeform Transformers. Mecha animals and robots, they use both forms in their onslaught and toy with governments and militaries all around the world. "My name is Gigatron. I am the chosen dictator of the universe. I desire this Earth!" Their purpose is to steal all of Earth's energy. And unite the Transformers under a new order!

"Stop, Destrongers! As long as we Cybertrons exist, your injustice will not be allowed!" Behold! A fire truck! A police car! Shinkansen! All transform into a robot one after the other! The Destrongers are challenged to fight! They are the Transformers of justice, the Cybertron Dimensional Patrol unit. They came after the Destrongers, scanned Earth's vehicles, changed their forms and laid in wait. In the new century's Japan, the fierce battle of Car Robots versus Beast Wars unfolds.

Notice how this says that the characters travel across a dimensional rift? Well, the thing is, when the show started airing, that idea was NEVER brought up. Like, at all. Car Robots the show gave almost no indication that its Cybertronian cast was from any time other than the present. It was also very self-contained, having almost no references to any previous series.

Keyword in the last two sentences being "almost".

In what may be the show's one and only allusion to the time-travel backstory of the toy catalogs, the 12th episode of the series had Fire Convoy speak the following line of dialogue when he find the first OOParts ("O-Part" in the English dub) of the series: "How can it be possible for an OOPArts like this to exist during this time?" Notice his use of "during this time", as though both he and the OOPArts were strangers to this time period. Yet, this notion is never brought up again.

As far as references are concerned, the only references Car Robots contained to past series were the notion of Fire Convoy's Matrix specifically being an Energon Matrix, a concept originating from (and at the time, exclusive to) Beast Wars II and Beast Wars Neo. Vector Sigma was also mentioned numerous times, and spoken of in ways that indicated it to the be the "god" of Cybertron, like how it was specifically in Beast Wars Neo. Lastly, Brave Maximus was said to have been hidden on Earth to protect something called "Gaia Energy". In hindsight, this would be a nod to the Angolmois Energy that was hidden on Planet Gaia (post-apocalyptic Earth) in Beast Wars II.

A more subtle nod would be the design of the ship that brought to Earth the protoforms that would become the Combatrons (the Decepticons in the English dub). Said design is based directly on the Axalon from Beast Wars. Another subtle nod would be the system that is used to properly activate Brave Maximus being specifically named the "Head On System", in honor of the term used by the Headmasters in Japanese media to transform into robot mode: "Transform! Head On!"

But, because the time travel backstory of the catalogs went largely unspoken in the cartoon, and since all of these little nods and references were either ignored or simply unknown to a lot of people at the time, fans simply took Car Robots to being a completely new continuity altogether. So much so that such was indeed made true for the English version of Robots in Disguise when it was created. RiD is unambiguously a completely unique universe unto itself, with Autobots and Predacons uniquely as the dominate factions on Cybertron. But Car Robots has been folded into the Japanese G1 cartoon universe, with its catalog info given precedence and new fiction in the Legends and Unite Warriors manga leaning into it further.

Though, one curiosity does still exist from back in the day. At the end of the final episode of Beast Wars Metals (the Japanese dub of Beast Wars seasons 2-3), this promotional ad for Car Robots aired on TV. Narrated by Fire Convoy, the beginning of this ad features him personally thanking the Maximals for preserving Earths history. He then promises to do his best to keep modern-day Earth safe from the Destrongers. This ad stands as the one and only piece of vintage media that seemingly attempts to establish a connection between Car Robots and Beast Wars, as though the former was always supposed to be in-continuity with the Japanese Beast Era.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:Impressive as always Sabr
The Beast Era remains as vague and indeterminate as ever.

An addendum to my previous post:

There was one more source I forgot to check, and have done so now: Beast Wars Universe.

This was a 2000 guidebook written by Hirofumi Ichikawa and Fumihiko Akiyama, with information about the American cartoon and toyline, and some additional info from the show's staff, but which was only published in Japan. So while the book is in Japanese, it is written entirely with the English version in mind, using all of the English names and terms, but written in Japanese (and English, but the only English text in this book are section titles, with the body paragraphs written in Japanese).

Anyway, an early section of the book, titled "Chronicles of Cybertron", features a timeline that maps out the chronology of the G1 and Beast Wars cartoons together, with the book assuming that Beast Wars is supposed to be part of the G1 cartoon continuity proper rather than being its own unique mix of the cartoon and Marvel continuities.

In the middle section of this timeline is a description of what all happened in both the real world and in-universe between the end of the G1 cartoon and the Beast Wars cartoon. For the past three days, I have been painstakingly transcribing this body of text from scans of the book that I have, all so that I could plug the text into Google Translate and attempt to get the gist of what it says.

And in this middle section, it mentions that, according to the show's staff, the future era of the Maximals and Predacons is set approximately 300~500 years after the era of the Autobots and Decepticons. The text even hypothesizes that, if it were 500 years later, with the Great War having ended 300 ago, then the Great War continued for another 200 years after the time of "The Rebirth" (as, again, the book is assuming that the G1 cartoon is specifically the version of the G1 history vaguely alluded to in the Beast Wars cartoon).

Of course, none of this is given in the show itself, and this book's authors weren't part of the show's staff, so it's only pseudocanonical at best. And none of the aforementioned tie-in media have adhered to the "500 years" bit, either.

Sabrblade wrote: The text even hypothesizes that, if it were 500 years later, with the Great War having ended 300 ago, then the Great War continued for another 200 years after the time of "The Rebirth" (as, again, the book is assuming that the G1 cartoon is specifically the version of the G1 history vaguely alluded to in the Beast Wars cartoon).

That is believable though. Galvatron was certainly more sane, by The Rebirth. With the added reinforcements of Zarak, Scorponok and the other Hive members, the War could have been extended for another few centuries. The canonical nature of the Takara series does blur that narrative, but everything in the Beast Era that wasn't specifically mentioned in the show can be accepted or refused by personal head canon anyway.

Yeah, this book does contain some info that's rather... iffy with the show, itself. For the most part, it's fine. But other parts of it are... well, let's just say Bob and Larry had some ideas for things, but didn't run with them in the show itself.

And, again, it was written by fans instead of anyone involved with the show.

Indeed. That said, as mentioned before, If ever an English translation sees the light of day. I would buy it instantly. Even if it is written by fans, it looks a lot more informative than the Sourcebooks ever were.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:Indeed. That said, as mentioned before, If ever an English translation sees the light of day. I would buy it instantly. Even if it is written by fans, it looks a lot more informative than the Sourcebooks ever were.

True that.

On a different note...

Sabrblade wrote:But, because the time travel backstory of the catalogs went largely unspoken in the cartoon, and since all of these little nods and references were either ignored or simply unknown to a lot of people at the time, fans simply took Car Robots to being a completely new continuity altogether.

As an addendum to this statement, I should clarify that I specifically meant "the more level-headed, rational-thinking fans who were willing to open their minds to the possibility of a reboot" were the ones who took it as a new continuity. Because, at the time, there were fans on the opposite side of the argument who were trying to see how they could fit Car Robots into the preexisting G1/BW cartoon timeline, but did so by thinking that its characters were actually the same ones as G1 characters in new bodies, and tried to the figure out who they *really* were.

Naturally, the English version using G1 names only aided this misconception. Fire Convoy was Optimus, Mach Alert was Prowl, Wide Ride/X-Brawn was Brawn, Ox was Ironhide, Counter Arrow was Mirage, some were even trying to make Speedbreaker/Side Burn into Hot Rod before he became Hot Rod, especially after his Super Mode was revealed to be red.

And all the fanwanky references in the dub certainly didn't help matters, either. Vehicon drones, Alpha Trion, Teletraan One, the Predacon Council evoking the Tripredacus Council, all these things just made matters so much more confusing for those who wanted Car Robots/RiD to be part of the existing cartoon continuity, but in the wrong way of merging its characters with existing ones instead of letting them be their own people.

My copy arrived in the mail from HLJ last Friday, December 11, and only now have I had the chance to talk about it.

Before I get into the book itself, I gotta say that the preview pages seen earlier in this thread must have been very early production pages since none of them are in this book. The book's pages aren't even red, they're white. Some of the toys seen in those pages aren't even in the book either. Namely, of all those Blackarachnia toys, the Animated, Legends, Universe, and Binaltech ones are not in the book. In fact, that collection of Blackarachnia toys itself isn't present either. The ones from that group that are in the book are found in their respective sections instead of grouped together like that. Basically, none of the pages in this book look anything like those sample pages.

And now, onto the book.

The cover is as shown below, but printed in black-and-white. The colored version is included, but as a dust jacket over the book's actual cover.



On the back is a list of all the series covered by this book: Beast Wars, Beast Wars II, Beast Wars Neo, Beast Wars Metals, Animorphs, Beast Machines "Transformers: Carrobot", Transformers: Robots in Disguise, Beast Wars Returns, "And… The Aftermath".

At the bottom is a row of eleven symbols, the same eleven seen on the front cover: Maximal, Predacon, Blentron, Animorph, Mutant, Technorganic Maximal, Vehicon, Dinobot, Autobot, Decepticon, and Combatron.

Like the front cover, the back is colorless in light gray while the back dust jacket is in green with a Beast Wars green eye surrounded by red scales.

The inside flaps of the dust jacket feature old advertisement text from the original Beast Wars toyline. On the front flap is the Japanese catalog text that translates as follows:

From beyond the end of the universe, in search of mysterious Power Energy, the super robot lifeform "Transformers" have arrived! The evil "Destron" Transformers who attempt to conquer the universe by abusing Power Energy, and the righteous "Cybertron" Transformers who fight to stop them. With special abilities, each transforms into a different creature! At last, a new battle has begun. Will it be the heroic Cybertrons or the evil Destrons that will win this battle!?

On the back flap is the classic English text from the 1996 Beast Wars packaging:

BIO-GENETIC ENGINEERING HAS ALLOWED THE TRANSFORMERS TO CREATE A PERFECT CYBERNETIC FUSION BETWEEN FEROCIOUS ANIMALS AND MECHANICAL TRANSFORMERS TECHNOLOGY. THE RESULT: HEROIC MAXIMALS VS. EVIL PREDACONS! ROBOT WARRIORS DISGUISED AS WILD ANIMALS IN AN EXPLOSIVE FIGHT TO THE FINISH! THE BEAST WARS HAVE BEGUN ...COLLECT THEM ALL!

The front flap also has a photo of all six deco releases of Transmetal Rattrap: Takara, Hasbro, Fox Kids, Walmart, 10th Anniversary, and the Japanese jigsaw puzzle one. Likewise, the back flap has a photo of seven versions of the Cheetor toy: Fox Kids, 10th Anniversary, Telemocha Series, Hasbro blue eyes, Hasbro red eyes, Hasbro green eyes, and Takara's second-run version with the green cheetah eyes and orange robot eyes.

Inside the front cover is a large photo of RID Air Attack Optimus Primal (not the Japanese Encore version, the Hasbro Toys'R'Us version). Behind this is an Introduction page written almost entirely in Japanese (as is every page in this book, which I'm saying now to avoid having to repeat it throughout). It appears to cover a brief overview of the Transformers brand's history, and contains a short timeline of events from 1984 to 2021, skipping over many years unrelated to the Beast Era.

The Table of Contents shows that the book is divided into three main parts:

• Part 1: Chronicle (pages 4 to 98)
• Part 2: Backstage (pages 99 to 129)
• Part 3: Documents (pages 130 to 143)

Part 1: Chronicle is the largest part of the book, containing a near-complete coverage of almost every single Beast Era toy ever produced (I say "near-complete" and "almost every" for reasons to be given later). Toys that had variants get coverage for most of those as well. For instance, the original Cheetor toy gets coverage for its original green-eyed version, its blue-eyed version, its red-eyed version, and the Japanese rerelease with green cheetah eyes and orange robot eyes. But in cases like Transmetal Rhinox having had dark teal and pale teal Hasbro variants, only Rhinox's darker Hasbro variant is shown alongside his pale gold Takara version.

This section begins with the year 1997, the year Beast Wars came out in Japan. All of the toys covered in this year are those released in Japan, which were first released in the West in 1996, as well as the overseas releases that Japan didn't get. 1998 covers the toys of Beast Wars II, the non-show Fuzors, and the Video Pack redecos of Airazor, Razorclaw, Claw Jaw, and Spittor. 1999 covers Beast Wars Neo's released toys, the unreleased Unicron prototype, the Beast Wars Metals toys, the non-show Transmetals 2 toys, and the entire Animorphs toyline.

Of note about these years is some selective coverage between certain toys that were unchanged between the Hasbro and Takara releases. For instance, B'Boom, Snarl, Claw Jaw, and Powerpinch are omitted from the book because of Apache, Tasmania Kid, Scuba, and Scissor Boy having identical toys, and yet, both Video Pack Razorclaw and Injector are individually covered in addition to the identical Rockbuster and Latolata. Also of note are the facts that the Japanese names of Razorbeast, Transquito, and Scarem are given in this part as レイザーバック ("Razorback"), トランスキュート ("Transcute"), and スクリーム ("Scream"), respectively. Iguanus is even given two Japanese names written as イグナー／イグアナス ("Igunar / Iguanus").

2000 covers Mutant Beast Wars, a number of the Lucky Draw figures for Beast Wars II, Neo and Metals, and the entire line of Car Robots (including Lucky Draw Black Super Fire Convoy and the complete version of Brave Maximus). The book then jumps ahead a few years to 2004 to cover the Japanese Beast Machines line, Beast Wars Returns. It then jumps backward to 1999-2000 to cover the Fox Kids Beast Wars redecos released in those years. It then progresses forward again to 2000 proper to cover the Hasbro Beast Machines and Dinobots lines. 2001 covers the Battle for the Spark subline of Beast Machines toys, and 2002 covers the Air Attack Optimus Primal and Megatron Megabolt toys from Robots in Disguise. A separate "2001-2003" section then covers the entire Robots in Disguise toyline from Hasbro, and I do mean the entire line: All of the same molds released in Car Robots plus all of the Hasbro-exclusive non-beast toys and redecos.

Following this is what the book refers to as "The Aftermath", Beast Era toys released after the era's end. Beast Wars Reborn, Beast Wars 10th Anniversary, Beast Wars Telemocha Series (including the super rare Mini-Con Dragoyell), the Beast Wars Masterpieces from MP-32 Convoy (Beast Wars) to MP-50 Tigatron (Beast Wars), and the five Wave 1 Beast Wars toys from the (as of this typing) forthcoming Kingdom line (though, sadly, Megatron uses the TakaraTomy stock photography with the orange face and other wrong colors).

Also in this Aftermath part are some things labeled as "Extra", which are additional Beast Era-related toys released in other lines. These include:

• RobotMasters Beast Convoy Black Version
• Universe (2003) Optimus Primal
• Microverse Orcanoch and Arachnid
• Titanium Series 6" Optimal Optimus, RID Optimus Prime, and BM Cheetor

There is also a short essay column about the Transmetal toys pictured with a purple-blue variant of Optimus Primal.

Now, of all of the toys covered in this part of the book, there are a few missing. In particular, none of the following are in this book:

• Any toys from BotCon or the Collectors Club; not even the BotCon Japan Grizzly-1 and Double Punch
• Any of the 2003 Universe toys (aside from the aforementioned Optimus Primal)
• RobotMasters Burning Beast Convoy and Beast Megatron Black Version (the normal RobotMasters Beast Convoy and Beast Magtron are included with their Telemocha Series redecos, but these two are not)
• RobotMasters Lio Convoy (either version), Bound Rogue, and Psycho-Orb
• Legend Commander Collection Convoy (Beast Wars) and Lio Convoy
• Any of the Lucky Draws from Beast Wars season 1
• About half of the Lucky Draws from Beast Wars II, Neo, and Metals
• Any of the Car Robots Lucky Draws (except for Black Super Fire Convoy and the complete version of Brave Maximus)
• Any of the 2009 Universe, 2014 Generations Thrilling 30, or 2014-2019 Legends toys of Beast Era characters
• Power of the Primes Optimal Optimus and Throne of the Primes
• Encore God Fire Convoy, Returns Convoy, and the two Big Convoys
• Masterpiece Burning Convoy and Shadow Panther
• And, as mentioned above, any secondary Hasbro variants of the Transmetal toys (aside from the aforementioned purplish Primal that's given its own essay column).

And yet, despite all of these omissions, this section does feature a ton of obscure Japanese merchandise, such as:

• Collection Figure and Metal Monument Convoy and Megatron
• Cybertron Buster role play gun
• Cybertron Mobile Base playset
• Laser Light Yo-Yo
• Lots and lots of mini-figure series for Beast Wars season 1 and Beast Wars II
• Matrix Cannon role play gun
• Spy Shot & Claw Gun (or Crow Gun) role play gun
• PVC figurines for Beast Wars Neo
• The Spark driver figures that were originally going to be included in the cockpits of Optimal Optimus, Tigerhawk, and Dragon Megatron
• A Japanese cover for the first Animorphs novel "The Invasion"

Part 2: Backstage contains concept sketches for toys both released and unreleased, as well as interviews with seven people involved with the Japanese Beast Era.

The released toys whose concept sketches are featured are:

• Bat Optimus Primal
• Alligator Megatron
• Razorbeast
• Iguanus
• Terrorsaur
• Dinobot
• Waspinator
• Tarantulas
• Gorilla Optimus Primal
• Rhinox
• Airazor
• T-Rex Megatron (with an actual left hand inside his tail weapon)
• Scorponok
• Transmetal Optimus Primal
• Transmetal Rattrap
• Transmetal Cheetor
• Transmetal Megatron
• Transmetal Tarantulas
• Transmetal Ravage
• Animorphs Jake/Tiger
• Mutant Soundwave (originally meant to be Animorphs Marco)
• Mutant Icebird (originally meant to be Animorphs Jake)
• Mutant Poison Bite (originally meant to be Animorphs Rachel)
• Beast Machines Supreme class Cheetor
• Beast Machines Megatron
• Microverse Orcanoch, Arachnid, and their mini-figures

Among the unreleased concepts included are:

• Early designs of Cheetor as a cougar (often mistaken for a wolf) and a lion
• Several early designs for Depth Charge that look drastically different from the final version, some of which are even completely organic, non-Transmetal versions
• A triple-changer Optimus Primal that changes into a gorilla and an eagle
• A triple-changer Cheetor that changes into either a cheetah and a shark
• A triple-changer Dinobot that changes into either a raptor and a cobra; all three of these were proposed "power up" forms for the three
• An early design for Lio Convoy that more greatly resembles Optimus Primal, has a big axe weapon, and a small bat companion
• An early concept for the Animorphs toyline that involved not transforming toys but instead articulated endoskeleton figures that could be covered with human and animal skins to change them between each form
• Early concepts for Animorphs Tri-Rex that, while functionally similar to the final version, somehow look even more freakishly disturbing than the final version
• "Mutant Beast Wars"-style Animorphs animal-to-animal concepts for a "Bee Frog" (either Ax or Visser Three) a "Piranha Condor" (one of the boys), and a "Ram Dragon" (a Komodo dragon, that is, also one of the boys)

There are also concepts for some gimmicks that never happened.

• Bat Optimus Primal with flapping wings
• Insecticon with a pullback motor in beast mode
• Tarantulas with a spring-loaded autotransformation that bounces up with the push of a button
• Gator Megatron with a button-activated chomping gator mouth
• T-Rex Megatron with a projectile-launching T-Rex head that fires like a missile from its neck with a pull of its beast mode tail
• Gorilla Optimus Primal with two flails and a set of two spiked clubs that he holds and spins around in beast mode
• Scorponok's Cyberbee drone originally being a little scorpion drone
• T-Rex Megatron with an extending T-Rex head much like the extending tail arm that his final toy had
• A sort of "Pretender"/Super Mode" version of T-Rex Megatron where a small kibble-less robot figure compacts into a torso mode while a large T-Rex toy turns into a humanoid suit of armor for the torso figure to slot into, and armed with a large trident weapon; think Powermaster Optimus Prime or Star Saber for this gimmick
• A G1 Optimus Prime figure that turns into an Army truck and combines with an organic lion figure that forms armor for Optimus to wear
• One of Depth Charge's early concepts has little shark minions that shoot out of his beast mode mouth and transform into their own robot modes, making Depth Charge a sort of Beast Wars version of Soundwave/Blaster. One of these concepts even has the little shark minion as a dolphin instead
• A triple-changer "Buffalo Crab" Fuzor with two beast modes: a water buffalo and a fiddler crab
• A triple-changer "Shark Mantis" Fuzor with two beast modes:a hammerhead shark and praying mantis
• A Fuzor combiner formed by an eagle and an ostrich fusing to make a "Bigbird" (kind of a large bird with arms; funnily enough, this is the same descriptor for G1 Deathsaurus's altmode)
• A Fuzor combiner formed by a frilled lizard and a rhinoceros fusing to make a Triceratops
• A Fuzor combiner formed by a spider and an ant fusing to make a scorpion
• Early concepts for triple-changer "Beast Machines" that have an organic beast mode and a mechanical vehicle mode: One that turns into a helicopter and a dragonfly, one that turns into a racecar and a crab, and one (that looks a lot like Optimus Primal) that turns into a four-legged cannon tank and a gorilla
• A "Battle for the Spark" bird with a wind-up wing-flapping gimmick in its Spark
• A "Battle for the Spark" figure of Obsidian with a wind-up propeller-spinning gimmick in its Spark
• Wind-up Spark boxes that could be inserted into Vehicon figures to unlock pop-out weapon gimmicks (sort of like what Mini-Cons and Cyber Keys would later do in Armada and Cybertron) or inserted into Cheetor for a beast mode head-turning gimmick
• Spark Crystals that resemble little Matrix cores and could be pushed to activate either a pop-out weapon on an early Optimus Primal design or a spinning rotor and lights and sounds cannon on an early Vehicon design
• A removal Matrix core-looking Spark Crystal that could be inserted into the hips of a very early Maximal design that would later become Cheetor, with the Spark Crystal activating pop-out cannons on its thighs
• A removal Matrix LED battery that could be inserted into an early Vehicon design's chest or arm to activate lights and deploy an arm blade

The rest of this section contains lengthy Q&A interviews with the following people:

• Hideaki Yoke (餘家英昭) – toy development
• Kozo Itagaki (板垣 耕三) – toy marketing / producer
• Takio Ejima (江島多規男) – toy development
• Hisashi Yuki (幸 日佐志) – toy development
• Kōjin Ōno (大野 光仁) – toy development
• Ryōka Yuzuki (柚木 涼香) – Voice actor for Blackwidow (Blackarachnia)
• Yoshikazu Iwanami (岩浪美和 ) – Japanese version director / story editor

Part 3: Documents features the Beast Wars Data Box with lists of all the toys, episodes and movies. In particular, the specific Japanese toys that were sold in the U.S. through HasbroCollectors.com and Target are given their names written in English: Lio Convoy, Galvatron, Shadow Panther/Tripredacus Agent (both names, yes), Magmatron, Stampy, Saberback, Longrack, Archadis, Mach Kick, and… Colada! Yep, "Colada" finally has an official source for his name spelled as such, rather than the longstanding Engrishy "Cohrada" spelling.

Likewise, Razorbeast, Transquito, Iguanus and Scarem have their name written in Japanese as レイザーバック ("Razorback"), トランスキュート ("Transcute"), イグアナス (イグナー) ("Iguanus (Igunar)"), and スクリーム ("Scream"), just like in Part 1. Though, of further note is that Wolfang's name is spelled correctly in English, when in Part 1 his English name was misspelled as "Wolfgang". A similar typo appears in Part 3's list of the Beast Machines toys where the word "Heroic" in "Heroic Maximals" misspelled as "Hiroic". Other small typos like this appear throughout the book, but nothing too major and only noticeable if one is actively looking for them.

Finally, the episode guides for each series/movie arrange them in accordance to their Japanese airdates, so they are given in the following order:

• Beast Wars season 1
• Beast Wars II
• Beast Wars Special
• Beast Wars Neo
• Beast Wars Metals: Convoy's Great Transformation (the Japanese theatrical release of "Cutting Edge")
• Beast Wars Metals/Beast Wars seasons 2 & 3
• Car Robots/Robots in Disguise
• Beast Wars Returns/Beast Machines

All in all, the most interesting stuff in this book for me is all of the unreleased concepts for figures and gimmicks, but as a fan of the entire Beast Era, this book is a fine overview for much of the era's toy history.

Greetings Seibertronians! Fellow Seibertron user, Sabrblade has written up an informative review of the recently released Beast Wars Beast Generation Mook! A mook is a cross between a magazine and a book, and is a popular publishing choice in Japan. The Mook was released earlier this month.

Check out his words below!

Sabrblade wrote:My copy arrived in the mail from HLJ last Friday, December 11, and only now have I had the chance to talk about it.

Before I get into the book itself, I gotta say that the preview pages seen earlier in this thread must have been very early production pages since none of them are in this book. The book's pages aren't even red, they're white. Some of the toys seen in those pages aren't even in the book either. Namely, of all those Blackarachnia toys, the Animated, Legends, Universe, and Binaltech ones are not in the book. In fact, that collection of Blackarachnia toys itself isn't present either. The ones from that group that are in the book are found in their respective sections instead of grouped together like that. Basically, none of the pages in this book look anything like those sample pages.

And now, onto the book.

The cover is as shown below, but printed in black-and-white. The colored version is included, but as a dust jacket over the book's actual cover.



On the back is a list of all the series covered by this book: Beast Wars, Beast Wars II, Beast Wars Neo, Beast Wars Metals, Animorphs, Beast Machines "Transformers: Carrobot", Transformers: Robots in Disguise, Beast Wars Returns, "And… The Aftermath".

At the bottom is a row of eleven symbols, the same eleven seen on the front cover: Maximal, Predacon, Blentron, Animorph, Mutant, Technorganic Maximal, Vehicon, Dinobot, Autobot, Decepticon, and Combatron.

Like the front cover, the back is colorless in light gray while the back dust jacket is in green with a Beast Wars green eye surrounded by red scales.

The inside flaps of the dust jacket feature old advertisement text from the original Beast Wars toyline. On the front flap is the Japanese catalog text that translates as follows:

From beyond the end of the universe, in search of mysterious Power Energy, the super robot lifeform "Transformers" have arrived! The evil "Destron" Transformers who attempt to conquer the universe by abusing Power Energy, and the righteous "Cybertron" Transformers who fight to stop them. With special abilities, each transforms into a different creature! At last, a new battle has begun. Will it be the heroic Cybertrons or the evil Destrons that will win this battle!?

On the back flap is the classic English text from the 1996 Beast Wars packaging:

BIO-GENETIC ENGINEERING HAS ALLOWED THE TRANSFORMERS TO CREATE A PERFECT CYBERNETIC FUSION BETWEEN FEROCIOUS ANIMALS AND MECHANICAL TRANSFORMERS TECHNOLOGY. THE RESULT: HEROIC MAXIMALS VS. EVIL PREDACONS! ROBOT WARRIORS DISGUISED AS WILD ANIMALS IN AN EXPLOSIVE FIGHT TO THE FINISH! THE BEAST WARS HAVE BEGUN ...COLLECT THEM ALL!

The front flap also has a photo of all six deco releases of Transmetal Rattrap: Takara, Hasbro, Fox Kids, Walmart, 10th Anniversary, and the Japanese jigsaw puzzle one. Likewise, the back flap has a photo of seven versions of the Cheetor toy: Fox Kids, 10th Anniversary, Telemocha Series, Hasbro blue eyes, Hasbro red eyes, Hasbro green eyes, and Takara's second-run version with the green cheetah eyes and orange robot eyes.

Inside the front cover is a large photo of RID Air Attack Optimus Primal (not the Japanese Encore version, the Hasbro Toys'R'Us version). Behind this is an Introduction page written almost entirely in Japanese (as is every page in this book, which I'm saying now to avoid having to repeat it throughout). It appears to cover a brief overview of the Transformers brand's history, and contains a short timeline of events from 1984 to 2021, skipping over many years unrelated to the Beast Era.

The Table of Contents shows that the book is divided into three main parts:

• Part 1: Chronicle (pages 4 to 98)
• Part 2: Backstage (pages 99 to 129)
• Part 3: Documents (pages 130 to 143)

Part 1: Chronicle is the largest part of the book, containing a near-complete coverage of almost every single Beast Era toy ever produced (I say "near-complete" and "almost every" for reasons to be given later). Toys that had variants get coverage for most of those as well. For instance, the original Cheetor toy gets coverage for its original green-eyed version, its blue-eyed version, its red-eyed version, and the Japanese rerelease with green cheetah eyes and orange robot eyes. But in cases like Transmetal Rhinox having had dark teal and pale teal Hasbro variants, only Rhinox's darker Hasbro variant is shown alongside his pale gold Takara version.

This section begins with the year 1997, the year Beast Wars came out in Japan. All of the toys covered in this year are those released in Japan, which were first released in the West in 1996, as well as the overseas releases that Japan didn't get. 1998 covers the toys of Beast Wars II, the non-show Fuzors, and the Video Pack redecos of Airazor, Razorclaw, Claw Jaw, and Spittor. 1999 covers Beast Wars Neo's released toys, the unreleased Unicron prototype, the Beast Wars Metals toys, the non-show Transmetals 2 toys, and the entire Animorphs toyline.

Of note about these years is some selective coverage between certain toys that were unchanged between the Hasbro and Takara releases. For instance, B'Boom, Snarl, Claw Jaw, and Powerpinch are omitted from the book because of Apache, Tasmania Kid, Scuba, and Scissor Boy having identical toys, and yet, both Video Pack Razorclaw and Injector are individually covered in addition to the identical Rockbuster and Latolata. Also of note are the facts that the Japanese names of Razorbeast, Transquito, and Scarem are given in this part as レイザーバック ("Razorback"), トランスキュート ("Transcute"), and スクリーム ("Scream"), respectively. Iguanus is even given two Japanese names written as イグナー／イグアナス ("Igunar / Iguanus").

2000 covers Mutant Beast Wars, a number of the Lucky Draw figures for Beast Wars II, Neo and Metals, and the entire line of Car Robots (including Lucky Draw Black Super Fire Convoy and the complete version of Brave Maximus). The book then jumps ahead a few years to 2004 to cover the Japanese Beast Machines line, Beast Wars Returns. It then jumps backward to 1999-2000 to cover the Fox Kids Beast Wars redecos released in those years. It then progresses forward again to 2000 proper to cover the Hasbro Beast Machines and Dinobots lines. 2001 covers the Battle for the Spark subline of Beast Machines toys, and 2002 covers the Air Attack Optimus Primal and Megatron Megabolt toys from Robots in Disguise. A separate "2001-2003" section then covers the entire Robots in Disguise toyline from Hasbro, and I do mean the entire line: All of the same molds released in Car Robots plus all of the Hasbro-exclusive non-beast toys and redecos.

Following this is what the book refers to as "The Aftermath", Beast Era toys released after the era's end. Beast Wars Reborn, Beast Wars 10th Anniversary, Beast Wars Telemocha Series (including the super rare Mini-Con Dragoyell), the Beast Wars Masterpieces from MP-32 Convoy (Beast Wars) to MP-50 Tigatron (Beast Wars), and the five Wave 1 Beast Wars toys from the (as of this typing) forthcoming Kingdom line (though, sadly, Megatron uses the TakaraTomy stock photography with the orange face and other wrong colors).

Also in this Aftermath part are some things labeled as "Extra", which are additional Beast Era-related toys released in other lines. These include:

• RobotMasters Beast Convoy Black Version
• Universe (2003) Optimus Primal
• Microverse Orcanoch and Arachnid
• Titanium Series 6" Optimal Optimus, RID Optimus Prime, and BM Cheetor

There is also a short essay column about the Transmetal toys pictured with a purple-blue variant of Optimus Primal.

Now, of all of the toys covered in this part of the book, there are a few missing. In particular, none of the following are in this book:

• Any toys from BotCon or the Collectors Club; not even the BotCon Japan Grizzly-1 and Double Punch
• Any of the 2003 Universe toys (aside from the aforementioned Optimus Primal)
• RobotMasters Burning Beast Convoy and Beast Megatron Black Version (the normal RobotMasters Beast Convoy and Beast Magtron are included with their Telemocha Series redecos, but these two are not)
• RobotMasters Lio Convoy (either version), Bound Rogue, and Psycho-Orb
• Legend Commander Collection Convoy (Beast Wars) and Lio Convoy
• Any of the Lucky Draws from Beast Wars season 1
• About half of the Lucky Draws from Beast Wars II, Neo, and Metals
• Any of the Car Robots Lucky Draws (except for Black Super Fire Convoy and the complete version of Brave Maximus)
• Any of the 2009 Universe, 2014 Generations Thrilling 30, or 2014-2019 Legends toys of Beast Era characters
• Power of the Primes Optimal Optimus and Throne of the Primes
• Encore God Fire Convoy, Returns Convoy, and the two Big Convoys
• Masterpiece Burning Convoy and Shadow Panther
• And, as mentioned above, any secondary Hasbro variants of the Transmetal toys (aside from the aforementioned purplish Primal that's given its own essay column).

And yet, despite all of these omissions, this section does feature a ton of obscure Japanese merchandise, such as:

• Collection Figure and Metal Monument Convoy and Megatron
• Cybertron Buster role play gun
• Cybertron Mobile Base playset
• Laser Light Yo-Yo
• Lots and lots of mini-figure series for Beast Wars season 1 and Beast Wars II
• Matrix Cannon role play gun
• Spy Shot & Claw Gun (or Crow Gun) role play gun
• PVC figurines for Beast Wars Neo
• The Spark driver figures that were originally going to be included in the cockpits of Optimal Optimus, Tigerhawk, and Dragon Megatron
• A Japanese cover for the first Animorphs novel "The Invasion"

Part 2: Backstage contains concept sketches for toys both released and unreleased, as well as interviews with seven people involved with the Japanese Beast Era.

The released toys whose concept sketches are featured are:

• Bat Optimus Primal
• Alligator Megatron
• Razorbeast
• Iguanus
• Terrorsaur
• Dinobot
• Waspinator
• Tarantulas
• Gorilla Optimus Primal
• Rhinox
• Airazor
• T-Rex Megatron (with an actual left hand inside his tail weapon)
• Scorponok
• Transmetal Optimus Primal
• Transmetal Rattrap
• Transmetal Cheetor
• Transmetal Megatron
• Transmetal Tarantulas
• Transmetal Ravage
• Animorphs Jake/Tiger
• Mutant Soundwave (originally meant to be Animorphs Marco)
• Mutant Icebird (originally meant to be Animorphs Jake)
• Mutant Poison Bite (originally meant to be Animorphs Rachel)
• Beast Machines Supreme class Cheetor
• Beast Machines Megatron
• Microverse Orcanoch, Arachnid, and their mini-figures

Among the unreleased concepts included are:

• Early designs of Cheetor as a cougar (often mistaken for a wolf) and a lion
• Several early designs for Depth Charge that look drastically different from the final version, some of which are even completely organic, non-Transmetal versions
• A triple-changer Optimus Primal that changes into a gorilla and an eagle
• A triple-changer Cheetor that changes into either a cheetah and a shark
• A triple-changer Dinobot that changes into either a raptor and a cobra; all three of these were proposed "power up" forms for the three
• An early design for Lio Convoy that more greatly resembles Optimus Primal, has a big axe weapon, and a small bat companion
• An early concept for the Animorphs toyline that involved not transforming toys but instead articulated endoskeleton figures that could be covered with human and animal skins to change them between each form
• Early concepts for Animorphs Tri-Rex that, while functionally similar to the final version, somehow look even more freakishly disturbing than the final version
• "Mutant Beast Wars"-style Animorphs animal-to-animal concepts for a "Bee Frog" (either Ax or Visser Three) a "Piranha Condor" (one of the boys), and a "Ram Dragon" (a Komodo dragon, that is, also one of the boys)

There are also concepts for some gimmicks that never happened.

• Bat Optimus Primal with flapping wings
• Insecticon with a pullback motor in beast mode
• Tarantulas with a spring-loaded autotransformation that bounces up with the push of a button
• Gator Megatron with a button-activated chomping gator mouth
• T-Rex Megatron with a projectile-launching T-Rex head that fires like a missile from its neck with a pull of its beast mode tail
• Gorilla Optimus Primal with two flails and a set of two spiked clubs that he holds and spins around in beast mode
• Scorponok's Cyberbee drone originally being a little scorpion drone
• T-Rex Megatron with an extending T-Rex head much like the extending tail arm that his final toy had
• A sort of "Pretender"/Super Mode" version of T-Rex Megatron where a small kibble-less robot figure compacts into a torso mode while a large T-Rex toy turns into a humanoid suit of armor for the torso figure to slot into, and armed with a large trident weapon; think Powermaster Optimus Prime or Star Saber for this gimmick
• A G1 Optimus Prime figure that turns into an Army truck and combines with an organic lion figure that forms armor for Optimus to wear
• One of Depth Charge's early concepts has little shark minions that shoot out of his beast mode mouth and transform into their own robot modes, making Depth Charge a sort of Beast Wars version of Soundwave/Blaster. One of these concepts even has the little shark minion as a dolphin instead
• A triple-changer "Buffalo Crab" Fuzor with two beast modes: a water buffalo and a fiddler crab
• A triple-changer "Shark Mantis" Fuzor with two beast modes:a hammerhead shark and praying mantis
• A Fuzor combiner formed by an eagle and an ostrich fusing to make a "Bigbird" (kind of a large bird with arms; funnily enough, this is the same descriptor for G1 Deathsaurus's altmode)
• A Fuzor combiner formed by a frilled lizard and a rhinoceros fusing to make a Triceratops
• A Fuzor combiner formed by a spider and an ant fusing to make a scorpion
• Early concepts for triple-changer "Beast Machines" that have an organic beast mode and a mechanical vehicle mode: One that turns into a helicopter and a dragonfly, one that turns into a racecar and a crab, and one (that looks a lot like Optimus Primal) that turns into a four-legged cannon tank and a gorilla
• A "Battle for the Spark" bird with a wind-up wing-flapping gimmick in its Spark
• A "Battle for the Spark" figure of Obsidian with a wind-up propeller-spinning gimmick in its Spark
• Wind-up Spark boxes that could be inserted into Vehicon figures to unlock pop-out weapon gimmicks (sort of like what Mini-Cons and Cyber Keys would later do in Armada and Cybertron) or inserted into Cheetor for a beast mode head-turning gimmick
• Spark Crystals that resemble little Matrix cores and could be pushed to activate either a pop-out weapon on an early Optimus Primal design or a spinning rotor and lights and sounds cannon on an early Vehicon design
• A removal Matrix core-looking Spark Crystal that could be inserted into the hips of a very early Maximal design that would later become Cheetor, with the Spark Crystal activating pop-out cannons on its thighs
• A removal Matrix LED battery that could be inserted into an early Vehicon design's chest or arm to activate lights and deploy an arm blade

The rest of this section contains lengthy Q&A interviews with the following people:

• Hideaki Yoke (餘家英昭) – toy development
• Kozo Itagaki (板垣 耕三) – toy marketing / producer
• Takio Ejima (江島多規男) – toy development
• Hisashi Yuki (幸 日佐志) – toy development
• Kōjin Ōno (大野 光仁) – toy development
• Ryōka Yuzuki (柚木 涼香) – Voice actor for Blackwidow (Blackarachnia)
• Yoshikazu Iwanami (岩浪美和 ) – Japanese version director / story editor

Part 3: Documents features the Beast Wars Data Box with lists of all the toys, episodes and movies. In particular, the specific Japanese toys that were sold in the U.S. through HasbroCollectors.com and Target are given their names written in English: Lio Convoy, Galvatron, Shadow Panther/Tripredacus Agent (both names, yes), Magmatron, Stampy, Saberback, Longrack, Archadis, Mach Kick, and… Colada! Yep, "Colada" finally has an official source for his name spelled as such, rather than the longstanding Engrishy "Cohrada" spelling.

Likewise, Razorbeast, Transquito, Iguanus and Scarem have their name written in Japanese as レイザーバック ("Razorback"), トランスキュート ("Transcute"), イグアナス (イグナー) ("Iguanus (Igunar)"), and スクリーム ("Scream"), just like in Part 1. Though, of further note is that Wolfang's name is spelled correctly in English, when in Part 1 his English name was misspelled as "Wolfgang". A similar typo appears in Part 3's list of the Beast Machines toys where the word "Heroic" in "Heroic Maximals" misspelled as "Hiroic". Other small typos like this appear throughout the book, but nothing too major and only noticeable if one is actively looking for them.

Finally, the episode guides for each series/movie arrange them in accordance to their Japanese airdates, so they are given in the following order:

• Beast Wars season 1
• Beast Wars II
• Beast Wars Special
• Beast Wars Neo
• Beast Wars Metals: Convoy's Great Transformation (the Japanese theatrical release of "Cutting Edge")
• Beast Wars Metals/Beast Wars seasons 2 & 3
• Car Robots/Robots in Disguise
• Beast Wars Returns/Beast Machines

All in all, the most interesting stuff in this book for me is all of the unreleased concepts for figures and gimmicks, but as a fan of the entire Beast Era, this book is a fine overview for much of the era's toy history.

Have you recieved this publication? Are you interested in learning more about the unreleased designs? Let us know in the Energon Pub and stay tuned to Seibertron for all the latest news and reviews!

I can't wait for this book. I've waited 19 years for it since discovering the original G1 Generations book, which remains one of my favorite go-to Transformers Toys books. It will be nice to finally have this in my collection. I'd really like to see a book like this for the movie toys once Studio Series is complete.

Sabrblade wrote:My copy arrived in the mail from HLJ last Friday, December 11, and only now have I had the chance to talk about it.

Before I get into the book itself, I gotta say that the preview pages seen earlier in this thread must have been very early production pages since none of them are in this book. The book's pages aren't even red, they're white. Some of the toys seen in those pages aren't even in the book either. Namely, of all those Blackarachnia toys, the Animated, Legends, Universe, and Binaltech ones are not in the book. In fact, that collection of Blackarachnia toys itself isn't present either. The ones from that group that are in the book are found in their respective sections instead of grouped together like that. Basically, none of the pages in this book look anything like those sample pages.

And now, onto the book.

The cover is as shown below, but printed in black-and-white. The colored version is included, but as a dust jacket over the book's actual cover.



On the back is a list of all the series covered by this book: Beast Wars, Beast Wars II, Beast Wars Neo, Beast Wars Metals, Animorphs, Beast Machines "Transformers: Carrobot", Transformers: Robots in Disguise, Beast Wars Returns, "And… The Aftermath".

At the bottom is a row of eleven symbols, the same eleven seen on the front cover: Maximal, Predacon, Blentron, Animorph, Mutant, Technorganic Maximal, Vehicon, Dinobot, Autobot, Decepticon, and Combatron.

Like the front cover, the back is colorless in light gray while the back dust jacket is in green with a Beast Wars green eye surrounded by red scales.

The inside flaps of the dust jacket feature old advertisement text from the original Beast Wars toyline. On the front flap is the Japanese catalog text that translates as follows:

From beyond the end of the universe, in search of mysterious Power Energy, the super robot lifeform "Transformers" have arrived! The evil "Destron" Transformers who attempt to conquer the universe by abusing Power Energy, and the righteous "Cybertron" Transformers who fight to stop them. With special abilities, each transforms into a different creature! At last, a new battle has begun. Will it be the heroic Cybertrons or the evil Destrons that will win this battle!?

On the back flap is the classic English text from the 1996 Beast Wars packaging:

BIO-GENETIC ENGINEERING HAS ALLOWED THE TRANSFORMERS TO CREATE A PERFECT CYBERNETIC FUSION BETWEEN FEROCIOUS ANIMALS AND MECHANICAL TRANSFORMERS TECHNOLOGY. THE RESULT: HEROIC MAXIMALS VS. EVIL PREDACONS! ROBOT WARRIORS DISGUISED AS WILD ANIMALS IN AN EXPLOSIVE FIGHT TO THE FINISH! THE BEAST WARS HAVE BEGUN ...COLLECT THEM ALL!

The front flap also has a photo of all six deco releases of Transmetal Rattrap: Takara, Hasbro, Fox Kids, Walmart, 10th Anniversary, and the Japanese jigsaw puzzle one. Likewise, the back flap has a photo of seven versions of the Cheetor toy: Fox Kids, 10th Anniversary, Telemocha Series, Hasbro blue eyes, Hasbro red eyes, Hasbro green eyes, and Takara's second-run version with the green cheetah eyes and orange robot eyes.

Inside the front cover is a large photo of RID Air Attack Optimus Primal (not the Japanese Encore version, the Hasbro Toys'R'Us version). Behind this is an Introduction page written almost entirely in Japanese (as is every page in this book, which I'm saying now to avoid having to repeat it throughout). It appears to cover a brief overview of the Transformers brand's history, and contains a short timeline of events from 1984 to 2021, skipping over many years unrelated to the Beast Era.

The Table of Contents shows that the book is divided into three main parts:

• Part 1: Chronicle (pages 4 to 98)
• Part 2: Backstage (pages 99 to 129)
• Part 3: Documents (pages 130 to 143)

Part 1: Chronicle is the largest part of the book, containing a near-complete coverage of almost every single Beast Era toy ever produced (I say "near-complete" and "almost every" for reasons to be given later). Toys that had variants get coverage for most of those as well. For instance, the original Cheetor toy gets coverage for its original green-eyed version, its blue-eyed version, its red-eyed version, and the Japanese rerelease with green cheetah eyes and orange robot eyes. But in cases like Transmetal Rhinox having had dark teal and pale teal Hasbro variants, only Rhinox's darker Hasbro variant is shown alongside his pale gold Takara version.

This section begins with the year 1997, the year Beast Wars came out in Japan. All of the toys covered in this year are those released in Japan, which were first released in the West in 1996, as well as the overseas releases that Japan didn't get. 1998 covers the toys of Beast Wars II, the non-show Fuzors, and the Video Pack redecos of Airazor, Razorclaw, Claw Jaw, and Spittor. 1999 covers Beast Wars Neo's released toys, the unreleased Unicron prototype, the Beast Wars Metals toys, the non-show Transmetals 2 toys, and the entire Animorphs toyline.

Of note about these years is some selective coverage between certain toys that were unchanged between the Hasbro and Takara releases. For instance, B'Boom, Snarl, Claw Jaw, and Powerpinch are omitted from the book because of Apache, Tasmania Kid, Scuba, and Scissor Boy having identical toys, and yet, both Video Pack Razorclaw and Injector are individually covered in addition to the identical Rockbuster and Latolata. Also of note are the facts that the Japanese names of Razorbeast, Transquito, and Scarem are given in this part as レイザーバック ("Razorback"), トランスキュート ("Transcute"), and スクリーム ("Scream"), respectively. Iguanus is even given two Japanese names written as イグナー／イグアナス ("Igunar / Iguanus").

2000 covers Mutant Beast Wars, a number of the Lucky Draw figures for Beast Wars II, Neo and Metals, and the entire line of Car Robots (including Lucky Draw Black Super Fire Convoy and the complete version of Brave Maximus). The book then jumps ahead a few years to 2004 to cover the Japanese Beast Machines line, Beast Wars Returns. It then jumps backward to 1999-2000 to cover the Fox Kids Beast Wars redecos released in those years. It then progresses forward again to 2000 proper to cover the Hasbro Beast Machines and Dinobots lines. 2001 covers the Battle for the Spark subline of Beast Machines toys, and 2002 covers the Air Attack Optimus Primal and Megatron Megabolt toys from Robots in Disguise. A separate "2001-2003" section then covers the entire Robots in Disguise toyline from Hasbro, and I do mean the entire line: All of the same molds released in Car Robots plus all of the Hasbro-exclusive non-beast toys and redecos.

Following this is what the book refers to as "The Aftermath", Beast Era toys released after the era's end. Beast Wars Reborn, Beast Wars 10th Anniversary, Beast Wars Telemocha Series (including the super rare Mini-Con Dragoyell), the Beast Wars Masterpieces from MP-32 Convoy (Beast Wars) to MP-50 Tigatron (Beast Wars), and the five Wave 1 Beast Wars toys from the (as of this typing) forthcoming Kingdom line (though, sadly, Megatron uses the TakaraTomy stock photography with the orange face and other wrong colors).

Also in this Aftermath part are some things labeled as "Extra", which are additional Beast Era-related toys released in other lines. These include:

• RobotMasters Beast Convoy Black Version
• Universe (2003) Optimus Primal
• Microverse Orcanoch and Arachnid
• Titanium Series 6" Optimal Optimus, RID Optimus Prime, and BM Cheetor

There is also a short essay column about the Transmetal toys pictured with a purple-blue variant of Optimus Primal.

Now, of all of the toys covered in this part of the book, there are a few missing. In particular, none of the following are in this book:

• Any toys from BotCon or the Collectors Club; not even the BotCon Japan Grizzly-1 and Double Punch
• Any of the 2003 Universe toys (aside from the aforementioned Optimus Primal)
• RobotMasters Burning Beast Convoy and Beast Megatron Black Version (the normal RobotMasters Beast Convoy and Beast Magtron are included with their Telemocha Series redecos, but these two are not)
• RobotMasters Lio Convoy (either version), Bound Rogue, and Psycho-Orb
• Legend Commander Collection Convoy (Beast Wars) and Lio Convoy
• Any of the Lucky Draws from Beast Wars season 1
• About half of the Lucky Draws from Beast Wars II, Neo, and Metals
• Any of the Car Robots Lucky Draws (except for Black Super Fire Convoy and the complete version of Brave Maximus)
• Any of the 2009 Universe, 2014 Generations Thrilling 30, or 2014-2019 Legends toys of Beast Era characters
• Power of the Primes Optimal Optimus and Throne of the Primes
• Encore God Fire Convoy, Returns Convoy, and the two Big Convoys
• Masterpiece Burning Convoy and Shadow Panther
• And, as mentioned above, any secondary Hasbro variants of the Transmetal toys (aside from the aforementioned purplish Primal that's given its own essay column).

And yet, despite all of these omissions, this section does feature a ton of obscure Japanese merchandise, such as:

• Collection Figure and Metal Monument Convoy and Megatron
• Cybertron Buster role play gun
• Cybertron Mobile Base playset
• Laser Light Yo-Yo
• Lots and lots of mini-figure series for Beast Wars season 1 and Beast Wars II
• Matrix Cannon role play gun
• Spy Shot & Claw Gun (or Crow Gun) role play gun
• PVC figurines for Beast Wars Neo
• The Spark driver figures that were originally going to be included in the cockpits of Optimal Optimus, Tigerhawk, and Dragon Megatron
• A Japanese cover for the first Animorphs novel "The Invasion"

Part 2: Backstage contains concept sketches for toys both released and unreleased, as well as interviews with seven people involved with the Japanese Beast Era.

The released toys whose concept sketches are featured are:

• Bat Optimus Primal
• Alligator Megatron
• Razorbeast
• Iguanus
• Terrorsaur
• Dinobot
• Waspinator
• Tarantulas
• Gorilla Optimus Primal
• Rhinox
• Airazor
• T-Rex Megatron (with an actual left hand inside his tail weapon)
• Scorponok
• Transmetal Optimus Primal
• Transmetal Rattrap
• Transmetal Cheetor
• Transmetal Megatron
• Transmetal Tarantulas
• Transmetal Ravage
• Animorphs Jake/Tiger
• Mutant Soundwave (originally meant to be Animorphs Marco)
• Mutant Icebird (originally meant to be Animorphs Jake)
• Mutant Poison Bite (originally meant to be Animorphs Rachel)
• Beast Machines Supreme class Cheetor
• Beast Machines Megatron
• Microverse Orcanoch, Arachnid, and their mini-figures

Among the unreleased concepts included are:

• Early designs of Cheetor as a cougar (often mistaken for a wolf) and a lion
• Several early designs for Depth Charge that look drastically different from the final version, some of which are even completely organic, non-Transmetal versions
• A triple-changer Optimus Primal that changes into a gorilla and an eagle
• A triple-changer Cheetor that changes into either a cheetah and a shark
• A triple-changer Dinobot that changes into either a raptor and a cobra; all three of these were proposed "power up" forms for the three
• An early design for Lio Convoy that more greatly resembles Optimus Primal, has a big axe weapon, and a small bat companion
• An early concept for the Animorphs toyline that involved not transforming toys but instead articulated endoskeleton figures that could be covered with human and animal skins to change them between each form
• Early concepts for Animorphs Tri-Rex that, while functionally similar to the final version, somehow look even more freakishly disturbing than the final version
• "Mutant Beast Wars"-style Animorphs animal-to-animal concepts for a "Bee Frog" (either Ax or Visser Three) a "Piranha Condor" (one of the boys), and a "Ram Dragon" (a Komodo dragon, that is, also one of the boys)

There are also concepts for some gimmicks that never happened.

• Bat Optimus Primal with flapping wings
• Insecticon with a pullback motor in beast mode
• Tarantulas with a spring-loaded autotransformation that bounces up with the push of a button
• Gator Megatron with a button-activated chomping gator mouth
• T-Rex Megatron with a projectile-launching T-Rex head that fires like a missile from its neck with a pull of its beast mode tail
• Gorilla Optimus Primal with two flails and a set of two spiked clubs that he holds and spins around in beast mode
• Scorponok's Cyberbee drone originally being a little scorpion drone
• T-Rex Megatron with an extending T-Rex head much like the extending tail arm that his final toy had
• A sort of "Pretender"/Super Mode" version of T-Rex Megatron where a small kibble-less robot figure compacts into a torso mode while a large T-Rex toy turns into a humanoid suit of armor for the torso figure to slot into, and armed with a large trident weapon; think Powermaster Optimus Prime or Star Saber for this gimmick
• A G1 Optimus Prime figure that turns into an Army truck and combines with an organic lion figure that forms armor for Optimus to wear
• One of Depth Charge's early concepts has little shark minions that shoot out of his beast mode mouth and transform into their own robot modes, making Depth Charge a sort of Beast Wars version of Soundwave/Blaster. One of these concepts even has the little shark minion as a dolphin instead
• A triple-changer "Buffalo Crab" Fuzor with two beast modes: a water buffalo and a fiddler crab
• A triple-changer "Shark Mantis" Fuzor with two beast modes:a hammerhead shark and praying mantis
• A Fuzor combiner formed by an eagle and an ostrich fusing to make a "Bigbird" (kind of a large bird with arms; funnily enough, this is the same descriptor for G1 Deathsaurus's altmode)
• A Fuzor combiner formed by a frilled lizard and a rhinoceros fusing to make a Triceratops
• A Fuzor combiner formed by a spider and an ant fusing to make a scorpion
• Early concepts for triple-changer "Beast Machines" that have an organic beast mode and a mechanical vehicle mode: One that turns into a helicopter and a dragonfly, one that turns into a racecar and a crab, and one (that looks a lot like Optimus Primal) that turns into a four-legged cannon tank and a gorilla
• A "Battle for the Spark" bird with a wind-up wing-flapping gimmick in its Spark
• A "Battle for the Spark" figure of Obsidian with a wind-up propeller-spinning gimmick in its Spark
• Wind-up Spark boxes that could be inserted into Vehicon figures to unlock pop-out weapon gimmicks (sort of like what Mini-Cons and Cyber Keys would later do in Armada and Cybertron) or inserted into Cheetor for a beast mode head-turning gimmick
• Spark Crystals that resemble little Matrix cores and could be pushed to activate either a pop-out weapon on an early Optimus Primal design or a spinning rotor and lights and sounds cannon on an early Vehicon design
• A removal Matrix core-looking Spark Crystal that could be inserted into the hips of a very early Maximal design that would later become Cheetor, with the Spark Crystal activating pop-out cannons on its thighs
• A removal Matrix LED battery that could be inserted into an early Vehicon design's chest or arm to activate lights and deploy an arm blade

The rest of this section contains lengthy Q&A interviews with the following people:

• Hideaki Yoke (餘家英昭) – toy development
• Kozo Itagaki (板垣 耕三) – toy marketing / producer
• Takio Ejima (江島多規男) – toy development
• Hisashi Yuki (幸 日佐志) – toy development
• Kōjin Ōno (大野 光仁) – toy development
• Ryōka Yuzuki (柚木 涼香) – Voice actor for Blackwidow (Blackarachnia)
• Yoshikazu Iwanami (岩浪美和 ) – Japanese version director / story editor

Part 3: Documents features the Beast Wars Data Box with lists of all the toys, episodes and movies. In particular, the specific Japanese toys that were sold in the U.S. through HasbroCollectors.com and Target are given their names written in English: Lio Convoy, Galvatron, Shadow Panther/Tripredacus Agent (both names, yes), Magmatron, Stampy, Saberback, Longrack, Archadis, Mach Kick, and… Colada! Yep, "Colada" finally has an official source for his name spelled as such, rather than the longstanding Engrishy "Cohrada" spelling.

Likewise, Razorbeast, Transquito, Iguanus and Scarem have their name written in Japanese as レイザーバック ("Razorback"), トランスキュート ("Transcute"), イグアナス (イグナー) ("Iguanus (Igunar)"), and スクリーム ("Scream"), just like in Part 1. Though, of further note is that Wolfang's name is spelled correctly in English, when in Part 1 his English name was misspelled as "Wolfgang". A similar typo appears in Part 3's list of the Beast Machines toys where the word "Heroic" in "Heroic Maximals" misspelled as "Hiroic". Other small typos like this appear throughout the book, but nothing too major and only noticeable if one is actively looking for them.

Finally, the episode guides for each series/movie arrange them in accordance to their Japanese airdates, so they are given in the following order:

• Beast Wars season 1
• Beast Wars II
• Beast Wars Special
• Beast Wars Neo
• Beast Wars Metals: Convoy's Great Transformation (the Japanese theatrical release of "Cutting Edge")
• Beast Wars Metals/Beast Wars seasons 2 & 3
• Car Robots/Robots in Disguise
• Beast Wars Returns/Beast Machines

All in all, the most interesting stuff in this book for me is all of the unreleased concepts for figures and gimmicks, but as a fan of the entire Beast Era, this book is a fine overview for much of the era's toy history.

Yeah!

How long it would have taken to do all that.

Thanks for the summarisation Sabrblade, you have more than sold it to me!

RacerCheetor wrote:How long it would have taken to do all that.

Took about two days to type and edit it all.

Poor Beast Wars Neo Unicron prototype looks like it has seen better days unfortunately ...

I had no interest in this, maybe because "mook" just doesn't convey the highest quality, but once everything Sabrblade wrote really sinks in, I'll probably end up needing this.

Seibertron wrote:Poor Beast Wars Neo Unicron prototype looks like it has seen better days unfortunately ...

He's in the book. He gets two entire pages to himself covering both modes and lots of his gimmicks (as opposed to how all of the other figures share only partial page space with each other).

Sabrblade wrote:

Seibertron wrote:Poor Beast Wars Neo Unicron prototype looks like it has seen better days unfortunately ...

He's in the book. He gets two entire pages to himself covering both modes and lots of his gimmicks (as opposed to how all of the other figures share only partial page space with each other).

I know he's in the book. The prototype of Beast Wars Neo Unicron that was photographed for the book appears to be damaged in a few places. Part of his beard looks like it broke off as well as some of the "spires" seen in planet mode and on his arm.

Could anyone post a pic of what the toy sketch/designs look like? Trying to decide if this is something I want to pick up or not.

xxaMaxx wrote:Could anyone post a pic of what the toy sketch/designs look like? Trying to decide if this is something I want to pick up or not.

The concept sketches span 20 pages. One pic cannot accommodate them all.

But, some of them were posted online years ago from the Beast Wars Reborn Golden Disk CD-ROM. Of the ones found on that disc, these four are in this book:

Okay seriously, has anyone got a place to buy this with reasonable shipping rates?

Since it was discussed previously in this thread, I'm sharing this here. Here are links to the full stories of why Beast Wars II and Beast Wars Neo were placed after Beast Machines (when fans originally thought they were both set before Beast Machines) and why Car Robots is considered a Beast Era series part of the big G1/BW universe in Japan (when its English counterpart Robots in Disguise is not), both written in their current extended form by yours truly.