The Next Phase: NEO

During the last decade or so, the Super Lifeform Transformers, as the Transformers are known in Japan, have taken many various twists and turns.

The Japanese culture has dictated several unproduced in America Transformers toy figures/ characters and lines.

The first case example, would be the variant Transformers line titled "Victory" series in which very few Transformers from the American series (and modified at that such as Dinoking / Monstructor) saw production in Japan and vice versa. The Autobots and Decepticons (known as Cybertrons and Destrons in Japan) were lead by Victory Saber and Deszaurus (Deathsaurus) respectively. Later the exclusive Japanese Transformers would be followed by these series: "Transformers: Zone," "Transformers: Return of Convoy," "Transformers: Scramble City", and "Transformers Mission: Combination."

After the initial success of the Beast Wars Transformers line in Japan, Takara was anxious to continue production on their new hot selling item. The interest in the Transformers toy line had been renewed. Takara frantically began search for ideas to expand the toy line.

Soon, Takara (the creator of the first Transformers toys under the names Diaclone and Microman) retooled and repainted several of the American Beast Wars Transformers under one group titled the Cybertrons (Maximals). The second retooling and repainting came under a group of Decepticons toys mainly produced under the "Generation 2" banner in America between 1993 - 1994 and the "Machine Wars" banner during 1997. All of these machine-like Transformers fell under the group titled Destrons.

Thus, a new story line developed called "Beast Wars Second," pitting the heroic beast-like Cybertrons against the evil machine-like Destrons on the artificial planet known as Gaea.

AFter roughly forty cel-animated cartoons were released, the Beast Wars Second series came to an end.

Now, looms the next phase of the Beast Wars in Japan. The new series, "Beast Wars NEO," hopes to bring as much success as have the other Beast Wars Transformers releases in Japan. This time, the heroic Cybertrons take on the forms of animals while the evil Destrons take on the forms of dinosaurs.

This article was originally published in TRANS-FORUM #9 (March 1999) by the owner of SEIBERTRON.com