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Tarkara- Transformers Beast Wars Neo: Break
It?s honestly bizarre that there was ever a time that a franchise, like The Transformers, had a completely unique ?life" outside of North America and for the most part, we had no idea about it, save for the corners of the then fledgling world wide web. What am I talking about? Well that requires a bit of a history lesson, so buckle up:
Back in the 80?s a Hasbro staffer was tasked with creating a backstory that was built around a set of converting ?action figures? from Japan. These toys were an amalgamation of 4-5 different toys lines that were nothing like the kids in North America ever saw.
They became so popular that the line was exported, branded as Transformers, back to Japan and became a hit there too.
After a few seasons and a big budget movie, Hasbro felt that the Transformers hit their zenith and slowly phased them out of the toy lexicon, but it seemed that Asian markets were still happy to support the line so there was key fork in the road between markets for season 4 in which the Headmasters and Target Masters where introduced. America had a slapdash 3 part episode that helped push the line to its eventual demise, but not in Japan. Nope, they went a completely different way and created a completely different cartoon for the headmasters that while difficult to watch, kept the torch burning and continued with a lot of other G1 centric shows that built up a lot of Transformers lore that some fans love.
After a bit of a hiatus in America, Hasbro rolled out a re-skinned Generation 1 cartoon and some new toys that were dubbed Generation 2, but failed to ignite the line to what it once was.
Then, after what can only be called a massive swing that could have been amazing or terrible, Hasbro created an entirely new concept with Beast Wars and although it was a lot different than what we grew up with, the solid story and characters succeeded, but apparently Japanese fans per nonplused. I?ve heard it's because the CGI animation was not great, but it's probably more so that there was zero continuity between what they have been used to for the last few years. However, they must have liked the Beast concept because concurrently to Beast Wars, Takara released their own version called Beast Wars 2 and eventually yet another off-shoot call Beast Wars Neo that featured our like penguin buddy as well as a Rabbit, a Giraffe, a Cobra snake, a Tanooki creature and of course, one of my favorite Transformers released, a wooly mammoth.
After the beasts, a bit of a spark was lit in North America that eventually led to Beast Machines, RID and ultimately what we all know and love now in the world of Transformers.
Now I probably have some details or time lines wrong, but you get the gist: for a long time Japan had a wild, crazy series of Transformers cartoons/toy lines and unless you are a big fan, you probably never knew. If you are interested there are a ton of great videos on Japanese Transformers available on Youtube and for general Transformers history you need to check out the fantastic Netflix series: The Toys That Made Us.
Pros: Well first off, Break is absolutely unique which is enough for him to be one of my favorite Transformers. I also love that they included a 3rd official weapon mode (not pictured) that makes his alt mode not completely useless.
Cons: Break is the definition of a shell-former which creates a very frustrating transformation scheme AND a lot of kibble that is attached all over his limbs that makes it very difficult to pose. That said, it?s fine because he is a penguin.
