Dave's Beast Wars Transformers - Japanese Comics Bon-Bon

	Beast Wars Pictures Archive: Comics Bon-Bon
Beast Wars Japan	Pictures and Manga Summaries from Japan's Comics Bon-Bon - 1998
Beast Wars Japan	Last Updated 2/9/99 1998 page spun off.

Pictures from Comics Bon-Bon

Bon-Bon is a monthly manga "phonebook" magazine with several color pages of ads for toy and TV tie-in stuff. Average issue is about two inches (5cm) thick.

A note on the name of the magazine: my translator friend says that the Japanese transliterates best to "Bon-Bon," as in the sweet treat. However, in the logo itself is the phrase "Bom-Bom" inside a circle made to look like a cartoon bomb with fuse. Looks like they're going for a multi-level pun. It's a treat, like a bon-bon, but explosive like a bomb.

DECEMBER

Lots of nifty stuff, including Microman (see Bryan Wilkinson's Microman page for BonBon pics of them) and Dinozone. Also a good picture of Majin Zarak's aircraft carrier vehicle mode.

Manga Summary - The origin of the remaining four Cyborg Beasts.
Cyborg Kid - One of the sillier panels from the manga.
Lioconvoy Recolors: Yes, there's more!
- Lioconvoy Flash - Flashy metallic/pearly Lioconvoy.
- Galvalioconvoy - Lioconvoy in Galvatron's colors. According to Doug Dlin, this is a special giveaway for 50 lucky kids who write in to the magazine, like the old Red Convoy was last winter.
Movie Images
- Majin Zarak - In supercarrier vehicle mode.
- Fight Scene - Majin Zarak versus Convoy, Lioconvoy and Magnaboss, with some of the Cyborg Beasts in the mix.
Cyborg Beasts: Better pictures of the toys, so I'll be erasing the older pics I have soon.
- Hellscream - Formerly Starscream, a remold of Cybershark.
- Max B - Formerly BB, a remold of Wolfang/K-9.
- DirgeGun - Formerly Dirge, a remold of Waspinator.
- Thrustol - Formerly Thrust, a remold of Dinobot.
Misc Merchandise
- Big Board Game - Uses unpainted decoys of the BWII characters as playing pieces, and a funky "battle platform" thing.
- Small Board Game - Uses unpainted SuperDeformed BWII figures as playing pieces.
- BW1 Figures - SuperDeformed figures of the U.S. BW characters.
- Miniship - Little ship playset with SD Magnaboss and Tripredacus figures added in.
DinoZone Stuff
- DinoZone CG Scenes - A few scenes from the cartoon, showing Dinotyranno and Giganodragon.
- DinoZone Toys - HUGE image. Shows all the heroic Dinosoldiers and the evil Deatheater leader, Giganodragon. His beast mode stretches across the previous two pages as well, not shown. Once I find out what the techspec hexagons mean, I'll post their specs. Dinosoldiers are Dinotyranno, Dinoptera, Dinosaber, Dinomammoth, Dinobrachio, Dinotricera and Dinostego. Yeah, Saber-tooth tigers and Mammoths aren't dinosaurs.

NOVEMBER

There's a few tidbits of toys to show here, plus a picture of Majin Z, the villain from the BWII movie. Additionally, I've included scans of a new Bandai line which is too cool to leave out, even if it's not really Transformers.

Manga summary: A new character, Star Upper, comes to help the Cybertrons. But is he really all he says he is? UPDATED with help of a translator friend, 11/21/98.
Star Upper (Beast Mode): A new kangaroo character introduced for the manga, I doubt there will be a toy made of him. A boxing kangaroo (or wallaby, he's kinda small) with a self-confidence problem he covers up by talking a good game.
Star Upper (Robot Mode): When he finally gets some confidence in himself, this is what he transforms into. Magic shirt seals the neck hole as it becomes shorts.
Clear Change Kits: Small "take apart and reassemble to transform" Change Kits of Lioconvoy and Galvatron, recast in the ever-popular clear plastic.
More "Decoys": A clear plastic "decoy" of Lioconvoy, and a painted decoy of Magnaboss.
DinoZone p1: Really nifty transforming dinosaur (and dinosaur-ish) toys by Bandai. On this page at the top we see the Pterodactyl and Stegosaur characters in computer art, and pictures of all five toys at the bottom. The funky yellow thing is a silhouette of Giganodragon.
DinoZone p2: Computer images of the T-Rex, Brachiosaur and Smilodon (Sabre-tooth Tiger). See December for better pictures of the toys.

OCTOBER

Not much to scan in terms of toys, just marginally better pics of toys I have scanned on the TV Magazine page. So, instead, I'll devote this month's gallery to a few of the weirder panels and pages from the manga story.

Manga Installment Summary - While Lioconvoy recovers from last issue's events, it's time for some light romantic comedy featuring the Seacons! The following images are panels I found amusing, in four color greys.
Panel 1 - Bighorn stands atop a cliffside, proclaiming his intent to one day find true love.
Panel 2 - Bighorn is entranced at the first sight of Scylla.
Panel 3 - And here she is! The inset box shows how the love-starved Bighorn sees Scylla.
Panel 4 - Bighorn dashes off with the love letter he's had Scuba write to Scylla for him (mere moments before he returns and asks Scuba to deliver the letter too).
Panel 5 - Scylla has read the letter and is floating on air. She also thinks Scuba is the one in love with her. Inset box shows Scuba bapping himself on the head for letting himself get into this situation.
Panel 6 - Here's how the love-addled Scylla sees Scuba. Love isn't blind, merely delusional.
Panel 7 - The pageant! No, I can't really explain this, it's just too silly. After this scene is the bulk of the fighting, which I didn't scan in because it's not silly. Much.
Panel 8 - The final gag. After the dust settles, Scylla has commented to Bighorn that it's a pity he's not a squid. So Bighorn has decided to try and get a DNA trace from a dried squid snack....

SEPTEMBER

Highlights for this issue are a repaint of Lioconvoy, more little candy toys, an image from what appears to be a Gameboy BW game, and an embarrassing picture of the Jointron Brothers. And to the right, from the manga story, Takotank to the rescue!

Manga Installment Summary - Second half of a two-part tale. Galvatron has become a giant, and things look bad....
Black Lioconvoy - A special recolor being released for the movie (and possibly having a role in the movie...Lioconvoy gets an Evil Twin made from Dark Argonmoa Energy?). Mostly black with a little accenting in other colors, in this picture Artemis is hard at work painting the recolor.
Decoys - Fully painted little decoy-like statues of several of the characters. Somewhat superdeformed, but not as stump-like as the earlier SD set.
Egg Blasters - Speaking of the earlier set, they've been recycled here, being put into ripcord-run egg things that spin around and then fly apart. All 8 of the earlier SD BWII characters are in the set.
Gameboy Game? - At the bottom of a page that looks to have maps of the original Beast Wars game levels is this little strip, showing a low-res fighter game for BWII. Possibly something for the color Gameboy?
Los Bros Jointron - NO, I did NOT make this myself. It's actually in the magazine. The Jointron Brothers in sombreros and carrying guitars. Tripredacus turned Mexican, apparently.

AUGUST

Missing this one, it sold out. I asked the store to back-order it for me, but no luck. However, thanks to getting the collected manga book volume 1 as part of a trade, I have the manga installment to summarize.

JULY

Highlights from this issue include: Tripredacus (the Jointron Brothers), Superdeformed BWII figures, fan art and the Galvatank!

BWII Manga Summary - A page-by-page brief writeup of what happens in the 39-page installment this month. The Destrons have found a way to get a head in the Beast Wars.... UPDATE: thanks to Takeuchi Shouichi for corrections on parts of the manga where I guessed wrong.
Tripredacus anime-style - The Jointron Brothers enter the fray!
Tripredacus toy - I decided to just scan in the combined form, since there's pictures of the individual U.S. versions elsewhere on this site, and I think you can figure out how the colors changed. Sea Clamp's recolor is a cooked lobster....
Superdeformed Transforming Lioconvoy
Superdeformed Transforming Galvatron - These two are better pictures than the ones I got from TV Magazine, so I've erased the TV Mag pics. Same with the teams below.
Superdeformed Team A - Lioconvoy, Scuba, Starscream and BB.
Superdeformed Team B - Galvatron, Megastorm, Tasmania Kid and Apache. The teams are sold as sets, and do not transform, or even move. They're statues. UPDATE: AriX tells me that they seem to be pencil-toppers, having holes in their bases about the right size for that duty. Not erasers, though.
Fan Art - There's a page with several fan creations, and this one looks the best, and actually looks like the transformation would work. It's an orangutan.
"A TANK?" - The Big Reveal page from the manga story summarized above.

JUNE

This issue features the entry of the Cybertron Insects into the Beast Wars II storyline, due to happen June 30.

Enter The Cybertron Insects - All six flying in formation, even the ones without wings. Heh. The thing that looks like a grey blimp is Powerhug, aka Retrax, the pillbug.
Powerhug, Scissor Boy and BigMos - Doctored photos of the toys, showing their energy attack modes. Powerhug's hands are in just the right position to create an energy sphere. Scissor Boy fires blasts from his tail pincers. BigMos apparently channels lightning with his skeeter legs.
Drilnuts, Tonbotto and Mantis - More enhanced photos. Drilnuts seems to call down lightning like Shrapnel and fire it out from his drill. Tonbotto emits energy waves from his chest-mounted wings. And Mantis just throws his disks. Oddly, Tonbotto's actual ranged weapon is not used here.
Gerwalk Night! - Several of the BWII toys arranged in "gerwalk" mode, a mix between robot and not-robot forms. Some work pretty well, like BigMos's. Others stink on ice, like Powerhug's "Ball On A Stick" mode. Dirge and Thurst have much more convincing gerwalk modes than shown, but you have to reverse the knees.
Tasmania Kid's Yo-yo - Complete with flashing LEDs and a clutch mechanism (like the Yomegas), this is supposedly Kid's most prized possession.
Bit of manga - There's a short manga-style setup summary of the BWII story in the main section of the issue. In the section I scanned, Convoy (Primal) seems to be relating aspects of the story, ending up with Thrust bapping Dirge playfully with a folded piece of paper...and then Artemis bashes Convoy with her hammer. I'm not quite sure what to make of the little heart symbols Thrust and Convoy give off during the hitting, maybe Krazy Kat came by.

MAY

The May 1998 issue has some really good pictures of Lioconvoy and Galvatron.

Lioconvoy - On the left is the robot form, with insets of the Matrix, missile launchers and the spinning lion's-head shield function. In the upper right is the beast mode, and in the lower right is the attack beast mode, with claws, missile launchers and spinning mane. The tiny picture in the very lower left shows the spinning mane in action.
Galvatron - Easily the best picture of the toy I've seen to date. In the upper left is the dragon mode strutting its stuff, with black wings visible. Lower left has the drill tank, with an inset of the drill spinning. Right side has the robot mode, with knee cannons, axes and backpack unit holding the dragon wings. As the inset in upper right shows, the wings become a huge claw weapon, no doubt inspired by Transquito's attack mode.
Galvatron and others - Yes, Galvatron turns pink in the cartoon, and this CGI image shows that color scheme. Galvy's in the upper right. Upper left is Lioconvoy's leg, lower right are Artemis and Moon (Moon is a rabbit, by the way, not a rat), and lower left are the Autorollers, more true to their animated design. There's also a good picture of the Autoroller toys on another page, but there's not much to see that's not in the other pictures.

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Beast Wars Japan

Pictures and Manga Summaries from Japan's Comics Bon-Bon - 1998