After the Federal Communications Commission did away with regulations that prohibited toy companies from broadcasting cartoons based on their products in 1985, The Transformers began with a three-episode miniseries that introduced audiences to Optimus Prime, Megatron and their armies, as they travelled from the metal world of Cybertron to Earth in search of new sources of energy.
Dozens of new characters were introduced throughout the season, including the Triple Changers, the combining teams the Aerialbots, Stunticons, Combaticons and Protectobots, and more new Autobot cars and Decepticon planes, while many new ideas and concepts began to establish the history of the cartoon universe.
An OVA exclusive to Japan entitled Scramble City was released which cast focus on the combining teams and introduced Ultra Magnus, Metroplex, Ratbat, Trypticon, and Blaster's cassettes.
The addition of Flint Dille as story editor saw a strong sci-fi aspect infect the season as the Transformers' battles spanned many alien planets, while continuity between episode was tighter than ever before as plot concepts were revisited and expanded to truly flesh out the show's history.
Supplanting The Rebirth's position in Japanese continuity, The Headmasters occurred one year after The Return of Optimus Prime, introducing the title characters to the Transformers universe in a different way.
The dub is, however, infamous for its poor quality, full of mistranslations and incorrect names, clearly the work of a small group of individuals (literally, less than half-a-dozen actors fill every role) with little knowledge of the material.
In contrast to The Headmasters and Super-God Masterforce, both of which had an over-arcing plot direction, the majority of Victory is directionless, returning to the episodic adventure tradition of the original American series which culminates in the much-threatened attack of Deszaras's planet-destroying fortress.
Following on from Victory, the mysterious three-faced insectoid being, Violenjiger dispatches the nine "Great Decepticon Generals" - Devastator, Menasor, Bruticus, Trypticon, Predaking, Abominus, King Poseidon, Overlord and BlackZarak - to acquire "Zone Energy", destroying the planet Feminia to obtain the world's store.
With Larry DiTillio and Bob Forward at the helm as story editors, it was planned for the show to start afresh, with no ties to anything that had gone before, but the off-handed reference to the "Great War" included in the first episode set the internet fandom ablaze.
DiTillio and Forward became occasional posters on the alt.toys.transformers newsgroup, and through this back-and-forth interaction with fans, plus their own research of previous Transformers fiction, the Beast Wars animated series soon began to grow, establishing its place as the future - and past - of the larger Generation 1 timeline.
While mostly a scattershot affair of episodic stories, the first season of Beast Wars focused heavily on characterisation, endowing its cast with consistent, developing personalities and naturalistic voice acting that brought the show to life.
Additionally, amidst the one-shot adventures, a plot thread began to grow involving a race of mysterious aliens who were conducting experiments on the planet that occasionally intersected with the Beast Warriors' stories.
Although largely looked down upon for its very light-hearted approach when compared to the darker North American series, Beast Wars II proved successful enough to spawn a theatrical movie, consisting of three "acts".
As Beast Machines begins, viewers rejoin Optimus Primal and his Maximals as they return to Cybertron, amnesiac and unable to recall how they got there, only to discover that the planet is now under Megatron's rule, its cities deserted, its occupants stripped of their sparks.
Influences from the original Transformers began to creep into the show as they had with Beast Wars before it, until more obscure concepts such as the key to Vector Sigma and the Plasma Energy Chamber played major roles in the series, each one exemplifying one of the mantras espoused - Primal's dedication to seeing the organic flourish, and Megatron's desire for unfeeling, unthinking technological perfection.
In addition to drawing on and re-imagining familiar elements from Generation 1, such as the Matrix of Leadership, Armada's defining trait was the introduction of a third faction of Transformers - the diminutive robots known as Mini-Cons (the eponymous "Microns" in Japan).
The series then begins in the year 2010, when three teenagers - Rad, Carlos and Alexis - find and reactivate the buried hulk of the Mini-Con ship, sending out a signal that brings Optimus Prime, Megatron and their troops to Earth.
The Autobots and Decepticons, allied since the conclusion of Armada, have entered into an alliance with humankind in order to mine for energon on Earth, and now operate out of massive "Cybertron Cities" in strategic locations around the world.
But, out in the void of space, the damaged, deactivated body of Unicron now serves the staging base of the deranged alien being Alpha Q, who sends armies of robotic Terrorcons to steal Energon for his own purposes.
The Autobots of Energon are empowered with the "Spark of Combination", which allows them to link their bodies together in various configurations - a power that gives the series its Japanese title, Transformers: Superlink - while the Decepticons possess "hyper modes" with excesses of weaponry.
This danger brings the ancient Transformer, Vector Prime, back to Cybertron, where he sets the Autobots on a quest for the four Cyber Planet Keys, legendary artifacts of power that can seal the black hole.
Aided with new "Cyber Key Powers" of their own, the Transformers makes allies and enemies on each different world they visit, from the racing-obsessed Velocitron to the bestial Jungle Planet and beyond, on an adventure that has its roots in the ancient past, and sculpts a new future for Cybertron.
More than simply a translation of the Japanese version, Cybertron features large amounts of new dialogue, be it to form connections with Armada and Energon, to pay homage to many classic Generation 1 quotes (several lines from The Transformers: The Movie are re-used, in particular, and there are also a few quotes and references to the Beast Era), or simply to fill many prolonged sequences of silence in the Japanese version, an artefact of the show's excessive use of stock footage transformation, combination and transportation sequences.
The group is a Space Bridge repair crew led by academy washout Optimus Prime, who stumble across the legendary life-giving Allspark on a routine mission, drawing the attention of the long-exiled Decepticons under the command of Megatron.
Early antagonists in the series will be superhuman villains, some of whom will obtain powers through Transformer technology, with the scattered Decepticons (Starscream, Blackarachnia, Lugnut, and Blitzwing) periodically arriving on Earth in their search for Megatron and the Allspark.
Art director/lead character designer Derrick J Wyatt (Teen Titans, Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, Legion of Super Heroes) has created a "brand new look" unlike anything seen in Transformers before.
Having left Cybertron on a patrol ship prior to the war between Autobots and Decepticons, they eventually arrive on Earth and meet Optimus Prime, who pairs them up with the Burns family of the fictional island Griffin Rock.
The ending themes of the second season are "Destiny ~ 400 Man-nen Mae Kara Itoshi teru" (~DESTINY～400万年前から愛してる～) by Yoshimasa Hosoya and "SHOCK ~ Kono Omoi wa Hikari no Yōni ~" (SHOCK～この想いは光のように～) by Kaito Ishikawa.
It aired from November 14, 2017 to January 9, 2018 and features Peter Cullen and Judd Nelson as Optimus Prime and Hot Rod, reprising their respective characters from The Transformers 30 years previous.
Debuting in 2018 on Cartoon Network and produced by Boulder Media Limited and Hasbro's Allspark Animation, Transformers: Cyberverse is a series where Bumblebee lost his memory of the special mission given to him by Optimus Prime.