Airdate: April 1, 1998 – January 27, 1999
Beast Wars II and its sequel, Beast Wars Neo, were anime series produced to fill time between the Japanese broadcasts of the first and second seasons of Beast Wars. They have no connection to the plot of Beast Wars; in fact, in Japanese continuity, they take place tens of thousands of years in the future, long after the ending of Beast Machines. However, at least one American continuity (namely the Beast Wars comics by IDW Publishing that ran from 2006 to 2016) posits the existence of a second Great War following the conclusion of the Great War between the Autobots and Decepticons. In this continuity, the Maximals and Predacons fought a war of their own sometime between the events of G1 and Beast Wars. The two Beast Wars anime take place during this war, making them distant prequels to Beast Wars in American continuity. When Optimus Primal's and Megatron's character bios in Dawn of Future's Past mention them being veterans of the Great War, they're referring to the more recent conflict.
Yes, Dawn of the Predacus does completely ignore this retcon, despite being published by IDW! It's the worst of both worlds: Primal and Megatron are still war veterans, which contradicts Beast Wars, but they're veterans of the Autobot-Decepticon Great War, which really contradicts Beast Wars. Why am I still talking about this schlock? Let's talk about Beast Wars II instead! Not all of it, though, because it's a filler show composed of mostly filler episodes.
Episode 1: The New Forces Arrive!
While on a routine space patrol, Maximal Commander Convoy vanishes after an explosion in an asteroid field. Without their leader, his squad becomes bereft and shiftless, and are quick to jump into action when they receive a distress call saying that Predacons under the command of Galvatron (not the G1 Galvatron, who’s dead as per Dawn of the Predacus; like Beast Wars Megatron, this guy renamed himself after one of his historical heroes; unlike Megatron, he absolutely cannot pull off that purple color scheme) are invading the planet Gaea to steal its Angolmois Energy. They arrive at the planet and their ship is immediately shot down. Radiation levels on Gaea force them to adopt beast modes. There is Tasmanian Kid, a Tasmanian devil; Scuba, a squid; Diver, a frog; Bighorn, a bison; and Apache, an offensive Native American stereotype. The Maximals are are quickly captured by Galvatron’s forces but saved by a mysterious white lion. Who could this lion be?
Episode 2: White Lion, Run!
It’s Convoy! By an astonishing
coincidence, when his ship went down while investigating the asteroid
field, he ended up here, on the same planet his crew would soon come to
investigate for unrelated reasons. Kimba the white lion saved his life
after the crash, so he adopted its form as his beast mode and is now
known as Lio Convoy. Meanwhile, Galvatron discovers an ancient
underground supercomputer and uses it to upgrade his alt mode to the
most powerful weapon in this planet’s recorded history. He becomes so
powerful that he goes into a coma for three episodes.
Episode 5: Galvatron Revived
Megastorm, the younger brother of
Galvatron, fears his brother will come out of his coma and reclaim his
title of Emperor of Destruction, so he decides to throw him down a pit
and bury him alive. He’s unable to complete his plan, however, when the
Anglomois Energy in the pit predictably rejuvenates Galvatron. He sets
off to get revenge against the Maximals, who he thinks tried to kill him
in his sleep. He proves more than a match for all of them put together
with his powerful drill-tank vehicle mode and penis-dragon beast mode, but
when the battle moves into a volcano, Megastorm snipes the rock his
brother is standing on out from beneath his feet and Galvatron plunges
into the lava below. I’m sure we’ve seen the last of him.
Episode 6: Mystery of the Ancient Ruins
Episode 7: The Insect Corps Arrive
Episode 8: Friend or Foe? The Insect Robos
Episode 9: The Strongest Tag Team?
Unnecessarily drawn-out introduction of the Insectrons, a six-member Transformers faction with insect alt modes who fled to the planet Gaea to escape the war between the Maximals and Predacons. The show inexplicably becomes all about them for the next half dozen episodes. Galvatron returns but immediately gets drunk and falls into a lake.
Episode 14: The Combined Giant, Tripledacus
A group of Maximal Combiners called the Jointrons, consisting of DJ, Motorarm, and Gimlet, crashes their ship on Gaea while en route to the planet Trius. Their ability to join together to form the giant robot Tripledacus (not to be confused with the evil Predacon ruler Tripredacus, although the two of them look identical) makes them some of the most powerful combatants in the conflict, but their habit of behaving like over-the-top Latino caricatures makes them unreliable and more of a nuisance to Lio Convoy's group than a benefit.
Episode 19: The Space Pirate Seacons!
Yet another Transformer subgroup, a roving gang of pirates called the Seacons, arrives on Gaea. This infamous band roams the spaceways looking for treasure to pillage, now they've come for the Anglomois Energy! If all the Anglomois Energy is removed from Gaea, the planet will die, so the Maximals must go all out to stop the Seacons, even though there's no danger of them stealing a planet's worth of energy in their tiny pirate ship. The Predacons have been harvesting that shit for months without so much as a greenhouse effect. The Seacons combine to form the giant robot God Neptune, but he gets distracted when the Maximals release all of their harvested Anglomois Energy simultaneously, causing their ship to explode. Great, now they're stranded here with you, you morons.
Episode 21: The Tentacular Scuba
After finding a four-leaf clover that he believes will bring him good fortune, Bighorn falls head-over-hooves for female Seacon Scylla, but she only has tentacles for fellow squid-bot Scuba, much to the chagrin of Artemis, a guardian robot living on the Moon who's crushing on both Scuba and Predacon jet Starscream (no relation to Decepticon jet Starscream). Starscream, however, is clearly gay.
Episode 22: Megastorm's Reckoning
The Seacons join forces with the Predacons or something. More importantly, though, this is probably the funniest episode of the show that doesn't involve the Jointrons.
Episode 25: The Final Battle
The Seacons have repaired their ship and are ready to leave Gaea because they're tired of losing to the Maximals all the time, but they don't have enough energy to reach orbit. Lio Convoy offers them the energy they need, but their leader, Halfshell, refuses charity, instead counter-proposing a one-on-one battle with Lio Convoy for the energy. Lio Convoy agrees, only to find himself fighting one-on-one against God Neptune. Despite being outmatched, Lio Convoy still manages to hold his own because he's the main character. The Predacons are secretly observing the match, however, and Megastorm becomes overanxious and opens fire on Lio Convoy, accidentally detonating a huge deposit of Anglomois Energy. The Seacons flee in the ensuing anarchy but steal the energy on their way out. They don't get far into space, however, before a black hole or wormhole or some bullshit appears in front of them and they disappear.
Episode 26: Enter Lio Junior
Galvatron has summoned the artificial planet Nemesis to harvest all the Anglomois Energy of Gaea. It's making its way through the outskirts of the solar system... very, very slowly. Moving much more quickly is a spaceship carrying Maximals Skywarp (no relation to Decepticon Skywarp) and Santo. They're on assignment from Maximal HQ and have detected a powerful new lifeform on Gaea birthed from Anglomois Energy. That would be Lio Junior, the son of Lio Convoy! But Lio Convoy declares that he has no son, leaving Lio Junior to wonder why his father doesn't want him.
Episode 27: Megastorm Reborn
Galvatron is back in a coma again after getting a sword stabbed through his chest in the previous episode so Megastorm once again assumes leadership of the Predacons. Starscream is sick of his bullshit though so he tricks Megastorm into attempting to become more powerful by submerging himself in Anglomois Energy. Megastorm changes his mind but Starscream dumps him in anyway and leaves him for dead. Megastorm's last thought is that he only wanted to be stronger, which causes the Anglomois Energy to turn him into a dinosaur.
Episode 28: The New Weapon, Tako Tank
Scuba's cousin, Ikard, arrives on Gaea to deliver the Tako Tank, a mobile armored artillery unit that his family has sent him as a birthday present. Meanwhile, Megastorm, now calling himself Gigastorm after being reborn as a giant dinosaur, has become so heavy that he keeps falling into holes in the ground and getting stuck.
Episode 30: Gigastorm's Treachery
With Galvatron still in his coma, Gigastorm decides to chop him up with a chainsaw. Galvatron awakens and congratulates Gigastorm on his powerful new form, but when Gigastorm then tries again to kill him, Galvatron is none too pleased.
Episode 31: The End of Starscream
Gigastorm learns that Starscream and BB had betrayed him, their attempt on his life transforming him into a robotic dinosaur. He repays them in kind by knocking them into the Angolmois Energy with a bomb, transforming them into the much more stupid-looking Hellscream and Max-B, a robotic shark and wolf, respectively.
Episode 32: The Lio Convoy Assassination Plot
Now it's Durge and Thrust's turn to sell more toys get upgraded new forms and dumberer names: Dirgegun and Thrustor.
Episode 33: The Great Angolmois Freezing Tactic
The Maximals put their ship's AI into a mobile robot body. I don't know why. Also the planet Jupiter gets destroyed.
Episode 36: Emissary of the Fourth Planet
Episode 37: The Crisis of Planet Gaia
A robot probe awakens in the ruins of Mars and travels to Gaia on a mission to interface with the planet's master computer and stop the Angolmois Energy from being used for evil. The Maximals defend it from Predacon interference and help it accomplish its goal, little realizing that the way it plans to protect the Angolmois is by causing the Moon to crash into Gaia, destroying the planet and all of its energy, not to mention all the Transformers and other lifeforms still on it. Moon, the rabbit Transformer living on the Moon with Artemis, travels to Gaia to warn the Maximals, even though none of them can see him. But Lio Junior does so the plot can happen and he's able to get the warning to Lio Convoy in time. Working together with Galvatron, the Maximals are able to break through the master computer's defenses so their mobile robot AI can reprogram the probe and stop the disaster. Crisis averted, the truce is over and Galvatron turns on the Maximals once again, setting the stage for the final confrontation between dumb and dumber.
Episode 38: Fly Out! Planet Gaia
Episode 39: Assemble, Thirty-Nine Warriors
Episode 40: Revenge of the Space Pirates
Episode 41: Breaking Into Nemesis
Episode 42: Legend! The Green Warrior
Episode 43: Farewell! Lio Convoy
The final arc! Including a stupid anime clipshow episode that forces in plot-critical developments so you have to watch it. Who lives? Who dies? Who cares?
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