| abstract
| - The main selling point is the book's exhaustive photography of the entire G1 and G2 toylines. Including not only all U.S. Releases (which were mostly all also released in Japan), the guide includes all Japanese-exclusive toys from Japanese-only lines such as Masterforce, Victory and Zone. In fact, the book is somewhat U.S.-centric, despite being created for the Japanese market. Product lines are listed by year and present U.S. assortments with Japanese exclusive characters in separate "Japan" sections by year. The only English text in the book are character names and designated function titles, subtitled below the Japanese heading. European-exclusive releases are also features in similarly separate "EU" sections, by year. Small sections on additional items are dotted randomly throughout the book, covering oddities, rarities, unreleased items and unused concepts, such as: Bumper, "Dropshot", an unreleased Godbomber prototype, Block Town, the Super Hybrid Models, the unreleased G2 ATB Megatron and Laser Cycles, promo items like Mini-Spies, Powerdashers and Decoys, the BotCon exclusives from the period, G2 Breakdown and Nightracer, and lots more. Separating the sections on 1986 and 1987 is a page of unused design concepts, featuring items such as a fire-truck version of Rodimus Prime in the style of Powermaster Optimus Prime, a Scramble City-style dinosaur combiner, and the famous Chromedome-as-Headmaster-Arcee repaint. Were it not entirely in Japanese, this book would surely be the definitive toy guide to pre-Beast Era toys. Even so, it's a contender, being far more exhaustive (albeit less detail-oriented) than the next best English-language equivalent, Antarctic Press' Cybertronian: The Unofficial Transformers Recognition Guide. After the toy guide section of the book ends, the book includes a gallery of Japanese-market promotional art, including images from sources such as TV Magazine. Following this, the paper stock switches from glossy color-printed to uncoated black and white for the remainder of the book; the black-and-white section begins with a gallery of character model sheets featuring most of the model fronts from the G1 cartoon, including the Japanese-exclusive anime series Headmasters, Masterforce, Victory and the OAV Zone. Most of the Studio Ox model sheets are also featured, as well as designs for manga such as The Battlestars. Finally, the book closes with a selection of primarily-text features (Japanese, of course); features on Battle Beasts and Transformer PD Type, an interview Masumi Kaneda, an article on the TV Magazine manga, a full listing (with English titles and artist credits) for the US and UK G1 and G2 comics, a multi-page table listing the various Japanese ID numbers of all the G1 and G2 toys, and finally, a complete episode listing for all the G1 animated shows (with English titles where appropriate).
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