Alternators "Autobot" Skids is coming to the US shortly (in fact, the Hasbro toy is already out in Hong Kong and Singapore). Meanwhile, the Japanese version, Binaltech Skids (with diecast metal parts and a noticeably different deco than the Hasbro version), has already been released in Japan a few weeks ago.

Unlike Hasbro's Alternators toys, which will only now be equipped with quotes on the packaging giving a brief glimpse of the characters beginning with the upcoming new assortment (Prowl, Sunstreaker, "Autobot" Skids and the long-awaited re-release of "Autobot" Tracks), the Japanese Binatech toys traditionally come with fully-fledged tech spec cards, a "system description" explaining the (fictional) "special features" of the robot mode and a continuing "Binaltech story", which has long since reached epic dimensions. Since Hirofumi Ichikawa, the Japanese writer of the story, is a huge fan of Western TF fiction, the story is heavily based upon the original US-written G1 cartoon as compared to later Japanese-only follow-up shows.

Fan to Fan have regularly been translating the paperwork into English, and in an effort to guarantee optimum quality with the translations, they asked me to assist them as a consultant. For the past few chapters, LagunaL8, who had previosuly done her own translations for the BT story and bios, had cooperated with F2F, but unfortunately, she was unable to help this time due to a bad cold. Fortunately, SydneyY, who had previously done the large bulk of the Takara Binaltech interview translation, agreed to fill in for her and provided numerous useful suggestions and corrections based on the original Japanese text. And as usual, KillerMel helped me rephrasing the rough English translations into proper English, while at the same time trying to stay true to the original Marvel TFU profile for Skids, which Ichikawa-san had been basing his tech specs for BT Skids on.

So, without forther ado, here's the tech spec/character profile, the system description and chapter 13 of the "Binaltech Story". For those who missed out the previous chapters, I will be updating my summary of the "Binaltech Story so far" soon.