The Beastformers Blog in 2019

Happy New Year!
All the best for 2019

How was your start of the new year?
The White Rabbit started it, unlike other years where there´s always been a lot of fireworks, with a humble bow in front of a Traditional Japanese Kadomatsu.

Kadomatsu (門松, Pine Gate); Is a bamboo decoration that is often placed in pairs (one on each side) in front of the door of Japanese houses, from Dec. 13th (known as day of ¨Greeting the pine¨) until the first or second week of January, and it is believed that it forms a gate that´ll lead the deity (年神, Toshigami) of the New Year home. The 3 Bamboo sticks represent; Heaven, Earth and Humanity are believed to attract the deities to prevent them from getting lost. Once the New Year´s deity arrives it´ll make everyone one year older and bring happiness.

With the deity of the New Year on board it is time to see what this year has in store for the Beastformers Blog before looking ahead first a quick review over 2018;

Review 2018
With 2017 and 2018 passed two special years in the perspective of the Battle Beast world are left behind because both, Battle Beasts and Laser Beasts, have now celebrated their 30th anniversary. And although it is unknown whether that might have had something to do with it both turned out to be great years for the Beastformers Blog. In 2017 a new visitor record was set with just over 2500 visitors coming from 65 different countries. A year that´s hard to beat in 2018 at first glance, especially knowing there have not been a whole lot of new posts. Of course there was the reveal of the Stone Cobra SCAM which turned out to reach a wide audience within the BB Community. But there also was an important change in the Domain name of the Beastformers Blog since it actually turned into a .BLOG page which might have helped a lot as well making it easier to find. Unlike the years before, with the Megantik in 2017, there has not been a whole lot of news about new Battle Beasts inspired lines in 2018 although there was one line doing a little ¨homage¨ in the form of a BB inspired Snake, the Imaginext Snake.

¨In 2018 the Beastformers Blog was visited/consulted
by almost 3000 visitors from 65 different countries from all over the world ¨

Despite the limited amount of news, posts and updates on the Beastformers Blog in 2018 it STILL did beat the successful year of 2017 because in 2018 the Blog was visited and/or consulted by almost 3000 visitors coming from 65 (similar to 2017) different countries from all over the world!

It is clear that the information on the Beastformers Blog is much appreciated by fellow collectors and that´s reason enough to continue the journey preserving this great 80´s toy line, trying to solve remaining mysteries and look into new stories in 2019.

Thanks for the support, visits, likes and comments during 2018!

Preview 2019
During 2019 there will be a couple targets that´ll be set in order to keep more structure and activity going in order to prevent a lack of new pages, posts or updates on the Beastformers Blog because a lively and active BB Community is needed to keep on remembering and preserving the Beasts in a good way. As mentioned 2018 only had a few new posts which has partially been caused by the fact that the ongoing amount of puzzle pieces in regards to background stories have not matched yet but on the other hand it´s also been a matter of time because interesting stories and information has been gathered. This means there is enough material to post during 2019 and therefore a special announcement is made;

On the 22nd of EACH Month there will be a
NEW Post/Page/Update on the Beastformers Blog in 2019!

Which means there will at least be 12 NEW things showing up on the Blog this year, enough reason to keep checking back here at least every now and then in case you´re not a daily visitor… yet.

You might wonder where the 22 comes from but this isn´t really a shot in the dark and obviously not just a number, for the insiders this might be no surprise, because it´s the number that´s given to the Rabbit within the Battle Beasts line #22 Hare Razing Rabbit (aka Rabbit Kid). A personal childhood hero; the Turquoise Rabbit (post from 2013). This 22nd drop campaign for the whole of 2019 will hopefully result in an even more active and healthy growth for the Beastformers Blog in a way it´ll continue to preserve the Battle Beasts and at the same time inform the BB Community with new insights and interesting/helpful information.

Social Media
The Official social media accounts (Instagram and Twitter ONLY) connected to the Beastformers Blog (@Beastformers) will remain important during 2019 as well. You can always consult/contact The White Rabbit via those channels if you have Battle Beasts related questions or use the contact option on the Beastformers Blog. Keep in mind that there are NO Official accounts related to the Beastformers Blog on Facebook! On the Social Media channels, of which Instagram is the most active one, you´ll find an interesting amount of BB photos and you´ll be informed about new posts, pages or updates in regards to the Beastformers Blog so that might be a reason to start following The White Rabbit if you haven´t done that yet. At the moment there are around 950 Followers on the Instagram account which is not to bad for an account that´s ONLY posting pictures of a very niche 80´s toy line. Hopefully the magic number of 1000 will be reached over the next months! One thing that will continue on the Instagram page is the #BeastformersBattle

Beastformers Battle
This is a Battle series on the @Beastformers Instagram account that started on Feb. 1st 2018. Since then EVERY Sunday a new Beastformers Battle has been published.

A fun little Battle Beasts game during the weekend or any day of the week that brings back the nostalgia of the 80´s. Following the simple rules from back in the days;

FIRE beats WOOD (Fire burns Wood)
WOOD beats WATER (Wood floats on Water)
WATER beats FIRE (Water puts out Fire)

For the full instructions please have a look at the Beastformers Battles on Instagram that are already out there OR wait until Sunday for a new drop of another fresh Beastformers Battle!

(WARNING: This game can become addictive!!!)

And last but definitely not least is the following;

LittleRubberGuys (LRG)
The passion for Battle Beasts has grown and evolved since the beginning thanks to the awesome community and knowledge that was found on the LittleRubberGuys.com forum the moment the BB virus had hit. Since that moment I´ve been an active member out there, especially in the Battle Beasts area of the board, but during the last year it is clear things have slowed down there quite a lot. Facebook has taken over a lot of the tasks of LRG or at least a lot of (new) collectors seemed to have moved there. Of course Facebook is an interesting medium but it can´t compete with all the information about Battle Beasts that is out on LRG since that´s STILL the most valuable digital archive of information for this line. It might be fragmented and a bit unorganized, which is the reason why the Beastformers Blog was started, but that doesn´t mean the information and knowledge out there has become worthless. It remains a very good source for info and discussions with fellow collectors. So also on LRG new posts will follow this year because we can´t turn our backs to such a valuable source of information! Let´s continue to support LRG and become a bit more active out there this year as well and if you haven´t joined there yet or hear about it for the first time, go and have a look, you´ll love it.

General notice for 2019
Last year it´s already mentioned that the Beastformers Shop out here on the Blog might close down, this has not happened (yet) and even though the amount of items offered there is very limited it´ll remain opened. It might receive an update throughout this year or the setup might change a little, as you can hear there´s still some doubts about it so time will tell.

It is possible that in time the Feedback page will take over the position of the Shop in the Menu header since that´ll make it easier to find. Because although there are not a lot of purchases/trades done via the Shop page this does happen mainly via the Instagram page these days. All Feedback for this can be found on the Feedback page so there you can find how fellow collectors experienced the service after a purchase or trade done with the White Rabbit. You can also use the #BeastformersFeedback on Instagram to look for experiences from fellow collectors. Or check on LRG for Feedback.

The ever present but still unused, since its introduction in 2016, Donation button will remain on the Beastformers Blog as well; Why the Donation button? Of course the Beastformers Blog will stay and as mentioned earlier will receive scheduled (22nd of each month) updates during 2019 without any donations as well regardless. But if you happen to be a fan of the Beastformers Blog and wish to support this platform with a few Dollars, Euros, Yen or whatever currency it´d be much appreciated.

And similar to last year, a note:

Use the Search option
Even though most of the main subjects on the Beastformers Blog are organized and added to the menu in the bar above some of the quick posts are not added or subdivided within the menu. This is done on purpose to prevent extremely long pop out menu´s showing up but the downside of that is that these posts might get out of sight while they are still there. So if there´s something you can´t find via the menu please try to fill in some catchwords or search terms via the Search box on the right to see if there might be any results in most cases you´ll probably get one or more hits and if you don´t feel free to ask. You can use the contact options mentioned in the menu or reach out to the White Rabbit via social media.

Enough to look forward to so keep an eye out on the Blog this year because the Beasts will be ready to surprise you with news and stories from Planet Beasts! With this post the Beastformers Blog is ready for 2019, are you…?