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Kiss Players (Kisu Pure, also Kiss Play)[1] is a Transformers franchise masterminded by Yūki Ōshima from 2006 to 2007. The franchise spanned a toyline, a weekly radio-series drama, and a three-issue manga. It's best known for its extremely controversial material. The basic premise is that Transformers are given power-ups when kissed by human girls (the eponymous "Kiss Players"), who then fuse with the robots for a limited amount of time.
The series takes place after Transformers: The Movie. After being hurled into space by Rodimus Prime, Galvatron crashed down on Earth, specifically on top of Tokyo. The city was destroyed, and so was Earth-Cybertron relations with it. The Earth Defense Force reverse-engineered their own Transforming Mecha (known as "Autoroopers") from Galvatron's corpse and used them to evict any and all Transformers off of Earth. They then created an anti-electron field around the planet, which would prevent any Transformers from trying to come back. However, this was not an end to Earth's problems. Galvatron's cells began infecting machines and wildlife, creating Megatron-like abominations called Legions. Thankfully, the EDC could also exploit this process as well — humans exposed to Galvatron's cells could fuse with another infected object (such as the Autoroopers) by kissing them. With this, the EDC establishes the "Kiss Players" to fight off the hordes of Legions.
The controversy about this series stems from the extreme amounts of blatant innuendo and violent sexual imagery purposely used throughout the series. While no actual sexual intercourse takes place during the series, young women are drawn with child-like proportions in suggestive positions, the Legions' tongues were drawn like penises, and the are girls nearly constantly being covered in viscous white liquid. Little is known of its actual storyline, which is pretty decent — some of it shades of Evangelion, with the creator of the technology having a horrifying ulterior motive. However, this isn't quite a case of an unjust Everybody Remembers the Stripper treatment — the sexual imagery is blatant, unrelenting, and the author admitted to taking Refuge in Audacity to the max. The story, being mostly a radio program, was never presented in English. As such, the world has seen a great number of penis-tongued images, but not many plot details.
The series was followed by Kiss Players Position, which was much, much tamer than its predecessor. In this series, the Kiss Players meet up with the mysterious Sparkbots. The Sparkbots then take them on a quest through time and space to retrieve Allspark fragments from the various Autobot and Maximal leaders. That is, until a giant golden hand tells the girls that those aren't Allspark fragments, and the Sparkbots are not to be trusted. This series filled the holes in some of the Japanese franchise's continuity kerfluffles (such as Generation One and Robots in Disguise being in the same continuity. Kiss Players and related media contains the untold story of how G1 Fortress Maximus became RID Fortress Maximus, and has Ravage in his future Beast Wars incarnation interfering in the past as the "mysterious" Black Panther Man).
Covered in further detail at the TF Wiki and Toy Vey. Not to be confused with a certain rock band that also sports someone with an Overly Long Tongue.
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=== This series provides examples of:
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- Aerith and Bob: The Sparkbots are Zangetsu, Stardust, and...Angela.
- Cute and Psycho: Ringo
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: While most of the imagery is so blatant it fits under Freud Was Right, there was a part in the radio series that included a shrunken Autorooper forcing its way into Atari's mouth, making her swallow it. Meanwhile, she begged it not to "move too roughly inside" her.
- Giant Hands of Doom: Primus
- Girl-On-Girl Is Hot: Syao Syao has a dream about Marissa where they almost kiss.
- I'm a Humanitarian: The Legions are maneaters (no, not in THAT sense!).
- Interquel: This takes place between Transformers: The Movie and the third season of Transformers Generation 1, tied directly to their events.
- Interspecies Romance: Human girl and alien robot.
- Knife Nut: Marissa
- The Mole: The Sparkbots are actually working for Unicron.
- Older Than They Look: Even though some of the characters are explicitly adults, they are drawn in a childlike manner. In fact, one of them is G1's Marissa Faireborn.
- Panty Shot: Many. Of characters that are drawn like little kids in comprising positions. Marissa gets a thong shot in issue #2.
- Psycho Lesbian: Ringo often forces the other girls to kiss her.
- Puni Plush: The human girls are usually drawn with a combination of this and Moe, which aids the Squick.
- Refuge in Audacity
- Shown Their Work: Oddly, given the premise of the series, it is the only continuity to have scaled toys. That is, every single transformer is scaled to a real-life vehicle. In all the other series, it wasn't uncommon for the toy jet to be the same size as the car. Although, this did severely limit that different vehicles they could make, since even a plane would be too large for a toy, given their scaling ratio.
- Stripperiffic: Quite a few of the girls' outfits, IF clothes are even worn at all. Marissa's a prime example, running around in a black Chainmail Bikini complete with Thong of Shielding and Cleavage Window.
- Survivor Guilt: Atari has this in the beginning due to her parents dying.
- Time Travel: Kiss Players Position has the girls hopping between the different Transformers timelines to find Allspark fragments from Optimus Primal and others. Or so they think.
- The Tokyo Fireball: Happens when Galvatron lands on it.
- Took a Level In Dumbass: Marissa Faireborn, who was originally a tough, no-nonsense Action Girl, was made The Ditz in this series.
- The Virus: Galvatron's "cells." He can even infect organics and Primes!
- Vomit Indiscretion Shot: After killing her first Legion, Atari vomits all over herself.
- ↑ The official logo has "Kiss Players" written in English below "Kiss Play" written in Japanese, making both terms official. "Kisu Pure" is "Kiss Play" a la katakana.