The series centers around a blue bee-shaped anthropomorphic spacecraft named TwinBee, who is usually accompanied by a pink "female" counterpart known as WinBee. In most games, the first player controls TwinBee while WinBee is controlled by the second player. A third ship also exists named GwinBee, a green counterpart to TwinBee and WinBee who in most games serves as a power-up, but in some instances also appear as a third playable spacecraft. In contrast to the serious sci-fi theme of Konami's Gradius series, the TwinBee series is set in a cartoon-like world featuring several kinds of anthropomorphic creatures in addition to regular human characters. The player controls their spacecraft in most games shooting or punching at airborne enemies while throwing bombs at enemies on the ground, similarly to Namco's Xevious. The main power-ups in the TwinBee are yellow bells that the player can uncover by shooting at the floating clouds. The player must shoot these bells to keep them afloat and after shooting them a number of times, they will change colour, allowing the player to add new abilities to their spacecraft.
Despite being one of Konami's most prominent series in Japan during most of the 1990s, only a select few titles were localized for the foreign market, particularly the second console game Moero! TwinBee (which was released in America under the changed title Stinger); the two SNES installments, Pop'n TwinBee and Pop'n TwinBee: Rainbow Bell Adventures, in Europe and TwinBee Da!! for Game Boy, which was released in Europe as a standalone title with the name Pop'n TwinBee and later in compilations. The second arcade game, Detana!! TwinBee, also had a limited international release under the name of Bells & Whistles. The original arcade game was featured in the Nintendo DS compilation Konami Classics Series: Arcade Hits under the name RainbowBell (the European compilation, however, uses the original TwinBee name).
In 2022, during the Konami Action & Shooting Contest hosted by the Shueisha Game Creator's Camp and Tokyo Game Show, Ken Niimura won the rights from Konami to develop the game through the competition, and a game titled TwinBee Loop!: The Mystery of the Planet of Light and Darkness!! is in development.14
A radio drama version of the series was produced following the release of Pop'n TwinBee for the Super Famicom titled TwinBee Paradise (ツインビーPARADISE), which began airing on the radio station NCB on October 10, 1993. The series lasted three seasons, with the third and final series concluding on March 30, 1997, comprising a total of 96 episodes, which were later released in drama CD collections.
TwinBee Paradise features the same cast of characters previously introduced in Detana!! TwinBee and Pop'n TwinBee. TwinBee Paradise further developed the fictional universe of the TwinBee and many story elements introduced in the series, including the names of TwinBee's and WinBee's pilots, Light and Pastel (who were originally nameless characters in the games), who were canonized in later video games such as TwinBee Yahho! and TwinBee RPG.
Two short anime films and an OVA mini-series based on the TwinBee were produced:
The OVA series is titled TwinBee Paradise and is based on the radio drama of the same name. The OVA comprises three episodes, which were released individually on VHS and Laserdisc in 1999:
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