Running four seasons and fifty-two episodes, Transformers Armada was a fresh take on the heralded Transformers universe. The series ran from 2002-2003 and was a collaborative effort between Hasbro and Takara. The series is known for its anime-style art, which actually works really well for a Transformers cartoon, and lack of Peter Cullen as the voice of Optimus Prime (whether that’s a big deal or not is up for debate). While using the idea of Cybertron and the seemingly endless struggle between the Autobots and the Deceptions at its core, Armada submits that this battle is deadlocked. The way for either side to ensure victory is to harness the power of the Mini-cons. The Mini-cons can be used to enhance a ‘full size’ Deception or Autobot’s abilities. The Autobots try to keep the Minis from the Deceptions by transporting the Mini’s through a wormhole, but their ship gets damaged and crash lands on Earth many millions of years prior to the present day. Mini-cons are roughly the size of a young human, and Armada also “stars” a few young humans in its regular cast, including protagonist “Rad” and his bro, er, friend, Carlos, and their techie friend Alexis.
The series begins when Rad and Carlos go to visit a mountainside cave that Rad noticed one day. Curious, they enter the cave and eventually stumble upon an old artifact that glows when Rad picks it up. It unleashes a beaconing signal that the Autobots and Deceptions both immediately pickup. Warriors from both factions are dispatched to find it, including Megatron and Optimus Prime. The human kids and the Autobots become friends quickly. Many episodes in the series follow a similar flow as this first episode, in that a new Mini-con is detected, both sides rush to it and then battle for control of it. Numerous characters are introduced and used throughout the series, including Starscream, Demolisher, Cyclonus, Wheeljack, Tidalwave, Red Alert, Hot Shot, and many more.
At the time of its debut, I didn’t see much of Armada, but having had a chance to watch most of the series now in these last two weeks has proven to be more enjoyable than I expected. Many cartoons are, lets be honest, hard to watch the older you get, but Armada does rather well for itself in that no one element of it is overly irritating and it offers enough fresh content, despite having similarly themed episodes, that it’s an accessible and fun watch. It also doesn’t hurt that the episodes are right about twenty-two minutes, making this a comfortable series to chip away at while you’re exercising or even on the go.
I should point out that each episode includes the monologue summary/intro by Rad (where applicable), full title sequence, ending credits, and the ‘bookends’ of what would have been a commercial break, giving these episodes an authentic feel. I also liked how Shout! did not include any trailers or promos or any other BS on this set — you pop the disc in and within seconds you’re at the menu. Granted, your only options are to either Play All or view the episode list, but it’s nice that they chose not to include any promos.
Presentation quality is probably right on par with what you would expect for a pre-HD era cartoon, which is to say 4:3 frame, stereo sound, which looks and sounds just fine. Not surprisingly, but still somewhat disappointingly, there are no subtitles available. There is an annoying spike in volume when going from episode back to the menu, though. The box art, disc art (which features a different character on each disc), and the interior case label are nicely done. The interior label has a large picture of lots of the Transformers, as well as an episode listing.
This complete series set is also really cool for collectors in that the other Armada DVD releases have long since been out of print. Plus, as Armada is the first leg of the Unicron trilogy, fans can set their sites on the sequel series, Energon, coming to DVD in May. And while it’s usually a moot point to mention the price of an item, it’s definitely worth pointing out that this set is only $30 on Amazon right now, and for nearly twenty hours of quality content, that’s a hell of a deal. Sadly, not a single extra feature is included, which is a wasted opportunity.
With that, let’s get to the summary…
