Transformers: Armada | HD | Episode 1 | The Complete Series | First Encounter
1,987The episode opens with a brief history of the Transformers War. In Lincoln, Nebraska, two teenagers, Rad and Carlos, heading out after school to check out a supposedly haunted cave. After traveling a while they step on a door that opens into a shaft and down they go. At the bottom they discover a glowing green stone. Rad bends down and touches it and the whole cave lights up and they feel an earthquake. The bright coloured rays burst out of the ground straight to the space. The boys' schoolmate, Alexis, feels anxiety for them and rushes in to seek them. Running outside the boys see a warp gate open with Megatron inside. Then Alexis shows up and Rad drops the plate which transforms into Mini-con High Wire who scans Rad's BMX bike and transforms into it. The kids try to escape on High Wire but Megatron blocks their path and demands them to give him back the Mini-con. Just in time Optimus Prime warps in to battle Megatron.
Transformers: Armada, known in Japan as Super Robot Life-Form Transformers: Legends of the Microns (超ロボット生命体トランスフォーマー マイクロン伝説, Chō Robotto Seimeitai Toransufōmā Maikuron Densetsu), is an anime series. As the first series co-produced between the American toy company Hasbro and their Japanese counterpart Takara, Armada begins a new continuity/universe for Transformers, with no ties to any of the previous series, including the immediately prior Transformers: Robots in Disguise in 2001. It inspired two sequels, Transformers: Energon and Transformers: Cybertron. Hasbro handled the distribution of the English license, while Takara handled the distribution of the Japanese license. Transformers: Armada and both of its following series are all part of a saga known as the "Unicron Trilogy".
Transformers: Armada was written and produced in Japan, with creative input from America (the Japanese originally envisioned the series as set in the G1 continuity, but this idea was discarded by Hasbro, who also mandated the inclusion of Unicron, who had not been in the original story treatment for the series). However, the show premiered on Cartoon Network's Toonami in America before its original Japanese counterpart had aired - the result of an unreasonable production schedule set by the network, which caused the series to be rushed out of production. Consequently, Armada features a lot of unfinished animation (which would go on to be perfected for the completed Japanese episodes), and a hastily produced dub which features many errors in naming such as Sureshock being repeatedly called "Grindor" in multiple episodes, Hot Shot being called "Hot Rod", and Optimus's Mini-Con partner Sparkplug being called "Leader-1" (the same name as Megatron's Mini-Con), as well as transliteration and nonsensical dialogue which does not match the action onscreen.
When Armada was released on DVD in Japan, each of the thirteen volumes came with a four-page mini-manga and an exclusive repainted Mini-Con figure. The manga, titled Tales of the Microns: Linkage, feature these repaints in an original story which served to fill in many of the blank spots and plot holes in the animated series.
Despite Transformers: Armada being made by a Japanese studio, it premiered first in the United States. The series premiered on Cartoon Network on August 23, 2002 at 4 P.M. with a 90-minute movie special, consisting of the first three episodes. Following its premiere, new episodes started coming out on August 30, airing every Friday at 6:30 P.M.
In the December issue of Japanese magazine Animage, it was announced that the anime would start airing in Japan on January 10, 2003 on TV Tokyo, with new episodes coming out every Friday at 6 P.M.