Transformers: Robots in Disguise


 * For the English electro band, see Robots in Disguise. For the toyline, see Transformers: Generation 1.

Transformers: Robots in Disguise, known in Japan as Transformers: Car Robot (トランスフォーマー カーロボット), is a Japanese anime television series and serves as a self-contained universe separate from any of the other existing Transformers universes. The series was imported to the West as a "filler" line while production on the next series, Transformers: Armada began at 2002, after 2001. The series episodes last 27 minutes each. Like most anime, RiD can comfortably be broken up into 13-episode story arcs. In the episode section below, each paragraph represent a story arc (13 episodes).

Episodes
Megatron captures Dr. Onishi, and the Autobots ally themselves with his son, Koji, vowing to safely recover him from Megatron's clutches. An assortment of plans by Megatron to steal the Earth's energy ensue, led by his subordinate, Sky-Byte, but are stopped by the Autobots, including the newly-introduced teams, Team Bullet Train and the Spy Changers. Probing Doctor Onishi's mind, Megatron discovers the significance of an ancient cave system, in which the Autobots discover a coded microchip belonging to the Doctor. After scuffles involving the new Autobot troops Skid-Z and Tow-Line, the microchip leads the Autobots to the Cave of the Dragon, where they discover a mysterious artifact of Cybertronian origin.

Further information decoded from Dr. Onishi's microchip leads the Autobots to the site of a crashed Cybertronian spaceship containing six protoform Autobots. But Megatron has also learned of the ship through his mind-probes and attacks, capturing the Autobots and taking them to a nearby military base, where he scans vehicle modes for each of them and infuses them with his own Spark energy, creating the evil Decepticons. The final Autobot scans Optimus Prime in addition to the tanker truck that will be his alternate mode, creating Scourge, a twisted "evil twin" of Optimus. Several battles with the Decepticons ensue, as Sky-Byte grows steadily jealous of the attention Megatron heaps on his new warriors. Amidst battles between the Decepticons and the newly-promoted Autobot subgroup, the Build Team, Sky-Byte attempts to prove his worth by holding a tower of humans hostage in exchange for the Autobots' O-Parts, one of which is the artifact from the Cave of the Dragon. The plan meets with failure, but when Sky-Byte saves his hostages' lives, Koji begins to think he might not be all bad. Subsequently, Ultra Magnus, the bitter brother of Optimus Prime, arrives on Earth to claim the Matrix in Prime's possession, leading to an injured Optimus Prime facing certain doom against the Decepticons on a desert island. Magnus offers him the hand of friendship, but it is a ruse to allow Magnus to take the power of the Matrix, with an unexpected side-effect - the two brothers merge into Omega Prime and defeat their foes.

The Predacons and Decepticons attempt to turn Ultra Magnus to their side, but he refuses and channeling the power of the Matrix he and Prime now share, he supercharges the Autobot Brothers, giving them new powered-up forms. The discovery of a mysterious energy field radiating from beneath the Earth's surface leads both sides to the discovery of Fortress Maximus, a colossal Transformer city hidden on the planet to protect it. In the ensuing battles to claim its power, Dr. Onishi is accidentally set free by Sky-Byte. Now with Dr. Onishi advising them, the Autobots begin to put all the pieces together and, under his guidance, quickly locate all the O-Parts, which are combined to form a map that leads to the Orb of Sigma. In a failed attempt to acquire the orb, Megatron is buried in the ruins of a mysterious pyramid, but is resurrected by its energy as Galvatron. The Orb of Sigma soon leads the Autobots to Cerebros, the power key of Fortress Maximus, but he is stolen by the Decepticons and used by Scourge to activate Fortress Maximus, who rampages through the city until Koji calls out to him, and he stops. Experimentation soon makes it obvious that Maximus responds to human bio-signatures, leading the Decepticons to attempt to capture Koji (but accidentally snatching his friend Carl instead). With Maximus active, Scourge makes his power play, attempting to use him to destroy Galvatron, but when the scheme fails, all the Decepticons have their brains wiped. Galvatron proceeds to drain Fortruss Maximus's energy, boosting his already-formidable strength and then releases a swarm of cyber-bats across the Earth, using them to hold the children of the world to ransom to stay Optimus Prime's hand. Believing he has destroyed the Autobots in a lava flow, Galvatron then recalls his bats, but finds that his foes are still alive, leading to a final confrontation with Omega Prime at the Earth's core. The children of the world re-energize Fortress Maximus, who transmits his energy to Optimus Prime, forming the gigantic Matrix Blade, with which Prime finally defeats Galvatron. At the end, the Predacons and Decepticons—all but Sky-Byte—are imprisoned aboard Fortress Maximus and escorted by Ultra Magnus to Cybertronian space, and the remaining Autobots prepare to leave Earth for good after some rest & relaxation.

Dreamwave Productions
The show had one spin-off comic, the Dreamwave Productions' Summer Special in a story presented as being in continuity with the animated series, which pitted Ultra Magnus and Scourge, as both denied and debated their Autobot heritage and relation to Optimus Prime. No further RiD stories were published by Dreamwave before their closure, as Beast Wars claimed victory over RiD in a poll to choose the next mini-series.

Changes and Censorship

 * RiD's airing was heavily affected by the terrorist attacks on 9/11, and many of its episodes were held back, re-edited, removed from re-run schedules, aired late or didn't air at all in the USA. The entire run of episodes did air on Fox Kids in the UK.
 * ''"Battle Protocol" was never re-aired in the U.S. after its premiere due to a scene of "Megatron" smashing through a skyscraper in claw mode.
 * "Secret of the Ruins" opening scene featured buildings being destroyed and a reference to terrorism, and the episode was held back to be redubbed. The scene in question was recreated using footage from "Battle Protocol!" Eventually, the episode aired between "Ultra Magnus" and "Ultra Magnus: Forced Fusion". It is the episode in which Doctor Onishi's microchip is introduced, so its removal left something of a hole in the series. The original version of the episode has never been broadcast, and for international syndication, only the altered redubbed version was used.
 * "Hope for the Future" was held back, eventually airing between "The Two Faces of Ultra Magnus" and "Fortress Maximus".
 * "Attack From Outer Space", "Landfill" and "Sky-Byte Saves the Day" did not air in the US. "Attack" would go on to air in Canada, and all three would subsequently air in the UK. All three episodes feature buildings being destroyed, and the plot of "Sky-Byte Rampage" revolves around stopping a tower from falling over. However, this is the first episode to put focus on the O-Parts, and its removal from the line up disrupted the continuity of the show.
 * "Power to Burn!" aired before "The Two Faces of Ultra Magnus", instead of after.
 * Heavily altered from its original Car Robots content, "Lessons of the Past" aired between "Peril From the Past" and "Maximus Emerges".
 * "The Mystery of Ultra Magnus" was the final episode of the show to air. However, in its official placement as episode 35, it remains out of order (again, see below).
 * "Spy Changers To The Rescue" There were 2 versions of this episode aired before and after 9/11. The pre-9/11 episode contained references to the generator possibly exploding and a scene with Prowl's jet-claw. The post 9/11 episode had the jet-claw edited out and the possibilities of "Explosions" were changed to possibilities of "circuit corrosion" along with other minor dialogue changes.
 * In Car Robots, God Magnus is already in possession of a Matrix of his own - as in previous Japanese series such as Beast Wars Neo, all high-ranking Autobots possess a Matrix, which is nothing more than a source of energy, unlike the mystical object of G1 lore. Magnus simply wants to take Prime's Matrix to increase his own energy. It is the over-spill of energy which results from this that supercharges the Car Brothers.
 * All three of the series clip shows were completely reworked for RiD, and were altered to focus on new material. The change is largely negligible for "Hope for the Future", but "Lessons of the Past" suffers greatly as it is edited from studying the Decepticons, the Build Team and Ultra Magnus into a purely Decepticon-centric episode consisting almost entirely an abridged retelling of "Landfill". Despite these changes, however, the episodes still fit into their original chronological placement. Not so for "The Mystery of Ultra Magnus"; in its original form as "Gelshark's Blues", the episode saw Gelshark (Sky Byte) ruminate on the super changing of the Car Brothers, the emergence and activation of Brave Maximus and the transformation of Gigatron into Devil Gigatron, but for RiD, the episode is completely done away with and instead, through spliced-together footage from previous episodes, turned into a story about Megatron studying Ultra Magnus's early appearance. The episode retains its position as #35, however, and clearly does not fit as Megatron has become Galvatron at this stage and is focusing on Fortress Maximus. Chronologically, it must fall somewhere between "The Two Faces of Ultra Magnus" and "Fortress Maximus".
 * In the series penultimate episode, Devil Gigatron releases a swarm of cyberbats which attach themselves to children across the world. In Car Robots, Devil Gigatron uses these bats to absorb the mental energy of the children, and then, after believing he has defeated the Cybertron, recalls the bats and absorbs them back into his body, boosting his strength with the energy. Inexplicably, in RiD, any reference to the energy drain is removed, as Galvatron instead uses the bats to hold the children to ransom, forcing the Autobots to stay their hands. Then, once he believes the Autobots dead, Galvatron recalls the bats because he no longer has a need for them, and his absorption of them recharges him for no apparent reason. Consequently, the removal of this plot point makes Galvatron's claim in the final episode that he plans to absorb the power of the children seem to come from nowhere.
 * In the final episode of Car Robots, with the Cybertrons in his clutches, Devil Gigatron forces Fire Convoy to use the Global Spacebridge to take him to the Earth's core, where he will drain the very planet's energy directly. In RiD, this is altered to Prime challenging Galvatron to a final battle there and instructing T-Ai to seal all the Spacebridge portals, so that even if he loses, Galvatron will be trapped (RiD makes very little of the fact that Galvatron is an energy vampire). At the battle's conclusion in Car Robots, T-Ai believes Fire Convoy is dead, but in RiD, she considers him only "trapped". This is particularly bizarre, as it is clear that she did not seal the Spacebridge, as a portal remains wide open for Fortress Maximus to transmit his energy to Prime. Prime credits his ability to escape to the energy release by Galvatron's deactivation.

Japan (Car Robots)

 * Opening Theme: "Honō no Overdrive [Burning Overdrive]" by Kouji Wada.
 * Ending Theme: "Marionette" by Mami Nishikaku.

North American (Robots in Disguise)

 * Opening Theme: "Transformers: Robots in Disguise Theme" by Paul Gordon.
 * Alternate Opening Theme: "Transformers: Robots in Disguise (Alternate Theme)" by Hasbro.
 * Ending Theme: "Transformers: Robots in Disguise Ending Credits Theme" by Glenn Scott Lacey.