The Many MANY Intros Of Transformers: Robots In Disguise Adventure 2015

We’re getting closer to the end of this series and we get to a series I’ve discussed before. The original Robots In Disguise was a dub of Car Robots while this incarnation was a spinoff of Transformers Prime. For whatever reason (and a bad decision if you ask me) the show moved from Discovery Family, which was still airing classic The Transformers at the time and continues the Aligned continuity as I’ll get to next time, to Cartoon Network, who barely advertised it and buried it in the early morning. Somehow they still have a Transformers series but more on that in a later installment. The show aired for three seasons plus a six episode…what would call it, sub-season? It wasn’t a miniseries so I don’t know what to call it. There was also a series of shorts produced for the Cartoon Network and Transformers official YouTube channels. They put a lot into a series they barely acknowledged.

It’s also the one that threw what was left of the Aligned plan out the window. Grimlock is at best a namesake of the G1 style version seen in the Cybertron games and related IDW comics. Bumblebee still has his voice for the first time in any series since the movie came out since he got it back near the end of Prime and kept it for this show and Rescue Bots, a trend I wish had continued but Cyberverse ruined that goal. It was just a continuation of Transformers Prime (forgetting they had human allies and requiring a junk dealer and his son to keep their secret) and ignored anything except Prime and Rescue Bots, which was still back over on Discovery Family. And yet somehow it may be my favorite incarnation since the original series. It’s fun, it has character development, and it had good characters. It’s really good.

Japan on the other hand only brought forth the first two seasons, redubbing the show Transformers Adventure (much as the original Robots In Disguise was a renamed redub), and toning down some of the injected humor of the previous dubs since Beast Wars thanks to a new person in charge. In total we have four intros to go over, so let’s start stateside with the first one.

Eh, we’ve seen worse in this series.

[UPDATE: 1/23/2022] I’m not even sure the current replacement is accurate but all I could find otherwise were compilation videos of all the seasons and doing it that way might be problematic if they go down.

The new theme is okay, the visuals get the characters across, but it doesn’t really do anything besides be a bit flashy. After that it’s actually kind of dull and doesn’t really get across the show’s style. It’s just an intro to be an intro and give you the character names. Does season two do any better?

No, it does not. Optimus is alive again, new team members like Windblade and Drift aren’t named but show up in the group shot. Otherwise it’s basically the same thing. Maybe season 3 will be better. Season three brought the Combiner gimmick back, inspired by the Prime Wars Trilogy Combiner Wars series, which doesn’t have an intro worth talking about. If you’ve seen the logo reveal for the Michael Bay Transformers you’ve already seen the Prime Wars intros. I did post Combiner Wars for Saturday Night Showcase though. And if Machinma hadn’t abruptly shut down I could link to it. Anyway, hopefully the “Combiner Force” season of this show finally gets it right.

Why do I still not have a facepalm graphic after 11 years doing this site? Because it really needs to be here. SERIOUSLY, GUYS? They don’t even show off the Combiner gimmick! Bumblebee and Sideswipe run into each other as lightning flashes around and then you have the Combiner Force logo and that’s it for combination. The intros to Transformers Prime was great and despite being less cinematic this show should have gotten better. The two guys that came back have worked on shows with great intros! How does this show fail the intro game so badly?

Maybe Japan can solve this issue? We’ve seen good intros whose only problem was that the theme song barely acknowledged the Transformers. As stated earlier, Japan called the show Transformers Adventure, with new localiser Keiichirō Miyoshi taking over for Yoshikazu Iwanami. According to the Transformers wiki Miyoshi still added extra comedy (not that this show needed much) but toned things down and dropped the fourth wall breaking entirely. It doesn’t mention what the changes were outside of treating it as separate from Prime (they didn’t get season 3 or Predacons Rising so I could see why that would be confusing) and getting some of the order wrong because they used Australia’s order instead of the correct one. Since it aired on satellite channel Animax (think airing on The Anime Network) and not regular TV no time editing was necessary despite the new, longer intros.

Scrap yeah, that’s what I’m talking about? Show footage and even footage from the convention announcement trailer was used but they actually animated original footage in there. You get a better sense of the tone, the characters still get named, and it just looks a lot better than the US version. About the only thing that could ruin it is the lyrics to “Save The Future!!” by SAKOSHIN and Mitsuhiro Oikawa. I’m going to have to run this through Google Translate since the wiki doesn’t have a translation.

Transform!! Save the Future!!
Macerarenai Akirarani
Fly to the Sky Believe Your Friends Oh
Don’t Cry Don’t Stop Speed Up!! Go, fight!!

You’ve got to protect something important, right?
You can’t forgive the guys who don’t know you, can you?!
Raise the gauge of passion and fly high!
The bond is a chikara.

Now the changing world the changing future wow hot Justice
(Boys, are you ready? Gotcha! Gotcha!

Transform!! Save the Future!!
Macerarenai Akirarani
(Strongest!) NEW Power You Can Be Hero)
Don’t Cry Don’t Stop Speed Up!!
Don’t Cry Don’t Stop Speed Up!!
Don’t Cry Don’t Stop Speed Up!!

I couldn’t get a translation for Macerarenai Akirarani or chikara but I don’t think they’re about Transformers either. It’s not really about Transformers and barely about combat, but the intro is still better than the US one. Then for season two (and the six episode sub-season) they changed the name to Transformers Adventure -Prime of Micron-, with season “two and a half” as the wiki calls it adding the further subtitle New Enemies into the TV listings but not the show. I can’t find a separate intro for this incarnation and the TF Wiki is mute on all the intros for this series so I don’t know if there even is a new intro. The Wiki does claim it’s the same theme song at least.

Next time we look at the unintended addition to the Aligned continuity and its ties especially to this series. That’s one of the reasons I waited to discuss the intros to Transformers: Rescue Bots and it’s spin-off series Rescue Bots Academy.