The year 2002 marked a new era in the Transformers series. Hasbro, the American Company owning the copyrights to the Transformers series, and Takara Company Ltd., of Japan co-produced the Transformers Armada. This particular series started off in a new plot, not having any connection with the older versions of the Transformers.
Being the classic factions of the Transformers, the Autobots and Decepticons started out the show battling each other. Another smaller group called the Mini-cons was trapped between these two rivals and wanted to get away. Autobots, being the heroes of the series helped the Mini-cons but it wouldn’t be complete without having the Decepticons getting in the way.
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This particular series got a lot of criticism from various audiences, fans or not, because of its simple story line and one dimensional characters. But later on the story, the appearance of Unicron, the ultimate villain spiced up the story and earned the liking of many followers. More than 50 episodes had been created on this series and it run for about 2 years both in the US and in Japan.
Along with the TV series, comics and Transformers Armada toys also hit the market. As usual, both had been widely accepted not only in the US and Japan but also in other parts of the globe. A video game was even released by the company Atari, in 2004 dedicated to this series and the succeeding series Transformers Energon. The worldwide acceptance once again triggered the high sales on the toys and collectibles of this series.
Just like the other series of the Transformers, G1 characters flooded the series including the most popular Transformers, Optimus Prime and Megatron. The Autobots team also includes Hot Rod, Red Alert, Smokescreen, Scavenger, Blurr, Jetfire, Sideswipe, and Overload. The rival team of Decepticons included Starscream, Demolishor, Cyclonus, Thrust, Wheeljack, Tidalwave. The Mini-cons on the other hand had the Air Military Team (Gunbarrel, Thunder Wing and Terra Drive), Street Action Team (High Wire, Grindor and Sureshock), Air Defense Team (Sonar, Runway and Jetstorm), Race Team (Mirage, Dirt Boss and Downshift) and many other teams of three that forms a bigger character when combined with each other.
With about 2 years of existence, the Transformers Armada paved the way to many Transformer Armada Toys that had been marketed. Although a lot of the characters has just been reproduced, various editions in the Armada series differ on the older Generation 1 versions of the action figures. Mini-cons especially become popular on this period forming bigger sophisticated robots out of 3 different smaller figures.
The Transformers Armada had been successful installment of the Transformers series and paved the way to more, if not better, series which are the Energon and Cybertron. This proves how successful the Transformers and how they have become more than just toys or TV series but more like a way of life for a lot of people all over the world. And with the continued success of the Transformers even at present, they are more likely to be a trend for many more years to come.
