Cybertron City (episode)

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You're going to wish Hot Shot had a trigger finger.
"Cybertron City" 浮上! オーシャンシティ () (Fujō! Ocean City) "Arise! Ocean City"
Production company	TV Tokyo, NAS
Airdate	9 January 2004 (Japanese) January 31, 2004 (English)
Writer	Akira Okeya
Director	Yutaka Satoh, Jun Kawagoe
Animation studio	Actas, Studio A-CAT (3D)
Continuity	Unicron Trilogy

Ten years after the defeat of Unicron, a new threat arises...

Synopsis

We built this city on rock and roll!

Deep within the shattered remains of Unicron, Alpha Q—one of Unicron's many victims—is resurrected, to gather energon to revive Unicron. Alpha Q releases a horde of energon-eating Terrorcons, which will scavenge Earth's abundant supplies of the power source.

As Ocean City and its bridge rise and unfold from one of Earth's oceans, Demolishor narrates: it has been ten years since Megatron and Unicron disappeared in the depths of space. He and the other surviving Decepticons have had to suffer through working with the Autobots and humans in search of energon, and he's not happy about it.

The city has surfaced so that the human known as Kicker can go out on his motorbike and get some fresh air, much to Demolishor's consternation. Hot Shot shows up too, and berates Demolishor for neglecting his work before running off in pursuit of the wayward Kicker. Kicker's tired of being cooped up in the submerged city and taking orders from 'bots. Suddenly, his hair flashes golden.

Primedouken!

Below the waves, the Omnicons are hard at work mining; they suddenly hit a golden glowing seam.

On Cybertron, Rad pays a visit to Earth's Extraterrestrial Research and Development Center, where he communicates briefly with Sally. Rad tells Kicker's father, Dr. Jones, that the Omnicons have hit a big vein of energon right where Dr. Jones predicted. Energon is a clean energy source, needed to get Earth through an energy crisis, as well as the Transformers' requirements for the repair of Cybertron.

On an asteroid colony, two 'bots give the stoic Tidal Wave a hard time about his terminal silence. Suddenly, a barrage of lights from the depths of space pound the colony, as the mysterious Terrorcon drones attack.

In a training arena, Ironhide spars with Optimus Prime, and is ready to go again despite getting put down. Optimus comments that the young 'bot reminds him a lot of Hot Shot, which Ironhide regards as about the best compliment ever.

Rad and Dr. Jones report the attack to Optimus, telling him that their Mars depot is under attack, as reported by Carlos. Prime speaks with Primus about the strange development. Prime rounds up Jetfire and Inferno to check out the situation, and Ironhide insists on coming too. Rad activates a space bridge gate, and the four Autobots roll out.

This is my "Shinji" face.

Arriving on Mars, the four find the smoking ruins of Mars City. The team detects no life, even though there were many Transformers working there. They quickly head to Earth.

At Ocean City, Sally and her mother observe the Omnicons' energon research, and squabble with Kicker. Kicker recalls arriving on planet Cybertron as a very young boy with his father, and meeting the gargantuan and rather terrifying Autobots. Present-day Kicker grumbles that he doesn't need any Transformers to protect him.

Carlos reports that the Mars base was destroyed by asteroids. Kicker urgently tells Hot Shot that they're under attack, and he must submerge the city. He and Hot Shot race outside.

Finding God: Yer doing it wrong!

In a flashback sequence...

Optimus Prime searches for a young Kicker, who, driven by his fear of the Autobots, has run away and hidden in a restricted zone. Falling into a void, Kicker is snared by a glowing light. The voice of Primus speaks, wondering what energy source powers humans. Primus then bestows Kicker with a sixth-sense granting him the ability to detect danger and energon.

Present day, Hot Shot and Kicker observe as a huge swarm of Terrorcons appear in the sky, opening fire. Hot Shot returns fire. Demolishor soon finds himself against a pile of the creatures. The timely arrival of Optimus's crew saves Kicker from another group. Prime unleashes his Prime Force drones, then gives Hot Shot a Spark of Combination, allowing him to Powerlinx with Inferno. Prime merges with his drones, and blows away a ton of the Terrorcons.

Kicker leaps aboard Ironhide and makes good use of his cannon, but ultimately has to be saved by Prime, who launches a suit from his Spark of Combination to protect him from a fall. The surprised Kicker is told that the suit was made for him by his father. Kicker is furious—this is his planet and nobody can tell him what to do!

Alpha Q observes that the first attack was a failure, but there are many hands yet to be played.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

"You're not the boss of me, Autobot!"

—Demolishor apparently liked taking orders from his last boss more.

"Tidal Wave like Asteroid Belt."

—Tidal Wave enjoying the view on the moon.

"She said our Earth station has detected molecular activity at the precise coordinates where you suspected energon to be."

—Rad begins the grand Energon tradition of things making no sense at all.

"Man! This is great!"
"Just... Zip it."

—Ironhide loves the Space Bridge! Jetfire doesn't love that Ironhide loves the Space Bridge.

"Is that energon?"
"Yes. It's the energy source that all Transformers need to survive, Sally."
"I'm not sure I get it, Mom."

—Sally and Mrs. Jones, who doesn't know much about biology.

"Kicker! Don't be an idiot!"

—Hot Shot is a real optimist.

Notes

Differences with Super Link

• There are two distinct English-language dubs of this episode—a version broadcast on television, which is a straight dub of the Japanese edition of the episode, and the substantially-altered version released on the Paramount DVD. In addition to a heavily re-written script, the DVD version re-orders several scenes, chief among them the opening sequence with Alpha Q and Kicker's flashbacks, and inserts a new opening monologue from Optimus Prime, along with clips from Armada. The original televised version of the episode was restored for the Shout! Factory release, and appears on streaming platforms such as Tubi.
• The prolonged sequence of Ocean City rising up from beneath the waves differs across the various editions of this episode. The Super Link version features only music and sound effects. The TV-broadcast version of Energon features a monologue from Demolishor touching upon the events of the last ten years, to cement the series as a continuation of Armada. The Paramount DVD version replaces this monologue with an argument between Kicker and Misha about raising the city. Misha does not actually appear in the episode, though, and shouldn't actually be in Ocean City anyway.
• In the opening sequence of this episode, Alpha Q states that Unicron has brought him back online, in order to stop Unicron from going offline—a claim that is totally at odds with what we will learn of the character and his history as the series progresses. As an error, it's entirely confined to Energon, but unlike the multitude of errors that would come to populate Energon, this was most likely a very deliberately inserted line. This "minion of Unicron" role was Hasbro's intention for the character, and is how he is portrayed in the Dreamwave comic, but the Japanese production staff wound up creating an entirely different story for the character that contradicted it. To get things back in order, the line was deleted from the Paramount DVD release of the Energon episode.
• Curiously, the Paramount DVD version of this episode removed the cameos of young Alexis, Carlos, and Rad departing the Autobot starship Axalon from Kicker's flashback sequence, instead jumping straight to Dr. Jones and Kicker leaving the vessel.

Pain count

The "Uh?"s start very early:

• "Uh?": 9
• "It's time to": 1
• "Gimme a break!": 1

Animation and technical errors

• This episode's English title fails to localize the faction name "Cybertron" to "Autobot".
• In the version broadcast on television, there is an audio synch mistake when Rad and Dr. Jones watch Prime's Autobots depart for Mars; their dialogue begins too soon, cringingly causing their lip movements to lag behind it. Surprisingly, this was fixed for the DVD release.
• During the attack on Ocean City, Sally wonders where her brother is, and her mother adds "Where's Kicker?" in Sally's voice. Oops. This was not fixed for the DVD release.
• Kicker references the military clock position system. He yells "9 o'clock!" before kicking Ironhide's head to the left to shoot the Divebomb drones. Although it's true that "9 o'clock" means "left", the way Ironhide is facing is closer to 10 or 11 o'clock.
  • In the Paramount DVD release, Kicker instead yells at Ironhide to "pay attention!", removing the slight error.
• At the very end of the episode, Alpha Q says there are "plenty of Cybertron Earth cities". Again, "Cybertron" is the Japanese name for "Autobot" that wasn't translated.

Continuity notes

• Just like Armada, it is never explicitly stated what year the events of Energon take place. All canon sources establish each show in the Unicron Trilogy taking place ten years apart from one another, starting with the then-future year of 2010, meaning Energon takes place in 2020.
  • However, the Paramount DVD release suggests it's been 20 years since the Unicron Battles, making it 2030, which is the year the events of Cybertron take place.
  • In the Armada episode "Chase", Alexis's laptop has 2002 listed as the year, obviously due to the year the episode was animated/released, long before 2010 became the established year.
• The Paramount DVD release with Optimus Prime recapping the story so far shows footage of the Unicron Battles from Armada.
• The corpse of Galvatron is briefly shown in the opening scene, when the camera is moving through Unicron's body.
• While the returning Autobots and Mini-Cons from Armada have been upgraded into entirely new bodies, fit with new weapons systems and alternate forms, the extent of the returning Decepticons' upgrades are merely reduced to new color schemes. This, topped off with the fact that the Decepticons only serve as guards of energon mining facilities, suggests there is no equality between the Autobots and Decepticons. Who are the real villains again?
• The poor Street Action Mini-Cons have had their roles reduced to washing cars and being used as Kicker's transportation.
• Gadgets and powers:
  • Kicker can sense Energon and danger, a power bestowed upon him by Primus.
  • Terrorcons have the ability to eat raw Energon and convert it into Energon stars.
  • Copter-2 can slice through enemies with its rotor blades.
  • Digger-3 can create whirlwinds with its drill.
  • Submarine-4 fires torpedoes.
  • Optimus carries the Spark of Combination in his chest where his Matrix of Leadership used to be. He also carried Kicker's armor inside the Spark of Combination too.
  • Ironhide can deploy his head in vehicle mode like a Sweep.
  • Powerlinx Hot Shot wields both his and Inferno's weapons.
  • Optimus fire his "Energon Blast" attack in Super Mode.
• Powerlinx forms:
  • Perceptor (first use)
  • Powerlinx Hot Shot with Inferno (first use)
  • Optimus Prime Super Mode (first use)

Continuity errors

• In Optimus Prime's opening monologue in the Paramount DVD version of the episode, he refers to the series as taking place 20 years after the Unicron Battles of Armada, rather than 10.
  • In the same opening monologue, he incorrectly names Galvatron "Megatron", likely due to Energon having everyone going back to calling him Megatron.
• Optimus Prime is somehow able to identify the Terrorcons by name, before he has any way to know what they are. Again, this line was not in Super Link, and was removed for the Paramount DVD release of Energon.
• As stated above the Paramount DVD version of the episode has Misha placed in Ocean City, when subsequent episodes reveal she had been in Desert City the entire time, hence the conversation featured in the next episode, post-evacuation, has Misha and Kicker talking from screens rather than in person.

Transformers references

• A close-up of High Wire's motorbike mode reveals TAKARA branding, an obvious reference to TakaraTomy (who at the time was still just called "Takara" before the brand merge with Tomy in 2006).
• The aforementioned inequality between Autobots and Decepticons is very similar to the state of Cybertron during the Beast Era of the Generation 1 continuity family.

Real-world references

• According to the Transformers: Energon Official Guidebook, the sparring match was Optimus Prime training the others in the martial arts discipline Kumite.
• As stated above, Kicker references the Clock position while he's on top of Ironhide.
• Before the Terrorcons attack, High Wire is seen washing a car that clearly resembles the Toyota Trueno AE86 from the racing manga and anime series Initial D.

Trivia

• Compared to later episodes, this one is astonishingly well-animated and acted.
• Kicker is apparently able to raise and lower the city without anyone stopping him or even asking why.
• The space shuttles the humans use are partarially designed to reflect Jetfire's shuttle mode. The most significant difference between the two is the absence of the red booster rocket portion that forms Jetfire's legs and torso in robot mode. This would also mean in-universe that Jetfire has since reformatted into the newest Earth model of space shuttle.
• Due to use of an earlier unfinished CGI model, Jetfire's rifle is incorrectly colored gray. The colors won't be corrected until "Starscream the Mysterious Mercenary."

Foreign localization

Italian

• Title: "Cybertron City"

• Once, Jetfire uses the word "Transformer" (without an S at the end) as a plural.

Home video releases

VHS

2004 — Transformers: Energon — Volume 1: The Battle for Energon (Paramount)
2005 — Transformers: Energon — Volume 1: The Battle for Energon (Paramount)
2005 — Transformers: Energon — Volume 1: The Battle for Energon (Paramount)

DVD

2004 — Transformer: Super Link — Volume 001 (Interchannel) — Japanese audio only.
2004 — Transformers: Energon — Volume 1: The Battle for Energon (Paramount)
2005 — Transformers: Energon — Volume 1: The Battle for Energon (Paramount)
2005 — Transformers: Energon — Volume 1: The Battle for Energon (Paramount)
2008 — Transformers: Energon — The Ultimate Collection (Paramount)
2014 — Transformers: Energon — The Complete Series (Shout! Factory)
2014 — Transformers: Energon — Volume One (Shout! Factory)