Transformers: Armada (franchise)
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"Armada" redirects here. For other uses of the word Armada, see Armada (disambiguation). |
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Transformers: Armada is a Transformers franchise that launched in the year 2002. It was the first Transformers franchise to be completely co-developed by Hasbro and Takara. Until Armada, every Transformers franchise had been led by one company or the other. It is the first franchise in the Unicron Trilogy, and was followed by Energon and Cybertron.
Takara marketed the series as Chō Robot Seimeitai Transformers Micron Densetsu (超ロボット生命体トランスフォーマー マイクロン伝説), officially translated as Transformers: Legends of the Microns.
The Armada franchise featured the following primary components:
- A toyline
- A cartoon series
- A mini-comic series packed with the Japanese DVD releases of the cartoon, written by Hirofumi Ichikawa
- A series of mini-comics that came packed with toys, published by Dreamwave Productions
- An American comic book series also published by Dreamwave Productions
- A British comic book series by Panini Comics
- A video game for PS2 developed by Melbourne House
- A series of coloring and activity books by Funtastic Publishing
- A guidebook published by Reader's Digest.
Armada also had a large amount of ancillary merchandise; examples include birthday cards, storybooks, and coloring books. Merchandise of this sort had been rare during the years of Beast Wars, Beast Machines, and Robots in Disguise.
Armada is named for its many, many, Mini-Cons, a brand-new faction of tiny Transformers.[1]
Reception
Although fans had a mixed reaction towards the product as a whole (which is typical of any new series), it was incredibly successful with the target audience, children ages 4–9. The toys sold like hotcakes, prompting Hasbro to pad out the tail end of the toyline with a number of Beast Wars redecos.
The success of Armada led to the more expensive R&D that went into the next two franchises, Energon and Cybertron. It also prompted the launch of the Transformers: Universe line, as demand for Transformers product continued to outstrip Hasbro's ability to develop new molds.
Since all of Armada's childhood fans have reached adulthood, a lot of the earlier backlash from older fans of the Transformers franchise has subsided, with overall generally positive reactions on social media and fan forum sites singing the franchise's praise.
References
- ↑ "I came up with ["Armada"], which was really a way to describe the multitude of little Transformers that the series was about tracking down and finding. So the Mini-Cons are the Armada, when you think of it that way. And I just like the word, I'm fond of A's, it's a good clean one-word thing that says something globally, so it was a good title for translation, or not needing translation. […] Ideally you want your logo to stay the same globally."—Aaron Archer, The Toy Armada, "Legacy Armada Megatron", 2023/04/07