Transformers: Armada
| Fandom | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Transformers: Armada |
| Abbreviation(s): | |
| Creator: | Hasbro, Takara |
| Date(s): | August 23, 2002 - October 3, 2003 (US) January 10, 2003 - December 26, 2003 (Japan) |
| Medium: | anime |
| Country of Origin: | Japan |
| External Links: | The TV show on TFWiki |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Transformers: Armada is a series from the Transformers franchise. It had many, many problems[1], but was generally well-loved and attracted a large fanbase in its time. Its plot centers around Minicons, which are smaller (roughly human-sized) Transformers that can connect to larger Transformers and power them up, and their utility in the ongoing war between Optimus Prime and his Autobots and Megatron and his Decepticons. Unicron, the planet-eating evil god of the Transformers, also shows up.
Fandom
Armada has basically no fandom nowadays; AO3 lists only 33 stories in its tag, and most of its fanworks predate world filtering on fanfiction.net. Interestingly, AO3's relationship tags would seem to indicate that the most popular pairing is Megatron/Optimus Prime, but sources such as old fanfiction.net stories and TFWiki's page on fanfic[2] imply that shippy fanfiction involving Starscream paired with either Alexis, who was the human female character, or the author was actually a very popular topic. While much of this fanfic is now gone, given that Armada aired in 2002-2003 and it was presumably hosted on now-gone fandom-specific archives, it clearly existed. Starscream is portrayed far more sympathetically in this series than he usually is; he's Megatron's abused second-in-command, who changes sides to the Autobots briefly and develops a close bond with Alexis before returning to the Decepticons when he realizes that the Autobots will never really trust him. This apparently led to him developing a large female fanbase, to the point where the wiki describes him as "fangirl bait"[3]. Very little information about the rest of the Armada fandom survives, as the series aired well over a decade ago.
Continuity
Armada is the first part of the Unicron Trilogy, a group of series that are set in the same continuity, aired in chronological order, and all focus on Unicron; Transformers: Energon and Transformers: Cybertron make up the second and third parts of the series. The Japanese original version did not place Cybertron in the same continuity as Armada and Energon at first, but this has since been retconned into lining up with the American version. As with most series, it also had a toyline and various tie-in comics, including a series that was ended partway through by Dreamwave's bankruptcy.
Notable Transformers: Armada Fanworks
| Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples. |
References
- ^ TFWiki's list of criticisms, if you're interested.
- ^ The page in question; look at the end of the first paragraph under Topics. Accessed January 19, 2015.
- ^ The caption on the first image. Accessed January 19, 2015.