Anime / Transformers: Energon

The sequel to Transformers: Armada and the second installment of the Unicron Trilogy and the second (and final) entry to be animated by Actas, Transformers Energon (Transformers Superlink in Japan) was concerned with the search for energon, the source of both Cybertronian factions' power. Although previous series had followed the integral plot of Autobots and Decepticons searching for energy, Energon was quite heavily obsessed with it.

The show begins with Cybertronians living on Earth with humans and on the lookout for more energy. Although Megatron is supposedly dead and the Decepticons and Autobots are allies, an undercurrent of shakiness pervades the Autobot cities. Meanwhile, deep inside all that remains of Unicron, the planet-sized Transformer, sits Alpha Q, prince of an ancient planet that was eaten by Unicron in ages past. Alpha Q plans to re-activate Unicron to recreate his own planet (Unicron can do that in Energon) and so sends out Terrorcons to find energy to power Unicron. They immediately head for Earth, and while the Autobots and Decepticons battle the Terrorcons, an old enemy lurks in the distance...

The series-wide gimmick was 'energon stars', little translucent plastic things that slotted into holes on the Transformers. The star acted as a magnifying glass, revealing a faction sigil at the bottom of the hole.

In addition, most of the Autobots took the form of combining toys, which the show called Powerlinxing. In most cases, one robot formed the head, arms, and torso, while a second formed the legs and abdomen in a manner reminiscent of Victory's Multiforce. In-story, it was explained that this made the combined bots 10 times more powerful.

One episode, "Distribution," was meant to commemorate the 500th episode of Transformers. However, it was aired as a special in Japan, non-canon to the actual plot.

Dreamwave Comics began publishing an adaptation as a direct sequel to their Armada comic, which like the Energon comic, was more or less a re-imagining of the series rather than a strict adaptation (for one thing's Unicron's ranks include four Transformers from Beast Wars, which were never in the animated series). Unfortunately, Dreamwave's numerous legal issues, which eventually led to the company's own dissolution, stopped the comic from ever being completed.

Followed by Transformers: Cybertron.

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This show provides examples of:

• 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: The robots are for the most part rendered in CGI, which is one of the series' common complaints due to how overly stiff and robotic (ironically) they are compared to the 2D animation.
• Aborted Arc: It makes perfect sense that Megatron would order Kicker's live capture upon finding out that he has the unique ability to detect Energon. Kicker avoids capture, and they never make another attempt at kidnapping him. This isn't an issue in the comic book adaptation, where the Decepticons make multiple attempts at grabbing him and even succeed at more than one point.
• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Much like his original predecessor, Six Shot frequently shifts between openly insulting and defying Galvatron, to snivelling desperately before him, usually when the latter decides to handle their desputes in a more physical manner. He attempts this again to save his hide during a failed coup — it doesn't work.
• Animation Bump: ANY scene animated by Munetaka Abe, such as Inferno's torture in "Imprisoned Inferno", the Combiner Team combination sequences in "Distribution", and portions of the fight between Optimus and Galvatron in "Spark".
  • A non-2D example is the episode "Farewell Inferno", which features several battles with a lot of better render then the usual for this series' CGI, with battles that look surprisingly good in CGI. In fact, for once, they managed at one point to give someone a cock-eyed look without needing to switch to traditional animation. ^note Unfortunately, one of the shots that follows up a bit later (Inferno's agony scream after receiving a energon star), is in 2D.
• Arc Words: Characters tend to justify their actions with "This is my destiny".
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Galvatron explodes to colossal size after raking in a second dose of Super Energon, then proceeds to suck it dry through an energy tether on his back like a straw, growing progressively bigger and bigger while yanking Cybertron out of orbit and dragging it with him.
• Art Shift: Whenever there's a scene where CGI just won't cut it, they switch to normal cel art because it actually looked better than their CGI.
• As You Know: A common form of Padding is for characters to tell each other past events as if everyone hadn't been paying attention for the last 20 episodes.
• A-Team Firing: The limited CGI calls for this on frequent occasions. Granted it's from the Decepticons side more often (was there ever a point Demolishor and Snowcat actually hit their target?).

• Back from the Dead: Optimus Prime and Megatron. Also Demolishor, Starscream, Cyclonus, Inferno, Scorponok, Alpha Q's solar system, and Unicron.
• Bad Boss: Megatron often (though granted his crew prefer him over the odd times Shockblast was put in charge).
• Benevolent Boss: Optimus. Kicker often acted as a de facto sorts (or intended so at least).
• "Blind Idiot" Translation: In spades. The dub was just plain bad, but notable technical issues include constant inserting of stock phrases and "Um?"s solely so there'd be noise where there was none previously, characters having their names and lines switched up, and some episodes (seemingly picked at random) edited to remove any references to Primus. Emphasis on "some", others kept it in.
• Body Backup Drive: After Demolisher is blown up, Megatron builds him a new body and sticks his spark into it, but not before reformatting it to remove Demolisher's pesky morality. Which leads to a very stupid reincarnation of the Decepticon, and one of many They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot complaints.
• Butt-Monkey: Ironhide, klutzy rookie, frequently repremended by his peers and often subordinate to Kicker and thus the most constant victim to his nasty attitude (which is never reprimanded and treated as being Actually Pretty Funny by the others). Almost all of the Decepticon mooks act as this.
• Canon Foreigner: For the Hasbro release toyline, a handful of new Autobots and Decepticons were included to boost their ranks. On the Decepticons' side, these included Sharkticon, a soldier no one wants to be around due to his rank degeneracy; Slugslinger, a Generation 1 homage who is a crass Ace Pilot that's only slightly more tolerated; and Mirage, a Small Name, Big Ego separate from what the show depicts him as and his emotionless, Omnicidal Maniac clone Dreadwing. Over on the Autobots, there was Tow-Line, The Strategist with the ability to Powerlink with his mobile platform; And Dinobots Grimlock and Swoop, who gain the ability to combine into Mega-Dinobot. The Snow Cat and Demolishor toys were also planned to be these as well, until the show used them as simple upgrades.
  • A handful of Palette Swap characters, most of them Autobot-alligned, were also originally released as separate entities in the Hasbro lineup. These included Roadblock^* used for Inferno, originally intended as a homage to G1 Grapple, based on his bio, Offshoot^* Recolor of Signal Lancer, written as his brother who favors making weapons over Energon structures, Landquake^* used for Landmine, originally written as his Pacifist brother who only fights when he has to, Beachcomber^* used for Cliffjumper, originally written as a homage to the G1 character, but with more puns., and Treadbolt^* a redeco and (later revealed) Gender Flip of Armada Scavenger.

• Captain Obvious: Mostly it was due to an incomplete translation, though. Time would often be filled with Optimus saying to people who probably have some idea as to why they came to some dangerous place locked and loaded, "Remember, our mission is to protect the planet/Energon/injured character." Also, the first third or so of the series consists of episodes in which bad guys will steal a cache of Energon that the good guys just discovered. Every single time, someone (maybe more than one someone) will say "They're after our Energon!" Similarly, the bad guys would talk about their plan and say "We need more Energon!" as if they'd just come to the conclusion. In fact, all of the repetitive dialogue that plagues the series is delivered as if it's something that's just dawned on the person who has said it twice already.
• Character Development: Carefully subverted. Should a character start to have it, they will be damaged and reformatted and do nothing but blandly follow orders for the rest of the series. Starscream gets it worse. His whole arc is about remembering nothing of his former life since Alpha Q revived him in a new form. How is it resolved? After about five episodes he tries to attack Megatron, gets mindwiped again, by Megatron this time, and... does nothing but blandly follow orders for the rest of the series. Humans can't be reformatted, so Kicker simply stops having a beef with Cybertronians by episode three-ish. Only Ironhide has his character arc seen through. That, by the way, is not down to the dub.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: In the 10 or 20 years since Armada, several characters don't seem to be around anymore, and will not return or be mentioned- Fred and Billy (traveling the world), Blurr, Sideswipe, Scavenger, Wheeljack, and the large force of Mini-Cons, the partner Mini-Cons, and the ones who form the 3 legendary weapons, the Star Saber (the Energon look-alikes forming the weaker Energon Saber are unrelated), Skyboom Shield and Requiem Blaster) prominent in the series are gone. Red Alert, however, will turn up again in Cybertron. Also notable: Crumplezone and Blackout, Cylconus and Demolishor's Mini-Con partners show up for a very brief moment in episode 4, then are never seen again. Later, the Street Team Mini-Cons, High Wire, Sureshock and Grindor, all but vanish from the story- they don't even have speaking roles or plot relevance!
  • In japanese continuity at least, the Mini-cons moved away from Cybertron and Earth to form their own civilization.
• Clip Show: "Team Optimus Prime".
• Combining Mecha: The whole point, really.
  • Parodied twice in a row during a filler episode. Once with both robots transforming into an upper half, and the second with transformers who can't even combine.
• Continuity Nod: Megatron's body, still entombed inside Unicron's, has his body design from Armada, since all of the 'Bots and 'Cons now have new robot modes and transform into different vehicles due to them all being upgraded, Megatron is immediately upgraded once he is revived.
• Control Freak: Kicker, oh so much. Repeatedly yells orders at his comrades and throws tantrums whenever his bellows are ignored or contradicted.
  Kicker: Don't argue with me!/This is MY planet, MY rules!/I don't care what you think!/DO IT!
• Converging-Stream Weapon: Optimus Prime when combined with Wing Saber. "Meteor Attack Mode" consists of him firing a Chest Blaster at the same time as his normal beams, which absorbs them to create a massive stream of plasma.
• Crossing the Burnt Bridge: Shockblast attempts to overthrow Megatron, who is quite amused when he later needs to be rescued from the Autobots. Six Shot also attempts to assassinate him later in the series, complete with a lengthy "The Reason You Suck" Speech. It ends as expected for him.
• Curbstomp Battle: Scorponok attempt to silence a reviving Megatron by stabbing his spark chamber with his own sword. Instead, Megatron comes alive just fine, with a new body, and proceeds to batter the living daylights out of Scorponok, tearing him apart so badly, he gets robotic swollen cheeks.
• Darker and Edgier: Energon ends up much darker than Armada with Megatron's few noble traits gone and his cruelty amplified; the outright war that the Decepticons prosecute lead to much more onscreen death than in the rest of the Unicron Trilogy. By series end, most of the Decepticon cast has been killed off.
• Depraved Homosexual: Mirage in the Japanese version, Superlink. In Energon this is, somewhat obviously (though not completely), edited out.
  • This may also be Single-Target Sexuality. Mirage isn't such a bad guy, he's just a huge Megatron fanboy with a crush.
• Died in Ignorance: Sixshot vows revenge on the murderer of his brother, Shockblast. Snowcat unwittingly claims the culprit was Optimus Prime (because "Who else?") when in reality it was Megatron via Unicron's power after Shockblast pulled a failed coup. Sixshot allies with the Decepticons to get back at Optimus, though his fanatical zeal and the usual Bad Boss tendencies of Megatron (now Galvatron) lead to the two clashing repeatedly anyway. Sixshot ultimately wounds and almost kills Galvatron to claim Optimus for himself, though Galvatron recovers superpowered, and kills Sixshot, who never figures out the truth.
• The Dog Bites Back: Six Shot. Granted he wasn't exactly loyal to begin with, but a good few beatings ensured he wanted Galvatron dead as much as he did Optimus.
• Dolled-Up Installment: A bizarrely small-scale example: certain characters in the series were originally designed to be separate entities, but then got repurposed into upgraded versions of old characters, despite often looking nothing like the originals. Demolishor has been confirmed as one; he was originally supposed to be Long Haul. Snow Cat, Mirage, and Roadblock are also often speculated to be in this category, and Roadblock's toy bio even describes him as a separate character.
• Dub-Induced Plot Hole: The dub was clearly rushed, with a lot of dialogue leaving out plot-relevant details that were present in the Japanese version.
  • The dub ran into some confusion regarding Megatron's name; In Japan, he called himself Megatron throughout all of Armada (or rather, Micron Legend) and was Galvatron in all of this series after he gained his new body, while the English dub for Armada had him call himself Megatron in most of the series until he gets a new color scheme and renames himself to Galvatron, which toy-wise was the same for this series. Either from being mandated by Hasbro to use the name for the latest toy or simply forgetting how the dub of the previous series handled things, the cast call the Deception leader prior to his resurrection Megatron despite his corpse still being in his Galvatron colors and him not having officially renamed himself again.
  • In an early episode, Megatron complains about the fact several walls and parts of Unicron vanished because Alpha Quintesson is draining the energon and Scorponok is covering him by claiming Unicron needs to be fed energon on a regular basis, with the English version failing to explain why Unicron is regressing.
  • Optimus defeats Megatron in one episode by pulling a gun from his chest he calls the Matrix Blaster. In the dub, he says it is Hot Shot's blaster, despite him never being seen using this weapon before, and asks why he's giving to him... despite the gun coming out of his chest rather than being handed to him by Hot Shot.
  • One episode has the Decepticons stationed in a mobile base resembling Unicron, as it was spawned from him. The animation for said base was apparently unfinished, so the dub sticks a generic asteroid in its place. Despite this, Hot Shot still says that the asteroid resembles Unicron, and Prime mistakingly says it was a home to Unicron rather than spawned from him.
  • The dub skipped over one episode for unknown reasons, so Megatron suddenly knows the artificial Energon Sun in Alpha Q's universe has Unicron's head inside, with absolutely no explanation whatsoever (because he discovered the fact in the original episode). The same episode had Alpha Q complete his goal of recreating his home planet, which doesn't happen in the dub.
  • In the Japanese version of the "Distribution" special, Prowl and Downshift argue over which them is cooler as the dominant form of a Powerlinx, while in the dub, they instead argue over whether or not they could take on the Decepticons. The argument was supposed to set up the gag where they would end up Powerlinxing in their top halves, which was kept in the dub.
• Dub Name Change: It's a lot, but here's the list from Japanese to English:
  • Grand Convoy is (of course) Optimus Prime.
  • Skyfire is Jetfire. In an ironic twist, his G1 counterpart started out as Skyfire.
  • Roadbuster is Ironhide.^note Ironhide was ironically Demolisher's Japanese name, before Demolisher himself was upgraded to Irontread.
  • Hot Shot is still Hot Shot. In the Japanese dub, however, he started by the name Hot Rod in the series' predecessor before he became Hot Shot we know here.
  • Inferno/Inferno V (upgraded form)^note The V stands for Volt in his Japanese name. is Inferno/Roadblock (upgraded form).
  • Rodimus Convoy is simply Rodimus.
  • Landmine is still Landmine.
  • Ariel is Arcee. Fitting that her appearance strongly resembles her G1 counterpart.^note In the G1 series, Ariel was the former identity of Elita-1, the love interest of G1 Optimus Prime.
  • Blastarm is Strongarm.
  • Airglide is Skyblast.
  • Signal Flare is still named as such.
  • Sprung is Bulkhead.
  • Wheeljack is Downshift. Unfortunately he and fellow Autobot Cliffjumper tend to switch with each other's names in the English dub.
  • Overdrive is Cliffjumper. Unfortunately he and fellow Autobot Downshift tend to switch with each other's names in the English dub.
  • Red Alert is Prowl.
  • Omega Supreme keeps his name.
  • Wing Dagger/Wing Saber (upgraded form) is as he is.
  • Mega Zarak is Scorponok. Interestingly, this even mirrors his G1 counterpart.
  • Galvatron/Galvatron G is Megatron/Galvatron, because Megatron is a more recognizable name.
  • Ironhide/Irontread (upgraded form) is Demolisher. He's still Demolisher in the English dub, in which both his memories and intelligence were highly degraded.
  • Sandstorm/Snowstorm (upgraded form) is Cyclonus/Snow Cat (upgraded form).
  • Shockwave/Shockfleet (upgraded form) is Tidal Wave/Mirage (upgraded form).
  • Nightscream is Starscream.
  • Laserwave is Shockblast. Naturally, Laserwave was the Japanese name for G1 Shockwave, whereas Shockwave is also the Japanese name for Tidal Wave.
  • Six Shot retains the name.
  • Buildron^note Buildron was the Japanese name of the G1 Constructicons., Bruticus, and Superion are respectively Constructicon Maximus, Bruticus Maximus, and Superion Maximus.
• Dumb Muscle: Tidal Wave.
• Dull Surprise: The most common word for filling in the blanks where the dialogue doesn't fit the mouth-flaps is a lobotomized-sounding 'uuuuh?' Also, the poor CGI allows for few expressions beyond "mouth sorta open."
  • Energon, along with the Dreamwave comics coming out at the same time (Pat Lee's range is also limited to mouth open vs. mouth closed) were responsible for the "dull surprise" meme migrating to the Transformers franchise.
• Enemy Mine: Megatron and Optimus Prime.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Most of the Decepticons (particularly Tidal Wave) despise Shockblast due to his arrogant, and borderline psychotic attitude towards his comrades, and lack of respect towards their leader. His first mission ends disastrously after the others turn on him, enraged after he attacks Tidal Wave.
  • Even more with Demolisher, who can't decide what's wrong or right. He, however, shows sympathy for the humans, as he protests, that if Megatron rips out human hearts, they'll die. Megatron does not argue.
• Evil Gloating: Megatron does this a lot. Granted he is also saved by it when Six Shot attacks him in a coup, only to stall the final blow to mock him long enough for Scorponok to intervene.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: Megatron and Shockblast seek to control Unicron once he’s full awakened. Shockblast gets more than he bargained for and almost becomes a mindless killing machine. Megatron is slowly dying from being hooked up to Unicron’s core and is losing himself to Unicron.
• Exact Words: After being repeatedly pointed out the penalties for making plans against Galvatron's orders (in both a verbal and physical manner) Six Shot decides to follow this through to a tee, refusing to supply any assistance whatsoever to the Decepticons unless a usually rather irate Galvatron gave him his approval. Taken to extremes in a heated dispute over setting the Energon towers to a dangerously high level. Eventually a frustrated Six Shot submits and deliberately lets them overload, almost destroying the planet.
  Six Shot: Why I'm only following your orders sir. I'm only trying to please you, Oh Mighty Commander!
• Face–Heel Turn: Tidal Wave ditches the Autobots at the first news Megatron survived, Cyclonus leaves when he spies Megatron's sword being wielded by Scorponok, and Demolishor betrays the Autobots when he sees Megatron alive and well, but cautiously. After his brush with death and subsequent rebirth, Megatron wipes out the morality in Demolishor, and this reduces him to a gibbering moron blindly following Megatron. Starscream becomes Megatron's right hand after being hit with a dose of Mind Rape to break Alpha Q's control over him, but Megatron has ulterior knowledge not to restore Starscream's memory or risk another Heel–Face Turn and an insubordinate soldier.

• Flat Character: A lot of Autobots are introduced in the series, and only so many get actual individual spotlight. Some of the complex characters get reformatted into flat characters as well.
• Greek Chorus: Alpha Q, after he dies. Possibly he's watching the show from Quintesson heaven... or hell.
• Hate Sink: Though the Cons are brutal, it's pretty clear that Shockblast isn't meant to be liked in the slightest. His brutality towards both enemy and ally, to the point that Megatron of all people has to tell him to cut it out, and sadist tendencies, make it quite satisfying when he's finally crushed by Unicron.

• Heel–Face Turn: Alpha Q and Rodimus's team (though neither were truly evil, and the latter were more standoffish.)
• Horsemen of the Apocalypse: In the Dreamwave continuity, Rhinox, Airazor, Cheetor and Terrorsaur.
• Hulk Speak: Tidal Wave! His upgraded form Mirage too, albeit less consistently.
• Hurl It into the Sun: Inferno does this to himself to end his Decepticon impulses. His Spark remained intact, so he got better. The story ends with Galvatron also doing it to himself to put Unicron inside him to rest for good, with Starscream and Mirage following him out of loyalty.
• Inconsistent Dub: Is it Shockwave or Tidal Wave? Mika or Misha? And just who is Cliffjumper? Also, Armada's habit of occasionally referring to people or things by their Japanese names (which have not been used in the show previously) continues. Basically, the dub is bad.
• Inherently Funny Words: Alpha Q. Think about it, hero.
• Invincible Hero: To an extent, there are usually over a dozen Autobots consistantly throughout the show's run compared to what is usually less than half that amount of Decepticons. The Decepticons cannot use Powerlink, the main premise of the show (despite being able to in Armada) and the large majority can't even aim straight. By the finale, only two Decepticons are suggested to have survived, while every single Autobot that was previously killed is revived. Oh, and of course the Autobots have Kicker.
• I Owe You My Life: Revealed to be the reason Scorponok serves Megatron.
• I Want Them Alive!: In the episode "Kicker Beware" Megatron notices that Kicker has the power to sense energon, and thinks that this might be of use to him. He sends his Dcepticons to go kidnap him.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Kicker, albeit with a lot more heavy enthasis on the jerk part than the usual Transformers protagonist.

• Killed Off for Real: The real Scorponok, Alpha Quintesson, Shockblast, Team Ironhide, Six Shot, Construction Maximus, Bruticus Maximus, the imitation Scorponok, Unicron, Galvatron, and presumably, Starscream and Mirage.
• Mid-Season Upgrade: Tons. Here's the whole list:
  • Any time a Transformer gets a combination spark or learns to Powerlink. Some are unique.
  • Episode 13: Cyclonus begs Megatron for repairs after a battle when he really doesn't need them. To shut him up, Megatron hooks Cyclonus up to Energon cables and they reconstruct him into Snowcat. Though this might be considered a downgrade, because though he gets a rarely-utilized freeze ray, he loses his aerial capabilities and arguably Took a Level in Dumbass, no longer a cackling loon, but a yodeling one.
  • Demolishor is destroyed in Episode 15, then promptly brought back in a seemingly tougher body. In reality, he looks less threatening. He's not a badass battle tank anymore- he's a blasted dump truck who hoots like an ape and pounds his chest, because Megatron stripped his sense of right and wrong away, reducing him to a simpleton.
  • Wing Dagger and Tidal Wave are crushed under an Energon Tower. Tidal Wave is crippled, but Wing Dagger is dead. In episode 24, Tidal Wave returns as the smaller and "smarter" Mirage. Oh, and he no longer combines with Megatron, but lusts for him. Next episode, Rad finishes rebuilding Wing Dagger and Primus revives him as Wing Saber. Wing Saber becomes Optimus Prime's new combining battle armor with two modes.
  • Constant Energon supply to Unicron finally restores his body and gives him a brand new armor color scheme. Then he gets the outer layer of his armored exterior shredded off by an energon implosion and spends ten more episodes resurrecting back to par. His head, however, takes a while longer to revive- Alpha Q keeps it in his possession until Megatron takes it by force and kills him.
  • Megatron's repeated brainwashing leads to Inferno's death, but his spark is rescued, and he's rebuilt and modified into Roadblock- not much different than before.
  • Optimus Prime and Omega Supreme learn their combination sparks are compatible and combine into Optimus Supreme.
  • Shockblast absorbs Unicron's power and doubles in size, but turns into an Omnicidal Maniac. It doesn't end well...
  • Landmine, Cliffjumper, Hot Shot, Ironhide, and Jetfire are given new armor by Primus (really recolors) and Optimus Supreme grows to Unicron's size. He then kills Unicron and the super-sizing power crops up every now and then. Unicron survives as just a spark.
  • Megatron discovers the Super Energon and uses it to first become Galvatron, then an ever-growing giant, then planetary size, eventually on par with Unicron's might. Starscream also gets an upgrade- though Galvatron forces him to enter the Super Energon as a test of loyalty.
  • Galvatron and Optimus Prime Deus ex Machina the crap out of their power. But it turns out all Transformers have the primal nature of Unicron inside them, and it takes over. Both bots try to overcome this madness, where they keep one-upping each other in size, and the most egregious example? Prime somehow manifests the equivalent of Omega Supreme's armor, and his little Prime Force drones are equipped just for added good measure, without combining with Omega Supreme.
  • Galvatron accidentally lets the disembodied spark of Unicron steal his body and reaches his ultimate size. Unicron takes over and plans his rampage anew. Primus's spark itself decides to absorb the Super Energon and become a massive star, which fully ignites into a new sun for Alpha Q's planets after Galvatron regains control and plows into it to destroy Unicron. The living sun ploy doesn't end well- one series later, it collapses into a black hole and Galvatron and Starscream come back to life even stronger, further bonded to Unicron's powers.
  • The Ultimate Powerlink formed by the Autobots uniting sparks with Optimus Prime in the Grand Finale.
• Merchandise-Driven: Well, it is Transformers. With energon weaponry, Brute Modes, combination, and a few lingering Mini-cons, we may have a record for most toy gimmicks in one series.
• Mind Rape: Megatron uses this to brainwash Starscream and Scorponok into being loyal to him, and attempts to do it to Inferno.
• Misapplied Phlebotinum: The series has a metric buttload of powerups, but they were almost never used in a way that would give the user an advantage. Even transformation itself, with characters who turn into cars running on foot in the majority of Outrun the Fireball type situations. Also, combining usually served only to halve the number of troops in a straight firefight. Optimus' Super Mode tended to be activated and then not used, as he continued firing with the same gun he has in his normal mode. Also also, energon weapons tended to run out of power after being fired two or three times.

• Mythology Gag: Megatron's new body is patterned after G1 Galvatron with a blue and white deco. When he takes a dunk in Super Energon mid-season, his colors change to the classic purple and he once again takes the name Galvatron.
• Never Say "Die": Transformers has long preferred "offline" or "slagged" to "dead" when it actually happens (or could happen) to someone, but only Energon tries to pretend that dead characters are actually still alive - making you wonder where the hell any given character whose death was smoothed over is if we didn't see it directly. Ironhide's fanboy trio are "down..." and Ironhide leaves them behind? This is not the only such example.
  • Additionally, when Demolishor dies, what was a Tear Jerker in the Japanese version becomes... Ironhide screaming at everyone to "GET IN THE SHIP!" And he isn't even fazed when Demolishor forces him aside to rescue Megatron. He just.. keeps spouting stock phrase lines from a rotten apple dub!
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot The Nekomimis are robot catgirl maids.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: The first thing Megatron does when he revives is dish one of these out to Scorponok for trying to kill him.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: Six Shot spends the majority of his appearance getting smashed against his own control panel by Galvatron. When he finally plots a coup, he nearly dissassembles his master with his laser blast (keeping in mind the legendary Decepticons could not even dent his armor at full power). Of course, then Galvatron upgrades a second time... and Six Shot gets the boot. A big, BIG boot.
• No Sympathy: The team tend to find Ironhide's treatment from Kicker to be rather funny.

• Out of Focus: Surprisingly, Alexis and Carlos fade away into the background and eventually disappear from the storyline until the final episode of the US dub of Cybertron. Also- ALL Mini-Cons except the ones who create the Energon Saber- and even they rarely show up outside weapon form. That includes the, Street Action Team, High Wire, Sureshock and Grindor, who form Perceptor- they become mindless transport for Kicker- not participating in combat whatsoever. Heck, Perceptor now washes cars.
• Overzealous Underling: Six Shot is portrayed as such: due to his own vendetta against Optimus Prime, he frequently goes against Galvatron's orders to target the Autobots. Repeated disobeying of orders, almost killing his own side in the process or just butting into Galvatron's own obsessive rivalry with Prime made him the constant target of violent lambastings and tantrums from his Control Freak Bad Boss. Sure enough, this pattern slowly embittered Six Shot into The Starscream, sabotaging and blackmailing Galvatron with Cybertron's artillery to force him to deal with things his way, and eventually attacking and almost killing him, deeming the commander an interference to his own troops. Galvatron escaped and underwent an Emergency Transformation, making sure to crush Six Shot first thing before dealing with the Autobots.
• Palette Swap: Six Shot, of his older brother Shockblast. Also, the trio of Ironhide fanboys, of each other. Also, Cyclonus is sporting a new black color scheme, while Demolishor has borrowed Scavenger's, apparently, becoming green and purple. Tidal Wave gets a new paintjob when he's fried by touching raw energon. Ow. Obviously, this is to sell toys.
• Parent Service: Kicker and Misha usually wear skin-tight spacesuits. No, the fact that they're teenagers does not count.

• Power Crystal: A few Cybertronians have them.
• Quirky Miniboss Squad: Snowcat (formerly Cyclonus), Mirage (formerly Tidal Wave), and Demolishor (who doesn't get a new name. Tough luck, pal.)
• Redshirt Army: As in Armada, generic, unnamed Autobots in the larger battles tend to get blown to shreds like they're made of Kleenex. Nobody seems to care. On the other side, Terrocons are nothing but cannon fodder, barely getting even speaking lines. By the end of the series ALL of them are dead.
  • The Decepticons aren't much better.
• Rouge Angles of Satin: In the episode titles. Seriously. "Scorpinok"? "Improsoned Inferno"? Jesus Christ.
  • And those are the two that weren't corrected for the DVD release. "A Tale of Two Heroes" and "Decepticon Army" originally aired as "A Tale Of Two Heros" and "Deception Army." Also, while spelled right, "Ironhide Team" is about Team Ironhide.
• Running Gagged: Kicker's buck kicking of Ironhide earns him a Death Glare from his new team of fanboys. He is wise not to do it again, even after they meet their demise.
• Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: "Solar system," "Galaxy," and "Universe" are used in ways that make you wonder if the dubbers knew what any of those words mean. Rushed translation explains lines not matching Superlink, but it doesn't explain "We warped into another galaxy on the outer reaches of the solar system!" or "I could annihilate the Decepticons by deploying the energon grid. But then I run the risk of destroying the entire universe, because it's loaded with raw energon!" (Uh... no, that could never happen. At all.)
• Scars Are Forever: In the third episode, Tidal Wave's foolish mistake to touch a raw Energon star laying on a battlefield etches lightning-shaped scars onto his body. However, this is only shown in the Japanese version- the rushed American doody dub and its incomplete craptacular CGI doesn't actually show this happening- it just fills in the unfinished patch with stock footage and the scars are demoted to a Noodle Incident.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: Some music is present in inappropriate moments in both the Japanese version and especially the Englush dub.
• The Starscream: Shockblast and later Six Shot. In the ultimate form of irony, Starscream turns undyingly loyal to Megatron.
• Stock Footage: Compared to most other instances of this trope, these ones are horrible animation-wise (See Conspicuous CG above).
• Terrible Trio: Cyclonus (later Snowcat), Demolishor (later Demolishor), and Tidal Wave (later Mirage).
• There Are No Therapists: When he was a child, Kicker once found himself adrift in space without any support, only to land on a dark, isolated asteroid, where his father radioed him and told him to search it for energon by himself while the Autobots were looking for him. This apparently wasn't anything new. His father never got him any help for this, and it really shows.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Though it's rather late in, Kicker's treatment of Ironhide is a lot softer in the final arc.
• Tyop on the Cover: Four episodes had misspelled titles in the dub - "Scorpinok" (which should be "Scorponok"), "A Tale of Two Heros", "Improsoned Inferno", and "Deception Army" (the latter two were corrected on the DVD release). In fact, the third one of these provides the trope image.
• Unknown Rival: Six Shot makes a personal vendetta against Optimus Prime for supposedly killing Shockblast. However, since he stays at his control booth to monitor missions leaving only once to attack fellow Decepticons Galvatron and Scorponok, Prime seemingly has no idea of Six Shot's revenge or even his existence whatsoever. It's a side effect from being Galvatron's chew toy whenever he disobeys him.
• You Killed My Father: Six Shot allies with Megatron to get revenge on Optimus Prime for killing his brother Shockblast. In reality, he was killed by Megatron himself. Poetically, so is he.

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"UHH..."