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From L-R: Antauri, Otto, Chiro, Gibson, Nova, and Sprx-77 inside the Super Robot.

"While exploring the outskirts of the city, I discovered an abandoned Super Robot. It was then my life was transformed by the mysterious Power Primate. The Robot Monkeys were awakened and I, Chiro, became their leader. Our quest: to save Shuggazoom City from the evils of the Skeleton King."
Chiro

Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go! was a 2004-2006 Japanese-American animated show created by Ciro Nieli for Toon Disney as part of its Jetix (now Disney XD) block. It is the very first original series produced by Jetix for the block.

The show is about a teenager named Chiro who finds a Super Robot with a set of 5 robot monkeys locked inside.

He is made the leader and together they fight Skeleton King, who wants to take over their home planet of Shuggazoom.


This show provides examples of:

  • Action Girl: Pint-Sized Powerhouse Nova, Girly Bruiser Jinmay, The Gunslinger Aurora 6 and Badass Normal Olliana.
  • Actor Allusion: Ashley Johnson voices Jinmay, who like Terra is the love interest of a character voiced by Greg Cipes. Thank goodness here the girl did not wind up as an actual mole in the end. She did lose her head for a while though. And she was unwittingly sent specifically to corrupt the team and her body was also controlled by an evil entity. But, she came around in the end.
  • Aerith and Bob: Alongside Hal, Otto, Nova, Aurora, and Johnny, we have Chiro, Antauri, Jinmay, and SPRX-77.
  • Affectionate Nickname: "Kid" for Chiro, used only by Sprx. It helps to cement the red monkey's Big Brother Mentor relationship with Chiro.
  • Affectionate Parody: The whole series is one to the Super Robot and Sentai genres; the heroes are a sentai team of robotic monkeys.
  • Aliens Speaking English: Everyone speaks the same language, regardless of species, unless they are incapable of speech.
  • All for Nothing: "The Savage Lands Part 2" reveals that Antauri's Heroic Sacrifice in order to defeat Skeleton King and stop the Dark One Worm from destroying Shuggazoom ultimately turned out to be this, as Skeleton King's head now controls the Dark One Worm, and is now roaming the galaxy corrupting other planets with its evil.
  • Almost Dead Guy: Jinmay at the end of Season One. She doesn't really die.
  • Almost Kiss:
    • Chiro and Jinmay seem to be about to kiss in the first episode, but are interrupted by Sakko.
    • In Meet the Wigglenog, the Wigglenog takes a mermaid form and almost kisses Sprx. When he shows his true appearance, Sprx is clearly grossed out.
  • Animal Battle Aura: When Chiro uses the Power Primate at higher levels, it forms a giant green energy gorilla around him.
  • Animesque: The premise, as noted above, takes very clear inspiration from various Mecha anime. This also extends to the animation itself, which has a distinctly low framerate reminiscent of how most animes are animated. The show also has a noticeable lack of lip-syncing; the characters talk by simply moving their mouths up and down in a rapid fashion, a method that is almost exclusively found in anime. It's worth noting that the creator of the show beforehand worked as a director on Teen Titans, which also had an animesque art direction.
  • Anti-Hero: The Hyperforce has no compunction whatsoever against killing their enemies, and doing so brutally.
  • Artifact of Doom: The artifacts used to resurrect Skeleton King. If that end result wasn't enough to qualify them for this status, there's the fact that each one also has a corruptive effect on anyone who gets too close to them.
  • Artificial Limbs: Most notably the monkeys with their robotic arms, which are replaceable. For that reason, the writers have all sorts of fun having these arms torn, cut, or blown off. There's a Running Gag involving Gibson getting his hand cut off at the wrist.
  • Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Sprx and Nova argue and tease each other a lot, but whenever one of them gets hurt in battle, it's usually the other who gets the most upset about it and they're repeatedly shown to be very protective of each other. Some of the best examples are "Belly of the Beast", when Sprx expresses his happiness to have Nova back after he thought he lost her at a wormhole and Nova is so moved by it that she accepts his hug, and "Night of Fear", where Nova gently comforts Sprx by holding his hand when he's blinded and scared that he won't be able to fly again.
  • Back from the Dead: Antauri in the start of Season Three, is reborn as the very powerful silver monkey.
  • Badass Normal: Mobius Quint and Olliana, who do well with little more than their laser weapons (Quint has a harpoon and Olliana has a whip.) Olliana KO'ed two of her captors with just her hair!
  • Battle Couple: Sprx is an Ace Pilot with magnetic attacks, Nova is a tough Pint-Sized Powerhouse with Power Fists. They usually team up in battle and protect each other.
  • Because Destiny Says So: Chiro being The Chosen One, and why the Robot Monkeys were created in the first place, is stated to be because it was foretold.
  • Belligerent Sexual Tension: Sprx and Nova. He's a cocky Jerk with a Heart of Gold who loves to tease her, she's a feisty Tsundere with little to no tolerance to his goofiness. They are deeply in love, but won't admit it.
  • Berserk Button:
    • Nova can't stand the cold.
    • Sprx is usually pretty easy-going, but calling him Sparky will set him off
  • Beta Couple: An inversion. Chiro and Jinmay are the ones with the more simplified relationship as opposed to Sprx and Nova.
  • Bickering Couple, Peaceful Couple: Chiro and Jinmay are very sweet and affectionate with each other. Meanwhile, Sprx and Nova continuously bicker and tease each other.
  • Big Bad: Skeleton King, an Evil Overlord who wants nothing else than to take over the galaxy and enslave its inhabitants. His main goal is to destroy all that is living, conquer the entire universe, and destroy Hyperforce that opposes him.
  • Big Damn Heroes: Later in the series, The Super Robot exists to fill this role, frequently coming in to save the team in the nick of time.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Season 2's finale, with Antauri's death and Chiro becoming monkey-ish. It's made even more bittersweet in the Swedish dub where the series ended after that and was pulled off in such a way that it seemed like a Series Finale.
  • Bloodless Carnage: The Robot Monkeys are common victims of this, sometimes getting their robotic components mangled while their organic parts remain relatively intact.
  • Body Horror:
    • Generally a consequence of Skeleton King/ooze/Dark One corruption.
    • Briefly in Planetoid Q, when a pair of monster eyeballs covering Chiro's own eyes suddenly turn into mouths.
    • What happens to people who eat the food from Wonder Fun Meat World, as they mutate into hideous monsters.
    • The victims of the Wraiths turning into Wraiths themselves is a painful and far from pretty process. And even before that, their empty eye sockets are far from pleasant to look at.
    • The Alchemist's physical decay after the Dark Ones touched him.
  • Booby Trap: The Hyperforce sometimes goes into places with booby traps, like the Temple of Doom in "The Savage Lands".
  • Bragging Theme Tune: "Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go! Fighting any evil, they are Shuggazoom's hope! Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go! Defeating any foe!"
  • Brains Versus Brawn: The logical scientist Gibson and the gut-driven pilot Sprx have a bit of a rivalry over whether logic or instinct is more efficient. Demonstrated when they argue in "The Savage Lands: Part 1."
  • Brainwashed: Happens quite a few times.
    • The Monkeys' are hypnotised into thinking Krinkle is Chiro and the real Chiro is a monster in Krinkle's first appearance.
    • Yet another example is in "Ape New World", where Otto gets a control chip slapped on him, causing him to act loopy.
  • Brainwashed and Crazy:
    • In "Thingy", Gibson and The Super Robot itself get infected with a Skeleton King-made virus found in Thingy’s fur. It would have happened to the rest of the team if not for Thingy licking them.
    • The big one is in "Soul of Evil" where Sprx turns evil after he grabs the Fire of Hate.
  • Bridal Carry: In "Circus of Ooze", after Sprx saves Nova from a snake woman monster, he carries her in his arms bridal style.
  • Broken Pedestal: There are four examples: One because Deal with the Devil, two because Brainwashed and Crazy, and one Because Destiny Says So.
  • Calling Your Attacks: The members of the Hyperforce call out their gadgets. For instance, "CLAW DISTRUPTOR!"
  • Cannot Spit It Out: There are several occasions where Sprx tries to confess his feelings to Nova, but he always ends up either chickening out or being interrupted. In the end, she's the one who has to confess to him to free him from The Corruption.
  • Captain Ersatz: Captain Shuggazoom, aka playboy millionaire Clayton Carrington.
  • Cardiovascular Love:
    • Chiro gets hearts on his eyes when he looks at Jinmay in the first episode.
    • Sprx also gets hearts when he's infatuated with Aurora Six. Same with Nova when she crushes on Tikqudo.
    • Small hearts appear when Sprx and Nova hug in "Belly of the Beast".
    • Sprx's eyes turn into hearts when Nova kisses him on the cheek after her Love Confession to him in the final episode.
  • Catchphrase: The team calls out the show's title before going into battle.
  • Cat Folk: The Cathurians are cat humanoid aliens that the Hyperforce meet in "The Stranded Seven."
  • Characterization Marches On:
    • Mandarin. First appearance, he's formidable and deviously cunning. Next couple of appearances... There's been a notable drop in his intelligence level... (Though having been modified and mutated by Skeleton King might have been a result of that) Though when his clone replaces him he returns to his original characterization a little bit more.
    • The Hyperforce. Otto, Chiro, and Gibson in particular. Best touched down on in this review of the first episode.
  • Chekhov's Gun:
    • In "Flytor," the titular monster takes a genetic scan of Chiro with its eye. We know this is important because we see Skeleton King in possession of the eye with the scan at the end of the episode, but we're not exactly sure how it will come into play until later in Versus Chiro, when we learn that the eye is entrusted to Mandarin to build a factory to create Chiro clones.
    • The Pit of Doom turns out to be a prominent Chekhov's Boomerang. The first time it becomes important after its introduction is when it becomes the location of Mandarin's cloning factory. But in the Season Two finale, it's revealed that Skeleton King's real intention for building it all along was to reach the egg of the Dark One embedded inside Shuggazoom to awaken it, hatch it, and unleash it on the rest of the universe. And at the end of Season Four it becomes the place where Skeleton King is resurrected. Phew.
  • The Chosen One: Chiro is outright referred to as such, being chosen to wield the Power Primate against the Skeleton King.
  • Circus of Fear: "Circus of Ooze" is about a traveling space circus that's been turned into monsters by Skeleton King.
  • Cliffhanger: The Season 4 finale ends with the Hyperforce and their allies leaping into a Final Battle with the Skeleton King's forces.
  • Clownification: "Circus of Ooze" features a slimelike substance that turns those who are touched by it into clown slaves. Chiro gets a dosage and slowly starts turning into a clown, desperately working to undo it before he changes completely.
  • Collapsing Lair: The Citadel of Bone falls apart in the Season 1 finale, with a twist that pops up in Season 2: it puts itself back together.
  • Color-Coded Characters: Sprx is red, for being Hot-Blooded. Nova is yellow, to represent The Smurfette Principle. The mechanic Otto is green, showing that he's more down to earth, compared to the more scientific minded Gibson, who is blue. Antauri is black, as he's more mysterious than any of the rest of the team (switching, later, to silver, to represent that he's extra special compared to the rest). Chiro wears white, because he's The Leader/more important than anyone else (and, also, white light is composed of every color as Chiro has aspects of each monkey's personality), but his highlight color is orange. This is similar to Mandarin, the former leader before his Face–Heel Turn who is also orange, but also represents Chiro's hero worship of the Sun Riders, who have the same color motif.
  • Combat Breakdown: In "I, Chiro,", a significant portion of the episode consists of this. The confrontation between the Hyperforce and the full force of Skeleton King's assault on Shuggazoom starts with a fully-powered and crewed Super Robot engaging Skeleton King's entire Formless army, which quickly melds into three gargantuan beasts. After they inflict some damage to the Super Robot, including a severe strike to its head, and prove able to regenerate from its lesser attacks, Chiro vaporizes them with a Lazertron Fury that drains the Super Robot down to emergency power only... only for Skeleton King to have three last Formless pods held in reserve. An Antenna Ray destroys two of them, but the third lands on target with a violent impact that knocks the Robot down and the Monkey Team out for the count - while allowing its contents to successfully break in, forcing Chiro to detonate the Robot's Neutron Generator Core to destroy them, as he is bereft of his Power Primate powers. With the Monkeys still knocked out and recovering, Chiro "borrows" a jetpack and one of Otto's monkey hands, and proceeds to confront the Skeleton King and Mandarin with little else. Mandarin then eventually destroys Chiro's Energy Saw glove in the ensuing duel - and Chiro tries to punch him, but Mandarin proves to have a significant advantage in physical combat under the circumstances, and mockingly defeats him easily while taunting him.
  • Combining Mecha: The Super Robot itself but it's an inversion in that instead of being separate vehicles that combine into the robot, it's a super robot that occasionally divides into vehicles.
  • Corrupted Contingency:
    • "Flytor": The monkey team creates a new automatic defense system for Shugazoom City. At first it works well enough, but a sonic blast from Skeleton King's Monster of the Week causes it to malfunction and perceive the Super Robot as a threat, meaning the monkeys have to fight both the system and the monster.
    • "Hidden Fortress": The monkeys try to hide Chiro in the eponymous hidden fortress to protect him from Mandarin. Chiro refuses to hide and locks the monkeys in the fortress while he goes off to face the villain on his own. The monkeys are forced to fight their way through various security measures they designed to fend off outsiders in order to make it out of the fortress.
  • The Corruption: The energy of the Dark Ones turns people into monsters.
  • Crapsaccharine World: Despite the whimsical moments of the show, the setting of SRMTHFG can appear this way. Shuggazoom City is essentially the only city on Planet Shuggazoom with anything resembling a peaceful environment when compared to the rest of the planet that's filled with monsters, deadly environments and evil forces. Not to mention the occurrence of malevolent/insane residents of Shuggazoom attempting to destroy the city or who happen to be worshipers of the Skeleton King. Later it's said that multiple planets across the cosmos including Shuggazoom house ancient cosmic monsters that will essentially destroy anything they come across when awoken. The Hyperforce and a small regiment of allies seem to be the only forces that are attempting to fight against an overwhelming wave of evil sweeping the cosmos. The series is essentially Lovecraft Lite, and without the Hyperforce the show would basically be a Cosmic Horror Story.
    • There's also the part where Galactic Smash, a game based around destroying planets to earn individuals extra lives, seems to be totally accepted, or at least currently ongoing and unstopped, with only one player (the second best one) eliminated by the Hyper Force.
    • However, it's also shown that there are is at least one if not many successful galactic civilization(s) the heroes are either a small part of or know little about (as seen in episodes like "Girl Trouble", "Big Lug", and even "Prototype"). There are also indications other worlds may also have their own protectors, such as the Frog Team, and there are a fair amount of Heroes of Another Story shown (the Frog Team again, Slingshot/Prometheus Five and his hunt for Maezono, Olliana and the survivors of Arcadia, etc.). Shuggazoom may even be seen as small or backwater, and it may be sheer obscurity (or a lack of unity and large military forces among the cosmos) that's letting the Dark One Worm get away with its rampage.
    • It's also shown to have benevolent as well as malevolent Powers That Be, and has not yet been utterly mauled by the Dark Ones (suggesting either that most of them have not yet awakened, or have been dealt with) so it could be argued to be more of an Adventure-Friendly World, with its greatest flaw being a lack of unity across the cosmos, and a reliance on heroes to stop evil.
  • Creepy Crossdresser: Sakko, one of Skeleton King's minions, is male but wears a skirt.
  • Cute Kitten: Hilariously in the ending of the episode "Invasion of Vreen", after the team is done with the Vreen (an alien species of giant bugs) invasion, Shuggazoom gets invaded again… By an alien species resembling kittens.
  • Cute Machines: Both the monkeys and Jinmay are huggable robots.
  • Cut Short: The series was canceled after its fourth season. Right at a gigantic cliffhanger, too.
  • Damsel in Distress: Jinmay, at first, often being targeted by the villains and needing rescuing. She later Took a Level in Badass, however.
  • Deadly Sparring: In "Versus Chiro", Mandarin creates numerous faulty clones of Chiro for the purpose of eliminating the monkey team from within. The first clone that impersonates Chiro tries to kill the monkeys during a training session by dialing up the training to level 10, beyond what the monkeys can take during sparring.
  • Death Trap: The team often stumbles across these, which is eventually lampshaded.
    Sprx-77: You know what these strange beacons always turn out to be? Death traps! Always some death trap...
  • Disney Death: Nova is thrown into a wormhole, Gibson is frozen solid, Otto is eaten and if Sprx's symbolic death of unwillingly turning evil counts, that makes every member of the Monkey Team guilty of this at one point or another. OH… and don't forget ANTAURI ALMOST DYING.
  • Do-Anything Robot: The Robot Monkeys themselves have a wide range of handy gadgets built into them, from power tools to fans.
  • Doppelmerger: In "Versus Chiro", Mandarin creates numerous clones of Chiro, all of which are unstable due to lacking the Power Primate. Mandarin decides to fuse all of his remaining Chiro clones into a single monstrous blob and sets it loose on the heroes.
  • Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: Nova usually hits and slaps Sprx.
  • The Dragon: Mandarin is the Skeleton King's most prominent minion.
  • Elite Mooks: In The Sun Riders Return, a unique new variant of Formless are shown, which regenerate far more rapidly and easily from attacks, often ones which would fully defeat a standard Formless. If you look closely, they're shown to have volcanic diamonds embedded in their forms, suggesting that they're also drawing their power from these natural batteries, enabling their enhanced regeneration. For most of the episode, they're Nigh-Invulnerable, suffering only ambiguous defeats and setbacks. It takes the Nebutron 7's drill, and later its self-destruction, to meaningfully and permanently defeat them. Thankfully, with the mining colony secure and Skeleton King's supply line of volcanic diamonds cut off, they don't seem to be making any comebacks.
    • Various monsters in the Citadel of Bone also seem to play this role in Skeleton King, being noticeably harder to defeat than standard Formless, as well as Valeena's Guardian Formless in The Savage Lands two-parter.
  • Emerald Power: Power Primate energy tends to manifest this way; Chiro's fists and feet often glow with green energy when he uses his named attacks, his eyes flash green during his transformation sequence, and various non-combat appearances of Power Primate abilities also follow the glowing green theme. And then of course there's Chiro's Inner Primate, a giant green gorilla projection he uses to fight higher level enemies when the Super Robot is unavailable or ineffective.
  • The End of the World as We Know It: The Skeleton King comes close to causing the apocalypse for Shuggazoom on several occasions.
  • Evil Counterpart: Chiro's clones are this to him, Valeena to Jinmay, and Mandarin to the other Monkeys.
  • Evil Elevator: Elevator Monster is, as the name suggests, a creature that is part elevator.
  • Evil Minions: The Formless are this to the Skeleton King.
  • Evil Plan: In Seasons 1-2, most of the episodes have the Skeleton King pulling off a plan to destroy the Hyperforce, both episodic small term plans and longer terms plots.
  • Evil Versus Evil: The evil witch Valeena fights her own evil parents for the Skeleton King's skull in the Skeletal Circle Chambers.
  • Expendable Clone: The idea is played with a bit with Mandarin's. The characters don't treat the clone any differently than they would the original (They might not even be aware he is a clone), but the show itself sure does. The increasingly brutal treatment he undergoes over the course of the plot might have been played a little more sympathetically had he not been a clone.
  • Eye Beams: Among the Super Robot's abilities, it can shoot lasers from its eyes.
  • Face–Heel Turn:
    • Mandarin used to be The Leader of the Hyperforce but he turned evil before the series began.
    • The Alchemist's forced change into Skeleton King, unwittingly caused by Mandarin.
    • Master Zan after he was brainwashed.
    • Sprx after he was brainwashed by the Fire of Hate. Thankfully, he gets better.
  • Fake Defector: Otto in "Meet the Wigglenog". He pretends to be swayed by the titular Jackass Genie and fights the others, only to use the wishes granted to him to hit the Reset Button and re-imprison the Wigglenog.
  • Falling into His Arms:
    • Sprx catches a falling Nova in his arms in "Circus of Ooze."
    • Nova also falls into Chiro's arms in Snowbound after unleashing an Angst Nuke.
  • False Start: Happens to Sprx and Nova a couple of times, with Sprx trying to confess to her before something interrupts him, before Nova finally spits the words out in “Soul of Evil”.
  • Fanboy: Gyrus Krinkle is an obsessed fan of the Hyperforce. It gets taken to extremely creepy levels, as he tries to brainwash them into making him the team leader.
  • Fangirl: Valeena seems to be one to Skeleton King, and that's the reason why she tries to resurrect him.
  • Faster-Than-Light Travel: How the Super Robot travels through space.
  • Four-Fingered Hands: The Robot Monkeys and Johnny are all drawn with four fingers on each hand. Most of the other characters do have five-fingered hands, though.
  • Funny Animal: The Robot Monkeys qualify, on different scales depending on each character. Otto qualifies the most, with how goofy he is, while Antauri tends to qualify the least, due to his wise sage personality, but each monkey tends to keep a good balance of silly and serious actions.
  • Genius Loci: Planetoid Q is a sentient planet-sized entity.
  • Genre Blindness: The Hyperforce. Not only are they willing to accept their superficial victories without any suspicions about what the villain's true goal might be, they are gullible enough to believe even the most obviously suspicious characters. This is Lampshaded by a minor character in "Prototype:"
    Chiro: I know all about you! How you've managed to destroy nearly everything else on this planet! Dr. Takeuchi warned us!
    Slingshot: Oh, really? Let's see, were you talking to a human being with a face? Or a disgusting heap of brain on a plate?
  • God of Evil: Unseen, but confirmed by Antauri, a formless evil force created the Dark Ones that corrupted the Alchemist into the Big Bad threat they now have to deal with. As bad as they are, they are nothing more than pawns to this entity. It wants nothing more than the complete and total destruction of universe and all life within.
  • Greater-Scope Villain:
    • The Dark Ones, Eldritch Abominations created eons ago to destroy all reality, who corrupt Skeleton King into what he is now.
    • The "evil force" which created the Dark Ones to destroy all reality might also qualify even better especially once Skeleton King succeeds in awakening and releasing one of the Dark Ones and becoming one with it, arguably either remaining the Big Bad (but as a Dark One), making it the new Big Bad, or becoming a Big Bad Duumvirate with it.
  • Halloween Episode: Season 3 episode 3, "Season of the Skull". While not actually being about the holiday, it takes place in a Salem, Massachusetts-esque world, and has the monkeys put on masks in one scene, similar to Halloween costumes
  • Hand Puppet: In the episode "Incident on Ranger 7," Sprx makes a Nova puppet out of an old paper bag.
  • Heel–Face Turn:
    • Jinmay in the pilot is a slave of the Skeleton King and unwittingly fights the Hyperforce. After Chiro frees her, she becomes the team's closest ally.
    • The Sun Riders start as collaborators of the Skeleton King, but by their second appearance have had a Heel Realization and become heroes.
    • Also, the Robo Apes in "Ape New World", which were created to serve Scrapperton, but eventually turn on him to help the Monkeys.
  • Heroic Fatigue: In "Object of Hate", Sprx expresses a great deal of stress and weak will as the team tries to stop Valeena and Mandarin from resurrecting Skeleton King, and is starting to believe that despite their efforts, all the pain and suffering they've endured over the past two seasons has been All for Nothing.
    Sprx: We've sacrificed our lives. We've been to the darkest parts of space and back to destroy him, and for what?! The Skeleton King's still a threat!
  • Heroic Sacrifice:
    • A non-death related example is in "Shadow Over Shuggazoom," when Antauri shielded Chiro and BT from the giant eye and got himself zombiefied as a result.
    • Antauri in the Season 2 finale, allowing his body to be destroyed so that the Power Primate can be revitalized and seal the Dark One Worm.
  • Heterosexual Life-Partners: BT and Glenny were never seen apart in all of their appearances, and they serve as the comic reliefs in the show.
  • Hidden Agenda Villain: Skeleton King. He attempts a lot of short-lived Evil Plans beforehand, but we don't find out what he's really after until the end of Season Two...
  • Homage: The series as a whole is a love letter to Japanese Tokusatsu and super robot anime/manga from the 70s, like Astro Boy. There's also clear influence from Star Wars.
  • Human Aliens: Lots of them, though two of them are off-putting, to Chiro's dismay. Technically, the citizens of Shuggazoom also count.
  • Human Popsicle: The citizens of Shuggazoom are turned into these in "Snowbound", after they're frozen by the Monster of the Week.
  • Humongous Mecha: The Hyperforce not only battles with one; they live in the Super Robot.
  • If My Calculations Are Correct: Gibson tends to say this a lot, Insufferable Genius that he is.
  • "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Happens between the Brainwashed and Crazy Sprx and the rest of the Hyperforce in "Soul of Evil". Due to being corrupted by the Fire of Hate, Sprx joins Valeena and Mandarin in the quest to resurrect the Skeleton King, and fights his own teammates when they get in the way. Some of his friends, mainly Nova, try to make him come to his senses, but their words fall on deaf ears. It takes Nova's Anguished Declaration of Love to finally snap him out of it.
  • Indy Ploy: The episode "World of Giants" has one big one orchestrated by Sprx. The Super Robot is out of fuel and the Hyperforce gets stuck in a planet that looks like the Middle Ages, but the inhabitants are giants. Sprx then decides to play along with the giants by voicing over the Super Robot and pretending to be a knight so he can woo over the local kingdom's princess and look for a source of energy for the Super Robot.
  • Infinite Supplies: Downplayed. The team makes routine trips to Shuggazoom's moon in order to harvest rocks to convert into fuel for the Super Robot. They were also shown running low on fuel in one instance and had to stop to refuel at an intergalactic truck stop. Other than that, though, the trope is played straight.
  • Insignificant Little Blue Planet: Earth is only seen once, in "Belly of the Beast", and even then the Hyperforce don't land on the planet. (Strangely, when Japan is seen, there's what seems to be an advertisement for this very show.)
  • I Was Quite a Looker: Captain Shuggazoom was quite handsome in his days as a superhero.
  • Kamehame Hadoken: Chiro's attack "Monkey Fu" is a Hand Blast fired Kamehameha style.
  • Kick the Dog: Mandarin does this to Nova before his Face–Heel Turn, being an overall jerk of a team leader who practically tortured her in training sessions.
  • Kid Hero: Chiro is a teenage leader of a Sentai team.
  • Killer Space Monkey: The Super Robot Monkeys. Although they're technically the good guys (for the most part,) they're pretty relentless when it comes to doing away with their enemies.
  • Last-Minute Hookup: In the final episode, Nova finally confesses her love to Sprx and kisses him on the cheek, much to his joy. Although, their exact relationship status isn't explicitly stated due to the Skeleton King coming back to life before Sprx can properly answer Nova's confession.
  • Lightning Bruiser: The demonic ooze beast Valeena summons to fight the Hyper Force in her debut episode. It's fairly humongous, tanks all the Hyperforce's attacks, is explicitly noted as being "faster than it looks", smashes them around and knocks most of them out in return, and even briefly goes toe to toe with Chiro's Inner Primate.
  • Like Cannot Cut Like: In the duel between Chiro and Mandarin in I, Chiro, Chiro's energy saw is able to block and deflect Mandarin's energy sword, while both sword and shield prove an effective defense against it. To claim victory, however, Mandarin is forced to target the gauntlet itself, which is not made of energy.
  • Loony Fan: Gyrus Krinkle is such a fan of the Monkey Team that he eventually tries to brainwash them into making him part of the team.
  • Luke, I Am Your Father: The Skeleton King was "The Alchemist", the creator and "father" of the Monkey Team.
  • Macross Missile Massacre: The Super Robot can shoot these from three different bodyparts — arms, fingers, and feet.
  • Mad Love: Hinted at very strongly for the Skeleton King/Valeena ship. Most obviously on Valeena's side, and it might explain why Skeleton King killed her so abruptly. He was either saw her useless for his plans or was disgusted by her weakness or both.
  • Meaningful Echo: "No monkey team member is ever alone."
  • Meaningful Name:
    • Chiro translates to "hero" in Japanese, Sprx uses electrical attacks, Otto is a mechanic and Nova is an explosion caused by a dying star... Guess what happens when Nova unleashes her Unstoppable Rage?
    • Gibson's first name might be a reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey.
  • Milkman Conspiracy: An evil cult that worships Skeleton King turns out to be led by none other than the elderly owners of the local arcade.
  • Mind-Control Eyes: In "Circus of Ooze", Sprx and Nova get Blank White Eyes when they're hypnotised by the Snake Charmer's act.
  • Mind Rape:
    • "Incident On Ranger 7". Gryus Krinkle brings them into his mind with Applied Phlebotinum, and it's their only way to fight back, making it an example of Hoist by His Own Petard.
    • Valeena does this to Mandarin to make him tell her where Skeleton King's skull is hidden. This is one of the more terrifying examples because we get to see what she's mind raping him with.
  • The Mole: Jinmay, at first, having been programmed to get close to the Hyperforce and help the Skelton King destroy them from within. Once being freed from his control, she has a Heel–Face Turn.
  • Moment Killer: This happens to Sprx and Nova a few times:
    • In "A Ghost in the Machinder", Sprx tries to confess to Nova when he thinks they're going to die. At the crucial moment, the Super Robot comes to their rescue and Sprx aborts the confession attempt to rescue a captive Antauri.
    • Even worse in "Soul of Evil". After a Brainwashed and Crazy Sprx is purified by Nova's Power of Love and the team's Power Primate, Nova is overjoyed by Sprx's return and kisses him on the cheek, leaving him lovestruck. Then, their moment is ruined with a massive Mood Whiplash when Valeena takes back the Skeleton King's skull and initiates her master's resurrection.
  • Mooks: The Formless Minions. There are many different kind of Formless, and some classify as Giant Mooks.
  • Monster Clown: The ones in Circus of Ooze look monstrous, and are the most dangerous part of the circus.
  • Monster of the Week: At first, before the overbearing plot of the series begins around the end of Season 2/start of Season 3. And even then, there's still episodic foes that don't contribute to the Myth Arc.
  • Mouthflaps: Used every time a character talks.
  • My Significance Sense Is Tingling: Everyone in the Monkey Team senses danger at some point or another, thanks to the Power Primate.
  • Never Say "Die": Applied a lot, this is a Disney show after all. For example:
    Nova: "They tried to destroy us, remember?"
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
    • By allowing the Citadel of Bone to be destroyed in an asteroid belt, the Hyperforce inadvertently allows Skeleton King to finally separate himself from it, thus gaining the ability to travel and spread his evil around the cosmos more freely.
    • Sprx accidentally corrupts himself by touching the Fire of Hate, despite Gibson already implying the danger of its power. Having been turned evil, Sprx helps in the resurrection of the Skeleton King.
  • Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Most of the main heroes are cybernetic monkeys in a Sentai team.
  • No Loves Intersect: Jinmay is established as Chiro's love interest in the first episode, and he never shows romantic interest in anyone but her and vice versa. Sprx and Nova have frequent Ship Tease exclusively with each other, finally becoming an Official Couple at the end. No other character ever gets a love interest.
  • No One Could Survive That!: Otto says this in one episode, and that's the least of it.
  • Not Quite Dead: Skeleton King, Mandarin, and quite a few others.
  • Oculothorax: Several of one-eyed abominations are fought throughout the show.
  • Odd Couple: Quite a lot of the Monkeys' personalities tend to clash. The most notable are the instinct-driven Sprx and the logic-focused Gibson, and the goofy Otto and the more serious Gibson.
  • Official Couple:
  • One, Two, Three, Four, Go!: The "Go" in the show's title is meant to be a reference to "go" meaning "five" in Japanese, since the Monkey Team has five monkeys.
  • Opening Shout-Out: Krinkle redoes the show’s intro with him taking the place of Chiro in his debut.
  • Operation: [Blank]: Operation Burn The Worm.
  • Opposite-Sex Clone: Two female Chiro clones are created in Versus Chiro: Chira and Chiru.
  • Parental Abandonment: Chiro. His family or guardians before he joined the Hyperforce are never mentioned.
  • People Puppets: Jinmay gets this in the first episode after Chiro successfully frees her from Sakko's control.
  • Planetary Parasite: The Dark One Worm, an Eldritch Abomination hibernating in the center of Shuggazoom. It's implied there are other members of it's species on other planets.
  • The Power of Friendship: Snowbound; When Nova's rage-induced outburst with her fire powers threatens to kill everyone in Shuggazoom city in it's Chiro calling out for her that snaps Nova out of it.
  • The Power of Love: A Love Confession from Nova to Sprx manages to free him from the Fire of Hate's corruption and bring him back from the dark side.
  • Psychic Powers: Antauri, Chiro, and Mandarin use telekinesis and such.
  • Quirky Miniboss Squad: The Sun Riders are this to the Skeleton King, at least at first.
  • Real-World Episode: The Season 3 finale has the Hyperforce saving the Earth from the Skeleton King Worm.
  • Recap Episode: "The Skeleton King Threat" is all about the Hyperforce recapping the series up to that point, in the form of filling in the citizens of Shuggazoom city on the nature of the constant attacks.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: SPRX-77 and Gibson, who are respectively impulsive and rationality-driven. For bonus points, they're this color-wise as well.
  • Relationship Upgrade: Sprx and Nova, when they hook up in the final episode.
  • Resurrect the Villain: Part of the main plot of Season 4 is Valeena and Mandarin joining forces to go on a quest to resurrect the Skeleton King. Unfortunately, they succeed.
  • Ridiculously Cute Critter: Thingy, a small ball of bouncy fluff with a face and an oversized tongue. Prone to giving licks, chasing things, bouncing around, being fooled by holograms, and generally being adorable. Its slobber is also the cure to a Skeleton King nanovirus.
  • Rings of Activation:
    • Chiro's Transformation Sequence involves a green energy materializing around him as he changes into his superhero uniform.
    • In the first episode, both of Antauri's are surrounded by green rings of light before he forms his Ghost Claws. This effect is never used again afterwards.
  • Robotic Reveal: Jinmay in the first episode. Not even Jinmay herself knew she was a robot before.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: The Dark One Worm, whose egg was sealed inside a planet. It's implied that there are similar eggs in other planets...
  • Sealed with a Kiss: In the Season 4 finale, after Sprx is freed from the Fire of Hate's control thanks to Nova's Love Confession, an overjoyed Nova kisses Sprx on the cheek.
  • Selective Magnetism: All of Sprx's attacks are guilty of this, only effecting what they need to for the sake of the plot.
  • Self-Made Man: How Scrapperton describes himself. In this case, "remade" might be the more appropriate term.
  • Sentai: There's a multi-colored main cast, an alien trying to destroy the planet, and giant robots fighting giant monsters.
  • Sentient Cosmic Force: The Power Primate serves as this to the Hyperforce. It's mysterious and not well understood, but it's gotten the team out of lethal situations more than once so it's benevolent at the very least
  • She's a Man in Japan: Sakko was dubbed in some countries as female.
  • Shout-Out:
    • If you look closely, i.e., Chiro's uniform is exactly the same one that Joe/009 wore in the first Cyborg 009 series, the black and white one.
    • The season one finale is taken straight from Return of The Jedi.
      • At one point in the same episode, after Skeleton King realizes Chiro put the Super Robot on autopilot as a distraction, and has already infiltrated his ship, he murmurs "Clever boy…"
    • The reborn Skeleton King bears a striking resemblance to Darth Vader.
    • The sound effects inside the Super Robot are straight from Star Trek.
    • The Black castle rising up, in the last episode, looks remarkably similar to the ending of Viewtiful Joe 2.
    • One of Chiro's powers is to transform into a Giant Green Rage Monster.
    • The episode "Season of the Skull" is a blatant parody of The Wicker Man (1973).
    • The episode "Shadow Over Shuggazoom" features an eye monster which starts a Zombie Apocalypse. The sounds it makes are the same sounds of the Imp in the classic Doom games. In a few instances, it makes generic monster sounds from Hanna-Barbera shows.
  • Smooch of Victory: In "Ghosts of Shuggazoom", Jinmay gives Chiro a Big Damn Kiss after he seals Valeena inside a pendant, saving the humans of Shuggazoom City that were turned into wraiths by Valeena.
  • The Smurfette Principle: The show began with Nova as the sole female in the Hyperforce, adding Jinmay later. This may have been intentional as the show was a partial Homage to super robot anime's Five-Man Band style, which typically only have one female member.
  • So Last Season: Black monkey Antauri is reborn as a much more powerful silver monkey during the start of season 3. Face it, he looks so much better in silver.
  • Space Is Noisy: The team is able to communicate with various things in space, such as Planetoid Q, who probably shouldn't be able to respond anyway.
  • Speaks Fluent Animal: Chiro was the only one to understand the monkeys at first.
  • Spell Book: Gibson gets one in Season of the Skull, as part of the overall Halloween theme of the episode.
  • Spider Limbs: Antauri gets retractable ones as the Silver Monkey, though he doesn't use them often.
  • Spider-Sense: It's not an episode of Monkey Team unless Antauri starts at least one of his lines with, "I sense..."
  • Spinning Piledriver: Korgon the Great uses this on Chiro in "Monster Battle Club Now".
  • Spoiler Opening: Notably averted with Antauri, who is shown as the black monkey in every opening including those of the episodes during which he is revived as the silver monkey, but the opening of the very next episode correctly shows him as the silver monkey - while both show the same enemies during the villain segment, showing that the opening was specifically edited for those two specific episodes and them alone.
  • Stalker Shrine: While exploring the Citadel of Bone, Gibson and Chiro come across a room filled with Chiro's childhood possessions, including his grade school uniform. The following exchange takes place in response:
    Gibson: Well, that's extremely disturbing.
    Chiro: Tell me about it.
  • Start of Darkness: The Alchemist was turned into the Skeleton King by the Dark Ones' corruption.
  • Status Quo Is God: In seasons 1 and 2, nothing changes despite the battles but after I, Chiro? there is a big change. Now that Antauri is the silver monkey, we'll never forget it.
  • Stock Footage: The activation of the Super Robot is the same every time.
  • Superhero: Chiro and Captain Shuggazoom both fit the traditional application of this.
  • Superhero Origin: Explained in the opening sequence; Chiro came across the Super Robot while wandering Shuggazoom’s outskirts one day, went inside out of curiosity, pulled a lever that gave him the Power Primate abilities and awakened the Robot Monkeys and soon became the Hyperforce’s leader.
  • Supernatural Martial Arts: Chiro's power primate abilities qualifies as this, with a lot of green energy involved.
  • Super-Scream: The Monkey Mind Scream attack used by Chiro, Antauri, and Mandarin, which is a sonic blast emitted from the mouth.
  • Supervillain Lair: The Citadel of Bone is the Home Base of the Skeleton King.
  • Surveillance as the Plot Demands: Skeleton King tends to have this, often via his TV Monster, staff, or other Magitek projection. It's perhaps most noticeable in Flytor, although this episode also shows some of its limits - Skeleton King can't just remotely get a detailed scan of Chiro, he has to send a specifically equipped creature in to do so.
  • Swiss-Army Tears: Nova's tears, along with her Anguished Declaration of Love, end up bringing Sprx out of the Fire of Hate's control.
  • Take Over the World: Originally appears to be Skeleton King's plan until we learn what he's really after.
  • Tame His Anger: Snowbound is largely about Nova's temper issues.
  • The Team: The Hyperforce is Shuggazoom City's reponse team to threats like the Skeleton King. It has Chiro as The Leader and the robot monkies as his diversely talented subordinates.
  • Team Shot: There's a shot of the Hyperforce at the end of the opening theme, as well as various end-of-episode stills.
  • Temple of Doom: The temple in The Savage Lands, which is filled with various traps, plays host to a "miniboss" fight against Valeena's aforementioned Lightning Bruiser creature, and ultimately powers Valeena up enough to allow her to use a ritual to summon a freaking Dark One back from outer space while handily trouncing the Hyperforce. Her defeat requires the destruction of its centrepiece skull via Chiro's Monkey Mindscream to depower her.
  • Terms of Endangerment: Mandarin frequently refers to Chiro as "[his] Hairless Monkey" as a means of mocking him.
  • Theme Tune Roll Call: The theme song has the Hyperforce's members saying their names in this order: Antauri, Sprx, Gibson, Nova, Otto, and Chiro.
  • This Is Reality: "The Sun Riders" has this exchange:
    Chiro: That's it! I give up!
    Sprx-77: If this was some TV show, we could give up, but this is the real world, kid!
  • Tomboy and Girly Girl: The Cute Bruiser Nova is the tomboy and the Rose-Haired Sweetie Jinmay is the girly girl.
  • Took a Level in Badass: Jinmay takes a more active role in the action in Season 4, starting with "Ghosts of Shuggazoom".
  • To the Batpole!: The Super Robot has suction tubes for the team to report to their designated vehicles.
  • Training from Hell: In "Monster Battle Club Now!", Master Offay puts Chiro through a painfully harsh martial arts training.
  • Training the Peaceful Villagers: "The Stranded Seven" has the Hyperforce teaching a tribe of humanoid cats how to fight evil giant praying mantises.
  • Transformation Sequence: Chiro had one, transforming into his Hyperforce uniform, but it didn't last too long.
  • Troperiffic: The Robot is deliberately as generic as possible (yet still loaded up with hidden, cliché weapons in every inch of its body,), its ability to transform into smaller vehicles is not only physically impossible, it's usually only used to remind us that it's there, Chiro's named attacks are some of the most generic Supernatural Martial Arts moves (Elemental Punch, Elemental Kick, Kamehame Hadoken), and the monkey team are like any other generic Color-Coded Characters sentai team as monkeys.
  • True Companions: The Hyperforce are an extremely tight-knit group.
  • Tsundere: Nova towards Sprx. Teasing and violent towards him she can be at times, she still genuinely cares about him. She even ends up being the one to confess to him in the end.
  • Undercover as Lovers: In "Pit of Doom", Sprx and Nova are forced to go undercover as a married couple in order to trick the Elevator Monster into taking them to the Pit of Doom on the outskirts of Shuggazoom.
    Sprx-77: Well sweetheart, looks like your dream has finally come true.
    Nova: Your dream... my nightmare!
  • Unstoppable Rage: Nova tends to enter one if pushed too far. It's saved her life on more than one occasion.
  • Unusual Euphemism:
    Sprx-77: Monkeydoodle!
    Chiro: Holy Shuggazoom!
    Nova: I'm gonna beat the scrap outta you!
  • Unusual Weapon Mounting: The Super Robot has every subtrope except Leg Cannon and it's kind of got that one too - it can launch a Macross Missile Massacre from its feet.
  • Use Their Own Weapon Against Them: In "I, Chiro", Chiro kicks Mandarin's sword gauntlet off the latter's arm. Chiro then proceeds to use the sword to slice off Mandarin's arm, defeating him.
  • Vague Age: It's unknown how old the Robot Monkeys exactly are. Considering Captain Shuggazoom was a young man when they were normal monkeys and the now robotic monkeys find him as an old man, they must be very old.
  • Verbal Tic: Scrapperton's "Tick-tock".
  • The Virus: In season 4, the Wraiths, who are able to mark humans with dark magic which will eventually transform the victim into another Wraith. Even Chiro succumbs, although his eyes always mark him as unique and incompletely subdued (reappearing briefly while he's still human, unlike the other victims' always empty eye sockets, then glowing green as the robot reactivates when Jinmay takes his place in Torso Tank One), and eventually his Inner Primate coupled with the Power of Love allow him to break out of his Wraith form.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: Sprx and Gibson may fight and squabble quite a bit, but when it’s tough, they’ve got each other's backs.
  • Weaker in the Real World: In "In The Grip of Evil", Skeleton King is so powerful in the shared nightmare that he effortlessly defeats the entire Hyperforce. While the monkeys manage to wake up and escape the dream, Chiro breaks free and attacks Skeleton King before waking up, dragging Skeleton King back to the waking world with him. As the daylight sun rises, it causes Skeleton King to burn. As Chiro notes, he's not as powerful outside the dream.
  • Weapon Specialization
  • We Used to Be Friends: While Mandarin still refers to the Monkey Team as his brothers, he says in "Soul of Evil" that Otto was his closest ally.
  • Wham Episode: Several of them.
    • Episode 6 "Secret of the Sixth Monkey"- The introduction of Mandarin, the original leader of the Monkey Team long before Chiro found the Super Robot. By the end of the episode, he’s The Dragon to Skeleton King.
    • Episode 14 "Skeleton King"- Show us the first true battle against the Skeleton King and his forces. Serves to help hint at whats to come.
    • Episode 17 "In The Grip of Evil"- What starts as a nightmare turns into an exploration of memories with some bombshells: It's revealed the Skeleton King was once a good and noble man called the Alchemist. Combining magic and science, he created the Monkey Team to stop him from himself.
    • Episode 25-26 "Antauri's Masters" and "I, Chiro." Especially "I, Chiro." We see Skeleton King corrupt the Power Primate and enabling it from helping the heroes while the 'safest place in the galaxy' falls. Furthermore, in "I, Chiro" we see the Skeleton King's true goal: To resurrect a Dark One, calling back to the Pit of Doom. After an intense battle, the Skeleton King is merged with the worm, Antauri sacrifices himself to seal the egg, possibly unlocking the sentience of the Super Robot and restoring Chiro's Inner Primate, turning him into a monkey in the process, resulting in a Bittersweet / Downer Ending.
    • Episode 28 "The Savage Lands part 2"- The return of Antauri, the revealed fate of the Skeleton King and Dark One Worm and the Monkey Team's descent into space to end the two once and for all. Also, the reveal of Valeena.
    • Episode 49 "Secret Society"- The reveal of two background characters as heads of a Skeleton King-worshipping society as well as being Valeena's parents. Also, the Skeleton King's skull reveal into a Crystal Skull, commencing the start of Mandarin and Valeena's attempt at reviving him.
  • "What Do They Fear?" Episode: Night of Fear is one for the Hyperforce:
    • Sprx fears going blind and no longer being able to be a pilot.
    • Gibson fears losing his intelligence.
    • Antauri fears losing control of his body.
    • Nova fears being too weak and afraid to do anything.
    • Chiro fears being a helpless kid again.
    • Otto fears… Clams with feet.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: A lot of strands were left open by the cliffhanger.
    • Why had Skeleton King collected Chiro's childhood items?
    • The original Mandarin, what happened to him?
    • Captain Shuggazoom's status.
  • Whole-Plot Reference: One episode is based on Mazinger Z spinoff Mazinger USA Version.
    • The episode "Season of the Skull" is based on the film The Wicker Man (the original, not the remake), right down to The Reveal that the missing child(ren) were in on the whole conspiracy. However, the episode ends on a happy note, in contrast to the film it was inspired by.
  • Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?:
    • Chiro's fear of water and clowns
    • Gibson's disdain towards bugs.
  • Wig, Dress, Accent: In "Elevator of Doom", the monkeys attempt this to get into the elevator, with Nova and Sprx dressed as a couple, Antauri and Otto respectively hiding inside their coats to simulate height, and Gibson playing the part of their baby in a stroller.
  • Word Salad Title: Surprisingly, the title is exactly what the show is about.
  • World of Badass: Here you can find a Sentai team made of a teenage Henshin Hero, his Killer Space Monkey teammates, space warriors, and advanced robots equipped with many sort of weapons.
  • Xanatos Gambit: Being a Hidden Agenda Villain, many Hyperforce's victories against Skeleton King are only superficial. For example, the "Pit of Doom" episode has the Hyperforce defeating the Elevator Monster and freeing the citizens that were enslaved, but Skeleton King still managed to make said citizens build the Pit of Doom for him, which he later uses to unseal the Dark One Worm.
  • You Have Failed Me: Skeleton King to the original Mandarin, having him being dragged away by his formless minions before replacing him with Clone Mandarin.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Valeena gets disintegrated by the Skeleton King the moment she’s finished reviving him.
  • Your Head Asplode: The Chiro clones tend to have this happen to them, much to Mandarin’s annoyance.
  • Zombie Apocalypse: Happens a few times. "Shadow Over Shuggazoom" is the most notable example, with the ooze-infected citizens roaming around town and infecting whoever they can get their hands on, including the Monkeys.

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