YMMV / Sym-Bionic Titan

• Adorkable: Jason and Octus as Newton.
• Aluminum Christmas Trees: Fu-fu from "The Phantom Ninja" is real.
• Awesome Music:
  • The use of A Flock of Seagulls's "Space Age Love Song" as Soundtrack Dissonance in the final battle scene/Kimmy dancing on her way home.
  • SHAKE IT BAKE IT BOOTY QUAKE IT, ROLL IT AROUND!
  • The music that plays when Ilana is reminiscing about Galaluna in episode 2. The music that plays when Lance wins the war games in episode 8. In general this show is full of fantastic music.
  • For Metalheads, it's the Alien Death Hammer song.
  • The sad and touching guitar music playing in "Tashy 497".
  • Both songs in "Disenfranchised".
  • All of the songs in "The Ballad of Scary Mary". There were at least five, probably all original to the series, and they were all fantastic.
• Best Known for the Fanservice: Thanks to The Daily What and Cartoon Brew, there are many people who think that Sym-Bionic Titan consists entirely of "Booty Quake" from episode 10.
• Better on DVD: The series pretty clearly works better as a longer narrative, considering that several episodes can easily be watched seamlessly.
• Broken Base: There is some debate on whether or not the show spent too much time with High School drama and SOL style episodes with a mandatory monster fight at the end. Especially since Titan ended with sooo many unresolved plot points that probably could've gotten more time.
• Cargo Ship: Steel/H.M.E.R.
• Complete Monster:
  • General Modula is a cold, cruel man responsible for all the misery within the series. A treacherous man who once served proudly under the Galalunan Kingdom before being mistakenly thought dead by the King, Modula lets his cruelty consume him, allying with the monstrous Mutraddi and launching an invasion on Galaluna that leads to countless innocent people killed and the rest enslaved, with Modula murdering many of the rebels himself. Intent on utterly breaking the will of the Galalunan people by killing Princess Ilana, Modula sends the Mutraddi to wreak swaths of havoc and death on Earth to kill her, even using a living bomb called Tashy 497 to potentially decimate the entire planet to get at her—vaporizing his own minion once he fails to do his job and threatening his successor with the same fate should he fail him. A man who has long abandoned any honorable traits he may have had, Modula is a walking nightmare worse than even the literal monsters he rules over.
  • "Escape from Galaluna": The unnamed Galalunan commander is a smug, ambitious traitor who uses his front as an obstructive, obnoxious military head to ensure the death of captive hostages while pinning their deaths on Lance and leaving him to hang. In truth having allied with Modula, the traitor sells out his entire planet to the Mutraddi forces to see the royal family killed and its populace decimated and enslaved, looking over the carnage and gloating that the only reason he sold his planet out was to lead Galaluna into an age of "conquest and strength"—and the prospect of a vast reward from Modula.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Kristin the goth girl. While she doesn't show up that much in the show, having roughly two scenes to her name and not even being named outside the credits, she left a very favorable impression thanks to her cute design, natural chemistry with Lance while avoiding Die for Our Ship from the Lance x Ilana fans, and hints of being a genuine Action Girl able to spar on good footing with Lance. Had the show not been cancelled, many hoped that she would have became a more regular character and possibly a Battle Couple with Lance.
• Fanon:
  • It's commonly speculated that Modula's sudden change from war hero to monster is because what we see isn't the real Modula. The hat he wears is speculated to be a creature of some kind that is controlling his body or corrupting him. The fact that it has an eye that seems to follow wherever Modula supposedly looks, while his real eyes are never shown, suggests there may be some truth it at least isn't a normal hat.
  • Good luck finding anyone in the fandom who doesn't believe that Lance's father is the mysterious leader of G3. The general theory is that Edward created a prototype of the Gate that didn't kill him, but teleported him to Earth. Unable to return home, he used his knowledge of Galalunian technology and martial arts to create G3. This would explain why G3 never attempts to apprehend the trio whose presence summons alien threats to Earth; aside from the one time where Solomon deliberately disobeyed his orders. The true clincher was his ability to reactivate Octus after he experienced a total power failure, something only someone with familiarity with Octus would be able to accomplish. The fact that both characters are voiced by Richard Mc Gonagle also adds to this.
• Fan Myopia: It might be justified because of the series' short life span, but fans will make this show out to be CN's only saving grace to outside observers, disregarding the other good shows on its line-up and promising to boycott any CN show that appears until the show gets a second season. Which will work, right? The kicker? They tend to also forget Genndy Tartakovsky left CN to work for Sony shortly after the series ended. The protest was doomed almost from the beginning. The return of the series is now dependent on the amount of funding and support given to Tartakovsky for his future projects, and whether or not an established production crew has interest in making more episodes. Now, an adaptation to a less expensive medium is not entirely out of the question.
• Faux Symbolism: The end of episode 9, "Tashy 497".
• He Really Can Act: While still mostly using his trademark flat, nasal delivery for Octus, Brian Posehn gets a few great opportunities to use it for subtle emotion, such as his first scene in "Shaman of Fear" and his day in the limelight "I Am Octus."
• He's Just Hiding: Many Galalunians thought this about Edward, as did Lance at first. A number of fans think the same, especially given that he shares a voice actor with G3's mysterious benefactor.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Episode 47 of Samurai Jack guest-starred Tara Strong as, yes, an alien princess.
  • Octus enjoys a show intented for young children with one of the stars being voiced by Tara Strong.
  • The Problem Solverz took over Sym-Bionic Titan's timeslot after the latter got cancelled. The Problem Solverz was a show previously rejected by [adult swim]. Now that both shows are cancelled, [adult swim] actually chose the latter to air on the Toonami block.
  • Fans of Voltron: Legendary Defender might be amused by the fact that the character who looks and acts a lot like Keith actually shares a name with Lance.
• Inferred Holocaust: Besides the huge amounts of property damage, the human casualties during the battles between the Titan and Mutraddi monsters in populated areas is downplayed, even though entire city blocks are casually wiped out every few seconds.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Lance is this to many fans.
  • Kimmy is this as well after Episode 10.
  • General Modula may have started out as this (if his Start of Darkness is true) but by the time the series begins, he's thrown out any Woobie-traits and long ago crossed the Moral Event Horizon.
• Moe:
  • Young Lance.
  • Tashy seems an intentional parody of the Japanese obsession with cute critters.
  • Princess Ilana definitely fits this.
• Memetic Badass: THE HAMMER!! YEAH!!!
• Moral Event Horizon: Any time Modula appears, he cements himself further and further, starting in episode 2, where he casually murders a resistance fighter by breaking his neck with a smirk.
• Retroactive Recognition: Apparently, Lance roomed with Steven Universe during his time at military academy. And from the same show, Brian Posehn (Octus) would also go on to voice Sour Cream.
• Signature Scene: Kimmy's booty shake dance from episode 10 is the only reason many people are even aware of this show.
• Stoic Woobie: If Lance's backstory is anything to go by.
• Strawman Has a Point:
  • During the televised Titan debate in episode 3, Steel counters the commentators saying the Titan saved them from the fire monster by pointing out that it's probably the Titan's fault the monster showed up in the first place. This is technically true, although in his case there's no way he could have known it.
  • During the first episode, Lance's argument for not fighting the Fire Elemental Monster makes a large amount of sense.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The HMER is introduced by delivering a Curb-Stomp Battle to a Mutraddi and is generally treated as an extremely powerful mecha...then gets unceremoniously torn to shreds in the final episode by a Monster of the Week that was introduced in that episode.
  • That makes it a banner victim of The Worf Effect, though it only lost an arm. It could be brought back.
• Unintentional Uncanny Valley:
  • Barb's face is pretty creepy, and the constant smile isn't helping. Actually, any human's face, if you look too closely at it... But this is typical of Tartakovsky's art style.
  • Octus will occasionally do things that fall into this —little things here and there that sometimes make him seem like an old man in a teenager's body. More egregiously, the first time he showed off his Super-Speed, it was to run home as Newton to save Ilana and Lance. Through a busy city, and stopping for all the crosswalk signals.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: This show gets away with a fair amount of violence and an amazing amount of blatant fanservice, most memorably Kimmy's "booty quake" dance in Episode 10 with plenty of ass-shaking and bouncing, her dress strap falling off, and briefly pole dancing on a lamp.

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