Robotboy

I wish they can remade this show , now it will be a trully hit

I remembered watching Robotboy on Cartoon Network and it was pretty good and the stories are good and so is the writing. I highly recommend Robotboy and I give it an 8.4/10

Now, I like sci-fi cartoons. However, when "Robotboy" appeared in Canada in late 2006, I watched the premiere and was inevitably appalled. The characters are generic and stereotypical (Do they REALLY need to make an African-American man wear tiger-stripe print clothing and speak in a Jamacian accent? WHY are all the Asian characters vibrant yellow and squinting? Does the mother HAVE to have big thighs and chest and constantly complain?) to the point where things become unrealistic, predictable, gross and sometimes disturbing. There are heavy similarities to, even stabs, at Astro Boy. Allow me to explain (dub names for the young): Robotboy/Astro, Kamikaze/Tenma, Constantine/Shadow, Gus/Abercrombie, Tommy/Alejo, Lola/Zoran+Kennedy, Moshimo/O'Shay, and it so on. Brief resemblances to "My Life As A Teenage Robot", "Star Wars", "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", "Kamen Riders", "Sailor Moon" and co. are afoot. Not to mention the abundant racial/gender stereotyping. Don't even get me started on the innuendos. I'll just say they're hidden and quite dirty. But seriously. Don't even try watching this. Especially if you like Astro Boy.

This show has a lot going for it. It has excellent animation for a mid-2000s Cartoon Network show and its fighting choreography is on par with The Powerpuff Girls and Samurai Jack. It also has hilarious physical humour, with the sufferings of characters like Gus and Dr. Kamikaze drawing plenty of laughs. I also like the premise: the series is basically an homage to/parody of Tezuka's legendary anime franchise Astro Boy. And, of course, Robotboy himself is an adorable protagonist, providing an enjoyable mix of childish naivety and violent brutality.

However, there are some issues that hold the series back. Firstly, although its physical humour is great, the show uses too many fart jokes. I personally have never found fart jokes to be funny, and reliance on that sort of humour is often a sign of comedic block. In addition, the character of Gus can get EXTREMELY obnoxious when he isn't getting beat up (fortunately, he gets beat up a lot).

Secondly, the show isn't exactly "original". As I said, the series is clearly parodying Astro Boy, something that other shows had already done, while its art style is so reminiscent of The Powerpuff Girls that I would have thought that Craig McCracken or Genndy Tartakovsky were involved except that the writing isn't up to their standards (one of the show's ads even drew attention to the similarity by having Robotboy cosplay as Bubbles). Some people also accuse it of plagiarising My Life as a Teenage Robot, but honestly the two shows don't have much in common aside from both being Astro Boy parodies.

Lastly, I feel that the show overused Robotboy's "super transformation". Having a more powerful form for use against tough opponents is cool and all, but it starts to lose its impact when it is used in nearly every single episode.

So, do I recommend it? Well, if you like Cartoon Network's action-comedy shows like The Powerpuff Girls, Samurai Jack, Kids Next Door, etc., or if you like Nickelodeon's My Life as a Teenage Robot, then you'll probably like Robotboy. However, if you're expecting this show to match the writing quality of Craig McCracken and Genndy Tartakovsky then you're going to be disappointed. And if you expect this series to tackle the premise of a robotic child with the same maturity and depth as Tezuka Osamu, then Robotboy will definitely let you down.

I give it a 7/10. It's good, but it's no masterpiece. The fact that the whole series is available for free on YouTube definitely makes it worth checking out, however.

When I first watched Robotboy, I found it fresh and interesting, but then I noticed, that with each episode this show is trying to teach you how to behave yourself, what is good/bad. Episodes became predictable. And main characters are not interesting. Again we see a hyper-smart boy, beaten by his older brother, parents who don't understand their kid, and his friends: girl and fat boy. Also this show has no logic. A super-modern robot who works on two AA-size batteries, and can use a lot of weapons. But the biggest problem is the difference between activated and super-activated modes. We see two different robots, and it declines main idea of the show: "Robot must learn how to behave himself in human society"