Depart

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« Transformers: Armada ep 41 »
"You ever seen the Empire Strikes Back?" "No, I don't watch crap."
"Depart" 出立 (たびだち) (Tabidachi) "Departure"
Production code	TF: A-41
Production company	TV Tokyo, NAS
Airdate	September 5, 2003 (English, Canada) October 10, 2003 (Japanese) October 24, 2003 (English, United States)
Writer	Isao Shizuya
Director	Osamu Kamijō, Mitsuru Kawasaki (asst. dir.)
Animation studio	Actas Inc.
Continuity	Unicron Trilogy

The Autobots prepare to return to Cybertron, joined—having acquiesced to the demands of Perceptor and the other Mini-Cons—by the kids.

Synopsis

Hot Shot addresses the Mini-Cons collected by the Autobots so far, announcing that they're soon going to leave for Cybertron. The kids observe how unsure the Autobot is of himself, as he invites the Mini-Cons to decide whether they want to come or not. Carlos wants to go to Cybertron. Rad follows High Wire, who unexpectedly tells him in English to stay on Earth. After Rad reacts in surprise to this, High Wire beeps and wanders off, leaving the boy to wonder if he imagined it after all.

Rad has breakfast with his parents and asks his father if he ever wanted to go into space. Rad's mother seems more concerned with them finishing their breakfast. The Autobots and Mini-Cons are preparing the spaceship for liftoff at the base. Billy and Fred arrive with luggage, only to be disappointed when Red Alert informs them they won't be able to come along. The other three kids watch, glumly reflecting that they most likely won't be able to come along either.

Megatron expresses dissatisfaction that they haven't made much progress towards Cybertron, but Thrust says they have to escape Earth's gravitational pull before they go to warp.

That night, Rad wakes his parents to explain the Autobots and Decepticons and gets told to go back to bed. He dreams of the Autobot ship under attack and High Wire asking him for help. On waking abruptly, his father comes in to chat, confiding that when he was Rad's age, he dreamed of going into space too. Rad's dad also permits him to go to Cybertron, but only if Rad promises to return.

The following day sees Rad interrupting Carlos brushing his teeth. Carlos is already packed, and they meet up with Alexis, who's also all packed, on their way to the Autobot base.

Hot Shot asks the Mini-Cons to step forward if they're coming to Cybertron, and they all volunteer to go. The kids arrive too, but Hot Shot refuses to let them join. Reacting to this, the Street Action Mini-Con Team combine into Perceptor and begin making a strange whistling noise. The Mini-Cons start running out of the room. Red Alert, prepping the ship for launch, is surprised when the Mini-Cons storm in and block all the control panels on the bridge. While the Autobots are confused, Perceptor announces that the humans should come along. Side Swipe suggests taking the kids somewhere safe, but the Mini-Cons start whistling until Hot Shot capitulates.

Billy and Fred turn up while everyone is piling into the ship, and Hot Shot resigns himself to letting them join too. Once everything is ready, the ship, dubbed the Axalon, moves along an underwater corridor to a nearby lake, where it lifts off. The kids rush to a window to see Earth from space.

The Decepticons detect the Autobot ship leaving Earth. Thrust laments that their superior engines will help them pass the Decepticon ship and reach Cybertron first.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

"I think I'm going to leave it up to you to decide your own stations. And, uh, if any of you decide to join us and defeat the Decepticons once and for all, that's up to you. Oh, and if you decide to stay back here on Earth, that's okay, too."

—Hot Shot is the best Autobot leader ever.

"Please, Red Alert. We're here to help you battle. You really think you can do it without us?"
"You need us!"

—Billy and Fred overestimate their importance.

"How many times have I told you? Sci-fi is for your friends, not your parents."

—Rad's mother doesn't want to hear about the Transformers.

"Ah, but now those are just childhood memories for me. Memories of when I let my imagination run wild and the world was filled with endless possibilities."
"Whoa, dad!"
"Never give up on your dreams. Sometimes that's all that we have."

—Rad's father tells Rad about how it was before his soul was crushed.

Notes

Differences with Legends of the Microns

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Translation errors

• In an inexplicable dubbing error, High Wire's first line to Rad becomes: "No, Rad. Rad, you must... stay here." This is the exact opposite of the original Japanese line, and of the Mini-Cons' feelings throughout the whole rest of the episode, where they're adamant on the kids coming along! In a later scene, when Rad flashes back to this moment, the dub even correctly changes it so High Wire says: "Journey with us."
• Upon entering Rad's room, his father says: "Oh my goodness, this place looks like a disaster area! [...] I was talking about your room. It's so cluttered with junk, you need a shovel just to walk around." Yet in the animation, the carpet of Rad's room is clearly entirely bare, with the only objects in sight being a very-neatly-ordered bookshelf! In reality, the original Japanese dialogue had Rad's dad comment on how his room used to be cluttered, so it's like Rad's moved all of his stuff to a secret base. This provided a natural segue for Rad's father to talk about his own past sneaking off, which turns into something of a non-sequitur in the English dub.
• When Rad shows up outside Carlos' window, Carlos asks: "Eh, what are you doing with your backpack on a Saturday?" The spurious mention of it being Saturday, something totally absent in the original Japanese, directly contradicts the very next scene, where Rad's mother wonders why he left for school so early. If they have classes on Saturdays, Carlos shouldn't be surprised, but if they don't, Rad's parents apparently can't even keep track of what day it is!

Animation and technical errors

• More shortcuts are employed in a few shots to depict the huge number of Mini-Cons amassed by the Autobots so far, at one point making it look like they've assembled into color-coordinated lines.

Continuity notes

Is this the missing Exdimensions Mini-Con team?

• High Wire speaks English for the first time.
• After Rad mentioned them in the first episode, his parents finally appear in the series.
• The Street Speed Mini-Con Team-based generics appear again in this episode. Those Mini-Cons previously appeared in "Rescue" and "Tactician."
• After days of travel, the Decepticons are still in scanner range of Earth! Back in "Threaten", when the ship first took off, the ship's engines struggled to escape the gravitational pull of the moon, so evidently the Decepticons cut a few corners while building their flying superweapon. Or perhaps they just need to tell Tidal Wave to pedal faster.

Transformers references

• According to the Legends of the Microns Year Book 2003:
  • Blurr and Wheeljack were named after their Beast Wars counterparts in the Japanese dub, Silverbolt and Rampage respectively.
  • Similarly, the Axalon got its name from the ship the Maximals used in Beast Wars.

Trivia

• This episode's English dub features an entirely new title sequence, with a logo for "The Unicron Battles" as a subtitle, complete with Unicron appearing in his preliminary Armada color scheme. Sadly, this new opening spoils Optimus Prime's resurrection.
• The Legends of the Microns Year Book 2003 reveals that:
  • Takeshi Sano thinks Rad's parents are a bit pathetic; however, he believes Mr. White is a good dad but says that Mrs. White is a little scary.
  • Fred's dad is the Cosmoscope Laboratory director, making him Rad's father's boss.
  • In the initial treatment for the story, Billy and Fred didn't go into space with the others. Oh, what could have been...
• This is one of very few Armada episodes that doesn't have a battle; "Carnival" and "Vacation" share this trait.

Foreign localization

German

• Title: "Ab nach Cybertron!" ("Let's go to Cybertron!")
• Original airdate: 11 December 2003

Hungarian

• Title: "Indulás" ("Start")

Italian

• Title: "La partenza" ("The Departure")

• The Unicron Battles has some differences in the Italian adaptation compared to previous episodes: from now on, the word "Transformer" is pluralized as "Transformers" (previously, "Transformer" was used as both singular and plural) and Demolishor is again called by his old name after being renamed "Demolisher".
• "Squid-head" is translated as "eggplant-head" (testa di melanzana in Italian).
• When Rad's father enters his son's room, the Italian dub corrects the mistake made in the English dub by having him saying that the room used to be a mess. Still, it's not clear that this was referencing the fact that he moved everything somehere else. Also, the other two translation mistakes aren't corrected.

Portuguese

• Title: "Partida" ("Departure")

Home video releases

DVD

2004 — Transformers: Legends of the Microns — Volume 11 (Columbia Music Entertainment) — Japanese audio only.
2006 — Transformers: Armada — Season One: Part Two (Rhino Entertainment)
2009 — Transformers: Armada — Volume Two (New KSM) — English and German audio.
2014 — Transformers: Armada — The Complete Series (Shout! Factory)