Distribution

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This is about when people started to reevaluate their decision to stop sniffing glue.
"Distribution" 必見! 夢の最強マッチ () (Hikken! Yume no Saikyō Match) "A Must See! The Greatest Dream Matches"
Production company	TV Tokyo, NAS
Airdate	3 November 2004 (Japanese) January 28, 2005 (Canada) May 19, 2005 (USA)
Writer	Akira Okeya
Director	Kei'ichirō Kawaguchi
Animation studio	Actas, Studio A-CAT (3D)
Continuity	Unicron Trilogy

A virtual training match pits Autobot against Autobot, Decepticon against Autobot, old bodies against new bodies, and commercial bumpers against plot advancement.

Synopsis

Galvatron strongly suggests to his men that, before they watch this, they turn on the lights.

In a huge arena, amid the cheers of thousands of spectators and waves of falling confetti, two robotic cat girls introduce the night's first combatants, Rodimus and Hot Shot, vs. Mirage and... Tidal Wave! And so begin the virtual games! It only takes Rodimus and Hot Shot a brief (off-screen) second to defeat their first opponents.

Alpha Q observes—it's some kind of virtual training program run by the Autobots. At least one of his faces wants to change the channel.

The matches continue. Ironhide is suitably confused when Alpha Q comes out alongside Scorponok. Prowl and Downshift squabble so much that the match is delayed, leaving Snow Cat and Demolishor standing around with nothing to do; eventually the Decepticons decide to try combining too, but just end up standing on each other's shoulders.

Rodimus and Hot Shot beat Optimus and Wing Saber. Snow Cat and Demolishor win their match, probably because Downshift and Prowl tried powerlinking top-to-top; they're looking forward to the next one, wondering if there's prizes—maybe a power-up from Galvatron! Unfortunately, their next opponent is Galvatron, who's just finished off their old-body selves.

The combiners finish off Superion Maximus, and take on Optimus Supreme, who stomps them. The Shockblast brothers take on Rodimus and Hot Shot; Six Shot gets annoyed with Shockblast and zaps him out of the program. The same trick fails against the Autobots, who are real and can overcome the program. Galvatron stomps off after beating Snow Cat and Demolishor, refusing to play the games any further.

The final match is Hot Shot and Rodimus against Omega and Optimus. Omega and Prime fly into the air, combine spectacularly and land... and Hot Shot and Rodimus are immediately declared the winners, as Optimus Supreme has landed outside of the ring. Optimus fumes that nobody told him about any stupid rules.

The winners get trophies, and the chance to battle a special guest. The ceiling opens up, and down comes... Unicron! A rather tiny Unicron. But tiny or not, he's still a force to be reckoned with. As they continue to battle, Alpha Q notes that perhaps the Transformers enjoy fighting.

And back in the real world, Hot Shot enthuses: he and Rodimus have finally beaten the game! He falls back into his seat, exhausted with pleasure. Kicker observes that they're more alike than he realized.

Brackets

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

Angry face: Well, why are wasting our time watching them?!
Sinister face: Good question.
Hysterical face: I do so like to watch!
Angry face: I think this is all a bunch of frivolous flub! Change the channel!
Hysterical face: NOOOOOOOOO!

—Alpha Q views the madness...and at least one of him likes what he sees.

"It almost looks like they're married!"

—Snow Cat watches Prowl and Downshift squabble.

"Huh! There is no way I'm playing this childish little game. I'm going home."

—And Galvatron is taking his playthings with him!

"I AMMMM YOOOURRRR LEEEEAAAAADDDDEEEERRRRR!"

— Optimus Prime's... unique... battle cry.

"Gee, he sure is puny—(Unicron fires massive laser)—WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

—Hot Shot eats his words.

"Unicron Transform!"

—Unicron in his only line of dialogue in his own voice in the entire series.

"Are you serious?! THIS is how the Transformers sharpen their battle skills?! By playing a silly game?!"

—Alpha Q is as confused as the rest of us.

Notes

Lost in translation

• In the Super Link version, Cliffjumper spouts his characteristic English language catchphrase "Check it out, yo", which Landmine interprets as Japanese and, therefore, doesn't understand. The gag wouldn't have really worked for the dub.
• Super Link includes Scorponok proclaiming that Galvatron is still his master.
• The dub omits Six Shot marveling that the program manages to reproduce his brother's dim intellect; this is why Shockblast gestures angrily.
• Prowl and Downshift's argument is supposed to be over who would look cooler on top; the dub changes this to a random argument over... uh... something. This makes it much more random when later, they combine, both in their "top" modes.
• In Super Link, Snow Cat decides to attempt to Powerlinx with Demolishor as they are in a video game. The dub just makes him decide to attempt to do so just because Prowl and Downshift did.
• In Super Link, Jetfire tells his partner Ironhide to relax, as Alpha Q is part of the program. Jetfire then calmly tells him that "by the way, I'm part of the program too." The dub omits the gag.
• Amazingly, all three of the combiner team leaders appear separated and in robot mode, and the groups finally get full animation of their combining sequences (previously hidden behind glowing balls of light.) The dub gets confused by this, having the horrifying robotic catgirl announcer say "Constructicon and Bruticus brought along a few of their friends" in reference to the combiners' limb components.
• The reason that Ironhide and Jetfire lose to the Shockblast brothers is that Six Shot tampered with the program. The dub makes it sound like Six Shot just fired some kind of weapon, in defiance of the animation.
• A gag that has Bulkhead declaring that the stubborn old man won't be in this episode is replaced in the dub by a lame line about "I didn't see that coming".
• Predictably, Hot Shot and Rodimus overcome Six Shot's virtual tampering through the power of BURNING SPIRIT or some such. The dub changes it to "the power of powerlinking".
• In Super Link, Demolishor and Snow Cat aren't afraid of the program Galvatron, and start insulting him, saying the original is much better. In the dub, they're afraid of him. The gag is further lost when it turns out that this is the real Galvatron.
• The dub has Optimus Prime saying "I AM YOUR LEADER!"... to the Decepticon combiners.
• The combiners' nature is briefly noted in Super Link when Prime tells the pair that "even ten isn't enough". The line doesn't appear in the dub.
• The dub omits the horrifying robotic catgirl announcer commenting that, though Optimus and Omega lost, it sure did look cool.
• The dub inserts a last line from Kicker that's supposed to be like, deep, or something. In Super Link, he's just a bit appalled that Hot Shot has made time for this ridiculous game.

Animation Errors

• During Snow Cat and Demolishor's "Powerlinx sequence", Demolishor is seen flipping his head down (and changing his grill to how it looks like in alt mode) and raising his arms up to form some of rectangle shape. However, the shot at the end of the footage when he combines with Snow Cat shows his robot mode grill instead... without his head and arms.
  • When the dopey duo exit the sequence, suddenly Demolishor's back in robot mode, carrying a half-transformed Snow Cat over his head.

Pain count

• "Uh?": 2
• Stock footage: 10, not including the made-up ones for Demolishor and Snow Cat.
• Let's do this: 2
• "Gimme a break": 1
• Take it Easy: 1

Real-world references

HA!

• Alpha Q notes that the training program is a bit like pro wrestling—you can't tell what's real and what's fake.
• After Demolishor and Snow Cat take a crack at Powerlinxing, the fake commercial bumper that follows their match depicts them doing the Fusion Dance from Dragon Ball.

Trivia

• In Japan, this episode was a special made to commemorate the 500th Transformers episode (though the maths is heavily slanted to make this work: the count includes every Japanese series but ignores Beast Machines, which hadn't reached Japan at this stage; it doesn't limit itself to TV broadcasts, as it includes every Japanese-produced direct-to-video clip show, yet excludes the Japanese home media releases of "The Rebirth", "Scramble City: Mobilization" and Zone; and it leaves out any theatrical presentations, which for Japan includes the Beast Wars episodes "Bad Spark" and "Cutting Edge"). It aired at a different time on a different day to the series norm, and did not feature an episode number in its title card. In America, it was just aired where it fell without fanfare, and hence came off as really, seriously, totally random.
• Not helping the situation any are the inclusion of several jokes based around aspects of the series which were cut for the Energon dub:
  • For instance, the opening skit of the episode with Galvatron is a reference to the health-and-safety card that appears at the start of each Super Link episode, which features a still image of Optimus Prime and his voice telling the audience to sit back from the screen and watch in a well-lit room. In the Super Link version of this episode, Galvatron simply repeats Prime's standard dialogue word for word (with the gag being that he's in darkness, and the lights then ping on), while in Energon, it had to be changed to Galvatron asking for the lights to be turned on, because American audiences hadn't seen the scene they were playing off.
  • A large number of random fake Super Link commercial bumpers are included at the conclusion of most matches. Since the actual bumpers were not part of the Energon dub of the series, the "gag" of including them as part of the episode was essentially lost, since the audience had no idea what they were.
• Despite the lack of plot, the untranslatable gags, and the horrifying robot cat girl announcers, there is a certain wit to the match-ups, such as having various present/past incarnations of the same guy fighting together, and Demolishor and Snow Cat walking in to find their old selves already defeated.

Barricade's only robot mode appearance. Ever.

• This is the only robot mode appearance of Bruticus Maximus's central component. (Steamhammer appears in "Galvatron Terror", while Storm Jet appears in "Spark".)
• The three Maximus combination sequences are entirely hand-drawn. Additionally, during this sequence, Bruticus Maximus's right arm (Blight) is drawn using an unofficial configuration that gives it bicep and elbow articulation.
• Despite the limbs of the Maximuses (Maximi?) never transforming to robot mode or showing sentience, it is implied that they may in fact BE sentient since the horrifying robot cat girl announcers refer to the match as being "ten against five."
• The music used during the Maximus transformation sequences is a shortened cut of Catastrophe - Final Chapter - NSF-214-08, licensed from the Nash Music Library. It has never appeared on any official soundtrack.
• Mark Acheson reprises his role as Unicron for a very brief two whole words: "UNICRON, TRANSFOOORM!", the only time Unicron would speak with his own voice throughout Energon.
• This is the only time Rodimus is shown Powerlinxing as a lower-body. Similarly, this is the only instance of Prowl forming a torso.

Foreign localization

Italian

• Title: "Un insolito torneo" ("An Unusual Tournament")

Home video releases

DVD

2005 — Transformer: Super Link — Volume 011 (Interchannel) — Japanese audio only.
2008 — Transformers: Energon — The Ultimate Collection (Paramount)
2014 — Transformers: Energon — The Complete Series (Shout! Factory)