Fanon Discontinuity: Many don't know of Girls Mission, but those who do ignore it to an even greater extent than they did with Spirits.
Sequel Displacement: Medarot 2 and the media surrounding it have all but supplanted the original game in Japan and especially internationally. Ikki is the most recognizable human character in the franchise, while almost everyone knows of Henry/Hikaru as the Phantom Renegade instead of the first game's main character.
Sequelitis: The brief hiatus during the Nintendo DS era was a result of the Game Boy Color being saturated with Medarot games, followed by a number of questionable spinoffs: Medarot Navi with its battle changes, fighting game spinoff Medabots AX: Metabee and Rokusho, the near-universally-disliked Medabots Infinity, a remake of Medarot 2 that was largely intended for international audiences and was otherwise old hat, and finally the extremely divisive Shingata Medarot.
The artstyle change for Shingata Medarot did not go over well with hardcore fans. Given that everyone else was sick of the nonstop Medarot games at that point, Shingata Medarot ended up with an Uncertain Audience and was the final straw for the series until Medarot DS.
Adding Fanservice to Medarot Girls Mission didn't really make the fans happy, since previous entries didn't rely on that.
Adaptation Displacement: Most people who know about Medabots at all only know about Nelvana's anime dub. It's rare to find someone who knows that it's actually a franchise that got started in 1997 with a video game series. It's even rarer to find anyone who knows about the manga adaptation or the GBA games that got localizations (everything that made it to the west is a derivative of Medarot 2, Ikki's premiere game — the Medabots game is actually Medarot 2 CORE). The anime is actually a Broad Strokes adaptation of the first two video games and a few of the manga (mostly the Medarot 2 manga and Medarotter Rintarou, whose title character became a Canon Immigrant in the anime), and was released two years after the original game.
Ass Pull: The original series finale is a lot to swallow, even if you do have the games as reference. It's one thing to claim that the Medals, which are known to be of prehistoric and non-human origin, are actually alien Brain in a Jar technology whose fighting nearly caused The End of the World as We Know It for their home world and galaxy. It's another to have this accompanied by the fact that Dr. Hushi isn't dead at all and that Brandon, a Spear Carrier who shows up twice in the whole series, is actually an alien ally of his.
The dub had a surprisingly epic opening theme. An instrumental version would play during fight sequences.
The original opening, "Chie to Yuuki da!" is pretty cool too.
The song that plays during Samantha's Training Montage in "Space Medaballerina X" is also rather enjoyable to listen to... for the thirty seconds you can.
Uchuu Medarotter X's theme in the original version of the anime is heroic at its best, definitely one of the strong pieces of background music of the anime.
Bizarro Episode: "Welcome to Ninja World" is a minor example, notable primarily for its Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann-art style (see Art Shift on the main page) and for Brass acting astonishingly Out of Character, striking flashy poses right alongside Arika rather than being her much more restrained foil. Neither of these really serve as marks against the episode, though, they're just worth noting.
Mr. Referee, who is almost super-human and appears out from nowhere.
Coach Mountain, who takes his teacher career to the extreme just to protect his students.
Creepy Awesome: Beast Master (Robo Emperor) and God Emperor (Mega Emperor) are two of the most popular medabots in the Japanese fandom (according to a 2012 Japanese poll results held at a Nico Nico Douga Live event). The first is Nightmare Fuel material, but the second is one of the most recurrent medabots used in the franchise.
Cult Classic: Though obscure in pop culture, the anime is rather well remembered by those growing up during the 2000s, some of which consider it a hidden pleasure of the age. It helps that, despite being a parody of the Mons/Merchandise-Driven anime of the time, Medabots was still a strong series in terms of character development and arcs, things that are not common to find in that genre.
Poor Oceana/Hijiki (real model name: Puremermaid). The dub did not help by moving her first appearance (originally the eighth episode) all the way to the filler section... at least thirty episodes later. Especially after the Ship Tease episodes about Metabee/Brass. Cue the fanbase treating her like a jealous woman who wants to steal Metabee from Brass, who is suffering for her "love".
An interesting aversion could be Karin since she's dumped on Kouji to make way for Ikki/Arika or Ikki/Kikuhime.
Lots of one-off and minor recurring characters. The stand-out human examples are Mr. Referee and Couch Mountain. Notable medabots examples include Warbandit, Arcbeetle, Oceana, Femjet and Drackonfly.
The Robo-Emperor, for being completely terrifying as well as one of the few villains in the show who's played completely straight.
Hilariously subverted with Baron and Banisher, who look and sound unbelievably cool... but actually can't fight worth shit.
The Robo-Emperor plays this frighteningly straight.
Fanon: Henry's Broken Ace status in the English dub made fans think in many theories about the reason he took his Phantom Thief and his disguised medafighter identities. Most of them give him more angst than the Japanese version originally went for (which was partly changed in the dub, because it was getting "too dark"note Nelvana only cut the part where he mentions that he destroyed his Metabee's medal due to the circumstances).
First Installment Wins: This anime, and the games and mangas it adapts, is the most popular and known part of the franchise (helped by the fact that in several countries, the anime was the only installment of the franchise distributed). Spirits is commonly subjected to Fanon Discontinuity.
Harsher in Hindsight: In the first episode, Henry tries to help Ikki out by selling him Medabots parts that are actually in his price range, which basically amount to a dusty box of untouched Metabee armor parts. In a stunning display of ingratitude, Ikki and Erika laugh at him for suggesting such lame and old parts, and for a moment you can see Henry trembling. Henry once had a Metabee as his own partner, but he died prior to the events of the series. Those are his old Metabee's parts in that box.
Ikki and Arika mock Henry for trying to sell them an old KBT model. And then, guess which model does Ikki buy in later?
One episode features Intrepid Reporter Seamus MacRaker accusing Ikki of being the Phantom Renegade due to having a suspiciously similar head injury, harassing him to no end. In Medarot DS, Ikki takes up the mantle of Phantom Renegade, going so far as to upgrade Metabee to have an Arcbeetle's chassis.
In a tournament, Samantha's Peppercat couldn't do anything due to being equipped with two parts that are too heavy for her to even lift. This becomes even more hilarious with Medarot 9 introducing a new attribute called heavy parts which have great strength at the cost of speed and give a medabot a penalty when too many are equipped on one whose legs can't support them.
Ho Yay: Fans tend to ship Hikaru and Ikki... and often do not remember that Ikki is a ten year old kid and that Hikaru is in college.
Coach Mountain is an interesting invoked example as other characters in the show view him as this, though the fandom agrees.
Erika: I heard he used to be a strong man at the circus and could bench press elephants. I also heard he chiseled out the faces on Mount Rushmore with his bare hands! Ikki:And he stopped an erupting volcano by plugging it with his butt!
On the human side, there's Karin, and Arika, who has a significant moment of it near the end of the first season.
On the robot side, you have Saintnurse, Oceana, Brass.
Narm: It's hard to disagree that Babbyblu is not exactly a menacing medabot for a final battle.
One-Scene Wonder: Many Medabots with really cool designs and gimmicks only appear for a single episode in the anime, almost always leaving a great impression.
Metabee/Oceana, Metabee/Brass (which may or may not be more popular than Ikki/Arika)... Metabee/Rokusho... and even Medabot OCs with other Medabot OCs.
Also, some Medabots with their own owners... Yeeeeesh. (Although there are fanarts depicting the medabots as humans... it doesn't change the fact that some of their owners are still 8-10 year old kids).
Superlative Dubbing: Arguably, the English dub is one of the best dubs for its time, and for the target audience, as well.
Tear Jerker: There's also Metabee's dream from episode 51, when it starts Metabee finds himself in an idyllic civilization of Medabots, then progresses to see the Medabots succumb to war. When Ikki enters the dream he finds Metabee holding the lifeless form of his only friend sat under his favorite tree in full Heroic BSoD.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Nothing is explained about Metabee's medal from the time before Phantom Renegade dropped it in the river. It was clearly being delivered between parties in a way that suggested grave importance and secrecy and the Rubberrobo Gang saw fit to kill the deliveryman, but no details ever come forth.
Ugly Cute: Compared to Beast Master, God Emperor's popularity may be partly because of his non-Nightmare Fuel "cute" design besides being a powerful medabot/weapon. Kirara (as Lady Retort) controls one of these in Medarot 2.
Values Dissonance: In "Phantom Renegade: Unmasked" (season 1, episode 11), Seamus McRaker slanders Ikki because he believes Ikki is the Phantom Renegade. At the end of the episode, Ikki defeats Seamus in a Robattle and Erika publishes an article that clears Ikki's name, but Seamus faces no legal comeuppance for slandering a person, especially a child. What makes things even more stupid is that everyone believes Seamus' stories without giving Ikki the opportunity to explain himself. In fact, everyone ignores that Ikki is a kid while the Phantom Renegade has been proven to be an adult. Adults Are Useless, indeed. The whole episode operates on Rule of Funny.
Viewer Gender Confusion: Ikki for his very girly voice, name that rhymes with "Nikki" and a topknot hairstyle. It doesn't help that there is at least one scene that involves him crossdressing.
What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: The premise of the anime series at first could have gotten the attention of the kids who watched the series back in the day. However, it took several layers of building up the story, with its dark elements (the "Ten Days of Darkness" events, for example) that you could really question yourself about its kids demography. This was admittedly common in other similar Mon series out there in the earlier 2000s, though.
Spirits/Damashii
Fanon Discontinuity: Many fans either ignore Spirits or they just see it as a separateretooled series. This is because Spirits only acknowledges the events after the Robattle Tournament, not beyond it (such as Dr. Meta-Evil manning a gigantic Medabot during the climatic battles, and the concept of "Ten Days of Darkness"), familiar faces from the first show are absent (Koji, Karin, Hikaru/Phantom Renegade, the Rubber-Robo Gang, etc.), the Select Corps being conspicuously absent (especially as Kilobots are the primary problem), and the sudden implementation of the "Ammo system" (a concept which is non-existent prior).
Hilarious in Hindsight: Kilobot users tend to cheat by transferring parts midbattle. This can now actually be done in Medarot 9 as a new feture called trans parts which allows a robattler to transfer a part to their leader once per battle.
Seasonal Rot: Spirits fails hard when it is compared to the original anime... especially in regards to its pacing. The original managed to insert a lot of plot and character subplots in few episodes, and yet never felt (too) rushed. Spirits, on the other hand, stuck with a single plotline (Kam's) through its entire run, and suffered dearly for it, as episodes had to constantly reinforce the status quo to stop the plotline from ending, thus advancing the plot ever so slowly for its 39 episodes. The exclusion of most of the original cast helped to make that more apparent — with less characters, episodes had to focus exclusively on Ikki, Erika and, sometimes, new character Zuru, making stories less varied. Spirits did away with the first series' strengths, and played up its weaknesses.
Tear Jerker: The episode "A Night in the Medabot Junkyard" stands out. Fossilkat, a Medabot villain, was once her master’s best friend and soulmate. But her master grew up and tried doing other things; Fossilkat took this to mean she had been discarded like a toy, and ran away. She ended up in a graveyard of discarded Medabots, and over time she took control of them and set out to lead a rebellion on humanity. However, during her rampage, she learns that her master had been permanently heartbroken by her running off. She ceases her rampage, in sheer grief and horror over what has happened. Thankfully, she finds another master to be with.
Viewer Gender Confusion: If she hadn't had such a feminine voice, it would have been hard to tell that Spirits Black Beetle is a female-frame Medabot. Hell, the Latin American dub even turned her into a guy. It's that confusing.
. An instrumental version would play during fight sequences.