Season 1
20 episodes Oct 25, 2018 10.0
Overview
A boy and his homemade robot enter the toughest competition in the universe while attempting to free their oppressed home from an evil empire.
Seasons
2 listed- Status
- Returning Series
- Seasons
- 2 seasons
- Episodes
- 40 episodes
- First aired
- Oct 25, 2018
- Last aired
- May 24, 2019
- Episode length
- 22m
- Network
- CITV
Latest episode: S2 E20 Episode 20 (May 24, 2019)
Season 2
20 episodes Mar 15, 2019
Reviews
4 min readScrap metal and a kid who needed a friend
The first time Mangle moves in that workshop is the shot I believed. Not the slow-motion hero walk through fire, the one that wants to look like a miniature Optimus Prime. The ugly lurch.
One servo louder than the others. A jerky half-step that still looks like it was built on a bench. That stutter is the honest part of Robozuna.
This is not a sleek war machine. It is a kid trying to hammer a savior out of leftover parts.
Ariston takes that homemade robot into a brutal mecha tournament because an empire has its boot on their planet. The show wants Pacific Rim crashes in a Mad Max desert, plus oppressed locals and a villain with a booming voice. Formula should make it disposable.
It doesn't, mostly because the hurt stays close. The empire is not a cartoon face. It is a system that wears people down and turns their own machines against them.
When the regime takes Ariston's father, the show treats it as a wound. His hands shake when he talks about it. Mangle's optics dim like the bot can smell the grief.
Loud fights. Metal on metal, neon blasts, a lot of toy-aisle posing. I liked the quieter rooms more.
Ariston and his friends in a hideout, splitting rations, arguing about the next move. In the first season he tries to repair Mangle after a beating. Exhausted.
Bruised. The voice glitches. The limbs drag.
Audience Opinions
Audience 6.5/10
"A fun, action-packed kids' sci-fi adventure with charming characters but lacks depth for older audiences."
Viewers appreciate the vibrant animation and the bond between the orphan boy and his robot companion, which adds heart to the story. However, the plot feels predictable, and the humor often falls flat, making it more appealing to younger children than teens or adults. latestnetflix.com's take is that the series’ attempt at a dystopian setting is engaging but doesn’t explore its world deeply enough to stand out.
What viewers praise
- Charming protagonist duo The relationship between Ariston and his robot friend is endearing and drives much of the emotional appeal.
- Vibrant animation style The visuals are colorful and dynamic, making the action sequences enjoyable to watch.
- Kid-friendly adventure The series delivers a straightforward, exciting story that resonates well with its target age group.
Common complaints
- Predictable plot The storyline follows familiar tropes, offering few surprises for those familiar with the genre.
- Weak humor Attempts at comedy often miss the mark, feeling forced or too simplistic.
- Lacks depth The world-building and character development are shallow, limiting its appeal to older viewers.
Recommended for
Young sci-fi fans Kids who love robots Light adventure seekers Animation enthusiasts
Buzz & Rumors
Public reportsAli-A voiced a combatabot. Red Dwarf's Cat did too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sri_KwZwAYg
The official Robozuna trailer on YouTube lists Ali-A and Ethan Gamer in the same breath as Taylor Clarke-Hill and Tom Clarke-Hill. Two British YouTubers. Two brothers playing a boy and his homemade robot. Danny John-Jules, the Cat from Red Dwarf, voices Niven and Spark. Morwenna Banks is Danuvia, the empire. That is the gossip in the credits. KidsCave and ITV wanted a cartoon that could sell to children who already watched Call of Duty clips, and they hired the people those children already followed. , 
Ariston is 14. Mangle is the workbot he wants to turn into a Combatabot so they can enter Robozuna, the robot sport that doubles as cover for a rebellion against the Corvus Imperium. Decider's 2018 Stream It or Skip It piece walked through the opening. Ariston, Mangle, and guardian Feronia drill for machine juice on the sly because Corvus claims every scarce resource. Then the caravan is hit, Feronia is taken, and a chip upgrades Mangle's intelligence. The show is a boy-and-bot rescue wrapped in arena fights. ,
A 2002 passion project that landed next to The Crown.
Ed Bignell, KidsCave's founder, told Animation Magazine the origins go back to 2002, after he rediscovered the Rocky films and Ridley Scott. In 2016 ITV Studios UK and Kidscave Entertainment announced a Netflix co-production that would premiere on CITV in the UK, then go worldwide on the streamer. Steve Green, then ITV Studios' kids EVP, sold "cinematic production values" plus a "rich and diverse play pattern." The Royal Television Society note put Robozuna in the same UK-originals sentence as The Crown. Netflix had also ordered LEGO Elves, Super Monsters, The Hollow, and Treehouse Detectives in that kids wave. , ,
Montreal's L'Atelier Animation, coming off the feature Ballerina, took on its first series work. Animation Magazine reported 44 minutes of animation a month, covering assets, layout, character animation, FX, lighting, and compositing. Bignell called Robozuna a passion project of many years and said L'Atelier elevated it beyond what the partners thought possible. KidsCave kept design, boards, voice, music, and post in London, with a writers room in Los Angeles. CITV aired from October 20, 2018 to May 2, 2020. Forty episodes. Two series of twenty. Netflix split each UK series into two seasons on the service. ,
Bandai on the shelf. No third series on the slate.
By 2023, when KidsCave announced Kitti Katz as its second Netflix original, the studio still listed Robozuna as 40 x 22 minutes of CGI, with Bandai as master toy partner and the brand inside Roblox. That is the commercial afterlife. There was no announced third series. IMDb user notes begging Bignell for more are fan mail, not a renewal. The trailer is still up on the Robozuna channel. The gossip now is how a YouTuber-voiced robot league became KidsCave's calling card, then quietly stopped while the studio moved on to talking cats. ,
Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.
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