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Medabots Franchise Gets Smartphone Game

Imagineer announced on Wednesday that the Medabots (Medarot) franchise is getting a smartphone game. Imagineer subsidiary SoWhat is developing the game as its third title. Staff will reveal more information about the game to fan club members and on social media in the future.

The announcement marks the 20th anniversary of the launch of Imagineer's original Medabots (Medarot) Game Boy game in Japan. To celebrate the franchise's 20th anniversary, Imagineer named November 28 as Medabots Day.

The company released the Medarot and Medarot 2 manga digitally on Thursday. The Medarot 3, Medarot 4, Medarot 5, and Medarot G manga are also slated for release. The series originally ran in Kodansha's Comic BomBom magazine from 1997 to 2003. Additionally, Imagineer is offering the new Shūkan Medarot Tsūshin (Weekly Medabots News) manga, which serializes in the Manga Hot app, for free for 15 days beginning on November 28.

The company will release the Medarot Game Sound Archives set of five CDs. The set contains background music from the first five Medabots Game Boy and Game Boy Color games and costs 6,980 yen (about US$61). The set is available for pre-order now, and the deadline to order is January 31. The set is slated to ship in March.

Collaborations with a department store and theater in Tokyo will display materials from the franchise and sell merchandise in December and January. In addition, the company relaunched the franchise's official Medarotters fan club and opened a new YouTube channel for the franchise.

The anniversary project is also seeking original Medabots designs, with a submission deadline of January 8. The winner's design will be showcased in the anniversary project.

The first Medabots (Medarot) game inspired a television anime series by Bee Train in 1999, and a sequel series titled Medarot Damashii (Medabots Spirits) in 2000. ADV licensed the series in North America, and Nelvana produced a dub for the first series, which aired in the Fox Kids network in 2001, before moving to ABC Family. Medabots Spirits aired on ABC Family in 2003.

Delta Arts, the studio behind many of the recent Medabots games, shut down in April 2016.

Sources: Imagineer's website, Medarot Portal Site, Medabots franchise's YouTube channel and Twitter account via Otakomu