ROBOPON LORE
[Mainly focused on Robopon Sun, Star and Moon]| In my opinion, Robopon is more of a diss track of Pokemon, rather than a rip-off. You can interpret it as a kind of wry rebuttal to the overly-Americanized Pokemon franchise, which eschews the "traditional" Japanese mecha/robo genre with mons presented as domesticated and eventually deified animals. One of the little-referenced parts of Robopon lore is the fact that Robopon were originally going to be refered to as "junkbots". The original title, Robot Poncots literally means "useless/mistake robots" - Robopon, as opposed to Pokemon, are not magical creatures, but clunky, flawed machines. |  Name a bolder, more biting satire than this. I'll wait. |
From the start of the first games this mood of awkwardness and mundanity is established with Grandpa Hogle, who, as opposed to the successful and respectable Professor Oak of Pokemon, is a crackpot mechanic turned failed businessman on the verge of bankruptcy. Cody and his Grandpa aren't genius inventors, they are just aimless, everyman tinkerers who enjoy working on Robopon as a hobby. Cody also begins the game with a girlfriend, Lisa, which does away with the "get-the-girl" cliche right off the bat.
Beyond Camp & Kitsch: Transcendence
 it's hard to recognize any faces in this image |
The Robopon manga is often cited as a "trashy" series filled with sexual inuendo, and the original games include plenty of soft vulgarities like the scatological humor of Robopon like Peach and Snorks - the former being a butt and the latter resembling male genitalia. There is even a Robopon named Johnny that is literally just a walking toilet.
The "low-brow" plagiarism of franchises like Bomberman, and the entire franchise's name being a pun based on the 1970's Japanese robo- TV show, Ganbare!! Robocon, as well as the comically-ugly Robopon like Apebot, Chubbo, Uggo and Crowle further indicate the franchise's very intentional focus on the profane. |
The irony shouldn't be lost on the player that the most absurd or ugly Robopon are also often some of the strongest and most useful ones to collect. A further example of this sense of irony is Teabot, which is awarded to Cody by Grandpa Hogle at the end of the game. Teabot, much like Sunny, is described as a "useless" Robopon that Grandpa Hogle recieved from a home shopping network giveaway, yet turns out to be one of the most powerful Robopon in the game.
A World of Useless JunkThe first Robopon games also have a very heavy focus on banality with many in-game collectibles being completely useless, such as an item called Dust which is described simply as "stinky", and in which the primary way of collecting items being digging through trash cans scattered throughout the island. |  |
Further solidifying the world of Robopon as an oddly relateable and endearing one, in the first several towns, wild Robopon that are encountered are almost half of the time so broken that they will often just self-destruct or be unable to move. Robopon is hard to take too seriously as the plot has more than a tinge of sarcasm and parody to it, but it has a surprising amount of depth to it.
The plot centers around Cody attempting to become the Legend1, which is the highest title in Porombo's BattleRobo Tournament. Early on the player learns that Porombo Island is ruled by a Monarch named Prince Tail who holds the title of Legend1. Tail lives in an enormous fantasy-world-style castle that is completely out of place and silly compared to the rest of the world, and this sore-thumb is played up quite a bit, with the monarchy itself being portrayed as a relatively inconsequential or sclerotic tradition.
Spoilers
At the end of the game, it is revealed by Dr. Zero, the lead antagonist, that Tail Kingdom and the entirety of the Legend1 is built on lies: not only did Prince Tail's father lose in battle to Dr. Zero, but the King actually killed Dr. Zero in order to cover up the embarassment, but Dr. Zero was able to be revived as a cyborg.
Cold-blooded murder is not something you tend to find a lot in kids' games, what's more a "villain" motivated not primarily by a cartoonish and stereotypical, innate evil, but by a very justified resentment. While the game flip-flops on it, at some point Dr. Zero reveals that the reason he wants "world domination" as the Legend1 is so that he can get rid of the Legends ranking system entirely, as he sees it as immoral.
Not the kind of thing you'd really expect from the a game like this - the primary hinge point being a critique of the premise itself, the game's ending being a Gnostic revelation about the sins of Prince Tail's father. In fact, this revelation scene is where the game officially "ends" and the typical goals of similar games - saving Princess Darcy or winning the great prize at the end - are completely optional.
Alternate Timelines
While the plot of first-generation Robopon games is pretty scattered and incoherent, this is made even more complicated by the fact that the Game Boy Advance sequel games, Ring and Cross versions introduce literal time travel into the mix, making everything even more dizzyingly bizarre. While I don't know much about Sun and Cross, from what I can tell online they sound almost like an alternate timeline of Sun, Star and Moon with some recurring characters such as Dr. Zero but many new ones.In the N64 Game, you come to find that the entire planet in the world of Robopon is an Ocean World with many scattered islands. This lends itself to theorizing that the game might actually take place in a post-apocalyptic Great Flood scenario, with Robopon being the recovered techologies of a destroyed civilization.
Its also worth noting that the entire series is an alternate timeline to Ganbarre!! Robocon which takes place in the 1970's, and various aspects of the games indicate that it is meant to take place in the 70's.
Origins of Robopon Themselves
In the first generation, Robopon are seemingly just technologies invented by human mechanics and engineers, but maybe which have attained some level of self-awareness. Grandpa Hogle and various NPC's for instance will refer to Robopon as living creatures that should not be used for evil or forced to compete for egotistical reasons.In the N64 game Robopon are grown from seeds like plants. In Ring and Cross versions, Robopon are born by "sparking" two batteries together.
In gen1, Robopon are mostly robots that don't resemble humans in much of any way, although some Robopon seem to speak English (or Japanese) and are somewhat autonomous. On N64 they are voiced by human actors, and in the manga series the female Robopon have very... fleshy appearances.
The N64 development of Robopon eating "human" foods is carried over to Ring/Cross versions where Robopon love human food and eat mushrooms.
