LOCAL animation company Monsta's latest computer generated TV show is about the simple yet exciting tales of a plucky boy and his amazing robot.
The new series titled Mechamato is set to thrill children when it premieres tomorrow on Cartoon Network.
No stranger to producing awesome animated content such as the popular long-running superhero series BoBoiBoy, Monsta intends to inspire the young ones to be creative in a fun way.
"We wanted to make an original show that represents the childlike imagination all of us had when we were kids.
"So we hope to encourage kids to be more creative and innovative in their daily lives," says Monsta co-founder and chief content officer Anas Abdul Aziz in a virtual interview.
Mechamato follows the adventures of a kind and creative young boy named Amato, who finds a prison spaceship containing bad robots that crash landed on Earth.
One of the robots is MechaBot who has the ability to mechanise everyday objects into high-tech devices.
Amato manages to outsmart MechaBot and has now become MechaBot's master.
The two then work together to locate and capture the other escaped robots.
Along the way, Amato is also helped by his group of friends as they go about helping people and saving the day.
"It's about the dynamic relationship between a boy with crazy ideas and a robot with amazing abilities, and they need each other to work effectively together.
"The show is packed with action, humour and tons of interesting characters as well as robots, so we're excited to present this to the kids," says Anas, who is Mechamato's showrunner.
FUN ASIAN PERSPECTIVE
Uniquely Asian, the show is set in the fictional town of Kota Hilir, which was based on Melaka.
"We wanted to represent our culture here in Southeast Asia through the works, and hope that kids in the region will be proud of it.
"(Monsta co-creator and managing director) Nizam Abdul Razak grew up in Melaka so Kota Hilir was inspired by Bandar Melaka that has a nice mix of races living together in harmony which is reflected in the series," he says.
Anas is grateful that the new show will be aired on Cartoon Network, home to popular children's series such as Ben 10, The Powerpuff Girls, Teen Titans Go!, Tom & Jerry and We Bare Bears.
"Mechamato is distinctively Asian in its look and view, but at the same time, it's also very universal. Kids just love robots.
"Aside from all the action and jokes, Mechamato presents many good values like companionship, imagination and innovation," says Leslie Lee, head of Cartoon Network in Asia-Pacific.
"We have our Redraw Your World campaign taking place in January so this new series is in line with our efforts to broaden our appeal and content in terms of inclusivity and empowering kids, as well as embracing kids from every country and background.
"I'm glad that Mechamato is part of this new brand for us," he says.
Lee adds Monsta has a great track record of delivering high-quality animation and high-quality stories, which makes the new series a good fit for Cartoon Network.
"The show will be premiering across the Asia-Pacific region from Southeast Asia to Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea and Japan.
"We have faith the show will be very relevant to viewers across this wide region," he says.
The series has 13 episodes with more coming next year and has been dubbed into 12 languages to cater to the various regions.
Monsta had earlier launched the opening theme song for Mechamato The Animated Series, which was produced in-house by the animation studio.
The catchy number has two versions, one in Malay and another in English.
The Malay version is sung by Shah of indie band Modescape from Malaysia, while the English one is performed by Nil Cardoso and recorded in the US.
Mechamato is exclusively available on Cartoon Network. The first and second episodes will air at 3pm tomorrow and on Sunday, with new episodes premiering on weekends at the same time thereafter.
Visit www.monsta.com and www.youtube.com/user/monsta for more information on Monsta.