The Cloak-Bot is a recurring antagonist in Amphibia, serving as a major antagonist in Season 3. It served as the first major antagonist of the season Anne had to face before going back to Amphibia to defeat King Andrias.
It was a stealth class[1] Frobot sent by Andrias from Amphibia to Los Angeles, California to hunt down and eliminate Anne. However, when repeated tactical retreats caused it to take too long, Andrias lost patience with it and armed a self-destruct sequence to force it to finish the job, leading to its explosive demise in Earth's stratosphere, its only accomplishment being to alert Mr. and Mrs. Boonchuy to the burden their daughter faces.
Appearance[]
This Frobot had a silver and grayish green paint job, was lanky and thin to quickly maneuver in urban areas, had 8 razor-sharp claws attached to two long arms, and has 3 toes on each leg. It had a horn that curves backward at the top of its head, and its optics were red. It had tubes on the sides of its torso, two of which were attached next to what seems like a blue light on its left, and had two large darker-colored shoulder pads. The robot was equipped with powerful, long legs and was quite tall, as it even towered over human adults.
After being repeatedly damaged by Anne and the Plantars, the Cloak-bot replaced its broken parts with construction equipment and other stuff. It had put metal plates on the left side of its face, its left eye was cracked, and there was a tire where its right shoulder plate used to be. As a result of its left arm having been cut off, the robot replaced it with the claw from an excavator. The robot also replaced its right leg with a buzz saw and gave itself a nail gun attachment on its back.
Personality[]
Like Frobo, the robot showed some form of intelligence, as it could be seen laughing or making sassy remarks at its foes. However, its intelligence had limits, as shown when it had trouble understanding King Andrias' command to get potato chips. Unlike Frobo however, the robot was programmed to be very merciless and even somewhat sadistic. The Cloak-Bot was also highly murderous, as it was willing to kill anyone who stood in its way of killing Anne and the Plantars (including Mr and Mrs. Boonchuy). It was very loyal to King Andrias and was willing to sacrifice itself to accomplish his goals and the destruction of all of their enemies.
Background[]
King Andrias sent it to Earth mainly to find Anne and kill her because she's the only one left with the power to defeat him and ruin his plans, but also to get him the 2nd Cynthia Coven book. Before leaving however, Andrias tells the robot to avoid being seen by anyone on Earth as much as possible to not let anyone know of the upcoming invasion. When it arrived at Earth, it easily managed to locate its target by using its sensors to scan the area of her energy signature, which was attained from the Calamity Box. At the supermarket when in stealth mode, the Frobot used its stealth mode to scout the market and finds Anne and the Plantars, but it soon detects the field of some refrigerator magnets on display, causing its cloaking to wear off momentarily long enough for Sprig to see it and save Anne when she was being choked. The group then fights back discreetly to avoid unwanted attention (the Plantars are in disguise, while Anne is trying to hide the invasion from her parents). Eventually, Anne unleashed her blue gem energy when she saw the Plantars in danger and heavily damaged the left section of the killer machine with her left fist. It fled with its camouflage system flickering on and off. Afterwards, the Frobot was seen atop a tower on a stormy night while making repairs to its body, deciding to redouble its efforts to terminate Anne at any cost.
In "Fight at the Museum", the robot continued its hunt for Anne and eventually managed to locate her at the museum when it sees Sprig through the museum's cameras. The robot went through the building's roof and immediately engaged in combat with Anne and the Plantars. After having its left arm cut off by Hop Pop dropping a guillotine, and having a massive animal skeleton dropped on top of it, the robot is seen by the museum's curator, Dr. Jan, and the security guards. When it realized that it had been exposed by human adults, the robot quickly spares Anne of her life and flees the scene for now. In "Temple Frogs", the robot sent in dragonfly-like UAV drones to try and kill Anne, but was thwarted when Anne, the Plantars and the Thai American community fought back. In both incidents, the robot failed to keep itself and its reinforcements hidden, but was indirectly helped by Dr. Jan and Anne when they told the people it was either part of a performance or because of Anne's SJMS schoolmates.
Back in the tower, in "Anne-sterminator", having forced to replace his lost body parts with construction equipment, the robot receives a call from Andrias. Not only did it got the wrong Cynthia Coven book due to Book 2 being sold out, Andrias is very unhappy about his failure to kill Anne and that she is still alive, and sets a self destruction bomb in his body to detonate if it fails his mission under an hour. Luckily, due to an unidentified Frobot, the robot easily manages to track Anne at her house. The robot manages to find Anne, her parents, and the Plantars as they escape from it. The robot navigates to one room and gets fooled by the fake Anne statues placed in it. After beating up one of the statues until it was exposed, the robot sees Anne in the van driving, prompting it to chase it as it attacks Anne and the Plantars with various deadly tactics, causing Anne to finally come clean to her parents. After being flattened by the van with little time left, the robot manages to find it in the junkyard just before Anne, her parents, and the Plantars hide. Later, the robot gets fooled by more fake Anne statues as it shoots them down just as Anne, her parents, and the Plantars attack and severely damage it. Just as they are relieved, the damaged robot proceeds to self-destruct to kill all of them in ten seconds just before Anne uses her Calamity powers and right foot to forcefully kick it into the atmosphere as his bomb explodes, destroying it for good and leaving Anne and her family safe and sound.
Later, its presence on Earth along with Plantars draws the attention of the FBI as they are viewing footage of him attacking Anne and the Plantars. They decided to call in Mr. X.
In "Spider-Sprig", the right arm of the Cloak-Bot is found by the junkyard owner Robert Otto who, jealous of Sprig who had decided to become the superhero Frog-Man, uses it on his right arm to become a 'hero' to destroy Sprig till he stopped this madness once his granddaughter Molly Jo told both him and Sprig that they caused so much damage in LA, which both of them quickly fixed stuff up. While Robert would be arrested by a cop from the LAPD for the damage he did, what happened to the arm is still unknown.
In "Escape to Amphibia", Mr. X and Jenny later show images of the robot attacking Anne and the Plantars to their superior.
Later in "All In", three more Cloak-Bots were monitoring the castle and noticed Sasha, Grime, Olivia, and Yunan breach it, causing them to chase after them. They then toyed with them by using their invisibility by slapping and poking them which caused them to freak out. They then revealed themselves and laughed at the quartet. Olivia and Yunan were then forced to stay behind and fend off the Cloak-Bot trio while Sasha and Grime shut off the shield generator. This caused the Cloak-Bots to stop playing around as one of them tried to strike the two newts with enough force to crack the wall. After the defeat of Andrias and Darcy, it is unknown if the trio either escaped or were destroyed. Regardless of which, Olivia and Yunan made it out alive.
Powers and abilities[]
- Strength: The Cloak-Bot uses its claws and arms numerous times to break or damage objects and has been shown to have a lot of strength to the point where Anne and the Plantars have had to either tap into Anne's Calamity Powers or use any object they could find to defeat it.
- Location sensors: It has specialized sensor technology to locate where Anne is by matching her energy signature with the blue gem of the Calamity Box. Though the sensor seemed to be non-functional after it was damaged by Anne as seen in "The New Normal".
- Stealth mode: It can hide from view on Earth by its active camouflage system while walking during daylight without getting seen, but its camouflage can be deactivated by magnets and whenever it is hit by various objects. Even in camouflage, the Frobot crushed a lot of cars, can be seen with other items on it, and even the automatic sliding door at the 99 Ranchers store can detect the Frobot even when the camouflage system is on.
- Flexibility: It is quite flexible, as it can squeeze into small areas to hide from view whenever it can't use its invisibility cloak.
- Agility: The robot is also shown to be very agile, being able to move very quickly despite its tall stature and long arms.
- Multi-purpose claws: Its left claw can be converted into a plasma weapon for range attacks. It can repair itself with its claws, which act as blowtorches. The claws can also function as drills, change into a satellite dish or an axe.
- Lasers: The Cloak-Bot can shoot extremely lethal highly concentrated laser beams from both its optics.
- Hacking: As demonstrated in "Fight at the Museum", Cloak-Bot can hack into electronics to look for its target. Furthermore, in "Temple Frogs", it could intercept radio and wireless phone signals.
- Drone deployment: It can unleash dragonfly-shaped UAV drones to scout and hunt targets.
- Body Part Substitution: Through its repairing process in "Anne-sterminator", the Cloak-Bot was able to replace various broken parts of its body, with scrap and parts of other machines. This granted it several new abilities which it had used to pursue its targets.
- Nail Gun: A nail gun was added to Cloak-Bot's weaponry, specifically located on its back and is attached by Cloak-Bot's right leg which has been repurposed as a turret base, and it uses it later in the episode.
- Excavator's Arm: It replaced its missing left arm with an excavator, which is less versatile than its old arm but more durable, and is used to grab and crush things, or deflect projectiles.
- Disk Saw foot: It replaced its right foot and leg with a disc saw, that can be used to attack and cut or as a wheel that allows it to move fast enough to chase a car.
- Self-destruction: The Cloak-Bot was built with a self-destruct device that could be remotely activated by Andrias should it fail in its mission. The function came with a one-hour time limit, after which it would detonate into a large explosion, enough to level at least half the city. When Andrias was disappointed with the Cloak-Bot's failure to terminate Anne, he activated the timer which forced it to take care of Anne within that timer, though still failed.
Sightings[]
Behind the scenes[]
Early development[]
The Cloak-Bot began as a conceptual sketch of the Frobot variants that character designer Joe Sparrow drew for "True Colors", and ultimately did not make it to the final version of the episode. This design was later used for the character in season 3.[1]
Voice[]
The Cloak-Bot is voiced by Troy Baker, who also voices Captain Grime.
Debut[]
The Cloak-Bot debuted in "The New Normal".
Gallery
Click here to view the gallery.
Trivia[]
- Its name was first revealed in the credits for "Fight at the Museum" and "Temple Frogs", while its name was spoken for the first time in "Anne-sterminator".
- It is unclear why the Cloak-Bot had replaced its right shoulder plate and relocated its right leg, even though those parts of it had not been damaged.
- In "Spider-Sprig", Robert Otto uses its right arm to fight Sprig.
- It is unknown what happened to its left arm after it was cut off.
- "All In" reveals there are other Cloak-Bots, as a trio of them are seen acting as security officers for Andrias' castle.
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Sparrow, Joe (October 7, 2021). "The New Normal Frog-Bot sketch" (Tweet). Twitter.