Yoketron (Animated)

Yoketron is an Autobot from the Animated continuity family.

"I find that offensive. Just because I am of Japanese ancestry, you assume I know karate. Have I ever led you to believe I have studied karate?"

Yoketron is a wise old Autobot responsible for training the Autobot Cyber-Ninja Corps at the Cyber-Ninja Dojo, but more importantly, he protects the Autobots' cache of protoforms, which will have to be activated if Project Omega fails. He is a master of many martial arts, including Circuit-Su, Metallikato, Crystalocution, diffusion, Tekkaido, Tahtib-tron, and Laser Lathi.

Fiction

Animated cartoon

Voice actor: George Takei (English), Kinryū Arimoto (Japanese), Sylvain Lemarié (French), Rafael Gómez (Latin-American Spanish), Gileno Santoro (Brazilian Portuguese)

"Well, no, but you never talk about yourself."
"Well maybe if you showed a little interest!"

During the final stages of the Great War, when the Elite Guardsman Warpath dragged in a young draft-dodger named Prowl, Yoketron decided to train him instead of throwing him in the stockade. Prowl was a rebellious and cocky young upstart at the time, and so Yoketron tried to humble and ground him. Yoketron stripped him of his weapons and mods, and slowly trained Prowl in the ways of the ninja.

After Prowl was close to finishing his Cyber-Ninja training, Yoketron revealed that he hoped Prowl would become his replacement. He showed Prowl a vast, hidden chamber behind his quarters which stowed an army of unborn protoforms, the Autobot army's last resort in the war. But Prowl was unable to mimic Yoketron's usage of processor-over-matter to seal the chamber, so Yoketron sent him on an "optics quest" to find his center.

"Let's take him out with us. Do you guys have a self destruct code, like destruct sequence 1A, 2B, 3-" (explosion)
"Thanks a lot Takei, now everyone knows!"

However, while Prowl was gone, one of Yoketron's former students, Lockdown, betrayed him, stealing most of the protoforms for the Decepticons, and leaving Yoketron to die. Prowl returned during the aftermath, and he attempted to revive Yoketron by transferring his spark to a protoform that had been left behind. Though Yoketron formed from the new Protoform, Yoketron chastised Prowl for not accepting fate, telling him he "...must not sacrifice a piece of the future to bring back the past." As he told Prowl that he would understand when his time came, Yoketron relinquished his spark, and his new body grayed. Five Servos of Doom

The Cool comic

You must go to the Dagobah system...

After donning a set of power-boosting armor, Prowl soon discovered that his newfound powers came at the expense of the land and the living things around him (when he inadvertently destroyed an entire city park). Prowl then recalled a lesson from his Cyber-Ninja master, Yoketron, informing him that with power there is always a choice. Later, after using his brains to defeat a pair of Starscream clones, Prowl discarded his armor, recalling another of Yoketron's lessons: that power comes not from the weapon, but the one who wields it. Prowl then thanked the memory of Yoketron and swore to start his training over from scratch. The Cool Episode 6

Notes

• Yoketron is named for TakaraTomy's lead designer, Hideaki Yoke.
• According to Derrick J. Wyatt, Yoketron transforms into some kind of Cybertronian race car.^[1]

Foreign names

• Japanese: Yoketron (ヨケトロン Yoketoron)

References

1. ↑ "Sort of a Cybertonian race car."—Derrick J. Wyatt, Twitter, 2009/04/05