NT Warrior: Count to Three!

This episode is a retelling of the second scenario of Battle Network 1.

Plot Synopsis
Professor Higsby, a professor of rare battle chips or something, shows up at Lan's school one day to teach the class about virus busting. While he's there, he takes notice of Yai's rare battle chips, Hero Sword and Life Aura. (In the game, these chips are found deep, deep, deep in the internet, and Life Aura drops off of Bass). After class one day, Lan and his friends are helping Ms. Mari with editing the school newspaper when Higsby seals off the room and challenges Yai to a net battle for her rare battle chips. Lan however is late to class and arrives just as the doors seal. Yai's navi, Glyde, quickly becomes trapped in a firewall which keeps MegaMan and Roll from helping him against NumberMan.

Roll is able to analyze the firewall system for hints about the password, each of which is a number based on a certain number of items around the school. Lan quickly runs to each location where these items are and counts them so MegaMan can break through the firewall. Eventually he gets all of them, MegaMan quickly stops NumberMan and Higsby and NumberMan surrender. Higsby grovels for mercy and Ms. Mari and everyone forgive him if he'll teach the children to appreciate rare battle chips. The next day Higsby is a new man and decides to open up a Battle Chip shop.

Critique
This is more or less exactly how the scenario in the game plays out. The difference here is that Higsby never works for WWW and is acting out of his own self interests but that's about it. The strong episodes of NT Warrior are the ones with a good supporting cast, and Higsby is one of the better performances of the show. His raving hysterics are quite entertaining, and the English dubbers made a good choice to drop his "Huh?" stutter gimmick thing.

There are some slow parts of this episode, and the animations are reused over and over again but overall this is an enjoyable episode. Lan isn't particularly grating, and Yai's being wealthy actually has significance beyond a stupid gimmick for her character. Better than most episodes and worth watching especially if you enjoyed the games.

Rating: Thumbs Up!