Plot Synopsis
This episode is a bit like scenario three from the first Battle Network game. We start out with Dex repairing GutsMan.exe at his house when his robotic cat jumps up and bites his shin. Our next scene is Dex in the hospital with Lan and Mayl coming up to check on him. He's in some pain, but otherwise fine, so Lan and Mayl head to Sal's flower shop for some tea. They discuss the threat of World Three (the WWW), who were responsible for the fires in the last episode. Just then, Lan and Mayl spot their teacher Ms. Mari heading into a fortune tellers shop.
Meanwhile we see the leader of WWW, Lord Wily, speaking to one of his henchmen Count Zap. Trouble be a brewing as Lan and Mayl butt their noses in Ms. Mari's business and eat up all her fortune teller time. Miyu, the fortune teller, predicts water in Lan's future and tells him and MegaMan to be very careful. Lan blows her off and as they are leaving, Count Zap is wreaking havoc on various electronics everywhere with his Net Navi ElecMan. He some how infects a robotic dog which bursts out of a store and steals Ms. Mari's purse.
Lan takes off in pursuit along with Mayl and Lan jumps, in an unnecessary slow motion shot, to put on his roller skates while chasing after the mutt. They follow him into a subway train where he suddenly starts acting normal again. Unfortunately, Count Zap has gained control of the subway train and starts sending it full speed along the tracks to collide with another train. He doesn't seem to have any way to know Lan is on the train, so this is more or less just a very unfortunate coincidence for Lan and Mayl.
The train operators get shocked which renders them unconscious, and everyone stands around panicking, except Lan, who busts the door down by breaking a window with a fire extinguisher. Lan and Mayl can't seem to stop the train, so an all too cheerful MegaMan (who doesn't seem the slightest bit concerned that his operator is about to die a gruesome death), tells Lan to jack him in to the train so MegaMan can see what's going on. Inside the train's CPU, the security navis are being overwhelmed with WWW viruses. Expect to see a running theme that security navis in this show suck ass.
MegaMan helps out and has Lan disconnect the train cars so the back half of the train with the passengers will be safe. After disconnecting the cars, Lan makes a suicidal leap from one car to the other so he can help out MegaMan who is now engaged in battle with ElecMan. With Lan's help, MegaMan now has no problem defeating ElecMan and Lan is able to regain control of the train. He stops the train within two inches of a wall, saving the day. How do I know it's two inches? The fucking show literally circles the distance between the train and the wall and flashes "2 Inches!!" on the screen. Give me a break here!
With the train safe, a safety crew comes in and douses the train's console with a fire hose, blasting Lan in the process. MegaMan jokes about Miyu's prediction coming true as Lan bemoans getting soaked.
Critique
You will hear me say this a lot about episodes which focus on Count Zap, but he is by far the best damn character on this show. I absolutely love this villain and his over the top maniacal laughter. The game's Count Zap is pretty boring, so I guess the creators of the show decided to give this Count Zap an electric guitar for the hell of it, and kudos to them for doing so. Collin Murdock plays the english voice of Count Zap, and he does a fucking fantastic job! Each of his performances makes the episodes worth watching alone.
Otherwise this is a decent episode. The main cast is still pretty weak however, with the main characters just not very well fleshed out yet. Dex, in these early episodes, has a massive chip on his shoulder and is overtly aggressive about everything. Lan still isn't very likable and Mayl might as well be a prop. MegaMan himself, barely has any lines at all.
At this point in the show, Masa is a character that seems extremely gimmicky. In the game, he barely has two lines and many players might even miss him their first time through. That said, I know this character gets so much better in later episodes, contending with Count Zap for my favorite. His constant calcium and fish tirades become more endearing later as the character gets more screen time and eventually you'll look forward to seeing him.
It's the supporting cast for this show that make it worth watching, as the majority of the voice actors are more experienced adults and have a bit wider range to work with. Eventually though the show decides to scrap the interesting supporting cast and provide a bunch of unfunny, uninteresting, boring filler characters which ruin the show. We're not there yet though.
Anyway, this episode works well and is very arch-typical for the early season, and the standard Battle Network game scenario. There's still a ways to go for this show, but it's an improvement over the first episode.
Rating: Thumbs Up!
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