Upon A Star: Appearance in Japan

Oh man, this is not going to be a good start, but I did expect a lot of this to go badly. Mega Man Upon A Star was an "edutainment" show created sometime in the 1990's by Capcom to and another group with the goal to teach the culture of Japan to both Japanese and English speaking peoples. It wasn't ever released until 2002 and it took a few years later for it to arrive here in the states. This is about as obscure as you can get with regards to the Mega Man franchise and few people have ever heard of this series. It is by far the most accurate portrayal of Mega Man, right down to the correct title screen for Mega Man 5. There was an English Dub that was made for this series, which will be the version I am watching. It is worse than the original Japanese version, sure, but that version isn't much better anyway, and I would rather not read subtitles if I don't have too.

Plot Synopsis
Japanese 5th Grade student Utah (they pronounce his name like seven different ways, this is my best guess) falls asleep one night while leaving the game Mega Man 5 on during the final fight with Dr. Wily. Dr. Wily seizes the opportunity to escape the game world into the real world as Mega Man is frozen in place, unable to move without someone controlling him... I guess. Anyway, Dr. Wily runs off into the night, and when Utah wakes up, he picks up the controller which magically brings Mega Man and Rush into the real world as well.

Mega Man explains he's come to the real world after Dr. Wily to stop him. Utah wants to help Mega Man, but Utah's parents make him go to school instead, taking the whole video game characters jumping out of televisions pretty well. Utah's father takes Mega Man to the trains with him to go to Tokyo which is where they suspect Wily is. Seeing the train is to slow, Mega Man jumps out a window and flies off on Rush, making you wonder why he didn't just do that to begin with.

Mega Man and Rush are apparently American, because they make observations about how Japanese people drive on the other side of the road and the like. Mega Man tracks Wily to an amusement park where Dr. Wily has amassed hundreds of robot minions in the span of a night some how. When Mega Man arrives, the robot minions fuse together to form a giant "Samurai Man." Actually, it's Yamato Man, but I suppose I shouldn't nit pick that detail when the confusion is only starting.

Yamoto Man hits Mega Man hard, and Mega Man has to retreat to get more energy from the game. He heads to Utah's school, but Utah tells him he's going to have to wait until after class. Yes, Mega Man is dying, but Utah has school to deal with. Mega Man agrees to wait around and seems to feel better for no reason when Dr. Wily shows up at Utah's school with the giant Yamato Man. Mega Man runs up and Charge Kicks a soccer ball into Yamato Man destroying him (kind of cool Mega Man is using his Mega Man 5 weapons). Wily escapes by putting on a Ninja costume and throwing a smoke bomb... yeah...

Mega Man is back on the brink of exhaustion and Utah decides to skip his next class (which goes on till 9pm for fuck's sake!) and summons Eddie from Stone Man's level. Eddie gives Mega Man an E-Tank which has a pop-tab like a soda (I thought that was a nice touch) and Mega Man is feeling much better. Mega Man and Utah hop on Rush and look all across Japan for Dr. Wily.

We see the different cities of Japan, such as Tokyo, Kyoto...um... other places? Mega Man is impressed by the wide diversity of beauty in Japan as he travels from hot summer beaches to snow covered mountains. Utah explains that the beauty of Japan changes with the seasons, which apparently can change within minutes if this episode is to be taken literally. It sneaks up on you I suppose.

Mega Man and Utah figure out that Wily must be using a volcano to threaten Japan some how because Japan has volcanoes in it. This is very literally the logic they use, but who am I to argue with it when in fact, Dr. Wily has built his skull fortress inside of Mt. Fuji... within a night... then it erupts... with him in it... and he and his skull fortress are perfectly fine...

Dr. Wily creates a bunch of robots called "Volcano Man" and sends them to attack... I guess the area directly around the volcano, I for one will not argue with his strategy for world domination. Mega Man starts fighting the Volcano Men, and Utah passes out from the heat. Luckily Rush runs off to Mega Man 5 to get the help of Beat and Proto Man to help out. The voice acting in this show isn't very good, but Proto Man sounds the worst.

Mega Man runs into Wily's Volcano Skull Fortress where he gets in a series of Dark Man fights, and then blows up Wily's rebuilt Robot Masters within a matter of seconds. Wily tries to escape with a rocket, but Proto Man jumps on to it from the ground ALL THE WAY INTO THE STRATOSPHERE, and turns the rocket around to go back into the tv, trapping Wily back in the game. I guess he won't try and escape again?

Anyway, Utah and his family have dinner with Mega Man who is having just a heck of a darn time trying to figure out them darn chop sticks, ha ha ha? Mega Man goes back into the game with Rush and the credits roll to some hilariously out of place sappy music. Not seen, the severe beatings Utah receives for skipping class to save Japan, way to dishonor the whole family asshole!

Critique
As I said, this show is extremely accurate to the video games, even going as far as to accurately write a terrible story like the games! This show tries to be educational, but the facts are completely trivial, tacked on, and I know I certainly didn't learn more about Japanese culture from this. As a story, the characters are severely downplaying the significance of the whole "jumping out of televisions" business. The comedy isn't particularly funny either and the voice acting is about as terrible as every dub from Japan in the 90's was. Utah's sister sounds like shes 22 years old or something. There's also some really bad efforts to make echo like sound effects and the voices that come off the television are horrible.

The art is decent, if not very original, looking like every anime ever made, but the animation is nice enough. You don't see to many instances of the animators getting lazy and reusing stuff over and over.

I wasn't bored while watching this, but I wasn't engrossed with it either. The only reason to watch this is because Mega Man is in it, and it just doesn't stand up on it's own. If I was a kid who didn't know better, I think I'd stick with my ninja turtles.

Rating: Thumbs Down