NT Warrior: Countdown to Catastrophe!

This episode is a re-imagining of scenario two of Battle Network 2.

Plot Synopsis
Sal is taking Lan and his friends on a camping trip through Okkuden Valley, a national forest or park or something. Secretly though, Sal is actually undercover with the Net Agents, looking for a Grave terrorist who has been attacking the water works and other facilities. The Net Agents suspect the Okkuden Dam is the next target, and Lan and his friends just happen to be going that way anyway, so Commander Beef thought they could be of some use. Well probably not anyone else but Lan and MegaMan, I mean, lets get serious here.

During the trip, they run into Speedy Dave, the forest ranger of the park. He's an old friend of Sal's and a big nature lover. He shows all of them a hidden spot with a lot of animals and junk, and then everyone heads to a cabin to stay the night. After everyone is asleep, Sal gets up and heads to investigate the dam, but Lan happens to notice her and follows.

Speedy Dave turns out to be the Grave Terrorist, and he threatens to destroy the dam with his Navi QuickMan if the dam owners do not agree to cease building a nearby new dam. He calls himself the Earth Avenger, and will use any means to protect mother nature. Sal goes down and tries to talk to him, stunned that Dave has turned to terrorism. Dave complains that nobody will listen to him unless he has power, but Lan steps in telling him that's garbage.

Lan jacks in MegaMan to fight QuickMan, but QuickMan keeps him distracted long enough for the dam to almost explode. Before it does however, Dave stops the process, and says he was never going to actually destroy the dam, but just wanted awareness for his cause. Before they can breathe a sigh of relief, Grave operative CutMan, shows up and tries to blow up the dam again. He's no match for instant win style change though, and MegaMan takes him out without any real effort.

Sal says she has to arrest Dave, but she'll help him change his life or whatever. The next day everyone in continuing their hike, and Sal notices more construction cutting down trees and notes that Dave was right about how stupid such destruction is.

Critique
It seems in every cartoon ever made, there is always at least one episode dedicated to pseudo-environmentalism, characterized by selfish humans destroying the homes of bunnies with their big machines and pollution. If only humans would quit advancing civilization for their own stupidity, then we could walk right up to the animals and pet them and live in peace in harmony with daffodils and rainbows shooting out of everyone's asses.

Ignoring the outright junk of this episode, like petting a boar the size of a tank, and the sugary sweet simplicity of the issues this episode brings up, it's still a bad episode. Is the message here that terrorism is ok, so long as you don't plan on hurting anyone? Yeah, great message for kids there guys. On top of that, how is there an alarm for the dam, but no guards? What sense does that make?

QuickMan is also stupidly lame. "I'm too fast for that MegaMan!" -gets shot- "ow you got me!" Then CutMan shows up, and the worst he does is stab QuickMan in the back before MegaMan just instantly wipes him out. Another weird thing this episode is the giant boar in the beginning that keeps changing sizes. One second it's the size of a tank, then it's face is the size of a tank.

The episode isn't animated badly or anything, but the overall message is just stupid, and it almost seems sympathetic to terrorist activities by groups like Earth Liberation Front. This is what happens when you try to inject real world politics into children's cartoons, you over simplify the issue and sound like a moron, while confusing kids at the same time. Way to go guys.

Rating: Thumbs down.