NT Warrior: The CutMan Brothers!

This episode only aired in Canada.

Plot Synopsis
We start off with a retelling of CutMan's deletion at the hands of MegaMan, told through one of CutMan's relatives, depicting MegaMan as a merciless thug who ambushed him... wait a sec... when did CutMan get deleted? The last episode with CutMan was Countdown to Catastrophe, and CutMan clearly logged out at the end of that episode. There aren't any missing episodes between then and now that the dubbers skipped, so was there some deleted scenes somewhere?

The last two episodes don't seem to have any room in the narrative for CutMan, and it doesn't make sense to me that the dubbers would go as far to change the standard Navi Deletion animation to making it log out for CutMan instead, especially when they've deleted other navis too so... what happened? Hell, even MegaMan seems confused about it later in the episode, but all well I suppose, let's just roll with it.

Anyway, the CutMan Brothers figure that MegaMan is an evil force, bent on taking over the universe, and that he must be stopped. They seem to believe they are fighting for justice, and probably aren't aware that CutMan worked for Grave, or so it comes across that way. They start off by sabotaging Lan's alarm clock, forcing him to run late to meet up with Mayl, Dex, Tory and Yai for pancakes. Lan rushes to a pay phone to jack MegaMan in to tell his friends he's running late, hoping they'll go easy on him if they get pancakes without him. When MegaMan gets jacked in, the CutMan Brothers cut communication between Lan and MegaMan.

The CutMan Brothers ambush MegaMan, aided by ShadowMan, as Lan searches for his navi. Lan runs into Chaud, and by sheer luck or Deus Ex Machina, they find MegaMan jacked into a haywire noodle machine. ProtoMan jacks in to help fight off ShadowMan while Lan activates a style change on MegaMan to take out the CutMan Brothers. The day saved, Lan runs into a very angry Mayl, Dex, Yai and Tory, and he begs their forgiveness for being late. Mayl tells Lan that he has to get up tomorrow and make everyone pancakes, and Chaud decides he wants some as well.

Critique
The whole premise is confusing right off the bat, as is a good chunk of the episode. Maybe there was context in the original Japanese airing, but in the US (or rather Canada I suppose), we're missing some crucial elements, like you know, CutMan getting deleted.

Past that, there isn't a hell of a lot of story to tell, it's pretty much MegaMan fighting the entire episode, but a good chunk of the dialog is just god awful. I can't tell if the CutMan Brothers are purposely supposed to over state every stupid thought they have or not, and Lan and MegaMan make some of the worst puns of the entire series. The type of stuff that would put a Ruby-Spears cartoon to shame, these puns are so bad. The writing this episode is pretty groan worthy.

On the other hand, the art in this episode completely saves it. The CutMan Brothers attack with Paper Doll things which look to be heavily inspired by Okami, and that is definitely not a bad thing. There's a good deal of eye candy, and the environments look good, even though it has never made sense why there would be all these Navi villages and cities to me, but the look is great. The opening sequence in the beginning looks pretty cool as well.

I'm giving this episode a thumbs up, but just barely. If the artwork was standard this episode, I'd have no problem giving it a thumbs down. The writing is easily the worst part of this episode. They don't talk much, but what they say is horrible. Still, this episode is worth checking out for the visuals.

Rating: Thumbs up!