NT Warrior: That Sinking Feeling!

Plot Synopsis
This is a good episode, but the cheese factor is off the charts. It's the N1 Grand Prix finals, and finally Lan and Chaud are ready to face each other for the championship. Everyone's really excited and they spend the first five minutes wishing Lan and MegaMan luck with a bunch of horrible puns related to their characters. Chaud and ProtoMan are doing some last second training and a computer simulation calculates Lan's chances to being around 3% for a victory or so. Not looking to good.

Everyone is tuned in for the match, even the WWW agents are remotely interested, and Lord Wily is watching for the ultimate Net Navi. The match up begins and ProtoMan goes straight for MegaMan, striking a really fierce blow against the terrain that shakes the whole arena... wait... aren't they watching a computer? MegaMan has dodged the attacks and fires back with his own shots. Chaud and ProtoMan hold back their shock and try fake Lan out by remaining calm and doing some trash talking, but even Lan see's through it. They continue fighting as blow for blow shakes the arena, until eventually the support beams keeping the arena afloat the ocean start to collapse. In a panic, everyone starts to evacuate, but Lan and Chaud being the suicidal idiots that they are continue to battle each other, matching themselves move for move.

The fighting seems to awaken a sleeping mysterious navi named PharaohMan (seriously? You're going with PharaohMan?) and he seems really pissed about something. As Lan and Chaud's match go on while the arena is sinking, all the spectators can do is watch from the mainland, and Mayl starts the whole crowd cheering for Lan. Chaud suddenly begins to realize that the source of Lan's power is his teamwork with MegaMan instead of his skill. The battle get's incredibly cheesy at this point as it forms a huge ball of light around the arena... do I need to point out this is akin to an X-Box causing an earthquake?

Lan and Chaud are almost out of chips, so Lan challenges Chaud to one final strike with the Program Advance, to which Chaud accepts. They draw the LifeSword PA and MegaMan and ProtoMan begin dueling with it. The camera zooms on Lan, "for the team!" then to Chaud, "for the title!" MegaMan and ProtoMan come to a final strike with a blinding flash and then... MegaMan falls, giving ProtoMan the victory.

MegaMan apologizes to Lan for losing the match, but Lan is proud of MegaMan for giving it everything he had and the crowd cheers both competitors from afar. Even Chaud and ProtoMan are impressed by the effort, and ProtoMan helps MegaMan up, saying that MegaMan is the only Navi to ever challenge ProtoMan.

As ProtoMan is helping him up, MegaMan notices PharaohMan charging a blast at him and ProtoMan in the corner of his eye. He shoves ProtoMan out of the way and takes the full blast directly. The blast is so strong, and MegaMan is already so weakened, that his data begins to break up and MegaMan is deleted!

PharaohMan has arrived to delete all inferior Net Navi's and rule the cyber world, and Wily cheers as he's found his ultimate Net Navi! Chaud jack's ProtoMan out right away, and rescue helicopters arrive to pick Lan and Chaud up. Chaud is remorseful at the death of MegaMan as he didn't want it to go that far, and Lan is in too much shock to even function correctly, or as referred to on TV Tropes, the Heroic Blue Screen of Death.

Critique
There's so much wrong with this episode as there is so much right about it. Again, I have to bring up the inconsistency of the power levels of ProtoMan and MegaMan. Up until this point it doesn't look like they should stand toe to toe together, but I suppose that's typical in an underdog story. Another thing, the whole idea of the arena falling apart from a Net Battle sounds too god damned ridiculous to swallow, and so much of the fighting is laughable like when MegaMan and ProtoMan turn into balls of light that crash into each other ala the matrix or some shit.

And when taken into context with the rest of the series, the Program Advance Life Sword sure gets downplayed later on. Now it's the most ultimate thing ever, later on, it'll be a standard attack that won't do shit against the next big evil thing. These are the types of dumb things you notice with reflection and it becomes obvious that writers get themselves backed into a corner after the "shock" of the PA not having any effect wears off and they have to make enemies start wearing the PA armor standard issue.

That said, even at the times such things happen in each episode, they are exciting, and the battle in this episode is just as intense as it is laughable. MegaMan's sacrifice is a nice shock, and provides one of the extremely few times we'll see any development of the characters. Of course we know MegaMan will come back some how, although of any of the giant deus ex machina plot device shit that brings him back will be pretty stupid, but then again, I got used to that with Simga in Mega Man X.

It's a good episode that is exciting and you'll be laughing at how over the top stupid it is, and trust me, there is no way that wasn't intentional.

Rating: Thumbs up!