Star Force: Biggest Fan or Biggest Foe?

This is a combination of the episode "Beloved Rockman-sama" and some filler put together by the dubbing company.

Plot Synopsis
Ophiuchus seizes Luna for her EM-Wave change and becomes Ophiuchus Queen. Omega-Xis drags Geo into the women's bathroom, sensing the EM waves, and upon seeing Ophiuchus Queen, she knocks him unconscious. Ophiuchus Queen then goes on a rampage at Sonia's concert trying to lure out MegaMan to do battle with her. Sonia Wave Changes as well, as does Geo when he wakes up. MegaMan gets into a fight with Ophiuchus, but when she sees him, Luna's identity begins to reassert itself and Ophiuchus Queen begins struggling between love and hate of MegaMan.

Lyra Note shows up and soon Luna's personal jealousy rages towards her. Luna's struggle against Ophiuchus Queen however, leaves her open to attack, and MegaMan and Lyra Note quickly get her under control and eject Ophiuchus from Luna. Luna lies unconcious to MegaMan's surprise at her identity. Lyra Note asks if she's his girl friend to which Geo hastily denies and says "She's just a girl I know." Lyra Note pulses out, with a slight hint of jealously in her voice as well. When Luna wakes up, she is disappointed she missed out on seeing MegaMan, and wishes he had rescued her instead of Geo, to which Geo just sighs.

The second half of the episode is a recap of the events of the show, lightly narrated by Geo, and it was put together by the dubbers. Thus ends the dub of Mega Man Star Force.

Critique
The first half is a good watch, although it looks kind of dumb when they splice in old footage of Sonia and she is wearing different clothes at the concert. The second half though isn't really worth watching at all if you've already seen the show. Since the first half is the only thing worth watching, I'm hesitant to give this a thumbs up, but the new footage for what it is, is worth watching.

Rating: Thumbs Up!

Extra
So that's the end of the dub. I think for all the concessions this show had to make with working with a 10 minute time limit and such, it turned out pretty good. I don't watch a lot of anime, dubbed or not, but I do know a lot of foreign media that is dubbed turns out awful. This show isn't bad with the choices made in the dubbing process by any means and the source material is good too. There weren't any shows cut out either and everything was aired in the correct order.

However, this show was probably doomed from the start, as it lacked any ambition by Cartoon Network to air it. It only aired on TV twice as a broken up 2 hour movie (although to be fair that covers most of the show) and the only way to see the rest of the episodes was to download them off of Toonami Jetstreams website, which is now shut down. On top of this, Star Force's sales in comparison to Battle Networks weren't as strong, and even NT Warrior wasn't a huge smash hit in the US. On top of this, Star Force seems to be aimed at a slightly older audience than NT Warrior (not much older) and the only people I can see that would be interested in tracking this show down to see it on it's website are hardcore Mega Man fans that are not only fans of the games, but also fans of the extra incensed crap by Capcom. That's just tier over tier over tier of not applying to a larger demographic, which a show like this needs to survive.

Taking into account that their were obviously other properties that Cartoon Network felt were stronger in certain time slots, it's hard to say how well Star Force would have fared had it been given a decent time slot and a serious attempt to air it. Time Warner owns both Kids WB and Cartoon Network, and they didn't feel it was strong enough to air on network TV. So sadly this show went by the wayside, but it did continue on in Japan to cover the events of the first game, and another season of the events of the second game. That season would be cut short though, and Star Force would never achieve the cartoon fame that NT Warrior did. I personally think it is a better show than NT Warrior, but I have no idea how it fared to the competition of other cartoon shows at the time, and frankly, it might not hold up to children's interests.

It is good that they cut off the season here at least, having introduced us to all the FMians, and give us a taste of where Geo is going with his life. We still need to see where the situation with Pat is going, the Satellite Admins who have yet to be introduced, and we don't know what Andromeda is just yet. However, a huge story arc happens next episode, and I rather the dub stop here than blue ball us in the middle of a big cliffhanger.