Axess: Cross Fusion!

And we're finally here, Mega Man NT Warrior: Axess, the second series in the NT Warrior saga, and just about the start of where the show stops having much to do with Battle Network, and goes off on its own set stories. There's a lot of problems with Axess, and unlike NT Warrior, I genuinely dislike this series. Not that every episode is bad, there's a few nuggets here and there, but the majority of them get pretty stupid, and the show really takes itself too seriously. There's a great deal of changes that get started with the show from the very first episode, and some of them don't seem to make a lot of sense.

I don't know if this is standard in Japan or not, but there was only one break between weekly episodes of NT Warrior, and that's between the first series and this one. From the start of this first episode until the end of Star Force Tribes, there was a new Mega Man episode each and every week. The gap between NT Warrior and Axess was about six months or so, a bit longer than US television breaks, but not out of the ordinary.

I mention this, because right away, the cast of characters has been tweaked and moved around. Dex is missing, Yai is missing, World Three is missing, Masa, Sal, and Miyu are missing, and Chisao, Mr. Famous, and Lan's dad Yuchiro, are now main cast members. Ms. Mari also makes more frequent appearances in roles you wouldn't expect, and I theorize that there must of been some sort of contract negotiations going on in the background with all the voice actors in Japan, because all of these characters do make a return appearance eventually, but their role is significantly smaller within the greater context of the show. I am just speculating however, and this could have been a writing decision from the get go.

Axess's main problem stems from a really boring supporting cast. The new villains just plain suck, starting from this very first episode, and the dub doesn't help any by giving some of the characters just horrible voices. The other problem comes from Cross Fusion, which completely destroys the entire dynamic of the show that worked out so well for Battle Network. I'll explain more after the synopsis.

Plot Synopsis
If you can't tell by the way, that's Lan. MegaMan's eyes are green.

It's been a few months since the dimensional area experiments last episode, and SciLab is close to perfecting it. They are working on something called a Synchro-chip, a battle chip that will let the NetOp and NetNavi fuse together in a process called Cross-Fusion. There first test between a guy named Masaki and PrismMan fails, and Masaki needs medical attention after the experiment. Of course Lan is like, "Oh man, that looks like fun!" Lan, you're dumb.

While Lan is bugging his dad to injure himself, the doors seal and all the air starts pumping out of the room from the ventilation. MegaMan jacks in and fights a new net navi, BeastMa, er SavageMan! Lookit dat! Another name change! MegaMan has no problems with SavageMan though, probably cause SavageMan seems to be preoccupied with whatever is stuck in his throat.

Unsatisfied with the work of SavageMan, Dr. Claw shoots some junk out of a satellite, which create a dimensional area around SciLab! The whole color pallet turns to shit, and the lab is suddenly under attack from viruses in the real world, and an evil Net Navi ShadowMan! ShadowMan is stealing the synchro-chips, so with no real way to combat him, Lan grabs one and cross-fuses with MegaMan. Lan and MegaMan merge together, but ShadeMan escapes. SavageMan shows up again, and Lan finds out that he doesn't have any Battle Chips to use, but luckily, his Mega-Buster blows the fuck up out of SavageMan. SavageMan retreats, and the dimensional area dissipates, and the cross-fusion breaks. Lan passes out unconscious, BUT HE'S OKAY FOLKS! (because we're watching the dub).

Critique
There's a number of things here that are just bad, and the first of which is SavageMan, who has the worst voice possible given to him. He sounds like he's ready to vomit, and the attempt to make him overtly scary with his voice is just laughably bad. He's the character I like the least of Axess.

Then you've got the scene where Lan challenges ShadowMan. Lan runs downstairs, ShadowMan comments how foolish Lan is, and suddenly Lan is on the ground. Um? We miss something there guys?

Finally, at the very end of the episode, Lan falls unconscious, but is suddenly ok for no apparent reason as we hear his voice from off camera as we're looking at an establishing shot of the lab. Why not show Lan getting up if he was just fine? Oh I know, because that actually didn't happen. All my complaints with this episode are problems the dub and Viz Media introduced. It was their choice to give SavageMan a horrible voice, it was their choice to cut out ShadowMan thrashing Lan around, and it was their choice to fuck up the ending. Listen guys, it's okay to show Lan taking some hits, as a character the audience should have learned to like by this point, it should have some emotional strength if that character is put in realistic danger. If anything, ending with Lan unconscious from Cross-Fusion and not responding would make a great cliffhanger, and ensure kids tune in next week if you ask me, I don't get this decision at all.

That said, this isn't a bad episode by itself. Yeah, the characters get tweaked around, the dimensional area effect looks like shit, and Cross-Fusion becomes the worst thing to happen to this show, but we're not off to a bad start. The characters might have been beyond the writers control, the dimensional areas look better as the show goes on, and Cross-Fusion hasn't been abused yet. Even though the later half of this episode is chopped up to high hell, it's alright I suppose.

Rating: Thumbs up!

While I'm on the topic of Cross-Fusion, I'll explain my problems with it. First off, I'm not against the idea of two characters fusing together. It works fine in Star Force, and Mega Man ZX. I'm not even against the idea of Cross-Fusion working in this show, provided it's used with some restraint.

In Battle Network, the important element that distinguishes it from all the other series is the partnership between Lan and MegaMan.exe. Lan is MegaMan's operator, he comes up with the strategy and MegaMan relies on him to be successful. MegaMan is the Navi, he is an extension of Lan's operating abilities, and it's MegaMan's job to protect Lan in this world of giant computer networks and cyber terrorism. If Lan is in any danger of possible injury or death, it's usually something environmental connected to a network, and it is MegaMan's responsibility to fix the problem to save him. Likewise, if MegaMan is in danger, it is Lan's responsibility to feed MegaMan the battle chips.

With Cross-Fusion, the partnership is mostly lost. MegaMan becomes basically an armor, and Lan becomes a Super-Hero crime fighter. MegaMan's role is almost entirely gone, while the show focuses on Lan jumping out of planes and fighting Darkloids with the Mega-Buster. The whole dynamic of Battle Network is lost. Lan is not MegaMan, and MegaMan is not Lan, and the partnership is diminished.

On top of this, what exactly are the practical reasons for Cross-Fusion? Was it always intended to be used as a weapon? Lan is totally excited to Cross Fuse at the start of the episode, but if Cross-Fusion was to be developed as a weapon, is it really likely that his father would ever let him use it, especially at age 11? Or was it going to be used as a recreational NetBattling thing, where NetOp and NetNavi battle as one? In that case, isn't that recklessly dangerous for a recreational sport?

The writers knew somewhere along the lines that if Cross-Fusion wasn't restricted somehow, there wouldn't be any reason to have MegaMan on the show at all, so that's why there are dimensional areas, the only areas where Cross Fusion is possible. It's also the only place a Net Navi can materialize in the real world, but doesn't it stand to reason that if Darkloids can materialize in a dimensional area, so could regular Net Navis? Couldn't Lan just jack MegaMan into the dimensional area, and more safely operate him that way from outside it? That seems more practical to me, and keeps the partnership dynamic, while extending on the range of dangers the show could work with.

That's why this whole idea came about in the first place. How many networks can you attack? If you open up the real world to these cyber-attacks, you just have a lot more material to work with. Of course if Navi's and Cross-Fusion could happen anywhere, Lan would be a full on superhero, and the whole idea of Battle Network would be gone completely, so that's why it's restricted to dimensional areas.

But the dimensional areas are abused to all hell as well. They pop out of rocks and the ground and all kinds of weird spots, and trust me, the animators don't even try to make it look good. One of the worst parts of Axess is watching them try and make dimensional areas.

Cross-Fusion gets abused like crazy this season as well. Just about every villain fights MegaMan for a few minutes, then says, "welp fuck it, lets attack the real world!" and then Lan Cross-Fuses. It'd been different if Cross-Fusion was worked a bit better, say like the EX Codes last season. EX Codes were powerful, but extremely dangerous. Cross-Fusion starts that way, but next episode they get rid of the danger right away. If Cross-Fusion was a last resort, it could actually work really well for the show.

Instead, get ready for this scenario over and over. Darkloid attacks some network. Lan jacks in MegaMan for a two minute fight. Darkloid gets irritated, and a dimensional area blasts from outer space to where Lan is. Darkloid jacks into dimensional area, so Lan cross fuses and takes them out no problem. Sometimes they even skip the MegaMan portion of the show, and MegaMan almost entirely disappears from this season. This is why I don't like Cross-Fusion, and they go out of control with it this season, and Stream from what I've heard.

At least in Beast they scaled it down quite a bit. Yeah, it took traveling to a fucking alternate dimension, but at least Lan and MegaMan were partners again, instead of MegaMan basically being Lan's talking armor. I think even the writers noticed some of the points I'm making by that point in the series.

As if Cross-Fusion wasn't bad enough though, wait until we meet some of the new villains. If the show kept really interesting characters, I could deal with Cross-Fusion. As it stand though, Axess is boring as shit.