Axess: Metal Hot Spring! Ow its Hot!

Plot Synopsis
Lan, Mayl, Tory, Chisao and Ms. Mari are heading to the YokaYoka hot springs for the day, but there's all kinds of ridiculous traditions and tests all of them must pass before they're allowed in the springs. Unable to pass the tests, Lan wanders into the nearby chip/electronics shop owned by Tamako Shiraizumi. She challenges him to a NetBattle with her own Navi, MetalMa... er, HeavyMetalMan... now here's a name change I can't even figure out.

Anyway, HeavyMetalMan isn't the only one looking for a NetBattle, as BubbleMan has followed Lan and MegaMan, planning to exact his revenge. Unfortunately for him, all his attempts go unnoticed by MegaMan, and generally backfire hurting him instead. For some reason, this causes all the sprinklers or other devices with water to go off, soaking Lan and Tamako. Throughout the day, Tamako continually challenges Lan, and their NetBattle keeps being interrupted by various water devices going off when BubbleMan's plans backfire.

Finally in the middle of the night, Lan sneaks away to finally try the hot spring, but Tamako challenges him yet again. During this battle, BubbleMan finally tries a frontal assault that flat out fails, so he summons a dimensional area around the springs. Lan and MegaMan cross-fuse, and take a full on barrage of exploding bubbles head on... which do nothing. Lan then shoots BubbleMan... well that was anti-climatic. BubbleMan runs off, and the next day as Lan is heading home, Tamako challenges him to one last NetBattle.

Critique
There are parts of this episode I like, but the majority of it is pretty mediocre. Weird stuff happens like the bubbles bouncing off the metal blades, and while BubbleMan is somewhat amusing, the entire episode is just a montage of the same joke over and over.

The dimensional area's colors are a bit tamer this time, but they still look pretty bad, and the setup for it has the generators sliding out of rocks and a bus, and it just looks horrible. There's a nice continuity error too, when Lan is fighting in a towel, and then suddenly is fully dressed, no doubt so the animators didn't have to make another cross-fusion animation. On top of this, you have the climax where BubbleMan's full on barrage is completely useless, so there isn't really even a final battle.

What I did like about this episode, is that MegaMan managed to attack HeavyMetalMan with one of his own Metal Blades, which by all accounts should have deleted HeavyMetalMan outright. Actually, MegaMan has a number of interesting moves, although most of them are pretty ridiculous in their own rights. Still, not enough to really save this episode. Also, the picture at the top is horrifying.

Rating: Thumbs down.