Axess: NetCity No More!

Plot Synopsis
Lan wakes up really late the next morning, still a little exhausted from the whole Cross-Fusion process. He goes downstairs to his mother barely recalling what happened. She's awfully cheerful for someone whose kid almost died yesterday. "You have to show me when you and MegaMan Cross-Fuse again Lan!" she says. God, you are the worst mother in the world!

Lan takes off to SciLab, which lies mostly in ruins, to pick up his PET and MegaMan. The whole place is a mess, and Lan's Dad thinks Dr. Wily might somehow be behind the dimensional area that happened last episode. Since the Darkloids stole all the Synchro-chips, they only have two left, and they can't make anymore due to the rare metal used in their creation.

Lan goes to pick up MegaMan, and because of the Cross-Fusion, MegaMan loses his ability to style change (damn backwards comparability!), but otherwise he's fine. Lan's father gives Lan back his PET and Lan runs off to meet his friends, but Lan's father forgets that Lan still has the Synchro-chip.

Lan, Mayl, Rush and Chisao are at some sort of exhibition that is giving a holographic tour of NetCity, when suddenly it comes under attack from a giant UFO like structure. The UFO starts sucking up NetNavi's and chunks of data from NetCity left and right, so Lan gets permission to use battlechips and Jacks MegaMan in. MegaMan boards the UFO, but is attacked by SavageMan and forced to log out. Just then, the evil shadowy figure bad guy dude launches another satellite dimensional area around the exhibition Lan is at. Finding the Synchro-chip on him still, Lan Cross-Fuses again to fight the viruses and SavageMan, but this time he loads up battlechips before fusing so he can use them in the fight.

Lan effortlessly defeats SavageMan, and the dimensional area collapses. Lan is still drained of his energy, but doesn't fall unconscious this time. Unfortunately though, he was distracted long enough to let ShadeMan take over NetCity, building a huge Cyber-Citadel over the former metropolis.

Lan heads back to SciLab and Lan's father decides to let him keep the Synchro-Chip, but he reprograms it to not drain Lan's energy. Yeah, basically there was a switch on it that Yuchiro moved from drain energy, to not drain energy, that simple right? Now the Synchro-Chip doesn't have a memory leak (lame joke)!

Dr. Hikari also introduces Lan to a man named Keifer, chief of the Net Police. He wants to make Lan and MegaMan Net Saviors, a sort of secret agent crime fighter of the internet. With Dr. Hikari's blessing, Lan enthusiastically takes the no doubt dangerous and life threatening job that government officials are giving out to children. Dr. Hikari, you are the worst father in the world.

Critique
In the setup of phase of Axess, it doesn't become apparent right away how bad things are going to get, and I don't have any particular beefs with this episode on its own to gripe about. Yeah, the scene where the Navi's are getting sucked up is so obviously motioned tweened and crummy looking, and I still think the dimensional areas look chuddy, but nothing hits too hard on the writing this time.

Personally, I love where MegaMan first meets SavageMan this episode, gets knocked to the ground, and then just starts talking shit. Ah MegaMan, never change! Maybe some of that Ruby-Spears Mega Man rubbed off on ya.

To tell you the truth, I don't think the episodes really get bad until we get a few episodes in, and we're actually working with an interesting setup at first, even though NetCity getting taken over pretty much negates the entire Grave Finale doesn't it? Things will get pretty shitty, pretty fast though, even though this episode isn't so bad. If there is one thing that I really do like about Axess, I think the new opening and musical score are pretty good, even if its chopped up footage of the original Japanese Axess opening. The Japanese score is decent as well, some sort of Rock tune that fits nicely, although I personally like the orchestral soundtrack.

Rating: Thumbs up!