Axess: Anetta's Revenge

Plot Synopsis
Nebula has decided to assist a girl named Anetta in obtaining her revenge against Chaud and ProtoMan by giving her a Dark Chip that's been powered up to ten times the normal level, guaranteeing the corruption of a NetNavi in seconds. Anetta plays possum for the Net Police and pretends to be rescued by them.

While being shown around the Net Police HQ, we learn a bit about her past. Anetta was a patient at a hospital hit by a wave of virus attacks that caused a fire. Anetta's NetNavi Silk jacked in to try and open the doors for Anetta to escape, but Silk was consumed in the fire when Chaud and ProtoMan failed to rescue her. Desiring to avenge her fallen NetNavi, Anetta waits for the perfect opportunity to plant the disguised Dark Chip on Chaud's possession.

Anetta invites Chaud to hang out with her, and when Chaud accepts, he gains Lan's attention who decides to follow them. They go up into the observation deck of a tower, when a sudden fire alarm causes the doors to seal, and the oxygen to drain out of the room with Chaud and Anetta in it. Chaud jacks ProtoMan into the door to face a Dark Chip powered up SpikeMan. ProtoMan struggles, but Chaud never does use the Dark Chip, as he can tell which Battle Chips are his by feel (this ultra training bullshit is starting to get into nonsense here...).

While this is going on, Lan jacks MegaMan in to the network to open the doors. During the fight, Chaud apologizes for not being able to save Silk, but he promises to not let anything happen to Anetta, which causes her to question if she's doing the right thing or not. Lan gets the door open and has MegaMan join ProtoMan to stop SpikeMan. SpikeMan defeated, Lan tells Anetta what really happened when Silk was deleted.

Silk was interfaced with the hospital doors network, and if she had stopped, the doors would close, sealing Anetta inside. ProtoMan tried to get her out, but Silk refused, saying there wasn't enough time, and told ProtoMan to escape. With no other choice, Silk sacrificed herself to save Anetta. Anetta cries and apologizes to Chaud, who asks her where she got her Dark Chip, who she explains she got it from DR. REGAL! DUN DUN DUN!

At that moment, Ms. Yuri grabs Anetta and runs to a helicopter on the roof. Chaud and Lan give chase, but are too late to follow her. BubbleMan gleefully returns to ShadeMan to announce that he's figured out that Dr. Regal is the leader of Nebula. ShadeMan praises BubbleMan, and gets his dimensional area generator ready to strike at Dr. Regal's hidden base.

Critique
There's so much wrong with this stupid episode. First off, why would a paranoid group like Nebula, who blows up factories they use after a couple of weeks, trust a girl like Anetta to work for them, even though she's a complete unknown? If they just wanted to plant the dark chip on Chaud, why not have Dr. Regal do it himself? I mean, he's right there! Or even Ms. Yuri could do it, she seems to be a master of improbable stealth.

Anetta has taken a huge redesign of her character, right down to her artwork. In Battle Network 3, she's the operator of PlantMan, and an eco-terrorist working for World Three, marking her only appearance in the series. It seems weird to me to give a character like her such a redesign.

Her motivations are also pretty stupid, and inconsistent with her own character for the entire episode she's in. She's upset her rescuers couldn't save everyone? Are you serious? What a petty excuse for revenge, which is immediately countered when Anetta forgives Chaud after learning the truth, which was apparent from the start. Even if it wasn't, who seriously holds people responsible for not saving everyone? Yeah, it sucks she lost her navi, and people do weird things in grief, but this would be like saying the fireman who rescued people in the World Trade Center attacks are monsters because they missed a few people. It's just stupid.

And Navi death doesn't seem to mean much on this show anyway, just ask MegaMan, or TorchMan, or ElecMan. ElecMan especially, who just showed up again one day, he didn't even have the courtesy to give us all some sort of convoluted resurrection.

There's another problem with planting the dark chip. She places it with Chaud's other chips right next to his PET. Was ProtoMan asleep or something? Why didn't he notice? Then she's going to wait for Chaud to use the chip, but hell, why not just insert it herself? It's not like ProtoMan could have stopped her if she picked up the PET and threw in the dark chip, and nobody else was around.

Finally, you've got the final conflict of the episode with the draining of oxygen from the building. Chaud and Anetta are at the only entrance to that room? Why aren't there any fire escapes? Why don't the doors have a manual over ride to open them? Why the hell are they rehashing the conflict from the season premier, which is already standing on a shaky foundation?

And then Chaud can stop from using the battle chip by feel? Give me a fucking break. Like a huge nerd, I actually own some Battle Chips my sister got me in Japan, and there isn't any way to tell them apart with feel, even if you had ultra sensitive touch. I get Chaud is supposed to be really good at NetBattling, but we're really stretching the imagination here.

Then we've got the reveal of Dr. Regal being the leader of Nebula, which isn't surprising in the least, but the characters are justifiably shocked. This I have no problem with, but then Ms. Yuri shows up and kidnaps Anetta out of no where! Um, aren't Lan and Chaud standing at the only entrance to the room? Not only that, but Ms. Yuri also runs Anetta a different direction to the roof top, so if Chaud missed at least three exits out of the room, how do you expect me to buy the boy genius thing?

Anetta's not an interesting character, and you spend most of the episode wondering why this whole setup is so pathetically held together. The last few seconds of the episode are a little exciting, ignoring the inconsistencies in it, but that's about it.

Oh, but Lan does a good job getting some laughs by being creepy.

Rating: Thumbs down.