Mega Man NT Warrior vs. Rockman.exe

In various circles of "anime purists" I have consistently seen a meme spread among fans of Rockman.exe that the American Dub butchered the series. Is this what happened? Only by watching both shows can anyone really determine that, and having done just that myself, I'm going to have to remind folks that Rockman.exe wasn't that fine of a cut of beef to begin with.

Now to be fair, there are plenty of scenes in the show, and some other distinct changes that the dub made in strange ways, but a good portion of it comes down to nit-picking in my opinion. Far too many people have put the original show on a pedestal, when it just isn't that great a show in the original audio or the dub. So let's knock the original show down a few pegs, and maybe prop the dub up a little with a point by point comparison!

The Story

For what it's worth, each episode is nearly identical plot wise, with nearly no deviation. It does happen often enough to be noticeable if you've seen both shows though, in the form of a few cut scenes, changed dialog, or just different effects used. The biggest deviation I can think of that actually changes how the plot looks would be from the episode, "Don't Mess With Mama Zap!"
The episode in the original show has Count Zap in a drunken stupor, literally drinking out of the bottle, and ends with the possibility that either something magical happened, or Zap was hallucinating, as he confirms his mother has been dead for quite some time. This can be inferred in the dub version as well, but only if you're catching the subtle hints left in from the original. Either way it's still a weird episode.

Another change goes into Gauss's character, particularly in the episode, "Working for Grave." In the dub, Gauss is shown to highly respect Dr. Wily, but in the original show, he's flat out obsessed with him, and a cross dresser.
As I said, most story changes to the show are pretty minor, and very few of them give different or new context to the situation at hand. In most cases when something is different, the dub will add tons of lines of dialog from characters speaking off screen. I've pointed out continuously that characters in the dub speak ridiculously fast about certain things, and this problem is absent in the original. In fact, sometimes the original doesn't have the characters speaking enough, leaving the situation more confusing than mysterious.

A good number of cases I find the dub pulls off individual scenes better than the original, and other times, the original is just better. The shows are mostly identical, but the changes really do go scene to scene. I personally don't see a distinct winner here.

The Characters
The biggest change is not what the characters say, but how they say it, and Mega Man and Lan are quite different from Rockman and Netto. Well, actually, Lan is mostly the same, Brad Swailey's voice just isn't as convincing at being a young kid as Higa Kumiko, the Japanese voice actress. Netto's voice carries more innocence to it, and in a lot of ways makes the character more believable in some of the childish shit he pulls. If there was anything I wish the dub had done, it would be that it should have made an effort to make Lan sound his age.
When it comes to Rockman vs Mega Man, this call is a bit tougher. Frankly, Andrew Francis is a great Mega Man. His voice gives Mega Man a mature sound, without being too old. It feels right. Character wise, Mega Man's dialog has been altered to give him a bit of a bite to him, with a few cocky lines and a trash talking attitude, this Mega Man harks back to the Ruby-Spears character, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Akiko Kimura's portrayal is a lot more traditional. Rockman is much more serious, earnest, and good natured. This is the Mega Man character you know from the Battle Network games, and if there is any reason to watch both versions of the show, this is it. This is the most significant change, the attitude of the titular character. I think it works both ways if you ask me, though Rockman's portrayal may be only significant to me because of the games I've played. Someone who is just watching the show could take either character as a preference I suppose.

Most of the characters are exactly the same, but the voice actors decided to add a little something to them in the dub. Masa's Texan behavior, and Mr. Match's Scottish accent come to mind, and while not everyone likes these traits, I always found them endearing. Masa's dub voice actor in particular adds so much great dialog to an already well written character, that I just have to prefer him over the original, and the same goes for Mr. Match. I have to say, there maybe some English speaking bias here, because I simply don't know enough Japanese to pick up the nuances and dialects like a native speaker. Perhaps those characters are just as endearing over there if you know what to listen for.

Although Count Zap in the original speaks a lot of really badly broken English, with his catchphrase being "GOAD DAM MIT!" I'm guessing he's supposed to be an American or British character, but he sounds to ridiculous for me in a bad way in the original. If you'll recall, Count Zap is one of my favorites in the dub.

The rest of the cast has such minor changes it's hardly worth bringing up, although Ice Man sounds like a little kid instead of a 40 year old chain smoker, and I prefer Chaud's dub voice actor to the original. This maybe influenced heavily by my speaking English, but I have to say on average, I enjoy the character from the dub a bit better.

The Music

Japan is huge on creating a certain type of theme songs for their shows, and Rockman.exe opens up with a big ballade about fighting with your friendly net navi to solve mysteries and stuff. It's a pretty catchy tune, and if you've played Network Transmission, you've heard it before.

NT Warrior goes with a techno beat as the main theme, and while not as lyrical, it fits the world of all these computer age situations. When either of the main themes start up, Mega Man is generally turning the battle around, and it's time to start cheering!

As for the rest of the tracks, neither show uses more than about 10 total, and many times I felt the original show's selection seemed off in a number of places. Music in editing is as much timing as it is the music, and I simply feel that the dub's timing is much better.

The Cut Content

I speculated a long time ago that many of the episodes that were cut for the dub were done so for the sake of censorship. Just watching the original show, there are lots of language censorship in just about every episode, at least according to the fan translation I watched.

However, I am comfortable in saying that my speculation was mostly wrong, and these episodes were cut because they are by far the most boring pieces of trash I've ever seen involving Mega Man. Every cut episode is awful, absolutely awful. The only thing you miss from any of the cut episodes is a line about how glad Lan is the have Mega Man back after he is resurrected. That's IT! These episodes are on the lowest rungs of the totem pole for quality, especially the episode involving the introduction to that abomination to 3D animation, Aki.
In a show that's already rimming with continuity errors, stilted animation, and absolutely retarded dialog, that was in the script long before they headed overseas, making episodes as bad as "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," must of took an excruciating amount of effort. It's so awful. I find it hard to fault the dub for cutting some of the stuff they do, considering they didn't want the show to end up canceled.

Final Thoughts

I've never been particularly kind to XEBEC for this show, but I think Rockman.exe gave them the experience they needed to make Star Force as good as it was. When the show was shipped to the US, I think only the most retarded of Japanophile fanboys could seriously make an argument about how the dub ruined the show. The dub isn't perfect, but the main show isn't all that special either. Just cause Mega Man is in it, doesn't mean it's as worthy of the admiration it has.

If you enjoyed the dub, check out the original show for a slightly different take on Mega Man himself. If you didn't enjoy it, Rockman.exe isn't going to convert you by any means.

Rockman.exe Program of Light and Dark

While I'd like to review Stream, Beast and Beast+, unfortunately those series lack complete subtitled translations as of yet. However, there is one last Mega Man cartoon which did get translated, a movie rather. This 50 minute movie from the Mega Man NT Warrior universe puts a final cap on the Dr. Regal saga, and retells the events of Battle Network 5... with quite a liberal use of creative license. For now, this will be my final Mega Man cartoon review.

A bit of background, Program of Light and Dark takes place sometime during the Stream series. Stream followed a story where cross-fusion became a bit more prevalent amongst the cast, and Lan and MegaMan ended up having to deal with a being from outer space named Duo, with the help of a new mysterious Navi named Colonel, whose mysterious operator hides his identity from Lan. Anyway, Bass decides he wants to take MegaMan's ultimate program (the junk from the end of the second season of NT Warrior) to make him self the ultimate navi. He attacks MegaMan a bit, then gets banished to the undernet by Duo's helper, Slur. Fast forward to the movie...

Plot Synopsis
We open up with some sort of cross-over between Rockman.Exe and some other anime series about card battling or some shit. Maybe this was part of a double feature or something. Anyway, once the movie begins proper, Bass is floating around the undernet when suddenly a giant monster thing appears. Then huge laser things start moving around the Earth and absorbing building and people and stuff, and forming strange glyphs in the landscape.

Lan and his friends are at an amusement park while this is going on, NetBattling to the Stream opening theme of "Be Somewhere," and he suddenly gets a call from his dad to go put a stop to it by blowing up some huge server or something at a building called TRINITY. As MegaMan arrives in the server to destroy it, Bass shows up and starts fighting him. Colonel also shows up in the nick of time to help out MegaMan, and distracts Bass while MegaMan blasts at the server.
It's not good enough though, because the strange entity of energy sucks up the data anyway and the monster Bass ran into shows up, who Bass identifies as Nebula Grey. The big laser beams show up again and start sucking up the city, along with all of Lan's friends. Lan is momentarily depressed when his dad picks him up, and tells him he has a plan how to get everyone back.

So basically these lasers aren't killing people, but actually the remains of a program called Spectrum, which is the combination of two programs by Tadashi Hikari (Lan's Grandfather) and Dr. Wily. Essentially, it makes it so people can materialize in the cyberworld, but the project got canceled when Dr. Wily went to work for the Netopian Army.

Anyway, apparently Nebula Grey was hidden in the program, and is trying to suck up the real world into the cyber world. MegaMan wonders if he's strong enough to stop it, and asks Lan if maybe they should give Bass MegaMan's ultimate program to stop it.
Just then, Dr. Regal appears out of nowhere, apparently having survived getting blown the fuck up in Axess. When LaserMan was taken out, his data was sent to the cyberworld, and Regal went with him. Then, Dr. Regal had enough time to find out about Nebula Grey, and grow a pretty wicked goatee. Anyway, he's fused with Nebula Grey and plans to take over the world, but in order to do that, he needs to kidnap Lan's father for some sort of access code with Tadashi Hikari's program. They teleport away, so Lan meets up with Chaud and Raika to form a plan.
Using Chaud's connections with the Netopian army, Chaud learns the location of base where Dr. Wily's program is stored, and presumably where Dr. Regal has taken Lan's father. Raika, Chaud, and Lan all Cross-Fuse with a SciLab dimensional area around the island and attack. They're surrounded by laser shooting mechs, which Raika and Chaud hold off, while Lan looks for his father.

Then Regal activates Spectrum, using the codes found in Dr. Hikari's fucking iris, and this somehow causes a temporal rift in time, which sends Baryl (Colonel's operator) to the future, and he rescues Lan from certain doom. They find the capsule where spectrum is functioning, and Jack MegaMan and Colonel in to stop it. Colonel holds off security while MegaMan goes to deal with Regal, who is jacked inside the machine.
Nebula Grey is starting to materialize in the real world, but luckily, Bass shows up to help fight him off, apparently pissed that Regal manipulated him somehow... I guess? MegaMan and Bass are strong, but not enough to stop Regal, who starts absorbing them in Nebula Grey. MegaMan figures his only hope is to give Bass his Ultimate Program to stop Nebula Grey, even if it means MegaMan's deletion.
Bass is all too happy to oblige MegaMan's request and begins absorbing his ultimate program... but wait a second, it looks like MegaMan is actually taking over Bass's ultimate program! MegaMan fuses with Bass into a Bass DoubleSoul, and then uses his new power to destroy Nebula Grey, and Dr. Regal once and for all.

The process of the Earth turning into the cyberworld stops, and the world is saved. But uh-oh! Regal was a load-bearing villain, and the whole island is blowing up! Also, MegaMan is too weak to escape and Lan can't jack him out. Bass breaks the DoubleSoul Cross-Fusion, and MegaMan is able to jack out while Bass is absorbed in the blast and presumed dead (he's not). Baryl returns to the past, and Lan and his team are picked up by the Net Police as the credits roll.

Critique
If you understood any of that, please explain it to me, because this whole fucking story is beyond comprehension, and is so convoluted and confusing, I can't really say if it's good or bad. This story makes no fucking sense, and I'm speaking as someone who actually is up on the Mega Man canon. Imagine if you were someone that didn't know Mega Man too well, this would be complete drivel to you! Stream isn't necessary to watch before seeing this movie, because it won't make it any less confusing. The plot is just a broken mess.

That aside, the animation, artwork, and music are all top notch. This is what you would expect from a bigger budget movie, and MegaMan has never looked better in this high quality. We also got to see a lot more of Bass in a role much less retarded than his previous ones, which is always a plus, and he actually fought MegaMan this time. This is definitely an eye candy event.

I did like that they cleverly threw away Lan's friends for most of the movie to keep the plot more action focused, because if you had any time to think about the plot, you wouldn't be looking at all the pretty animation. There's a lot of clever effects here, and I especially like the mosaic ending effect.

It's been a while since I've watched a subtitled episode of Rockman.exe, but there's quite a noticeable change of tone between the two shows. MegaMan and Lan both sound much younger, which I think works to their advantage some what, and the musical choices are completely different. The cross-fusion music in particular, which became sort of the theme of the Japanese show feels off when it's used, but it is catchy.

For as stupid as the plot is, I'm glad I watched the movie at the end of it. It looks nice, and as a Mega Man fan, I enjoyed it. I can't say I'd recommend this to anyone besides Mega Man fans, as I was lost enough knowing what was going on. I'd probably hate this movie any other way, but you can't deny the animation is good. I think Star Force carries on this level of quality with its animation in a lot of episodes though, with less of the retarded plot nonsense. As a Mega Man fan, I rate the movie a thumbs up.

Rating: Thumbs up!

And that's it for the Mega Man cartoons. I'd love to do Stream, Beast, and Beast + some day, but I won't touch them until an English subtitled release comes out. Beast is almost done, but that group updates slower than the continental drift, and Stream has been on indefinite hold by so many groups so many times. Right now there is a group working on subtitling the original audio for Axess, and they plan to do Stream and the others, but they just started and I wouldn't count on seeing that done to completion anytime soon, even within five years. Face it, fan projects suck with time tables, and there is surprizingly a lot of drama amongst self important subbers, so with that little egotistical trait they all seem to share, I wouldn't count on ever seeing me review any of the next few series. All well, at least I mostly enjoyed what time I had with Lan and MegaMan.
Next up, the last review (for a while) for Mega Man. The new game, Mega Man 10!

Axess: DoubleSoul!

Plot Synopsis
All the lights in DenTech city are overloading and projecting way more light than normal. Of course a Darkloid is behind it all, FlashMan, and Lan is called to the case by Mr. Famous. Overhearing his secret Net Savior call, Mayl follows Lan, and ends up jacking in her own Navi Roll, to assist MegaMan against FlashMan.

Unfortunately Mayl and Roll get a bit too cocky, and a poorly aimed aqua tower nearly deletes MegaMan. Lan jacks MegaMan out, and Roll gets jacked out too. They head to SciLab to see if MegaMan can be repaired while FlashMan continues to wreak havoc on the city.

Dr. Hikari examines MegaMan's data and notices a lot of strange new data, perhaps caused by the Cross-Fusion. MegaMan's in bad shape though, and they need to reboot him. During the rebooting process, FlashMan's attacks are screwing up the power grid, and if the power goes out in SciLab, MegaMan could be lost forever!

Feeling guilty for nearly deleting MegaMan, Mayl and Roll jack in to distract FlashMan while they buy MegaMan some time. Roll takes quite a beating for a few solid minutes while FlashMan continually pounds her with explosives. Roll is just about deleted when MegaMan finally shows up. He attacks with a Bamboo Sword and has FlashMan on the rocks, when FlashMan pulls out his own ace in the hole, a DarkChip.

The DarkChip surges an enormous amount of power through FlashMan, and he suddenly has no problem fighting off MegaMan. MegaMan goes down, and is about to be deleted, when Roll, struggling to her feet, attempts to pull MegaMan out of harms way. Suddenly, a chain reaction goes off, and a huge surge of light engulfs MegaMan and Roll. The two of them fuse together, changing MegaMan's appearance to take on some of Roll's characteristics, and giving him full access to her powers. MegaMan is suddenly even more powerful than DarkChip infused FlashMan, and blasts him away with ease.

With the day saved, Dr. Hikari figures the process was caused by those new bits of data in MegaMan, and they call the process DoubleSoul. Rolls Data left over from DoubleSoul is put onto a chip so Lan can use it at any time, and Lan thanks Mayl and Roll for helping save the day.

Critique
I like DoubleSoul. It's almost practically useless in the games, but it looks cool, and the show doesn't have to deal the gameplay limitations of it. Admittedly RollSoul looks a bit fruity on MegaMan, but conceptually DoubleSoul brings back the classic Mega Man theme of Mega Man taking his enemies abilities for himself. Although MegaMan never merges with an evil Navi for DoubleSoul, the ideas are roughly the same.

DoubleSoul in the show is more often used better than Style Change was as well, since MegaMan is usually in trouble when it triggers, and it's better than Cross-Fusion because it restricts Lan to his primary role as an operator.

For this episode, the narrative is pretty decent with Mayl's interference screwing up MegaMan, and her and Roll's determination to save him. DoubleSoul itself is given a reasonable explanation as to why MegaMan can suddenly use it, and the introduction of DarkChips will play a significant part in the rest of this series.

On the downside, the dialog is completely awful and there are so damn many reused animations of the same explosions again and again that this episode damn near comes off as lazy. This episode is practically 1/3rd recycled animation, and it becomes a drain to watch because of it. I'm still recommending this episode, because these problems don't overwhelm the positives.

Rating: Thumbs up!

Axess: Bubble Trouble

Plot Synopsis
Ms. Mari's class is having a field trip to the waterworks and, once again, Lan is running late. Him and MegaMan are arguing back and forth about the situation, as Lan is being whiny, and MegaMan is being a bit smug. When Lan arrives, and emergency goes off and Lan gets a call from Mr. Famous, his Net Savior handler. Mr. Famous wants Lan to investigate the water works, so Lan jacks MegaMan in as they continue their little spat between each other.

Messing up the network is BubbleMan, another Darkloid. MegaMan is too much for him, so BubbleMan gets a dimensional area setup to go after Lan. Lan goes for the Cross-Fuse but MegaMan tries to stop him. Too far into it, Lan is cross-fused, but without his battlechips! "Why didn't you tell me before hand MegaMan!?" "I tried to!" They continue to argue as Lan fights BubbleMan with his Mega-Buster, but it's not being all that effective. BubbleMan loses interest in the fight, as Lan tries to destroy the dimensional area generators. Unfortunately, Lan's punching and shooting have no effect. "Lan, you're going to have to think of something else, it's not working!" "Then I'll make it work!" "Listen to me!" "BE QUIET!"

Overcome with anger and frustration, Lan's yelling at MegaMan causes the cross-fusion to break. MegaMan falls behind some sort of firewall, and the second time they try and cross-fuse, it fails. Even after MegaMan makes it through the firewall back into the PET, they still can't cross-fuse and MegaMan tries diagnosing the problem. They're running out of time though, as BubbleMan is tearing up the water works. Needing to stall for time, Lan tries to stop BubbleMan with his bare hands, but that of course proves to be futile.

"I can't figure out whats wrong Lan, I've tried everything!" "You're going to just have to try harder, and fast!" Just then, it suddenly dawns on Lan that MegaMan is always in the position Lan is in right now in combat. So Lan decides that if MegaMan needs more time, Lan is going to stall as long as he can. MegaMan looks on Lan, amazed that he keeps fighting despite being defenseless. BubbleMan is sick of Lan's interference so he blast a bubble at him filled with an explosive!

Just as the explosive hits, MegaMan screams Lan's name, and the cross-fusion finally restores itself, saving Lan in the nick of time from the impact. With the cross-fusion intact, Lan defeats BubbleMan and saves the day. Later, they determine that their friendship is what causes the cross-fusion to stabilize, and when they don't get along it doesn't work right. Lan then promises to listen to MegaMan more often.

Critique
If there's any episode of Axess I genuinely think is really good, it's this episode. The plot is pieced together very nicely and the build up to the cross-fusion breaking feels well paced. Seeing Lan in this episode try to take on BubbleMan by himself is great, and for once it comes off as actual bravery, rather than near suicidal insanity. The role-reversal with Lan and MegaMan is what makes this episode work, and it touches greatly on the partnership angle that I wrote about a few reviews ago. It's a shame the show really drops this angle as the series progresses.

BubbleMan is probably the best new character out of Axess, a bit of a precursor to Cancer Bubble, although I personally find Cancer more endearing. But if you're looking for a pathetic villain with a speech impediment, Bubble's your man.

Not everything is fantastic this episode, and this is the episode where the dimensional area generators start sliding up out of solid concrete without so much as cracking the ground, and that just looks shitty. That's really the only small complaint of an otherwise fantastic episode though.

Rating: Thumbs up!

NT Warrior: Virus Busters!

Plot Synopsis
Lan's dad is conducting some weird experiments on the island of Jawaii, involving something called Dimensional Areas, which basically take data from the cyberworld and makes it into matter, kind of like how Rush can walk around and go from the real world to the cyberworld. Meanwhile, Lan himself is doing some of his own inventing and creates a wireless Jack In port for his PET. He then gets a startling phone call from Commander Beef.

Lan's dad has gone missing, and somebody actually noticed! Lan and his friends, and Tory, head down to the mall that Yuchiro was working at to try and find him. When they get there, they find the place has been overrun with viruses, except not just in the cyberworld, but the real world under the dimensional area from the experiment! Lan and everyone jack in their Navi's but immediately lose contact with them afterwords. With no choice but to run from the viruses, they all take off.

MegaMan and the other navis get lost in a maze of tunnels, and eventually Aki, who I guess is there for no inexplicable reason, helps lead them to their NetOps. Meanwhile, Lan and everyone find out that the viruses take damage from water. They all load up on water guns at a nearby toy store and begin shooting the viruses left and right.

Eventually they make their way to the core of the dimensional area and find it is infested with the mother of all viruses, The Life Virus! They try attacking it, but there efforts are futile. Just before they're about to be killed, MegaMan reestablishes contact with Lan, and appears in the real world to fight off the virus. When the virus is deleted, the core returns to normal, and all the Navi's return to their PETs.

Just around the corner, they find Lan's dad sleeping, which they figure was caused by the ghost virus. But since the ghost virus can't do that, I'm just going with my theory that Lan's dad is an irresponsible asshole. My theory is confirmed because seconds after seeing Lan, Yuchiro jumps in a van-helicopter-thing and runs off. You are the worst father ever! Just then, Commander Beef gets a call from the other net agents, and a second dimensional area set up by Lan's father is also infested with viruses! Everyone groans as they prepare to head on over that way.

Critique
So this is the real season finale? Seriously? A ghost busters parody? Are you kidding me? It ain't a coincidence, as the title of this episode is exactly the same thing in Japan. This whole episode is just everyone running around from viruses until they figure out they're weak to water. What? Are the viruses from the land of Oz? What happens if Rush touches water, does he get deleted too? What about MegaMan? He was firing water from his arm cannon right?

Then you got Aki, who is so fucking poorly animated, holy shit! Ever heard of Mo-Cap XEBEC? Or at least increasing the amount of keyframes on Maya? Thankfully, this is Aki's last appearance, and these horrible 3D effects are going to be limited for a little while at least.

The Life Virus had potential to be a big time finale type fight, as it is the final boss of the first game, but I guess they thought it would be funnier to go with some jokes instead. I really don't understand why this episode, and all the other ones after "The End of the End" couldn't have just been done before finishing up the whole Grave arc. Yeah, there are some lead ins with the dimensional areas and wireless PETs that will play a part in Axess, but those events could have been summed up in a few sentences of the next season, or hell, just make all those episodes come in for Axess.

Then there's a weird gap at the beginning of the episode where everyone's on a plane to Jawaii, and then suddenly the plane is now a helicopter. Did they get in a helicopter, or did the plane just turn into one? Ever heard of cutting to continuity here?

If there is anything to like about this episode though, it's that we get to see a lot of viruses from the games that haven't been showcased before, and many of them true to their source material. We've got the drop down guys, the Aura head things, the zap rabbits, the hands the drop bombs, the quake viruses, all kinds of interesting stuff, and at least the life virus does make an appearance.

Mostly though, I just think this episode is disappointing. I don't see a lot of effort into this episode, and referential humor isn't all that great. So what if they look like the Ghostbusters? Is there anything else to this episode? The answer is no.

Rating: Thumbs down.

As we come to a close on the first series of NT Warrior, I have some final thoughts. For all the shit I give this series, I did genuinely enjoy it. It has its ups (the N1 Grand Prix, MegaMan's deletion, World Three in general), and downs (Grave, Princess Pride, Bass, PharaohMan), but I think I've given mostly positive reviews. A lot of episodes in this show are good enough to watch, not just as a Mega Man fan, but as genuine entertaining show.

I don't go into each episode expecting much, but I still look forward to seeing what happens, because the characters keep it interesting. I definitely think Star Force has stronger characters, hands down, but I like Lan and MegaMan to be sure, and NT Warrior has its own cast of strong support characters (Count Zap, Mr. Match, Higsby, Masa, Rush) and a few lame ones (Yai, Kid Grave, Chaud early on but he gets better).

NT Warrior is pretty inconsistent though. The episodes that are good are just waaaaaay better than the ones that are bad. Ratings are a pretty arbitrary thing, but this show is always walking the line of "so stupid its great," and "so stupid its stupid." When you see Count Zap cackling away while wailing on an electric guitar about stealing video games from children, you can't help but laugh. When you hear Lord Wily give a long contrived explanation about the origins of Bass, you just want to change the channel. This show generally works better when it doesn't take itself too seriously, although sometimes weak writing, like in the episode above, keeps the joke from being funny.

I'll tell you what isn't funny though. MegaMan NT Warrior Axess. Take everything positive I've said about this show: a few interesting stories, great supporting cast, not taking itself too seriously, and then just chuck that shit all out the window. Now you have Axess, which strives to prove that you can absolutely murder a show.

Maybe I'm just speaking as an ignorant American, since the show did do well in Japan, but to me, Axess is the death of this show. The melodrama here is off the charts, all the good characters are replaced by absolutely horrible ones, and they some how manage to destroy the entire dynamic of Battle Network that forms the basis for the whole damn scenario!

That's not to say every episode of Axess is bad, but most of them are. You think I don't like Kid Grave, wait till you hear my thoughts on Regal and Ms. Yuri, good god. In the US, Axess didn't do well enough to keep going, but in Japan it managed to stay afloat for a few more seasons. Although I haven't personally seen Stream, some of Beast, and most of Beast+, from what I understand, the shows just got progressively worse. After Stream, the show got it's season halved, and then it got it's time slot halved as well. Ouch!

From what I've seen of Beast, they tried to fix a few problems that Axess introduced, and Steam drilled into the fucking ground, but by then it was really too late, and to fix those problems, they had to make new, stupid ones. If you want a decent cartoon to kill a few hours with, you could do worse than the first series of NT Warrior, but if you want to keep going with the series, you probably shouldn't bother unless you're a die hard Mega Man fan. Axess is coming up next.

NT Warrior: From Here to Revolutionary PET's!

Plot Synopsis
Chaud and Lan are having a friendly NetBattle, and Chaud unleashes the Program Advance on MegaMan. Lan smirks and counters it with a simple Cyber-Sword, throwing Chaud completely off his game. Before they can finish the match however, Chaud gets a phone call from his father, and has to postpone the match.

BlazeQuest is working with a local engineer to design a brand new PET, but the engineer isn't finished yet. He keeps getting held up on really minor imperfections that are driving his assistant crazy. Chaud offers to help out, so the proprietor has Chaud running errands like shredding papers, cleaning the bathrooms, and buying them lunch, much to Chaud's chagrin (I know how you feel dude).

The way they are designing the chips involves Net Navi's cutting a cyber-stone thing with swords (don't ask me how engineering works on this show), so Chaud jacks ProtoMan to help out with the Program Advance. While the shot comes close, it's still not perfect, and the owner tells Chaud that "Power without control is useless."

After they send Chaud out to get them lunch, the power goes out. Apparently the assistant forgot to pay the power bill. Afraid of being fired, he runs off for an easy fix, and gets caught stealing World Three's electricity from #1 Curry. World Three chases after him, but the assistant gives them the slip.

As Chaud is returning, the owner of the shop is being harassed by mafioso types, but they quickly run off when they find out Chaud is the son of the owner of BlazeQuest. Chaud offers the man a position with his company, promising better work facilities and benefits, but the guy is worried about how he likes to do things his own way.

Just then, the assistant steals the incomplete data and sends viruses into the system to slow them down from chasing him. Chaud jacks in ProtoMan to help hold back the viruses when suddenly DrillMan shows up and... wait a second... DrillMan? Kinda coming out of left field on this one aren't we XEBEC? Just like the real DrillMan fight, he proves to be a huge pain in the ass for ProtoMan, even with the Program Advance which fails again. Chaud suddenly remembers that "Power without control is useless," and has ProtoMan target DrillMan's tip to take him out.

World Three ends up catching the assistant and decides they're going to "take care of him," their way. The man decides to take Chaud's offer and comes to work for BlazeQuest. The next day, the name of the technique to craft the chip is called the "ProtoMan technique" and Lan and Chaud have "the best NetBattle EVER!"

Critique
For once, Chaud is actually likable this episode. No, I'm serious! He actually doesn't come off as an arrogant twat, and he almost looks like he actually respects Lan and MegaMan. The humor in this episode comes from the store owner pretty much putting Chaud in his place the whole way through. Who cares if he's vice president, that toilet ain't gonna unclog itself Chaud! I even thought the banter between the worker navis had some good lines to it, and ProtoMan's fake enthusiasm is great.

Then you've got World Three, always delivering. Mr. Match sings, "If you're evil and you know it clap your hands!" And then there's this exchange between Maddy and Count Zap.

Maddy (to the assistant): Hey don't you know that's a crime!
Count Zap: Yeah! And we know all about crimes!

I don't know who I like better, criminally insane World Three, or criminally pathetic World Three.

If anything throws me off on this episode, it's "What the fuck? DrillMan out of nowhere?" Grave is gone, World Three is neutered, so was he the assistant's Navi, or did he just come with the viruses? Ah, who the hell cares I guess.

Rating: Thumbs up!

NT Warrior: Chisao's In Town!

Plot Synopsis
Dex's younger brother Chisao is visiting from Netopia, and he's impressing everyone with his genius intellect. Wanting to try to impress him, Dex has filled Chisao's mind with all kinds of big talk about how all his friends are his students, and how he's the best NetBattler in town. Of course, just before Chisao showed up however, Dex begged everyone to agree to play along.

While this is going on, a new Noodle Shop has opened up right next to #1 Curry, and the competition is fierce. Slick Noodle's spokesman, NoodleMan.exe has everyone in town doing a really badly animated Noodle Dance, and that's scaring World Three. In order to keep Lan and his friends from trying the new Noodle Restaurant, Yahoot offers them free curry.

While they're eating, Chisao wants to see Dex NetBattle everyone, and everyone's Navi's try and take a fall from GutsMan's poor operating. Chisao wants to try operating GutsMan and pulls off the Life Sword Program Advance on his first try, nearly blasting MegaMan all to hell. Dex scolds Chisao, and tells him to get his own PET, but this whole incident is being watched by Sambo, the Slick Noodle owner.

Sambo hatches a plan into tricking Chisao to destroy #1 Curry. He gives him NoodleMan, who disguises himself as a GutsMan lookalike named NuggetsMan... or maybe NoGutsMan, I'm not sure. Anyway, Sambo tells Chisao that aliens are invading, and directs Chisao to attack #1 Curry's system network, starting fires and the like.

With Chisao missing, Lan, Dex and everyone else go looking for him, and there attention is caught when #1 Curry starts billowing smoke out its doors. World Three wants to know just what gives with Chisao attacking them, so Lan and Dex jack in and try to fight NoodleMan. All is not going so well until NoodleMan gives himself away by doing his patented Noodle Dance. Upon recognizing the dance, Lan and Dex bust in to the Slick Noodle to rescue Chisao.

After the whole mess is taken care of, Mr. Match and World Three are about to go medieval on Sambo's ass, when Lan suggests they forgive him, citing Spicy Noodle Curry as a great recipe. This causes everyone to break down in tears from the "beauty" of the two dishes uniting and they decide to all be friends. Dex breaks down too and promises Lan that he'll tell Chisao the truth, in about ten or twenty years.

Critique
I really think Chisao is a bit of a waste of air time. There's potential to use him to develop Dex, but it isn't used all that often, and even in the games, Chisao doesn't fill a role any other character couldn't do better. Then, he takes a more active role in Axess, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense, given the circumstances, but they shift around characters so damn much on that series that all hell breaks loose.

But that said, I'm not shitting on this episode really. Chisao isn't annoying or anything, just not particularly interesting. What works in this episode is the whole Noodle vs Curry battle, and it's pretty damn funny how World Three went from kidnapping and terrorism, to the victims of Dex's younger brother, and Mr. Match plays it so straight too, the guy cracks me up.

There's a few little things that make this episode pretty good too. Just look at Yahoot's night gown! It looks so damn funny, yet it seems to fit him just so perfectly. Lan also gives a nice Phoenix Wright style OBJECTION! pose, that has to be intentional. Finally, you have the ending which is just so over the top dramatic, that you can't help but love it. While I don't particularly love Chisao, this is a good episode regardless.

Rating: Thumbs up!

NT Warrior: The NetBattle of Hearts!

This episode only aired in Canada.

Plot Synopsis
Ms. Mari is feeling depressed, so Yai throws a big picnic to cheer her up, and invites everyone there, including World Three, Higsby and Masa. Masa and Higsby get into a big argument as they are both madly in love with her, but she doesn't seem to notice either of them. All of them finally catch on that Ms. Mari is love sick herself, and they try and find out whose got her interest.

It turns out to be Commander Beef after a misunderstanding about a cat rescue (Masa was just trying to get the fish back that the cat stole), and this news enrages Higsby. He challenges Commander Beef to a NetBattle, and Yai decides to throw together a big stadium match up called "The NetBattle of Hearts" in honor of the event. Since Masa doesn't have his own Net Navi though, Lan offers to battle in his place, and Lan just cannot wait to battle Commander Beef.

Of course, since Masa is Commander Beef, there are some understandable problems with this whole scenario. Since Commander Beef is a Net Agent, he is obligated to accept all Battle Challenges, but he can't reveal his identity to Ms. Mari either.

The next day, the terms of the NetBattle are set, and winner gets a date with Ms. Mari, except for Lan, who will be having dinner with Ms. Mari as friends if he wins (thank god even this show won't go there). Higsby and Commander Beef duke it out with NumberMan and SharkMan, but Higsby loses due to his hesitation to use any type of Battle Chip that will actually give him an advantage.

That leaves MegaMan and SharkMan, who obviously have a much more interesting battle. The two of them are just thrilled to be battling each other, and when the announcer, Sal, makes a comment about how Lan and Commander Beef's true love is NetBattling, Ms. Mari takes it to heart and starts cheering for MegaMan instead of SharkMan. This throw Commander Beef off his game, and Lan seizes the opportunity to win the match.

Everything goes back to normal, although Higsby is disappointed with his own loss. Ms. Mari decides to treat Lan and all his friends out to dinner, her own mood much better.

Critique
Uh, hey, NT Warrior... after you have a season finale, you're supposed to... uh... get ready for next season. You don't have to keep going you know. This episode really has nothing to do with anything, as do pretty much the remaining episodes until Axess, but this one is pretty good at least.

The first five minutes of this episode are reeeeeally lame, I mean nausea inducing. The jokes are just bad, and they dress up all the female characters in really skimpy costumes similar to that god awful 3D model they have of Aki. This might be the reason this episode never aired in the US since, you know, Mayl and Yai are 11 and 8, although seeing the other girls on this show drawn like this is no more pleasing on the eyes. I can't back up that statement about why it didn't air in the US though. They couldn't have really cut this scene out either though, because it has some pretty important plot elements.

But everything after this five minutes, is just fucking hilarious. When Lan starts tearing up at Masa and Higsby's sob stories, the episode just doesn't stop being funny as all hell. Brad Swaile just fucking nails those lines. Then you've got Higsby challenging Masa, the real telling of the cat story, Higsby's battle chip weakness, and Masa and Higsby just arguing the whole episode. Aside from those first few minutes, this episode is genuinely really good.

One thing I noticed though, is that they don't use Ribbita anymore for announcer positions. This episode tries to explain that away by saying she's out on assignment somewhere, but she hasn't done any announcer type things in awhile, and they always had someone else do it. Maybe something happened with the Japanese voice actress or something. I dunno, I just thought it was interesting.

Rating: Thumbs up!

NT Warrior: Cut Episodes Part 3

The Secret of the Ayano House
Plot Synopsis Here
I guess XEBEC never heard the phrase "too much of a good thing," and decided to keep on churning out episodes after the season finale. So right after taking out Grave, Lan and his friends have a celebratory feast at Yai's mansion, when a virus infected vacuum sucks up all their PETs. Then, wacky hijinx ensues. Wow, not only are they moving past the climax, they aren't even trying.

In the US, the schedule for NT Warrior was all kinds of fucked up, and if you had been following the show as it aired, you'd probably be confused as to why Lan was fighting Grave, then World Three, then takes out Grave, then fights them again, etc etc. I can't say I'm surprised an episode got lost in the giant clusterfuck that is the scheduling for this show.

Content wise, I hear this episode is a bit lame, so maybe Viz media just figured it was no loss to skip it. It's not like anything important happened.

NT Warrior: The End of the End!

Plot Synopsis
ElecMan is fighting MagnetMan, but struggling, and MegaMan can't even get to his feet with the bugs absorbing his data. Without any other choice, MegaMan convinces a reluctant Lan to use the dangerous Extra Codes, but even with that, MegaMan still struggles to get an aim on MagnetMan. Seeing this as his chance, ElecMan grabs MagnetMan and holds him in place and orders MegaMan to fire. With one blast from the Mega-Burst Program Advance, both ElecMan and MagnetMan are deleted. Count Zap thanks ElecMan for his service in stopping MagnetMan.

MegaMan collapses and his friends quickly rush him out of Grave's network to treat him. Meanwhile, the Net Agents are trying to contain the Virus Beast attacking NetCity. They evacuate all the Net Navis and blast the beast with everything they have, but their efforts prove futile. With no hope left, the Virus Beast consumes the Net Agent's navis, and continues the destruction of NetCity.

Mr. Famous shows up to help out Lan with MegaMan, and tells him that MegaMan's ultimate code is infected with bugs that were passed on to him when Bass scanned him. He tries to stop the spread of the infection, but it's moving too fast, and MegaMan's data starts corrupting from the bugs. With so much data screwed up, MegaMan's Ultimate Program starts regenerating itself by absorbing bugs into MegaMan, and creating a new style change called "Bug Style."

Acting on feral instinct more than any forethought or reason, MegaMan goes after the Virus Beast and absorbs it. But he can't stop absorbing, and continues consuming all of NetCity. Lan, not willing to sit by and let this happen, some how WALKS IN TO THE NETWORK, and begs MegaMan to stop. He tells MegaMan to fight the infection, and MegaMan freaks out and explodes.

The data begins to restore itself by "debugging" and all of the Net Navi's are brought back and NetCity is restored, including ProtoMan, AirMan, ThunderMan, and the Net Agents. Lan looks into his PET, shouting MegaMan's name, until suddenly MegaMan appears, back to normal. MegaMan thanks Lan and the day is saved, and Grave is defeated once and for all! If any of that made a lick of sense to you, you have a far better understanding of this show than I ever will.

Critique
Despite all the nonsense, misuse of computer terms, and just flat out insanity, this is a decent episode. It's paced well, gets you concerned for the characters, and leaves you satisfied at the end. Just turn your brain off though.

I'd say this is definitely a satisfactory season finale! What? There are four more episodes left? Aw what the Christ?!

Rating: Thumbs up!

NT Warrior: Bass!

Plot Synopsis
Previously on Mega Man, we quickly splice in some scenes that you actually didn't see in our butchered hack job of an editing attempt! Now on with the show! Seriously, when the hell did Chaud tell Lan that ProtoMan got deleted last episode? When the hell did he get in a jet? Bah!

FreezeMan and HeatMan continue their battle, but HeatMan starts to lose the upperhand, so Mr. Famous gives Mr. Match the Extra Codes to cause HeatMan to go super saiyan and delete FreezeMan, bringing Mr. Match's vengeance to fruition!

Um... then what happens? Oh, Chaud tells Lan to go after Gauss, so WWW help break into Gauss's network, where they find all the missing Navis. MegaMan also starts freaking out a bit from his contact with Bass, which is causing MegaMan to undergo some weird transformations, but he shrugs it off cause MegaMan ain't got time for bitches.

MagnetMan ambushes MegaMan and all the others, trapping Roll, Glyde, GutsMan and IceMan. Lord Wily then reveals himself to WWW and orders them to stop assisting MegaMan, so Yahoot and Maddy jack out. Count Zap on the other hand is like "Fuck my brother! Imma fuck up that bitch!" and decides to stay in the fight. That's a good thing, because even style changed, MegaMan is too fucked up from his transformations to fight off MagnetMan.

Anyway, Bass confronts the Grave Beast, and then we get a nice long exposition of some details that will make you want to bang your head against a wall. So yeah, when PharaohMan was deleted, Bass was generated as a fail safe program thing or whatever, but he lost his "Ultimate Program" (whatever the hell that is), but Wily had that program to make the Grave Beast, and had Grave screw around with MegaMan to keep him distracted while they fed it Navis. Since Bass lost his Ultimate Program, he also lost his memory, so he scanned MegaMan to get it back, and that's why Bass can fight the Grave Beast. If Bass merges with the Grave Beast, he'd be the most powerful, and dangerous Navi in the cyberworld!

Well actually, Bass merges with it and explodes. So everything Wily just said doesn't make a lick of sense. Also, now the Grave Beast is stronger than ever or something. Everyone seems to be sad Bass is gone, but if they had only played Mega Man 7, they'd know better. Also, maybe I'm just growing jaded with this show, but the slow pan, extreme close up of Lan's eyes with the really scary music overlayed, looked so over the top, I laughed my ass off to it. Oh this show.

Critique
So I probably used the word "fuck" too much again, and I can only imagine the horrible people that are going to find this page, but seriously, all you can say after watching a dumb show like this is "fuuuuuuuuck!" I can properly transcribe it to text, but imagine a long, dragged out groan, and you get the picture.

Pretty much everything involving Bass and Lord Wily on this show is a giant clusterfuck. This show is really taking itself way to god damned seriously right now, I mean, we just had a Wacky Races episode not too long ago, and now we're talking about Cyber-Gods and Ultimate Programs and Terrorist Leaders Who Turn Out to Be Robots (also known as TLWTOBR). I'm really starting to miss German Wily and Evil Proto Man these days. You hear that NT Warrior? I would rather watch the Ruby-Spears cartoon!

As if the story wasn't bad enough there are all kinds of horrible jump cuts AGAIN, and just a piss poor, sloppy editing job. Doesn't anyone actually watch these episodes before they put them on air? Could you morons dubbing this show learn to use Adobe Premiere already? Or hell, Windows Movie Maker would be a step up at this point. It's obvious you're cutting shit out, but could you please stop leaving frames of cut scenes in? PLEASE?!

Despite all of that, I'm still recommending this episode. Guess who saves it? That's right folks, Count Mother-Fucking Zap, with an assist from Mr. Match. Count Zap and Gauss should have been the main characters of Metal Gear Solid, because their sibling rivalry is just great! Too bad we got all these other damn characters on this show to deal with.

Rating: Thumbs up!

NT Warrior: Grave!

Plot Synopsis
Everyone is still worried about NetCity and the missing Net Navis, and they spend ten minutes telling us so until MegaMan finally runs off and finds Bass. Bass is scanning a bunch of data, when FreezeMan shows up on Kid Grave's orders to delete Bass. Bass is basically immune to any attacks, and HeatMan interrupts the fight anyway. With FreezeMan distracted, Bass kidnaps MegaMan and takes him to a firewalled area that just so happens to be the WWW's old destroyed base.

So Lan and his friends go make the WWW agents help him find MegaMan, and we see Bass scanning MegaMan's data, looking at images of PharaohMan and the N1 Grand Prix and a bunch of junk. Then, finding whatever he was looking for, Bass gives MegaMan back to everyone and runs off.

The Grave Beast attacks NetCity again, ProtoMan gets deleted, and Kid Grave turns out to be a robot. Oh yeah, and the Program Advance is useless now, so expect some contrived bullshit to pop up with power levels and all that crap. Continually topping yourself gets you backed into really bad corners here people!

Critique
Sometimes it's better to leave details up to the audience's imagination. Remember when the Force from Star Wars was this big mystical magic power thing that drove events everywhere and the like? Then they went and changed it to bacteria and junk? A bit of what's going on here. Why is Bass formed from PharaohMan? What purpose does that serve for the story or character? Why is Kid Grave just a robot? Why did Wily decide to just shut him down anyway? I mean, what the fuck was the point?

Bass is also a god damned chatty Kathy. How can someone speak so much and say so little? Nothing Bass says is ever worth a damn in this show. Then you've got the first half of this episode where pretty much fuck all happens, and then you've got ProtoMan's deletion which should be a real emotional moment for the show, but it really feels glossed over, because before you can feel the impact of it, you're dealing with the stupid ass Kid Grave robot. I told you I hated Kid Grave as a character before, but I really hate every fucking aspect of him, right down to his conception, what a worthless character.

I dare say that Battle Network 2 and 3 actually pulled off better stories here. Bass and Grave's origins are much better done, and it's not like they went out of their way to really flesh them out either. This episode is just dumb.

Rating: Thumbs down.

NT Warrior: The VirusBeast!

Plot Synopsis
It's just a normal day in DenTech city when suddenly a giant monster beast, resembling a certain robo-dog, appears and starts attacking NetCity, gobbling up Net Navis like nobodies business. The beast is too powerful for even the combined might of MegaMan and ProtoMan, and even Raoul's ThunderMan gets consumed by the beast.

The beast appears to have been the work of Grave, and Kid Grave laughs at the destruction it causes, until suddenly Bass appears before the beast. Bass stares it down, and the beast walks away. Before MegaMan can find out who Bass is, Bass teleports away. Everyone is wondering how they are going to save NetCity and stop this thing (especially an over dramatic Lan Hikari).

Kid Grave is also concerned about this new Navi (Bass) who stopped the beast's rampage, and turns to his own master, the real leader of Grave, for guidance, Lord Wily! DUN DUN DUN!

Critique
The first half of this episode is spent setting the mood of it being a perfectly normal day. Just about each character goes through their routines in little entertaining ways, and the scene at DenTech Elementary and #1 Curry are just great!

Then Miyu shows up to kill the mood with her whole predictions of doom and gloom. Pretty much after the Beast begins its rampage, the episode goes from pretty good, to mediocre. Frankly, the melodrama is turned up to high, and Lan falling to his knees and crying at the end of the episode just looks ridiculous. Listen guys, just jack your Navis out until NetCity is fixed, geeze! Is this how people would react to World of Warcraft going down? Bass also has some lame lines in this episode, and I think it would have worked better if he was silent, and from what I understand in the original source, he is, in fact, silent.

The last thing that irks me, is that when the Grave Beast is attacking the city, it uses this animation of it swallowing up the city. We go to an extreme close-up and air gets sucked in the beasts mouth. They play this exact same animation sequence at least eight times, and it bugged the shit out of me. That said, I've seen the "Jack In!" and "Download!" animation about a million times too, so it doesn't ruin the episode or anything, I just hate how "copy/pasted" this animation looks.

That aside, the beginning has some real gems here. Look in the above screenshot at Yai, she's got a bazooka and met helmet! That's just funny, and the little match between Mr. Match and Count Zap is just perfect. I think the dramatic bits of the episode might work the first time you see them, so I'm giving this episode a thumbs up, but on repeated viewings, it feels pretty bland in the second half.

Rating: Thumbs up!

NT Warrior: The NetMobile Grand Prix!

Plot Synopsis
Every once in a while, a cartoon or franchise or something will have one of those "Wacky Races" episodes. This is that episode.

Yai is holding a race for her company to show off their new line of NetNavi cars, and everyone's invited. Lan and MegaMan; Chaud and ProtoMan; Yai and Tory, with Glyde and IceMan; Mayl and Roll, with Rush; Higsby and NumberMan; and even WWW with their Navis. The Net Agents also enter to fuck over WWW.

All is not so well out on the track however, as the CutMan Brothers decide the race is the perfect chance to take their revenge on MegaMan. Due to their own incompetence however, MegaMan never even notices them, and they end up taking themselves out.

Like most Wacky Race scenarios, everyone is allowed to attack each other, and they're all using special chips for the cars. Naturally everyone is eliminated one by one until it's just MegaMan, ProtoMan and Roll. Roll spins out and crashes, sending Rush hurling from the wreckage over the finish line, and Rush is declared the winner, much to the chagrin of Lan.

Critique
Here's an episode that doesn't really do anything for the series, but doesn't hurt it either. Of course the situation is cliched, and you can guess perfectly well what's going to happen, but it's a decent episode.

At least in this shows context, it isn't too far out of place. After all, all the characters are more or less playing a video game race in their free time, and frankly, it makes more sense than Mega Man Battle and Chase. The ending is kind of humorous too.

There is a really nasty jump cut near the start of the episode. The dubbers obviously cut something out here, and didn't clean it up enough. What's up with that? Also, Aki is shown again, and they really need to stop trying to use this cruddy 3D stuff that clashes so much with the show. Of course, this won't kill the episode though, and you might enjoy it for what it is.

Rating: Thumbs up!

NT Warrior: Mr. Wily's Legacy!

Plot Synopsis
The World Three is stuck in a rut, and serving Rush curry one day, when all of their members' PETs start acting up. A video plays from Lord Wily that says he's put all of his data on a secret chip, hidden away on a remote island for his followers to find, so that WWW would live on. WWW decides to go after the chip, so Rush runs off to tell Lan and the others.

With Grave already out of control, Lan and his friends can't deal with the revival of WWW so they head to the island, while WWW hijacks a helicopter owned by Mr. Gauss. When they finally get to the chip, Mr. Gauss lands his blimp on the island and makes WWW surrender the chip to him at laser point. He offers Count Zap a job with Grave, as Count Zap is Gauss's younger brother, and Count Zap seemingly accepts, but as Yahoot points out, he was only doing so to keep Gauss from firing on Yahoot, Maddy, and Mr. Match. As the blimp takes off, Lan, acting like the suicidal fool he is, jumps aboard it.

Count Zap challenges Gauss to an Electric Feedback Match for the chip, between ElecMan and MagnetMan. While they're fighting, Lan has MegaMan take out the security on the blimp. After a heated battle, Gauss admits that he has some respect for Count Zap, but it's too late as Lan has grabbed the chip. They take off after him and corner him on the top of the blimp. The blimp shakes and has some explosions and Lan is hurled over the side. Zap and Gauss grab him, but let go after they see he dropped the chip. Lan clings to the side for dear life and Zap and Gauss fight over the chip again.

The chip then goes flying overboard, lost into the sea, while Yai pulls up a submarine to save Lan. An explosion rocks the blimp, and WWW fears that Count Zap was killed, but actually he's just fine, arguing with Gauss on an ice berg.

Critique
I got a lot of praise for this episode, but let me get this out of the way first. The reason I hate the "Yai is rich" jokes, is they are a huge excuse for Deus Ex Machina. The characters constantly resolve every situation with Yai being really rich. It's almost no different from saying Yai can cast magic spells, and it gets really tiring. I also think it looks stupidly out of place for Lan and his friends to be driving giant drill machine things all the time. There's just a huge clash between the shows background when it tries for something you would see out of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or something. Those are minor details though, and I don't wanna hold this show to any real high standards as it is.

This is a Count Zap centric episode, featuring Mr. Gauss, so how can you go wrong? I'll admit though, Count Zap is a bit more subdued that usual, and he's much better being the cackling mad man, but he's still not bad here. The electric feedback match is pretty hilarious, although you have to wonder why Gauss has the whole thing setup and ready to go on his blimp. Rush also cracks me up in the beginning, demanding his curry while WWW is looking at Lord Wily.

Something this show occasionally does that I like, is take some tired cliche and throw it back in the audiences' faces. In this episode, Lan is falling off the blimp, and the villains catch him. Lan pauses and gives an amazed look and says, "you... saved me?" The cliche would have been the villains helping Lan up, and showing that they aren't willing to let their biggest rival die when the moment comes. Instead what happens is once they realize Lan doesn't have the chip, they both drop him, and that's just funny. There have been better episodes in this show than this one, but this is a pretty good one too.

Rating: Thumbs up!

NT Warrior: To the Moon!

Plot Synopsis
Something has cut off communication between Earth and its moon base, so Commander Beef is tasked with a mission to repair it. When he gets there, he gets cut off from the base, and his air supply starts to run out.

By complete coincidence, Lan and his friends find a video on the net of Commander Beef slowly suffocating, and Lan gets a phone call on his PET from Mr. Famous, telling him how to help. Mr. Famous leads Lan to rocket platform's HQ, and gives Lan a new tool called "The Extra Code." He tells Lan to only use it in a very dangerous situation.

Lan gets inside the base, and Black Rose and Mysteriyu let him help out. Lan jacks in MegaMan and they run into an evil Navi named PlanetMan who has taken over the base. Lan has trouble getting chips to MegaMan however, because there is a delay in the communications and the chips. They say it's the virus or something, but it would have made perfect sense if it was just the distance between Earth and the moon right?

Anyway, the delay screws up the fighting for MegaMan pretty bad, and the Program Advance becomes impossible to pull off. With no other answers available, Lan executes the extra codes, and that activates a new style change, Aqua Custom (a real mans style, I said it). MegaMan's power is much greater, and Lan discovers a new program advance in the process as well, Hyper Burst (Three Spreader Chips), and then adding another two spreaders makes an even more powerful PA called, Mega Burst. This wipes out PlanetMan, and MegaMan restores the base, allowing Commander Beef to make it in safely, but the Extra Codes take their toll on MegaMan, and he collapses from exhaustion.

The EX codes are powerful, but too dangerous for Lan to consider using them. Mr. Famous looks on into the night sky as the episode fades out.

Critique
I think the whole idea of a time delay between NetOp and Net Navi is actually a pretty good one, and it works well here in creating a new challenge for Lan and MegaMan. This is another episode that players of the game will get some bonuses out of, as it talks about the pros and cons of EX codes, which were introduced in Battle Network 3, although I don't think the code in this episode is a real code unfortunately. Just like this episode, EX codes power you up while simultaneously fucking you over. We also learn a couple new Program Advances, even though those PA's suck, and Custom Style is the only way you'll ever reliably pull them off, but it is nice to see bonuses for the game players.

You can tell the writers don't really know what to do with Mr. Famous's character early on. First he's helping WWW, then he's helping Lan, later he'll be commanding Lan as a Net Savior, and finally he'll end up at SciLab. In the game, Mr. Famous isn't really an important character, but he just kind of shows up everywhere, giving hints or cool Navi chips, and I think that's what they were going for at first. I don't think it's bad one way or the other, I just think it's mildly interesting.

I could nitpick this episode quite a bit, like how there aren't any guards at the rocket pad's HQ, how contrived it seems for Lan and his friends to just stumble on classified videos, or just how in general PlanetMan looks stupid (that's Capcom's fault though), but really there's nothing so wrong with this episode that keeps it from being enjoyable, and I do like watching Lan and MegaMan actually challenged in a fight. Decent episode.

Rating: Thumbs up!

NT Warrior: KnightMan's Betrayal!

Plot Synopsis
Princess Pride has some how managed to make her character even more boring, and becomes a damsel in distress when KnightMan gets screwed up and begins attacking Bright Land's firewalls. She calls in Lan and MegaMan to help, although I guess they have to find their own way, since it ends up being Yai's jet that takes them there. Way to ask for help your highness!

Lan arrives with his friends, and with the help of the palaces other Navi, MoltanicMan, they subdue KnightMan. KnightMan undergoes diagnostics while Princess Pride regales us with the tale of MoltanicMan, who they found floating through cyber-space, and ended up adopting or something.

Well this turns out to have been a bad idea, because MoltanicMan ends up hypnotizing Glyde into attacking the firewall. While everyone is busy taking care of Glyde, MoltanicMan shuts the firewall down. MoltanicMan was working for Bright Land's arch nemesis, Dark Land, all along, and with the help of Grave, they're going to invade within a matter of minutes! I guess he means with viruses or something.

Lan initiates Elec Team style, but surprisingly it isn't an end all attack this time. MegaMan actually struggles, and just before he's taken out, KnightMan ends up taking a blow for him. Princess Pride gives Lan her PET extension chip, and with KnightMan's combined might, they delete MoltanicMan.

How many kills for MegaMan so far? I guess he took out CutMan, so this makes two! Good job blue bomber!

With everything back to normal, Lan is knighted by Princess Pride. Grave isn't so happy about this turn of events though, and promise to target MegaMan and Lan directly.

Critique
Once again, a character's name was changed from the source material, and NapalmMan became MoltanicMan. I suppose Napalm has harsher connotations this time than a stupid name change like FireMan to TorchMan, but as a MegaMan nerd, I should get all huffy and whiny about it right?

There's ups and downs in this episode, like we get another "high-larious" Yai needs to go to the bathroom joke, but then she actually does something funny when she ends up being the one to take down Glyde. Of course, Princess Pride is boring, but it was nice to see MegaMan actually have to put up a fight in a style change. This episode isn't great, but there's really nothing wrong with it either. It's not boring, but it isn't high energy entertainment either. Truth be told, if every lesser episode of this series hit this mark, the show would be much better overall. Thumbs up, but just barely.

Rating: Thumbs up!

NT Warrior: Cut Episodes Part 2

For some reason, a lot of episodes got switched around and aired in a really weird order. If I were to order my reviews with the US air dates, I'd have went from episode 36, to episode 45, to episode 47, back to episode 34 and so forth in a jumbled mess. It's a good thing this so is more episodic than serialized for the US viewer.

I mention this because I don't see why this next episode was cut. Although I haven't seen it personally, the content doesn't sound like it isn't suitable for kids (at least for American audiences). My guess is that it was lost in scheduling conflicts if anything, and since the plot doesn't seem essential in the overall arc of MegaMan vs Grave, the producers felt comfortable with skipping it.

Take Me Out to the Ball Game!
Plot Synopsis here
Basically the son of a famous baseball player moves to DenTech, and to make him feel at home, Lan and his friends have a game of NetBaseball with their Navis. MegaMan dons a baseball uniform and it's game on.

The description I'm reading doesn't say anything about Grave attacking or anything, so I'm assuming this is a light-hearted episode, where the biggest conflict at most, is one of the characters cheating. The new character never comes up again either, so it's not like anything essential was lost.

Like I said, I can't imagine anything content wise that would get this episode cut. Swearing doesn't matter in a dub, excessive, gratuitous violence isn't likely during an episode about baseball and I doubt this episode featured any underaged suggestive content. Unless the weirdos making this show put Mayl in a cringe-worthy skimpy cheerleader outfit (she's eleven people!), and she was on screen too long to cut her out, but I doubt that. The author of the synopsis I'm reading says it was a good episode, so I'm assuming it wasn't cut because it was boring either, so I'm going with scheduling being the reason this episode was skipped.

NT Warrior: Working for Grave!

Plot Synopsis
Maddy is sick of working at #1 Curry, so Gauss offers her a job with Grave. She accepts with stars in her eyes. Mr. Match and Count Zap are furious at her leaving, but Yahoot says she'll always have a place at the curry shop.

Meanwhile, Commander Beef and the net agents need Lan to get them into a party Gauss is hosting, through Lan's connections with Yai. They suspect a Grave secret meeting is being held there, and plan to go in under cover.

When they arrive, they find out it was a setup to lure them into a trap. Gauss traps them in a room and starts to fill it with water. This makes Maddy a bit nervous, and she gets weary of Grave and Gauss. "We did some rotten things at World Three, but we never took it this far!" says Maddy.

List of Offenses by World Three

• Arson
• Multiple Kidnappings
• Hijacking a Subway Train and Trying to Crash it
• Burglary
• Freezing the City's Water Supply
• Hacking the Traffic Signals
• Hypnotizing everyone into animals
• Hacking Robotic Fish
• Assault
• Fixing the N1 Grand Prix
• General Acts of Terrorism
  

Oh but they never tried to kill anyone directly. I'm sure nobody would have gotten hurt in any of those crimes. Anyway, Maddy has a change of heart and decides to help Lan and the Net Agents against Gauss, who now has completely lost his marbles.

Gauss escapes, and Maddy decides to go work back at the Curry shop, with a brand new, better outlook.

Critique
If I liked Maddy before this episode, here's where I stopped liking her. Her character development here is nonsensical, and her motivations are contradictory. This episode focusing on her was probably a bad idea.

On the other hand, there are a few good moments here, and I like how over the top insane Gauss is. Lan actually has a few good lines as well, just look at that shit eating grin in the first screenshot! How can you not love that?

The animation in this episode is pretty hit and miss though, and a huge chunk of the lip syncing is only two frames of animation. It's especially bad in the opening scenes. This episode has it's moments, but it is pretty mediocre overall.

Rating: Thumbs down.