NT Warrior: Hot Tempers!

Let's quickly talk about voice actors a little bit. This episode, and the majority of NT Warrior episodes, Lan Hikari is voiced by Brad Swaile. Before him, Lan was voiced by Alex Doduk. Doduk's Lan sounds much younger and a little bit more natural, where as Swaile's version sounds a bit more cartoony. Swaile's Lan is pretty nondescript, to the point where I didn't even notice the change of voice actors at first glance until I really listened for it. I don't have a personal preference between the two actors, and I don't know why they changed voice actors in the middle of a series, but I've heard Swaile's Lan so much more often that I typically associate his voice with the characters now.

I bring this up because if the episodes are played in chronological order according to their Japanese air dates, the voice actors switch back and forth a bit. These last three episodes for instance, were aired way later than they should have been, and the next episode will feature Doduk's voice again. This can be jarring watching the episodes in the correct order sometimes. Anyway, this episode is pretty good though.

Plot Synopsis
Mr. Match is watching a DVD of various... um... hot things, and is completely dispassionate about it. He figures the best way to re-ignite his passion is to get revenge on Lan and MegaMan by deleting MegaMan. He sends out TorchMan to wreak havoc on the city by turning up all the ovens and refrigerators, and even a hair drier that Mayl is using.

Well Mayl's hair gets ruined (although how the hell can you tell what is and isn't a good haircut in an anime?) and Lan laughs and makes fun of her for it. Upset, Mayl deletes Lan's homework, putting him in a sour mood now. MegaMan and Roll suspect that maybe WWW is involved with what's going on around town, but unfortunately MegaMan makes an off-cuff remark that infuriates Roll. MegaMan doesn't understand what he said, but Roll is angry and offended and quits speaking to him. Now both operators and Net Navi's are pissed at each other all around.

Mr. Match is getting frustrated and can't figure out why MegaMan hasn't shown up to stop him yet. TorchMan suggests that maybe MegaMan forgot about them. Mr. Match says "Then let's remind him who we are then!" And what sinister method do they use to contact MegaMan? An e-mail of course, which they hand off to Roll and GutsMan to deliver.

Well Roll reads the letter and lets Mayl know about TorchMan's challenge, so Mayl decides they'll go in Lan's place and tear Mr. Match a new one. Dex sends GutsMan to get a hold of Lan and MegaMan before things get out of control. TorchMan then fights Roll and is winning quite easily when MegaMan shows up just in time to save her. Unfortunately MegaMan himself starts to succumb in battle so Roll, feeling bad about being the reason MegaMan is injured comes up with a plan to save him.

With TorchMan and Mr. Match defeated, Roll and MegaMan make up, and MegaMan apologizes for hurting Roll's feelings. Lan runs in to see if Mayl's ok, and she gets a bit smug asking if he came to save her. Well Lan throws that back in her face and says he "would never do that!" The episode ends with Mayl and Lan arguing like a bitter married couple.

Critique
This is an excellent "Battle of the Sexes" type of episode, and MegaMan and Roll's parallel story to Lan and Mayl's compliment each others nicely. Mr. Match hasn't gotten enough screen time until this episode to be a real interesting character, but I love that the show is finally exploring this pyromaniac, whose crime spree seems hilariously insignificant, especially to Lan who doesn't even notice. Even Roll and Mayl have different concerns, "We'll get you for wrecking the town and messing up Mayl's hair!" I love these early episodes with trivial concerns.

Rating: Thumbs Up.

Ruby-Spears: The Mega Man in the Moon

Guest Starring: Crystal Man

Plot Synopsis
A series never really gets bad until it has the "outer space" episode. It took Mega Man 8 episodes to get there, and the show was never that good to begin with. Dr. Light is watching a rocket launch countdown that one of his former students will be on, with his robots, Mega Man, Rush and Roll, along with his former student's daughter. The astronauts are delivering a giant lens for a giant space laser... just what the hell do they need this giant space laser for? Well that's never explained, but Dr. Wily wants it to hold the world hostage and sneaks aboard the launch.

The astronauts daughter, who is so uninteresting I've forgotten her name, senses something weird is going on and sneaks aboard the shuttle as well. Mega Man goes after her and discovers Wily's bots but is too late to stop them from launching into space. Dr. Light sends Mega Man after them with a jet pack. He tells Mega Man, "Be careful, that jet pack delivers a million pounds of thrust!" I'm no astrophysicist, but shouldn't that crush Mega Man? Well it doesn't and apparently Mega Man has no trouble steering something that strong with his bare hands so what the hell do I know?

Wily heads to the space station the lens is being held at, but he takes the astronauts daughter as a hostage, which keeps Mega Man from fighting him. Wily's bots grab the lens and head for the moon, leaving a nice bomb on the station for Mega Man to disarm. Luckily, Rush and Roll head to the space station in a new rocket ship NASA has just lying around somewhere, and Rush tracks the bomb down.

Mega Man now quickly heads to the moon base where Wily has set up the lens on the laser beam. Wily contacts the UN and makes his threats. Mega Man gets close, but Proto Man blasts him out of the sky, disabling him. Luckily, Dr. Light contacts that astronauts daughter who goes over to Mega Man's chassis and hits the big red "Auto Repair" button. Well hell, why does Mega Man bother with those E-Tanks when he has a button?

Mega Man, back to life, uses a nearby satellite to reflect the laser beam straight back at it, destroying NASA billion dollar space death laser project thing. Also Wily gets away. The end.

Critique
A bit of a mediocre episode with some boring extra characters who we'll never see again. The jokes aren't funny and the show is surprisingly devoid of action. There's a lot worse episodes then this one, sure, but this one isn't particularly interesting.

Rating: Thumbs Down.

Star Force: Science Friction

This is a combination of the episodes "Ikuta-sensei's Science Classroom" and "Libra Ikuta's Dangerous Classroom"

Plot Synopsis
Geo is out in the park one day when he sees some strange smoke rings in the sky. Nearby, a science teacher named Mr. Shepard and a student of his, Pat Sprigs, are conducting classroom science experiments. Geo is impressed and Mr. Shepard invites him to attend his special science class with Pat.

Geo heads to the science class and learns a few things about electrical currents and jet propulsion and other stuff. He also finds a left over plastic bottle rocket and being the space junkie Geo is, he gets Mr. Shepard to have the class prepare to build them next week.

That night, another FMian, Libra appears and starts wreaking havoc. MegaMan has no trouble fighting Libra who is not in a Wave Change form. Mega Man wounds Libra, and Libra makes a run for it. Coincidentally, he runs into Mr. Shepard and possess his body. MegaMan loses track of Libra and pulses out to see Mr. Shepard collecting plastic bottles. Geo says hi, but Mr. Shepard is acting suspicious since Libra is controlling him. He runs off before Geo can figure him out.

Libra takes Mr. Shepard's body to his work, trying not to raise suspicion by skipping work, but he becomes increasingly frustrated trying to work Mr. Shepard's body and sets the school on fire. Geo pulses in as MegaMan and easily defeats the already injured Libra Scales. Mr. Shepard returns to normal and Libra escapes. Off in the distance though, we see Pat Sprigs smirking an evil smile as he says, "Next time you'll have to face me, Geo Stelar!" Dun dun dun!

Critique
A pretty boring episode that tries to be a little more educational than interesting. There's almost no humor in this episode and the action is so one sided in MegaMan's favor that there is no sense of danger at all. On top of this, Libra's dialog is really redundant and he speaks to much during the action sequences. The only mildly interesting thing here is the lead in with Pat to the next episode, but this show absolutely kills Pat's character from the game. There just isn't anything in this episode to make it worth watching.

Rating: Thumbs Down.

NT Warrior: Game Off!

Plot Synopsis
This is the best episode of the entire shows existence, hands down. Count Zap has been committing a string of robberies lately, each with increasing security levels. Using ElecMan, Count Zap overloads each security system and takes some, rare, expensive item.

Well Lan and his friends don't seem to have much interest as a new video game called Maximum Valor is selling ticket reserves at Higsby's shop. Unfortunately though they get distracted by Masa and Higsby runs out of reservations, but it just so happens that Yai's father owns the company publishing and developing the game. Yai's father gives the kids a tour of the game dev studio, all of which happens to be housed in his mansion for some reason. They'll get to play the game at midnight when the game is released.

Meanwhile, Sal is wondering just what Count Zap is up to, and she runs into Miyu who says that Count Zap is training for a bigger heist at a higher security level, and that if Sal and her can figure out what company has a security level of 9, they'll figure out Zap's next target. Well it just so happens that Ayanotek has a security level 9 clearance, and that's Zap's plan. He wants to steal the video game or as he puts it "steal the smiles of all the children!"

At midnight, he breaks into Yai's estate and starts stealing the game, so Lan quickly sends MegaMan in to stop him. MegaMan fights with ElecMan, but electrical shocks keep healing ElecMan. Just when it seems impossible, a Net Navi named WoodMan shows up and blocks the electrical charges with his giant wooden towers. MegaMan and Lan seize the advantage and take down ElecMan. Count Zap has the game downloaded, and is about to escape, when a masked woman shows up and gets the game back. Count Zap escapes, but the game is now safe. Lan and friends ask who she is, and she turns out to be WoodMan's operator, and calls herself Black Rose.

Black Rose leaves the estate and we see her take off her mask to reveal herself as Sal. Miyu stops her and says it looks like Sal wanted to see if Lan could defeat WWW on his own. Sal just smiles and the next day, Lan and friends head over to Higsby's to see the release of Maximum Valor. Higsby then looks at the camera and announces the N1 Grand Prix tournament in two weeks... but in the United States this episode aired way after the Grand Prix episodes did, so I'm sure people were confused. Nice job Kids WB.

Critique
Count Zap is too god damned funny this episode. He's the best kind of evil, stealing video games so kids can't get it, and the best part is, all of the characters act like this is a completely legitimate evil plan. Could you have a more materialistic episode than this one? Let's be honest though, these days parents do let their kid have every stupid game they want so maybe Count Zap's hilarious plan has some plausibility.

Even when Zap loses, he has some brilliant lines. "I still win if I get away to battle another day!" This dude just slays me, and any episode that gives Count Zap some heavy screen time is a winner.

Rating: Thumbs Up.

Ruby-Spears: The Incredible Shrinking Mega Man

Guest Starring: Dust Man

Every single cartoon in the world has done an episode like this. Every cartoon.

Plot Synopsis
Wily's bots are smashing up the Smithsonian museum one night when Mega Man shows up to stop them. He's too late however, as they find some special gems which they can use with a shrink ray to shrink Mega Man. Mega Man, now the size of a mouse has to figure out a way to stop Wily, who is now using the shrink ray to shrink entire cities. Why is he shrinking them? To sell them to illegal art collectors so he can use the money to build new cities for robots.

Um... two questions. If Dr. Wily shrinks all the cities in the world, who will he be buying the materials from anyway, and if he wants a lot of money, why doesn't he just take the federal reserve out of New York City, which he shrinks in the episode?

Well luckily Mega Man gets a hold of Dr. Light, stops Wily, and turns big again. It's about as simple as that, with everything in between being Mega Man chasing down Wily.

Critique
Besides Wily's plot which makes absolutely no sense considering his weaponry, the episode is completely unoriginal, and anyone whose seen a cartoon has already seen this story. Mega Man is particularly painful with the puns this episode too, although there is something funny about seeing Guts Man driving a mini van.

Rating: Thumbs Down.

Star Force: The Song of Lyra Note

This is a combination of the episodes "Harp Note's Surprise Debut!" and "A Human Virus Appears?!"

Plot Synopsis
Geo comes walking out of the Satella Police head quarters, again, and is scolded by Detective Copper about running around so late at night. Geo's mom picks him up and asks him if anything is wrong, but Geo lies and says everything is fine. His mother doesn't fight him on it, noting how much better Geo has been doing lately returning to school. Geo gets home and asks Omega-Xis about Lyra, whom Omega-Xis is sure will be back soon.

Meanwhile, Sonia is throwing a big fit on her secluded island. She is sick of her music producer handing her songs to sing, and she wants to compose her own music. She is lacking inspiration though, but she's thankful to have Lyra by her side to help her. She feels tuckered out from yelling, and goes to sleep. While she does this, Lyra takes advantage and EM-Wave changes her into Harp Note.

Soon, Geo is helping Luna shop with Bud and Zack, (Geo doesn't seem to happy about it) when Sonia appears as a recording on all the televisions singing one of her hit songs (I believe an original composition for the dub), when suddenly the televisions all switch to Lyra Note on the screen. Lyra starts singing a lullaby, which puts all of the city to sleep, except for Geo and Bob Copper who seem to be unaffected. Geo might be being protected by Omega-Xis, but I haven't a clue why Copper is immune... probably for comedy? With everyone asleep, Geo wave changes into MegaMan and takes off to track down Lyra Note, but not before Luna catches a small glimpse of the Wave Change. "Geo is MegaMan? It can't be... I must be dreaming," she says yawning to herself and then passing out.

MegaMan finds Lyra Note and they begin to battle. In the midst of things, Sonia wakes up during the fight. She has no idea what's going on, and her identity has reasserted itself over the EM-Wave Change. MegaMan explains to her that Lyra is an FMian sent to destroy the Earth, which shocks Sonia. Before Lyra has time to explain to her though, the Satella Police arrive on the scene and Lyra pulses Sonia out, while Geo does the same.

Back at the island, Sonia confronts Lyra. "So that talk about being a music goddess was a lie? And you're really here to destroy the Earth?" "Well, kinda..." This exchange is so preposterous it cracks me up every time. Lyra tells Sonia that she's put that all past her now to help out Sonia, and Sonia forgives her, and they travel the world looking for inspiration for Sonia's music.

I could complain about this segment as it seems hastily put together, but that's pretty much how it happens in the game too, so if anyone's to blame for this scene, it's Capcom. Frankly though, Capcom writes so many bad stories, I can overlook these rather shady put together motivations in one of the few games Capcom wrote well.

Abruptly switching gears to the next half of the episode, MegaMan is battling viruses in the city. One however, gets away and merges with a human. In the game, Virus-Human mergers are called Jammers, and this show plays it up like it's going to be a big deal, but it'll never happen again after this episode. MegaMan can't find the missing virus, so he pulses out just in time for Bob Copper to find Geo at the scene of the crime, again!

"How come every time I track down some weird EM-Frequencies I find you here Geo?" "Uh, it's a coincidence?" "I don't think so..." "Uh, gotta go! Bye!" "Hey wait!"

Copper smells a rat and decides to follow Geo around. Omega-Xis sees him, and runs Geo all over town to evade him, but Copper sticks to him like glue. Eventually they end up at the art museum where, coincidentally, Luna, Bud and Zack are there to write a report on. The Jammer shows up at the art museum and starts wreaking havoc, but Copper throws Geo into the back of his police car, which is guarded against EM-Wave frequencies, so Geo can't Wave-Change to MegaMan. Copper runs off to apprehend the Jammer.

Luckily, Luna, Bud and Zack spot Geo in the police car and let him out, and Geo takes off to go Pulse In. He shows up just in the nick of time to rescues Copper from the Jammer, then pulses out back to the inside of the cop car, leaving Copper none the wiser. Copper lets Geo out, telling him that he thought Geo might know something about MegaMan, but now he has it all figured out. Geo must be a big fan of MegaMan's, looking to get an autograph. Geo breathes a sigh of relief and goes home.

Critique
A fantastic episode, particularly the second half involving Detective Copper. In the game, Copper is a bit of a bungling, incompetent moron, but here, they did him better as he's just barely unable to prove his suspicions. The chase scene involving him and Geo is a laugh riot and the highlight of the episode.

The first half is decent too, and the dubbers did a good job of composing some new songs for Sonia to sing, as the Japanese songs don't translate very well into English. The singing is decent as well, and while I don't think I'll be humming the tune to myself all that often, the credibility that the character is a pop-star isn't hurt at all.

There's also a little bonus easter egg in this episode for all you Mega Man Legends fans. Doesn't the outfit and hairstyle on that bill-board look just a wee-bit familiar? Was Inafune at the studio that day?

Rating: Thumbs Up!

NT Warrior: Ice Ice Baby!

This episode is a re-telling of scenario 4 from Battle Network 1, but there are a number of differences here because the writers wanted to make use of another character, Tory, who in the video game is so insignificant he just has a generic kid portrait and sprite. Tory is kidnapped in the game and Dr. Froid is forced to use his navi, IceMan.exe to do the bidding of WWW. Here, the role is reversed, and Tory is actually IceMan's operator, forced to do WWW's bidding because they've kidnapped his father.

I suppose this makes some sense for the TV show to make these changes. They probably wanted to have IceMan as an available character to use, but truth be told, the opportunities for Dr. Froid to work with Lan just aren't there, but using his classmate Tory, suddenly the chances come up. The strangest change though comes from between the original Japanese voice of IceMan and his dubbed character. IceMan in the anime is supposed to be a child-like navi as he acts and sounds like a child. In the dub, he has a deep, cartoony voice that sounds much older. The dub didn't go on long enough for this to become apparent, but I think it would have come up if they did follow through with Beast at least.

Also, the Japanese name of this show is "Subzero Brawl," and I only bring this up because "Ice Ice Baby" is a stupid name, and what kid, that watches this show, knows who the hell Vanilla Ice is?

Oh, one last thing, this episode aired much later in the US than it did originally, as Kids WB aired the episodes out of order. I am going by the original chronological order myself though for these reviews.

Plot Synopsis
Lan and his friends are returning home from school, when their classmate Tory Froid runs past them in a hurry and drops a security card for the Water Works plant, where his father works. Tory gets into a car driven by Maddy who tells Tory that if he does what she says, he'll see his father again.

Later in the day, the water for the entire city goes out. The next day it's still not on and people are starting to get in a panic. Maddy has taken Tory's father hostage and is using Tory's Net Navi IceMan to freeze the water works network.

Lan and his friends want to figure out what's going on, and Yai sends Glyde to check out the Water Works network. Unfortunately, Glyde gets frozen by IceMan, so Yai has everyone jump in her Jet-Powered limo, Batman style (beyond an obvious reference). Inside the Water Works, Lan uses the security card and finds Dr. Froid tied up. Froid tells them that the bacteria in the water is about to die (the stuff they use to purify it), so he splits them up into two groups. Lan, Dex and Dr. Froid will go open the manual release valves, and the little 5th grade girls will go look for Tory who, as far as they know could be held at gun point by a dangerous WWW terrorist. Very brave of you Dr. Froid.

Well luckily Maddy gets arrogant and assumes she's won so she's left, ordering WackoMan to delete MegaMan, IceMan and Glyde. Lan, Dex and Dr. Froid get the water back on though, so Lan is able to get some battle chips to MegaMan in time to beat WackoMan. The day is saved, Tory and Dr. Froid are reunited, and Lan's made a new friend.

Critique
This episode is ok, nothing particularly wrong with it, nothing particularly bad either. Tory is pretty generic looking a character, which is nice considering how out of control many anime characters can get. This episode does lack the charm the last episode did, but the characters don't annoy either.

I'm giving this episode a thumbs up though on a purely arbitrary point (although what review isn't arbitrary?) and that is the part where the robot is chasing after Lan and his friends. This sequence is alright, but what seals the deal is after Lan escapes the robot. The robot tries to smash the door down but fails, and then the robot gets such a dejected look on his face, it's priceless! The robot saved this episode!

Rating: Thumbs Up!

Ruby-Spears: Robosaur Park

Guest Starring: Toad Man

Plot Synopsis
Dr. Light is showing off his brand new robotic dinosaurs at a friend, Auto Raptor's, Robosaur Theme park. Yes, this is going to be a Jurassic Park throwback, but wait until the halfway mark. Well tourists are enjoying the park, when Toad Man and more of Wily's bots show up and reprogram the dinosaurs to attack the tourists. We get a decent action packed sequence followed up by Auto Raptor's betrayal, it turns out he was setting up Dr. Light and working with Wily all along. His reason? "Man should have went extinct! Not the dinosaurs!" Well, that's something isn't it?

Dr. Light calls in the Robo-Commando's (a robotic armed forces squadron group thing) to come in and control the dinosaurs, JUST LIKE DR. WILY HAD PLANNED! Now here's where things get interesting, Dr. Wily releases a virus across all the Robo-Commando's, and Mega Man, Rush and Roll, which causes all robots to revert to their primitive forms... well... er... actually more primitive man forms than primitive robots. It causes their robot hair to grow long, their posture to slump over, and their speech to be reduced to "ooks" and grunts. I was pretty busy laughing with a nice "what the hell?" look on my face for a while.

With the Robo-Commando's under Wily's control, Dr. Light retreats Mega Man back to his lab where he gives him a serum that will temporarily slow the virus. Dr. Light will work on an antidote while Rush, Roll and Mega Man go fight Wily's robots who are using the robo dinosaurs to destroy the city.

Mega Man starts to run out of energy, and I was about to get irritated as it seemed to have come out of no where, but Dr. Light says his loss of energy was the cause of the virus, so I guess I'll buy that. I don't know why I decided to nit pick the details of a show where robots are turning into cave men.

Dr. Light has perfected the antidote, but Wily steals it. He jumps into his Skulker-mobile and flies away, and Mega Man is now reverting to a cave-bot. Luckily, Mega Man manages to steal Toad Man's weapon, and Rain Flush manages to melt through Wily's Skulker, releasing the antidote into the rain, curing all the robots. Wily and his bots escape, but Auto Raptor is captured.

Critique
How ridiculous does a cartoon show have to get before you won't buy it anymore? Here's a good episode to test your personal limits, as this one is incredibly stupid. The question is, is this episode bad because it's dumb? Actually not really, maybe if I was eight years old this would be good enough for me. There's quite a bit of action, and seeing Mega Man fight dinosaurs is pretty cool, albeit, ridiculous. It's not like any of the other Mega Man episodes are particularly smart anyway.

Proto Man has some strange lines in this one. "Whatever turns you on, Doc." "Look out for Bambi!" "My brother, a neander-bot!" God, I love Proto Man in this show, he compliments the stupidity of this show so well. What can I say, this episode made me laugh, I guess that's good enough.

Rating: Thumbs Up!

Star Force: Two New Visitors

This is a combination of the episodes "Rampaging Ox Fire" and "Meet Harp Note."

Plot Synopsis
We pick up from last time with Taurus Fire cornering Geo, Luna and Zack. He opens fire with a flame breath attack, which Geo dodges and Luna and Zack make a run for it. With Luna and Zack distracted, Geo EM-Wave changes with Omega-Xis into MegaMan. Now Wave-Changed, MegaMan quickly picks up an advantage on Taurus Fire as MegaMan is much faster than Taurus. Taurus Fire then decides to take Luna hostage to regain the upper hand. MegaMan hesitates to strike Taurus, who begins to unleash his fury on him. Luna gets upset and yells to Bud to stop what he's doing, causing Bud's identity to momentarily perk up which stuns Taurus. MegaMan quickly quickly strikes Taurus and saves Luna. Taurus escapes, but leaves Bud behind. Bud awakens without any memory of the event, while Luna thanks MegaMan for saving her again. Just then though, Detective Copper shows up and Geo bolts.

Well the next few days Geo is getting more comfortable with school. On the way to class, the characters spot an advertisement for Sonia Strumm (Renamed Sonia Sky). Luna, Bud and Zack head to Sonia's concert, but it's been canceled because Sonia is missing. That night, Omega-Xis leaves Geo in his bed asleep and investigates a signal he receives. The signal is coming from Lyra, another FMian and of course, she wants the Andromeda key. She's no match for Omega-Xis so she quickly EM-Wave changes with an unknown human into Harp Note (renamed Lyra Note for some reason). Now much more powerful, Omega-Xis struggles against her. Luckily, Geo notices Omega-Xis is missing and quickly heads to his location to rescue him.

Before a fight can break out however, the Satella Police show up and Lyra Note bolts. Geo is left standing there to be questioned by a very suspicious Bob Copper. Later, Sonia's manager receives a call from her, she's on a secluded island somewhere and says she won't be back for a while. We then see that she appears to be working with Lyra as the episode fades out.

Critique
This episodes take on how Geo meets Sonia is completely different from the game's scenario, and I would even go as far to say that I think this version severely undermines the importance of their friendship with regards to Geo's character development, and Sonia's as well. When they both meet in the game, they are significantly damaged people, both missing a loved one. Here, when they formally meet, Geo is well on his way to recovery, and Sonia hardly has any personal problems at all. I hate to say it, but Sonia's character is really a shell of her original role and far less interesting than before. She's not annoying or anything like that, but she lacks a lot of depth that she originally had.

The first half of the episode is just fine, lots of action, but not too much thinking. The second half is spent introducing Sonia and Lyra, but not leaving much impact. With a serial show, missing an episode will leave the audience very confused when the next episode airs, so catch this one just to stay up to date with the story. On it's own though, this episode doesn't bring enough to the table for me to give it a thumbs up. I am just barely giving it a thumbs down though, and I think if I had to rate the individual episodes that were combined into this one, I'd rate the first half a thumbs up.

It's not a bad episode, it's just very dry content wise.

Rating: Thumbs Down.

NT Warrior: Robotic Fish Gone Wild!

This episode is similar to the second scenario of Battle Network 6, but this episode came first.

Plot Synopsis
Lan and his friends are Net Battling at Yai's tree house when Masa sneaks in and tells the kids that they're outta shape and wasting their time with Net Battles. Masa forces them into a bunch of rigorous exercise routine of running, climbing trees, swimming and some base ball. Everyone except Masa is having a rotten time, and eventually Masa gives them a lunch break, feeding them crackers made out of fish heads (for calcium), and then he begins "educating" them with his vast knowledge of fish facts from his PHD in Fishology...? Let's pretend Masa means Ichthyology and is just dumbing the word down for 5th graders.

Meanwhile, Lord Wily is berating the failures of his three underlings Mr. Match, Count Zap, and Maddy. They have a new plan to cause havoc with the robotic aquarium, who apparently have fish that can defy gravity because they start flying all over town. They smash up things, cause some wrecks, and chase Lan and everyone all over town. Lan jacks MegaMan into the cities network to locate the source of the problem. At the aquarium's network, MegaMan runs into another net navi who looks like a shark. The network is also covered Jelly viruses, who form up into a giant Jelly virus! MegaMan is in trouble, but Lan is running from a giant shark. Masa gives Lan a distraction to make a run for it and says a great line. "I've been catching fish all these years, it's only fair they get a shot at me!"

Lan runs into the aquarium but none of his chips are effective to help MegaMan. Just then, a fishbone thrown like a dagger, hits the wall nearby Lan holding an Elec Sword battle chip. Lan figures out to use the chip because Jelly Fish are 90% water, and water conducts electricity. Good on you Lan for figuring out the answer when it's literally handed to you. MegaMan stops the virus with the help of the Shark Navi and all the robotic fish cease to function saving the town. The shark navi introduces himself as the "Legendary" SharkMan and thanks MegaMan for his help against the viruses.

Lan returns to his friends and everyone has decided that Masa's lifestyle of exercise, healthy eating, and fish knowledge is a good lifestyle to follow. We then see Masa standing atop the dead shark robot which is impaled on a radio tower looking off into the sunset. This is a real fantastic shot to end on.

Critique
The last episode was just decent enough to give a Thumbs Up, but this episode is actually really good. Masa is easily one of the best characters of the show, and despite his corny way of talking, he has a decent amount of depth, which will become more apparent as the show goes on. Lan's still a bit whiny this episode, but at least it seems more justified, plus, Lan actually is a little bit heroic this episode in fighting to save MegaMan. MegaMan is also shown to have some inexperience this time instead of completely dominating his opponents like every episode prior. Even Dex has lost the chip on his shoulder for an entire episode, making him tolerable as well.

These early episodes of NT Warrior are nonsensical in their villains plans, and the supporting cast is great. This is why the very first season of NT Warrior is actually pretty good. I know it's not unusual for a show to have a better first season than later seasons, but this show really starts taking a fucking nose dive by the time Axess rolls around, switching up these kooky plans for more melodrama and... ugh... cross fusion. That's a ways off though.

Rating: Thumbs Up!

Ruby-Spears: 20,000 Leaks Under the Sea

Guest Starring: Dive Man and Wave Man

Plot Synopsis
Oh boy, this one is quite an episode. Mister Fister (yes, that is his name), has an off shore drilling platform in which he mines Tri-Coreneum Ore, a mineral of which I can only imagine how you spell. Well Dr. Wily just so happens to want some SUPER Tri-Coreneum Ore, but he needs Fister's platform to do it. All well and good so far, after all, Mega Man is probably the only game with good under water levels.

Mega Man shows up and the show starts really going down hill. Mega Man does fine fighting against Wily's bots, and a giant fucking squid, but after he captures Guts Man and Dive Man in a net (which is apparently impossible for them to get off them), he suddenly runs out of energy for no apparent reason. Mega Man gets trapped in some sea weed (killers of the ocean), and Cut Man slowly makes his way towards him. Luckily Roll, being the useless twit that she is, flies her hover craft thing directly into the ocean and is surprised when it doesn't work under water. She crashes close enough to Mega Man for Eddie to get him some E-Tanks.

Mega Man defeats Wily's bots, but Dr. Wily runs off. Mister Fister decides he wants to thank Dr. Light by giving him a grandiose research laboratory. They all head inside and the windows and doors slam behind them. Mister Fister appears on the TV, takes off a mask and reveals himself as Dr. Wily! Well, that came out of no where, but I guess the show was only half over. Dr. Wily kidnapped the real Mister Fister between his defeat with Mega Man and the time it took to hold the ceremony, and he built the laboratory, which by the way, sprouts legs and jumps into the ocean!

Mega Man busts out of there, stops Dr. Wily and saves the day.

Critique
This episode is stupid, more so than usual. Mega Man's sudden energy loss just comes out of no where and feels so forced to just fill some time, and even kids can see that Guts Man can just throw the stupid net off himself. The second half of the episode just feels tacked on. The giant squid and walking building are hilarious "what the fuck" moments, but this is one of the more lame episodes.

Rating: Thumbs Down.

Star Force: Crowded Airwaves

This is a combination of the episodes "Satellite Crash!" and "Ox Invasion!"

Plot Synopsis
MegaMan is in combat with Cygnus Wing as the falling satellite flies towards AMAKEN lab. Geo holds back a little bit until Omega-Xis tells him that if he defeats Cygnus Wing, the FMian will lose his grip on the human. The lab is evacuated, but Aaron can't stop it. The Satella police deal with the viruses released by Cygnus while MegaMan heads after him to the satellite. MegaMan duels with Cygnus Wing on the falling satellite and stuns him long enough to talk to Tom Dubios who is very adamant about destroying the Earth. Omega-Xis talks some sense into Tom by reminding him of Geo's humane act of sharing his food with Tom. Cygnus starts to lose some control and Geo takes advantage by striking him. Unfortunately it's not enough to save Tom, and Cygnus retreats with Tom as his hostage. No time to go after them, Geo destroys the satellite saving AMAKEN labs. Geo then vows to save Mr. Dubios if it's the last thing he ever does.

We switch gears in the second half of the show as Omega-Xis is complaining to Geo about how bored he is at home. Geo says he has to study, so Omega-Xis says they should go to the school. Geo refuses and Omega-Xis throws a big fit that lasts well into the night and the next morning. Finally, Geo reluctantly decides to go to school to shut Omega-Xis the hell up, much to the surprise of Luna who had come to Geo's house to drag him to school. Shocked at first, but then incredibly delighted, Luna tasks herself with taking care of Geo at school, but Omega-Xis finds school even more boring than waiting around Geo's house and eventually takes off frustrated.

Luna is showing Geo around the school, and in particular, the planetarium to which Geo just lights upon seeing. Bud gets a little jealous at Geo getting all of the attention. Omega-Xis gets attacked all of a sudden by Taurus, another FMian looking for the Andromeda Key. During the fight, Taurus posseses Bud, transforming him into Taurus Fire! The episode ends with Geo, Luna and Zack, cornered by Taurus Fire on the schools campus.

Critique
Last episode I said this being a serial show helps keep episodes from being disjointed, but not all the time, especially when an arc switches gears so suddenly. It doesn't happen too much in the dub, but I could see it becoming a bigger problem as the series would go on. Looking at this entry within the series, it's fine, alone, the sudden shift could hurt it.

In the game, Geo's decision to go to school has a lot more weight to it, and I'm disappointed the writers copped out by having Geo return to school as a result of a comedy sequence. I'd hate to say it, but it makes Geo's decision to not go to school look as though it had much less of a social impact on him than the game's take on it.

If I had one complaint about this show, it would be that they gloss over a few critical points to develop Geo's character, but that said, I find this episode to be more of a missed opportunity than a bad episode. The sequence actually is decently funny, it could have just built up better. When Geo decides to go to school in the game, you really feel a change is happening in him, where as here, it's just a setup for a joke. I still recommend this episode though, as it entertains well enough.

Rating: Thumbs Up!

NT Warrior: Count to Three!

This episode is a retelling of the second scenario of Battle Network 1.

Plot Synopsis
Professor Higsby, a professor of rare battle chips or something, shows up at Lan's school one day to teach the class about virus busting. While he's there, he takes notice of Yai's rare battle chips, Hero Sword and Life Aura. (In the game, these chips are found deep, deep, deep in the internet, and Life Aura drops off of Bass). After class one day, Lan and his friends are helping Ms. Mari with editing the school newspaper when Higsby seals off the room and challenges Yai to a net battle for her rare battle chips. Lan however is late to class and arrives just as the doors seal. Yai's navi, Glyde, quickly becomes trapped in a firewall which keeps MegaMan and Roll from helping him against NumberMan.

Roll is able to analyze the firewall system for hints about the password, each of which is a number based on a certain number of items around the school. Lan quickly runs to each location where these items are and counts them so MegaMan can break through the firewall. Eventually he gets all of them, MegaMan quickly stops NumberMan and Higsby and NumberMan surrender. Higsby grovels for mercy and Ms. Mari and everyone forgive him if he'll teach the children to appreciate rare battle chips. The next day Higsby is a new man and decides to open up a Battle Chip shop.

Critique
This is more or less exactly how the scenario in the game plays out. The difference here is that Higsby never works for WWW and is acting out of his own self interests but that's about it. The strong episodes of NT Warrior are the ones with a good supporting cast, and Higsby is one of the better performances of the show. His raving hysterics are quite entertaining, and the English dubbers made a good choice to drop his "Huh?" stutter gimmick thing.

There are some slow parts of this episode, and the animations are reused over and over again but overall this is an enjoyable episode. Lan isn't particularly grating, and Yai's being wealthy actually has significance beyond a stupid gimmick for her character. Better than most episodes and worth watching especially if you enjoyed the games.

Rating: Thumbs Up!

Ruby-Spears: Mega-Pinocchio

Guest Starring: Ring Man, Crash Man, Spark Man and Magnet Man

Plot Synopsis
Wily's robots break into the lab of a scientist named Dr. Petto (they aren't being subtle here at all) and Mega Man shows up just in time to rescue him. Mega Man takes Dr. Petto back to Dr. Light's lab where Dr. Petto talks about his ground breaking research that can turn robots into humans. How exactly this works isn't really elaborated on, but apparently the robot will have real human emotions or something. Dr. Light is impressed even, so lets not dwell on how dumb this plot point has the potential of being, because very soon it won't matter too much.

Dr. Petto offers to turn Mega Man into a real boy and Mega Man is hesitant at first, but then decides he'd like to be human. He heads to Dr. Petto's lab to have the procedure done, and Dr. Petto deactivates him temporarily. Just then, Dr. Wily shows up and, UH-OH, Dr. Petto was one of Wily's robots all along! Wily installs a mind control microchip into Mega Man's brain which Wily can control from a helmet he made. Mega Man is reactivated and Dr. Petto shows Mega Man a flower to show that Mega Man is now human. Dr. Wily whispers to Mega Man (one of the greatest lines of the series) "You feel warm, und tingly undside" To which Mega Man repeats verbatim. Oh Wily, you crazy kraut!

Mega Man, now thinking he is human, runs off to show Dr. Light and Roll. As they are congratulating him, Wily's robots are attacking the city. Mega Man runs off to stop them, but Wily uses his mind control chip to instill fear and doubt into Mega Man which causes him to fail at stopping Wily. The townspeople get upset and the media blame Dr. Light. Mega Man begins to question if his existence was a mistake, and over hears Dr. Light questioning Mega Man's self determination.

Wily tells Mega Man to reprogram Dr. Light's other robots and remove their self determination so that he can reprogram them. Mega Man listens and ends up throwing Dr. Light, Rush and Roll into a trash compactor, ala every Star Wars trash compactor scene ever done. Dr. Light and the others escape, while Dr. Wily steals all of Dr. Light's robots and takes Mega Man with him to march on Washington. Dr. Light heads to Dr. Petto's lab where he discovers Wily's plot and works to create a counter to Wily's mind control chip.

Mega Man is easily taking down the US army and ordering Light's robots around when Roll comes down and begs Mega Man to stop. Dr. Wily tells him to destroy Roll, but Dr. Light tells Mega Man about the mind control chip. Mega Man thinks quickly and fakes working for Wily. He leads Roll off, then returns to Wily and his robots. He then high fives Magnet Man and steals his weapon (this whole sequence is so stupidly awesome). Mega Man uses Magnet Man's magnetic ability (no Magnet Missile) to steal Dr. Wily's mind control helmet. He orders Dr. Light's robots to attack Wily. Then, Mega Man and Proto Man get in the best fight of the series. "He's about to blast Mr. Lincoln!" I'll leave that to your imagination. Mega Man defeats Proto Man and the day is saved! Dr. Light tells Mega Man that he has many human qualities even as a robot and everything is okay again!

Critique
The idea of robots turning into humans is a strange concept, and I can't say the story itself is particularly great, but this episode does work. It's decently funny, the concept of Dr. Wily controlling Mega Man works well enough, and god damn that high five kills me every time. There are some clever things in this episode that make it worth watching and the whole process of turning robots into humans is never dwelled on so it won't ruin it for you.

Rating: Thumbs Up!

Star Force: Trouble Takes Wing!

This is a combination of the episodes "Subaru, On Air!!" and "Cygnus's Challenge!" It is a re-telling of scenario 2 from the first game.

Plot Synopsis
Geo is training with Omega-Xis who is preparing him for the eventual invasion by the FMians and we're shown some brief shots of him flying around the city and later fighting some viruses. At the end of the day, Geo stops by AMAKEN lab and spots an exchange between Aaron Boreal and Tom Dubious.

Tom is suffering from some serious paranoia brought on by the betrayal of a former colleague of his that stole one of his inventions. Because of this, he doesn't trust anyone, and is a bit overtly hostile about keeping his inventions secret. He blows up on Aaron and runs off, but Aaron is pretty sympathetic to Tom's dilemma.

Later on, Geo spots Tom jumping off a cliff. He opens up his coat revealing a jet-pack looking creation with wings which allow him to soar through the skies. He eventually runs out of fuel and crashes towards the Earth. Geo quickly runs to where Tom crashes, but luckily Tom is ok having his fall broken by a tree. Seeing Geo there, Tom flips out and accuses Geo of being a spy looking to steal his "Sky Jacket" (in the game it's called the Flap Pack), but he loosens up a little bit when Geo offers him half of a candy bar. Tom apologies and offers Geo a ride back home, but Geo politely declines. While Tom is driving home, he notes to himself what a good kid Geo is, when suddenly a voice comes on the radio saying "It's the good ones you have to look out for." Tom lets his paranoia creep back in and agrees before suddenly realizing he's not alone.

He crashes his car and the FMian Cygnus uses this to enter Tom's psyche. He offers to protect Tom from all the traitors of the world, and to help him extract his revenge. The next day, Geo is at AMAKEN labs praising Tom's Sky Jacket to Aaron, but Tom on the other hand, now possessed by Cygnus, is causing a satellite to fall out of orbit on to AMAKEN labs to destroy it.

Geo heads out AMAKEN to be confronted by Luna, Bud and Zack again about going to school. They chase him down and grab him. At the same time, Aaron walks in to congratulate Tom on his Sky Jacket when Tom freaks out and Wave-Changes to Cygnus Wing. This results in an explosion which rocks the building causing panicked workers to flee. Bud loses his grip on Geo, who runs off to transform into MegaMan once him and Omega-Xis spot Cygnus Wing.

Cygnus Wing demands Omega-Xis hand over the Andromeda Key, but of course, Omega-Xis refuses. Cygnus Wing and MegaMan then enter battle as the screen freezes into a cliffhanger and the credits start to roll.

Critique
A bit of a ho-hum exposition episode that is probably necessary this early in the series, but it does pick up towards the end. For the most part, this show being a serial show is quite helpful with the dub as the story flows together pretty nicely. Imagine combining two episodes of the Ruby-Spears Mega Man or even NT Warrior and you can see how jarring an episodic series would fare.

Geo is a lot more willing to act in this series than in the original game, but this was probably done to put a little more action into the show and I think is a necessary concession. We learn a lot about Omega-Xis' character this episode as he makes the suggestion that maybe the universe would be better off without humans, except Geo, he adds. Omega-Xis also questions why Geo shared his food with Tom, even though Geo was hungry. Geo simply replies that is just what humans do.

There are some decent scenes with Luna as well as she is day dreaming about MegaMan at school (she repeats the "Where fore art thou Mega Man?" line from the game) and she gets incredibly giddy when she sees him at AMAKEN despite... you know... her life being in danger.

A good episode for a good series, which is such a breath of fresh air after the last NT Warrior episode. Now you know why I'm not doing each series by itself.

Rating: Thumbs Up!

NT Warrior: Traffic Signal Chaos!

Before I get into the review, I thought of something interesting regarding the opening themes to anime shows imported to the US. Rockman.exe, the original show before dubbing, features a big long musical introduction with many J-Pop like lyrics. See for yourself as the show changes the introduction song as it moves from series to series. In the United States, the English dubbers must have felt a song of this nature wouldn't work for kids and came up with a new one. Besides it being in Japanese, they also seem to have felt the original intro sequence was too slow and not action packed enough. The US theme of the show is completely different, more techno, no real lyrics and the sequences shown are more action oriented.

It's actually pretty typical of many foreign medias to move at a slower pace than American medias as any film class will tell you. I wonder though, how often this musical change happens when an anime receives an American dub. It's not like the J-Pop type of song can't be successful, after all, everyone and their mother remembers the "I Wanna Be the Very Best" song from Pokemon. I just thought it was kind of interesting. For the record, I actually like the American sound track better, but that's probably from my own conditioning of American media. Anyway, this review is significantly padded now, because this next episode is fucking awful.

Plot Synopsis
The last episode was similar to the third scenario of Battle Network 1 in that it had out of control vehicles about to crash. This one however, is probably closer related as it actually messes with the traffic signals and includes Maddy and her Net Navi Colorma... wait? WackoMan? Alright, sure, why not.

So the episode begins with the introduction of the worst character in the show, Yai Ayano. In the game, Yai is rather innocuous and not important enough to even warrant attention. In this show though, she is a collection of the same fucking joke over and over. The setup goes, Yai is rich, the punchline is, other characters are shocked at her frivolous spending. This gets old, real fast.

In this show, she's also an arrogant bitch most of the time. You would think the shows writers would take an opportunity to develop her character some, make her realize that money can't buy everything and that sort of thing, but no, instead she frequently flashes her wealth and acts like a spoiled brat every episode, and the other characters love her for it. Yay status quo...

Yai comes to her new school in DenTech city, having skipped some grades because she is a genius or something and the show just kind of bullshits around for a bit while Yai makes use of her money to get better cafeteria food, show a full length biography on a dvd of herself to the class, and roll around in a limo.

Anyway, the next day, Yai has to go to the bathroom but refuses to use the schools bathroom because they don't have gold plated faucets or some shit. So she decides to wait until she gets home, but UH OH, WWW has turned all the stop lights red in the most ineffective world domination plan ever. Luckily, Lan shows up with Mega Man, defeats WackoMan and Maddy, and runs Yai to the nearest bathroom. The next day, Yai shows up with a new limo with a toilet installed in it... gross...

Critique
Is there any character worth liking on this show? Even MegaMan comes off like a nagging nanny to Lan. There was a simple opportunity to show some humility in Yai about using the schools bathrooms, but the fact that she just buys a new bathroom for her limo just shows she doesn't learn anything. This episode is just horrible, and nothing interesting really happens until halfway through. Honestly, sometimes I'm amazed this show made it through its first season, let alone survived 4 years.

Rating: Thumbs Down.

About Anime and Limiting Your Cultural Intake

I think I should make it very clear that I do not watch a lot of anime. I pretty much only watched the first season of pokemon which I outgrew very fast, and after that nothing else except these Mega Man shows, and really, only because of Mega Man himself. I've out grown my hating of anime for the sake of it phase, and I'm sure if I really gave a fuck about looking into it I could probably find a hand full of shows I'd enjoy, though a good chunk of really fucked up fans keep me out of that sub culture. I don't hate you if you enjoy anime, but if your priority of entertainment is based solely on where the content came from, you are severely limiting your exposure to a whole world of fantastic media. Let me speak to you as a film student to tell you that anime is not all there is. Yes, some good stuff comes out of Japan, but there are also many great Italian, French, German, Chinese and even Indian films as well. Hell, there was a fantastic film out of Afghanistan if you can believe it.

Check out some of the fantastic films by Vittorio De Sica, Jean-Luc Godard and many more. Hell, if you still want some great Japanese culture, ignore the fucking cartoons and watch some Akira Kurosawa.

The United States also has some great stuff as well, don't dismiss typical Hollywood movies just because the major studios crank out shit fests like 2012. The independant market has created some of the best directors of all time since Hollywood began. Check out a Spike Lee movie, or John Singleton. The big studios have some great films of the past as well, such as John Ford, Frank Capra, Francis Ford Copalla.

These are of course films, but if you want great cartoons there are so many great Warner Brothers cartoons, Disney Cartoons, and even MGM has the classic Tom and Jerry series.

My point is, don't limit yourself to just anime just because it's from Japan, but take it in along with as much as you can from all over the world. If you're the typical American Otaku, with an assload of boot-legged anime filling up your hard drive that you have to alphabetize to sort through, if you find yourself buying Katanas and running around calling people "Baka Gaijins," please, please, please, for the love of god, expand your horizons. There isn't anything more irritating than people who only talk about one stupid thing all the damn time.

Up next, my 114th Mega Man post!

Ruby-Spears: The Big Shake

Guest Staring: Drill Man and Stone Man

Plot Synopsis
There comes a time in every young cartoon super villains life that he'll try to destroy the entire city/country/world with a giant earthquake making drill machine, and this time it's Wily's turn. When an earthquake hits the city, Mega Man spots GutsMan and CutMan, I dunno, going for a walk or something, and Mega Man opens fire. Thanks to a tricky distraction shot with the Rolling Cutter, GutsMan and CutMan plant a tracking device on Mega Man through a blowgun.

MegaMan, unbeknownst to him, wearing the transmitter heads back to Dr. Light's lab where they determine Dr. Wily must have been the source behind the earthquakes. Dr. Wily is listening through the transmitter, and prepares an ambush for Mega Man, who heads to the center of the quake. Mega Man manages to survive the ambush and takes off.

Next, the Mayor of Generic City USA and Dr. Light and Mega Man are having a meeting about what to do about Dr. Wily. Dr. Wily appears on all the mayors sixteen televisions demanding the mayor hand over the city to him. The mayor refuses because "THAT'S SLAVERY!" Honest to god the best lines in this show are the ones not written to be purposely humorous. Dr. Light suggests that he finish working on an invention of his called the "Anti-Quake Stabilizer," which is basically a box with a satellite on it.

Wily listens in while Dr. Light is building the stabilizer, and sends an earth quake towards Dr. Light's lab. The device is destroyed and Mega Man suffers some minimal damage and needs a quick tune up. Mega Man wonders how Dr. Wily knew to strike the lab, but didn't Dr. Wily used to work there??? While repairing Mega Man, Dr. Light finds the micro transmitter planted on Mega Man, and Mega Man hatches a plan to use the transmitter to ambush Wily and his robots.

During the coming battle, Roll is kidnapped by Proto Man and Dr. Wily uses his drill in the subways to start an earthquake that will destroy New York City. Mega Man quickly catches up and destroys the machine and rescues Roll, but Dr. Wily and Proto Man get away.

Critique
This is classic cartoon nonsense with villains appearing on televisions, giant earth quake drills and generic mayor characters. There isn't anything particularly special about this episode as pretty much every cartoon on earth has done a similar story. The dialog and action has a lot of those moments that are funny even though they aren't supposed to be, while the "humor" dialog is actually the same amount of horrible catchphrases and puns from every episode. It's not a great episode, but it has enough over the top bullshit to entertain.

Rating: Thumbs Up!

Upon A Star: Future Beware

Plot Synopsis
We open with Mega Man running and blasting his way through multiple enemies in a heated action packed sequence. Well I learned my lesson last episode and tried to remember that these awesome scenes are going to be cut off once Mega Man enters "The Real World." Sigh...

Mega Man runs into Roll who wants to help him fight, but Mega Man is well aware of how useless Roll is and turns her down. While they are arguing, they are sucked away into the real world. This time, Utah and his sister called Mega Man and Roll to celebrate some parade with them. Isn't this just a wee bit irresponsible? I mean, yeah, the first time no one could have predicted that would have happened, and the second time was just bad luck... but shit, to deliberately call Mega Man from the game is just asking the world to be placed in danger isn't it?

Well guess what? While Mega Man is partying, Dr. Wily escapes into Japan. Shocking, I know. During the fireworks shooting, Dr. Wily's face appears in the sky... out of the fireworks... and threatens the people of Japan. Yeah, way to go Utah, you fucked up again! Well Mega Man and Utah hop on Rush in search of Wily but he's no where to be found. They head back and think of a new plan. Mega Man figures if they use Dr. Light's time machine to travel a year into the future, they'll figure out what Wily's plan is and be able to stop him.

Fast Forward a year later, and Japan is mostly annihilated, and what's left is floating above the Earth. Hmmm... this could be interesting... Mega Man heads to the floating isle where Dr. Wily confronts him. He then turns several of the skyscrapers into giant robots to fight Mega Man with, and sends his entire Mega Man 5 robot masters after him.

So Mega Man is going to fight sky scrapers? Holy fuck this is going to be fucking awesome! NOPE! Mega Man jumps into the time machine and runs away! ARRRRG! FUCKING BLUE BALLED!

Figuring maybe they had traveled a bit too far into the future, Mega Man sets the time machine one month ahead to the present, but all that's going on are a few typhoons which Utah assures Mega Man is perfectly normal around that time of the year. Yes, today's episode is about Japan's weather... great.

Well fuck it, they go ahead another month and this time Dr. Light contacts Mega Man and tells him Wily's built a giant Typhoon making robot. Mega Man heads with Roll to where the typhoon is heading towards Japan and uses his modified buster to combat the typhoon's winds. Roll decides she needs to help by driving the time machine directly into Mega Man's line of fire and destroying it, which sends her comically hurling into the air and face first into the ground. It's a pretty violent collision for a kids show actually, but god damn is it hilarious!

Well Roll is alright, but now Mega Man just has to wait for Wily to strike since the time machine is destroyed. A few weeks later, Wily uses his typhoon maker to life a huge chunk of Japan into the sky to create the floating isle from earlier. Are the giant sky scraper robots coming back!? No? GOD DAMN IT!

Mega Man flies up there with Proto Man and starts a pretty heated action sequence that is entertaining, and Elec Man makes a guest appearance to get blown the fuck up by Mega Man! He's on screen for about a split second, making him the only robot master not from Mega Man 5 to show up in the OAV series. Mega Man and Proto Man defeat Wily's giant robot, and Wily begs not to be taken back to the game, so Mega Man says "fine, hope you like prison Dr. Wily!"

Then everyone celebrates Christmas... I'm not joking.

Critique
Every line in this episode is delivered so awkwardly, every sequence is so insane, and every piece of writing is so stupid this is by far the best episode of the OAV series! This is really a guilty pleasure in that it's way too funny how bad this episode is. The other episodes are kind of dumb, but this one takes it to a whole new level that everyone needs to see. Even if you hate watching really terrible writing like this, the action sequences are quite good, so at least visually there is something to this episode.

Anyway, this is the last of the Upon A Star series, and this show would eventually turn into the full on Ruby-Spears production everyone knows and loves. There's a few animated sequences here and there that are directly, frame by frame, reproduced in the new show which is a kind of cool thing to see if you are looking for it. Oh, and maybe I'm hearing things, but by does the credit sequence remind me of this song???

Star Force: Electromagnetic Wave Change!

Note: This is a combination of the episodes Electromagnetic Wave Virus and Electromagnetic Wave Conversion.

Plot Synopsis
Geo is floating around in a daze when he see's the blue alien Omega-Xis before him. He's initially scared, but notices Omega-Xis is wounded and offers him help. Omega-Xis explains that he is an alien from the planet FM but before he can go into detail, the background shatters and Omega-Xis disappears.

Detective Bob Copper arrives on the scene with a Satella Police unit after detecting large amounts of EM-Wave activity. There, they find Geo unconscious. They take him back to their HQ where his mother comes down to take him home. Copper asks Geo if he saw anything related to the EM Waves, but Geo is in a daze and says he was only star gazing. Geo's mother walks him home and when they arrive, Geo suddenly snaps out of his daze and begins rambling to his mother about the lights in the sky, and the FMians and Omega-Xis, but his mother thinks he was dreaming... or maybe she hopes he is dreaming. Let's not forget that Geo is unfortunately all too ripe to be mentally disturbed at the moment, and his mother makes note that she is worried about him since the Satella police found him. Geo hesitates and wonders if he really was dreaming, not remembering ever being at the Satella Police and heads to bed. There, Omega-Xis reappears, much to Geo's surprise.

Now, there is a lot to infer to what is going on here that will make sense with coming episodes. It's not ever explicitly explained, but we can piece together what went on with Geo based on what happens with other FMian encounters. I'm bringing this up now as it is important to understand for Omega-Xis' character development. It is an important point about Omega-Xis in the overall arc of the series, but not entirely to this episodes self contained story. I've block quoted it to remove it from the main synopsis.

FMians can enter the human subconscious to communicate with humans privately. They use this ability to manipulate humans into leaving humans vulnerable for the FMians to assert their own identity over the humans, or in more pragmatic terms, posses humans. This is what happens when the background of Geo's subconscious shatters, and he begins to fall into a void, Geo has lost his identity and Omega-Xis is controlling him. Omega-Xis does this to avoid the Satella Police detecting his presence since he can't at this point trust that Geo won't rat him out. This is why Geo is in a daze during his interrogation with the Satella Police and doesn't remember being there.

Occasionally, a particularly strong willed individual will be able to reassert their identity over an FMian. This is what happens when Geo suddenly snaps out of his daze back at home. When this happens, an FMian has no power to control the individual any longer and Omega-Xis states as much in the next episode that he cannot control Geo. Another human will reassert their identity later in the series in much the same way, and other humans will fight with their FMian captors with similar inner battles. This is an important step in Omega-Xis' character development because it is establishing Omega-Xis' view of Geo as a tool for the moment. This will change much later as their own bond grows. Back to the episode.

Omega Xis and Geo talk about the FMians and Geo mentions his father Kelvin who Omega-Xis recognizes. Geo immediately shoots up hearing about his father and asks Omega-Xis what he knows, but Omega-Xis is reluctant to say anything and goes to rest inside Geo's Transer. It might seem like a weird coincidence that Omega-Xis has found Geo at the moment, but it actually isn't as well find out later in the series.

The next day while walking about the city, Omega-Xis reveals that other FMians are after him and their goal is to destroy the Earth. He talks about how the FMians are a warmongering species that slaughtered their sister planet, Planet AM, in a merciless war. He also speaks of how many EM-Wave Viruses are appearing from Planet FM to Earth and that is why there are more virus attacks lately. Geo asks Omega-Xis what he is doing on Earth, but Omega-Xis denies him an answer.

Over his shoulder, Geo spots Luna Platz and company heading to see their principal in the hospital for political points. He ducks out of their line of sight, knowing they'll bug him about going to school. Omega-Xis asks Geo if Luna and her friends are enemies, but Geo says no, he just doesn't like them that much.

Well suddenly the monorail train Luna, Bud and Zack are riding gets attacked by EM-Viruses, causing it to start derailing, leaving Luna hanging for dear life by her fingertips a good thousand or so feet above the ground. Geo tells Omega-Xis that they have to do something, but Omega-Xis tells him it's none of their business and that Geo shouldn't even bother with people he doesn't care about. Geo ignores Omega-Xis and climbs onto the monorail track and starts fighting the viruses with the card force from his Transer. Quickly though he starts being overwhelmed by the viruses, so Omega-Xis decides to help.

Omega-Xis performs an EM-Wave Change with Geo's body, fusing the two of them together and giving Omega-Xis access to his full power. Geo is suddenly made of EM-Waves, can travel through matter, fly, and has a huge array of weaponry thanks to the battle cards. He easily starts dispatching the viruses and is amazed by the whole process. The Satella police arrive on the scene and Geo leaves the viruses to them while he quickly rescues Luna who loses her grip from the train. The train then collapses and Geo grabs that as well, saving Bud and Zack.

Bob Copper recognizes the EM-Frequency as the same from last night and runs over to Geo to make an arrest, but Luna shoves him over (completely infatuated with her savior) and asks Geo his name. Geo hesistates and Omega-Xis grumbles out "MegaMan". Copper then shoves over Luna and tells MegaMan that he's coming with him to the station, but MegaMan jumps away. He fights another virus before reverting back to his matter form when Copper spots him. He is suspicious seeing Geo twice around MegaMan's frequencies but Geo runs off before he can question him.

Some time later, Geo is star gazing again with Omega-Xis and Omega-Xis questions why Geo bothered to save Luna if he doesn't care about her. Geo says that's just what humans do. Omega-Xis looks forward to working with Geo, who he affectionately calls "MegaMan".

Critique
I think this episode is a great take on introducing Omega-Xis and Geo's relationship, although in the game Geo is a lot more reluctant to work with Omega-Xis, only doing so to find out about his dad. Still, rarely can you go wrong when you put characters your protagonist knows in danger to force them to act, and this type of scenario is classic Super Hero stuff. The MegaMan character has been introduced formally and the stage has been set for things to come.

MegaMan comes off powerful in this episode, but unlike NT Warrior's introduction, his inexperience shows a lot more. Geo is completely bewildered and amazed at his power, but Omega-Xis has to keep him focusing. Even though Geo doesn't seemed particularly threatened, you get the feeling that if Omega-Xis wasn't as experienced as he was, Geo would have been in trouble, and the balance pays off well I think. This is a good follow up to the first episode and I think the serial nature of the show works much better than NT Warriors episodic feel.

Rating: Thumbs Up!

NT Warrior: Subway Scramble!

This is a great picture out of context.

Plot Synopsis
This episode is a bit like scenario three from the first Battle Network game. We start out with Dex repairing GutsMan.exe at his house when his robotic cat jumps up and bites his shin. Our next scene is Dex in the hospital with Lan and Mayl coming up to check on him. He's in some pain, but otherwise fine, so Lan and Mayl head to Sal's flower shop for some tea. They discuss the threat of World Three (the WWW), who were responsible for the fires in the last episode. Just then, Lan and Mayl spot their teacher Ms. Mari heading into a fortune tellers shop.

Meanwhile we see the leader of WWW, Lord Wily, speaking to one of his henchmen Count Zap. Trouble be a brewing as Lan and Mayl butt their noses in Ms. Mari's business and eat up all her fortune teller time. Miyu, the fortune teller, predicts water in Lan's future and tells him and MegaMan to be very careful. Lan blows her off and as they are leaving, Count Zap is wreaking havoc on various electronics everywhere with his Net Navi ElecMan. He some how infects a robotic dog which bursts out of a store and steals Ms. Mari's purse.

Lan takes off in pursuit along with Mayl and Lan jumps, in an unnecessary slow motion shot, to put on his roller skates while chasing after the mutt. They follow him into a subway train where he suddenly starts acting normal again. Unfortunately, Count Zap has gained control of the subway train and starts sending it full speed along the tracks to collide with another train. He doesn't seem to have any way to know Lan is on the train, so this is more or less just a very unfortunate coincidence for Lan and Mayl.

The train operators get shocked which renders them unconscious, and everyone stands around panicking, except Lan, who busts the door down by breaking a window with a fire extinguisher. Lan and Mayl can't seem to stop the train, so an all too cheerful MegaMan (who doesn't seem the slightest bit concerned that his operator is about to die a gruesome death), tells Lan to jack him in to the train so MegaMan can see what's going on. Inside the train's CPU, the security navis are being overwhelmed with WWW viruses. Expect to see a running theme that security navis in this show suck ass.

MegaMan helps out and has Lan disconnect the train cars so the back half of the train with the passengers will be safe. After disconnecting the cars, Lan makes a suicidal leap from one car to the other so he can help out MegaMan who is now engaged in battle with ElecMan. With Lan's help, MegaMan now has no problem defeating ElecMan and Lan is able to regain control of the train. He stops the train within two inches of a wall, saving the day. How do I know it's two inches? The fucking show literally circles the distance between the train and the wall and flashes "2 Inches!!" on the screen. Give me a break here!

With the train safe, a safety crew comes in and douses the train's console with a fire hose, blasting Lan in the process. MegaMan jokes about Miyu's prediction coming true as Lan bemoans getting soaked.

Critique
You will hear me say this a lot about episodes which focus on Count Zap, but he is by far the best damn character on this show. I absolutely love this villain and his over the top maniacal laughter. The game's Count Zap is pretty boring, so I guess the creators of the show decided to give this Count Zap an electric guitar for the hell of it, and kudos to them for doing so. Collin Murdock plays the english voice of Count Zap, and he does a fucking fantastic job! Each of his performances makes the episodes worth watching alone.

Otherwise this is a decent episode. The main cast is still pretty weak however, with the main characters just not very well fleshed out yet. Dex, in these early episodes, has a massive chip on his shoulder and is overtly aggressive about everything. Lan still isn't very likable and Mayl might as well be a prop. MegaMan himself, barely has any lines at all.

At this point in the show, Masa is a character that seems extremely gimmicky. In the game, he barely has two lines and many players might even miss him their first time through. That said, I know this character gets so much better in later episodes, contending with Count Zap for my favorite. His constant calcium and fish tirades become more endearing later as the character gets more screen time and eventually you'll look forward to seeing him.

It's the supporting cast for this show that make it worth watching, as the majority of the voice actors are more experienced adults and have a bit wider range to work with. Eventually though the show decides to scrap the interesting supporting cast and provide a bunch of unfunny, uninteresting, boring filler characters which ruin the show. We're not there yet though.

Anyway, this episode works well and is very arch-typical for the early season, and the standard Battle Network game scenario. There's still a ways to go for this show, but it's an improvement over the first episode.

Rating: Thumbs Up!

Ruby-Spears: Electric Nightmare

Guest Starring: Bright Man and Pharaoh Man

Plot Synopsis
Well we're on the second episode already and it's time to turn the brains off. We start off with Dr. Wily and his robots attacking a power plant. Mega Man shows up in time and quickly disassembles Cut Man and Guts Man and renders Bright Man useless by putting on sunglasses. Wily quickly uses his flying Wily Machine however and blows Mega Man up!

"No!" protests Proto Man, "I want to be the one to destroy my brother!" We now see that Dr. Wily and his robots are playing with a small scale model of the power plant. Apparently Dr. Wily must not have much faith in his robots because he greatly anticipates their failure. Anyway, Wily concedes that Proto Man can destroy Mega Man and they take off for the power plant.

In the mean time Dr. Light has created a new series of helper robots that look like butlers and maids that he is showing at an expo when they all hear an explosion. Mega Man jumps on Rush and heads down to the power plant. There he finds Wily and his bots again and starts taking them out. He beats Bright Man with a mirror this time, leaving viewers with the question of "what the hell use is Bright Man?" Mega Man defeats them all and Wily runs off.

Back at Wily's hidden base, he explains that he has a spy in Dr. Light's lab. We now go to Mega Man washing up in a bathroom sink when the door slams behind him, is barred shut and the room starts filling with acid! Mega Man tries to blast the door down, but it's been reinforced to keep Wily out apparently (maybe it's made out of a met helmet). Luckily Dr. Light happens to walk by and gets Mega Man out. He then orders his robo maid to clean up the acid which corrodes through metal with a mop... hmm...

All while this is going on, Dr. Wily finally install his micro chip thing into the power plant. This gives him control of all the electronics in the city, which he controls with an Atari looking joy stick. How well does his control of these electronics extend to? Well he can tie up a security guard with a phone cord, send vacuums after innocent civilians and toss hot dogs and cheese at them... right...

Mega Man goes after Wily with Rush, but unfortunately Rush has been reprogrammed by the Robo Maid to fly Mega Man directly to Guts Man and Cut Man. Since that plan was obviously terrible from the get go, Mega Man beats both of them and goes to rescue a bunch of citizens in a store who are being attacked by unplugged appliances and exercise bikes. After stopping them, Mega Man returns to Dr. Light's lab to see if he's discovered the source of this ridiculous crap. He gets there just in time to rescue Dr. Light from the Robo Maid who spouts some awful Terminator catchphrases before Mega Man completely dismembers her. Ah, you gotta love that since they are robots, they can have their heads and limbs chopped off!

Dr. Wily has the governor hand him over the city, but Mega Man goes back to the power plant and installs a new chip made by Dr. Light to counter act the magical other chip. Mega Man heads to the governors mansion where he fights with Pharaoh Man for about 10 seconds and Wily flies off defeated and pissed. Mega Man heads back home where the Robo Maid has been reprogrammed to be a servant to Rush, who is a bit of a cruel master. Everyone laughs, credits roll.

Critique
It's amazing how Wily can control an entire cities worth of electronics with only a joystick and two buttons and you have to wonder why he even brought Bright Man with him at all.

This episode is particularly bad with the puns. "I got a feeling the butler did it!" "Time to work on my back hand!" (picks up a tennis racket), "Who do you call when you can't trust the police department? The Fire Department!" (sprays a bunch of water with a fire hydrant). They just keep coming at a hundred puns a minute.

Ignoring the more idiotic stuff though the majority of this episode just repeats itself. Mega Man himself goes and fights the Robot Masters three out of the four times this episode goes to the power plant. There's all kinds of chaos without any sense of peril for our blue hero either, trivializing most of the battles. This hits it's peak of stupidity once the security guard is tied up with the phone cord, and while that's worth watching initially because of the "so bad it's good" factor, they repeat this type of joke ad nauesum the whole episode, wearing it out really fast.

An overall mediocre episode that isn't so hilariously bad it's worth seeing.

Rating: Thumbs Down.