Axess: ShadeMan's Ambition

Plot Synopsis
ShadeMan's a bit pissed about being tricked by Nebula, but rather than kicking the habit, he's decided to come up with a plan to steal all the dark chips. Oh what you junkies will do to get your fix.

Some time later, the Net Police get an anonymous tip about a warehouse storing dark chips, and Keifer sends Manwella to investigate. When she arrives at the warehouse, a dimensional area forms around it to keep her out. She calls for Lan and Chaud to assist her.

Lan and Chaud stop what they're doing (rounding up dark chip corrupted NetNavis), and head to the dimensional area. ShadeMan appears before Nebula's leader and offers to help protect the dark chips with himself and another Darkloid, GravityMan, to which Nebula's leader accepts. Lan and Chaud come up with their own plans to break through the dimensional area barrier, completely ignoring the last episode where Chaud managed to do it through magic or something. I guess he forgot how to do it since last week?

They break through the barrier, with Chaud amazingly doing so by somehow jumping away from it, and eventually get down to where they think the dark chips are. Unfortunately, the path is blocked by GravityMan, who just gives them absolute hell fighting them. They eventually team up and form a strategy against him, taking GravityMan down.

Inside the dark chip vault, ShadeMan stands, ready to steal the dark chips, for it was him that gave the Net Police the anonymous tip. He only finds a single chip there, his reward, explains Ms. Yuri, for protecting the warehouse, of which they had already abandoned weeks ago. Um, didn't we already do this exact same plot?

ShadeMan is pissed, and on his way out, pretty much blasts Chaud and Lan with one shot that breaks both of their Cross-Fusions. He's too irritated to kill them I guess, and he logs out nonchalantly, leaving the two of them fearful of his power.

Critique
So yeah, this episode really feels like it moves in slow motion, because the characters talk waaaaaay to god damned much again. Add to this that the voice actress for Ms. Yuri is the same voice actress for Manwella, and she ends up speaking about 90% of the dialog this episode. I have nothing against the voice actress, but I wasn't expecting a damn soliloquy from her.

MegaMan is also sidelined this episode, again. He's barely in it at all, and things were going so well too. Add to this that the ending is pretty much the same thing from every episode of Axess, that is, Nebula being one step ahead of everyone, but also wasting everyone's time, and you have an episode that's nearly frustrating to watch.

Although a lot of the action in this episode is really slow with the characters never shutting up, the GravityMan fight doesn't feel as bad, and this is one of the rare episodes we get to see Lan and Chaud working together while Cross-Fused, something that isn't really standard until Stream and beyond. For the dub especially, this is a pretty rare occurrence, and I did like that Lan is actually shown to have some quick thinking when he saves himself and Chaud from the elevator shaft, which even slightly impresses Chaud. I just think it's odd how Lan is allowed to do all these dangerous activities so young because he's a child prodigy of Net Battling, yet, they always make him out to be so dumb. You would think by the way the show goes, that Lan is actually some sort of genius in regards to this stuff. Or maybe he's just a Savant, which explains why they make him out to be so retarded.

Anyway, GravityMan is a pretty stupid character too, and has another really annoying voice. They decided to give him a stereotypical robot personality you might see off a show like Lost In Space or something, which seems odd for a cartoon based on a spin off of a video game about robots... That said, GravityMan is probably the only use of 3D on this show that actually looks good, although his animations aren't very complicated. He looks like the 3D you might see on the show Futurama, and that should be taken as a compliment.

If this episode didn't move so slow, rely on one voice actress, and stayed away from NT Warrior's typical contrived story writing conventions, it could have worked out decently. The Darkloid and Nebula's growing tensions make for interesting narrative, but it really feels like only ShadeMan's character is putting any effort into making that narrative interesting, which in turn, hurts this overtly mediocre episode.

Rating: Thumbs down.