Axess: The Unsafe Safe!

After being sick as all hell for the past couple of weeks, here's a new Axess review.

Plot Synopsis
Nebula (I think this is the first time they say the organization's name) needs more rare metal to manufacture dark chips, so they setup a dimensional area around a security vault and send BubbleMan in to retrieve it. Unfortunately for BubbleMan, inside the safe is another locked safe, and when he touches it, an alarm goes off. Nebula pulls the plug on the mission and drops the dimensional area. Uberknownst to BubbleMan, a smaller, more compact safe was all that was in the other safe anyway.

The dimensional area of course did not go without notice, and the Net Saviors want Lan to check it out, after school of course, you need your priorities straight. After class, Mayl follows Lan and interjects herself into his Net Savior business again. Isn't this how MegaMan and Roll almost got deleted last time Mayl?

While they're out eating ice cream, another dimensional area forms around the security vault again, and this time BurnerMan shows up. Lan tries to run into the dimensional area, but a shocking jolt hurls Lan several feet backwards into the air, and he falls unconscious. BurnerMan steals the rare metal and gets away.

Back at the hospital... er excuse me, SciLab (because internet scientists are just as good as doctors), Lan awakens and his father asks if Lan would like to spend the rest of the afternoon running into walls some more. Lan agrees, and spends the next ten minutes hurling himself head first into a dimensional area in the lab. What he's trying to do, is cross-fuse at the point of intersection in order to break through it, but they determine Lan isn't going fast enough.

They don't have enough time to figure out how to get it working though, because BurnerMan is attacking another facility. Lan throws himself into the dimensional area again, but gets thrown back again. Lan tries with his skates, and still gets thrown off. Luckily for all of them, there just happens to be a giant machine with a conveyor belt and ramp on it. Yuchiro, father of the year, has his son Lan, climb the top of the 40 foot device, turns on the conveyor belt, and has Lan fling himself down it. This is enough speed for Lan to cross-fuse and break through the dimensional area.

Inside, Lan stops BurnerMan after a battle where, genius Net Savior that he is, Lan determines that water is bad for fire. The day is saved, but now it's really late at night and Lan hasn't studied for his quiz tomorrow! Will his dad help? Nope!

Critique
Let's recap the world's greatest dad here shall we?

1. Has his 11 year old son join a government crime fighting agency.
2. Allows him to partake in an experimental procedure in which only Lan has ever successfully completed, and the long term effects are unknown.
3. Encourages his son to participate in battles akin to comic book super hero fights.
4. Doesn't take his son to the hospital after being jolted with enough energy to, not only throw him into the air, but also knock him unconscious.
5. After said event, encourages his son to constantly repeat the same activity over and over, despite injuries.
6. Allows his son to climb a huge, dangerous vehicle with a conveyor belt, while wearing roller skates.
7. Refuses to help his son with his homework after making him fight a monster with fucking blow torches for arms.

Will someone please call Child Protective Services? I mean, I know they have high standards for their kids in Japan, but isn't this a bit ridiculous?

This also goes back to a point that's been bothering me about dimensional areas and cross-fusion since day one. If Darkloids can enter dimensional areas, why not Net Navis? Wouldn't it have been faster, and safer, to figure out how to jack MegaMan by himself into the dimensional area, instead of chucking Lan into it again and again? Just sayin...

All of this is really looking at the show a bit more seriously than it should be taken though, and if we ignore all of these points and look at the episode for what it is actually striving to do with its story, then it isn't that bad really. Obviously they aren't making the danger of Lan smashing his head into a wall as big a deal as I am, and the intended effect of comedy does work. I think Mayl has a few funny lines at the start of this episode too, and I love how ShadowMan just gives BubbleMan a disappointed "Go away," line. You can hear him being depressed at his incompetent minion, rather than typical bad guy sinister, and I just found that funny.

This is a nice episode because it sticks to a pretty simple premise and works with it the whole way through. The conflict of trying to get Lan through the dimensional area is easy to understand, and no where does the story get mucked up by trying to be too complicated, like the Friendship in the Mirror does towards the end.

Rating: Thumbs up!