A Quick Look at: MegaMan: NT Warrior Axess By: Celeron “PentiumMMX” Wily The Intro: Welcome to another one of my reviews. This time, we’re looking at the anime adaptation of Mega Man Battle Network; more specifically, we’re looking at some episodes from the second season; starting with the worst. Not much else to say, so let’s get this show on the road. A brief history of Mega Man Battle Network, and it’s bizarrely titled anime: The Mega Man franchise has a long history, with many different spin-offs and alternate interpretations over the years; really, I could be here all day if I tried to talk about each and every one of them. So, we’re just going to focus on one in particular: Battle Network, which began in 2001. Mega Man Battle Network is set in an unspecified time during the 21st century (Referred to as the year 20XX in game), in an alternate timeline from the original series; where the internet became tightly integrated into our lives, with pretty much everything being connected to it. To help, many people carry a device called a Personal Terminal (PET); which has an AI called a Net Navi, that functions as a personal assistant, and can also be used for battle; often for sport, as a popular pastime. The series proper revolves around Lan Hikari; an ordinary 5th grade student whom enjoys net battles alongside his trusted Navi of MegaMan.EXE. However, he frequently finds himself pulled into situations where he has to use his net battling skills to delete viruses and take on cyberterrorists. There’s quite a bit more to it than that, but that gives you the gist of the series. left to right: Yai Ayano, Lan Hikari, Rush, Mayl Sakurai In 2002, an anime adaptation premiered in Japan; produced by the studio, Xebec; whom previously worked on the cut-scenes for both Mega Man X4 and Mega Man 8. The show itself was only loosely based on the games, and continued until its conclusion in September 2006; with a total of 5 seasons and a theatrical movie (Released as a double feature with the Duel Masters movie). In May 2003, the anime made its way to the US…under the bizarre dub title of MegaMan: NT Warrior. This ignores how there was already and established English title, with Mega Man Battle Network, but I guess Viz thought the NT Warrior name would be more marketable. The series ran on Kids WB until December 2005, being cancelled at the conclusion of its 2nd season, with the final episodes only airing after their newest shows, like Johnny Test, went on a hiatus. The series was honestly a pain to follow; given how erratic the schedule was for new episodes, on top of them airing them out of order. Of what we got, my favorite by far was season 2, which was given the subtitle of Axess. This is where the anime-exclusive ability of CrossFusion is introduced; which allows a Net Op (Lan, for example) to fuse with their Navi, although it puts great strain on the body of the Net Op in the process. It’s so gloriously over the top, and I loved it; it pulled it off in a way that was infinitely less cringe-worthy than Digimon Frontier. The review of NT Warrior Axess: There are many episodes I could talk about, although I think I want to first give you an idea of just how bad this show can get; with two of my most hated episodes, from when I watched this season during its first (and only) English run, in 2005. Which, finding this season in English was a pain; the official DVD releases of the English dub stopped at the end of season 1, and the show hasn’t been seen on TV in over a decade. Thus, season 2 falls into the territory of “Keep Circulating the Tapes”, much like rare episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Also, the theme song isn’t that great; it’s not as bad as I remember, and as far as Saturday morning cartoons of the era go, it easily could have been worse (For instance, it could have been like Winx Club). Though, it could have easily been better; it’s a rather generic techno tune set to a montage of footage from the show, with some robotic voices saying the show’s title and naming off various abilities MegaMan.EXE has. Compare and contrast the rock song used for the Japanese opening, which better captures the spirit of the series in my eyes, and is a song that I wouldn’t mind putting on my phone. The voice acting isn’t bad, though; most of the cast were no-names that haven’t done much before or since. That is, except for Lan; voiced by Brad Swale, who also voiced Quatre from Gundam Wing and Light Yagami from Death Note, among others. As a random bit, Steve Blum was on the dub team, helping with adapting the scripts, but sadly, he never lent his legendary voice to any of the characters. We kick thinks off with The Purloined Princess. In this one, Lan and friends are unwillingly flown to Kingland to visit Yai Ayano; an old friend of theirs. She needs their help to track down and delete the viruses responsible for stealing the data to the game her company was developing, titled “Strawberry Princess”. When watching this show for the first time, it gave me a strong dislike of Yai; in contrast to her much more down-to-earth portrayal in the Battle Network games, she’s a snobby rich girl that kidnapped her own friends just so this episode’s plot can happen. Looking back on it, my opinion hasn’t changed much; it is a funny episode, though I just don’t like how they wrote Yai. "All according to plan" -Yai [TL Note: "plan" means "keikaku"] Next up is It’s All How You Look At It; a very special episode in which we’re introduced to Shuko, the unluckiest girl in the world, as Lan and friends have to help her to stop being so negative all the time. Honestly, the biggest fault of this episode is just how annoying Shuko is; her voice acting can be pretty grating at points, as she whines about her problems. I can understand the writers wanted to send a positive message (To quote a song from Monty Python’s The Life of Brian, “always look on the bright side of life”), but did they really need to make her as annoying as they did? Now, we’ll turn our focus to a couple of the episodes I loved, starting with Allegro. This takes place during the Dark Protoman portion of the season, and is an episode in which Lan barely appears at all until the end. In fact, the episode has Mayl and Chaud as the main focus; as they team up to investigate the disappearance of several Navis. I mean, it’s an episode with my two favorite characters featured prominently; it’s perfect, and one I highly suggest watching. My thoughts drift to the Morning Rescue commercial Next up is an episode that never aired outside of Japan, with a translated title of Mayl’s First Date. This is the episode that takes place after Allegro, and involves Mayl reminiscing on her early childhood, and her desire to want to be the one to protect Lan, instead of him protecting her all the time. However, when their date goes sour due to a sudden virus attack, she attempts CrossFusion with Roll, like in the dream she had at the start of the episode…only for it to fail. Still, we do see it at the start, via the dream. You have no idea how much I loved seeing CrossFusion Roll I wish they had aired this episode in English, as it provided some character development, but they likely skipped it due to focusing extensively on Mayl and her relationship with Lan; feeling it wouldn’t appeal to their target demographic of elementary school kids. To be fair, I was outside of that demographic, as I was starting my freshman year of high school at the time. The third episode is the conclusion of the Dark Protoman saga, with Protoman Returns, which is easily one of the highlights of the series. In this episode, a plan has finally been put into place to help Chaud save Protoman, by way of a vaccine chip…but it fails, leading to Chaud doing the craziest thing possible and attempting CrossFusion; which is when things get weird, with added Nightmare Fuel in the form of "Corrupted CrossFusion Protoman", which resembles a vampire from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. "WRYYYYYYY~" Because I heard of some censorship in this episode, I watched this one twice; first with the English localization, and then again with the uncut Japanese version. Both versions are great, though I personally prefer the Japanese version; the fight between Dark Protoman and CrossFusion MegaMan was much more intense, the music better fit the mood, and we got some character development for Chaud (As we see a flashback to his mother’s funeral). In the English version, there’s a bizarre cut where Corrupted CrossFusion Protoman launches an attack…which seems to open a portal into his mind, based on the scene transition they used (The attack hits MegaMan, and then a iris-in occurs at the moment of impact). They otherwise got across the same story with minimal compromises, from what I could tell; regardless of which version you decide to watch, you're in for a wild ride with a satisfying conclusion.