Recap: Mega Man! Plug In!

Hello again. Poor Mega Man. He was such a great video game character;

and he was once Capcom's golden boy. His games sold millions; he was practically everywhere.

Then, all of a sudden, Capcom began shafting their once-beloved character. First, there

was the cancellation of Mega Man Legends 3; even when series creator Keiji Inafune said he

could return to Capcom to finish it. Then, there was the inclusion of the infamous off-model

box art Mega Man in Street Fighter X Tekken. Finally, even though series villain Dr. Wily

was scheduled to appear in the highly-anticipated Disney film Wreck-It Ralph; he was replaced

with Street Fighter's M. Bison. All of a sudden, Capcom was treating their valued character

like crap.

What happened? Not long ago, Capcom was all for support of Mega Man. They

released Mega Man 9 and 10; a throwback to the classic Mega Man games; and extended the

popular X and Zero series. They even kept Mega Man going along well past his 15^th anniversary

with the Battle Network and Star Force games, which I admit that I have never played.

However, Mega Man has been largely unlucky in the field of animation. First,

there was his portrayal in the infamous Captain N: The Game Master; which turned him into

a strange person with a voice like Phil from Rugrats, and they made his armor green instead

of the usual blue. Then, Mega Man got his own cartoon; which was animated by Ruby-Spears.

As in, the Alvin and the Chipmunks guys. The show was bogged down with constant demands

from executives; not the least of which was removing the Japanese art style in favor of a more

Western one, as the Japanese style was deemed “too kiddy” from Ruby-Spears. This was long

before the influx of anime-influenced Western cartoons began to take over TV.

My subject today is an anime based on Mega Man Battle Network, Mega Man

NT Warrior. I never really watched it growing up, so this is going to be a sort of new experience. Just bear with me on this. Here we go.

We open in the year 200X. In the not too distant future, we're down in Deep 13...

A boy named Lan Hikari tells of living in Danjaq City with his friends. I will also point out

that Lan is voiced by Brad Swaile; best known today for voicing Light Yagami in Death

Note.

Lan continues on to say things about PETs how they can be used for battles

with Net Navis. I bet there's some interesting Rule 34 of those.

Lan says he gained access to a great being known as Mega Man. He talks about

how he has to protect the cyber-matrix from computer viruses. I'm just going on record to say

that the character design is nothing special. Let's see if we can dredge up any personality for

these folks.

We then get our theme song. Boy oh boy, it is one of the worst examples of

early-2000s techno and electroclash I've ever listened to. Unlike the piece of the Digimon

theme, which did this sort of thing well; the song here is a ghastly song that is just painful.

 

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On top of that, there is a load of imagery being blasted at me. It's like MTV when

they still showed music videos and not trashy reality shows. It may be the most incoherent noise

and static since Box of Danger's Pokémon Abridged.

We open on the inside of a computer. Well, we've never seen the inside of a

computer depicted like this, have we? Tron? Reboot? Why this looks like an ideal computer

simulation! Hold on, I'm putting this on my Google Plus.

Almost immediately, I have gotten completely lost. From what I can gather,

we're fighting an enemy we know nothing about with characters we haven't been introduced

to. Perhaps it's because I've never played the Battle Network games, but my brother's friend

had to nursemaid me throughout this whole episode.

From what I can make out, this is Guts Man we're fighting. This version of him

looks like a bit of a banger.

 

We see a rather generic-looking Net Navi (I think my blood pressure went up

just from typing that) trying to attack Guts Man, and he promptly gets his arm sliced off.

Ho boy, looks like Quorra got into trouble again.

We pull out to an arcade, where we see Guts Man's master, Dax. By the looks

of this guy, he's more like Porkins. 

 

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Anyhow, Lan loses the battle. This isn't the only reason he's disappointed. His

next voice acting job is Transformers Energon. Don't worry, we'll get to that one.

 

I should also point out the scaling issues with this arcade in this shot. It is

truly remarkable that this arcade could have so many people in it and still be so empty.

Test marketing for the Xbox 720 got off to a rocky start
when a fan dragged out Steve Ballmer's old Windows commercials.

Another drawback I found to not having played the Battle Network games:

I know nothing about these Net Navis and PET units, but they won't shut up about them!

I know that this anime was a marketing tool for the games and assorted brickerback; but

ShoPro isn't really making an effort to justify the existence of the wares other than just

having them there. By the way, the merchandise can be had for cheap on eBay.

The future of this series looks very average. No flying cars, PET units that look

clumsy compared to my smartphone (even when factoring the Net Navis), and they have not

solved the obesity problem at all.

Lan is depressed about his Net Navi not being up to snuff. Also, this vision

of the future doesn't have hoverboards, but it has clip-on rollerblades.

A fish flies through the air and lands on Lan's lap. It just reminds me of Ghost in the Shell, which I'd rather be watching right now.

Then, a fish merchant enters the scene. For some reason, he sounds like the Swedish Chef from the Muppets.

Lan explains to the fish merchant that PET is short for Personal Electronic

Terminal. Like I said, my smartphone does everything it does a lot better. He also talks

about the Net Battles and describes them as “sweet.” Look, Lan, your Net Battles are actually

quite dull and banal; no matter how “sweet” you think they are. Battle scenes I like are in

Princess Mononoke, Sengoku Basara, and Fairy Tail.

Lan heads home, and a whole convoy of fire trucks proceeds to a fire. Jeez,

how many fire trucks do you need? Are the Skull 'Saders in town? It's mentioned that there

have been 10 fires today. I suspect an arsonist is at work.

Lan arrives back home, and is stunned to receive a piece of physical mail

from his father in the age of email. I know, it's like we're back in the old west. The mail

came from Borneo. Lan then acts all stuck up that his father isn't there. You know, there

are people everywhere in this world that want their father more than anything. Lan's

attitude is simply deplorable.

Lan pulls out a disc from the mail. This has the effect of dating the anime, as

digital storage is quickly becoming the norm in computing. Lan goes to his room to download

it. I think he means upload it; but as we'll find, that's the least of this show's problems with

depicting computers.

In Lan's room, we see what appears to be a Space Battleship Yamato poster

on his wall. My respect for him went up a point.

Lan's Windows 8 performance began very awkwardly.

The computer says Lan's file will take three hours to optimize. That's quite

standard if you don't have broadband. The disc does all sorts of strange things to the computer.

It feels like we've entered a really boring seminar for a get-rich-quick scheme. I am also

surprised at how Lan can sleep through his modem making all that noise. I get woken up

if the TV is too loud. He would be the guy that sleeps at a party in college.

So, at 10 minutes in, we finally get to see Mega Man. He's a decent enough

representation of the character, but my unfamiliarity with the Battle Network games nullifies

much of my potential enjoyment. Of course, Lan labels him as puny, and says he'd have a good

Net Navi by fifth grade. Fifth grade? Yet he doesn't appreciate the Net Navi he has? My respect

for Lan went down three points.

All of a sudden, we see that the oven is on fire; yet it's revealed that it's an

electric range. An oven fire in an electric range just carves out a whole new category of failure.

After failing to put it out, Lan deduces that it might be a computer virus. No.

Computer viruses cannot start electrical fires at will. He then states that if the oven is connected

to the internet, that he must plug into it to take care of it. Look, appliances are not just

pathways to the web. It will be a cold day in Hell before I can read my Facebook page on my

toaster or my coffeepot.

Lan then plugs in with Mega Man, and discovers fire viruses are causing the

fire. This is just asinine. I know computer viruses and malware are problems; but they

can't do shit like this.

We then see some Mets. I've never played the Battle Network games, but I know

them from the old Mega Man games. The Mets are mining through the web so they can send

out fire viruses. Dr. Wily must be getting senile.

To coin an overused phrase, some men just want to watch the world burn.

Lan actually manages to put out the fire with Mega Man and his PET. This

has gotten real stupid, real fast.

Lan meets up with Dax and heads to school. Lan mentions that he wants to beat

Dax with Mega Man. The animation here is pretty shoddy. I mean, this came out the same year

in the US as Spirited Away did. Their skating is not X Games material.

They arrive at school for their first class of the day. Somewhat futuristic:

their teacher has Princess Leia's bun hair. Still, it's not that impressive now that they're in

the process of phasing out physical textbooks with digital ones.

Lan and Dax use their PETs to send messages to each other. I don't buy it. The

teacher would snap those things up in an instant. We can't even text message in class, so

what's technically a glorified video game system won't do unless it's lunch break or recess.

Mega Man speaks with Lan, and states that an evil Net Navi could be behind

all the fires. You know, my high school had a student that was intoxicated all the time; most

schools typically do. Could Lan be it? It turns out the controller of the Net Navi was starting

the fires. I wonder what happened to a cigarette lighter.

We then cut to the room of Dr. Wily, as he confers with the man who was using

his Net Navi to start the fires. I also wonder who thought that this design was good for Dr. Wily.

He's practically dressed like a Venture Brothers villain. What was wrong with the white lab coat? Why does he need a monocle?

Finally, at 15 minutes in, we get the so-called Net Battle.

FLASH! AH-HA! SAVIOR OF THE UNIVERSE!

The battle is very mediocre, with a volley of dull attacks and poor animation.

You were really reaching with “sweet”, Lan.

All of a sudden, another oven fire occurs. Another oven fire? I think we need

a recall on that brand of ovens.

The evil Net Navi has a Scottish controller. The evil Net Navi is named

Torch Man; something of a captain ersatz of Fire Man from the games. Search me.

After Lan rescues a girl from the fire, he goes back in to have Mega Man engage

Torch Man. He says incredibly stilted dialogue such as: “Gotta upload the Battle Chip to Mega

Man before it's too late!” Kid! You just rescued a friend from a fire! Try to keep your priorities

straight, huh?!

That's not even the half of it. He needs these chips to do anything with Mega Man. Where I come from, if you beat the robot Masters, you could get their powers. I'm

totally at a loss at how this system works because of not playing the Battle Network games.

Anyway, Torch Man flees, and the fire is extinguished. Lan hopes his PET

is okay. What? You're concerned about your video game and your friend is being taken to

the hospital for smoke inhalation? Danjaq is one screwed-up town.

Mega Man congratulates Lan for his efforts. Mega Man, you're a wonderful

human being, but this show sucks.

“Mega Man! Plug In!” is an example of how far Mega Man has fallen in

Capcom's eyes in hindsight. The animation is some of the worst I've seen in an anime of its

type; having been made in 2002 but looking like something 10 years older. The writing is

absolutely horrendous; wasting the Mega Man mythology with a load of stock phrases and

a sorry excuse for a plot. The depiction of the future is lifeless and lacks vision. The worst part of it, however, has to be the character of Lan. He does not act appropriately for a hero at all; acting like an entitled bastard when he is truly owed nothing. The fact that he is without his father does nothing to justify how much of a brat he is; talking down to his friends and placing his desire for his gaming habit above the well-being of himself and others. At least with Monsuno; I found it entertaining for being so bad. Here, I feel like a part of me has died;

and I feel far less optimistic for the future of Mega Man. I'm all fired up. Next time, I'm

doing “A Double Dilemma.” Don't miss it.