Awwww sheeeyat, here comes Megaman...

Rockman OAV 3- Future Beware!

      To recap, I've downloaded and watched the first two installments of Capcom's direct-to-video Mega Man anime. We've covered time travel, Wily being a ninja, Mega Man befriending a young Japanese boy in the real world, and way more Japanese customs and tourist spots than an action cartoon ought to. I figured the last of the three would offer a chance at redemption and possibly be interesting. After all, they restarted the plot from scratch twice in two episodes. Ah, how naive of me.

     As before, I had my hopes up as Rockman (they jumped back to calling him that again for some reason) went through the usual opening montage of sweet robot-slaughtering action. This is cut tragically short when Roll appears wearing some of the dorkiest battle armor I've ever seen.

That doesn't strike me as much of a compliment.

     Then Blues appears wanting to duel with Rock as the siblings banter about whether the next stage is hard or easy. Blues says it's easy since he's the boss. But then, an annoyingly familiar voice leaks in through the TV screen. It's Yuuta. And he sucks. Sucks Rock and Roll into the real world, I mean. Immediately we get another dose of culture as they drag the robots to a festival where they learn about yukatas and the joy of sweating under an omikoshi (heavy portable shrine thingy.)

     Meanwhile, Dr. Wily sneaks out of his stage and attempts to get out into the real world again, but Blues stops him. After trying out a futile little sob story, Wily resorts to the more traditional method of having his hovercraft (The "Skullker") shoot him in the back. Not only is he escaping, but with a ship capable of time travel. Again. This can only go good places, can't it?

      Through a series of jumps in story I don't particularly feel like charting (anger and confusion) Rock and Roll get Light's time machine again (I guess it wasn't destroyed the first time around?) They jump a year forward in time to see what Wily's plotting this time, or more precisely see the aftermath of it. Yuuta's room is nowhere to be seen, nor is Yuuta's block, or indeed much of Yuuta's city. Deciding that was too much of a jump, they decide to go back to the present and jump forward one month. Dr Wily is now using a typhoon robot to try and blow Japan away literally. Evidently it can only do so once a month, as having failed to foil it the first time, they jump ahead another month to try again. Dr. Light comes up with a sort of turbofan based off the fan Yuuta's friends were waving while he and Rockman were sitting on their hands enjoying more Japanese pastimes like RUNNING. As Rock prepares to blow it away, Roll decides to help. And much like her definition of looking cool, her idea of helping is to fly directly into the counter-tornado Rock makes and smash the time machine. Go Roll.

     As Wily seems prone to doing in this show, his biggest attack comes on the day of Shichigosan (7-5-3, where they celebrate kids of those ages since they're supposed to be lucky numbers.) Roll is indulging herself in the joys of both wearing a kimono and having an age. Rock heads out to kick robot ass and take serial numbers, armed with the awesome power of a fan. He does it pretty handily, and makes his way into the Wily fortress where the mad Doc waits in what may be the first remotely threatening robot he's ever made. Its Typhoon Buster knocks Rock to the very edge of a cliff. Just as he's about to get knocked over, Blues shows up with the fan to save the day by combing its power with the Rockbuster. Wily ends up being dangled off the edge of his little floating island with Mega Man promising him a unique sort of punishment. Which sadly isn't just being dropped.

     Another month passes, which means another damn holiday. A familiar one this time, as Roll, Yuuta and Akane wait on the balcony wondering what happened to Rockman on Christmas Eve. It's then that the last straw drops and we see Wily and Rockman on a pair of robot flying sleighs, dropping little presents on parachutes onto the city. The following dialogue occurs.

     To which Rockman responds: "Good idea! Everyone would welcome such a happy robot." Now, I'm not the authority on dealing with mad scientists, but I don't think you'd want to encourage a man who'd try to take over a country with a robot themed after its traditional warrior figure within ten minutes of arriving there.

     So ends Capcom's foray into animation and tourism. I left out the many scenes this particular episode had of more Japanese customs as they'd probably be a given. I still get the impression these episodes were out of order, but I guess having two origin stories in a three-part series tends to do that. 3 seems to follow 1, since the Time Machine's there. Which puts 2 off by itself entirely. Not to mention the entirety of the second episode used the English names for all the characters. All in all, I've somehow got newfound appreciation for the American TV show. For all the Superfriends style plotting of Dr. Wily and the generic buff hero look everyone sported, at least the show actually revolved around Mega Man and his enemies instead of being a thinly-veiled travelogue with action sequences.

     I'll miss Dr. Wily's leering at seven year old girls, though.

I guess thirty minutes of this would be out of the question.

I don't even wanna know what sort of fruity, Rainbow Brite sort of special attack comes with that armor.

This is the same spazz reporter from the first two OAV's. I miss him waving stacks of papers shouting "ROCKMAN, BANZAI!"

Shichigosan- the traditional Japanese holiday involving hanging various knickknacks off the heads of girls in kimonos.