Introduction

As evidenced by a promotional video, before the familiar American cartoon there was to be one that featured an art style that was almost the same as the Japanese artwork, and featured a lot more of the enemies from the game.

Although what was seen in the promo never came to be, it didn't go to waste either, as a different cartoon using the same art style was created, although the changes weren't that pleasant. See, it's educational.

Sponsored or funded or made by or whatever by some organisation that wanted to increase awareness of Japanese culture, Mega Man learns a bunch of stuff about the place by a boy called Yuuta Kobayashi, while still chasing after Wily and stopping his evil schemes. The whole thing seems targeted at an American audience, not just because of the content, but for the fact in the first episode, even in the Japanese version everyone refers to the blue bomber as Mega Man, even though he's known as Rockman over there and to nerdy Japanophiles. It even has American boxart for the Mega Man 5 cartridge, despite it being in a Japanese NES/Famicom.

However, despite the art style being much closer to the games and their personalities more accurate, it's just not good at all. The plot meanders all over the place before actually giving us something vaguely solid, and all throughout there's just very little action; the first episode is practically twenty three minutes of nothing, and two minutes of what the show calls action. It doesn't help any that there are no comedic lines, no idiotic banter from the Robot Masters, and simply nothing that made the American cartoon good.

If anything, I have to compliment how good the whole series looks. The art style accurately mimics the games' artwork, and my only nag is about Mega Man's mouth looking odd at times. The animation quality remains consistent throughout the series, and aside from the fairly poor rotating shots, it's not too shabby. I'd also like to note that the best battles in the episodes take place during the intro: This makes the intros a lot more entertaining to watch, but makes the episodes themselves seem a whole lot duller.

But decent visuals and closer connection to the games just can't save this from being incredibly mediocre. I've watched each episode only twice, and I still think that's twice too many. If it stayed closer to how the promotional video was without the unnecessary educational rubbish, I would probably have appreciated it more, but I think I'll just stick to the American cartoons if I want a Mega Man fix.

Also, the guy who made this thread? I'd love to punch him. Then again, I'd love to punch a lot of people.