Stand back! Iceman is gonna explode!
It’s summer everyone! This is a special review, we have reached season 2 of the first saga of Rockman.EXE! Today I am gonna review two episodes since not only are they beach episodes, but because these two episodes were never aired in America. That’s right, these are two of the four skipped episodes that were never dubbed, so in America, after Rockman’s revival, we skip to episode 28.
Why were these episodes never shown in America? Let’s find out!
Spooky.
We open the first skipped episode in an airport where Netto seems ready to travel somewhere all by himself, with his parents and friends seeing him off.
“So what you’re saying is that if I’m losing in a Net Battle I activate the instant win button, right?”
Netto is ready to leave until his useless mom tells him something before leaving.
Playing the“favoritism card”, aren’t we? It’s bad enough that she sucks as a mom, but now she worries about his Navi more than her own son? And also, WHO LETS THEIR ELEVEN YEAR OLD TRAVEL ABROAD ALL BY HIMSELF?!
Netto’s plane leaves, and his friends let us know that he has won some kind of trip for winning second place in the N-1 tournament, right before Dekao shows everyone his swimming trousers.
Just… why?
In the plane, we see that just like with cellphones, PETs have to be turned off before take off. Netto turns on his PET and and sees the sun outside the window, he and Rockman then share a cute moment.
Aww.
The title card appears, and Netto arrives at his first destination, Uki Yuugi (Placent game) beach at the Southern Islands, where he is surprised to find that Meiru-chan and the others are there too!
I like their shared reactions. Wait, why does Rockman call Yaito“sama”?
Yaito explains, with a view of her very own comercial plane, that she was planning to take everyone to Jyawaii and decided to stop at the southern islands on the way, where she just happens to have her own summer mansion.
At the summer“house”, the PETs seem to be conected to eachother as we can see that the Navis, including Rush, are all enjoying a cyber version of the beach, each wearing a typical beach item.
Rockman looks so cute with goggles!
Everyone except for Iceman who, since he is an ice Navi, doesn’t go well with the cyber sun.
We then cut to Netto and the others playing in the ocean, until suddenly, a mechanical shark leaps out of the water over Netto’s head. It turns out to be Masa-san who is there for some reason, but why is the robotic shark huge in the next shot?
Also, does the aquarium know that Masa-san has their shark?
Netto invites Masa-san to play with them, Yaito and Meiru say that they are gonna rest at the summer house, but not before Yaito warns Netto about a Ghost Ship.
Whats with the pose? If a ghost appears to me like that, I would be really confused.
They all end up laughing about it, except for Dekao who is still spooked, and soon after we see the guys riding on a banana boat pulled by Masa’s robot shark. However, fog comes in and a giant ship appears.
The ship crashes into them and casts a net capturing Masa and Tohru while leaving Netto and Dekao in the middle of the ocean.
Back in the summer house, (where Meiru and Yaito seemed to have been playing UNO) they wonder what happend to the boys. Luckily, Yaito has access to a satelite camera where they quickly spot Dekao and Netto. Yaito decides to take action, with Meiru carrying all the PETs running after her.
And we get the reused footage of Yaito sitting in a couch and being transported to her very own submarine. This time the cloths are different, and I like how Meiru put a seat belt on the PETs.
To the Yaito sub! or how it’s called, to the“Yaito Mako”!
Netto and Dekao are paddling their way searching for the ship until they encounter the Yaito Mako that scares them to death, only to wake up inside it in the next shot.
They tell them about what happend and we see Rockman’s reaction to this.
“I wasn’t present when you first talked about it!”
We cut to and back from commercials with a new animation secuence with Rush being chased by a Mettool.
Our heroes catch up with the ghost ship under water, Yaito’s submarine then shoots inflatible bags at it forcing the ship to surface.
The group boards the ship, with Dekao clearly scared out of his wits, and of course, they decide to split up to search for the missing Tohru and Masa-san.
Dekao encounters the“ghost”, who anyone that played the second game know that it is a Null virus, and runs past Netto.
Shortly after, Yaito and Meiru-chan encounter the ghost as well.
What happend to calling her Yaito-sama?
Netto encounters the ghost and finds out that Meiru-chan has been captured in a net.
Netto tries to fight it off but his attacks go through it. The ghost leaves taking Meiru with it. Netto searches for everyone with Rockman hiding inside his PET.
They hear a bang coming from a door and after it falls over, giving both of them a heart attack, a freezing Tohru comes out.
He tells Netto that he was brought into the freezer along with the fish and that the ghost ship isn’t really haunted.
The two of them break into the ships control room where they encounter the ghost from before, Tohru tells Netto to plug-in to the wheel’s computer while he distracts it.
I think its safe to say that it isn’t a ghost, Rockman. And how does Tohru know this? Wasn’t he locked in the freezer until now?
Rockman starts deleting all of the aqua viruses, but an Octo virus absorbs all of the remaining viruses to transform into a bigger version of itself, blowing Rockman away with one attack. This causes the PET to activate the instant win program and Rockman gets the Heat Guts Style.
Which shouldn’t be the case since the Heat Style is suppoused to give him fire based attacks and the Octo virus is an aqua type. He defeats the virus and their friends roll out of a closet where the ghost kept them in a net.
They run up to deck where they find Masa-san who seems to be very good friends with the Null virus, I mean, ghost.
Masa says that he can understand the ghost because they are both“men of the sea” and explains that the ship’s A.I was infected with a virus, and since it is a fishing ship, it caught Masa and Tohru by mistake and Ibo ambushed them thinking that they wanted to steal the fish.
Oh, right, the ghost’s name is Ibo. The ship is returning underwater for some reason and Masa-san says good bye to his new friend before leaving with everyone.
In the next scene we see that everything went back to normal since Netto and friends are playing in the ocean again like nothing ever happen.
Iceman seems to be dying and nobody cares. XD
Right after this, we cut over to Miyuki’s shop where she and Saloma are trying to close a suitcase thats blows up, followed by Saloma being embarrassed of her bikini bottom that lands on her head.
Turns out they are being called over by Commander Beef to solve a mystery about viruses becoming stronger.
And the episode ends with Commander Beef wondering about the problem and having an hallucination of Ibo where they go fishing together.
My thoughts.
This episode was weird, but that doesn’t explain why it was never dubbed, I guess it was because they spend a lot of time in the real world, running around in a ghost ship and playing on the beach, that we barely get any cyberworld action. So it was pretty boring for an anime that is suppoused to be action packed. And they never aknowlege that Ibo is in a fact a virus.
This episode introduces Rockman’s fear of ghosts that will become a little running gag in future seasons.
The next episode opens with a music video where a Hatsune Miku inspired character name Aki-chan is singing one of the weirdest and cheesiest songs I have ever read the lyrics from.
I also made a parody of this song in a short video I made with MMD, with Miku instead of Aki. Just so you know.
Tohru tells Netto that Aki-chan is the pop idol of Jyawaii aka Hawaii.
The Navis explain that they can’t touch her because her data is different from theirs. Which is noticeble considering that she is actually CGI, just seeing them together in the same shot is weird.
They complement how cute she is, even Rockman, but Roll has no problem with this since she also thinks Aki is cute.
“But if she even thinks of coming close to Rockman she wont be looking so cute anymore”
After talking more about Aki-chan, and also Masa-san complementing her fish shaped button, Yaito and Meiru appear to reveal their new outfits and poses.
The title card appears and it is explained that there is a contest coming up called“The Real Aki-chan” where girls dress up as Aki and have to sing her songs, Netto finally realizes that Meiru and Yaito plan to enter the contest as well, but he doesn’t get scolded for his reaction since they suddenly hear someone screaming.
It is a terrified Mariko-sensei who is landing on a parachute, Masa tries to catch her, but is nowhere near and Mariko lands on her own.
Jesus Christ, Yaito! Can’t you just send her an e-mail like a normal person?!
And if Mariko-sensei hasn’t suffered enough, the wind blows the parachute away sending her flying again with Masa running after her.
This funny scene is followed by a shot of Miyuki and Saloma sun bathing in a boat before seeing Mariko-sensei pass by. They talk about not finding any clues regarding the powered up viruses and are interrupted by the Commander’s voice coming from a camera, who critizes their outfits or something.
Aren’t you supposed to be chasing Mariko-sensei who flew by just a minute ago?
For some reason we cut to Madoi who we see in some kind of photo shooting dressed as Aki-chan too, but then takes it off to reveal a full shot of herself in a bikini.
I burned my eyes taking this shot so you guys better leave me a good comment after this review.
Madoi is in a set she made because she is annoyed that everyone is at the southern islands except for her, and afterthis we also see Hinouken who looks like he is in Jyawaii hoping to find Netto so he can finally get his revenge, but it turns out he is just working at a construction site.
We cut back to Jyawaii where Netto and friends are walking around along with Mariko-sensei who seems to have gotten over the whole parachute incident and is looking foward to take part in the Aki-chan contest too.
I guess no one wants to tell her that she is a little too old to be in the contest.
Suddenly, a giant trash cleaning machine appears and kidnaps Meiru, Yaito and Mariko-sensei.
The boys give chase to the machine. Netto, with Rockman’s help, takes a shortcut where he lands on top of the machine and activates its breaks. Unfortunately, it is the wrong one since there were different girls inside, they tell the boys how there were rumors that all the girls who entered the contest are getting kidnapped, which is confirm when they go talk to the manager of the contest.
The man is also the Manager of Aki-chan herself who is in a computer near them, she tells everyone about how sad she is for the contest being canceled if they dont stop whoever is kidnapping the participants. With this we notice that Iceman has a huge crush on Aki-chan as he promises that they will save the contest to make her happy again.
Netto comes up with a plan to find the missing girls, and in the next scene we get this.
That’s it, I am blind now. I like the Navis reaction to this, though.
Iceman doesn’t agree with this plan since he thinks it is an insult to Aki-chan and that it will never work. Too bad for him a machine doesn’t see the difference and it catches them with the exact same animations from before.
After Iceman yells about them being the ENEMIES of Aki-chan, the machine takes them to an undergroud path where it dumps them in a warehouse, they slide down a shoot and Netto SOMEHOW manages to tie a wire as he falls.
The timing was so perfect I had to include that last shot! XD
They walk around and quickly find the missing girls with Meiru, Yaito and Mariko-sensei giving them a concert. Because they just had too much fate in them to even worry about being kidnapped.
Why the heck are the manager and his assistant there too?! Probably to make Iceman appear in Netto’s PET after saying that Aki-chan has gone missing. Looks like a lot happend while they were dressing up as Aki.
Was Netto’s plan for everyone to climb up that tiny wire? I know he is not a genious, but seriously!
After this fail, the cooling system of the warehouse starts to activate, luckily, Saloma and Miyuki suddenly appear to get them out.
“I think a better question here is, why are YOU dressed like that?”
Outside, Netto talks to the manager since they all find Aki-chan’s situation and the kidnapping very suspitious, so they agree to let Netto plug-in Rockman into the system to find the server where Aki-chan is stored in case of emergencies, because Aki isnt actually missing, they just lost contact with her.
Rockman types in the cheesy password,“A-R-A-I-N-B-O-W”, and various signs pop up to guide Rockman.
But Rockman is suddenly stopped by a Spooky virus. For some reason the anti-virus program isn’t working so Dekao and Tohru decide to plug-in their Navis to go help Rockman. Gutsman and Iceman coming to help distracts the virus, giving Rockman the chance to cover… whatever things it has for ears.
This confirms Rockman’s theory about Aki’s song being whats causing all the trouble.
I’m not sure how that would work if Aki wasn’t the one infected by a virus, but this turns out to be the case after Rockman, Iceman and Gutsman find a portal that transports them to the server where Aki is, only to find that her appearence have changed to an evil looking queen.
Much for Iceman’s dismay, Aki reveals that she was the one who kidnapped the girls because she is the REAL Aki-chan.
The dark Aki sends a couple of Shadow viruses to attack them, the viruses have the ability to transform into various weapons, including a cannon, and soon they over power Gutsman and Iceman.
To make matters worse, the Shadow viruses use Aki-chan as a hostage.
Rockman is unable to fight back until Netto realizes something suspitious about one of Aki’s buttons. After seeing Aki-chan shed a tear, Rockman gets motivated and Netto sends him a Sword to cut off the button revealing that a LV.3 Shadow virus was the one controlling her.
Netto activates the Style Change as the three viruses merge together to create a giant cannon. Rockman and the cannon’s attack collide, but Rockman’s power literally cuts through deleting the viruses.
In the next scene we get a sad looking Aki-chan worried that she can no longer be an idol after what she did, but thanks to Meiru-chan and everyone else cheering her up, she finally thanks them and vows to do her best.
What are you talking about, Rockman? What song?
And the episode ends with everyone dressed as Aki-chan singing to their hearts content at the contest.
Tohru, you know you don’t have to dress like that, right? Also, those creepy men in the background. o-o
So what do I think of this one?
Despite my initial thoughts, Aki-chan is not a parody of Hatsune Miku. In fact, the vocaloid Hatsune Miku debuted in 2007 while this episode aired in 2002, maybe it was ahead of its time, maybe Aki-chan inspired Miku’s creation, or maybe it was an idea that wasn’t still very popular in and outside of Japan. Who knows?
This episode introduces Aki-chan who will appear in future episodes of this season, though her songs are changed for the dub to something less corny since they already changed most of the musical score of the show to a futuristic high tech beat.
This episode was probably skipped because of Madoi’s bikini scene and seeing Netto, Dekao and Tohru cross dressing. I can’t say that its also because of the girls dressed as Aki-chan becausewe see them dress like this again in another episode for a short moment.
The Shadow viruses looked tough in this episode, but if you play the game you’ll notice that their only weakness are sword chips, thats why Rockman was able to free Aki from the virus’s control and defeat all three of them in the end.
Speaking of viruses, since the second season is based on the events from BN2 the episodes will start to feature viruses from the second game, such as the Null and Octo virus in the previous episode and the shadow viruses in this one.
It was a fun episode, weird but charming, it’s not exactly important to the plot unless they aknowlege how the new viruses are smarter and stronger than the previous ones in future episodes.
