Mega Man: Fully Charged

[Shaddy Zaphod]

....somehow I guess I just didn't get this was supposed to be a CG show. That makes the designs make a lot more sense, even if the proportions and faces are still awful this side of Jimmy Neutron.

 

Aaaaanyway, that preview was certainly a preview. I actually think the animation on Rock (fuck you I'm not calling him "Aki") himself is ok at points, some squash and stretch going on, but the camera movement and direction are kind of confusing. The way MM jumps using the copy beam (for no reason?) and gets thrown around by Fire man is weirdly floaty and weightless, and just kinda looks bad. The kids running in the background are pretty bad, as is the dialogue (whatever this "mini" guy is, he sucks). I can't tell if it was supposed to be funny or exciting, but it was neither.

I can't say it was worse than I was expecting, but it's not very good. Gotta wonder if this thing was even supposed to be Megaman originally, the way it looks and feels doesn't remind of anything in Megaman as a game series.

[SonicWind]

Maybe it's a little... bland, but I don't see this show as outright bad so far.

I like to think of myself as pretty open-minded. I still say I'm gonna watch a few episodes, see if things pick up a little over time.

[Soniman]

Its not outright terrible but I can gladly say this show offers literally nothing new and I wouldnt even give this a second glance if it wasnt Mega Man related, Man of Action is running on fumes at this point, there's so many tired action cartoon for kids tropesI dont know where to start

[SonicWind]

By the way, Mega Mini isn't just around to put in his two cents when Mega Man needs advice. He actually serves a fairly important role:

 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

2 minutes ago, SonicWind said:

By the way, Mega Mini isn't just around to put in his two cents when Mega Man needs advice. He actually serves a fairly important role:

 

If only he wasn't an annoying sidekick as well.

[SonicWind]

12 minutes ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

If only he wasn't an annoying sidekick as well.

He honestly doesn't bug me that much, from what we've seen of him.

but that can always change as the show goes on

At least he doesn't have a bothersome high-pitched voice, right?

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Just now, SonicWind said:

He honestly doesn't bug me that much from what we've seen of him.

but that can always change as the show goes on

He very much annoyed me in his short screen time. Everything I had feared from Day 1. Attention is taken from Rock and the fight to focus in on him and him alone at random points. He's constantly alone in a scene where he makes his joke apart from popping out once to give a lame joke before Rock told him to go back in, therefore giving him massive attention for his absolutely lame jokes. In general, he's a massive pace and even tone killer because not only does he randomly cut away from the action for his lame jokes, but part of what could make Archie MM tense at points was the fact Wily and the robot masters had the ability to completely isolate Rock and force him to fight solo, without assistance from Light and co. At best, he might've had Rush and that was about it. Having another robot that is constantly with him who is a companion and can give battle info and everything somewhat kills the possibility for that kind of story telling.

---------------------

While I'm at it, given the original is region blocked, here's the video for everyone else.

 

 

[SonicWind]

I suppose that's a fair point. Again, I'm not that big on Mega Man, so that could be the reason I'm so tolerant towards this show.

[Failinhearts]

While I have played some Mega Man as a kid, I'm not what people would call a Mega Man fan. After seeing the trailer, and the clip... I clearly see what gets Mega Man fans riled up and the use of the retro video game style feels incredibly tacked on.

In terms of everything else it'a just... average. Average action kids show fluff. Non-stop and cringeworthy quips, servicable if not uncanny animation and catchphrases out the wazoo with little depth beyond it. It's what you expect from Man of Action.

But it really should've been much more, especially for someone like Mega Man.

[Soniman]

Also not a fan of Mega Man being like a cocky generic kid show hero shouting explectives like "dude" and stuff when Mega Man is supposed to be a more innocent mild mannered humlble hero who just wants to fight for justice and for the common good. Not saying he cant smark every now and then. but this isnt the way to go about it, man the more I think about this show the more it feels like itd be something made 10 years ago instead of 2018. Not a fan

[Ryannumber1gamer]

I did notice something strange though. The show wasn't originally CG, and on top of that, we had a Fire Man that near point for point the design from the games. Even Rock's animation seems and feels a lot better and natural here compared to the above clip.

Like...is this another situation like what happened with Ruby-Spears MM?

 

[Tara]

This is going to seem harsh, but for me this is about on par with those bargain-bin Pixar knock-off movies you find at Wal-Mart.  Like, okay, realistically and technically speaking it's not on QUITE that level, but for my personal viewing pleasure, it's about as pleasing.  The backgrounds look lifeless enough on their own, but somehow the characters don't even look like they're actually... there.  Like, how do I put this?  They look like they were very poorly green-screened.  The perspective is very off, making the backgrounds appear to be flat and lacking in dimension.  I don't know how much money was actually poured into this, but it very much looks like a low budget thing.

And the voice acting.  God, the voice acting.  It's so bad.  Like they deliberately instructed the actors to read their lines in the most nauseating and grating manner possible.

Mega Mini... oh... er, I do not like him.  Like this will probably ruffle some feathers but he reminds me a bit of Mushu from Mulan or Stitch from Lilo and Stitch.  Despite the latter being one of the titular characters in his respective franchise, characters like these feel like they exist to distract from what is the more compelling plot (imho).  Like, Mulan's struggle to affirm her sense of identity in the midst of a sexist regime and defend the land that she loves, rather they want her to or not, is sort of undermined when you have Mushu spouting pop culture references frequently.  Or how the plot of Lilo's stained relationship with her sister and the looming threat of being taken away by social services to me feels like it's sort of hijacked by the whole "suddenly aliens" plot that Stitch delivers.  Like "here's an already compelling and interesting plot that many people could relate to, regardless of age, but let's dumb it down a bit with a funny character for the kids."  Now that is to say, however, that the writers at Disney know how to more cohesively weave these two elements together.  So it doesn't feel AS awkward.  Not to mention, Eddie Murphy is funny, so while there are some people who don't like Mushu (like me) he's still not unbearable to listen to most of the time.

But Mega Mini?  Yipes, I just... I don't like him lol.  His voice is annoying, every word that comes out of his mouth is annoying, and I don't really like the idea of having a personified on-board repair unit.  So even if he plays some sort of role in the plot, that's not the kind of role I would want to be cast to like... any of the characters.  Instead of being a likable or interesting character, he reminds me more of the Great Gazoo.  Mainly there to just be a little bit annoying but also having something of a purpose to justify his existence, but the justification is in itself something we really didn't need in the first place?

And overall, I think I'd just describe this whole show as just confused.  Confused in terms of audience, in terms of direction, in terms of style.  Like others have mentioned, some of the Robot Masters have redesigns that fit within this show's aesthetic and theme, however ill-conceived that might be, while others look like characters that were ripped straight out of other franchises or are completely unrecognizable from their previous incarnations to the point where they might as well just be different characters.  Like, Fire Man and Drill Man are like, okay I can see what they were going for and then you have... wait, is that supposed to be Cutman?  And then you have like Starscream on the right and what the hell is that Ice Man?  Not helped even that the composition of the image they're on is sort of confusing, causing my eye to bounce all over the place.

Last but not least, why on Earth would you be trying so hard to cash in on the nostalgic 8-bit graphics and throwbacks with sprite art that is legitimately charming but has literally NOTHING to do with the final product?  Like, they're trying so hard to remind you that classic Mega Man exists, all the while trying to sell us on something that ISN'T classic Mega Man, and they really don't compliment each other.  At all.  It just gives off the impression that they had no idea what they were trying to do and so they just... sort of just threw a bunch of stuff together and hoped it work.

I think it's safe to say I'll skip this one.  Maybe it will have good writing and end up being a diamond in the rough, but I'm really not invested enough from the get-go enough to actually, you know, care.  So whatever.  Given the time slot it ultimately received, it probably won't be around long enough to matter anyway.

[Candescence]

So... Incredibly average and uninspired kids show. In other words, still way below the standard set by other kids shows in recent years (and carrying on from the likes of the DCAU) which are capable of entertaining people of all ages, not just kids.

I wouldn't care nearly as much if I wasn't still so sore over the cancellation of the Mega Man comic, which was one of the best comic books in recent years, which was a perfect example of how to adapt Mega Man right while keeping it kid-friendly. They could've used that as the basis for a cartoon, but NOPE. That's pretty much the reason I will never give this thing a chance when it could've been so much better.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Right, now that I've gathered my thoughts a little...

Firstly, the animation looks absolutely atrocious. There's nothing really unique about the style that screams Mega Man. I mentioned this back in a way earlier post, but one of the things I always felt that gave the MM series it's charm was the fact that despite different incarnations, there was always a manga/anime like design with the characters that stayed with them throughout. Even the majority of the characters like X who had different armor designs always retained a design similar to the rest of the series, it was unique, but memorable enough. It was a style that allowed them to run wild with different robot master designs and make them look appealing consistently. The show throws that away and majorly alters the designs of the characters and their style, leaving them feeling like some strange uncanny valley monstrosity that looks as generic as possible. It isn't Mega Man anymore, it's just every other kids CGI cartoon out there. Several characters lost the uniqueness or charm they once had. Ice Man lost his design that matched extremely well with what his built purpose was (search and rescue missions in icy conditions) and got a random set of fringe hair for whatever reason, Fire-Man lost his sleek design for yet another giant muscle-head, right down to his purpose being swapped with Guts-Man for whatever reason. Cut Man is the absolute worse, somehow being turned into a human design with a orange bowl-cut for no reason whatsoever when the original design fitted better and was really distinct compared to his brothers.

Secondly, the voice acting, as Tara putting is absolutely dreadful. No one out of this actors sound natural. Everyone sounds like they were told "alright this is a kids show based on an 80s game, be as obnoxious as possible!". Mega Man for whatever reason is a cocky surfer dude which steals practically everything that made Rock unique as a character in Archie, Powered Up, or even MegaMix (which I'll be using as the comparison point as both of those are the only real story portions of Classic beyond 8 with was botched with bad acting and early weirdness, and 7 which was filled with mistranslations). And on top of that, the writing and the characters is an absolute joke. Not only filled with chringeworthy lines and """"quips""", but the characters themselves might as well be completely in-name only. Fire-Man is a complete insult, having his personality being swapped from a justice loving robot who wanted to be like a superhero and save people into just yet another muscle-brained idiot who wants to crush Mega Man because "grrr he got in my way!!!". Even in Powered Up when he was reprogrammed, he had to be forcefully brainwashed and had his sense of right and wrong altered into Wily's favor, the same thing happened in Archie MM:

Quote

"Firrrre! Burn Burn! My justice burns hotly! Evil beware!"

"By the fire of justice! I am certain you are evil! FIREEEEE" 

Like, not only did this give Fire Man a sense of personality compared to his brothers, but if this happened to him, what about his brothers? Cut-Man was someone who looked up to the rest of the robot line, and Rock. Even when he was reprogrammed, he had to be tricked into thinking Rock himself was the evil one and Wily was the good guy. If Fire Man had his personality literally stripped like this, what about the other Robot Masters who arguably had even more?

Look at this exact quote from him:

Quote

Brother?! I can't believe it! Dr. Wily was right! You've changed into a bad robot...

Even better, listen to some of Rock's quote before the fights themselves. He's actively talking to the robot masters and trying to calm them down and stop the fight beforehand. It isn't much but it is present in game-canon that is what he's trying to do in some manner. Archie runs wild with the idea with Rock being a pacifist and trying to talk down every enemy he encounters, only deciding to fight when he needs to protect others. Rock in the comics is someone who is pure and innocent to the world around him. A robot designed to be a child to learn. Rock has to face harsh truths about what you need to do to help others, and has to come out of it without becoming as bad as Wily's robot masters. It got to the point in the very first arc that he had to close himself off and denounce himself as Rock because he felt so utterly guilty for disabling other robots. THAT IS INTERESTING. That is a unique idea to run with this series, and toys with a lot of ideas and concepts that aren't very well explored in the canon. And yet here we are with Aki shouting "IMMA BE A TRUE HERO, IMMA HAVE A SMIRK WHILE BUSTING UP ALL YOU EVIL ROBOTS LOL SNARK!" 

Like, I'd be somewhat more forgiving if maybe Archie had the idea alone...but Powered Up exists and introduces several of the concepts that the Archie series would later pick up and further refine. Rock doesn't jump straight into battles with the robot masters, he hears them out and decides he needs to save them, and even better - the player is encouraged to actively try to kill them with the Mega Buster because that leaves them in operational condition. And guess what? When that happens, Rock takes them back to Dr. Light who reprograms them back to normal and they actively choose to help Mega Man throughout the game and on top of that, become playable in the game themselves. So even if you wanna try the argument of "Oh well the game series didn't do this and that because there's no story", Powered Up literally introduced and played with these elements long before this show came out and that's an official remake of the original game in the series.   

But then we have how absolutely obnoxious the original cast is as well. Wily, one of all time great villains, someone who got ton of development in Archie MM, someone who had such close ties to Dr. Light...gets replaced with some random jackass general who hates robots. Basically, a worse version of Xander from the Archie comics. From the clips shown so far, no one has the charm of Archie's original cast. You know what's worse? Mega Mini is an annoying pipsqueak of a character who as I mentioned above forces action to halt for him to shout out stupid jokes and lines...and the idea was done with much better class, charm, and character by Archie Mega Man. We had Vesper Woman in said series who was literally designed to be an annoying little sister to Tempo (another original character) to help restore her emotions. But there, the writing actually fit such a character, she had an active purpose, and her design was actually really nice, and she also had an interesting sisterly dynamic with Tempo that had to be cut short because of the comic ending. And as Tara and others mentioned above, even the original Robot Masters look so completely out of place and at odds with the show that it doesn't fit whatsoever. 

But you know what? Whatever. You could probably also attempt the defense of "well it's an adaption! It's not based on the classic series! X isn't classic, Star Force isn't Classic, Zero isn't Classic!".

But then I point out that even barring the fact Dr. Light is still alive and a staple character, something that has been one of the most consistent staples of Classic Mega Man, there's also the fact that the show is so fucking obnoxious with it's 8-bit references, the sprite work and how about the fact we literally have Mega Man's NES sprite running around in the intro screen? It is literally doing nothing but constantly trying to shove into your face with a giant neon sign "THIS IS CLASSIC MEGA MAN IN A TV SHOW! THIS IS HIS UNIVERSE IT'S BASED ON. THIS IS HIS CAST OF CHARACTERS, AND THEIR PERSONALITIES!". So no, this show doesn't get the adaption excuse either. In it's sad desperate attempt to scream at it's audience and the fanbase at large "This is the Mega Man show based on those video games from the 80s that you all like!" that it weavers any sort of saving excuse it could have by claiming it's just another and different version. With these sad attempts at random video game references to tie it to the original series, it makes the bold claim that no, this is in fact a show that's meant to be a accurate representation of the Classic universe, and it's cast of characters. And in that case, it's a complete and total disgrace.

It strips and destroys Mega Man of every single interesting thing he had. It takes away the cool universe, the robot masters with different and varied designs and personalities, it strips Rock himself of his name and his unique personality. It gets rid of the villain who had an interesting complex and relationship with the main cast. It changes the unique style and personality the original series had constantly flowing through it's art. Even the small unique things he still had needed to be completely nerfed. Mega Man's copy chip now requires at least a minute of lock on to get an ability out of it, getting rid of the close-up and risky fights that Rock usually had to do in order to get a copy ability to turn the tables. It takes everything that made Mega Man unique as a game icon in the first place and replaces it with tired and safe cliches in an attempt to drag kids into watching it. All of the unique story ideas are removed and boiled down to yet another boy in school/high school who wants to be the hero who runs around spouting out quips! And as someone who loves this series, I honestly find Ruby-Spears' Mega Man to be far more of a faithful adaption than this ever will be. I wanted a Mega Man show, not another cliched and generic show trying to pretend it's Mega Man to try gain a few easy followers from a pre-existing fanbase. 

[Forte-Metallix]

One last thing from the preview's Youtube description:

"Mega Man also has to find a way to redeem his twin brother, Namagem and release him from the evil influence of Sgt.Night."

...

Yeah, I'm out. I'm going back to Kung-Fu Cut Man.

[Shaddy Zaphod]

Would it not have been so easy to just call him Negaman?

 

Or just, y'know, fucking make it his actual turncoat brother from the video games?

Why are they even calling this a megaman cartoon?

[Ryannumber1gamer]

They replaced Proto Man.

They replaced one of the best characters in the series.

They REPLACED my favourite character in this series

THEY REPLACED MY FAVOURITE CHARACTER AND ONE OF THE BEST CHARACTERS IN THE SERIES WITH A GENERIC EVIL TWIN CHARACTER WITH AN AWFUL PUN NAME I'M FUCKING DONE WITH THIS SHOW

[Soniman]

40 minutes ago, Shaddy the Zaphod said:

Would it not have been so easy to just call him Negaman?

 

Or just, y'know, fucking make it his actual turncoat brother from the video games?

Why are they even calling this a megaman cartoon?

 

33 minutes ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

They replaced Proto Man.

They replaced one of the best characters in the series.

They REPLACED my favourite character in this series

THEY REPLACED MY FAVOURITE CHARACTER AND ONE OF THE BEST CHARACTERS IN THE SERIES WITH A GENERIC EVIL TWIN CHARACTER WITH AN AWFUL PUN NAME I'M FUCKING DONE WITH THIS SHOW

Itws really amazing to me how these Mega Man cartoons (Captain N, Ruby Spears, now this) just....uterrly despise the original concept of the franchise so much that they always feel the need to make massive fucking changes because THEY always think they can do a better job. No matter what era, im so tired of it, just give us a fucking anime or OVA already where they actually respect the source material because we have shown time and again we dont know what were doing with this character (unless its the comics)

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Just now, Soniman said:

 

Itws really amazing to me how these Mega Man cartoons (Captain N, Ruby Spears, now this) just....uterrly despise the original concept of the franchise so much that they always feel the need to make massive fucking changes because THEY always think they can do a better job. No matter what era, im so tired of it, just give us a fucking anime or OVA already where they actually respect the source material because we have shown time and again we dont know what were doing with this character (unless its the comics)

You know what's the most laughable?

IT'S LITERALLY THIS

[Polkadi~☆]

Though my hopes were not high, Namagem is the killing blow.

Sorry, Man of Action, but no. I officially have no hopes in this thing, none at all. Even Sonic Boom was much more faithful, because that still stuck to the source material.

You tried, you failed, have fun with your corporate suicide time slot.

[Sean]

I'm actually sorta glad they made a new character to fit the "evil twin" role because I'm tired of Proto Man being portrayed as evil (Ruby Spears) or smug or jackassish (Battle Network)

[Candescence]

I'm not sure whether to laugh at just how stupid and uninspired that particular plot detail is or scream into a pillow right now. It's not even a pun, it's just a BACKWARDS NAME.

Bloody hell, if they wanted an evil twin character who isn't Blues, there's Copy Megaman from MM1/Powered Up or fucking Quint. Either of them would've worked fine. But nope. This is pretty much the obvious sign of a studio that clearly doesn't give a shit about the source material.

[SonicWind]

...OK, the backwards-named evil twin brother thing is kinda stupid, I'll admit that.

[MetalSkulkBane]

Let's look at the bright sides. Obviously show will be so bad that it's GOOD thing that Protoman isn't in it.

It's amazing how Man of Action started with very popular Ben 10 and somehow their each next cartoon is only getting worse.

[KoDaiko]

My current question is whether the dark-skinned girl is Suna Light. Who's supposed to be Aki's sister.

Sure, from the trailer it seems that humans can have any hair color they want. And she's probably a robot like Aki. I'm not against mixed families. I'm not saying every "Roll" has to be a blonde white girl. But like....why.....what were you thinking Dr. Light?

Also,

I'd be laughing if this boy is Aki's twin brother Namagem. Using the term "twin" on a robot is so weird. (btw I wonder if Dr. Wily exists, or the t-shirt is just a reference??)