Jade Rambles: Megaman - The Ruby-Spears Cartoon

[JadePharaoh]

You don't need me to tell you here how much I love the original Megaman series. Back when I was a kid, I was hyped every time a new one came out, and I also remember looking over the Nintendo Power coverage on them a lot too. So you can imagine how ecstatic I was when I heard there was an animated series coming out based on the Blue Bomber. Megaman had previously been featured in Captain N: The Game Master, but the portrayal of Megaman himself and other characters from his series had some... creative liberties taken (same for most other franchises that showed up in Captain N). So I was excited to see what a series focused exclusively on the Megaman series would turn out. I kept close tabs on the date and time of the show's premiere and was sure to watch it on Saturday morning. Well, let's watch now!!



When I saw this back in 1994, I absolutely loved it. While I see it get mocked to hell and back nowadays, I still feel that it is way better and is more faithful to its source material than most other cartoons based on video games at the time, like Double Dragon and the Super Mario Bros. Super Show. It may not be the best either, but I consider it a guilty pleasure at the absolute worst.

First thing most people notice about the series is the character designs. While he looks a lot better than he did in Captain N, the Megaman in this series looks noticeably taller and older than he is in the games, and is hella ripped for a robot. The same can be said for most of the other robot masters that appear. There actually is a reason for this. See, when the show was first pitched, the characters looked almost exactly like they do in the games' original artwork. But the producers felt the anime art style wouldn't be popular in America (this was the early 90s, when anime was still a very niche market; it would be a few more years before DragonBall Z, Sailor Moon, and Pokemon would bring anime into the mainstream). So, they changed the character designs to look like something they felt would appeal more to American audiences; hence the bigger, more muscular characters ala Masters of the Universe. The original pitch is still floating about on the internet; check it out and shed a tear for how the series COULD have looked:



Anyway, back to the series at hand. Now that I think about it, one thing I find a little disappointing is the complete lack of music from the games. Other animated series like Super Mario Bros, Zelda, and Captain N did it, and it's not like the Megaman series had any shortage of excellent music to choose from. Aside from the main theme song which is a total ear worm, the rest of the music, while not terrible, it wasn't all that memorable either.

One of the most noteworthy things from the games was Megaman's ability to copy the robot masters' powers and use them himself. I was quite excited how they had incorporated them in this series as well. Though there were a couple of key differences. First, Megaman doesn't have to actually defeat the robot master first to copy the weapon; he just needs to touch them. You'd think the robot masters would learn eventually to keep as far away from him as possible, then, but no. Second, Megaman doesn't change color when using them, although that's understandable as that was likely a way for the player to quickly tell what weapon Megaman has equipped in the games. Also, the show seems to go back and forth on this, but the robot masters sometimes act as though Megaman has physically stolen their weapon by doing this, rather than just copy it.

Roll is quite an interesting character in this series. She not only looks completely different from her video game counterpart, but so is her character as a whole. In the games, she was mostly a background character and never contributed much, and the times she is more essential to the plot it's as a damsel-in-distress (MM10, MM2: The Power Fighters, Super Adventure Rockman; she only gets more kickass in side games like MM Powered Up, Marvel vs. Capcom, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom). Here, she gets perhaps the most character development out of anyone in the series. At the start, she is quite eager to prove herself as being every bit as capable as her brother, with him constantly telling her to go back to the kitchen. When she does get into the action, she ends up becoming The Load and has to be rescued by Megaman. As the series goes on, however, she evolves into a much more capable action girl that seems to hold her own just as well as Rock.

Some viewers may have been confused with Protoman being a villain in this series, serving as Dr. Wily's second-in-command. Some accused the writers of not being faithful to the series, only watching the intro to MM5 to give them the notion that Protoman is a bad guy. But, this can be more easily explained due to the simple fact that they wanted someone as similar to Megaman as possible as a villainous foil, and Protoman most closely fit that. Remember, this series was developed well before MM7 would introduce Bass. Also, Protoman is in a bit more antagonistic role in MM3 as well (although understandably, his overall role in the game is hard to understand as it's never talked about in the game or even in the manual). Interestingly, the first episode shows that Protoman is capable of copying robot master weapons as well, but he never does it again after this. It would have been kinda cool to see Protoman fight Megaman a couple of more times with a small arsenal of robot master weapons.

Rush functions primarily as the comic relief of the series. Unfortunately, it falls squarely down to the Jar-Jar Binks level of comic relief. He comes complete with a "dopey saxophone" leitmotif, and a large number of episodes are the kind that end with him doing something dumb and everyone laughing. To make him even worse, he speaks in a Scooby-Doo voice. Zoinks, indeed.

The first episode above incorporated all six robot masters from the first game, but all episodes after this would follow a "robot master(s) of the week" format (the episodes are purely episodic, with no real continuity or story arc between them). Due to the time frame these episodes were developed in, robot masters from Megaman 1-5 would see usage in the series before its cancellation. The only robot masters from those games that never showed up were Bubbleman and Flashman from MM2, Skullman from MM4, and Chargeman from MM5 (Napalmman appears in the intro, but only for a very brief instant). The exceptions would be Cutman and Gutsman, who serve as Wily's main enforcers; Cutman with his bad puns and Peter Lorre accent, and Gutsman with his dumb muscle schtick.

Overall I felt the voice work was good, for the main cast anyway.
Megaman - Ian James Corlett
Roll - Robyn Ross
Dr. Light - Jim Byrnes
Dr. Wily - Scott McNeil
Protoman - Scott McNeil
Cutman - Terry Klassan
Gutsman - Garry Chalk

I find the casting hilarious in hindsight as Ian Corlett and Scott McNeil would go on to voice Goku and Piccolo respectively in the Ocean dub of DragonBall Z. Also, Corlett voiced Dr. Wily in the Captain N series. The voices for some of the less-recurring robot masters can run anywhere from really awesome (Pharaohman, Crystalman) to extremely grating (Needleman, Diveman). This is mostly due to the above voice actors also playing these parts as well, with varying results.

So, back to the first episode shown above, a few of my own observations about it in particular:
- Dr. Light has a friendly Met (ironically, the only Met in this series) working for him, named Dot or Doc or DOS (I never fully understood which it's supposed to be). It disappears after this episode and is never seen again. Odd, considering Mets are pretty much the Mascot Mook of this series.
- A guy says at one point, "It's all Dr. Light's fault; if he never invented robots, none of this would have ever happened!" I wondered at the time if this was setting up a story arc where Dr. Light would indeed be blamed for Dr. Wily's insurrection, but given how all future episodes would be episodic with no coherent story arc, nothing ever came from that.
- Protoman's origins are a little sketchy. During the flashback, Dr. Light and Dr. Wily are working on a robot that looks like a smaller Protoman, but he's clearly not Protoman since Wily doesn't leave the lab with him and he's shown working on the actual Protoman later. If Wily built Protoman himself, are he and Megaman actually brothers? Protoman says "We were built from the same plans", but it seemed pretty explicit that the original plans (the ones presumably used to build Protoman) were flawed and Dr. Light modified them when he built Rock. In addition, there's a line in a later episode that muddles this issue up even more...
- Dr. Wily gives an impressive motive rant as he's working on Protoman. Unfortunately, nothing in it is brought up again after this episode as Wily moves on to pretty stock take-over-the-world-for-the-evulz plots.
- I don't recall "Robot's cannot lie" being one of Asimov's rules of robotics...

[JadePharaoh]

Dr. Cossack never appears in the series, but his robot masters do, as mooks for Dr. Wily.

- Brightman's Flash Stopper renders humans catatonic. Interesting way of implementing it. Makes less sense though when it was shown to work on people facing away from him...
- Minor thing, but I noticed that this episode had one of the few instances of a robot master weapon being called its actual name from the games. The previous episode did so as well, mentioning the Ice Slasher by name, and this episode did so with the Flash Stopper. I think these are the only two instances where they did this, though.
- The "Skull Car", which bears a strong resemblance to the Wily Machine from MM4, is Wily's usual method of transportation, but this is the only episode that shows Wily in his trademark saucer from the games. Kind of a shame...
- Ah, Dr. Light's hilarious delayed reaction to the bathroom door... 
- Roll and the cosmetics bot; LOL. The part with the former ripping the latter's face off (right after slicing her in half)? Pretty brutal on a kids show, even for a robot... Lesson for today; DO NOT FUCK WITH ROLL.
- Dr. Wily's scheme for this episode seems kinda dumb on the surface, controlling just about everything that runs on electricity and all. Including things that are unplugged, as well as stuff like hot dog stands. However, it proved surprisingly effective judging how close he came to winning. He managed to take over as governor (presumably of New York, which seems to be where this series takes place.; the airport being attacked in the previous episode was Kennedy International, and this is also stated in a later episode as well.), albeit briefly, and the mole he placed in Light's lab came close to offing Megaman twice (but is then defeated by a bucket of water and a broom...).
- And of course, we cannot discuss this episode without talking about its best part; Pharaohman. This episode is what catapulted him to Memetic Badass. He looks badass, sounds badass, dishes out a beating, and reacts to Megaman copying his Pharaoh Shot by sucker-punching him! Tragically, this is his One-scene Wonder and we never see him again after this episode.

[JadePharaoh]

The order I'm posting these episodes may not have been the broadcast order. This is the order that they're in on the DVD set I have (well, the first one I have anyway, the one published by ADV Films). Maybe it was the production order, or just whatever order they felt like putting them in...

- Hm... Wily's really on the ball this episode. His whole earthquake gambit is immensely effective, gives the mayor a sadistic choice, and takes Megaman into account by planting the micro-transmitter on him so he can track him and stay one step ahead of his every move. Definitely one of his better schemes, and one of my favorite episodes overall.
- Dr. Light joins Megaman in ordering Roll back to the kitchen. She mentioned in the first episode how much of her gear is of her own modifications of her household tools, and she does it again here. The girl continues to impress.
- What happened to Stoneman? He gets kicked to the ground, his Power Stone copied, then he's out of commission for the rest of the episode, and the series? I've seen others get worse, yet are back within minutes. Shame too, since Stoneman also looked really good; almost perfectly resembling the official art. 
- Mayor: "We can't do that! It's slavery!"     Wily: "Sounds good to me."
Wily proudly flashes his villain card every chance he gets this episode.
- Megaman and Dr. Light wonder how Wily targeted the lab with his earthquake and it's implied the micro-transmitter was how. But it's not as if the location of Dr. Light's lab is top secret; Wily himself worked there not too long ago.
- The Standard Female Grab Area is typically the upper arm (any woman can be grabbed there and be rendered instantly helpless); for Roll, it's apparently around the waist...
- Wily mentions here explicitly that this is taking place in New York City. Of course, this being an Americanized adaptation of the franchise, it makes sense. After all, NYC is where all of the shit goes down, right?

[JadePharaoh]

Fighting Dr. Wily fills Megaman with DETERMINATION.

- Is Ringman being voiced by Michelangelo?
- Dr. Petto. Yes, I know it's supposed to be taken from Gepetto, in reference to Pinocchio. Still, I think a lot of people heard this as "Dr. Pedo" and snickered.
- Dr. Pedo sells Megaman on being human telling him he'd "feel all tingly inside at the site of a pretty girl". Nice job slipping one under the radar, writers LOL
- Then when Rock thinks he's human and he tells the others, first thing Roll asks is, "Do you feel all tingly inside or what?" OMG you're his sister!! I didn't realize how dirty this episode is LOL
- This episode introduces us to one of the few recurring original characters in the series (most OCs in the series are one-shots), news reporter Brie Ricotta. Nice pun.
- Aside from giving Megaman an existential crisis, a large part of Dr. Wily's plot involves him reprogramming Dr. Light's robots and using them to ruin the good doctor's reputation. Fast forward to MM9...
- A few times when this episode aired in syndication, Roll's line "Let's kick some 'bot!" was actually censored. Because "bot" sounded too much like "butt"? Sheesh...
- The heck is Magnetman made of if he falls apart just from the ground shaking under him?
- "Oh no! He's gonna blast President Lincoln!!"
Oh, Megaman, you patriotic doofus... LOL

[JadePharaoh]

~Under the sea...

- Our two robot masters of the week, Waveman and Diveman, seriously clash with one another. Waveman looks perfect compared to his original artwork, whereas Diveman looks really off-model. I know different episodes of an animated series can be worked on by different studios, but I'm starting to wonder if different characters are worked on by different people as well.
- "It seems Dr. Wily is trying to take over the mine..."
Dr Light, you are once again the champion of stating the obvious...
- This is the first episode where we see Megaman seemingly become weaker when he's underwater, something that never happens in the actual games. Granted, we see Megaman run out of energy all the time in this series when the plot calls for it (so that Eddie can deliver an E-Tank, here called "energy cans"), but it seems to be more likely to happen whenever Megaman is underwater.
- Funny, though, how this never happens with any of the robot masters. Hell, we see Gutsman get his arm torn off, still underwater with sparking wires, and he nonchalantly picks it up and puts it back on, no worse for wear!
- I will say, Wily had another good scheme going. The attack on the mine being a diversion while he went an pulled off an impressive gambit mostly offscreen...
- Then he blows it by falling into Bond Villain Stupidity. He has our heroes trapped in the fake lab carrying them underwater. He has a self-destruct for it that would have enabled him to kill them all before they even knew what hit them. Instead he decides to just gloat about the full details of his plan before leaving them with tools that Dr. Light was able to use to help him escape, not bothering with the self-destruct until after.

[JadePharaoh]

This show seems to have been made shortly after Jurassic Park came on the scene in a big way, so I guess a parody was inevitable.

- Toadman looks kinda ridiculous with that Joker grin added to him...
- And yet just like the games, it's best not to take him too lightly; that Rain Flush is nasty.
- What's up with Otto? He seems slightly reptilian himself, with his claws on his hands and patches of what look like scales on his skin. He also has a dim view of humanity, feeling dinosaurs should have inherited the earth in its place. It would have been interesting to see more of his character, but like most other OCs, he disappears after this episode and is never seen nor heard from again.
- Okay, so time for the stupid part of the episode. Wily's real plan is to release a virus that turns all of the robots in the city into mindless "cave-bots" that are apparently easy for him to control. Most of that sounds alright, except for it being stated to "reverse mechanical evolution", which apparently physically turns humanoid robots into crude ape-like creatures. I don't think biology or robotics work that way...
- Robosaurs hatch from eggs? I don't think robotics work that way either...
- As a park filled with robotic dinosaurs, it feels likely that Slashman's level in MM7 was a deliberate reference to this episode.
- And many years later, MM10's plot seems to hearken back to this episode as well, what with Wily spreading a virus that turns robots mindless and violent.

[JadePharaoh]

Now here's a stock cartoon plot if ever there was one; the inevitable shrinking episode.

- I wasn't sure about the changes made to Dustman from his original artwork, but overall I think he looks pretty cool. He even uses his arm cannon at one point! (He's always drawn with one, but never actually fires from it in the games.)
- Despite the cliche "shrunken hero" plot, the rest of the plot reminds me a little of TMNT: The Hyperstone Heist. Special gems, used to shrink down cities, and in Wily's case, selling them on the black market.
- Wily deploys some recognizable stage enemies in this episode, the Battontons! Kinda cool how they call them by the original Japanese names, rather than the lame-sounding "Bubble Bat", which is what they're called in the MM2 manual.
- I don't recall them being able to shoot lightning, though...
- I just realized something. The first three cities Wily shrunk down were Washington DC, Chicago, and New York City, in that order. Out of curiosity I mapped out the route, and it would have taken at least 25 hours for the robot masters' van to follow that whole distance. Later, they're discussing bagging Pittsburgh and Cleveland next, then heading all the way to Los Angeles from there. I guess where I'm getting at with this is, how long would it take for others to notice a major city being almost literally wiped off the map? 
- By the way, Megaman and Roll stopped the last two mobsters' cars by causing them to crash spectacularly, flipping one over. If they were carrying the cities, wouldn't they have been destroyed, and killed all of the people that were shrunk down with them? If they weren't carrying the cities, how did they find where they were being stashed?
- Well, it's late, and I am clearly thinking way too much about this. G'night.

[MephistoZX]

I really liked this show. And I agree it was fairly faithful to the games. My only problem is instead of showing the same 3-5 robot masters (Gutsman, Cutman,ect), they could have utilized all or at least most of them.

Granted some did make cameos like Snakeman, ect. But I wish I could have seen more of them.

I have the series on DVD somewhere.

[JadePharaoh]

Yeah, starting in Season 2, there were certain robot masters featured more often. I'm sure it's no coincidence that these same robot masters were ones also featured in the merchandising (Bombman, Elecman, Snakeman, Brightman, and Drillman). I'll talk about that in a later post as well.

[JadePharaoh]

Megaman, IN SPAAAAAACE! (Yet no StarDroids since this was made before MM5GB)

- Crystalman is our robot master of the week, and he looks and sounds badass as well.
- Tina, you putz. Megaman had things under control there until you decided to run right out there and let yourself become a hostage...
- Gutsman breaks down the door, "Heeeeeere's Gutsman!"
LOL, nice reference there.
- How does a robot (Rush) get motion sickness?
- When Dr. Wily makes his demands in front of the United Nations, I can just picture him putting his pinkie to his mouth and holding the world ransom for... ONE MILLION DOLLARS.
- Megaman is blasted by a super laser. How do they fix him? Turn him off and back on again LOL.
- As cool as Crystalman is, he still gets a dumbass moment. Remember how Megaman can copy, and possibly steal, weapons by touching a robot master? Maybe jumping over and grabbing him isn't such a good strategy, then...