Rockman Hoshi ni Negai wo

Megaman or Rockman if you prefer, is a classic gaming icon. He's had multiple game lines and several animated adaptations. This OVA was produced in '93 but didn't come out until 2002. Apparently, it was supposed to be released alongside the '94 cartoon as a special but that fell through. Who knows, maybe they realised the cartoon was terrible and Production Reed just decided they didn't want the association. Story: The narrative is simple enough. Megaman accidentally falls out of the game world and into our world. Doctor Wily follows and our blue hero has to stop Wily before he threatens the real world. Fortunately,he has a pair of small children to follow him around and teach him something about Japanese culture. Since it would be a bit rude to visit a nation without learning anything about their culture. Each episode has a different situation where Megaman and Wily both leave the game world and Megaman has to save our world from Wily. The big problem with the narrative is simply that it's stupid. The "educational" elements don't mesh well with the actual plot. Saddling Megaman with a pair of annoying kids just makes it far less interesting than it could have been. And the whole concept of Megaman leaving the game world to learn about Japanese culture is just a waste of the character. And on the subject of wasted characters, this OVA features the robot masters from Megaman V and they suck in this. Any time Megaman comes across them, he beats them easily. Even Beat is shown as beyond their abilities. It would be like Batman bein attacked by eight of his strongest enemies and them not being able to deal with Alfred. On the plus side, at least we got the meme about the Goggles doing nothing out of this. Characters: In terms of characterisation, this was badly thought out. Megaman comes across as a complete tool. Wily is written like a bad Silver Age villain. The Robot Masters are useless and the ordinary human characters who get added in are just obnoxious. I thought the human characters were bad in Transformers but at least they had some purpose. These kids just tag along with Megaman and Roll while explaining festivals and holidays. Art: This is probably the actual element that caused this OVA to not be released alongside the '94 cartoon. Because, frankly, this looks much better than that cartoon. The character designs actually follow the games and the action sequences look fine. If they were actually a decent length, they might actually be really good. The backgrounds look decent and the animation is completely competent. Sound: The acting in this is kind of rubbish. I don't think it's the fault of the actors. I think it's the direction and characterisation. But regardless Shiina Hekiru, Korogi Satomi, Ogata Kenichi and the others give poor performances. And the sound mixing is actually really bad in places. Ho-yay: There's none to be found. Which is fair enough. A Megaman OVA needs romance as much as it needs random lessons in Japanese culture. Areas of Improvement: 1. Megaman is not a franchise that should ever be "edutainment." If you want to take lessons from Megaman, learn about overcoming adversity and using the strengths of your enemy against them not about festivals and holidays. We an learn about those from Bottle Fairy. 2. No series about battling robots needs or should have human sidekicks. Especially not ones that are basically useless. 3. If you're going to give screen time to the big eight enemies of Megaman V, actually make them a threat. Seeing them go down so easily undermines Megaman as a hero and the threat in general. Final Thoughts: This OVA is pretty bad. In terms of quality, you can see the connection betwixt this and the '94 cartoon. It's an ill-conceived and badly executed effort at educational entertainment. My final rating is going to be a 3/10.

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