Plot: Ikki is a psuedo-celebrity in school after his robattle victory over the Rockers. However, he cannot gain the respect of Metabee nor control him. After a lot of fighting, Ikki decides he’s had enough with his ‘defective’ Medabot, but requires his assistance when the Student Council calls on him to help them beat the Screws and get their meeting room back.
Medabot Debuts:
Totalizer: A TOT type Medabot, Totalizer’s design is based off a turtle. However, not much is known about it’s battle capability since it’s never seen fighting in the anime. Its technical specs claim that it has speedy firing capability. One can assume, like the turtle its based on, that Totalizer has great defense.
Banisher: A BAN type, Banisher’s design is based heavily on bancho, like its Medafighter, but it’s extremely fragile. Banisher’s model is unique in that it has no ability to attack first. It can only counterattack. Not that it ever gets a chance to do such a thing.
Robattles:
Ikki vs. Samantha: Winner – Ikki (Peppercat loses right arm to Metabee)
Ikki vs. Baron von Banish: Winner – Ikki (Banisher loses legs to Metabee)
Breakdown: Today’s episode starts with Ikki being egotistical and a complete asshole. Swell. Ikki is high off of his victory from the last episode and becomes full of himself. However, Metabee is refusing to take orders from him, and well he should.
I may not be Metabee’s biggest fan, but Ikki is acting like a complete asswad to Metabee. He’s furious that Metabee is sitting at the table reading the paper because he shouldn’t be doing anything that he doesn’t command. And when he takes out the trash, possibly freeing Ikki from the chore, he’s outraged that Metabee will follow his mother’s directive without issue but not his. Metabee even gives a good argument as to why he’s obeying Ikki’s mom – because she’s providing him with free room and board and he believes he owes it to her.
To make his rage even more apparent, he tells Metabee to throw himself out in the trash when he’s done. How nice. Don’t talk with him or try to understand why he’s not obeying you – Just keep insulting him and yelling at him for doing innocent things and helping out. Keep in mind, Metabee is disobeying him in the most polite way possible. I know he’s been disobeying him since the start, but even that was due to Ikki screaming at him and insulting him.
You’re really going to make me do something I usually don’t do – Praise Ash Ketchum. When Ash was first starting out as a Pokemon Trainer, his origins were much like that of Ikki’s. He really wanted a Pokemon but hadn’t been able to acquire one until the first episode. His partner (Also yellow, coincidentally) completely disobeyed him as well. However, whereas Metabee disobeys Ikki because Ikki’s a twat, Pikachu disobeyed Ash because he thought he was an idiot and didn’t want to follow a human’s command.
Ash tried to talk with Pikachu and gave in to some of Pikachu’s more demanding quirks like not getting into his Pokeball and shocking people with little provocation. Despite it being the only way to keep him under decent control, he also quickly conceded on using rubber gloves and leading Pikachu by a rope since it was more respectful of Pikachu. He did try to be a commanding Trainer a bit, but it was smoke and mirrors, and he wasn’t being an ass about it.
Ash did eventually get fed up with the situation and started trying to do things on his own that would require a Pokemon’s assistance, like trying to capture a Pidgey. However, while he was being a bit silly and misguided, it was at least understandable that he was brought to that point.
People don’t like to acknowledge it, but early Pikachu was an ass. Dealing with such a Pokemon on your first time out is plenty to get frustrated over. And he did need to get his journey up and running. If his Pokemon wouldn’t cooperate for the time being, he had to do something to try and further himself, even if it was silly.
Now imagine if Pikachu was cooperative and pretty chill. It had some issues in battle, but nothing it couldn’t get around. It was helpful and liked to just hang out. Would Ash’s frustration and subsequent reactions make sense in that scenario?
Now imagine if Pikachu acted that way and instead of just getting fed up and trying to do things himself, he constantly yelled at Pikachu and called him a rat who deserved to be thrown in the garbage. You’d probably think Ash was a huge bag of dicks.
Another thing to keep in mind here is that Ikki is lucky he even has a Medabot at all, like Ash was lucky he even got Pikachu since he slept in and all of the main starters were taken.
This was also a theme in another shounen anime, Megaman NT Warrior. Kid without super cool cyber being gets cool cyber being and ends up being completely ungrateful for a time, even saying he wanted to send it back, because it wasn’t quite the way he wanted it, even though Megaman was completely cool and powerful.
Ikki, however, is by far the worst example here since he’s an amalgamation of all of the worst parts of these examples and amplified.
Ikki heads to school and tells Metabee to stop following him since Medabots aren’t allowed in school….say what? The very first scene of the first episode was a robattle taking place in school – and with the Student Council President no less. Since when are Medabots not allowed in school at all?
After some more bitching and moaning, he runs into Henry and bitches and moans that the Medabot he sold him was defective. Henry explains that he’s not at fault for the issues he’s having with Metabee by explaining again how Medabots work. Medabots are comprised of a skeleton, a body and a medal. Henry sold him the skeleton and body, but Ikki found the medal. Since the medal is a Medabot’s equivalent to a brain, if anyone is to blame for his behavior, it’s Ikki.
When Ikki arrives at school he finds that Erika has posted a clearly digitally painted article (complete with typos: “I’m sre” is meant to be “I’m sure,” and “juibilant” is meant to be “jubilant”) posted on the wall, essentially glorifying Ikki’s victory over the Rockers from the last episode, making him a school-wide sensation.
Ikki relishes in the spotlight for a minute before Metabee shows up and starts trying to sign autographs. His adoring fans are quickly brought down when they see that Metabee won’t obey his MedaFighter. Metabee, getting irritated, starts shooting up the school….I’m not kidding. He did it earlier in the scene with Henry and Ikki too.
He gets a little mad then starts shooting off his guns everywhere. And I don’t care if the sounds effects are more ‘pew pew’ than ‘pow pow’ that’s still obviously a machine gun.
After the shooting, which hardly anyone seems to be batting an eyelash at, Samantha orders Sloan to battle Ikki and take out their rising threat. Sloan calls out his Medabot, Totalizer, and they try to start the match when Coach Mountain puts Totalizer in a headlock and stops the match since it’s against school rules. Just because we haven’t had a lot of pointless scenes in this episode. Or I guess they wanted to establish Sloan’s Medabot since it will never be in the show ever again.
I love how Ikki’s more concerned over possibly getting expelled due to him almost having a robattle in school when his Medabot just performed a school shooting that he was mostly unconcerned about.
Metabee then says the only reason he was in school anyway was because he went home before, like Ikki said, and his mother sent him back with Ikki’s notebook. Just when you think the two might start getting along a little better, Metabee reveals that he ran the notebook through the dishwasher before he left because it was dirty. Since it’s an electronic notebook, it’s completely ruined (I don’t know why I pointed out that it was ruined due to being electric since it would still get ruined even if it was a paper notebook) I’m not really clear on whether Metabee did that on purpose.
Ikki tells Metabee to leave and that he never wants to see him again. He does and the series ends.
Nah, that’s too easy.
Later, Ikki finds a love letter in his locker from a secret admirer telling him to meet her behind the school. However, it was really a trick by the Student Council. They want to contract him out to robattle the Screws and get them the Student Council office that they lost access to in the start of the previous episode. After giving his ego a few strokes and promising him the title of Student Council Vice President if he wins, Ikki agrees to take down the Screws.
Henry captures Metabee by baiting a net with a watermelon…..Yeah, the logic is that, since Metabee is a beetle type Medabot, he can’t resist the allure of watermelon…..Because that’s a reasonable feature to put into a Medabot medal – realistic instincts of the animal the medal is based on. Look out, Peppercat, you’ll be foiled by that ball of yarn!
Ikki and Samantha face off. Samantha brings forth Peppercat, and Ikki tries to call Metabee, but realizes his medal is not in his Medawatch. Medals need to be installed in the Medawatches in order to call forth the Medabot.
Once the Medabot emerges, the Medafighter installs the medal in the Medabot. (Can we please tone down the words that have the word ‘meda’ in them? I’m going to go nuts.) However, Ikki realized in an earlier scene that Metabee’s medal cannot be ejected remotely due to errors, and Henry couldn’t do it manually since Metabee wouldn’t let him (which spurred the aforementioned first shooting).
Since he cannot teleport Metabee to the match, he has to go looking for him. He finds Metabee being hauled off by Henry and demands for his release. Henry says that Metabee is clearly defective like Ikki said and seems willing to take out his medal and replace it with a ‘properly working’ one. Ikki considers the arrangement, but backs down. Not because he’s grown to care about Metabee, but because he’s all he’s got at the moment and really needs to go battle.
What nice character development. We’ve gone from ‘I hate you, you’re garbage, I never want to see you again’ to ‘He is defective, and I’d like to take his brain out and replace it with a better one, but right now I have to protect my fragile ego in front of a bunch of people I don’t give a shit about for a position I’m not qualified for nor do I want. He’s all I got, so gimme.’
It’s just so touching.
Somehow his pathetic half-hearted begging is enough to get Metabee to agree to battle for him. The music indicates that I’m supposed to feel feelings now.
Feelings have failed to load. Please contact the administrator.
Metabee and Ikki go off to battle, and Henry says this annoying sentence:
Henry: “They’re two of a kind. Arrogant, hot-headed and destined for greatness.” Yay, these two annoying egotistical jack-offs are destined for greatness. I can’t wait to sit through 91 episodes to see it come to fruition.
They go back to the park and start the robattle. Metabee has a lot of difficulty dealing with Peppercat’s electric attacks, but Ikki gets the bright idea to shoot the fountain, causing water to spray all over Peppercat, shorting her out. You’d think a Medabot whose main attack is electricity would have more preventative measures against water, but I’m not expecting much in the realms of intelligence from the Screws.
Also, Ikki, I’m sure the owners of the park really appreciate you shooting and destroying their fountain that would probably cost thousands of dollars to replace.
With one rocket launch, Peppercat is defeated. Samantha falls to the ground in horror since ‘The Big Cheese’ that they mentioned before Sloan was sent to battle Ikki will not be happy that they lost. The Big Cheese is named Baron von Banish, a supposedly powerful being who leads the Screws and runs the entire school from behind closed doors. Everyone shudders and whispers at his name, believing him to be merely a rumor and claiming no one’s ever seen him before.
A huge imposing figure in bancho attire approaches and challenges Ikki. He brings forth his Medabot, Banisher, and they start the mat—you know what. I was going to go all the way with a big buildup to get to the punchline of this whole minor-ish-not-really-it’s-actually-total-filler-this-guy-has-no-point-sub-plot, but they basically spoil what will happen right here.
See, when they do the Index screen for Banisher, they say its special ability….is a strong appearance.
If you can put two and two together, you can instantly surmise that he just looks tough but is actually a pushover. And lo and behold, he is. He takes literally one shot from Metabee and loses.
Baron himself collapses and starts coughing, revealing he’s also a sickly pushover, and he just walks away without even breaking his tough guy character. And despite his sickly nature and the fact that his Medabot was just defeated depressingly easily, the Screws still worship the ground he walks on. I don’t get it. The Screws are stupid, but I wouldn’t think they’d be quite that stupid.
That sure was a thing that happened. What a fun two minutes that was.
Metabee and Ikki bask in their victory for a moment before the Student Council President gives Ikki the title of Vice President. Believing Ikki just used him for the sake of a title, with Erika so helpfully giving photo proof to support this, Metabee starts shooting at Ikki because gun violence against children is hilarious according to this episode.
————————————-
This episode was terrible. The plot was just scraps leftover from the first episode, both battles were disappointingly short and easy, especially for Ikki considering this is his second robattle ever, there was the stupid and utterly pointless ‘big cheese’ filler, and when you can make cheese filling bad, you’re doing something very wrong.
What’s worse is that Ikki doesn’t learn a damn thing. He treats his Medabot like crap even though it’s not doing anything to deserve it (until the shootings anyway) and he gets high on himself for something he didn’t even really do only to come out on top twice in the end.
He gets the Vice President position, everyone’s either crushed over being trounced by him or singing his praises, only to serve more ego stroking, and he gets Metabee to listen to him even though he did nothing to earn it outside of saying ‘Yeah, you suck Metabee, but you’re all I got so will you battle for me?’
The only form of comeuppance for him is Metabee shooting at him, and that’s both over the top and something that won’t impact him at all anyway. And he’s trying to weasel out of Metabee getting mad over it, saying they’re lying about him wanting to get Metabee back for the sake of trying to win the Student Council position, but that’s a damn lie. Maybe he didn’t care about the position, but he cared about looking like a badass in front of his classmates and he did seem honored to have the title either way.
Next episode, Coach Mountain is acting odd. He’ll need to recruit Ikki and Metabee to help him with a serious problem.
If you enjoy my work and would like to help support my blog, please consider donating at my Ko-Fi page. Thank you! ♥
The Anime Madhouse 