Plot: Yai and the others are held hostage at school by a crazed rare BattleChip collector named Mr. Higsby intent on obtaining Yai’s rare and expensive BattleChips.
Breakdown: Today’s episode introduces us to the rare BattleChip-crazy Mr. Higsby, who is surprisingly not part of WWW (World Three), and his NetNavi, Numberman, who actually has a pretty cool design.
Mr. Higsby is a guest lecturer at Lan’s school, talking about fighting viruses and utilizing BattleChips.
Later, Yai brings the group to her log cabin in a tree. She had her daddy build her a secret base in her yard. The secret is the treehouse/log cabin shifts into a high-tech building designed for 3D netbattling.
The group instantly jack in their NetNavis to try it out. It’s here where I have the honor of pointing out that when Maylu jacks Roll in, she does it while twirling in front of a pink background covered in hearts and sparkles. Come on, guys, be a little more realistic. At least add in a unicorn and a few rainbows.
The whole 3D netbattling thing is meant to be impressive, but the way they went about it makes it so that….it’s kinda not. From what we see of the 3D stage in a far shot, it just looks like they superimposed the typical shots of what we usually see in the net onto a big platform in front of them. And then when they start battling, they just switch back and forth from the characters to the scene in the net, which is how it typically goes anyway.
In conclusion, nothing changed, and I just wasted your time.
Dex and Gutsman battle Yai and Glide who win because she’s rich and has access to all sorts of rare BattleChips that make Glide overpowered, despite not being a NetNavi designed for battle. Nice to see Megaman laying the groundwork for pay-to-win games. Good job.
Anyway, since I just mentioned Yai’s rare expensive BattleChips, obviously Mr. Higsby is in her super secure server, waiting in the wings with Numberman, spying on them.
The next day, Mr. Higsby sets up to attack Yai while the entire group is helping their teacher, Miss Mari, edit the school newspaper. Why does she need all of these kids to help edit the paper? I have no idea.
Lan is slightly late to the meeting, so when Mr. Higsby locks the school down to trap Yai, he gets locked out of the computer room. Numberman/Mr. Higsby threatens to destroy the school’s computer system if she doesn’t battle him for her rare BattleChips…..I’m not sure why he doesn’t just steal the chips. I guess he’s an honorable asshole?
Yai initially doesn’t care because she says she’ll just have her daddy buy the school a new system, but Maylu and Dex point out that he can’t replace the data. I’d think any school with valuable data on their system would regularly back it up somewhere offsite, but this is a public school system so maybe I’m giving them too much credit.
With Miss Mari’s permission, and somewhat insistence, Yai begrudgingly agrees to battle Numberman. I’m not exactly sure why she’d agree to battle him. Just hand over the chips. She’s always talking about her daddy’s endless supply of money – surely he can buy her new ones. She needlessly risking her NetNavi’s life…. She jacks in Glide, but even with his fancy BattleChips, he quickly gets laid out by Numberman.
Megaman gets jacked into the system.
Dex: “Megaman!”
Maylu: “That must mean that Lan’s right outside the classroom!” First of all, how did you not hear him banging on the door for the past several minutes? Second of all, just because Megaman is in the net space doesn’t mean Lan is right outside the classroom. He could be anywhere in the school.
Numberman has a really weird manner of attacking. He rolls a big die and whatever number it lands on is the number of explosions that will occur right next to the die, which means anyone who catches onto this will be able to combat it quite easily….just…ya know…stay away from him when he rolls the die….Also, having your attack strength completely reliant on the roll of a die seems very inefficient.
The school’s security system blocks Megaman from interfering in Glide and Numberman’s fight any further, for some reason, and Lan and the others deduce that Numberman must be controlled by Mr. Higsby.
They decide the only way to end this is by teaming up against Numberman, but they need to disable the school’s security system to lower the walls blocking them from Numberman. Roll offers to interface with the walls to see if there’s anything in the code that would lead them to the password…which…makes sense, but also makes it seem like this super high-tech security system is extremely flawed.
Within less than a minute, Roll finds the word ‘dove’ and Miss Mari states that the password is the number of doves at the school, which she can’t remember so Lan goes out to count them.
Mr. Higsby: “Unbelievable. The competition will be over by the time he gets back here.”
Miss Mari: “You’re the one who’s unbelievable, Mr. Higsby!”
Mr. Higsby: “Pardon me? ….*Elvis voice* Thank you. Thank you very much.”
…………………………………………..Hello completely random Elvis impression that I doubt any child watching this would understand or find funny.
Lan counts 34 doves, which is the correct answer.
Within less than three seconds, Roll already has the second hint – ‘tennis’: the number of tennis rackets the tennis team uses…..Ya know, these numbers seem awful arbitrary. What if you get more doves? What if a dove dies? What if you buy more tennis rackets? What if the kids lose some of them?
My point is made even more apparent in the next scene. Lan accidentally enters the girls locker room and they throw tennis rackets at him. He goes into the storage room and counts the rackets there, which is the correct answer. Why don’t those other rackets count?
Anyway, the number is 63?! 63 tennis rackets?! I’m almost certain no school would buy that many rackets, especially when typically only one or two is in use at any given moment.
Another issue with this password thing is, if Mr. Higsby knows the system inside and out and is currently manipulating it….can’t he just change the password to something only he knows?
The final hint word is ‘flowers’, which indicates the number of potted flowers in the schoolyard. Again, that number can change at any given moment. The flowers could die, the landscapers might plant more without notifying anyone, some could get destroyed by the children. You guys really need a better password system.
Lan loses track counting the hundreds of potted flowers, but a mysterious green-haired woman who seems to be the landscaper and someone who knows what’s going on but for some reason isn’t interfering, tells him the exact number.
Numberman throws three dice this time…..why he wasn’t throwing that many to begin with, again, I have no idea, but with the walls down and Megaman able to access the fighting area, they’re able to save him. Numberman surrenders and relinquishes control of the school’s security system.
They confront Mr. Higsby who begs on his hands and knees for forgiveness, claiming he couldn’t control himself and that he loves BattleChips while most people don’t appreciate their value….I don’t think that’s true because most people seem to drool over rare BattleChips.
For a second, it seems like Miss Mari might actually punish Mr. Higsby….but instead she just asks him to remember back when he was a child and got his first rare BattleChip (?! How long have PETs and stuff been around?) He probably didn’t appreciate its value either, but the flashback and narration indicate it was the best day of his life……You’re really not making any sense, show.
Miss Mari gives him a second chance, even though he does not deserve it in the slightest. He hacked into a school’s security system. He held several people hostage/kidnapped them. He sprayed Dex with the school’s sprinkler system for trying to interfere. He threatened to destroy the system if he didn’t get what he wanted. He threatened a young girl into battle so he could take her rare BattleChips (If BattleChips are physical items, how does he take them without showing his face?) And he nearly destroyed a young girl’s NetNavi. We’re just supposed to forgive him because he wants to strong-arm rare BattleChips from people since they don’t appreciate them….when they do? And he was misguided all along when he didn’t appreciate rare BattleChips when he was a kid….when he did?
Anyway, to the epilogue, Mr. Higsby quit his job educating children on rare BattleChips and security systems thanks to Miss Mari’s kindness in forgiving him. He wants to do good for people now, because apparently valuable education doesn’t do that….So he’s…selling rare BattleChips.
Hey, writers, when you wanna make sense, please contact me. Your logic is about as airtight as a butterfly net.
———————————–
So that was that episode, and it was actually pretty okay. The things I talked about in regards to the security system’s password being too easy to figure out is probably forgivable given this is a kid’s show, but I can’t give as much leeway to the fact that the numbers would probably change all the time and some of them make no sense.
At least Mr. Higsby is a little better of a bad guy considering he’s not out to just cause chaos like the WWW members, he actually has a goal, but I definitely don’t agree with him getting no comeuppance for his actions.
Numberman has a cool design, but for a guy who obsesses over rare BattleChips, he really doesn’t use any. He just uses that same lame dice rolling trick. I also find it really strange that Megaman was able to intimidate him so easily. A guy with a huge collection of rare BattleChips should be able to put up a better fight, especially if he makes a habit out of bullying people out of their chips.
The tension involved with running around trying to figure out the password was much more intense and interesting than last episode where we sit on the edge of our seats hoping a little girl gets to the potty in time.
I didn’t really quite get the significance of introducing the 3D netbattling system since it, honestly, looks no different to the viewer than it ever did before. It really just established that Glide could be a good fighter with rare BattleChips despite being a NetNavi not designed for battle. Not that matters because he couldn’t do anything against Numberman, even with the chips. He may have lasted a little longer than he would have otherwise, but that’s about it.
Next time, WWW targets a robotic fish aquarium. I’m not sure if a robotic fish aquarium is a really good idea or a really stupid one. Thoughts?
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The Anime Madhouse 
Using dice as weapons? There’s a YGO joke in there somewhere about a certain terribad arc in that series. That just seems weird with that method of attack unless he had some kind of probability control like Jinx from Teen Titans, Domino from the X-Men, or that one Galaxy Angel character (can’t believe I made that reference).
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That’s what I was thinking when they first showed him rolling the die because it landed on a four or six or something. Then later when he was in battle he rolled a one and I was thinking he’d have a failed attack or something, but no. It doesn’t even seem like the six explosions do more damage than the singular explosion. Even with three dice, you can barely tell the difference. It’s really weird.
Since you bring up YGO, they could’ve done like Graceful Dice/Skull Dice too and had one die to drain an enemy’s power by whatever number appeared on the die, another could power up Numberman by the number rolled, and maybe the third one could’ve been like a wild-card with different effects. Seems like a wasted opportunity for a fun idea.
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I’m glad I’m not the only one who thought so about that. They should’ve been more consistent with the attacks.
That would’ve been more effective if Numberman used his abilities in that way with different dice with unique effects. Certainly sounds like wasted opportunities.
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I never liked Higsby as a hero so I sort of wish he had stayed a villain. He was a bit petty but if they really went in with the idea of his using rare chips that would have been a lot of fun. Like you said he really never actually used any here so the series could have done a lot more with him in the future if they kept him around.
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