#{ ;yuhichiro; }

[ick25]

Rockman.EXE Episode 41 Review.

The cutest and funniest episode of Rockman.EXE I’ve seen so far!

“Good” is a relative term.

We open the episode with some shots of Densan city under a thunder storm. A lightning bolt hits a building causing a black out, and for some reason the lightning bolt also appears in the cyber world shocking a strange glass case with what looks like a cat inside. The cat escapes and somehow appears as a giant in the real world, covering the whole city with it’s shadow.

After the title card, we see a dog happily munching on a bone when something strange walks by causing it to drop the bone in shock.

The strange creature stops in front of Netto’s house where we see our blue bandana boy enjoying some curry his useless mom brought him along with some tea while Midorikawa talks in the news about the weird cat shadow seen last night.

Netto finishes his meal, but notices that the tea is missing.

What is wrong with this woman? In what universe is that normal?! (oh, right, anime, and maybe Charlie Brown)

Netto is understandibly confused about seeing Rush in the real world, he even touches him to see if he is a hologram.

He is not. I doubt Rush has hair, so I guess his head must feel pretty smooth.

Right after this, Netto receives a phone call from Meiru-chan telling him that she can’t find Rush. Netto tells her that Rush is drinking tea at his house, they are both confused about this so they think their Navis might know what is going on. 

Netto runs to his room to talk to Rockman, but...

I got to be honest, the first time I saw this I was actually expecting to see Rockman on Netto’s bed or something, but that already happened in the manga, and it was freaking hilarious! XD

                                                                                            <----------------------------

Also, Netto’s mom was called out for being so calm in weird situations.

                                                                                                            <---------------

Anyway, instead, Netto and Meiru get this.

So cute! :3

Both Rock and Roll have become cat navis. Their confused netops ask them why they look like that, but nya-ther of them know the cause.

According to Japan, cats say “Nya” instead of “Meow”. The more you know.

Inmediately after, Netto receives calls from Dekao, Yaito and Tohru at the same time, their Navis have also been turned into cats.

Iceman is playing with Gutsman tail during this scene. X3

Not only our heroes, but according to Midorikawa, the whole net has been affected, Navis and viruses everywhere have turn into cats for some unknowen reason.

LOL, Higure’s face.

Like we need a reminder that CGI is inmune to these kinds of things. But if that’s the case, then how come she was under the control of a virus in episode 27?

Netto and friends are wondering whats going on, luckily for them, Netto’s dad appears out of nowhere to give them the answer.

“Where the hell have you been?!”

“Doing computer stuff in the Bahamas, nothing out of the ordinary”

Seriously, nobody asks about the tan! O-O

Netto’s new tanned dad tells them that the cause of everything is a new computer virus that escaped a research lab last night. The virus is called the “Neko Virus”, which means “Cat virus”, and it has the ability to transform Navis and other viruses into cats.

Netto asks about Rush appearing in the real world as well, but amazingly enough, his dad has no clue and doesn’t think it’s related to the Neko virus. After taking another look at his adorable new cat navi, Netto asks if there is a way to change them back.

At least somebody finds her useful.

We cut to the Net Agents ready to jump into action.

But somehow they didn’t realize that their Navis were also affected by the Neko virus. The worst part is that Sharkman is still a fish.

Not the kind of catfish you’d expect to see in the internet-nya? :3

After a pointless scene of Netto’s useless mom serving them lunch, and Rush trying to seem charming, we see the Navis thinking in the cyberworld until something suddenly happens to Iceman.

Yuichiro tells them that if they don’t get a vaccine soon, the Navis will permanently become cats and that the speed of the transformation depends on the size of the Navi. The vaccine might not be ready on time, so their only hope is to find and capture the Neko Virus. 

In the next scene we see the five Navis walking around an empty Internet City trying to find the virus.

That’s a brilliant plan, Rockman. Also, wasn’t Iceman’s body transformed in the last scene? And where is his tail? Just how consistent is the animation for this episode?

They even look for the Neko virus at a ball shop, yes, a “Ball” shop, just so we can get this scene where one of the balls fall out forcing the Navis, except for Iceman, to fight their feline instincs of playing with it.

I’m all for the Rockman butt shots, but do we have to see Gutsman’s butt too? And there is a coloring mistake in the fourth panel which answers my question of the animation quality for this episode.

The Navis keep searching knowing that they can now relate to the Neko virus, they deduced that the virus is taking a nap, since cats love to take naps, and the best place for that is the park.

They arrive at Internet city’s park where they find the Neko virus sleeping and they try to ambush it, but the virus wakes up and scratches Gutsman out of its way.

Gutsman gets angry and tries to attack the Neko virus, but ends up getting his claws stuck.

Now, lets forget for a moment that Battle chips are not allowed in Internet City and just enjoy this next scene.

Rockman gives chase to the Neko virus, Netto sends him a Mini Bomb, but since the bomb is round you can guess where this is going.

“Iceman got to play with a ball, it was my turn!”

Netto then sends a Sword, but for some reason it won’t appear, so Rockman tries to attack the Neko virus with his claws, but he misses and gets scratched instead.

Neko virus uses fury swipes, its a critical hit.

The Neko virus dissapears after this, and a huge tremor happens in the real world where Netto and the others discover that the virus has materialized in Akihara.

CATZILLA!!!

After commercials, Netto and the others are out on the street trying to figure out what the heck is going on.

There are two things wrong with this. One, Netto already checked earlier that Rush isn’t a hologram, and two, if Rush isn’t affected by the Neko virus because he is a dog, then why are other animal type viruses and Navis affected by it? Sounds like the Neko virus is racist against dogs.

As they keep staring at Nekozilla, Tohru discovers that Iceman has fully become a cat.

At least Icecat hasn’t lost his freezing powers- nya :3

Netto fears that Rockman will have the same fate and runs to capture the Neko virus by himself.

Sea lion? I wouldn’t be mad, I would be confused.

The Neko virus gives chase to Netto.

At least one of his parents worries about him.

Netto lures the Neko virus into a street between two large buildings and this happens.

.....

The giant Neko virus struggling causes debris to fall on Netto, but Rush saves him in the last second. But before a second block of concrete from the building falls on them, Yuichiro figured out why the Neko virus grew so big and creates a lightning bolt with his computer to hit Rush. For real.

“By the power of science! I summon a thunder storm!”

This is where the episode passes from cute and funny to ridiculous. 

Acording to Yuhichiro the lightning bolt at the begining of the episode was what caused the Neko Virus to become a giant in the real world. Now, with his super scientific power and a really awesome computer, he creates a lightning bolt to make Rush become a giant as well, saving Netto from the falling debris.

Rush becomes a giant and fights the Neko virus, but I’m not gonna waste time taking sceen shots because the “battle” was also a waste of time, it’s like watching Snoopy trying to be epic and failing.

Anyway, the Neko virus starts beating the crap out of Rush until he summons a hole underneath it.

Long live the king-nya :3

The hole sends the Neko virus back to cyberworld where Rockman and the others can finally catch him.

Unfortunately they’ve gone too deep into the transformation to remember what they were suppoused to do.

After Gutsman and Glyde’s bodies change, which disproves what Dr. Hikari said about the transformation depending on the size of the Navi, the Neko virus starts to walk away. 

Netto checks his chips to see what he can do to prevent the Neko virus from escaping again and has an idea.

Netto uses the Ratton virus chip to make Rockman and the others happily chase it around. Also note that Gutsman and Glyde’s bodies aren’t different, once again the art department got lazy.

The Ratton virus dissapears near the Neko virus and Netto fools the Navis into attacking it.

Looks like Rockman snaps out of it, because inmediately after, Netto activates the Elec Brother Style and we get this Nya style change sequence. :3

Why can’t they put this amount of effort in the other scenes? I guess that’s too much to ask because the Neko virus tries to get away from the normal looking Rockman, but Elec Brother Rockman stops it by using one of Roll-nya’s candy hearts.

Rockman uses his electrical attack and defeats the Neko virus, and gets the cat girl. Nya! :3

Thats a nice detail how the electric attack looks like a cat.

And the episode ends with Rockman narrating everything that happend afterwards.

Tell me about it, Rock.

What do I think?

This was a fun episode to watch, and even if you want to pretend that this isn’t canon, it is because Rush can now travel between the cyberworld and the real world as he pleases, giving me another reason to hate this character.

As you may already know from my review of episode 24, I talked about why I dislike Rush. At first he is just a pet for Roll that appeared once in a while to help the Navis with something by using his holes, in this episode the writers decided to give him a “personality”, but all they did was make him a japanese Snoopy, and giving him the ability to travel between worlds was pushing it too far. Many fans, including myself, would love to see Rockman and Netto in the same space together, because we know that since Netto is a human and Rockman is a computer program that can only exist in the cyberworld it isn’t possible, so having seen an opportunity for this to happen and giving it to a minor character feels like the anime was trolling us. >:C

Japan seems to have a thing for cat like characters or just cat girls in their animes, so there was bound to be an episode featuring that in any way that they could posibly think of.

In case you were wondering, no, there was no scene showing Blues as a cat, even though there is no way Enzan could prevent that from happening, he is just too cool to appear in a funny episode.

[ferid-trash-bathory]

➣

Touch Meme (no longer accepting)

➣ Slap their hand away

“My, look at those livid eyes~ Are you mad? I can hear your blood racing, Yuu-chan. So enticing. Perhaps… just a little taste?”

The vampire stretched a gloved hand towards the boy, only for it to be harshly slapped away. Ferid blinked once before drawing his hand back and pouting.

“Hey! That really hurt! You should be nicer to your elders, Yuu-chan!”