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Blue Bombing the Anime Scene

Do you know Mega Man? Little blue robot dude who shoots bullets out of his arm to bring down the plans of the nefarious scientist Dr Wily? Fights other killer robots? Well, he turns 20 this year. 

If you've ever owned any game system of any kind, you know who he is. He's been everywhere. He's starred in many, many games. Mega Man could probably be the basis of one of those cheesy "Weird Facts!" you see in magazines that try uselessly to get kids interested in science: "If you stacked up every Mega Man game in the world, you'd have a tower to the moon and back! Take that, Babel." 

I admit, I am a Mega Man fan. I have been since 1990 or so. And it's not just bias talking here, but the little dude is still drawing in an audience. Granted, he's alive because he's had so many damn spin-off games, it's impossible for him to die off completely. Capcom has a nice formula going: When one incarnation of Mega Man starts to get stale, another one zips up to take his place. That's why we have the original Mega Man series as well as Mega Man X, Mega Man Zero, Mega Man ZX, Mega Man Legends, Mega Man Battle Network … There, I think I listed them all. 

Oh yeah, Mega Man Starforce. Coming soon to a Nintendo DS near you.  

Of course, any video game character who's been around as Mega Man has pimped his body to other Japanese mediums, including anime and manga. But strangely enough, Mega Man made his first and most prominent animated appearances on American television. And if not for some misdirection on the 1994 Ruby-Spears cartoon, he might have ushered the USA into the anime frenzy Pikachu ignited a few years afterwards. 

The Green Bomber 

Most of us who grew up in the 80s watched a lot of Captain N: The Game Master. Mega Man was present on the "N-Team," but he wasn't exactly cool. Or tolerable. To avoid copyright issues, DIC coloured Mega Man a sickening toad-green. And he had a pretty gross voice to match. 

Mega Man didn't do much on the N-Team. He fought Dr Wily on occasion, but mostly he stood around and said mercifully little. There was, however, a curious episode where he visited the "Warp of Life" and turned into a human. As a sidenote, it's interesting how many robots want to become human. If you're a killer tin can bristling with knives and guns … why would you want to become a boring bag of blood and bones? 

So while Captain N doesn't quite count as anime by the legal definition of the word  (by the way, the series just recently hit DVD), it was Mega Man's animated debut.  

Almost, but Not Quite 

What came next was a little strange. The Super Nintendo Entertainment System brought a lot of old Nintendo mascots into the sixteen bit era, including Mega Man, who received the first of many make-overs and became Mega Man X. The game proved immensely popular; rightfully so, because it's still pretty badass. Capcom decided it was time for an animated Mega Man series starring the Blue Bomber as himself instead of as a hanger-on to a valley kid. 

The animation company Ruby-Spears (creators of Alvin and the Chipmunks) was chosen as the studio, and they got to work. The cartoon lasted for about three seasons, which isn't a bad run for a kid's show. The plots were pretty standard and episodic; Dr Wily did something bad, and Mega Man stopped him. Lather, rinse, repeat. There are still a few moments that are recalled fondly by fans, such as Mega Man's interactions with his estranged "brother," Protoman. There was even an episode where Mega Man X warped from the future to help Mega Man make things explode.  

Unsurprisingly, there were some terrible episodes as well. One involved anthromorphic "Lion Men" who shot people with laser-eye beams. It was quite trippy and had very little to do with super fighting robots. 

What Ruby-Spears produced can ultimately be written off as "unmemorable". But what's really interesting--and quite heartbreaking--is the demo reel Ruby-Spears made when they received the rights to the cartoon.  

In that early sample, Mega Man wasn't green, or tall, or ripped. He was one-hundred percent the Blue Bomber. In a short demonstration, he fought Dr Wily's robots, which looked like they'd stepped out of a Japanese sourcebook. An American studio had replicated the anime style, and they'd done it perfectly. 

Unfortunately, a source group revealed young boys weren't interested in "cute" superheroes in 1993. They wanted big, beefy saviours, even if such wishes defied the original source material. Simply put, Ruby-Spears' first attempt at the Mega Man cartoon was far ahead of its time. 

So how can anyone get a Mega Man anime fix? It's not as easy as it should be. There's been little done in Mega Man's home country, aside from a series called Wishing Upon a Star, where Mega Man enters the real world and learns about Japanese culture. That's great if you're trying to stay awake through grade four geography, but I want to watch Mega Man exclusively blow up some bad guys.