(Please note: I interchange the English and Japanese character names Rockman/Mega Man and Netto/Lan at will)
This show is not pretty to look at. The animation ranges from abhorrent to just below actual quality, but most of the time occupies a space that isn't good enough to praise but isn't bad enough to nitpick. A handful of fight scenes throughout the series look genuinely cool and fluid, and were probably only afforded with the money they saved by heavily reusing a few stock footage clips in nearly every episode. Of course, I can't expect too much from a Studio Xebec production in the early digital age, and as such I was prepared for the massive amounts of conspicuous CG. Some of the stock CG animations look pretty nice, but a few episodes which feature fully rendered 3D characters and environments just hurt to look at. I did appreciate Xebec borrowing a satellite model from their prior production of Zoids Shin Seiki Zero for a quick cameo, even if it is another apparent cost saving measure. Another side note is that the only character exclusively animated in 3D is a virtual pop star eerily prophetic of the later popularity of Vocaloids.
I was not enthralled by the audio while I watched this series, but upon closer inspection I really like the soundtrack. The Japanese voice work isn't terrible, but it's about as cheesey as you would expect from a children's animated product of this caliber. The only standout voice that really annoyed me was Dekao, who sounds like a precursor to Black Clover's Asta. The theme song is kind of bland, but it definitely grew on me over the many weeks I listened to it in my car. Once I gave the soundtrack a dedicated listen, I was so intrigued I had to insert the following mini-album review.
I think the soundtrack operates better on a budget than the show overall. For the most part it seems like they only afforded one guy with a high end arranger keyboard, with minimal live instrumentation. It sounds like I'm playing Pokemon XD, or if you lower the bit rate, Pokemon Emerald. The synthesized guitars, horns, strings, and what not were all probably top of the line at the time, but maintain a distinctly synthetic texture that I absolutely adore. The battle compositions are charging and harrowing, and the friendly pieces for Netto-tachi are goofy and fun. My favorite tracks are Lan and Rockman's themes, with wide piano chords that send me flying through the futuristic series of tubes that the Net Navis inhabit. Overall, I think the music is much more sound than the writing or animation, and my best Google research tells me it was composed by one Kohei Wada. Thanks, probably Wada-sensei.
I was not disappointed by the story or characters, but only because I never had high expectations for either. Like so many other long running series, the characters have to remain static to keep kids coming back every week for more of the same shenanigans. That means almost no character growth, and minimal development. The Team Rocket analogue is arguably more developed than our main cast, with one of them even having an emotionally moving backstory. In general, the Net Navis are more competent people than the humans in the show, because many of them are just idiotic for comedic effect. A handful of characters like Dekao and the Battle Network iteration of Rush really grated my nerves, but overall they weren't so terrible that I actively hated all of them.
The plot itself is sparse, with a tournament arc early on leading to a global threat that is quickly forgotten for episodic hijinx. Most episodes consist of our heroes throwing Rockman at whatever new goofball villain they meet, all the while pestering everyone and each other. The progression of Lan and Rockman learning new techniques is dismally slow, so I don't even want to imagine what it would be like to watch this weekly. However, in the second half they began to introduce Rockman's action-figure-variant power ups, which I greatly appreciated. Don't get too hung up on seemingly important plot threads, because you're unlikely to get any kind of satisfying conclusion. Even the last episode is a poor finale at best, likely because they had already been approved for the second season.
So, who should watch Rockman.EXE? I can really only recommend this series to huge fans of the game, or those desperately in need of something to watch who have exhausted all better options.
