In this episode, the team learns
valuable lessons about friendship, loyalty, and abandoning both at
the first opportunity to become a for real pirate.
Another cut scene to talk about Dr.
Wily's castle and we're on to Robot Master #5 (seriously, there's a
Pirate Man in the Mega Man canon; I did not know this until just
now). A few things get switched up this time around. Rather than
hiding behind an army of minions, the Dark General is literally the
first local we see in Gold Land. You can tell right away that Olegmon
is something different, showing great admiration for the Fusion
Fighters and spouting the virtues of camaraderie and friendship so
much you'd think he had a cutie mark. It throws our expectations out
of whack and opens us up to some real surprises. That's really
important, because while the actual events of Gold Land are trite and
conventional, the execution is anything but.
There's no other way to explain why
this episode is so enjoyable. It's nothing original for Olegmon to
have an ability that draws his foes over to his side. We just
finished a storyline where one of the key Fusion Fighters appears to
join the bad guys. The cliffhanger of Ballistamon's reprogramming is
presented in horribly cliched fashion. Dub edits and changes are
rampant and sure to be reviled among anyone who's watched Xros Wars.
This episode should not be this damn fun!!
It's similar to the World Tour
episodes, which were pointless, filled with plotholes, kept the main
plot stalled right before the home stretch... and stand among of the
fondest things we remember about Zero Two. This episode is more
guilty of being trite than any of that, but Olegmon's pure enthusiasm
is infectious, making it impossible not to have a good time. And to
top it off, we're dealing with pirates! It's hard not to love the
chanting, pirate forms of Cutemon, Greymon and Sparrowmon. It's
almost tempting to cheer for these guys rather than worry about the
devastating position it puts the Fusion Fighters in.
Mikey is too busy trying to get them
out of this position to really freak out, and it's one place where
Christopher's lack of emotional attachment to his team is an asset.
Sparrowmon's turn really hits Nene hard, however, to the point where
she struggles to get back into the action. For all of the spotlight
Mervamon's had lately, Nene has always relied on Sparrowmon as a true
partner. When that loyalty seems to vanish, Nene is so thrown that
all she can do is sit idle and play with her hair. Incidentally, has
anyone noticed she has weird hair? You'd think someone would call her
out on that.
Ballistamon seems affected the most by
all this. This sudden focus on him could be seen as surprising, but
given how he and Shoutmon have known each other the longest (save
maybe Shoutmon and Lillymon, who seems to have joined the team just
to be in this episode), it's natural that he be bothered the most. A
flashback shows us Ballistamon's origins, and while it's a question
we may not have asked before, the incredible resolve Shoutmon shows
to get him operational and friendly leads Ballistamon to insist on
returning the favor. It works, better and more capably than anyone
else who would try.
In the end, Ballistamon is rewarded by
being re-reprogrammed back into his original form DarkVolumon. We do
have to wonder about the sudden mechanical knowhow Shoutmon exhibited
to change DarkVolumon into Ballistamon, and especially the expertise
of Olegmon's minions to change him back. There's some real
Kimeramon-style implications in all that, even if Shoutmon's
intentions were to create something as awesome as Ballistamon.
Ultimately, his malicious former self is ominous enough, and despite
Shoutmon's Shatner-esque scream to close things out, it represents a
more potent transformation than all the silly side-switching earlier.
My Grade: R!!! (Sorry... B)
Loose Data:
- Boy, does this series really love its foreshadowing. All that brother/sister stuff in the Zamielmon episodes, and now Christopher openly criticizing Deckerdramon's constant backtalk.
- In a moment that appears to be a dub addition, Olegmon says the name of his ship is the Misery, which we should all hope is a nod to the Going Merry. That's right, the dub may have added a One Piece reference. Actually, the Japanese version is surprisingly hesitant about calling Olegmon and his men pirates. The dub does so unabashedly and it's probably for the better.
- Another milestone for the dub is that I believe it's the first time Christopher and Nene's last names are spoken (without going back, I have to assume Jeremy's dropped a “Mikey Kudo” or two... it's practically Zenjirou's catch phrase). It's a big deal only in the sense that we're always paranoid about the show not acknowledging that the characters are Japanese, even if their full names are displayed every episode. Maybe it harkens back to how everyone's full names appeared in the first episode of Adventure, but their last names were rarely, if ever, spoken until Zero Two.
- Olegmon has an attack called Broadsword Boomerang. He throws two axes. And Falcomon's an owl.
- So yeah... Sparrowmon (told you the dub changed a lot)... for all the times we accuse the dub of changing things to be more silly, it's really hard to give it flak for making something more serious, especially since everything else pretty well handles the silly quota. As a big fan of the Nene/Sparrowmon dynamic, it's a really potent addition at the expense of a moment where Nene seems superficial and self-conscious.
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