Localisation of Medabots

For full transparency, I am not covering the entire four-cour lengthened season of the Japanese cut of Medabots. I instead watched the first season of the english dub of Medabots with only 26 episodes. So that does mean that a lot of episodes are out of order and/or changed from the English release and a lot of context has been changed for the narrative that they created for the show itself. Doesn’t mean that it wasn’t fulfilling, but that I wasn’t watching the original version because that wasn’t available on tubi for me. I guess we are still waiting on discotek for that release just like the subbed version of Astro Boy 2003. 

This is a show that I wish I watched when I was a kid. But now, it was mainly pokemon, some fox kids shows, and almost everything that showed up on Toonami and Cartoon Network. There were Medabots commercials everywhere, but I just never tried to dig into it more at all because I was watching other stuff. This is something which I consider strange because I was the right age to watch this show when it first aired and I didn’t have to know it was based on a game. Yes, I am going to date myself because this should have been a nostalgic show for me, but I don’t know anything about it just like I don’t know a lot about Transformers at all. Those two things will probably be a shocker for everyone reading this post and/or blog

For the names aspect of the show, I’m kind of shocked that names weren’t changed from the original Japanese version. I’m kind of shocked that the names weren’t changed, because that was a major thing that still happened in the early 2000’s from 4-kids in the like. But no, no changed names. Maybe sound studios noticed what Cowboy Bebop was doing and other anime productions at least wanted to try for a more accurate version even if that wasn’t allowed by tv censors. I have no information, so I want to search more into that later on.

The Story of Medabots

This anime has a pretty simple story in the beginning. Ikki Tenryou is a ten year old boy that lives in a world where every other kid has a medabot (small robot with ai that fights each other) but him. He has to buy one with his allowance because his parents won’t buy him one and medabots are expensive. At some point, he finds a metal used to power a medabot in a river and he buys the cheapest medabot from a local shop from a guy named Henry. A guy who may or may not be the mysterious phantom renegade, a very famous medabot thief.

So this is the adventures of Ikki and Medabot trying to find some sort of camaraderie between each other because Metabee has a very self absorbed attitude for a medabot. Especially since medabots don’t usually have attitudes with their owner. So essentially the medal that metabee has might be a special one. This is a bit of a tournament sort of anime with Ikki and Metabee facing and defeating a different opponent every week and Ikki gaining some sort of friend following as he wins and gains his place in the top three of Japan for the world tournament.

There are a couple villainous groups in the show. The first major one, if you can call it that, are the screws. A group of kids who are basically the equivalent to some bullies that try to take things from kids or take credit when they can. A pretty laughable crew of people. On the other hand, the rubber robo gang who start out as threatening as team rocket (Jesse and James), but actually become a major threat in the last arc when they kidnap Ikki’s mom, have a scheme to take all the rare medals of the world, and want to end the world itself with a gigantic medabot that is the size of a normal mecha. It’s pretty frightening. 

It Is What You Expect It To Be, Kind Of

The show itself is a lot of cool kids stuff except we don’t have kids being lost in a digital world or traveling a country going from one place to another. Medabots just take place at one specific location, just a city. A city where Ikki and Metabee fight other metabot users. Well, I suppose it is a very active city though with mysteries and ideas around each corner. There is a ridiculously large rich person school that requires carriages and large limos to take people to school. Or there is the general intrigue with Metabee and other bots with evil organizations going after them. 

So yeah, the guiding light of this show are the special medals that we haven’t learned a lot about yet. Metabee is obviously one of those special characters and we learn, at least a little bit, about why they are important and how these experimental metals are harder for a person to connect with. So that ties into the larger plot of the Rubber Robo Gang going after all of these medals. It also makes the connection between Ikki and Metabee more interesting and plot relevant because they are doing something one wouldn’t expect. You know, even if that is kind of a typical thing. 

This is a kid’s show after all and I kind of expect it to be those too. No one really changes besides Metabee and Ikki becoming friends in the first set of episodes. Plus, the plot develops in directions that you would expect them too but with some interesting bits of complexity too. I left this season wanting to know more about what rare metals are then just things that are dug up in the Earth and sold by a large, capitalist organization. When the drama hits, some of the characterization can change, but it’s a very run the mill kind of stuff too that is very simple yet effective. It really is a show that works or should work for everyone watching it.

Goofy Antics

This is still a kids show about a kid and his robot beating one guy in a metabot competition and then moving onward to the next episode. Yeah, it is that kind of show with so many little goofy comedy beats and other activities at play for them too. It’s kind of beautiful with how sillythis show can be. For instance, the store worker that Ikki can get his medabot body from, Henry, is obviously the mysterious Phantom Renegade and the strongest metafighter in Japan right? I mean, how could it be even more obvious? The knows that you know, but the characters don’t and its just such a funny running gag despite how kind of stupid it is. 

I also just love a lot of silly bits of comedy. The rubber robo gang turning people’s house into objects is really silly and a great catch for everything there. Or the show itself just being full of these strange situations that only kids would be able to do too in an anime. Especially when some of them are so much more emotionally solid and important. Especially when the antics of Metabee and Ikki not being able to get along at first because of Metabee’s very rude attitude. While that was funny at first, it came off with such an emotional payoff in the end and created one of the best friendships that I’ve seen in an anime like this. Comedy and drama really do work hand in hand sometimes too. 

Final Thoughts on Metabots Season 1 (English)

I am going to wait for more Metabots to appear on streaming services, because I can’t say that I am addicted enough to buy Discotek’s blu-rays and watch them that way. But I had a lot of fun watching this season. Especially with the visuals of this show by Bee Train (a fallen studio) which means some episodes look really going while there is a lot of lacking animation or feels off model sometimes too. It was a great show to just relax and cool down a bit before doing something else. I originally watched this because I thought it would just be a fun thing to enjoy, but I got a lot more out of metabots than I expected to because it’s not just a kids show. It’s a kids show from the 2000’s with a bit of depth to it that could be watched now.