Bruce Von Stiers

There is a series on television that a lot of folks have watched. It is an anime title called Medabots. I hadn’t watched the show before, except for a spot here and there as my son watched in the living room once in a while. Now I can watch the first five episodes of the show any time I want. ADV Films has packaged together five episodes of Medabots. This is on a DVD disc and the collection is called Transport Metabee!

There are five episodes of the show on the DVD disc. The episodes are Stung by a Bee, Return of the Screws, Running Scared, Legendary Medalfighter and The Old Man and the Sea Monster

As DVD’s go, this doesn’t have too many extras. But what is there is good. There are character profiles for each major character in the show. There are also profiles of the Metabots that are used in the show. And there are several trailers for other ADV Films titles.

The show opens up with an assault on a man in a tunnel. A group of crooks take a medal out of the man’s case. Then some guy grabs the medal from the crooks only to lose it later in the river.

Ikki is a student at Riverview Junior High School. He wants to own a good Medabot but his parents won’t buy it for him. They say he has to earn his own money to buy one. He keeps going by this one store and window shopping. But he can’t afford a new bot. The guy who works in the store will sell him an older version but Ikki scoffs at the offer.

Then one of Ikki’s friends is tricked into doing Robobattle with the Heavy Medalrockers, a gang who takes unfair advantage of Robobattlers. Ikki ends up going back and buying the older medalbot. He then does Robobattle with the Medalrockers and wins. Ikki names his Medalbot Metabee.

The second episode is called Return of the Screws. A gang called the Screws are forcing kids to Robobattle. Ikki is challenged by the Student council at his school to do something about it. Things come to a head and Ikki is ready to do battle with these nasties. But where is Metabee? The shopkeeper who sold Ikki the bot has kidnapped it.
It all works out well in the end.

Running Scared is the third episode. Metabee is told to stay home and not come around the school. Ikki could get into trouble. Coach Mountain is a stickler for the rules and they say no Medalbots at school. Later the gang finds out that the coach has a secret that’s he’s been hiding.

The Legendary Medalfighter is the fourth episode. The group travel to a private school to search for a medalfighter that is said to be the best. Ikki has already met a girl from that school. She plays a big role later. Some guy wants to kick them out and get Ikki away from the girl, Karin. Ikki does Robobattle with the dude and kicks some serious tail.

In the last episode on the disc, The Old Man and the Sea Monster, the kids go to the beach. They run into some locals, and of course Metabee has to do some Robobattle. Only this time he loses. Then the gang has to do some training for a rematch to get the parts back the Metabee loses because of the Robobattle. An old man that hangs out at the beach helps them.

The dubbing wasn’t too bad and the soundtrack seemed pretty decent. The animation did leave a little to be desired. I would have like to have seen crisper shapes on the characters and glistening metal on the bots. The characters seemed too two dimensional at times.

One thing that was humorous in its absurdity is that some guy called Mr. Referee appeared any time there was a Robobattle to referee the fight. He showed up in armor, with an inner tube around his waist and other outrageous costumers.

The storyline is really basic and aside from the bots slamming into each other and shooting rockets at each other, the violence level was minimal. This is geared for some of the younger viewers.

The show was produced by Tomoko Gushima and Toko Matsushita. It was directed by Tensai Okarmura. The English Language production was overseen by Micharl Hirsh, Patrick Loubert and a few others.

Medabots: Transport Metabee! Is an okay DVD collection. If you want some basic escapist anime, then this show will be all right for you. But if you are looking for real crisp anime and an intense story line, then don’t bother.

Check for Medabots: Transport Metabee! at your local DVD retailer. There are also two web sites to check out. These sites are www.medabots.com and www.advfilms.com.