Plot: Ikki and Metabee find themselves butting heads over and over again to the point where Metabee quits being Ikki’s partner and chooses to enter a citywide robattle tournament by himself.
Robattles
Ikki (or moreso just Metabee) vs. Koji: Winner – Koji (No Medaparts seem to have been exchanged here)
Breakdown: Today’s episode starts with Ikki watching the World Robattle Championships in Geneva, Switzerland. It’s the finals with Rolando from Spain and his Medabot, Redmatador, against Victor from Kenya with his Warbandit. However, Ikki’s soon interrupted by Metabee, who is playing cowboy with Salty.
He refuses to break character and let Ikki watch TV in peace, even shooting the remote to turn it to a cowboy show he wants to watch. Metabee gets so irritated by Ikki not wanting to play along that he rushes him, causing them to bump into the TV, knocking the vase sitting on top of the TV over, spilling the water all over the TV, causing it to break.
Ikki and Metabee fight some more over this, because there’s nothing more charming than incessant bitching. Mrs. Tenryou interrupts while crying to say she’s to blame for this because she put the flowers on top of the TV under the assumption that a house filled with boys would maybe appreciate the beauty of flowers, but now she sees that she was foolish.
Ikki and Metabee both take responsibility for the accident, not realizing they’re clearly being played, and Mrs. Tenryou shifts gears to a happy persona immediately and says Ikki’s lost his allowance. When she walks away, Metabee mocks the fact that Ikki lost his allowance, but then Ikki tells him he won’t be buying Metabee Medaparts then because if he doesn’t have money he can’t buy them. They pretend like they’re getting along when Mrs. Tenryou pops back in, but they’re still extremely mad with each other.
Couple things;
1) Metabee is irrefutably in the wrong here. Ikki was minding his own damn business when Metabee jumped on his head while riding his dog, got mad that Ikki was getting mad at him for it, shot the remote to change the channel, which is something I feel I should have made a different bullet point (hehe puns) for because holy shit, then jumped him when Ikki got madder at him, causing them to crash into the TV and break it. Ikki is not even a little at fault. He just wanted to be left alone to watch the tournament.
2) Actually, yeah, Mrs. Tenryou is a little at fault. Who puts any container of water on top of an electronic device? It has nothing to do with boys being in the house. Anyone can accidentally bump into a TV or vase and cause it to fall.
Ikki walks to school, and we can’t even be free of bickering here because Metabee walks in front of him bitching that Ikki is following him when he’s just walking to school and Metabee’s being a dick. Or an idiot. Or both.
Erika shows up gushing about the World Championships. When Ikki explains that he couldn’t watch the finals, Erika presents a DVD with the match burned onto it. She agrees to give it to him as long as he uses it as study material for the upcoming Citywide Robattle tournament (taking place in a parking lot, for some reason.) He agrees, but he doesn’t want to robattle with Metabee, despite him being his only option.
The Screws show up gloating that Samantha’s going to win the tournament since she outfitting Peppercat with new superpowered parts.
Ikki goes to Henry for advice, and he explains that superpowered parts are helpful, but what Metabee really needs is a good tune-up. Since tournaments are basically a gauntlet of successive matches, all Medabots need to be in top condition to even survive the matches. Ikki admits that he can’t remember the last time he even polished Metabee.
He’s willing to do proper maintenance on Metabee, but there’s a problem. Metabee does not like having his Medal removed, and the Medal needs to be removed for proper maintenance to be done. Henry has a solution – he has a pretty new Tinpet that he’s willing to loan Ikki, believing Metabee might be okay with having his Medal removed if he has another body to use in the meantime.
Ikki outfits the Tinpet with all of the parts he’s collected so far, making for a pretty silly looking but functional body that Metabee with have to deal with until Ikki’s done fixing him up. However, Metabee’s nowhere to be found in the house so Ikki leaves to search for him.
As soon as he leaves, Metabee shows up with Salty since he was taking him for a walk. Metabee discovers the Medabot body and immediately jumps to conclusions.
Ikki returns home to find the spare body shoved in the garbage with a furious Metabee in the corner. He believes Ikki has chosen to replace Metabee with this Frankenstein’d bot, so Metabee storms off, determined to win the tournament by himself.
Later, at the tournament, Metabee does indeed do quite well on his own and continues to give the cold shoulder to Ikki. Meanwhile, Ikki runs into Karin, who seems to just be watching the tournament, and Koji, who is also doing quite well in the tournament with his Sumilidon.
While he’s his normal cocky self, claiming these matches mean nothing to him as they’re just practice for the world tournament, Koji does tell Ikki that his main goal is to face off against him and Metabee in the finals and genuinely extends a hand to have an honorable robattle when that happens. However, since Ikki’s at odds with Metabee, he turns down the shake.
Samantha is confident with her fancy Medaparts on Peppercat, but the weight of the parts is too much for Peppercat, and she’s easily defeated.
What the heck. Someone’s administering an IV to a Medabot? Wha?
Metabee tries to do his repairs by himself, but Ikki chooses to be the bigger man and starts doing work on Metabee saying that teammates need to look out for each other.
Just when you think things might start getting a little better……things get stupid again.
Spyke stumbles in and begs Ikki to win the next match because they all bet their school lunch desserts on the next match, and Spyke put his bet on Ikki and Metabee, unbeknownst to Samantha, of course.
Metabee, hearing this, immediately thinks that this was Ikki’s intention all along – to win bets on their match.
For the love of fuck, Metabee – you’re a moron. Spyke clearly just let Ikki know about this bet right now, and he didn’t imply Ikki had a bet going. It’s like Metabee just wants to be a little pissant.
He then goes on an insult tirade on Ikki, telling him he’s a failure as a Medafighter. Ikki, finally and understandably fed up with Metabee’s bullshit, tells Metabee to behave and not talk to him like that – he built Metabee with his own hands and he demands some respect. Yeah, Ikki’s not in the right at this moment either, treating Metabee more like property or a pet than a partner, but it’s basically the same speech a parent would give to their kid if they started having a temper tantrum right down to the “I brought you into this world!” implication.
Plus, Ikki has been mostly in the right this entire episode. Everything he’s said or done that has been even slightly in the wrong has been in response to Metabee being an angry jackass.
Metabee says he’s done with Ikki, and he heads off into the final match with Koji and Sumilidon.
Before we get to the meat of that match, though, we’re interrupted by the Rubber Robo Gang, who go off on a speech that makes it seem like they’re going to do something terrible at the tournament….but it turns out they’re just running a normal noodle stand called Rubber Noodles. Shrimp Lips is confused as to how this helps them do anything evil, and they just imply that the noodles taste bad. I would imagine that any noodle called “Rubber Noodles” would indeed taste bad.
Back at the match, Sumilidon has Metabee on the ropes, but Ikki is refraining from giving him any orders, despite seeing a massive flaw in Metabee’s strategy. Sumilidon excels in close quarters combat, and Metabee keeps allowing him to get close and needs to get some distance. He’s about to use his Medawatch to give Metabee an order (or advice) but, remembering Metabee’s harsh words from earlier, chooses not to, although he yells out in frustration about it.
When Metabee takes a brutal hit, Ikki decides to give Metabee advice anyway. He tells him he’s taxing his legs too much, and if he doesn’t take it easy they’ll fail on him. However, Metabee refuses the advice.
Everyone is noticing that Metabee won’t listen to Ikki, but the battle continues. Ikki still tries to advise Metabee, but he won’t listen and charges in. The strike from Sumilidon completely disables Metabee’s right arm.
Koji goads Metabee by saying he should use his Seeker Missiles. Metabee agrees, but Koji commands Sumilidon to use his disrupter. Ikki tries to warn Metabee of the clear trap, but, once again, Metabee refuses to listen and launches the missiles. The missiles blow up right over Metabee’s head, causing extreme damage to his body. Most of his parts barring part of his body and head are disabled, and the system warns him of impending complete shutdown.
Ikki tells him to concede because there’s no way he can win. Koji calls out to Ikki expressing his disappointment in this match because this was supposed to be an honorable rematch. Ikki has no answer for him, and Koji has no choice but to deliver the final blow.
To everyone’s shock, Metabee is fully shutdown, his Medal ejects, and Sumilidon and Koji win the robattle.
Ikki: “Get up, Metabee!” You know he can’t do that, Ikki. Even if he was functional, his Medal is out.
Mr. Referee, in narration, gives us a closing cliffhanger line of asking if this is the end of Metabee, but he doesn’t know. We close out on a “To Be Continued” screen.
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God, what a frustrating episode. The ending frames it like we’re supposed to feel bad for Metabee, but I don’t. Not even a little. Why should I? He’s a little shit. There was no point in this episode where he didn’t make me feel like throwing him in the recycling bin.
Meanwhile, I have never connected more with Ikki.
He minds his own business – Metabee gets him in trouble and pisses him off for no reason.
He tries to swallow his pride and fix up Metabee for the tournament – Metabee immediately has a hissy fit about seeing a weird-ass Medabot stitched together with won parts and doesn’t even try to let Ikki explain himself.
Ikki tries to mend bridges and help Metabee out again – Metabee stupidly believes Ikki is using him for a bet he has no reason to believe he knew of before the conversation.
Ikki tries to once again be the more mature one and offer him smart advice during his match – Metabee refuses any and all suggestions, even when he’s getting badly beaten.
I know you can kinda look at this in a manner similar to Ash and Charizard from Pokemon. Like it’s Ikki’s fault any of this is happening because he’s not training his Medabot properly. But, unlike Ash, Ikki, in this episode anyway, is being the mature one and keeps trying to do things with and for Metabee to improve their relationship and teamwork, but he insists on being a stubborn idiot.
If this was the Ikki we saw in episode two where he was basically just like “You’re my Medabot, I am your master, obey me!” I’d have more problems here. Ikki did blow up at Metabee in a similar fashion, but only after Metabee started spitting insults at him and had already been a jerk all episode. Otherwise, he kept trying to put aside their differences and work together, and Metabee simply wouldn’t listen.
Honestly, I am just sick to death of Metabee and his ridiculous angry outbursts, and unlike with Charizard where I actually remember a timeframe where Charizard calms down and starts working well with Ash again, I don’t remember enough about the storylines in Medabots to remember if Metabee ever becomes less of a dick.
If he ever does become less of a dick.
Does he ever become less of a dick?
Please tell me he becomes less of a dick.
Next time, part two of our story – can Ikki and Metabee patch things up and become true partners?
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