For the manga, see MegaMan NT Warrior (manga). |
MegaMan NT Warrior ("Network Transmission Warrior"[1][2]), known as Rockman.EXE (ロックマンエグゼ Rokkuman Eguze) in Japan, is the first season of the Japanese animated series based on the Mega Man Battle Network video game series. It loosely covers the events of Mega Man Battle Network 1, 2, and 3.
History
The series is the second animated series in the Mega Man franchise after the 1994 series, and is the longest running Mega Man TV show to date, having spawned four more seasons totaling 209 episodes and a film. The first of the next seasons, Axess, was dubbed in English while Stream, Beast, and Beast+, and the movie, Hikari to Yami no Program, set during Stream, only aired in Japan. Dubs of many non-Asian countries are based on the MegaMan NT Warrior English dub, keeping the music changes, censorship, and dialogue alterations.
It would later be succeeded by Mega Man Star Force, set 200 years in the future, which spawned a second season that only aired in Japan, Shooting Star Rockman Tribe.
The WonderSwan Color video game Rockman.EXE WS features an rough retelling of the first season of the anime as its plot.
Plot

Rockman.EXE logo.
For characters in the anime, see List of MegaMan NT Warrior characters. |
The season is split into two parts, known as “First Area” and “Second Area” in Japan. While some stories were influenced by the games, it heavily diverges from the source material in terms of how events are played out and when they happen.
The "First Area" consists of episodes 1 to 26 and contains story elements of the original Mega Man Battle Network. It details the adventures of Lan Hikari and his new NetNavi MegaMan as they battle against Mr. Wily and his criminal organization World Three. Lan and MegaMan meet many new friends and learn about the Program Advance while preparing to face off against their rivals Chaud Blaze and ProtoMan during the N1 Grand Prix. The First Area's reaches a climax with the revival of the dangerous PharaohMan and the deletion of MegaMan. With the help from Lan's father and the Net Agents, MegaMan is brought back to life to finally stopping PharaohMan's threat.
The "Second Area" starts with episode 27 to 56 and contains a loose adaptation of Mega Man Battle Network 2. It follows Lan and MegaMan’s adventures around the world as a prize for winning second place in the N1 Grand Prix. Lan, MegaMan, and the rest of their friends then battle against the NetMafia Grave and learn about Bass. MegaMan gains the power of Style Change and new technology sets the background for Axess. Second Area reaches a climax with the Grave Virus Beast devastating the entire internet, with MegaMan being the only one who can stop it all. The remainder of the episodes cover more lighthearted stories, ending with the Life Virus acts as the final battle of the season in episode 56, mirroring the finale of the original Battle Network.
As a way to promote the newest game at the time of the anime's airing, Mega Man Battle Network 3, certain aspects from it are mixed in. This includes the N1 Grand Prix tournament and introducing the new characters from that game: Tora, KingMan, Chisao, and DrillMan. As well as MegaMan's brand new form, Bug Style.
List of episodes
In the English dub, certain episodes were omitted, aired out of date and/or censored. Also the original American broadcast Kids' WB created two episodes that were edited down from multiple episodes: There's No "I" In Team (Part 1)/There's No "I" In Team (Part 2) and DenTech City's Deep Freeze!/Crimson Flash!. Episodes 18 and 30 are absent on the anime's English official site, leaving it with 50 episodes, causing the numbering of the episodes from episode 18 onward to be wrong.
Japanese Ep. # | Dub Ep. # | Title | Original air date | Dub air date |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 1 | Jack In! MegaMan! | March 4, 2002 | May 17, 2003 |
2 | 2 | Subway Scramble! | March 11, 2002 | May 24, 2003 |
3 | 3 | Traffic Signal Chaos! | March 18, 2002 | May 31, 2003 |
4 | 4 | Count to Three! | March 25, 2002 | June 7, 2003 |
5 | 5 | Robotic Fish Gone Wild! | April 1, 2002 | June 14, 2003 |
6 | 43 | Ice Ice Baby! | April 8, 2002 | November 24, 2004 |
7 | 44 | Game Off! | April 15, 2002 | November 25, 2004 |
8 | 45 | Hot Tempers! | April 22, 2002 | November 29, 2004 |
9 | 6 | The Yoga Warrior! | April 29, 2002 | June 21, 2003 |
10 | 7 | N1 Grand Prix! | May 6, 2002 | June 28, 2003 |
11 | 8 | Skullmania! | May 13, 2002 | July 4, 2003 |
12 | 9 | Wacky Madness & Blazing Battles! (Part 1) | May 20, 2002 | July 14, 2003 |
13 | 10 | Wacky Madness & Blazing Battles! (Part 2) | May 27, 2002 | July 19, 2003 |
14 | 11 | Street Fight! | June 3, 2002 | July 26, 2003 |
15 | 12 | The Legendary Program Advance! | June 17, 2002 | August 2, 2003 |
16 | 13 | The Solo NetNavis! | June 24, 2002 | August 9, 2003 |
17 | 14 | Something's Fishy with Commander Beef! | July 1, 2002 | August 16, 2003 |
18 | 15 | Evil Empress Roll! (Part 1) | July 8, 2002 | May 1, 2004 |
19 | 16 | Evil Empress Roll! (Part 2) | July 15, 2002 | May 3, 2004 |
20 | 17 | There's No "I" In Team (Part 1) | July 22, 2002 | May 4, 2004 |
21 | 18 | There's No "I" In Team (Part 2) | July 29, 2002 | May 4, 2004 |
22 | 19 | That Sinking Feeling! | August 5, 2002 | May 5, 2004 |
23 | 20 | PharaohMan Reborn! | August 12, 2002 | May 6, 2004 |
24 | 21 | Rebuilding MegaMan! | August 19, 2002 | May 7, 2004 |
25 | 22 | MegaMan Lives! | August 26, 2002 | May 8, 2004 |
26 | N/A | Bizarre! Mystery of the Ghost Ship! | September 2, 2002 | Not aired |
27 | N/A | To Become An Idol! | September 9, 2002 | Not aired |
28 | 23 | MegaMan Stolen! | September 16, 2002 | October 15, 2004 |
29 | 24 | SnakeMan's Survival Seven | September 24, 2002 | October 22, 2004 |
30 | 46 | Don't Mess with Mama Zap! | September 30, 2002 | November 30, 2004 |
31 | 47 | The Great Curry Battle | October 7, 2002 | December 1, 2004 |
32 | 25 | NetCity! | October 14, 2002 | May 15, 2004 |
33 | 26 | The Virus Factory | October 21, 2002 | May 22, 2004 |
34 | 27 | Electronic Money Panic! | October 28, 2002 | June 26, 2004 |
35 | 28 | Countdown to Catastrophe! | November 4, 2002 | October 8, 2004 |
36 | 29 | DenTech City's Deep Freeze! | November 11, 2002 | June 5, 2004 |
37 | 30 | Crimson Flash! | November 18, 2002 | June 5, 2004 |
38 | 31 | CutMan Brothers! | November 25, 2002 | Canada-only |
39 | 48 | Guess Who's Coming to NetBattle! | December 2, 2002 | December 2, 2004 |
40 | 49 | Chess Mess! | December 9, 2002 | December 7, 2004 |
41 | 50 | The Incredible Rush! | December 16, 2002 | December 8, 2004 |
42 | 32 | Working for Grave | December 23, 2002 | July 10, 2004 |
43 | N/A | Take Me Out to the Ball Game! | December 30, 2002 | Not aired |
44 | 34 | KnightMan's Betrayal! | January 6, 2003 | July 3, 2004 |
45 | 35 | To the Moon! | January 13, 2003 | June 12, 2004 |
46 | 36 | Mr. Wily's Legacy! | January 20, 2003 | July 17, 2004 |
47 | 37 | The NetMobile Grand Prix! | January 27, 2003 | June 19, 2004 |
48 | 38 | The VirusBeast! | February 3, 2003 | July 24, 2004 |
49 | 39 | Grave | February 10, 2003 | July 31, 2004 |
50 | 40 | Bass | February 17, 2003 | August 7, 2004 |
51 | 41 | The End of the End! | February 24, 2003 | August 14, 2004 |
52 | N/A | Secret of the Ayanokoji House! | March 3, 2003 | Not aired |
53 | 51 | The NetBattle of the Hearts! | March 10, 2003 | Canada-only |
54 | 33 | Chisao's in Town! | March 17, 2003 | November 23, 2004 |
55 | 52 | From Here to Revolutionary PETs | March 24, 2003 | December 9, 2004 |
56 | 42 | Virus Busters! | March 31, 2003 | August 21, 2004 |
Staff
Director | Takao Kato |
---|---|
Series Composition | Ken'ichi Araki |
Supervisor | Keiji Inafune Yasuyuki Sagami |
Character Design | Mitsuru Ishihara |
Prop Design | Kōji Watanabe |
Color Design | Natsuyo Ban |
Art Director | Hachidai Takayama |
Cinematographer | Katsutoshi Hirose |
Sound Director | Aketagawa Jin |
Music | Katsumi Horii |
Animation Production | Xebec |
Production | TV Tokyo NAS Shogakukan Productions |
Music
MegaMan NT Warrior edits out the entirety of the original Japanese soundtrack in favor of rock and techno songs. The intro and ending themes were replaced by a techno/video game theme.
Japanese intros
- "Rockman no Theme - Kaze wo Tsukinukete" (ロックマンのテーマ〜風を突き抜けて〜 Rokkuman no Tēma ~Kaze wo Tsukinukete~) by Jin Hashimoto (EXE)
Japanese endings
- "Piece of Peace" by mica (EXE, eps 1-25)
- "Begin the TRY" (begin the TRY) by Shōtarō Morikubo (EXE, eps 26-56)
NT Warrior English Dub

MegaMan NT Warrior logo.
- "It is the year 200X, and it is almost like living in a video game. I'm Lan Hikari, welcome to DenTech City, where the whole city is linked together through a cyber matrix that connects everything. My friends and I have these powerful handhelds called PET that lets us battle in a virtual world with our cyber-warriors. They are called NetNavis; and my NetNavi is MegaMan. There's also an evil force, World Three, which wreaks havoc in the City by infecting the cyber matrix with computer viruses! Along with our friends and their personal net-warriors, MegaMan and I are gonna delete these viruses, and rinse society of all chaos and crime. Jack In! MegaMan! Power Up!"
- —Lan Hikari's introduction from the English dub
The MegaMan NT Warrior English dub was done by VIZ Media and produced at Ocean Studios. The dub contains many notorious traits by other dubbed kids anime at the time. These include straying away from the Japanese script, adding dialogue that wasn't there, names are changed from the English video game, giving characters random accents, complete soundtrack change, cut out scenes for time, and heavy censorship. The initial broadcast also suffers from reorganized episode airings, skipping entire stories to get to the N1 Grand Prix faster, then later skipping to get to the introduction of Net City faster. The initial American broadcast also had 2 episodes that were edited down version of multiple episodes. The entirety of this season's dub came out in DVD and are censored like the broadcast.
The English dub has an "announcer" for events that happen on the internet, such as a NetNavi being deleted or logged out (i.e., the announcer saying “MegaMan logging out” when MegaMan returns to his PET) where as there was none in the original Japanese dub.
In the English dub of the show, the episodes Ice Ice Baby!, Hot Tempers!, and Game Off!, which featured Maddy, Mr. Match, and Count Zap's rematches with Lan and MegaMan respectively, were all shown towards the end of the season rather than at the beginning of the season like the original Japanese version, making it seem as if the World Three had become active again after Grave was defeated. In the original Japanese version, the World Three stayed disbanded and its members had become more like allies to Lan and MegaMan at that point. This is reinforced in the dub of Axess, where Mr. Match vows the defeated the two one day, whereas in the Japanese version he was simply happy to help them defeat PlantMan.
Alternate English dub

TODAY Singapore newspaper excerpt on Rockman.EXE.
An alternate English dub of the first season, done by Voicework Unlimited, was made for the South-East Asian markets with a script that faithfully followed the original’s with no episodes cut out. The show also kept the Japanese names, terms, and the original Japanese soundtrack. However like MegaMan NT Warrior, some characters were given random accents.
It aired in Singapore on Kids Central[3] from 2005 to 2007. All 56 episodes were released in two VCD sets with the Chinese dub with Ep. 1-27 on the first set and Ep. 28-56 on the second, mirroring the First and Second Area split of the Japanese version. While it's lost to time as to how the show aired on TV, this release, unlike the NT Warrior DVDs, is uncensored.
Broadcasters
- Japan: TV Tokyo
- USA: Cartoon Network, Kids' WB and Toonami Jetstream
- Canada: Teletoon
- United Kingdom: Jetix
- Poland: Jetix
- Spain: Jetix, K3,[4] Televisión Canaria[4]
- Germany: RTL II[4]
- Latin America: Jetix
- Brazil: TV Globo[5]
- Mexico: Televisa[5]
- Peru: América Televisión[5]
- Venezuela: Venevisión[5]
- Belgium: Vlaamse Media Maatschappij[5]
- Portugal: SIC[5] and Canal Panda
- Hungary: A+ and RTL Klub
- Australia: Cartoon Network and Network 10
- Singapore: Kids Central[3]
Home media
In Japan, the series was released across 65 DVD volumes containing all five seasons as well as a separate DVD release for the film. The first season was also released on VHS. Rental stores had different DVD art than retail DVDs to differentiate them.
In America, only the first season of MegaMan NT Warrior was released across 13 volumes. The DVDs include only the censored English dub and the Latin America Spanish dub.
Reception
MegaMan NT Warrior achieved popularity among Japanese viewing audiences. According to a viewership sample conducted in the Kantō region by Video Research, the anime drew in an average of 4.5% and a maximum of 5.9% of households during the last year of its original run.[6]
Gallery
See also
- MegaMan NT Warrior Axess
- Rockman.EXE Stream
- Rockman.EXE Beast
- Rockman.EXE Beast+
- Rockman.EXE: Hikari to Yami no Program
External links
- MegaMan NT Warrior official website (archive)
- MegaMan NT Warrior at VizMedia
- Rockman.EXE official website at TV Tokyo
- Rockman.EXE History of Animation at ShoPro
- MegaMan NT Warrior at Anime News Network
- Rockman.EXE Online
References
- ↑ Mega Man NT Warrior website
- ↑ Mega Man NT Warrior MegaHandbook
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 NLB e-Resources: TODAY - 2nd Edition, 19 January 2007, Page 60
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Mega Hiro (Spanish and German anime magazine).
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 VIZ Media: 2005 Press Releases: Latin American Audiences To Tune Into Mega Hit—MegaMan NT Warrior (archive)
- ↑ http://www.capcom.co.jp/ir/english/data/pdf/2006annual/Annual2006e.pdf
MegaMan NT Warrior anime series | |
---|---|
Principal Cast | |
Lan Hikari/MegaMan Chaud Blaze/ProtoMan • Maylu Sakurai/Roll • Raika/SearchMan Recurring Characters Dex Ogreon/GutsMan • Haruka Hikari • Ribbita • Tory Froid/IceMan • Yai Ayano/Glide • Yuichiro Hikari | |
Seasons | |
MegaMan NT Warrior • MegaMan NT Warrior Axess Rockman.EXE Stream • Rockman.EXE Beast • Rockman.EXE Beast+ Film: Rockman.EXE: Hikari to Yami no Program | |
Episodes | |
MegaMan NT Warrior Area 01: 1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 • 12 • 13 • 14 • 15 • 16 • 17 • 18 • 19 • 20 • 21 • 22 • 23 • 24 • 25 • 26 Area 02: 27 • 28 • 29 • 30 • 31 • 32 • 33 • 34 • 35 • 36 • 37 • 38 • 39 • 40 41 • 42 • 43 • 44 • 45 • 46 • 47 • 48 • 49 • 50 • 51 • 52 • 53 • 54 • 55 • 56 MegaMan NT Warrior Axess Rockman.EXE Stream Rockman.EXE Beast Rockman.EXE Beast+ | |
Voice Cast | |
Japanese Voice Actors Kumiko Higa • Akiko Kimura | |
Related Pages | |
Characters • Battle Chips • DVD releases (NT Warrior • Axess • Stream • Beast • Beast+) • Rockman.EXE WS |
Rockman.EXE: Hikari to Yami no Program | |
---|---|
Cast | |
Main Characters Netto Hikari/Rockman Barrel/Colonel • Enzan Ijuin/Blues • Forte • Raika/SearchMan Antagonists Dr. Regal/Nebula Gray Supporting Cast Charlie Airster/GyroMan • Chisao Oyama • Dekao Oyama/GutsMan • Dingo/TomahawkMan • Dr. Wily • Kero Midorikawa • Mariko Ozono • Meijin • Meiru Sakurai/Roll • Rin Manabe • Seishin Kifune • Shuko Kido • Toru Hikawa/IceMan • Yamitaro Higure/NumberMan • Yuichiro Hikari Other characters
| |
Locations | |
KA-222 • Ministry of Science • Thousand Amusements building • TRINITY Brain Tower | |
Terms | |
Forte Cross Rockman • Spectrum/Tadashi Hikari Program/Dr. Wily Program | |
Music | |
Be Somewhere (intro) | |
Other Seasons | |
NT Warrior • Axess • Stream • Beast • Beast+ Film: Hikari to Yami no Program |