Ooh, I loved Medabots. Even bought some of the older DVDs. I probably still have a lot of the first seasons episodes on tape somewhere.
Hm, first season, 26 episodes. How far did that go again? Up to Ikki and Medabee being ranked high enough to get into the World Medabot Championship? Or was it the one with when Ikki and Medabee got into that feud? And I don't so much consider Mr. Referee a plothole so much as a fundamental part of robattling. And it was usually very funny too.
Anyway, the second Medabot series was dubbed, and was on ABC Family for a little bit, I think. It was horrible. There was the core cast of Ikki, Medabee, his parents, Erika and her Medabot, Samantha and her underlings, and... that was it. Dr. Aki later showed up, but everybody else just vanished and was never acknowledged. No Rokusho, Henry/Phantom Renegade, Rubberobos, nobody. Although I only saw the dub, so no idea how it was in the original. There were some minor references to the last world championship (Ikki got second, I think), but that was it. Most of the series was focused on some Gary Stu character named Zuru, who was the "mysterious person in disguise" who had a grudge against Kilobots. Tying into how Medabot medals are copies of the ancient robot medals, apparently with Medabot medals they only copied some of the original stuff, but included personalities, etc. With Kilobots, they just put in combat stuff, so no soul basically. Also, Kilobot fighters tend to be cheaters, like they ignore all the rules. Speaking of rules, they didn't have Mr. Referee anymore! I loved that guy. Anyway, Ikki loses a lot while the masked Zuru guy usually shows him up, he also has a Rokusho rip-off then gets another Medabot so near the end he using two Medabots and winning usually. Also there was that mechanic lady, who had some kind of backstory, who Ikki sorta crushed on (being she was pretty and nice to him), and like most of the series two characters, got lots of screen time. Though there were some interesting ideas, like with how Kilobots are soulless, they're immune to the Medaforce apparently, something about having no soul/feelings to take the damage. Not entirely if that was consistent with Series 1, but... in terms of problems, that was one of the minor ones. There was some sorta-psychotic kid who believed his soulless Kilobots were superior to Medabts, but Ikki and Zuru kept beating Kilobots (though Ikki was usually more on the sidelines by now). Blackbettle was an experiment to build a Kilobot with a mind/soul and she was very tough. Though she eventually ran away as the Kilobot kid, Kam, was a twisted little jerk with how he forced several dozen Kilobots to fight to the death, with the last survivor being the strongest. She won at first, then started losing (as normal in anime), then Kam tried to put her inside yet another monstrously strong body, then she ran away, then Kam forced her to come back, and... that's all I saw. Unfortunately, I'm not sure if they ever showed the finale. It looked like they were two, maybe three epiisodes from the series finale... then they stopped showing. I'm not sure if they showed it and I missed it, or not, but it disappeared from the schedule shortly after that. And ABC Family's Jetix block was already starting to die out by then too.
Why do anime series so often get dubbed until nearly the very end then just stop? And sometimes are never finished, or take years.
Anyway, the first series/season was great, I'll probably try to buy the DVDs as they come out. I'm never sure how far a dub strays from the original, though sometimes its obvious (like the Davis bashing in the 02 dub).
And there were fansubs of Medabots? I'm not asking for where, or for a link, I'm just surprised that there were some. Then again, I've never really looked, but I was never sure how well-known the series was, and with how old it is. Or maybe I just joined the internet way too late to see any.
