For those of you that aren't old enough to remember, Capcom greenlit a brief Mega Man cartoon based on the classic series of games back in the mid 90's. The show was rather hit or miss, never hitting the heights of similar cartoons - like Ducktales or Darkwing Duck - and sporting a rather unattractive visual style that really didn't utilize much of the source material. It only ran for two seasons and the third season was cancelled due to budget constraints.
A video has recently surfaced that apparently was Ruby-Spears – the primary production studio – first pitch of the show to Capcom. The visual style almost perfectly matched the original games' art and certainly appears to be superior to the final product. Alas, this pitch is all that remains of this version of the show. Take a look:
What do you think? Do you prefer this or the Americanized version? What was your favorite 80's or 90's cartoon? Drop a comment in the section below.
[source youtube.com]
Comments 46
This looks way better than the actual cartoon. I wonder why they changed it.
I imagine this would've been pretty cool. I've always loved Mega Man's art style. Making Mega Man more buff and grown up looking never appealed to me.
That one is much better!! The other one's ruined everything!!
Anyone else notice they called Elec Man Bright Man?
I always liked the mega man cartoon...likely because I didn't like the games very much.
@brandonbwii Yeah, that's marketing for ya. It looked awesome and I loved the quick animation! I hope the 2017 release will capture some of that goodness...
Wow, that looks really nice...
I remember the Mega Man cartoon. I didn't like the look of it and never got into it. The pitch video looks really nice though. Capcom should have ran with that instead of the buff looking characters.
Such potential. Maybe it cost too much to keep up that amount of quality.
I watched the show, and I recall the cartoon had a nice opening, but the shows were far less clean and energetic.
Reminded me of the old Zelda cartoon that use to come on with Mario Bros Show.
Maybe I'm having a case of deja vu, but I feel like I've seen some of this footage before.
It's been widely speculated that the reason for this was that this was in competition w/ 2 other popular cartoons of the early-mid 90's: Batman: The Animated Series, & Spider-Man: The Animated Series. This also accounts for Mega Man's Peter Parker style banter. The other running theory, is that one, or another segment of Capcom thought that an American audience would not be interested in, &/or potentially turned off by, a little boy, fighting other little boys, as opposed to a comic book hero-type character fighting villains.
I've seen this promo before. If you watch commercials for this on youtube, you'll see quick remnants of this animation style in them. Btw, Ruby-Spears(Joe Ruby/Ken Spears) are fellas that previously worked on Scooby-Doo,. They worked at Hannah-Barbera.
I prefer the final one, it looks more cheesy and screams 80s/90s.
This would have been awesome if it came out. I've got so many cartoons I enjoyed growing up from He-man too Thundercats too Transformers too M.A.S.K too BraveStar too TMNT too Voltron and so on golden era for cartoons.
My reaction is the same as the pitch that was given for the Mega Man ZX Anime.
"If only!"
The "little boy fighting monsters" thing is somewhat a turn off I agree. Like, as a kid, at least in the states, you look for an older figure to look up to. For example, the dub voices for the megaman Exe anime I liked a whole lot better than the Japanese version, cause the Japanese voices are child-like voices (which of course, they are), while the English dub voices are more mature, and honestly, "cooler". Plus it's mega "man" not mega "kid".
That all being said, they could've just done the same thing and released it like that. I haven't actually seen the Mega Man cartoon but this sales pitch felt really good~
This looks really nice. I have a lot of the action figures that came out from the show that was released.
I actually like the Mega Man series. The problems it had were the same as most 80's/90's cartoons, namely simplistic writing with plots that have more holes than Swiss cheese. Cartoon writers of that era tended to treat the target audience as if they were idiots. Just like Transformers has bounced back with more serious writing, Mega Man is ready for an animated comeback.
I like the look of this. Made me remember the good times with the Megaman NT Warrior anime xD
To cobble together a quote, "A big hit with boys six to twelve!" I mean, doesn't get more focus-grouped than that, eh?
Why, oh why, was the look made so ... Westernized? This artstyle looks way better!
Looks legit!
I am actually a huge fan of the cartoon series...I have them all on DVD somewhere. I have always loved the artwork of the Mega Man series (I have the artbook lying around somewhere...), but for some reason, hewing so closely to the original was kind of a turn off.
Either way, I think we can all agree that Roll's cartoon appearance was absolute garbage.
@DarthNocturnal Not just the anime; they did it in the manga dub as well.
I still don't see the problem tbh, it wasn't like kids were gonna go around shooting firemen with giant arm cannons...
Well, that actually looks really good. And that didn't get released?
Love this style of animation and how it's closer to the games' art, but I understand why they changed it. At the time, the chibi-esque Mega Man just wouldn't have appealed to young boys.
Even though i like the old one, this some 10x better.
That Mega Man promo is amazing!
Would've been so much better than the actual series we got...
It should've been that cartoon. Although, I still can't forget about Mega Man from Captain N lol
I tried to get into the show, but Megaman himself being portrayed more masculinely than he ever had before or after just...really put me off. The style may work for Proto Man and most of the Robot Masters, but Megaman himself is always supposed to be the little boy self, which SSB definitely got right.
@allav866 I'm certain some of those scenes where repurposed into the American Super Fighting Robot intro sequence.
I enjoyed the American Mega Man cartoon we got. Was really cool when they had a crossover with the Mega Man X series in one episode.
Dokta Wiwy
@allav866 Same here,I think it's because the animation is similar to the one used in Sonic CD.
This was perfect, why they changed it is anyone's guess.
SUPER FIGHTING ROBOT
MEGAMAN!
I like the way Mega Man looks in the cartoon and own the boxsets. The robot masters looked awesome! Proto Man is the coolest and Roll kicked some ass. I guess I'm one of the few who liked the version we got.
@WaveGhoul I think it was 95, but I could be wrong. (Also a Sailor Moon fan)
@WaveGhoul you just won the internet with that pun. :3
Needs the theme song. "Super fighting robot.....MEGA MAN!!"
@SupremeAllah YESSSSSS
Since back in the 90's, before the Internet revolution and no Mega Man anime reached stateside, Capcom threw us Mega Man fans a bone with this cartoon, and I liked it! I put up with the obvious differences but still enjoyed watching it. The Mega Man X episode was one all of us fanboys were waiting to see....!
@brandonbwii Yes. I had to go back to make sure I heard that correctly.
If I had to venture a guess, marketing thought American kids in the '90s were allergic to anything with a non-American art style. Hence the change to a less anime-esque Mega Man.
You can still see traces of the anime influence in the show intro, but not so much the episodes themselves.
I see a striking similarity to the animation created for Sonic CD. Go watch the end credits sequence for that game and then watch this video. Some of the sequences are almost identical but with mega man instead of sonic!
Looks very much like the mega man ova, upon a star I think it was, if not is partially the footage. It's been a while since I've seen it and can't fact check at the moment.
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