Western Animation / Mega Man (Ruby-Spears)

aka: Mega Man

This version of Mega Man is hardcore.

”Super Fighting Robot, MEGA MAN!"

An animated adaptation of one of Capcom's beloved mascots...more specifically, the classic version. Created by Ruby-Spears Productions with Ashi Productions of Japan, this series ran from 1994 to 1995.

The overall plot of the cartoon is pretty much like the video games it was based on, with Mega Man having to foil the schemes of Mad Scientist Dr. Wily, who wants nothing more than to Take Over the World. It is somewhat like the American Street Fighter cartoon in that the plots of the individual episodes would tend to get kinda screwy, but was nonetheless good for a usually unintentional laugh. The voice work was provided by The Ocean Group, who would later dub Mega Man Powered Up. The show ran for 2 seasons of 27 episodes.

An interview with Joe Ruby has shed light on production of the show.

Not to be confused with the 2018 cartoon by Man of Action Studios, Mega Man: Fully Charged.

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Mega Man provides examples of:

A-I

• Achilles' Heel: In "Master of Disaster", Lotos can only be defeated when he turns into a dragon, by attacking a spot on his stomach that doesn't have any scales.
• Action Girl: Roll. Despite being a housekeeping robot, she was able to incapacitate Cut Man. With a toaster gun that shot out delicious toasted bread.
• Action-Hogging Opening: The opening is more fluidly animated than the show and is almost nonstop action.
• Adaptational Attractiveness:
  • Most robot designs skew towards a teenage look rather than the Tezuka-friendly youngsters of the game, with Reploids like X and Vile resemble grown adults.
• Adaptational Badass:
  • Roll was originally a mere house robot, but here, she can fight foes off on her own; sometimes with just her cleaning tools. Retroactively subverted however, as after this series aired Capcom started making games not only where you played as Roll, but had her holding her own with the likes of Zero, Ryu, Spider-Man, and Tekkaman Blade.
  • Pharoah Man and Crystal Man have their powers taken away, but they still attempt to fight. Downplayed because Mega Man still manages to defeat them.
  • Ice Man ends up being one of the most vicious Robot Masters thanks to creative use of his ice powers and clever tactics. He manages to defeat Rush, almost defeat Mega Man in a one-on-one fight, and almost takes over Wily's gang with an army of ice bots he has Dr. Light build for him. He even manages to survive until the last two minutes of the episode, outdoing several other Robot Masters in that regard.
• Adaptational Heroism: A Metool (an enemy from the games) was in the first episode as Roll's partner (though he may have been a prototype for this version of Eddie). There was also a heroic Pipi enemy in the episode "Ice Age."
• Adaptational Personality Change: Mega Man X is a lot more ruthless and destructive than his original counterpart. He has a top priority of stopping Vile and Spark Mandrill, no matter the cost. In the games, X is more of a pacifist, and gains the resolve to fight, in order to protect humanity.
• Adaptational Villainy: Although Proto Man first appears in the games working for Wily, he has a Heel–Face Turn and becomes a frequent ally to Mega Man, if still aloof at times. In the series he is a straight up villain with little to no redeeming qualities and an obsession with defeating Mega Man himself. Essentially with his new persona, the character's playing Bass, a character who wouldn't appear in the games until near the very end of the show's run.
• Adaptational Wimp: The Robot Masters themselves, with the exception of Proto Man, are all basically glorified Mooks with names. Even those who were notoriously difficult in the games are all able to be easily defeated, often with a single shot.
• Adapted Out:
  • Some Robot Masters never made an appearance in the cartoon. Mega Man and Mega Man 3 are the only two games to have every Robot Master from it make at least one appearance on the cartoon. No Robot Masters from Mega Man 6 appear at all, despite the fact that Mega Man 6 was released a year prior.
  • Despite featuring Robot Masters from Mega Man 4, who were all created by Dr. Cossack, neither him nor his daughter Kalinka appear in the show.
• Adorable Evil Minions: The Battontons, and the Pipis in the opening.
• Affectionate Nickname:
  • All of Mega Man's friends and family affectionately call him Mega. Dr. Wily even calls him Mega when he is under his control.
  • Proto Man calls Mega Man 'little bro', both when he is being sarcastic or praising his brother.
• Age Lift: The "man" in "Mega Man" can be more emphesized due to his look in the cartoon. In fact, he and Roll can technically be regarded as teens or even young adults compared to their original childlike designs in the games.
• Agony Beam: Wily uses one in "20,000 Leaks Under The Sea" to incapacitate Roll, Rush, and, oddly, Dr. Light.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: One of the many reasons for the fallout between Dr. Light and Dr. Wily was because Dr. Light thought this trope was in effect after their prototype humanoid robot malfunctioned. He ordered all of the plans to be destroyed and to start over. Wily didn't take that well.
• All a Part of the Job: When complimented for his good work, Mega Man will sometimes say it was part of his programming.
• All Is Well That Ends Well: Despite all the crap Wily and to a lesser extent Proto Man puts Mega Man through, he never takes it personally. Roll is a different story and refuses to see Proto Man as her brother.
• All Myths Are True: The legend of Lotos is right on the money.
• All Your Powers Combined: In "Cold Steel" Mega Man uses Gyro Man and Spark Man's powers at the same time, allowing him to fly and shoot electricity.
• Alternate DVD Commentary: Diabetus of Retsupurae did a great MSTing of the Bizarro Episode "Curse of the Lion Men."
• Alternative Foreign Theme Song: The animated series has this German opening.
• American Kirby Is Hardcore: This Mega Man is a muscle-bound teen while his Classic self is a little boy. This also extends to Roll.
• Amplifier Artifact: Lightanium rods could convert small amounts of plasma into enough energy to power the entire city. Wily wanted to use them to power his Super Blaster gun.
• Amusement Park of Doom: Fun World in "Bad Day at Peril Park."
• Androids Are People, Too:
  • Mega Man and Roll are treated no differently from humans in the show.
  • Out of all the Robot Masters, Proto Man is the only robot Wily treats like a person.
• Animated Adaptation: Of the classic series.
• Animation Bump: The first and last episodes had very good animation, as did some scenes in other episodes; even "Night of the Living Monster Bots" had good use of light and shadow.
• Animesque: The series was co-animated by a Japanese company and thus, has moments of this.
  • Some of the Wild Takes the characters (mostly the Robot Masters) sometimes do◊.
  • Sometimes the characters' eyes, particularly Roll's, take on an anime look.
  • In "Crime of the Century", the rich women at the party look very animesque.
  • More than one publication has even mistaken the show for an anime. This included the PlayStation 2 version of Mega Man Anniversary Collection and the Fox Family Channel, which aired the show as part of their "Anime Hour" block.
• Annoying Younger Sibling:
  • Mega sees Roll as this at times since she wants to help him fight Wily's robots despite not being redesigned to be a warrior.
  • Proto Man sees Mega Man as this most of the time; defeating him in battle, stopping Wily's plan, and just being a plain goody-two-shoes.
• Arm Cannon: Mega Man and Proto Man's weapon of choice, just like the game. Roll also has one in her left arm, fashioned from a toaster, of all things.
• Artistic Age: Mega Man looks 21 and (for the most part) acts like it, but a good deal of promotional material gives the impression that he's a teenager. And all of that despite the fact he's a robot who was built, at most, a handful years before the series starts.
• Ascended Extra:
  • Dark Man, the robot posing as Proto Man in 5, gets two major parts in two episodes, a pretty cool voice, an awesome power, and he's even competent to boot!
  • Snake Man was pretty much the fourth member of Wily's personal Robot Master team, considering how many episodes and how much screen time he had. He would also alternate this role with Bomb Man and Bright Man, depending on the episode.
• Ascended Fanboy:
  • The Karate Bot from "Campus Commandos" admires Mega Man and wants to be a fighter like him. Despite hindering Mega at times, he manages to take down Cut Man.
  • Annie from "Future Shock" is a human, female example. She has admired Mega Man her entire life, reading his comics. She helps rescue Mega Mega.
• Auction of Evil: "The Incredible Shrinking Mega Man" had Dr. Wily shrink entire American cities - specifically, New York, Washington, and Chicago - and then encase them in glass before auctioning them off to the highest bidder. One scene of the Robot Masters driving around in their van also had Guts Man mention that Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Los Angeles were next on the list.
• Authority Equals Asskicking: Proto Man is second only to Wily and he is by far the strongest and most competent robot in Wily's army.
• Ax-Crazy: Both Proto Man and Wily show signs of this. Wily comes off as mentally unhinged to the point of breaking out into wild laughter and enjoy causing pain a little too much. Several people call him insane, which he takes as a compliment. Proto Man isn't as unstable as Wily, but he does enjoy fighting and smiles when causing massive amounts of property damage.
• Back to School: Roll attends Light's robot college; Mega's there too, but just to keep an eye on things if Wily's around.
• Bad "Bad Acting": Seen on two separate occasions when Mega and Roll try to fool Wily.
• Bad Future:
  • The one in "Future Shock", in which Wily has nearly taken over the entire world in the span of thirty or so years.
  • X's appearance implies that the future of the Mega Man X and Mega Man Zero games will comes to pass, meaning the world is in for quite a bit of fighting until things settle down for a bit with Mega Man ZX.
• Badass Cape:
  • Pharaoh Man sports one.
  • In the one VHS cover that Proto Man is on, his scarf looks more like one of these.
• Badass in Distress: Mega Man's been captured more than once, but breaks himself out every time.
• Batman Gambit: Ice Man and Air Man spent the bulk of "Ice Age" arguing over who will be Wily's Number Two. The good guys use this to their advantage by making Ice Man think Wily is favoring Air Man and would replace him, leading to him rebelling and stalling Wily long enough for Mega Man to take them all down.
• Battle Cry: Mega Man often yells out "Plasma Power!" at the start of a fight.
• Beach Episode: "Curse of the Lion Men" had the heroes on vacation in Hawaii. Several fanservicey girls were seen, both in human and lioness forms. And guys too, showing off their muscles.
• Become a Real Boy: The plot of "Mega-Pinocchio," where an eccentric scientist named Dr. Petto offers to turn Mega into a human, which Mega for some reason wants to become. Unsurprisingly, Petto is actually a robot created by Wily, and instead of turning Mega human, he instead implants a mind-controlling device to make Mega do his bidding.
• Berserk Button: Don't give Roll a bad facial or haircut. She will destroy you.
• Beware the Nice Ones:
  • Mega Man qualifies as this. He is polite, kind to everyone he meets, and is always willing to help, but he's merciless towards Wily's robots. He blows them up and destroys them in some times amusing ways. One time Guts Man kicked Rush into the ocean, so Mega shot him about 6 times in a row. Normally in the show it only takes 1 or 2 shots to down a Robot Master.
  • Roll is this too. She is sweet and kind, although a little temperamental. She is also just as merciless as her brother when it comes to fighting Wily, especially when she finds out that Top Man was just using her and pretended to like her.
• Big Applesauce: Where most of the action take place.
• Big Brother Bully: Proto Man. He lives to destroy his baby brother.
• Big Brother Instinct:
  • Proto Man can also be this at times. He occasionally helps Mega during his battles, unintentionally or not.
  • Mega Man is this towards his sister Roll to the point that in the pilot episode he is crushed by a monorail train protecting her. In the same episode he tells a lie, something that robots are supposedly incapable of doing, to save Roll from being reprogrammed.
• Big Dam Plot: Wily used this in "Mega X", with assistance from Vile and Spark Mandrill, to flood a plasma plant.
• Big Entrance: Pharaoh Man can open a double door like no other.
• The Big Guy: X is about a foot taller than Mega—and almost every other character in that episode, for that matter.
• Bittersweet Ending: The ending of "Bro Bots". Wily's plan is foiled and everyone is saved, but Proto Man was faking his Heel–Face Turn. He left to rejoin Wily, leaving Mega alone.
• Blood Knight: Proto Man, so very much. He loves fighting Mega Mega and proving who's the strongest bot. Helps that he might be insane.
• Blow You Away: Air Man did this, as did Roll's various Utility Arm fans.
• Bond Villain Stupidity:
  • Dr. Wily had his moments. One that comes to mind was in "20,000 Leaks Under the Sea". After pulling off a clever plan, he managed to trap our heroes in a fake laboratory building that was in fact an enormous robot which then took them underwater. We later find out that he had a self-destruct for the building that he could've just used right at the start and kill them all before they even realized anything was wrong. Instead, he trapped them in an Agony Beam while gloating about his plan, eventually leaving them to their fate, enabling them to make their escape. Not only that, but he apparently left some tools behind that Dr. Light was able to use to help them escape.
  • Despite Wily and his robots being somewhat savvy, they missed several opportunities to outright kill Mega Man. In "Campus Commandos" the Robot Masters had Mega Man at their mercy, twice. The first time they locked him in a closet and the second time they tied him to gears in a clock and left him alone. In "Brain Bot" they handcuffed Mega Man to the floor and was going to crush him, but they again left him alone instead of staying to make sure he died. In "Showdown at Red Gulch" they had Mega Man completely at their mercy after they knocked him out, but instead of finishing him they tied him to a horse and sent him off into the desert. "Curse of The Lion Men" sees them trap Mega Man in a blast-proof net, before taking him to a cannery some distance away and placing him on the belt leading to the meat grinder, then just leaving the scene, giving him plenty of time to find a way out of the net.
• Bowdlerization: Certain broadcasts of the series would edit out instances of "'bot" being used in place of "butt" (i.e. "'bot-heads", "kick some 'bot", etc.), replacing them with silence instead.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Happens quite a few times across the series to both humans and robots. To give perspective, all the main characters (including the villains) have been brainwash at least once.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Proto Man seems to do this in "Bot Transfer" where he asks the audience:
  Proto Man: Boy, what's the world coming to when you can't trust your own brother?
• Brief Accent Imitation:
  • Mega does this while under Wily's control in "Mega-Pinocchio". He takes on Wily's German accent.
  • In a meta example, Proto Man's disguise in "Bot Transfer" sounds like he's doing his best impersonation of Dr. Wily. They both had the same voice actor.
• Brother–Sister Incest: Sounds like it in the pilot. Rarely again, however.
  Mega Man: She's pretty!
  Dr. Light: Yes. (quickly) And you can think of her as your sister.
• Brother–Sister Team: Mega Man and Roll, who often work together to take down Wily's robots.
• The Brute: Guts Man, Hard Man, and Spark Mandrill. They are more known for their muscle then their brain power. Although, Spark Mandrill isn't stupid like Guts and Hard Man.
• Bumbling Henchmen Duo: Guts Man and Cut Man appear in every episode as two of Wily's main henchmen and have a less-than-stellar win record, with Guts Man being Dumb Muscle and Cut Man being not that powerful.
• The Butler Did It: Played straight in "Electric Nightmare". When Mega Man is busy cleaning up after a battle with Dr. Wily, the Butler robot welds the door shut, puts a hole in it and sends a pump full of acid into the bathroom and floods it with acid in an attempt to kill him. Even Mega Man himself lampshades this. The maid and the nanny were also trying to sabotage him in the same episode. The butler, maid, and nanny were under Dr. Wily's influence.
  Mega Man: If you ask me, I think the butler did it.
• Butt-Monkey: Cut Man, considering he's almost always the first one to be defeated, or to take the most pain in the episode. It's taken to ridiculous heights here! You really feel sorry for the guy.
• By the Lights of Their Eyes: Cut Man, Guts Man, and Proto Man as hooded figures in "Mega Dreams" (in Proto Man's case, it's the reflection of his sunglasses).
• Cain and Abel: Proto Man and Mega Man, with Proto Man always trying to kill Mega Man. Proto's only "Cain" half of the time.
• Calling Your Attacks: Mega Man tends to shout "Plasma Power!" when activating his Mega Buster to beat down some robot masters.
• Cannot Tell a Lie: Dr. Wily thinks this about robots in the first episode, but Rock proves him wrong to show their human side. In other episodes, Roll's capable of lying as well.
• Canon Foreigner: The humans besides Light and Wily, and the cartoon-exclusive robots. The Lion Men and Lotos the Genie, too.
• Canon Immigrant: Fake Man, the police robot from 9, is pretty clearly based off of the cartoon police-bots.
• Captain Obvious:
  • Wood Man's infamous line about Mega Man not liking them as he shoots at them. Proto lampshades that Wily didn't give him too much intelligence.
  • Dr. Light has plenty of these moments as well, like him slowly realizing that the bathroom door shouldn't be bar locked.
• Capture and Replicate: In the episode "Bro Bots", Dr. Wily's latest scheme is to kidnap the newly-elected Governor on election night, and replace him with a robotic duplicate. Mega Man, despite having been incapacitated earlier, manages to stop him and save the Governor-Elect.
• Captured on Purpose: In "Future Shock", Mega Man decides the best way to get to the imprisoned Dr. Light and Roll is to get himself arrested so he can break out from inside the prison.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Wily becomes this, ironically having plans that are somewhat more original than the games. Somewhat.
• Cat Fight: In "Electric Nightmare", when Roll is fighting with the cosmetics bot, there's a quick cut to Mega Man, staring with an... interested look on his face.
• Cat Folk: The Lion Men.
• Cat Smile: Proto Man makes one in "The Beginning."
• Catchphrase:
  • Mega's "Sizzling circuits!"
  • Cut Man had "I'll cut you down to size" and "I'm on the cutting edge". Another semi-common one, "I'm going to make paper dolls out of you."
• Cats Are Mean: The Lion Men. Humanoid lions that can turn humans into lion slaves. Their goal is to take over the world, naturally.
• Chained to a Railway: Happened to Mega on at least two occasions, though he was electrified to it rather than tied.
• Chekhov's Gunman: The giant squid in "20,000 Leaks Under the Sea". Mega Man helped it earlier in the episode and the squid returns the favor by peeling off the metal that was trapping Mega Man and the others in the lab.
• The Chessmaster:
  • Wily took this role in "The Big Shake" thanks to a microtransmitter; Dr. Light noted how he was always one step ahead of them.
  • He takes this role again in "Mega X", coming up with the plan to flood the plasma plant and have the Mavericks do the work, and getting to use the lightanium rods before Vile and Spark Mandrill try to bring them to the future.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Expect any Enemy Mine situation to have Wily betraying the heroes or even his own allies. This gets turned against him when he tries to use the Lion Men to take over the world.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Mega Man can't resist saving people, even if it means letting Wily get away, something Wily regularly takes advantage of. Guess it's that strong sense of justice.
• Co-Dragons:
  • When Tar of the Lion Men takes over, Wily and Light briefly becomes his dragons after he turned them into Lion Men.
  • When under Wily's control in "Mega-Pinocchio" Mega Man becomes his dragon alongside Proto Man.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: Is there any other reason why Wily was going to reprogram Rock and Roll without even bothering to shut them down first.
• Colony Drop: One of Wily's ingenious schemes involved using a contraption to pull the moon out of orbit and bring the Moon close enough to the Earth that the resulting gravitational shift would send the Earth's climate into chaos. The human race would still be wiped out, save for maybe a few survivors — who, Wily hoped, would submit to his power after that. Even his Robot Masters thinks this plan is crazy.
• Combat Pragmatist: Neither side was above throwing in punches, kicks, sneak attacks or an Improvised Weapon or two, but this was mostly Proto Man's specialty:
  • Near the end of "Terror of the Seven Seas"; he and Mega engage in what's supposed to be a straight fistfight. Once it's apparent that he's going to lose, he changes his mind about not using his arm cannon and shoots Mega. All this earns him is a running punch to the head.
  • In "Robo-Spider", he attacks from below, uses Guts Man as a shield, and damages Mega's blaster while he's off-guard.
  • In "Campus Commandos", he shoots Mega's Arm Cannon while he was distracted, breaking it for about half the episode.
• Conqueror from the Future: Vile and Spark Mandrill, though they weren't around to stay, instead intending to obtain a valuable resource from the past and take it back to Sigma. Destroying that era's protectors was just a bonus.
• Continuity Nod:
  • During an Enemy Mine situation, Wily comments on how nice it is that he and Dr. Light are working together again. This happened in both the games' backstory and the first episode of the show.
  • Mega fails to break open the bathroom door in "Electric Nightmare" and the gigantic Robo-Spider in "Robo-Spider". Both are explicitly stated to be constructed out of titanium.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: In "Electric Nightmare", Roll is strapped to a chair and receives... a bad facial.
• Cool Little Sis: Roll definitely qualifies for this.
• Cool Old Guy: Played straight with Dr. Light, but averted with Dr. Wily.
• Cool Shades: Proto Man wears these. They're also the preferred method of stopping Bright Man's attacks.
• Creepy Crossdresser: Ice Man in the opening of "Ice Age".
• Creepy Monotone:
  • Proto Man engages in this in "Curse of the Lion Men" when Tar reprograms him and the other robots.
  • Mega Man also became like this when under Wily's control, when he was not engaging in Brief Accent Imitation.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Almost all the Robot Masters become helpless once their weapon is disabled since they have nothing else to fall back on. Mega Man avoids some of this by having Karate techniques handle when his blaster is disabled.
• Cultural Translation:
  • Generally what people tend to think about this series. As this show was mostly a western production, the character designers would go with the style what was the it thing in other western cartoons of its time: muscles. This had the side effect of making Mega Man/Rock and his "sister" Roll look more like teenagers, as opposed to their child-esque appearances in the games. Other than that, most of the characters resembled their video game counterparts, only on 'roids, with the exception being a completely redesigned Roll.
  • The action was also firmly grounded in the United States (most of the time), with one episode featuring Mega Man taking a plasma shot from Proto Man to protect the statue of President Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial.
  • In another episode, Wily proclaims that New York City is his, presumably talking about "the city" that most episodes take place in.
• Cursed with Awesome: The Lion Men's curse nearly led to them taking over the world with the ability to change others into lions.
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: It's mentioned sometimes that Wily (and Sigma, in the Mega Man X crossover episode) needs funding to continue his evil schemes. So naturally he sends the robots out to steal stuff.
• Cute Bruiser: Roll is an attractive teen and can dish out pain with her utility Arm and other attachments.
• Cute Machines: Doc the Met and the Pipi are adorable robots that help the heroes.
• Damsel in Distress: Fittingly, B-movie star Evelyn Ray.
• Damsel out of Distress: Roll gets captured a couple times, but escapes on her own more than once. When unable to escape, she usually manages to make trouble for her captors—and she's an Action Girl in combat.
• Dark Action Girl: A cosmetics robot, Doris the maid, Ms. Lapierre, and a brainwashed Evelyn Ray have all fought Mega Man and Roll at points. The park attendant from Fun World was also evil, but she didn't fight.
• Daydream Surprise: "Electric Nightmare" opens with Wily attacking a power plant, Mega Man coming to stop him, and Wily seemingly destroying Mega. It turns out that this is just a "game" Wily and his bots are playing to prepare for the real attack.
• Deadline News: Newswoman Bree Ricotta, on the scene of Wily's attacks in three separate episodes.
• Deadpan Snarker:
  • Proto Man is a Deadpan Snarker by nature. He has no problem mocking Wily, his allies, and Mega Man.
  • Mega Man himself can become like this when dealing with the more stupid Robot Masters.
• Death Trap:
  • "Campus Commandos" has Mega, Roll and Rush tied to clock tower gears to be crushed between them.
  • In "Brain Bots", Wily places Mega Man in a Death Trap consisting of a Descending Ceiling with spikes. Mega was bound to the floor as it descended.
  • Another episode has Mega's legs trapped as a rocket is wheeled over him, the point being to fry him when the rocket lifts off.
• Defiant Captive: Even when captured, Roll tries to cause trouble for Wily and Proto Man.
• Defied Trope: Tar of the Lion Men avoids an Evil Versus Evil scenario by frisking Wily for his reprogramming device and brainwashing the Robot Masters, Roll, and Proto Man with it.
• Demoted to Extra:
  • Crash Man had only seven seconds of screen time.
  • While some got their own episodes, many of the Robot Masters were little more than cannon fodder throughout the show.
• Designated Girl Fight: "Electric Nightmare" had Roll attacked by a female cosmetics robot who gave her a bad facial. Mega Man gave the robot an equally bad facial with a tube of makeup, and offered to fight her, but Roll insisted she handle it.
• Destructive Saviour: Mega Man X. His idea of keeping Vile and Spark Mandrill from stealing the Lightanium rods is to fire on them, nearly destroying the entire plant. Mega Man is more than a little horrified.
• Determinator:
  • Even if he's hurt, out-numbered, shrunken, or had his body stolen, Mega Man won't stopped fighting until he has stopped Wily.
  • Pharaoh Man, who, after having his power stolen by Mega Man, responds by punching his opponent in the face and continuing to fight him.
• Disability Immunity: Mary, a hearing-impaired girl, is immune to Wily's mind-control music.
• Disability Superpower: Mary's reading of Dr. Light's lips told Roll and Rush where Wily's base was. And made sense of Rush's yammering for her to tell Roll that Mega Man was hurt and at the bottom of the sea.
• Disney Death: Mega Man goes through this twice. His first encounter with the trope was when he was overloaded and melted down in Electric Nightmare, but our hero shows up unharmed the next day at a science fair. The second was in Campus Commandos when Top Man sent Mega Man flying, but Doctor Light brought the Blue Bomber back to life.
  • Elec Man was killed in the pilot, but comes back in future episodes alive and well.
• Disproportionate Retribution: In "Electric Nightmare", Roll was attacked by a female cosmetics robot that strapped her to a chair and gave her a bad facial. Mega Man's response was to throw a tube of makeup at the robot, giving her an equally bad facial. Roll's response when freed was to cut her in half, then vacuum her face off.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: So this cosmetics bot is under Dr. Wily's control, and straps Roll to a chair. Roll tells the robot to let her go, but Wily gives her a creepy look and goes "Not before I give you the beauty treatment!" Then the robot produces an oversized powderpuff from her chest area (really) and tries to smush it in Roll's face. Roll acts like this is the worst thing in the world that could happen to her.
• Don't Make Me Destroy You: Proto Man some times goes into this trope when he's trying to convince Mega Man to join Wily.
• Door Judo: Mega Man pulls this off in "Terror of the Seven Seas" with a pursuing Guts Man. While running down a hallway, he sets it up by closing several doors in Guts Man's face before opening the final door that leads to a maintenance shaft.
• Double Entendre: Proto Man, in response to a lame pun on electricity:
  Proto Man: Yeah. Whatever turns you on, Doc.
• Dragon-in-Chief: Wily is a threat given how intelligent he is, but he wouldn't be half as successful without Proto Man who has more common sense and keeps the other Robot Masters in line. He is also the only robot Wily has that can match Mega Man.
• Dramatic Irony: Proto Man and Wily reveal the former's faking being good about three minutes into "Bro Bots", but Mega and company don't find out until much later.
• Dreaming of Times Gone By: What happens to Mega Man in the pilot episode after he is critically hurt fighting Wily's robots.
• Dream Sequence: The flashback in the very first episode appears to be this rather than Dr. Light's actual first-hand account of the past, as he thinks Mega Man's electrical brain must be shorting in and out...otherwise, how did either of them know about the parts they weren't there for?
• Dream Weaver: The basic principle of behind Wily's dream machine in "Mega Dreams". It lets Wily's robots appear in the dreams of important people (such as the mayor or police chief), which turns them into sleepwalkers who obey his commands. His plan in the episode is to send the machine into space, where he'd be able to control the dreams of anyone on Earth. Dr. Light also builds one of his own, and Mega Man manages to defeat the robots in the astronauts' dreams before commanding them to destroy Wily's machine.
• Drill Tank: Dr. Wily used one to help create earthquakes in the episode "The Big Shake".
• Driven by Envy: Like his game counterpart, this is one of the many reasons why Wily wants to take over the world. He wants to prove that he is better than Dr. Light.
• Driven to Villainy: Wily, at least in the pilot episode, believes this about himself. Really, it is just a flimsy excuse.
• Dumb Muscle: Guts Man, who is so incompetent in battle against Mega Man that one of the few times he is able to actually hit Mega could be considered an accomplishment.
• Dynamic Entry: Mega Man and Wily's robots loved to make their presence known by breaking windows, knocking down walls, or bursting the door opened.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The pilot has a Metool (named "Doc") as Roll's helper and Proto Man copying Guts Man's power, neither of which happened again. It also has the ambiguity surrounding the prototype robot who may or may not have become Proto Man. Also for one short scene, Proto Man's plasma is red as he melts the wall of Light's lab.
• Earthquake Machine: Wily used one in "The Big Shake".
• Easily Forgiven: Everyone (save for Mega Man) embraced Proto Man when they thought he turned against Wily despite everything he has done.
• Eating Machine:
  • Mega Man and Roll have been seen eating robot food. They even went to a restaurant and ordered the specialized food off the menu. Although, Eating Optional for them.
  • Rush eats energy dog biscuits to recharged his energy.
• Effortless Amazonian Lift: Roll carries Dr. Light and the governor this way in "Bro Bots", one in each arm.
• Einstein Hair: Wily, just like his game counterpart.
• Elite Mooks: Dark Man was pretty competent for a regular Robot Master, as was Pharaoh Man.
• Energy Absorption: What the webs on Wily's mecha spider does in "Robot Spider".
• Emergency Energy Tank: How Mega Man re-powers himself when he is low on energy or hurt. These tanks are always carried by Eddie.
• Emergency Temporal Shift: The plot of "Future Shock" is kicked off by Mega Man attempting to save Dr. Light from an attack by Dr. Wily in this method using Dr. Light's experimental time machine. When the machine returned without him, Mega Man believed he trapped Dr. Light in the future and set off with Rush to find him, unaware Dr. Light had just been blown out of the machine just before it left.
• Enemy Mine: "The Strange Island of Dr. Wily" had Wily and the heroes call a truce to escape Stone Bots.
• Escort Mission: Mega Man and Roll had to escort Brain Bot to California. Wily gets in the way and tries to steal Brain Bot.
• Establishing Character Moment: This exchange in the first episode.
  Dr. Wily: You remember, I built you, Proto Man! And you will obey me...
  Proto Man: You're right, Dr. Wily. I'll obey you—when I want to.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Quick Man, Shadow Man and Dark Man are shocked when Wily intends to pull the moon out of orbit, resulting in major natural disasters. Even Proto Man thinks this is going a bit too far. Too bad they're programmed to do his bidding regardless of the consequences.
• "Everybody Laughs" Ending: Most episodes ends with Rush doing something silly a la Scooby-Doo and the good guys, well, laughing.
• Everyone Loves Blondes: Top Man for Roll, or so she thinks until he reveals that he was using her the whole time.
• Everything Is Online: Seen in "Electric Nightmare", even with things that weren't electronic at all.
• Evil Counterpart:
  • Proto Man to Mega Man. They are both built from the same plans and are the most powerful robots in the world with the ability to copy other Robot Masters' powers. While Mega Man fights for the common good and justice, Proto Man is an Ax-Crazy Blood Knight, who takes delight causing pain and chaos.
  • Dr. Wily to Dr. Light. They are brilliance scientists who have mastered robotics and other fields of studies. Dr. Light uses his brilliance to help others, uplift mankind, and treats his robots like his children. Wily, on the other hand, wants to conquer the world, uses his talents to terrorized mankind, and treats his robots, except Proto Man, like tools.
• Evil-Detecting Dog: Occasionally, Rush's ears would hear the villains up to no good. He can also sniff out evil and bombs.
• Evil Feels Good:
  • What Proto Man firmly believes and tries to get Mega Man to feel the same.
  • Wily might as well believe this too since he thinks near the end of "Mega-Pinocchio" that Mega Man willingly turns on his family because the power of evil is stronger than good.
• Evil Former Friend: Wily and Dr. Light were friends and colleagues before Wily's envy (along with many, many other issues) got the best of him.
• Evil Gloating: Wily cannot stop himself from gloating when he thinks he's ahead.
• Evil Is Hammy: Wily loves to ham it up, especially when things are going according to plan.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: Wily thought he could use Tar to help him conquer the world. He is proven wrong.
• Evil Laugh: Although this is a general trait of practically every version of Dr. Wily, the laugh possessed by this incarnation is notably awesome thanks to the vocal talents of Scott McNeil.
• Evil Plan: Wily has one an episode, though the big one is destroying Mega Man.
• Evil Versus Evil: Tar avoids this scenario in "Curse of the Lion Men" by brainwashing Wily's robots, even to his own Robot Masters.
• Expository Theme Tune: Super fighting robot!/Mega Man!/Super fighting robot!/Mega Man!
• Expy:
  • The cop bots in "Future Shock" seem to be based off of Sniper Joes, and a different kind seem based off of Dark Man.
  • Rush is obviously based off of Scooby-Doo in this incarnation. Although, according to this article, Rush was supposed to be as different from him as possible, but he still wound up that way.
• Eye Beams: The Lion Men used these to turn humans into lions.
• Eye Catch: In the syndicated run before and after commercial breaks, with one of the characters announcing something to the effect of "Mega Man will be right back after these messages" or "And now back to Mega Man!" Images used during these bumps include Mega Man in a dynamic action pose, Roll throwing a mean karate kick, and Roll giving Rush a Battery Biscuit while Mega watches in amusement.
• Fake-Out Opening: In the beginning of the episode "Electric Nightmare", Mega Man is battling Wily's robots and winning. Then electrical cables get wrapped around him and fry him. Mega Man dead. Or not; in an interesting variation of the trope, it was Wily doing a runthrough of his latest scheme with action figures.
• Family-Friendly Firearms:
  • Zig-Zagged depending on the episode. At the very least, the guns looked realistic.
  • "Robo-Spider" averts this when the police use guns with bullets against the Robo-Spider, which fail to even dent it.
• Family-Unfriendly Violence:
  • Since the characters are mostly robots, the writers/animators can get away with dismembering or otherwise mutilating them.
  • In "Crime of the Century", Proto Man fires into a room of humans, who don't move or get up afterward.
• Fauxshadowing: In "Master of Disaster", Professor Ramuh comments how in the legend, Lotos was banished by tricking the rajah into wishing he'd never found the golden chest. Mega apparently plans to try the same thing on Wily, but ends up just defeating Lotos.
• Finagle's Law: "Bot Transfer" is a Murphy's Law episode for both sides; everything goes wrong for both Wily and Mega Man.
• First-Episode Resurrection: In the first episode, Mega Man is crushed by a train and is heavily damaged to the point of death.
• Flash Step: Quick Man's specialty. He's the fastest robot in the series. It's ashamed he's too dumb to use his great speed effectively, unlike all his other counterparts.
• For the Evulz: Wily's motivation seems to be this:
  • The pilot episode plays with this a bit. During the flashback, Wily appears to be bitter that Dr. Light seemed to be blaming him for the failure of his robot prototype (which may or may not be an unfinished Proto Man) and believed that Light sabotaged his computer guidance system to take credit for all of the work. Later we see him completing Proto Man while spouting off a Humans Are Flawed Motive Rant complete with Freudian Excuse. All of this is dropped after this episode, however, and is never brought up again in the series. A later episode even shows that Wily had double-crossed Light as far back as when they were in college, so indeed For the Evulz seems to be the more likely motive here.
  • In "Bot Transfer" he goes out of his way to antagonize Mega Man when he could just steal the money he wants from banks while Mega Man's in Geneva.
• Fragile Speedster: Quick Man. He goes down in just a couple of hits, if you can hit him.
• "Freaky Friday" Flip: A villainous example in "Bot Transfer"; Wily's goons forces Mega Man to switch bodies with Snake Man, with an appropriate, panicked reaction from the former.
• Freudian Excuse: Subverted. In "The Beginning", Wily mentions having a hard childhood, not even having toys like the other kids—then goes right on to working on Proto Man, expounding on a different subject. The show never brings it up again, implying that Wily's bid to take over the world is simply For the Evulz.
• G-Rated Drug: The meteorite fragments at Red Gulch.
  Mega Man: It worked great for a while, but then I felt like I was gonna short-circuit...
• Gadgeteer Genius:
  • Roll did all her modifications to her Utility Arm herself. This includes, among other things, a vacuum, a circular saw, a blender, and a baking sensor that detects earthquakes.
  • Brain Bot makes a disguise device on the fly that was so effective that it fooled Dr. Wily.
• Gainax Ending: The ending of "Night of the Living Monster Bots" implies that the entire episode was one of Evelyn's movies.
• Genius Bruiser:
  • Mega Man is not only powerful, but he is extremely clever. He uses everything to his advantage to take down Wily's robots, including outright lying to them. He is also seen working computers or devices giving to him by Dr. Light.
  • Proto Man is equally as strong and as smart as Mega Man on top of being a Combat Pragmatist. He has taking Mega Man out several time when he's distracted.
• Genius Ditz:
  • Dr. Light has his moments, such as when he wonders aloud "why anyone would bar the outside of a bathroom door" before realizing something bad is brewing. He also stands there as Dr. Wily welded a door shut, and once he left, trying to punch his way out.
  • One-shot character Brain Bot counts as well; he tampers with everything tamperable, oblivious as to whether or not it actually needs to be "fixed" (such as the jet). Despite this, he created some useful inventions.
• Genre Blindness: Most robot masters don't realize that they can still fight after having their main weapon stolen. Famously averted with Pharaoh Man though.
• Get into Jail Free: Mega Man decided the best way to get to Dr. Light and Roll in the Wily-run future was to get himself arrested, so he hit a copbot over the head with a lamppost. It worked.
• Giant Spider: The titular "Robo-Spider". Its webs could drain electricity from the city, and Mega Man could copy the webs' power like a Robot Master.
• Giant Squid: Seen in "20,000 Leaks Under the Sea."
• Glass Cannon: Elec Man. He can floor Mega Man with one hit, but so can Mega. And Roll.
• Gone to the Future: Mega Man in "Future Shock". He think Dr. Light is lost in time after trying to save his life by pushing him into the time machine and sending him into the future by a minute. He goes into the time machine to search for him. In truth, Dr. Light is thrown from the machine before Mega Man sent the time machine into the future.
• Good Is Not Soft: Mega Man has no problem blowing robots (including his own brother) away like there's no tomorrow. He has also directly threatened Wily more than once, going as far as to shoot at his feet one time.
• Gratuitous Japanese: The Bubble Bats are referred to as "Battontons", their original name—which is admittedly less ridiculous.
• Hairstyle Malfunction: Happened to a one-off crook in "The Incredible Shrinking Mega Man". Her wig gets sucked into Roll's vacuum.
• Handbag of Hurt: In "The Incredible Shrinking Mega Man", Ms. Lapierre swats at a shrunken Mega Man with her purse.
• Hartman Hips: Depending on how small their waists are drawn, Mega Man, Roll, and Proto Man.
• Having a Blast: Bomb Man's power, naturally. He can create endless bombs from seemingly nowhere.
• Hero Insurance: Mega Man tries to keep damages down when he is fighting the Robot Masters. Unfortunately, when you are fighting an army of super-powered robots, things will get destroyed.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Mega Man and Dr. Light in "Mega-Pinocchio". After taking control of Mega Man's mind, Wily has him mess up a battle to make him look incompetent and make the public turn against Dr. Light. He then steals Light's other robots (except Roll and Eddie) and tries to take over Washington DC, all in Dr. Light's name.
• Heroic BSoD: Mega Man gets two during his time in the cartoon.
  • Mega loses it after switching bodies with Snake Man; he gets it together just long enough to distract the police chasing him.
  • He suffers a more protracted one in "Mega-Pinocchio". He feels so bad about messing up the battle against Wily that he begins to think that he's a mistake.
• Heroic Build: Mega Man and Proto Man both have this. Their armor is design to look like muscles.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • Non-fatal example; Rush let Mega borrow some of his energy to save the day in "Robo-Spider."
  • Mega Man himself has had his share, like him taking a plasma blast to protect the Lincoln Memorial.
  Proto Man: Ha! I knew you'd risk yourself to save Mr. Lincoln!
• Herr Doktor: Wily has a German-sounding accent.
• Hilarity Ensues: Some of the episodes delved into this, particularly "Electric Nightmare" and "Bot Transfer".
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • Wily and his robots stopped the Lion Men from being defeated by Mega Man... and were later mind controlled by them.
  • Mega Man will often defeat a robot master with his own weapon if he didn't do so before copying it.
• Hollywood Hacking: The episode "Electric Nightmare" has Wily hacking everything and making it attack the heroes. This even includes other robots.
• Hot Paint Job: Unlike in the games, Fire Man has a flame pattern on his blasters.
• Humongous Mecha: Wily's giant spider from the properly named "Robot Spider" episode.
• Hurricane of Puns: There isn't a minute in a battle scene where epic punnage isn't being dropped between the good and evil characters.
• I Can Still Fight!: Mega Man does this in "Bro Bots". Despite suffering from an unknown (to him) condition that shocks him, he still goes to protect everyone when he sees Wily's robots on the news.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Not said by words, but Roll invokes this trope when she is trying to get through to Mega Man, who is under the influence of Wily's mind-control chip. Mega Man doesn't really listens to her until Dr. Light interferes and interrupts Wily's control, allowing Roll's words to free him.
• I Surrender, Suckers: Pulled by Mega Man of all people when he was surrounded by Wily's robots. Although, it was more, "I'll join you....not!"
• An Ice Person: Ice Man, and one of Roll's weapons was a fan that fired ice.
• If I Do Not Return: In "Campus Commandos", Roll hopes Dr. Light will remember to recycle her should they not escape Wily's trap.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Most of Wily's Robot Masters are proud graduates. Mercilessly lampshaded by Mega Man, who always tell the Robot Masters that they can't aim.
• Implacable Man: Vile and Spark Mandrill are completely unstoppable until X arrives to even the odds—and even he has trouble with them.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Mega Man is often called a hot shot by both his foes and allies. He takes out Metal Man by ricocheting his blast through an air vent.
• Improbable Weapon User:
  • Roll uses household appliances both in and out of combat.
  • The cosmetics robot from "Electric Nightmare" used a hairdryer and oversized razor as weapons, as well as an oversized powderpuff.
  • In the same episode, Mega Man even manages to break the spy-bot into parts by twirling a broom.
• Improvised Weapon: Mega Man once uses a broom to take down a hostile robot. When his Arm Cannon is disabled, he throws dessert, tables, and anything else he can get his hands on.
• In Harm's Way: Proto Man isn't happy unless he's destroying things or fighting Mega Man.
• In Medias Res: The first episode, "The Beginning", explores Rock's origins and his conversion into Mega Man through flashbacks after being injured in battle, after which he recovers and defeats Wily.
• In-Series Nickname: Mega Man is often called "Mega" by his family and sometimes even his foes.
• Inconsistent Coloring: Evelyn Ray goes from light skin to darker skin and back in "Night of the Living Monster Bots."
• Incredible Shrinking Man: The episode imaginatively named "The Incredible Shrinking Mega Man." In it, Wily's world domination scheme of the week involves using jewel-powered shrinking rays to shrink cities (Hyperstone Heist, anyone?). As you would expect by looking at the title, Mega Man is a victim of the shrinking ray.
• Incredibly Obvious Bug: Averted in "The Big Shake". Wily's listening device makes no sound and is so tiny, Dr. Light only discovers it by accident when going over Mega Man's damage with a magnifying glass.
• Inescapable Net: Seen on occasion. Since Mega Man is a robot the nets are either metal or electrified, and one instance has him invoke this in order to get into where Dr. Light was being held prisoner.
  • Dark Man uses this for his weapon.
• Instant Waking Skills: Being robots, they don't suffer from drowsiness when awakened from 'sleep'.
• Insufferable Genius:
  • Brain Bot. A Running Gag in his episode is Team Wily shouting "Quiet!" at him.
  • Wily is a genius and will remind everyone that he is.
• Intrepid Reporter: Bree Ricotta is an antagonistic version in "Mega-Pinocchio".
• Invisibility Cloak: Mega Man's Stealth Suit, though sometimes it malfunctioned.
• Irony:
  • Mega Man is voiced by Ian James Corlett, who voiced Dr. Wily in Captain N: The Game Master.
  • In "Mega-Pinocchio", Roll spends the entirety of the episode wanting to fight Wily's bots. Instead, she has to fight a mental battle against her own brother.
• It's All About Me:
  • Wily wants to take over the world all to stroke his own ego.
  • Tar, leader of the Lion Men, insists on being the only one to rule the world.

J-R

• Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Played with in at least one episode. Mega Man interrogates Dr. Wily and holds his arm cannon up to the doctor's face, saying that it should help to jog his memory.
• Join or Die: Proto Man's policy when dealing with his baby brother.
• Jumped at the Call: Unlike his game counterpart, Dr. Light volunteered Rock to become Mega Man. Rock had no problem with that.
• Just a Machine:
  • Wily seems to hold this view of robots, except for Proto Man. He treats his robots like tools, rather than machines with feelings.
  • At the beginning of "Ice Age", the kids that Mega Man is tasked with supervising says that he can't help them, since all of his actions are pre-programmed (except they're not).
  • Mega Man, interestingly, seems to have this view of himself at times. When congratulated for his good work, he often brushes it off as something he was just program to do. And in "Mega-Pinocchio", he's confused about why he cared about a statue since he's only a robot.
• Just a Stupid Accent:
  • This incarnation of Dr. Wily has what sounds like a German accent, although it's never elaborated on where he's from.
  • Doris the robo-maid seemed to have a Russian accent.
• Karma Houdini: In "Bad Day At Peril Park", the corrupt park attendant is never found out as working for Wily, and she isn't defeated or punished.
• Kick the Dog:
  • Wily yelling at his own robots. Among other things, he's called them "nothing but heaps of useless chips!" And Proto Man was one of the 'bots he was yelling at.
  • In "Mega-Pinocchio", his plan was to con Mega into believing he was human so he could plant a chip in him, controlling his mind. However, rather than act on it right away, he spent time toying with Mega Man's mind and gives him existential crises before exerting full control. To make it worse, once he has exerted full control he has Mega Man reprogram all of Dr. Light's robots and has him nearly kill his own family by crushing them when they were trapped in the dumpster. Then, when she comes back to free her brother, Wily orders Mega Man to vaporize Roll.
  • Ice Man does this literally in "Ice Age", kicking Rush and breaking him into pieces. (Rush manages to fix his own body when he regains consciousness, however.)
  • Guts Man also kicks Rush away from him in "Bad Day at Peril Park" when he kidnaps Bobby.
  • And again in "Terror of the Seven Seas", this time getting a pummeling by Mega for his efforts.
  • In "Robo-Spider," Dr. Wily's Robo-Spider kicks both Mega Man and Rush into a building.
  • Rush went to pieces again in "Mega X". Mega, Roll and Rush head out to confront "two weird bots" - and run straight into a blast from Vile's shoulder cannon. Mega and Roll are perfectly fine, Rush is in many pieces and inoperative.
• Killed Off for Real: Hard Man is an implied example. Since we see his last moments exploding, and he doesn't pop up later, it is possible that Hard Man is dead. (This is unlikely, however, because a Robot Master needs just their Personality Chip to be able to be reborn.)
• Kill Sat: In "The Mega Man on the Moon," Wily hijacks a moon laser, points it at Earth, and starts making demands.
• Knight Templar: X shows little, if any regard to the collateral damage he causes while fighting Vile and Spark Mandrill, and he outright states that he doesn't care if he brings Vile back dead or alive.
• The Knights Who Say "Squee!": Mega Man and Roll are fans of movie actress Evelyn Ray; Roll even asks for an autograph.
• Large Ham:
  • Dr. Wily. Period. Especially when he's ranting to his robots, giving speeches, or just laughing.
  • The mayor of the city is one too, though to a lesser extent.
• Leitmotif: Rush's scenes are generally accompanied by a saxophone, to emphasize his comic relief nature.
• Lightning Bruiser: Appropriately, Elec Man.
  • Also Quick Man.
  • Mega Man himself is one.
• Like a Duck Takes to Water: The Lion Men grasp technology fairly well, despite thinking planes are giant silver birds.
• Literal Surveillance Bug: One of Wily's miniature robot spiders.
• Literally Shattered Lives: Wily threatens Light with this in "The Beginning", saying that if he tries anything, Ice Man would freeze him and Cut Man would slice him up. They demonstrate with a chemistry table.
• Lobotomy: What Wily's reprogrammed method looked like with Rock and Roll.
• Logical Weakness: Bright Man's Flash Stopper works by shining a bright light that overloads a robot's optic sensors. In "Robo-Spider", Mega Man blocked it by wearing sunglasses.
• Long-Range Fighter: Mega Man and most of the Robot Masters fight with blasters or weapons that can be shot long-range. Only Robot Masters like Guts Man and Hard Man specialize in close-range combat, although Mega Man does know karate moves when he's fighting in close quarters.
• Losing Your Head: At the beginning of "The Incredible Shrinking Mega Man", Mega says "don't lose your head" to a disassembled Roll.
• Ludicrous Gibs: This is how Hard Man meets his defeat in "Bad Day at Robosaur Park": Mega Man shoots Hard Man's mouth, causing the doomed Robot Master to burst violently. Didn't lock away the Hard Knuckle, though.
• MacGuffin: The black pearl from "Crime of the Century".
• Mad Scientist: Dr. Wily, of course. He created an army of Robot Masters and other inventions to help him take over the world.
• Made a Slave: What happens to any robot reprogrammed by Willy. They become his loyal servant, whether they like it or not.
• Made of Plasticine: Doris the robo-maid, who was torn to pieces by a wooden broom.
• Makeover Torment: "Electric Nightmare" had a corrupt cosmetics robot give Roll a bad facial, enraging her.
• Manchurian Agent: In "Mega-Pinocchio", Mega Man is himself as long as Wily gives him no commands though his mind helmet. As soon as Wily does, however, Mega Man would unquestionably obey any order. Mega Man seems to remember the order as an emotion or a part of his human thinking so he thinks nothing of it. Although, part of that is caused by how Wily phrases his commands: like telling Mega Man that he's feeling fear, making him drop bombs on a building, or him feeling pity toward Guts Man, letting him escape.
• Mass Hypnosis: Used in "Cold Steel" and "Bad Day At Peril Park", with Wily hypnotizing the masses to act as robots.
• Meaningful Name: Otto Raptor likes dinosaurs.
• The Medic: What Dr. Light is most of the time outside tech support. He repairs Mega Man whenever he's damaged, which happens a lot on the show.
• Merchandise-Driven: This series had a respectable amount of merchandising for a syndicated children's cartoon, such as a soundtrack album (featuring songs that were crammed into the end credits, but none of the score) and a potential deal with Marvel to adapt the cartoon into a comic (which fell through), but at the center of the merch was the toyline from Bandai. As a nod to his mimicry ability, the Mega Man figure's Mega Buster could be switched with other weapons. Bandai apparently had some creative input on the series, such as by having the producers introduce a vehicle for Mega (the Land Blazer) so they could make a toy out of it. But with sales below expectations, Bandai cancelled several toy lines and got fussy with Capcom, and as a result, Capcom canceled both the toyline and the series. Of the action figures, the Bomb Man figure is the rarest as it was pulled out of stores shortly after the Oklahoma City bombing. Due to its rarity, you can expect it to be very expensive if you find it anywhere.
• Mighty Glacier: Hard Man. Also Guts Man to a slightly lesser extent.
• Military Mashup Machine: Dr. Wily's initial goal in "Terror of the Seven Seas" was to steal enough ships, so that he could assemble them into one of these.
• Mind-Control Device:
  • Wily has a handheld reprogrammer that can also turn robots into his servants. This gets a Call-Back in a later episode when Tar of the Lion Men uses it to reprogram Proto Man, Roll, and the rest of Wily's robots to serve him.
  • The mind-control chip he plants on Mega Man along with the helmet he uses to give Mega Man commands. Dr. Light creates his own version of the mind helmet to help free Mega Man from Wily's control.
  • The control box Wily was using to brainwash humans with Cold Steel's music.
• Mind-Control Music: Used by Wily in "Cold Steel", the titular band being made up of Gemini Man, Gyro Man, and Spark Man.
• Mind Screw: The ending of "Night of the Living Monster Bots" implies that the entire episode was one of Evelyn's movies. There's also the possibility that the heroes recovered the battle footage Wily intended to release as a movie, and they released it instead.
  • Also, in Electric Nightmare, Mega Man is seemingly killed and Doctor Wily uses this as his chance to take over all electrical appliances. However, when Mega Man cheats death, Wily still has not started!
• Mister Muffykins:
  • Ms. Lapierre, a criminal affiliated with Wily, has a poodle named Fluffy.
  • A robo-poodle named Lady Silicon appears briefly in "Bad Day At Peril Park". Rush tries to impress her.
• The Mole: Doris the maid in "Electric Nightmare," Otto Raptor in "Robosaur Park", Top Man in "Campus Commandos", and Proto Man in "Bro Bots".
• Monster Mash: The whole point of "Night of the Living Monster-Bots". Dr. Wily creates a bunch of classic horror movie-inspired robots to terrorize the English countryside; a Mummy, a Werewolf, a Vampire, and a Frankenstein-esque monster.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • "Mega-Pinocchio", odd premise aside, was one of the most serious episodes of the show, involving Wily besmirching Dr. Light's name, Mega Man having existential crises, him nearly killing his own family twice, and an attack on the White House. It ends with Rush doing something silly.
  • "Bro Bots" ends likewise, though it could be argued that it was to cheer Mega (and the audience) up. In the episode, Mega Man is tortured by a scramble chip, used and betrayed by his own brother, his family and a top government official are nearly murdered, and Mega Man is forced to fight his treasonous brother, who returns to Wily's side.
• More Dakka: In "Terror of the Seven Seas", Wily uses every gun, missile launcher, and laser-shooting satellite dish on several battleships to try and destroy Mega. They all miss.
• Motherly Scientist: Well, more like Fatherly Scientist, but Dr. Light treats Mega Man and Roll like his children. In the pilot episode he outright calls Mega Man his son.
• Motor Mouth: Quick Man, who also sounds a little like a stereotypical 50's movie mobster.
• Multiarmed Multitasking: Dolores the robo-nanny can feed babies and change diapers at the same time, as she has multiple arms.
• My Life Flashed Before My Eyes: Mega Man goes through this in the pilot episode after he is badly damaged fighting Wily's robots and is near death. This is how we get the history of Dr. Wily, how Rock was created, and why he became Mega Man.
• Mythology Gag: Despite playing a bit loose with the source (likely due to the lack of supplementary material at the time), the series does reference the original games from time to time.
  • Annie does the Mega Man hand thing in "Future Shock". Ruby-Spears clearly paid great attention to the artwork, at the very least. Dr. Wily also does the hand thing in "The Strange Island of Dr. Wily" when commanding the giant Stone Bots.
  • Wily refers to the bat enemies he periodically uses throughout the series by their original Japanese names (Battontons).
  • Before he became Mega Man, his name was Rock.
  • Mega Man uses a holographic projector in "The Day the Moon Fell" that looks similar to the Wily alien holographic projector in Mega Man 2.
  • The writers watched the subbed Mega Man: Upon a Star OVAs to get a feel for Wily's vocal characterizations, citing that in the raw footage Wily spoke Japanese with a German accent.
  • At one point, Wily's Skulker is destroyed, and to escape, he uses a smaller, UFO-like ship to escape. Aside from the fact it looks like a UFO, This is functionally identical to his Wily capsules, which he used to escape deadly scenarios after Mega Man 3.
• Near-Villain Victory: Wily has come close several times to a perfect victory.
• Never Had Toys: Subverted and inverted at the same time in the Christmas episode. Jenny meets a boy named Todd Sweeney who says he never got anything he wanted for Christmas, so she offers to act as his toy for the day. However, she soon discovers he has loads of toys, and he reveals that it wasn't toys he was ever wanting yet he always got toys with his actual want being a powerful weapon.
• Never Recycle Your Schemes: Dr. Wily never repeats a plan It's sometimes justified by Dr. Light coming up with a counter to whatever he had tried. In "Cold Steel" he tries to avert this by recovering his device so he could start the plan over later, but Mega Man stops him.
• Never Say "Die": Being robots this can be somewhat easily forgiven.
• No Backwards Compatibility in the Future: Averted. X is able to copy Snake Man's weapon just fine.
• Nice Guys Finish Last: Proto Man says this almost word-by-word after he pulls his arm cannon on Mega Man after agreeing to a fight without blasters.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed:
  • Cut Man's voice is an impression of Peter Lorre.
  • Evelyn Ray is likely a Shout-Out to Fay Wray.
• No Name Given: The mayor. Especially jarring when oneshot and recurring characters get names.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis:
  • In "The Big Shake", Wily discovered Light and Mega Man were working on a device to stop his earthquake machine. His response was to direct a maximum-powered earthquake directly at Light's lab in an attempt to kill them all, or at the very least wreck the machine.
  • In "Future Shock", Wily is aware that if Mega Man makes it to the time machine, his conquest of the future will end. So he orders Proto Man to rig it to explode.
  • Catch phrases may be a free action, but Power Copying is not, as Pharaoh Man will happily demonstrate by punching Mega Man in the face.
  • A couple of Wily's death traps were fairly savvy; the robots have attempted to kill Mega while he's weakened or unconscious, and in "Brain Bots" Mega Man was handcuffed to the floor as a spiked ceiling descended on him.
  • This occurrence in "Robo-Spider":
  Wily: Mega Man, no! I've got to turn up the power! ...Wait, what am I worrying about? He can't stop my Robo-Spider! ha ha...
  *pause*
  Wily: ...I'm not taking any chances. *turns up power*
  • Upon discovering Dr. Light made an antidote to his retrograde virus in "Robosaur Park", Wily immediately decides to destroy it. After Mega intervenes and they play keep-away with the antidote, it ends up back in Wily's hands. Wily then hops in the Skullker to fly away from the heroes and destroy the antidote someplace where they can't interfere.
• No-Sell: Vile and Spark Mandrill are completely unaffected by the present-day tech.
• No Sense of Personal Space: Proto Man to Mega Man, especially when pretending to be good.
• Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: X, in his own continuity, roughly even with Mega Man. Back in the original's time, superpowered robot who can't be harmed. Ditto for the villains.
• Nothing Can Stop Us Now!: Wily has a really bad habit of saying this, to which Proto Man has to remind him that Mega Man is still around.
• No Waterproofing in the Future: In the games, Mega Man sank in water (except for 8, where he could swim for some reason), but had no problem staying under, being a robot. In the series, Mega Man experiences rapid loss of energy when underwater. Bonus ouch points: It's mostly limited to him.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: Bright Man had a rare moment of competence when he decided to first blind Mega Man, then run him over with a tank.
• Obviously Evil: Wily, in both the present day and his college-aged self. One wonders why Dr. Light is so surprised that he turned out to be evil.
• Offscreen Villain Dark Matter:
  • Played with. A number of episodes revolve around Wily attempting to acquire money to finance his plans or stealing technology or resources, but he still has the resources to build his usual Wily Machine style mechs.
  • Vile and Spark Mandrill also avert this in their appearance, as they came back to steal Lightanium rods for Sigma, which are worth a ton in the future.
• Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Both Wily and Dr. Light, since they seem to be experts in several scientific fields.
• Once More, with Volume!: A variation occurs:
  Dr. Wily: What do you mean, he escaped?
  ProtoMan: Escaped, as in departed, vamoosed, beat feet...
  Dr. Wily: I KNOW what the WORD means!
• One-Man Army: Like his game counterpart, Mega Man can take down a horde of Robot Masters. In fact, he's pretty much is the army against Wily since no one literally can stop him as seen in "Future Shock".
• The Only One: Mega Man is literally the only one who can stop Wily going by "Future Shock".
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You:
  • Only Proto Man is allowed to defeat Mega Man, and he'll gladly remind you of this fact if you try to simply shoot Mega.
  • In a meta example, nobody but Mega Man could defeat Proto Man—when Roll encountered him, she was always defeated.
  • Proto Man seems to have gone back and forth on this, ultimately straying from this over time. In the first season he would often directly disobey Wily playing this trope straight. By the second season he didn't do this as often, and was more willing to go along with Wily's plots, whether Mega Man dies by his hand or not.
• Only Sane Man:
  • In a way, Proto Man out of Wily's robots, including Wily himself; he is a Blood Knight, but even he demonstrates better decision-making than the Big Bad.
  • Dr. Light is this in general; he's also the only character to not make puns.
• Our Vampires Are Different: Dracubot in "Night of the Living Monster Bots" can hypnotize people into turning into vampire robots, turn into a bat, and shoot lightning from his fangs. While hypnotized, Evelyn Ray could do the same.
• Our Werewolves Are Different: Wolfbot only transforms under a full moon and is a butler otherwise, and can shoot his claws to turn people into werewolves.
• Outside-Context Problem:
  • The appearance of Vile and Spark Mandrill, given they're from the future. Their armor is literally centuries ahead of any present-day weapons, and they are able to shrug off attacks from Mega Man and Dr. Wily alike.
  • Just as Vile and Spark Mandrill in "Mega X" are completely out of context for Mega Man, X himself is an out of context foe to Wily and his robots. When they did try to fight him, he catches Cut Man's weapon and crushes it like it was made of tinfoil. He later copies Snake Man's weapon and uses a supercharged version of the search snake to tear apart Wily's giant doomsday cannon in a matter of seconds.
  • The Lion Men, who invaded the world and turned other people into Lion Men with eye beams.
    • This goes both was as the Lion Men are completely baffled by the existence of robots who now live alongside humanity and are immune to the hypnotic effects of their curse. They later get around this by having an enslaved Wily build a device to control the robots as well.
• Overclocking Attack: In "Robo-Spider", Wily attempts to use this to fry Dr. Light's supercomputer by flooding it with stored electrical current.
• Percussive Therapy: At the end of "Campus Commandos", Wily starts smashing his control panels in a rage when he realizes Mega's saving City Hall. This causes the Skullker to lose control and fly everywhere.
• Pet the Dog:
  • The episode "Bro Bots". In it, Proto Man fakes going straight to implant an inhibitor chip into Mega to keep him from stopping Wily's scheme of the week. Even though he is faking it, he is genuinely surprised when Mega says that he "always wanted a real brother relationship" with him. Later on when his ruse is revealed, Proto Man tries to invoke We Can Rule Together with his brother in exchange for removing the inhibitor chip. Mega Man obviously refuses, causing Wily to point out just how disappointed Proto Man looks about this.
  • In "Brain Bots", he compliments Mega's shooting skills even as Wily's vehicle goes down.
• Play-Along Prisoner: In "Future Shock", Mega Man decides that the best way to get into prison to rescue Roll and Dr. Light is to get himself arrested. He promptly does so, and soon breaks out to free them.
• Playing with Puppets: Wily to Mega Man for the first half in "Mega-Pinocchio". He toys with Mega Man's mind, making him screw up a battle, which leaves Mega Man extremely depressed, before taking full control of him.
• Plot-Driven Breakdown:
  • Quite a few episodes have these. In "Bro Bots", Proto Man implants a chip on Mega Man that causes him to suffer these in a form of painful shocks.
  • In "Campus Commandos", Proto Man shot Mega's arm cannon, leaving it broken for about half the episode.
  • If the episode takes place near or in water, expect Mega Man to suddenly run out of power at a critical moment.
• Plucky Comic Relief: Rush. He often lightening the mood during tense scenes.
• Police Are Useless: This goes for the human police and the robots, although they do their best.
• Pom-Pom Girl: A Cheerbot in "Campus Commandos" befriends Roll, and helps out when Wily invades the campus by throwing her pom=poms at some Tacklebots.
• Poorly Disguised Pilot: "Mega X", which was an obvious launching pad for a Mega Man X cartoon, but it never came into fruition.
• Power Copying: Happens regularly, though Proto Man did it only once in the pilot. Also, it is different from the video game version in that Mega Man doesn't have to defeat a Robot Master to duplicate their powers. All that is required is for Mega to concentrate for a few seconds while touching a Robot Master. This cartoon-exclusive loophole was played with in an episode where after Mega copies Pharaoh Man's powers and spouts his catchphrase, Pharaoh knocks him away with a punch to the face. He was also able to analyze the schematics of Wily's giant robot spider, an Agony Beam, and a bomb.
• Power Nullifier: The side-effect of Mega Man taking a Robot Master's weapon. Once Mega copies a weapon, the Robot Master can't use it for a period of time.
• Power Parasite: This adaptation of Mega Man shows the Blue Bomber stealing the weapons of Robot Masters by touch, usually leaving them unable to use their powers.
• Pragmatic Adaptation: The decision to change Proto Man from Mega Man's Aloof Big Brother Mysterious Ally to his Worthy Opponent on Wily's side. Given that Dark Man, Proto's impersonator from the fifth game, shows up in the series, it's more likely this was a conscious decision in order to give Mega Man an appropriate rival (Bass from the seventh game didn't exist yet). While some Megaman fans blamed the change on a tonedeaf adaptation, according to an interview the change was requested by Capcom itself.
• Pragmatic Hero: Although Mega Man fights clean most of the time, he is not above lying, deceiving, and using sneak attacks to get ahead in a fight.
• Precision-Guided Boomerang: Several robot masters; Cut Man (Depending on the Writer), Metal Man, Quick Man (only in "The Day the Moon Fell"), Shadow Man, and Ring Man.
• Pretend to Be Brainwashed: Mega Man does this when freed from Wily's control in "Mega-Pinocchio" to fool Wily's robots and to steal the mind helmet.
• Projectile Toast: One of Roll's Utility Arm attachments was a toaster gun that did this.
• Psycho Prototype: Proto Man. He's almost always smirking, and isn't happy unless he's destroying things or fighting Mega Man. In fact, in "Future Shock", he didn't want Wily to finish conquering the world because it would mean less opportunities to kill people.
• Pun: All over the place. Dr. Light is the only main character to never use a pun in the show.
• Punny Name: News reporter Bree Ricotta's name is a reference to two types of cheese.
• Rapid-Fire Typing: Wily and Light engage in it occasionally.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Doctor Light gives this to Doctor Wily when Mega Man destroys the tower with his Mega Buster in Cold Steel and Wily blames his robots for his plan's failure.
  Doctor Wily: "It's all those Robots' fault! Why am I surrounded by fools!?"
  Doctor Light: "Maybe that's because that's all you know what to build, Doctor Wily!"
• Reflexive Response: Mega Man ambushes Pharaoh Man by jumping out of a fountain and touching him, stealing his power. Pharaoh Man punches him in the face.
• Reset Button: In "Future Shock", the reason the future turned out badly is because Mega Man wasn't around to stop Dr. Wily in the past. Both he and Wily are aware that if he makes it to the time machine, Wily's conquest of the future will end. Sure enough, Mega Man makes it and the Bad Future is erased.
• Restraining Bolt: What the scrambler chip Proto plants on Mega Man does in "Bro Bots". Mega is in so much pain that he can't effectively fight the Robot Masters or use his weapon out of fear of overheating.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Doc, the Battontons, Pipi, and Eddie. Rush, too, in his cuter moments.
• Ridiculously Human Robots: Just about every robot on the show. They have human personalities and feelings to the point that they might as well be humans. What separates the humans from robots is free will. The Robot Masters can't disobey Wily no matter how crazy his schemes become. Whether or not Protoman and Megaman have free will is left more ambigious; while they seem to act with it, Megaman occasionally mentions his programming as a limitation and Dr. Light tends to treat them like his children rather than give them direct orders.
• Riding into the Sunset: How the final episode of the series ended after it was cancelled.
• The Rival:
  • Proto Man to Mega Man. Out of all the Robot Masters, Proto Man is the only one who can square off against Mega Man in an one-on-one fight.
  • Dr. Wily also sees himself as a rival to Dr. Light, although Dr. Light does not seem to really care.
• Robo Family: Mega Man, Roll, and Proto Man are siblings and Dr. Light is considered their father.
• Robot Dog: Rush, obviously.
• Robot Maid: One was featured in "Electric Nightmare", with a Meido uniform even. At one point, she rips off her uniform to reveal herself as a Ninja Maid. Not to mention Roll was originally designed for household chores.
• Robot Master: No, not those Robot Masters. Dr. Light and Dr. Wily are scientists who specializes in building or maintaining robots.
• Robot War: All the fights in the show are between Mega Man and Wily's robot army.
• Rogues Gallery: Mega Man has a rotating cast of Robot Masters to fight, with Proto Man, Cut Man and Guts Man appearing in every episode. Some, like Snake Man and Bright Man, would be brought back multiple times, others would never be seen again.
• Running Gag: Rush biting Guts Man's leg, and usually being kicked in response.

S-Z

• Sadistic Choice: Given by Wily at least twice. One when he threatened to shake New York into the ground if the mayor didn't surrender. The second time when he had a space laser and threatened to start shooting cities if the UN didn't surrender the world.
• Scarf of Asskicking: Proto Man, never seen without his trademark yellow scarf just like his game counterpart.
• Science Fantasy: In episodes with fantastical elements, such as Lotos the genie.
• Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You: In the intro, although it does happen a few times in the series proper.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: The Lion Men, Lotos the Genie, and the Stone Bots.
• "Second Law" My Ass!: How Three Laws-Compliant the robots are is questionable, but Proto Man has absolutely no problem disobeying the Second Law given how many times he disobeys Wily or even undermines his orders, something no other robot built by Wily can do. (This situation is somewhat mirrored by Bass and Wily's relationship in the games, so there is fandom speculation Protoman might have an overriding perogative in his programming that provides a loophole away from complete obedience.)
• Self-Restraint: One episode had Mega Man get arrested by humans (thanks to Wily), since he didn't want to harm the humans. Soon after his name is cleared, he snaps the cuffs like they were nothing.
• Servant Race: How Wily seems to view robots. As far as he's concerned, they live only to serve him.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Brain Bot. He loves to use big and over-complicated words to explain the simplest things.
• Shackle Seat Trap: "Electric Nightmare" had Roll thrown into a makeup chair, which restrained her.
• Shock and Awe: Elec Man and Dark Man's powers. They both can shoot lightning, albeit in different ways—Elec Man's Thunder Beam acts more of a standard electric weapon, whilst Dark Man's Electromagnetic Net is designed to immobilise targets rather than destroy them.
• Shout-Out:
  • In 'Future Shock', Roll calls enemy robots Blaster Masters.
  • Rush is a robotic expy of Scooby Doo.
  • The mobile prison in "20,000 Leaks Under the Sea" bears a resemblance to an AT-AT Walker.
  • In "Cold Steel", Mega called Spark Man Sparkster.
  • In "Mega Dreams", Roll walks out of a theater advertising The Last Dragon, which is an actual movie. She even comments how she loves kung-fu movies, which it is.
  • Doris the robot maid says "Hasta la vista, Mega Man!"
  • The revival of the classic series have their own shout-outs to the animated series:
    • 9 references the plot of "Mega Pinocchio", with Wily reprogramming Dr. Light's robots in an effort to tarnish his name. Also, the design of Fakeman was clearly influenced by the police-bots that are common in the series.
    • 10 makes a clear reference to "Robosaur Park". Specifically, Mega Man and Roll are both infected with The Virus, Roll is offered the (experimental) vaccine first, but she declines, saying that Mega Man is the only one who can stop Wily, so he should take it instead.
• Sibling Rivalry: Mega Man and Proto Man's relationship can best be described as this. When Proto Man is not trying to kill Mega Man, he's trying to prove he's the better bot.
• Sinister Shades: Proto Man wears these. A couple times, Mega Man is reflected in them when Proto's about to take him by surprise.
• Sir Not-Appearing-in-This-Trailer: Napalm Man appears for a split-second during the opening credits, but never appeared in any episode.
• Smart People Wear Glasses: Brain Bot, who, as his name suggests, has extreme intelligence, looks like a green Mega Man with large black glasses.
• Smoke Out: Eddie in "Robosaur Park", letting Mega and Dr. Light get to safety.
• Smug Snake: Wily a fair amount of times. Although he is very smart and has come up with several clever schemes, he is often undone by his own arrogance, like not killing the heroes when he has the chance.
• So Proud of You: In Electric Nightmare, when Mega Man fends off Wily's robots to save the Power Plant.
  Doctor Light: "How great you've been, stopping those Titanium Troublemakers there! You're but the world's Greatest Hero, Mega Man!"
  Mega Man: "Thanks!"
  Doctor Light: "You're welcome, son."
• Souvenir Land: Fun World, which has standard rides and even offers souvenir rings. The rings brainwash people to think like robots.
• Speech-Impaired Animal: Rush, much like you know who.
• Spell My Name With An S: In "Mega X", Sigma's name is spelled on-screen as "Cigma".
• Spider Tank: Wily's Robo-Spider, in the episode of the same name. It looks more like a real spider than most examples, having eight legs, and it attacks with spider webs that drain electricity.
• Spring Coil: The cosmetics robot in "Electric Nightmare" had springs built into her ankles.
• Spy Bot: Wily some times used Battontons to spy on people.
• Sssssnake Talk: Snake Man, natch. And it's evidently programmed in, rather than something he does out of habit; see "Bot Transfer".
• Standard Female Grab Area:
  • Averted with Roll. When she was captured, she was usually grabbed by her waist. In one instance when the 'bots were on the moon, she was bodily lifted by her shoulder due to the reduced gravity.
  • Played straight with Proto Man. While he wasn't rendered helpless, Wily's hand on his upper arm was enough to stop him from going after Mega Man.
• Status Quo Is God: The Pet the Dog moments in "Bro Bots" are simply that, as by the end of the episode, after being found out, Proto Man is back to being Wily's dragon.
• Stay in the Kitchen: Despite Roll being a more than capable fighter, Mega insists on her staying at Dr. Light's lab. However, this only happens in early episodes, and she still goes out to fight in spite of it. By the fourth season 1 episode, it's never brought up again.
• Stock Footage:
  • Mega Man's Power Copying sequence, which begins with a close-up of Mega's face while a wire frame of the ability's chip appears for a few seconds, and ends with Mega feeling rather satisfied as he looks at his Arm Cannon.
  • There's another bit of stock footage where Mega Man jumps back and fires a weapon. If you see Speed Stripes instead of a proper background behind Mega Man as he looks at his Arm Cannon during his Power Copying sequence, you'll know this particular one is about to occur.
• The Stoic:
  • X. With the Mavericks he has to hunt down, it's no wonder. (So what was with all that screaming at the end?)
  • Pharaoh Man, Shadow Man, and Crystal Man, for the baddies' side. They rarely express emotions and often talk in a monotone voice.
• Story-Breaker Power:
  • The games will limit you to one power at a time, but "Cold Steel" shows, near the end, that Mega Man can stack his abilities and use two at the same time. He can also disable the Robot Master's power once he has copied their weapons, leaving them defenseless.
  • Mega Man X, Vile, and Spark Mandrill are immensely overpowered compared to the main cast, as they're from the future. Spark Mandrill nearly kills Mega Man and Roll with only one attack.
• Strapped to a Rocket: "Terror of the Seven Seas" has Mega Man tied to a torpedo and launched at the ship Dr. Light is on.
• Strapped to an Operating Table: When Rock (not yet Mega) and Roll are captured by Wily in the first episode so he can reprogram them.
• Stuff Blowing Up: The intro features a swarm of Killer Bullets flying into skyscrapers and blowing them up. This scene was edited out of post 9/11 broadcasts of the series because people thought it would be in bad taste, but it can be found on the DVD-sets.
• Super-Strength: All robots are stronger than a human, but Guts Man stands head-and-shoulders above them. He can throw a monorail with one hand.
• Super-Toughness: Well, they are robots. They can take a lot of punishment.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • In the episode "Bot Transfer", Mega Man has a "Freaky Friday" Flip with Snake Man. For almost the rest of the episode, Mega Man has a major freakout and can barely think straight. He actually tries to run to the police for help, forgetting that he is in the body of one of Wily's Robot Masters.
  • The episode "The Day the Moon Fell" gives a realistic look of what will happen to the world if the moon is moved closer to Earth's orbit. The results are not pretty.
  • Mega Man seems to run out of energy a lot, especially since no other Robot Master has this problem, not even his brother Proto Man. Although, considering all the fighting he does (he is often fighting five to seven Robot Masters at once), it does make sense he would drain his energy fairly fast.
  • Some episodes have addressed the fact that Dr. Wily doesn't have Offscreen Villain Dark Matter and needs money to fund his operations.
  • The robots are programmed to think and act like humans, having unique personalities. Some episodes have shown that this ability and the resultant personalities, such as Proto Man's ego, have ruined Wily's plans. Ice Man's jealousy of Air Man also ruined Wily's plan. This has even caused trouble for Mega Man since he's often confused about what is his personality and what is his programming, which leaves him open to Wily's manipulation in "Mega-Pinocchio".
    • While Dr. Light is quick to console Mega when said manipulation results in a building collapsing, he later finds Dr. Light watching the video of his rebuild, musing that he shouldn't have programmed Mega to have self-determination. Even the Big Good has his limits.
• Surfer Dude: Ring Man has a surfer's voice, for some reason.
• Surrounded by Idiots: Wily holds this opinion about all of his robots, to be fair, who wouldn't say this? Proto Man occasionally says so as well and Dr. Light mocks Wily by saying that he can only build idiots.
• Sweetness Aversion: In-universe. Roll has this reaction to a park attendant's overly sugary demeanor and voice.
  Roll: Talk about sweet. I could throw up!
• Swiss-Army Appendage: Roll's Utility Arm, which has almost every household appliance and weapon imaginable build into it. ^note She's used a vacuum, a blender, a reverse vacuum, a lengthened vacuum, several fans, an ice-shooting fan, a garbage disposal, three different circular saws, a hockey stick, an ice pick, a microwave, a hair dryer, a net, a nail file, a small pair of scissors, a corkscrew, polisher, a ball-shooting cannon like in amusement parks, a toaster gun, a frying pan, a faucet, a lightbulb, a mop, a cake mixer, a plunger, a plumber's snake, an axe, a spatula, and a baking sensor that detects earthquakes.
• Swiss-Army Weapon: Mega Man's buster arm can reproduce any projectile gained from the Robot Masters. This includes, but is not limited to, fire, ice, lightning, bubbles, leaves, whirlwinds, missiles, bombs, boomerangs...
• Tagalong Kid: Several humans, notably Bobby and Annie. They all tend to be useful in their own ways.
• Take Over the City: If Wily can't Take Over the World, he settles for this.
• Take Over the World: Wily's primary goal.
• Take That!: The final episode "Crime of the Century" features Wily using toys to steal valuables. Given part of the reason the series was cancelled was due to low toy sales, it gives the impression someone was annoyed.
• Team Rocket Wins: While his primary goal wasn't achieved, Wily made off with the money from robbing the citizens in "Crime of the Century" and the money from selling a shrunken Washington D.C. in "The Incredible Shrinking Mega Man". If you want to get technical, he also got all the money from selling Fun World tickets.
• Tear Off Your Face: Roll does this to a cosmetics robot in "Electric Nightmare".
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: The Enemy Mine in "The Strange Island of Dr. Wily" has a lot of this. Neither side likes or trust each other, but need to cooperate to survive.
• Theme Naming: Mega Man's original name was Rock and his sister's name is Roll.
• There Is Only One Bed: Mega and Brain Bot end up briefly sharing a bed (Roll took the other one), in rather close proximity.
• They Called Me Mad!: Dr. Wily says this a couple times. Once, it's followed up by a snarky comment from Proto Man.
  Wily: The world called me mad! Insane, Proto!
  Proto Man: Sounds right to me.
• Think Nothing of It: How Mega Man often responds to praise after stopping Wily's latest scheme.
• Third-Person Person: Eddie. He's also incapable of saving Mega Man in a dignified manner.
• This Is Reality: Said when Mega Man is angered at some delinquent kids who were just standing around as Wily attacked.
  Mega: This isn't some video game!
• Token Competent Minion: Of Dr. Wily's many Robot Masters, Proto Man acts as Mega Man's top rival and is the only one able to consistently fight him on even footing; while Cut Man and Guts Man are good at threatening humans, they're much less effective against Mega. Other top lackeys include Dark Man, who only appeared twice but with a good track record, and oneshot baddies like Crystal Man, Top Man, and Pharaoh Man, the latter of whom became famous in the fandom for punching Mega Man after his power is copied.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • Mega Man leaping in front of a shot meant for... the Lincoln Memorial. The best part is that Mega Man himself knows it was crazy and asks Dr. Light why the heck he took a shot to protect a statue. The answer is more-or-less that Mega Man's humanity wouldn't allow Lincoln to be destroyed.
  • Otto Raptor from "Robosaur Park" believes mankind should've gone extinct, not the dinosaurs. Otto's a human. And dinosaurs went extinct 61 millions years before the first ancestor of humans even appeared.
  • Tina McIntyre stowed away on a space shuttle to see her astronaut dad. While that was silly at best, she crosses into this when seeing her father threatened by Wily and the Robot Masters for a password...and she runs out and is promptly held hostage. What really brings this scene into Idiot Ball territory was the fact that Mega Man was winning against Wily's robots when she ran out and became a hostage.
  • Evelyn Ray, who had no idea Dr. Wily was bad news until she was hypnotized. She even met with him willingly, despite him trying to take over the world about 17 times by then.
  • Frankenbot was so dumb he blew himself up with his own turret, despite there being only one that Mega fixed to point straight down.
  • Brain Bot, despite his name, somehow thought it was a good idea to adjust the efficiency of a jet plane while he was flying in it.
• Too Powerful to Live: Vile and Spark Mandrill, who having come back from the future are presented as being invincible against everything but X, who also fits the trope.
• Totally Radical: Usually averted; when the trope did happen, Roll was the usual offender. Ring Man engaged in this, too, though he may have been a parody of it.
• Toxic Phlebotinum: The meteor fragments in "Showdown at Red Gulch" increase the power of their users tenfold, but will soon overload said users. Mega Man uses one anyway, since it's the only way to stand up to Wily's superpowered robots. It ends badly.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Battery Biscuits for Rush.
• Trash Landing: In one episode, Mega Man is being overwhelmed by Wily's bots and needs to make a getaway off a bridge. He spends a superblast on Guts Man, knocking him into the other bots, and while they're picking themselves up from that, Mega Man and Rush jump off the bridge onto a garbage barge to get away. Surfacing from it with a banana peel on his head, he wonders aloud whether Wily's bots or himself have the worse end of the deal.
• Truly Single Parent: Dr. Light is the sole creator of Mega Man and Roll.
• Uncanny Valley Makeup: The cosmetics robot◊ in "Electric Nightmare."
• Unskilled, but Strong: Most of Wily's Robot Masters give this impression, especially after their weapon is stolen.
• Unwanted Assistance: Brain Bot's "help" ranges from merely annoying (trying to give Rush wheels, elaborately stating the obvious) to life-threatening (trying to adjust a jet's gyro-stabilizer in mid flight so that it could operate at peak efficiency). About the third time he tries to "help", Mega Man briefly snaps and yells at him to not touch anything.
• Unwilling Roboticisation:
  • "Bad Day at Peril Park". Subverted in that the humans are only brainwashed to think like robots.
  • After being hypnotized by Dracubot, Evelyn Ray is somehow able to turn into a robot vampire bat.
• Upgrade vs. Prototype Fight: All the Mega Man vs Proto Man fights.
• Vacation Episode: "Curse of the Lion Men" had Mega and company on vacation in Hawaii. Then Tar and Wily attacked.
• Vanilla Edition: The DVDs of the show have all the episodes...and nothing else. No concept art, interviews, or anything. Oddly enough, Ruby-Spears concept art was featured in Novas Aventuras De Megaman.
• Villainous Breakdown: Wily suffers one at the ends of "Cold Steel" and "Campus Commandos".
• Villainous Widow's Peak:
  • Wily had one in his college days.
  • Dracubot and vampire!Evelyn have this too.
• Virtue Is Weakness:
  • What Proto Man believes and why he thinks Mega Man's a softy. He has taking advantage of Mega Man's kindness more than once.
  • Wily also appears to hold this belief given he got Mega Man to back down twice by threatening innocent lives.
• Vocal Dissonance: A couple Robot Masters have raspier voices than you'd think, and Bright Man has a very camp voice.
• Voices Are Mental: Averted in "Bot Transfer." Snake Man in Mega Man's body sounds just like Mega Man, and vice versa. Helps that they're done by the same voice actor.
• Was Once a Man: The Lion Men used to be human before they were cursed to become lion men.
• Washington D.C. Invasion: Wily does this in "Mega-Pinocchio" with the help of Mega Man and the other Light robots.
• Wave-Motion Gun: Wily spends "Mega X" trying to build this.
• Weak, but Skilled: How Roll is able to fight and defeat some of the Robot Masters. She knows a number of martial arts techniques on top of her unique toolset.
• We Can Rule Together: Proto Man really wants Mega Man to defect to Wily.
• Weaponized Landmark: Lotos animates The Statue of Liberty in "Master of Disaster", making her come to life and attack Mega Man.
• Weapons That Suck: Roll's vacuum cleaner attachment. Mega Man also gets this when he copies Dust Man's weapon.
• Weather-Control Machine: Dr. Light briefly experiments with one in "The Strange Island of Dr. Wily". It ends up flooding the lab.
• Weird Moon: Used twice; once with Wily taking control of a laser on a moon base, and the second with him pulling the moon out of its orbit.
• What a Drag: One of the ways Wily tries to kill Mega Man is to tie him to a horse and send him across the desert and off a cliff.
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • Doc the Metool only appeared in the first episode, as a helper to Roll.
  • Odd single-episode example: After Proto takes a Hard Knuckle to the chest in "Bad Day at Peril Park", he isn't seen or heard from for the rest of the episode. In the same episode, the corrupt park attendant is never even found out, much less defeated or punished.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Mega Man and Dr. Light gets this in "Mega-Pinocchio" after Mega Man dropped two bombs that collapsed a building. It was really Wily toying with Mega Man's mind that made him do it.
  • In the same episode, Dr. Light gets called out by the Secretary of Defense for attacking Washington DC. It is Wily with Dr. Light's reprogrammed robots.
• When Trees Attack: Magically animated trees attack in "Master of Disaster".
• Who Writes This Crap?!: Evelyn Ray describes Wily's plot in "Night of the Living Monster Bots" as the worst movie she's ever heard, which Proto Man snarkily agrees with. This episode is generally regarded as having one of the worst plots.
• The Worf Effect:
  • Mega Man is easily one of the strongest robots in the world and he gets completely trashed by Vile and Spark Mandrill. He couldn't even dent them.
  • In "Red Gulch", after Wily enhances his robots using pieces of a meteorite, Mega Man can't hurt any of the Robot Masters. Heck, he can't even hurt a Battonton.
• Worthy Opponent: Proto Man views Mega Man as this, and so does Mega Man given that Proto Man is one of the few Robot Masters he takes seriously.
• Would Hurt a Child: In "The Mega Man in the Moon" Wily threatens to rocket a young girl into space if Mega Man doesn't back down, and has no problems threatening children in some of his other plans.
• Yes-Man: In his college days, Wily acted as a sycophant to Light while planning to backstab him.
• You Don't Look Like You: The cartoon changed some Robot Master designs.
  • Roll looks much older, loses her dress and instead tends to wear a jumpsuit.
  • Eddie is green rather than red.
  • From the first game's Robot Masters:
    • Cut Man now has a puppet-like mouth.
    • Guts Man has a blue lower jaw.
    • Ice Man has C-3PO's oral design, though his mouth flashes as he speaks.
    • Downplayed Example: Bomb Man has a more defined beak, much like a Hammer Bro.
    • Downplayed Example: Fire Man has fire drawn on his blasters.
  • From Mega Man 2's Robot Masters:
    • Metal Man seems to have red shades covering (or being) his eyes and can wield his sawblades like swords.
    • Air Man now averts the Cephalothorax trope and has a defined head. His eyes also appear to be red glasses, which makes him look slightly more menacing than his game counterpart, and he has four blades in his chest fan.
    • Wood Man now looks like a man who wears a log as a helmet and has logs as cuffs.
  • From the Mega Man 3 Robot Masters:
    • Gemini Man and Hard Man have noses on their faces.
    • Snake Man has a puppet mouth.
    • Spark Man has mouth cover.
  • From the Mega Man 4 Robot Masters:
    • Bright Man has a solar panel on his chest that charges his Flash Stopper, and has a yellow face.
    • Toad Man, while he is still a Cephalothorax like Air Man used to be, has a mouth.
    • Downplayed Example: Drill Man has more pronounced elbows.
    • Pharoah Man had his colour scheme changed.
    • Ring Man has only one hand, with his left one now an Arm Cannon that he uses to fire his ring boomerangs.
    • Dust Man has a puppet-like mouth plate, with his vacuum being moved back.
    • Dive Man has propellers in his feet, but no longer has a keel-shaped chest, nor does he fire Dive Missiles from it, instead firing them from a cannon on his left arm.
  • From the Mega Man 5 Robot Masters:
    • Gravity Man has a G on his feet.
    • Stone Man has a blue tube on each shoulder and his hand can become a blaster, which is how he uses his Power Stone.
    • Napalm Man was given a head in the animated series, although his only appearance was in the opening.
    • Crystal Man has a teal body to match his artwork, rather than green. His Crystal Eye comes from his hands.
• You Fight Like a Cow: These sorts of insults happen very frequently, mostly by Mega Man amusingly enough since he likes to mock the Robot Masters' poor marksmanship.
• You Shall Not Pass!: Mega and Roll try this on Bright Man to let Rush Bring News Back in "Robo-Spider". Though since he was about to run them over with a tank while they were blinded, it was more trying not to die.
• Zeerust: In the future, the robots are the only ones not mired in the 1990s.

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Fighting... to save... THE WORLD!

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