The Beret Brothers (also known as Team France) are the main villains of the Medabots anime episode "The French Deception". They are a trio of French brothers who are competing in the Robattle World Championship, a tournament where Medabots (types of robots powered by medals), fight ("Robattle") each other under the command of their owners ("Medafighters"); however, since they are not very good at Robattles, they've cheated by stealing the medals of all their opponents' Medabots before their matches, rendering their Medabots non-functional and thus allowing them to win all their matches by default.
Appearances[]
Jean-Luc Beret[]
Jean-Luc has light brown, short hair and a mustache. His outfit is almost completely black, his suit, pants, boots, and top hat all being said color, with the only article of clothing of a different color he wears being his red tie. He keeps a white handkerchief in a breast pocket on the left side of his suit, and wears a monocle over his right eye. His design seems to be based on Arsène Lupin.
Jean-Guy Beret[]
Jean-Guy has pointy blond hair and wears a blue V-neck shirt with red trim, a white undershirt, and black pants and shoes.
Jean-Paul Beret[]
Jean-Paul is the fattest of the three brothers and is bald. He wears a red collar shirt with rolled-up sleeves, dark blue pants held up by a brown belt, and black shoes.
Monoklar[]
Monoklar is a predominantly purple Medabot with wheels in place of legs who, like his Medafighter, bears a resemblance to Arsène Lupin. He has a shield for a right arm and a sword for a left arm.
Wildfire[]
Wildfire is a predominantly black, bipedal Medabot with a large gun for a head. His arms are very thick, and he "wears" a brown waistcoat.
Kamafive[]
A bipedal Medabot based on a stereotypical Chinese man. He has blue baggy pants with a red Chinese letter on them and a blue, flat-topped hat. His left hand is a wooden plaque with black Chinese letters on it while his right hand is a yellow cannon, and he has a koban for a left shoulder.
Personalities[]
All three of the brothers are dishonest individuals who are willing to steal the medals of their opponents' Medabots in order to win matches by default in the Robattle World Championship, and even impersonated Ikki as well as Koji's butler in order to get their hands on Metabee and Sumilidon's medals. Jean-Luc also told Jean-Guy to destroy said medals to get rid of evidence, showing a will to murder to cover up his and his brothers' tracks. Also, when they fail to steal her Medabot's medal, they go so far as to kidnap one of Team Japan's Medafighters instead (Karin Junmai, whom they thought was the ace Medafighter Space Medafighter X) and tie her up in a storage room in the championship stadium in order to ensure that all members of the team would be no-shows for their match against them. They are also arrogant, as they believed that Team Japan would never be able to find their stolen medals or prove they were the ones to steal them, even telling Ikki that he cannot prove anything even as he's holding a whole bag of stolen medals, since he has no way to prove the medals in the bag were stolen by them.
Members[]
- Jean-Luc Beret: The leader of the team. His Medabot is known as Monoklar (or originally Le Villain in Japan) and specializes in shooting attacks.
- Jean-Guy Beret: The member who impersonated a security guard at the championsip stadium and was later himself impersonated by the Phantom Renegade. His Medabot, Wildfire, specializes in cannon attacks.
- Jean-Paul Beret: The member who disguised himself as Koji's butler and stole Sumilidon's medal, and then later kidnapped Karin with Jean-Luc while disguising himself as Koji. His Medabot, Kamafive, specializes in fire-based attacks.
History[]
Jean-Luc first appears in the episode in disguise as Ikki, leading Metabee outside Ikki's house where he tasers him and steals his medal while he's unconscious, after which he hides the unconscious Metabee and himself behind a corner, smiling wickedly as the real Ikki comes looking for Metabee.
Later, when Ikki discovers that Metabee's medal is missing and mourns its loss, Henry reminds Ikki's friend Erika of Team France's bad reputation of stealing their opponents' medals in order to win their matches by default (which he was telling her about earlier in the episode) and Erika assumes they must have stolen Metabee's medal. Ikki says that they don't know that for sure, but swears that he's going to find out.
Ikki and his friends meet with Koji and ask him how his Medabot Sumilidon is, fearing that his medal might have been stolen as well, but Koji assures them that he's fine and goes to check up on him in the back of the truck he was riding in. He warns Sumilidon of the danger of his medal being stolen, but discovers that it already has been when Sumilidon doesn't respond and then falls over and doesn't move. He also finds his butler tied up and gagged in the back of the truck, and tells Koji that he was attacked by someone who looked just like himself. Meanwhile, his attacker Jean-Paul, who is still disguised as Koji's butler and holding Sumilidon's medal in his hand, receives a phone call from Jean-Luc, who asks him if he was successful in stealing Sumilidon's medal, to which he responds affirmatively. Jean-Luc, still disguised as Ikki, then hangs up and orders an off-screen Jean-Guy to get started on his part of the plan.
When Team Japan are looking around for the stolen medals around the stadium, Jean-Guy approaches them in disguise as a security guard and they ask him to check Team France's suite for the medals, to which he allows them to check it themselves, but tells them to make it quick. However, they find neither the Beret Brothers or the stolen medals in their suite. While Ikki and Koji are running to search elsewhere, they stop to talk about how Karin's medal might be stolen next, and Jean-Guy, still in disguise as a security guard, overhears them and calls Jean-Luc on his phone to inform him that he has just find out the identity of Space Medafighter X.
Meanwhile, Jean-Luc and Jean-Paul meet Karin disguised as Ikki and Koji respectively, and try to take her Medabot Neutranurse away from her under the pretense of protecting her medal from the Beret Brothers, but their plan is foiled by the appearance of the Phantom Renegade, who takes Neutranurse away to protect her and reveals the true identities of "Ikki" and "Koji" to Karin, who then take off their disguises and approach Karin threateningly as the Phantom Renegade flies away with Neutranurse by way of a hot air balloon. Having lost Neutranurse's medal, Jean-Luc and Jean-Paul then decide to kidnap Karin herself instead to prevent her from participating in the upcoming match. Ikki and Koji see them running with a tied-up Karin and run after them. Jean-Luc and Jean-Paul bring Karin to Jean-Guy, who removes his security guard disguise and compliments his brothers on a job well-done.
The Beret Brothers then put the still tied-up Karin into a storage room, where they explain to her their change of plans of kidnapping her instead of stealing her Medabot's medal. Then, Ikki and Koji arrive and demand the brothers to give Karin and their medals back to them, but Jean-Luc plays dumb and claims he doesn't know anything about the medals, and that Ikki has no way to prove otherwise. When Ikki notices the bag full of medals in the storeroom, Jean-Luc claims that Ikki has no way to prove the medals inside the bag were stolen by the Beret Brothers and that the bag was already there when they got to the storeroom. While Ikki searches the bag for Metabee and Sumilidon's medals, the Beret Brothers exit the storeroom and lock the door behind them, trapping Ikki, Koji, and Karin inside. From outside the door, Jean-Luc gloats about how Team Japan will be trapped in the inescaple storage room while Team France scores yet another victory by default. Jean-Luc also reveals that he is holding onto Metabee and Sumiliadon's medals, so Ikki and Koji will not be able to find them inside the bag in the storage room. Jean-Guy tells Jean-Luc that with Ikki and Koji trapped in the storage room, they will have to hide the medals somewhere. Jean-Luc then tells Jean-Guy to take the medals, "or better yet, destroy them."
The Beret Brothers arrive to the Robattle arena in a hot-air balloon and introduce themselves. When Mr. Referee announces that Team Japan will be disqualified if they are late for the start of the match, Jean-Luc sarcastically says that he feels sorry for them. But then, Samantha, disguised as Space Medafighter X, arrives on the arena, confusing the Beret Brothers since they thought they had already kidnapped Space Medafighter X (Karin), and Jean-Paul assumes that either Karin is not the real Space Medafighter X, or the one standing before them now is fake. Jean-Luc assures Jean-Paul that they have nothing to worry about, as Space Medafighter X cannot do anything unless her teammates arrive. Ikki, Koji, and Karin, who have managed to escape the storage room with Karin's help, arrive to the arena with the bag of stolen medals and tell everyone that the Beret Brothers have stolen their medals and many others. However, Jean-Luc again dismisses Ikki's accusation since he has no proof of the medals in the bag being stolen by him and his brothers. But surprisingly, Jean-Guy tosses Metabee and Sumilidon's medals to Ikki and Koji. Jean-Luc and Jean-Paul chide him for this, but then another Jean-Guy comes running to the arena, tied up with ropes and telling his brothers not to listen to "the other Jean-Guy" as he is a fake. The first Jean-Guy then reveals himself to actually be the Phantom Renegade in disguise before being lifted away on a rope. Afterwards, the real Jean-Guy chides his brothers for being fooled by the Phantom Renegade and not realizing that he was trying to give back the medals they'd stolen. Jean-Luc then gets angry at Jean-Guy because he has just confessed to the medal theft, which was overheard by Mr. Referee, and the Beret Brothers are surrounded by several other referees as a result.
Metabee, whose medal has been re-installed by Ikki, says he has a bone to pick with the Beret Brothers and summons the Medaforce. Although they are initally suprised to see that Metabee can use the Medaforce, Jean-Luc then orders all the team's Medabots to attack, confident that Metabee can't defeat all of them even with the Medaforce, but he is proven wrong when Metabee uses the Medaforce on their Medabots and the brothers themselves as well, defeating their Medabots and covering the brothers in soot. After that, Mr. Referee reveals that since Team France cheated by stealing Team Japan's medals, the victory will go to Team Japan by default, and that as the penalty for having stolen medals from other Medafighters, they are banned from the World Medabot Federation for life, much to their dismay.
That evening, Metabee is walking down the road with Ikki and asks him if he was telling the truth when he said earlier that he wouldn't have made it to the championship without him and that victory without him would be hollow, and Ikki claims he only said it to make Koji think he cares about Metabee, to which Metabee says he figured as much, but Ikki then claims he was kidding and that he does care about him, and then tells him they should get the Beret Brothers' ban lifted, because "They're not bad guys," shocking Metabee and making him realize that the Ikki he's talking to is not the real one. It turns out Jean-Luc has disguised himself as Ikki again, and Metabee starts chasing after him and firing his weapons at him as the real Ikki, tied up with ropes, comes running and yells for Metabee to wait up. Jean-Guy and Jean-Paul also come running from behind Ikki, chiding Jean-Luc for breaking his promise to let one of them impersonate Ikki. The last scene in the episode is Jean-Luc being chased and fired at by Metabee along with Ikki, Jean-Guy and Jean-Paul, so it is unknown what ultimately become of the Beret Brothers.
Trivia[]
- The abilities of the Beret Brothers' Medabots are never seen in action, as Metabee defeats them with the Medaforce before any of them get a chance to attack.
- On the introductory screen for Jean-Guy Beret and Wildfire, Wildfire's specialty is spelled as "canon," when it should be "cannon."
Gallery[]
