Anime: Bakugan Battle Brawlers

Bakugan Battle Brawlers was one of those anime that I watched on TV as a teenager before the era of the Internet kicked in. I only watched it because there was no other anime airing on TV in my home country. Bakugan is an anime with the purpose of advertising the Bakugan game. However, it never got any recognition in Japan and while it did generate lots of popularity in the United States and Canada, it was still overshadowed and people didn't care for it. There are two reasons Bakugan Battle Brawlers was never successful and never recognized.

1) It is viewed as a Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh and Digimon clone. The premise of Bakugan involves kids pairing up with creatures called Bakugan and fighting evil Bakugan to save the world of Vestroia (the Bakugans' home dimension) and use cards to power up their Bakugan. It is painfully obvious to the naked eye that this is exactly like Pokemon and Digimon mixed with Yu-Gi-Oh; many people saw this anime as a rip-off and never bothered to get through the entire show. Many people hated this show for being exactly like the aforementioned shows. I don't blame them; you have three juggernauts that are not only way more popular and successful but had already captured the hearts of millions of people with their monster teaming up/capturing/card formula, so why would you bother watching some some no name monster battling anime that has no credibility of its own. Clearly, you would watch Pokemon. Yu-Gi-Oh or Digimon instead rather than wasting your time watching this show.

2) It did not establish its own identity. Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh and Digimon created their own identities by establishing their own formulas, whereas Bakugan mixed those formulas together and did nothing with it; it repeated what the above mentioned shows did with adding nothing new or interesting to the monster battling/capturing/card formula. Since Bakugan couldn't establish its own identity, people saw this as a Poke/Digi/Yugi clone and didn't bat an eye.

So Bakugan never got the international recognition like Digimon, Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh due to these reasons. It also doesn't help that the story of Bakugan plays out exactly similar to these shows. It involves a group of six battle brawlers playing against other children before teaming up with their partner Bakugan trying to save their world from being destroyed by an evil renegade Bakugan. There was nothing special about the story of Bakugan that was different or unique; it was a monster of the week show where every episode has one of the kids battling a character of the week bad guy and eventually the second half involved the kids spending every episode beating the minions of the main villain one by one in each episode. Therefore, the plot of Bakugan is formulaic and easily predictable which provides no tension. The main meat of this show is the monster battles; the Bakugan battles seemed to involve strategy but actually didn't; all that mattered was having the higher G Power, so the kids motivating their Bakugan to do better or fight harder meant nothing. What's even worse is that the second half of the show forgoes G Power and made it seem like the kids motivating their Bakugan does make them stronger, so is it G Power that makes the Bakugan stronger or the bond with the kids? As such, Bakugan has an improper battle system that doesn't follow the game its based on properly. The show tried to make it seem that the battles had tension early on by having the villain of the first half, Masquerade, sends the Bakugan his monster defeats to a place called the Doom Dimension where the Bakugan there rot for all eternity with no means of escape, but this is rendered pointless since the six ancient warriors (a powerful group of Bakugan who saved Vestroia in the past) were able to send the brawlers and their Bakugan home without any injury as well as free all the trapped Bakugan. Speaking of which, if they had the power to do this all along, why didn't they stop Naga from separating the Infinity and Silent Cores in the first place? Essentially, it was convenient that the six ancient warriors did not interfere to begin with, which shows that this anime doesn't flow naturally since this entire story could have ended in the first episode if the ancient warriors stopped Naga from the get go but didn't due to plot convenience.

The main characters, the Battle Brawlers, were two dimensional airheads at best; they had established stereotypes but nothing made them stand out. Their Bakugan also had personalities and didn't mimic the personalities of their Brawlers; they were their own beings so I can at least praise the show for not making the Bakugan reflect the personalities of their Brawlers and letting them keep their individuality. There is some semblance of character development in the show, best shown during the test with the six ancient soldiers. However, Naga was nothing more than a simple one dimensional villain who wanted to take over the worlds of Earth and Vestroia; his reasoning for wanting to rule over all the Bakugan was murky and not well founded. While its true that he was a renegade Bakugan with no assigned attribute and was angry that he didn't belong anywhere, we never saw him being oppressed or ostracized by the Bakugan society so his lack of actual motivation and rationale behind his reasoning makes him a villain who wants to do evil just because. Overall, characterization and character development were average at best.

The production values were decent, nothing too special or eye catching. The first dozen of episodes had inconsistent art and animation but this improves later on as the show progresses and eventually becomes consistent. The battles were flashy which made them watchable but wasn't anything spectacular.

At its core, Bakugan Battle Brawlers is an marketing anime whose sole purpose is to advertise its game, so clearly it is not going to try and be good. It is also clear that Bakugan was unable to fight with its competition on its own terms which is why it was deemed a rip-off and never got any recognition. There is little reason to watch Bakugan since it does nothing to differentiate itself, has an improper battle system, lack of proper storytelling and subpar characterization. For what its worth, Bakugan does at least have a small niche in being another monster teaming up/battling/card anime that people can watch if they ever get tired of watching Digimon, Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh over and over again; some people might find more enjoyment in just seeing huge attributed monsters duke it out with each other while their brawlers shout out "Ability Activate!". However, once they see the first few dozen episodes, they will realize that Digimon, Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh are way better than this anime and will go back to watching those anime. This is why Bakugan Battle Brawlers is one of those forgotten anime that will never see the light of day.

NOTE: This is based on the English dub.

What do you see when cards began to rain around the sky? What do you see when convoluted battles involving marbles and strategies take place? What do you see when everybody treats Bakugan like it's a game?

Moreover, this is what happens when you are one of the Bakugan players. You just can't turn around and take a conflict involving the fate Vestroia as just a game. Yet this is why this game was created.

ART:
I could barely remain straight when the human characters were animated in a way that is barely even consistent throughout the show, if there is any at all. The battles has a fair share of stock material as well, especially if it's a cut involving throwing a Bakugan around, but heck the Bakugan themselves look way more detailed and more consistent(and thus more awesome) than the overall animation. And even that can't save the basic-detailed backgrounds, the beams, blurring in this show are something that a kid could use on Photoshop. If there is actual animation, I would say there are 3 seconds of throwing your Bakugan(exclusive to Dan)as stock footage and the battles with some elemental animation effects. Oh and did I mention the human designs?

SOUND:
Enjoy your ears with lots of retarded acting in a way no one could remain a straight face even when it's a dramatic moment. And the music? Nah, that's some good tunes but that's all I'll describe for now.

STORY AND CHARACTERS:
It was considered original in its time. However, it's also nonsensical, too convoluting and its pacing is too fast to the point you don't even know what is happening anymore.
Let me sum it up for you in case you did not understand what was this series about:
Vestroia is a dimension when the Bakugan species originated, within each of its own element in its own universe. Some Doom being called Naga had that idea of fusing both sources since they are inbalanced anyway, and Drago questions his actions. Unfortunately, that was not enough to stop said Doom being as he forms the Silent Core which is full of negative energy, and the Infinity Core which is full of positive energy so that he can create the Perfect Core and form a balanced Vestroia. Then cards rain down from the sky all over the place with special powers, and Dan has that idea of creating a game which they call "Bakugan" along with his friends. From there on, they would establish rules, they would even receive their own Bakugan, they could battle using their own strategy as long as the rules see fit. Looks complicating at first but it all comes down to playing games.
And of course there's this "Doom Dimension" card which is a dimension where the Bakugan beings are trapped forever with no point of return. We are told this isn't just a game, yet it just looks like it. It's like it's screaming you this is really going to be one of the complex plots and it's going to unravel itself soon and shit is going down, etc. Unfortunately I do not take such claims for such scams so it all comes down to fun and games anyway.

Now let's focus on the characters. They're battle brawlers, right? Even the title says it all, and you expect they take the thing seriously if they knew what was behind all the "Vestroia" dimension and what caused the cards to magically fall upon the sky but nope. They can even waste their free time on this Bakugan game rather than doing something useful to their lives(which they do, but since it focus on their Bakugan it's impossible to tell). And the development is very random to the point it doesn't exist at all.

Hey Anon, there's someone you forgot about: He's the Masquerade and he's mysterious and he manipulates every player so that he can test Dan's friends and whatever the hell he likes. And he's the NUMBER ONE OMG!!!!111!!!!!111!1!!111!1!!1!!!!

Well, this guy alone doesn't improve the show just because he uses the Ability card that specializes in sucking their Bakugan into the Doom Dimension and manipulates even those whose intentions weren't even becoming battle brawlers in the first place.

Also don't expect intelligent strategies on some battles either. It's all attacking, switching, thinking, and that is all it takes for a battle to win.

VALUE AND ENJOYMENT:
It had a large impact overseas, what with the kids playing Bakugan games in real life and stuff that spawned its own merchandise. Yet it does nothing to recover its infamy after poorly-done anime merchandises, but at least it had some sense of the characters' appearances, and the dragons arguably look more consistent than the crappy human animations but the overall series is JUST SHIT!

VERDICT:
So bad it's good.