Recap: Bakugan-The Battle Begins

Hello everyone. As I said, I am going to get a couple little Bakugan recaps out; then

spend the rest of April working on a recap of a feature-length anime movie to be released in

May, when the summer movie season begins (that month has me looking forward to The Avengers and Men In Black 3/Men In Black 3D.).

I really hate Bakugan. While I admit the game it tries to sell is an interesting concept (a

combination of a trading card game and a trading figure game); it's just not for me. The anime

on the other hand, is an incoherent mishmash of Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Digimon, Beyblade,

B-Daman, and pretty much every other merchandise-driven anime that's come out in the last 15

years. The characters are cardboard cutouts, the animation is garbage, and the story just makes

no sense.

Yet, it has proved to be consistently popular despite all my hopes that it will fail. Harald

Zwart is making a movie based on it at Universal. It is part of a new subgenre of movies based

on toys spawned from the success of the Transformers trilogy and its accompanying goods.

Thanks to YouTube, a good viewership of the show comes from its snark bait from all

its faults; which is starting to outnumber its true fans. I belong to the former. So, let's begin with

the first episode of a tale of a boy and his baubles, “Bakugan: The Battle Begins.”

We begin with a boy claiming that his entire world changed when cards began falling from the sky. They appeared on all four corners of the earth. They also had these little balls

that turned into gargantuan monsters when they were placed on the cards. So, the boy and his

friends; connected through the internet, decided to do the first logical thing: turn it into a game

for everyone to enjoy. I will make a statement that the Bakugan Wiki lists the average age of the

people in the first season as no more than 13. It's no more different than a 10-year-old owning a

factory or a college-age person leaving to start his own social network where people congregate.

The boy calls himself Dan, stating his friends Runo (A girl), Marucho (a rich boy), Julie

(another girl), “Mr. Hot Shot Himself” Shun (Another boy), and Alice (a third girl) form the

Bakugan Battle Brawlers.  

We then get our theme song, which is a fairly standard rock song to this type of show.

It has a lot of Nickelback-like quiet-loud-quiet-loud bleating and guitar crunching. The type

of song that you don't like to listen to, but won't be able to get out of your head.

We then get our title card. It's fairly stock, with block text on this techie background.

Our setting is a humble home in-Tokyo? Hong Kong? Seoul? I don't know, they don't really tell us where this is until later in the season. Dan runs into the house and up the stairs

to his room. His mother, who is doing yoga, tells him that lunch has been prepared.  

One thing that amused me after missing it the first time, is that Dan appears to have a

doll in his room. I'm not one to judge. I am a bit of a Brony. I talked my mom into giving me

her McDonald's Applejack, and ordered a McDonald's Rainbow Dash off eBay. Oh, gotta focus,

only a minute and a half or so in.

Dan takes a small box out of a drawer. He opens the box and takes three of his Bakugan out.

He dashes out the door as soon as he comes in. He heads out into the center of town. His mother is still doing her yoga as he bikes out with no safety equipment. (Note-I'm not sure

what helmet laws are in Japan, but every time I've seen an anime or read a manga, nobody

seems to be wearing any safety gear whenever extreme sports focus. Maybe there's less concern

about the head being busted open like a ripe melon. I don't know.)

This is going straight up my nose!

Dan makes it to the park and we get two stereotypes for the price of one-a short kid, and

a massive fat kid at the 3-minute mark. They must have been having a sale. For the life of me,

I can't remember their names. Maybe the ham and the chocolate bunny from Easter helped me

block them out.

Meanwhile, back at the house, Dan's father comes home for lunch. He goes over to the fridge and joyfully exclaims there's pudding there. Yeah, I don't get how this is supposed to

be funny, either.

We cut back to the park, where the fat kid challenges Dan to a battle at the short kid's

behest. Dan agrees. I hope you enjoyed these past four minutes, because we are now leaving

this show's field of restraint.

They open the field needed to play the Bakugan game, and time slows down. We get

some rubbish CGI effects of birds flying and the pudding falling down. I've made screencaps

of them to prove it. Take my word for it when I say they're not much better in motion.

The playing field for Bakugan is a swirling void of colors. Most anime that sell things

take different approaches on how to justify their wares in-universe. However, while

Pokémon turned the pixelated world of the games into expansive forests, deserts, and cities;

Digimon had their Digital World take elements from our world; and Yu-Gi-Oh had leagues

of environments to play in; the field of Bakugan is a garish mess. I know most shows use

digital coloring in this day and age; but this expanse looks of bad airbrush effects.

The fat kid makes the first move, summoning a Bakugan that looks like a stone mantis.

It is of the Subterra element. Dan counters with a bird of the Pyrus element. I will address the

stupidity of the names for elements in a moment. The battle drags on for at least six minutes

of a numbering system and gameplay mechanics I can't figure out. It's a good thing I don't care.

The game ends, Dan wins, and the pudding falls on the floor.

We get an ad bumper that portrays the toy-er, monster that kids should ask their parents

for. (Only $9.99! Available at Target, Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Toys “R” Us, and game and hobby shops everywhere!)

That night, Dan talks with his friends through some Skype-like video calling service.

He brags about his victory, and Runo (the girl with blue hair and an outfit like a Dominatrix

Barbie) retorts that he is ranked at #121 of the top 1000. He fires back that he's at #117. Runo

replies that Shun is at #1. Julie (the girl with the silver hair and pink training gear) notes that even that bit of progress is worthy of a kiss. She then kisses the monitor, which freaks out Dan. Marucho (the nerd, who is wearing glasses and has hair like a Kewpie doll) states not to worry about that and keep practicing. Alice (the redhead girl) muses what the situation will be like in a few years. For instance, will this game still be popular?

We cut to a dojo, where we see Shun. In purple clothes, a slicked hairstyle, and a stock

pout, you can tell that he's this emo ninja character that we get in these shows after people

took notice of Sasuke from Naruto. (Side note: I just found Sasuke to be bland. I didn't hate

him as much as other people did.)

We then get this infodump about the world of Bakugan, called Vestroia. Which contains

six elements: Pyrus (Fire), Aquus (Water), Ventus (Air), Subterra (Earth), Haos (Light), and Darkus (Darkness). I think this a really stupid naming system. It would be much easier to use

the element names instead of make up some crap that makes the spell-checker in my word

processor go nuts.

The talking goes on about this conflict and otherworldliness. I don't know. I personally

think it's too complicated for kids to follow, and I'm trying to keep from falling asleep.

The next day, the fat kid challenges Dan to another battle. Dan agrees again. The fat

kid uses the Darkus element now (god, I can't believe I brought myself to type that), and actually manages to get the upper hand.

We get more stock footage of Dan throwing his Bakugan around, and something surreal

happens as a gateway to another dimension comes in.

My god, it's full of stars!

A dragon Bakugan comes in, and falls into Dan's hand for use. Dan then quickly wins

the match.

Back at home, Dan marvels at his new Bakugan. It is a Dragonoid class, and he decides

to name it Drago. He hears it speak, but brushes it off and just claims he needs to lay off the soda. I'm going to need more of it if I'm doing another recap of this show soon.

“Bakugan: The Battle Begins” is a droll exercise in the world of half-hour toy commercials. There is so much going on, yet so little reason to be invested, that it is not

only a stupid attempt to cash in on a crowded market, but a boring one. Don't go away, folks.

I have one more Bakugan recap to give you before I start work on my movie recap.