StoryAs it was once again it was my pick for the “misery loves company”
club, I (stupidly) decided that it was time for a card battles anime.
Having already seen Yu-gi-oh and Duel Masters, I figured
it would be “fun” to start with the worst-rated in the genre based on
the current Anime-Planet ratings. Please bear in mind that this brand
of fun is unfortunately the equivalent of repeatedly running sheets of
paper between your toes just for shits and giggles: and paper cuts.
Quickly explaining that, one day, the sky started raining magical cards
that groups of kids gathered up and use to play a fighting game, Bakugan Battle Brawlers launches an onslaught of tedious battles that assume you know the game
inside out. I don’t. Fifty-two episodes later, and I still have no
fricking clue how the different gates or character attributes work, and
neither do I care. As the core characters are introduced, the writers
miss out on the opportunity to drip-feed strategy and rules cohesively
to the viewer, instead preferring to plough on blindly and disregard
the chaos in their wake. I swear most of it was made up on the hop,
especially when some completely random “Armoured Tuskinator” card or
the like is thrown out.
The plot soon spreads itself even thinner, with areas that are nothing
but deep holes. How do the Bakugan know the rules of the game if they
are supposed to be creatures from another dimension? Why don’t the
Brawlers' parents worry where their young kids are when they disappear
for days on end? And if the fact that these burning questions are left
unanswered isn’t bad enough, the tenuous excuse for a story jumps about
without a care for continuity. Many relationships are left unexplored,
good and evil changes sides on a massively predictable scale, and
ultimately, I just don’t care about a show that makes zero sense.
The show is definitely aimed at the 5- to 12-year old male demographic
and uses a very thinly veiled excuse of “entertainment” as a pretext to
produce the next big thing for the toy shops. Why do you need a
coherent storyline when you can make billions from the needy brats who
want the latest playground fad? What makes it even worse is the fact
that a second season has been set up perfectly – I guess healthy-minded
parents will be cursing the corporate morons who are more liable to
exploit childhood naivety to line their pockets than they are to
produce quality entertainment.AnimationWhen it comes to animation there’s bad, and then there’s Bakugan bad; lip synching is unheard of, the characters are extremely odd
looking and physical movement is the equivalent of your grandmother
doing the robot. Magically, before your eyes, the facial proportions of
each Brawler keep changing and distorting, almost as if they’ve been
run through Photoshop by an overenthusiastic monkey. The Bakugan
monster-things don’t fare much better: switching between a rather well
created CG ball that is completely ruined by lack of movement and a
poorly drawn creature borrowed from a seven-year-old's colouring book.SoundMuch like Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo, it seems that the original Japanese
soundtrack is not available to western audiences, and so the English
dubbing is an unfortunate “must”. With vocal skills that make kids in
Africa cry, the seiyuu for the main protagonists deserve to be lined up
and shot. The worst offender is the moronic valley-girl Runo; her
grating tones have me reaching for the remote, not to turn down the
volume but to launch it as a projectile weapon at her wide-eyed,
cretinous face.
The music accompanying the dire series is hilarious, and for all the
wrong reasons. Trying to be cool to appeal to the kids, the opening
rap-mumble-noise-rock-wannabe-thing has some hard-hitting and
inspirational lyrics. When I say hard-hitting, I mean annoying and by
inspirational I actually mean crap. Really crap. At least I can say the
entire soundtrack was consistent.CharactersNo development, no rationality and no empathy make for an entire cast
that would be better portrayed by cardboard boxes. It is almost as if
the writers took every cliché in the book, and added them to the show.
From the schoolgirl tsunderes-in-training, to the skilled loner, even
the meat-headed protagonist is not forgotten! Continuing in this tacky
vein, there are numerous antagonists who randomly decide to swap sides
to bolster the good-guys’ numbers and take on the stupidly overpowered
Naga.
OverallMy sanity is slowly slipping away. Especially as I’ve just been informed we’ll shortly be watching Bakugan: New Vestroia.
If you read this, please send help.
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