#the (bakugan) problem continues

[kheprriverse]

I love hydranoid let him be silly more often

[blueikeproductions]

I on the other hand will comment.

EarthSpark’s plot was a hard sell from the word go: making Rescue Bots but for Teens was never going to work, and trying to have “DEI related things”, IDW style ideas and making the Decepticons into babies that need a hug was especially going to turn off people.

This trailer making the bold claim that Starscream is going to take over the planet reeks of heavy course correction now that Mae Catt is gone, the story editor and writer whose only vocalized lament was not getting to make Arcee trans again, after how thoroughly unpopular it was that even IDW washed their hands of it in their reboot. Read the room, Catt… (I stand by that a lot of the screwy writing and dropped plot points to make the Decepticons more sympathetic was their doing in the editing process, along with potential meddling from Nick as well. Nick has never been great with action cartoons, and it’s a miracle Danny Phantom existed at all.)

If you’re gonna have a Trans Autobot, have it be someone else, Arcee is too much of a touchy subject. Have it be Windcharger or if you wanna be daring, Warpath. Anyhoo, the trailer itself is … fine I guess? The trust is broken, so I don’t have much faith, but I suspect it might be like Bakugan G3: the second season is better received by fans, but the toys still suck and it dies anyway to make way for TFONE related content.

The distinct lack of Skullcruncher and Hardtop annoy me. I want to see them more than I do the Femjets. And I like the Femjets, but still, I like seeing more obscure characters being used and the gator and the buggy feel wasted here.

I think the problem here is the same as Pokémon Horizons though: They’re telling the story in reverse. HZ started out with the half backed Terapagos plot and abandoned it abruptly in favor of a middle school AU plot closer to the games. The common complaint is it should’ve been in reverse: LDR at the Paldean school and after a few school shenanigans later, they more smoothly ditch school to go find Terapagos and stop the Explorers.

In ES’s case, the second season should’ve been first! The Decepticons, led by Starscream, make one final push to take over the Earth, but the Terrans are born during the final push, a reaction to the hidden Emberstone and the Earth ala Da Garn to protect the planet against Starscream’s wrath. Mandroid’s main thing starts here, we actually see his friendly fire incident and after Starscream and the Decepticons are incarcerated, Mandroid takes over as main villain in S2. The series would end like IDW, with Mandroid defeated and humans and Transformers are now to live together peacefully going forward, with a tease that Starscream will eventually escape and the adventures continue off screen.

This will probably be fun, but again the trust is broken, and after the Nightshade debacle, they might have a Hashtag debacle if they don’t handle her “coming out” correctly. Hasbro has otherwise moved on to TFONE, so I don’t see a huge roll out for the toys, most of what we know is coming having already been leaked anyway…

As said before the one good thing is returning the Decepticons to being evil. No more of this giant teddy bear scrap.

The Earthspark Season 2 trailer is here. For the sake of the fans of the show, I will eschew my usual rants about the sales, the Energon Universe, etc, etc, and present the trailer sans comment.

[kausligi]

why     do     so     many     bkgn     characters     keep     Dying

[lowkeyclueless5137]

OK... So I have a few things that I really want to do now that I'm a bit free from the pttw comic(since dia chapter is yet to be continued)

[hehebread]

[BKDK] Izuku keeps mentioning a Kacchan to reporters and they think that's his gf

this was a request on twt that i had way too much fun writing. warning for suggestive language!

--

“And is there…. a special person….or a group of people you would like to thank on air today? Anyone who inspired you? Anyone you would attribute your success to? An image of victory per say?”

Izuku’s eyes glimmer as the bright lights of the studio reflect on his irises. “Oh!” He jumps in his seat, his perfectly- coiffed curls bouncing as he nods frantically to the show’s host. “Yes! Yes!” Leaning forward with his hands on his leg, the camera zooms in on his face where the blush is painting his cheeks. “I wouldn’t be the hero I am today if it wasn’t for Kacchan!”

And it’s as if an earthquake alert dropped on the talk show. The host grows this devious grin on his face as he turns to the camera team and says, “Well, well, well, behind every great man is a woman after all.”

Izuku isn’t quite sure why the host is bringing his mother into this since the interview is reaching its end and he has already discussed her influence in detail very early on, but he doesn’t get a chance to ponder.

The host, Yamaguchi-san, leans into Izuku’s space with renowned interest and an interesting glint in his eyes. Izuku feels himself sweating in his oversized maroon-striped suit.

“So, Midoriya-san, Hero Deku, Rising Symbol of Equity and Hope, can you tell us more about … Kacchan?” His voice goes higher at the last syllable, almost sing songs, and Izuku is not sure if he should be worried or not, but he won’t pass an opportunity to gush about Kacchan!

“Ah, Kacchan is very … confident, hardworking, strong, and smart. Kacchan is a hero who knows how to lead a team and perform under pressure, an inspiration to both myself and our entire graduating class, and a”—Izuku can feel the heat rise in his face as he tries to hide in his colour— “a shining star who was closer to me than All Might!”

The host makes a loud ‘AWWW’ noise at the same time as the small audience in the studio. “My, my! Sounds like Kacchan is very important to Hero Deku! Don’t be shy! Tell us more! Is there a physical description to go with your precious person?”

“Ahm!” Izuku fiddles with his fingers as he avoids the gazes on him. There a long beat of silence before he manages to say, “Muscles….Blonde…..Sharp eyes….” With a vague gesture to his middle section, he mumbles, barely audible, “Big, ugh…..” Heart.

“OOOOOOOOOH!” The host goes wild and so does the audience. “So are we talking Hiromi Oshima type big or maybe Rio Natsume, or aaaah Aki Hoshino even ….?”

Izuku feels his ears ring in humiliation as he tries to process what they’re talking about. Something Kacchan has in common with all these beautiful women is his big successful career so Izuku nods. “Yes!” Then, a thought occurs and he rises in his chair. “Even bigger!”

After all, Kacchan’s net worth is higher than these ladies.

“BIGGER?”

“The biggest!”

“Oh my god!” The host is losing his mind now! “And is it … natural? Or did Kacchan get a little help from professionals?”

“No, no, no! Kacchan was a natural ever since we were in school together!” Izuku’s eyes shine with a fire to defend his childhood best friend, no longer trying to hide in his big suit. “No one helped Kacchan get this big!”

“That’s … amazing!” The host shakes his head in both awe and disbelief. “Now we want to see Kacchan in action! When the hero works around the city, defeating villains, does the size get in the way?”

Does Kacchan’s fame get in the way of his work? “Sometimes,” Izuku muses, “But Kacchan never lets the restless and perky nuisances stop him, y’know. With a little shake from his hands, and a few colourful words of wisdoms, nothing gets in the way!” Izuku laughs as he remembers Kacchan’s way of dismissing fans and reporters alike.

“Wow!”

“Of course, there are times where Kacchan’s big firm moulds become springy and hard to control, but I have yet to see an instance where that has been a major issue. ”

Kacchan is still having some adjustment problems with his new hero costume, particularly his grenade mould, but that’s as far as distractions go.

“Does Kacchan not use support?”

“Uhm, only when it’s a dire situation! Sometimes I’m even allowed to provide assistance!”

“You must be very lucky…”

“I am! It feels … exciting and … very special! Kacchan doesn’t trust just anyone, y’know! I can never quite get used to the trust we built together. We are one unit working together.”

“Do you use your hands…. Or something else?”

“Oh, hands! Yes! But anything works really! Whatever Kacchan is comfortable with and needs at the time. Black Whip, combo moves, an iron grip...”

The host furrow his brows and seems to be considering Izuku’s answer before he opens his mouth again. “Uhm, never mind.” He then turns to the camera, smile back on. “Our time is almost running out! Thank you, hero Deku for your time! We look forward to seeing you again in the big screen!”

--

The next day, Izuku wakes up to the headline: Hero Deku And His Mysterious Busty New Girlfriend: The Beautiful and Spunky Kacchan!

He’s doomed

--

He sees Kacchan early the next day.

Having spent the morning talking to tabloids and the host show agents about the misunderstanding and whether or not it was possible to take down the episode at least, Izuku slumps his head on his desk in defeat.

Oh, this is very bad.

He starts thumping his forehead on the wood in sync with the bleeps noises in the phone, already planning his funeral in his head.

Okay, so it seems the suspense around this girlfriend is raking up his popularity, but god, at what cost.

“Nerd, we need to talk.”

Izuku’s soul near flies to the roof at the sound of the door to his office slamming close. Fuckfuckfuck.

Kacchan stands before him with his hand on his hip, teeth snarled and looking ready to tear his flesh open. Oh, this is going to be fun!

After flashing a haughty glare at the glass door to scare away the nosy friends hanging about, Kacchan continues, “About the interview.”

Of course! Yes! His final hour is approaching. “Haahahaha, what about it?” Izuku feels his undershirt cling to his torso, sweat collecting on his face. He directs a shaky hand to a nearby chair. “Feel free to take a seat, Kacchan! You want me to get you anything? Water, tissues, uhm, a knife, a body sized bag, or uhhh, a shovel? I think I have some spare sheets of paper if you’d like to give me a chance to—“

“So…” Kacchan starts.

“PLEASE TELL MY MUM I LOVE HER!”

“…this Kacchan, huh?” Having completely ignored every single word Izuku just said, Kacchan crosses his arms and scowls. “Is she strong? How come I never heard about her before? Since when did you start dating this gravure idol and pro hero, huh?”

“Wha—?”

“So, you just go around giving everyone pretty nicknames now?” Kacchan snorts and his expression darkens before he slams his hands on Izuku’s desk. He looks at Izuku from under his chin, and Izuku swear he can see flames behind his eyes. He growls, “What’s her actual name?”

An alarm bell rings in Izuku’s ears and he stutters, “Ka— Ka— Kat— Katsuko! Bakugan Katsuko…….”

Kacchan’s expression doesn’t change and Izuku feels his heart leap to his throat. God, Kacchan is gonna call his bluff at any minute now. He’s going to reject him then he’s going to break his heart and his bones.

“What’s she like?”

Kacchan shifts forward slightly and Izuku is just know noticing the ample cleavage in clear view. Right there. In front of Izuku’s face. “Uhm. Ah, she’s very, ugh, im- pec— impeccable!! And strong! Muscl— mature!! Breasty too – I mean, pretty! PRETTY!” Izuku bites his tongue then swallows thickly. “Beautiful, actually!” Lifting his gaze to meet Kacchan, he whispers, “Gorgeous. Just the most amazing person in my life.”

Kacchan is staring intently with his sharp red eyes, and Izuku feels his chest swell with confidence he never had before. “Kacchan is my inspiration, and I just … love … Kacchan so much. I wish I had the courage to tell him— um, her that.”

“Are you two serious?” Kacchan asks, impassive but there is silent rage hiding behind his words.

Something flashes quickly through Kacchan’s eyes before he narrows them. It takes Izuku a second to recognise that it’s /hurt/ and then he realise what he has just done.

“No, no, no!” Izuku backtracks immediately. “I don’t even know her that well! In fact, she kinda smells and definitely has sweating problem.” Izuku needs to do damage control and come clean NOW. “You know what? I will call her and break up with her right now. Ha ha ha.”

What the hell is he saying? Who is he going to call?

Kacchan stands up while Izuku fumbles with his phone. “Don’t be a dick,” he says, before he heads to the door.

Izuku jumps from his chair and is ready to chase after him when Kacchan stops him. “How big?”

“Huh?”

“You said Bakugan was big.”

Ah, yes, he did. Tragically.

“Um, y’know just…” Izuku motions with his hands like he’s moulding two doughballs, palms up and fingers wiggling because he’s lost control of his life once he accepted his funeral date, but that’s not even happening anymore so what is he doing really.

He then makes am hourglass shape in the air and belatedly realises that he’s just outlining Kacchan’s shape in front of him. Izuku retreats his hands and puts them behind his back in shame.

Kacchan is looking at him funny. Like he’s trying to figure something out.

“Does she shoot aerial bomb or something? Is that a combat-style quirk?”

Izuku blinks.

Kacchan just sneers and turns around.

“Whatever. I’m doing a photoshoot this afternoon. The Sekushī clothing line is dropping a new summer set and they asked me to model.”

“Se- Sekushi?? You mean, like—” Izuku feels his face go impossibly red. “You’re saying that, you’re going to wear, like…..” his voice goes down to a whisper when he says “…..a b-b-b-b-b-bikini?”

“Swimwear,” Kacchan turns to say over his shoulder, “Among other things.”

The sexy smirk he sends Izuku’s way is doing very, very weird things to Izuku’s body and imagination, things too inappropriate to describe in a work setting.

Kacchan leaves but not without offering the most dangerous challenge to Izuku’s mental wellbeing. “Feel free to drop in.”

Oh, he absolutely will.

“Bring Bakugon.”

Oh, he absolutely will not.

Actually….

Maybe, he will.

Kacchan is going to ruin Izuku

[shurisu]

Baku-Zodiac & My observations on the OG Team (1/2)

I’ve  always wanted to make a post about their zodiac signs based on their character traits,because i love both bakugan and astrology and because why not?

I know there are some birthdates for some of them but honestly i don’t think they are even official.

I’ll be doing it in 2 parts in case this might get long so lets start.*cracking knuckles*

Dan : Starting with the easiest one for me,my homeboy is the definition of the Aries man.He’s so full of life,energetic,passionate at everything he does,brave, and he  doesn’t back off from obstacles in his way.He  is born to be a leader but values his friendships very much.We  can say he loves to have power, to show off and may come off a bit harsh by  doing / saying things without thinking first but all in all he doesn’t do any of them intentionally or  to harm anyone because he has heart of gold.

Alice&Masquerade: Continuing with  Alice, the sign fits her most would be Libra. When it comes to relationships she’s  is a total peacemaker, and always tries to make people happy around her. Her inside&out beauty is one of the main things that  makes her attractive.Her selflessness and mature personality makes her a significiant part of the team.Alice is also  shown to be very smart which adds to her charisma.However there are times that she also shows   her darkside *cough* masquerade*cough* and we see that she can use her communication skills to be manipulative and  her mind to come up with strategies to fool off her enemies or to win her so many victorious battles.And as Alice she can be doubtful of herself or act timid when she has to face a problem but when she makes up her mind, she is unstoppable.

Julie:Julie is kind of filling the mood boaster role in the team and whenever something is off, she will break the tension with the little things she does/says just like a Sagittarius would.Her brightness and optimism also influences her teammates. But don’t be fooled by her wild and cheerful nature and think she is insensitive.Even though she loves attention and may act careless at times she is deeper than the impression she gives off and is actually a caring person.

[senotsuri]

Okay but what if the og series continued on instead of battle planet.

After MS, I had little faith in the show(even if I love s4 to death despite its faults) it felt like it had no real direction because there was none. The ideas introduced were so intriguing and mysterious and the Roster of characters were so good and so terribly in need of development. Mechtanium surge needed time to fully develop their characters.

Would we get an entirely new story in the canon or would it be dan and company on a new adventure?

I personally wanted the old battle system to come back and it did, in bakutech, but I do realise that having a battle system like that made absolutely no sense given the high stakes and increased violence of later seasons.

Maybe the Vexos members would come with a thirst for vengeance?

Alice's story(as much as I liked her) was complete. She had accepted Masquerade as a part of her and had moved passed it to be a better and more mature person. So I feel like she wouldn't return.

The Vestals were interesting but we rarely saw anything about the actual vestal people outside of a few moments.

Gundalia and Neethia were at peace and okay.

Bakugan had wrapped up pretty nicely if I say so myself. Dan going off into the sunset made for an excellent way to actually tell us that the show we grew up with had ended.

What do you think?

Lemme tell you; I originally skipped MS. Entirely. This meant that I generally had no idea how MS2 ended.

I burst out laughing in disbelief when I heard about it ending like a cliche western. But no; that actually happened.

As a kid, watching amvs in the early 2010s, and coming across the mechtagon that way, was like a punch in the face. They'd added mechs. Personally speaking, I super don't like mechs (or mecha anime by proxy but that's unimportant), so I was basically set to not return to watching the series.

Mechtanium Surge appearing as two seasons in a trench coat didn't help it; two seasons of 52 episodes had to be cut down to 26 or so episodes each to even fill a single season. That'll cripple any character development for characters only meant to be around for a season; it's probably why we had the fun of only figuring out Robin's name in the jp dub was Robin through reference sheets. The jp dub never mentioned him by name.

MS should've been a full version of part 1. Part 2 should've been a different season entirely.

Even better? Have Gundalian Invaders (and MS) take place later. There's 4 or so games worth, by that point, of story that goes completely unused for the anime.

Leonidas? The Regulars? The Hurranians? Oh, and don't get me started on Abyss- the Earth's core? Is she not important enough, despite being equivalent to the perfect core?

This may be me liking to occassionally torture characters while I'm writing coming through, but I feel like Drago should've gotten his comeuppence for absorbing so much power; Naga exploded when trying to become the perfect core. I'm aware Drago is much more built to handle the perfect core (he has an attribute for starters), but shouldn't the constant energy absorption every year or so have him eventually explode?

Bakugan don't (and shouldn't, because Drago has plot armour here) have infinite power; give them more than they can handle and they explode. Drago absorbed the perfect core, all attribute energies (apparently? When the BT system exploded? That definitely wouldn't have consequences /s), the element, the gate and key thing, Dharak's half of the gate and key, and the power of friendship (by the way the fight against Mechtavius goes, only.)

That's 10 different powers, 11 if you separate the perfect core into it's parts (not counting PoF here.) That's a recipe for disaster.

If there was ever a way to demonstrate why biting off more than you can chew was a bad idea, then having Drago explode over his 10 different external powers would definitely be it.

And they're free once he's exploded, too; these things wander. The Battle Brawlers would technically have a self made mess on their hands.

Fixing the mess they caused, because why is everyone relying on a space faring baby civilisation to solve their problems and ultimately take this massive source of energy for their help, which, I'm going to be honest?

They didn't deserve those powers (I'm aware the Element was given to Drago, so Neo's capture was no longer such an obstacle, and also Neo had no better options.)

I know it's cruel to kill a fan favourite, but it has a lot of story potential. A lot of potential. We'd get to see what Dan would go with in Drago's stead, for one. It also gets the brawlers to revisit older season's planets so they can get the wandering powers back, and this time give them to different bakugan (Ingram is gonna have words about being given his attribute energy back, I feel?)

TlDr: we're extending it by extending MS to two seasons, and making Drago into a piñata, that's above the slipperiest floor, and we're trying to grab the wrapped up chocolates from inside before the dog eats them.

In otherwords we're exploding him to create chaos that we can fix, with alien planet visiting involved. Also perfect excuse for Alice to return.

[zghostreviews]

Review of Soul Eater(2008)

Soul Eater is an anime/manga by Atsushi Okubo. The manga started in 2004 and ended in 2013 and the anime ran from 2008-2009 with a total of 51 episodes.

Summary(in my words): Soul Eater is anime that revolves around 7 students that go to DWMA, a school in Death City, Nevada, USA. DWMA is a school that weapons and meisters attend. Weapons are people that can turn into weapons (ie scythes, guns, swords) and meisters are those that can handle the weapon due to their soul wavelengths being compatible with each other. If a weapon devours the souls of 99 demons and one witch, they are able to become a Death Weapon, which proves proves to be difficult to achieve as we follow in the SE crew’s adventures.

Let’s get started with the review.

Ah,….2011…a time where it was just so, so, great to be a child. Everything was still so new around me, majority of sites hadn’t desolved into the clusterfucks they were yet. And YouTube wasn’t garbage yet. 9 yo me had just gotten their first laptop, which they’d gotten 2010 of Christmas day. I’d woken up very early in the cool morning and decided to just look around on YT a bit, there, I found it, the Soul Eater This Is Halloween AMV, and it was the original, and not one of the many reuploads that there are now. I watched it immediately fell in love just everything about it. I HAD to watch it. I searched up the show on YT and found episodes, some the entire episode, some divided the episode in parts. Wanna know what I felt?….

 PURE HYPE BOI!!!!!!

But 9 yo me had NO CLUE what a wild ride Soul Eater would be since this was their first time watching something they knew was anime, and not stuff I’d seen on TV like Dragon Ball, Yugioh, Beyblade, or Bakugan. Lemme just tell you it was indeed a wild ride, I became OBSESSED with Soul Eater. I memorized the OP Resonance, and my daily thing to do when I woke up? Go to the kitchen, grab a broom, go to dining room, start spinning broom around like Maka while yelling things like “Let’s go Soul Resonance!” or singing the opening theme…at 7 in the morning. I look back at that specific thing now and think, ‘wow my grandfather and uncle must have hated me for all that tbh’

Characters: 9/10 Probably would’ve been a 10/10 if I just didn’t despise Black Star as much as I did, looking back now, I think he was kinda okay as a character, I don’t him aaaaas much as I did as a kid.

But anyways here’s my reason for such a high score. The characters all had such distinct personalities, that just made them all seem so realistic, they act the way teenagers would in real life. There’s just something I love about that tbh.

Fanservice: The fanservice in this anime ngl made me realize I am very much gay. In the first episode, Blair had me like

And characters like Misune in her human form, and Medusa and Arachne I-

Listen y’all, I rewatched Soul Eater 3 times, and my thoughts are still the same. I had the biggest thing for these 4 characters as a kid, and I as a whole adult now, would probably simp for them despite 2 of the being literal scum of the earth.

Music: 10 outta fucking/10 Literally ALL of the music in this anime was a fucking BOP, like have y’all heard So Scandelous, or either of Death the Kid’s themes??? To this day it’s still so GREAT! It just fits the anime SO WELL!

Backstories: 8/10 The  backstories are pretty great, and some, pretty fucking depressing. HOWEVER, the anime does NOT delve into much of it at all since it ended before the manga finished. Plus we have the Gorgon sisters whose pasts are not all that touched upon living mysteries like “who the hell is Crona’s father” and “where were the Gorgons before now” to be asked

Ending: [Everyone Disliked That]/10 Just know that the last few episodes were fillers, they ran out of source material due the fact that the manga hadn’t gotten to it’s closure yet. Though that’s not the problem here. The problem was how they executed the ending as a whole. There was all this intense fighting against Asura only for it all to be ended simply with Maka just punching him square in the face. Nothing more than that, then boom, basically show ends right there, Asura, dies from the blow of the punch or some shit, and everyone goes on with their lives. 

Is the anime still worth watching regardless of the ending? Hard yes. Despite everything, the fillers actually served in making the series more enjoyable. I’d still recommend reading the manga as well since a lot more stuff happens and you’ll get the official closure which is MUCH better than the anime’s.

Quick Review:

Soul Eater NOT! (2014)

Rating: 4/10

Th…There was no purpose to this. Nobody asked for this. I read the manga AND watched the anime in its entirety. I have absolutely no clue what the fuck this was supposed to be aside from a prequel to Soul Eater??? 

Basically it was just a yuri slice of life with some mediocre drama with a new gorgon sister that was never mentioned anywhere in the original series. The original kids from Soul Eater DO make an appearance but it’s not really at all significant…. The 3 main girls who I can’t really remember the name of except for one of them is named Meme are all mediocre, and were in some sort of love triangle(?) The only reason I even continued was through the pure power of gayness.  Everything was so….bland with this one….the characters seemed flat too….idk what happened but this definitely was NOT it….get it?? ahaha

This was genuinely a disappointment for everyone in the fandom. I remember the fandom started getting hyped over hearing about new Soul Eater stuff  but then this….turned out to be the result….

[cooplagoop]

Contemplations

Pairing: Gill x Barodius

Rating: T

Word count: 2.3k

How odd was it for the emperor of the most advanced technological species to have his thoughts plagued by his best friend? Instead of focusing on managing his planet’s finances, he was interupted by the image of Gill’s eyes, his broad shoulders & that slim jawline. Needless to say he’d been avoiding the man for 3 months, spending only the required amount of time with him as his second in command, while trying to figure out why he was feeling this way. 

Eventually he came to the realization of the cause of his newfound fascination with Gill being nothing other than a newly-formed crush on the sly bastard. 

‘Despite isolating myself from him as much as possible for 3 whole months, my… desires... towards him haven’t weakened nearly as much as I’d prefer.’

Although his desires had decreased in intensity as of late, they were still ever present. In one of his bouts of curiosity as prince he had attempted to research the phenomena called love & found a theory by a gundalian neuroscientist claiming love is experienced as a building & descending series of waves. The scientist was trying to argue that love doesn't fade away over time, but that it slowly ascends to a certain point where it is unconsciously built up within the psyche then reaches the peak of infautation once the conscience fully acknowledges these feeling & afterwords it descends into the subconscience after focus starts to waver until the next wave arrives to begin the ascend again. According to this theory Barodius' conscience should be almost completely aware of his feelings.

Being as well-read as he is, it didn’t take him more than a few weeks of research & self-reflection to conclude what these feelings actually are. He was no child after all. He’d successfully courted several women in his teenage years mostly to spite his traditionalist father, who had remained steadfast in the belief of reserving oneself for the “right one” & even tried to pick a girl for him on more than one occassion. Just thinking about this made his blood boil. 

‘THAT SHITTY OLD MAN’ 

In order to prevent himself from damaging his own chambers in a fit of blind rage, he diverted his attention to his conquest for Nethia's sacred orb. Soon. Very soon he'd make Dharak the most powerful Bakugan the cosmos has ever seen. After calming himself down for a minute or two with the thought of his inevitable succes, his overbaring anger was eventually reduced to a much smaller flame ever still threatening to consume anyone standing in his path. He sighed while recalling the events of the past 3 months again.

During the remainder of these last few months Barodius had tried to reason that he couldn’t love a man. He couldn’t recall a time when he’d been interested in any man overall making his feelings for Gill even more shocking to him. That is until he saw some naked pictures of good looking men on an erotic photography site. 

Even then the revelation hadn’t been any easier to accept. As the only heir to a long line of aristocracy he was obligated to produce children. In spite of his budding adolescence, talk of wedlock persisted among the other noble houses.

The real question was could he even be in a romantic relationship with another person. His personal outlook had been to always put himself first regardless of if others called that evil or selfish. It would be for the best if his significant other had no plans of changing his philosephy.  

Continuing his musing Barodius was once again swept away to his thoughts this time about what his ideal lover would be like. He could make do with any physical traits to be honest as long as they wore presentable clothing. He hoped they'd have an interest in jewelery as well. Jade jewlery was very popular in these times. Oddly enough Gill wore bronze jewels on the ends of his sleeves.

'Probably to match Krakix'

And just like that he found himself thinking of Gill yet again. Groaning, the emperor closed his eyes in another attempt to clear his mind.

Dharak had apperently decided an intervention was neccessary.

“Is something wrong, Barodius?“ he said after exiting the confinds of his owner's overcoat.

The emperor doubted his companion was very knowledgable on love affairs.  Then again he didn't have many options for consolence now, did he? 

Airzel is Gill’s protege, so the red head would notice without fail if Airzel slipped up for even half a second. Even though Airzel knew a great deal of confidental information regarding Gundalia, he might view his emperor’s personal secret to not be on the same level of importance or too strange for him to fully understand why such a trivial thing was to be kept secret in the first place. 

Stoica would most likely concoct some kind of ludicrus plan, which would have him questioning his sanity at the end of it. Kazarina is a workoholic with nothing aside from contempt for all Gundalians excluding her Bakugan & himself, of course. The only one left was Nurzak. He did have a wife once making him the best choice out of the Twelve Orders. However, Nurzak would no doubt try to guide him as if he was still a prince & truth to be told Barodius hated such pretentiousness most of all.

And with that he was stuck with Dharak. He knew Dharak would have no trouble keeping his secret, but there was no guarante Dharak would understand anything he said concerning his feelings for Gill. The young emperor scrutinized his partner for a good moment. 

Dharak felt he'd waited long enough for the other's response. The look the young man shot him really rubbed him the wrong way. 

“And for what reason are you looking at me as if I’ve betrayed you?”

After finally finding a respectable master, he was now being doubted. He had half a mind to start calling Barodius boy like when they had first met.

“It’s nothing. It just occured to me that I have a crush on Gill.” 

Barodius decided to be honest with his feelings. At least as honest as he felt was necessary. Some would classify this as him trying to push away those who cared about him, but to someone who knew him as well as Dharak, he had disclosed more than enough information.

“...You want to kill Gill?” 

“No.” 

Of course, Dharak would associate the word crush with destruction. 

“You misunderstood. What I was trying to say is that I-”

“You have a romantic interest in him.” was said in a manner that signified the guardian bakugan’s disbelief.

Barodius flinched at being cut off so abruptly. 

“You have some nerve interupting me while I disclosed my personal problems to you, Dharak!”

“My deepest apolagise, master Barodius.” Dharak was able to come out of his shock to form a proper apology. 

Shock. Disbelief. He was completely taken aback with the reveal. He looked over at Barodius & he was staring at him intensely as if he was expecting him to say something.

‘But what should I say?’

For the first time in several decades the strongest Gundalian bakugan that has served the noble house of the emperors for 4 generations did not know what to say.

‘I have to think this through. If I choose my words poorly, this could drive a wedge between us’

Bringing up the reality that this relationship would have an experation date due to the necessity for a successor & the general disdain their countrymen shared for homosexuality was out of the question. His master was no fool. Barodius already knows that.

‘Emperor Barodius is not interested in my thoughts on homosexuality. What he is seeking is personal advice on how to proceed with his complicated emotions towards Gill. Wait!... Does Gill even like men?’

For the next 6 minutes Dharak would try his hardest to piece together his words. Going over all the different ways their conversation could play out. The old guardian had been so caught up in his thoughts that he didn’t notice the young man had returned to his work by the time he had settled on his words. 

No matter. He knew what he planned to say.

“Barodius, if you’d allow me, I’d give you my insight on your predicament.”

The white haired man closed his eyes & said “Very well then.”

“Before that I’d like to ask one question for the sake of fully comprehending the subject at hand.”

“Go on, Dharak.”

“Do you know if Gill is interested in men the same way you are?”

A smug grin formed on the Darkus battler’s features.

“You didn’t notice the way Gill would awkwardly flirt back when women latched themselves onto him during a gala? Or the fact that he had a crush on our martial arts teacher that I used to tease him about? Or how about the reality of Gill never having a girlfriend for as long as I’ve known him? Does this answer your question, Dharak?”

‘He’s really one insufferable man when he gets passive-aggressive with me’

Nothing showed Dharak’s age more than how he would forget small bits & pieces of the past like Barodius teasing Gill over something insignificant, but now wasn’t the time for reminiscing about days gone. He had something to say.

“Barodius, I believe the best course of action is to confess to Gill.”

“That is all I assume?” the emperor inquired as he fixed his gaze on his companion.

‘Did Dharak really spend all of that time thinking to himself just to tell me to confess?’

“Yes.”

“Hmph. I refuse to entertain your idea.” 

“...What now?” 

‘He really doesn’t understand anything about romance. Heh, why am I surprised?’

In spite of Dharak being far from it, the young man couldn’t help finding him to be endearing in his attempts to help him. 

“I ask Gill for permission to court him.” was said with a renewed confidence as his signature smirk formed on his lips “We need to make arrangements at once.”

“We?” Why couldn’t the emperor excuse him? 

“Yes, you’ll be helping me.”

Barodius clearly found his inexperience to be amusing & felt like teasing him. Dharak just wanted to live a simple carefree life where he didn’t have to be berated for not understanding mushy romantic nonsense & devote his precious time to crushing pathetic insects, who dare have the audacity to challenge him. 

“Do it yourself! You already rejected my idea & figured everything out on your own already. You don’t need me to advise you.” Dharak said in a very firm tone, refusing to be used as a toy for his master’s childish whims.

After the first year or so of their partnership, their disputes had lessened significantly. It turned out the two of them were a lot more similar than they had liked to admit at the time.  Dharak hadn’t been so vocal about his objections in 4 years when Barodius “jokingly” tried to use Dharak as a royal seal. 

A displeased look crossed the young ruler’s face. 

“Stop throwing one of your fits already.” the Darkus battler immaturely deflected “I need someone to bounce ideas off of.” 

“I refuse!” said Dharak even more convinced than the first time

The evil man sighed. He didn’t want to argue with Dharak when the solution he was looking for was a hair away from him.

“...It appears my issue with Gill will remain stationary for now.” 

As much as he loved to rile Dharak up, he never meant to be rude to him. In Barodius’ twisted mind mocking was seperate from disrespect whenever he did it to his guardian bakugan. 

“Dharak”

The Darkus bakugan was still somewhat put-off. He didn’t expect Barodius to admit defeat & back off without taking another jab at him.

“Regardless of your feeling on the matter do not speak of this conversation to anyone.”

Oh, so that was why.

“Understood.”

Barodius attempted to return to his previous work. Nonetheless he was still just as unfocused as he was 20 minutes earlier. 

“What are you loafing around for, Dharak?” the tyrant snapped

“Hm, take your anger out on someone else.” was said as the old bakugan resumed his nap in the emperor’s overcoat

Barodius considered this. He had nothing to gain from forcing himself to do paperwork when his mind was preoccupied with something completely different. He also didn’t have the energy to find some incompetent fool to torture. 

Then it hit him. The gymnasium. 

Martial arts was a hobby he thoroughly enjoyed, whose aggressive nature coincided perfectly with his irritable temper.

Telepathically flicking his screen to the gym’s camera what he found surprised him. It was Gill & he was sparring with Airzel. 

Airzel was doing a good job of dodging Gill relentless blows. The Ventus battler tried to grab onto one of Gill’s arms to stop his attacks. He succeeded, but Gill simply used that to his advantage by taking ahold of Airzel’s arm & pulling himself towards him to deliver a fierce punch to the side of his protege’s head.

A cruel smile formed on the red head’s face as Airzel landed on his side. However, when the smaller man started to get back up, he quickly concealed it behind his usual stoic mask. 

“That’s enough for today. You’re excused.”

The Pyrus battler started walking towards a set of weights. 

“I’ll keep training for another hour.” Gill said before Airzel had time to inquire

The pupil nodded & curtly left.  

‘How convenient’ Barodius thought to himself. 

Once he packed all he needed he ordered his servants to carry his equipment to the gymnasium as he slowly made his way closer towards Gill’s location. The emperor was trying to contain himself from smiling least someone see him & think he lost his mind. A single thought was to blame for his childlike excitement that restlessly continued to echo in his head. 

‘I can’t wait to break that bastard’s skull!’

Author’s note: I finally made it & it only took me 7 months 😅 Well, they say the first one is the most difficult, right? I also plan to post this on my ao3 soon.  Anyways, I’d like to thank you guys for expressing your genuine interest in this pairing & my writing. I’d like to thank @laggingbehindreality for reading a very early draft of this fic & giving me some feedback. I’m gonna tag some of my friends who were interested in checking out this pairing.  @just-halbeerd-things @hailey12panther

Constructive criticism is always welcome

[bakubabes-and-ramble]

Opinion: What went wrong with the brawling in Bakugan?

Short Summary: I believe the reason, why the brawling started to go south and became boring to watch up from the second season, is that the ‘thinking’ behind the game started to flip and slowly disappear. What I mean here is the lack of strategy, planning, setting up and general depth, which the first season lay out and taught about. Ability spamming. And this stems from cutting back in some of the impactful game elements. The game got streamlined.

(Warning: Huge Wall-Of-Text under the cut)

I actually wanted to write a veeeeery long and detailed essay on this topic, but I realised, that would have been a huge cake for me to bite, so I am only going to go around the topic relatively superficially.*

*Maybe this came out more detailed than I had thought, thanks to Me sitting on this thing for weeks now. It was time to let the steam out.

(This is probably going to swing between the tones of ‘personal opinion’ and ‘objective criticism’ and is a bit ‘ranty’ so please forgive the inaccuracies and the fluctuation. I just felt I had to get this out of my chest, and promised myself to write this out as soon as possible, so I can get on back with the BakuBabes comic.)

Clarification: This is about the original anime series including Bakugan Battle Brawlers, New Vestroia, Gundalian Invaders and Mechtanium Surge. Language: English dub.

Side note: This piece of writing was inspired by the last time I rewatched some episodes here and there from the first and last season, and the quality of the brawling scenes showed a HUGE contrast.

When the first time I tried to write about this, I specifically wanted to look into the second season’s fighting system (and comparing it to the first season’s matches), because I wanted to have a picture of what I intend to fix/change in the BakuBabes AU exactly with the first teamfight. (I hope I can pull off what I would like to..). This is what that rant had looked like (before I decided to scrap it) :

As much as I admit, the second season is my favourite from the original Bakugan series, there are a couple of issues, which always bugged me.

Compared to the first season’s game mechanics and ever-ongoing tactical tinkering, the second season’s brawls just feel a bit ‘shallow’ strategy-wise.

In the first season there were a lot of tactical elements (multiple gate cards/bakugans and their physical placements, reverse thinking with tricky cards, generally more diverse card effects, the throwing itself as an important part of the game, the different non-Gpower related aspects of the monsters mattering more…), which added a more ‘strategy-game’ feeling to the fights. This started to go into a more ‘dog fighting’ direction (dropping the calculations with numbers and strict rules) with the final battle against Naga and his minions and returned in the second season and continued on to the further seasons. This in itself wouldn’t be much of a problem, moreover, at least it differs the seasons from each other and gives seriousness for what is going on in New Vestroia. The stakes are higher, and so do the Gpowers rocket into the sky. But at the same time, there are many aspects, where things got simplified and cut off: The reduction in the gate card usage and effects (seriously, I can not recall more than like three gate card effects, which were used throughout the whole season), and most of the abilities weren’t unique or special, they just reduced Gpower from the enemy or added to their own (or both at the same time). The biggest portion of the Bakugans’ and the brawling’s ‘power’ got locked behind ability cards, and this resulted in a ‘snowball-Gpower racing-ability card spamming’, which annoyed me out of the Universe. To counter an ability, you had to activate another ability and so on, spiraling into a snowbally mess, and the only deciding factor to win was ‘to be the last one to pull an ability card’.(I don’t rememeber there being any regulations regarding the limitation in the number of activable ability cards.)

Ironically enough, in S2 Ep40 (where they pulled the ‘cheating-field trick’), it just showed, what was the weak point of the battles:

Volt: “The only thing, that’s going to decide the battle in here are the Bakugans’ original base power levels, which means…” ( it doesn’t matter how many abilities you activate, you’re going to lose anyway… )

That means: The monsters and players without their ability cards are effectively useless. That’s it. This shows how the abilities overweight everything else. This wasn’t really a thing in the first season, you could play around it… It was more about setting up situations to your advantage and counter your opponent through different means…

Retrospectively, I had the feeling, that everyone was just throwing around abilities randomly just for show-off. But ^that^ was the reason why the fights got a bit boring. The spamming just made it seem like activating an ability is no longer something big or flashy. It’s a ‘must-move’ and anyone ‘silenced’ (= denied to activate any abilities) can be instantly shutdown by their opponents. Gatekeeping the power this way just pushed everything into a boring and monotonous direction. The only reason you didn’t know, who would win, is because you didn’t know where the snowball would end.

For diversity they added Trap Bakugans, but these were just extra summoned units and to function properly, they required ability cards as well.

Yeah, it isn’t finished and I just tried to set-up a rough summary for myself.

But rewatching the first few episodes of Mechtanium Surge is what gave the answer to the ‘where did the whole brawling system go’ question.

Compared to the first season - during the 2nd-3rd-4th seasons - the whole game got streamlined and simplified, reducing it into ability spamming and sometimes opening a gate card. It finally hit a deep point in the last season, where activating an ability meant either pulling up some shield or shooting a laser beam /projectile out of one’s mouth/hand/stomach… (Looking at you, Mechtanium Surge…)

I know, that every season brought in something new to play with (Traps, Gears, Bakunanos, Weird Bionicle Thingies Mechtogans..), but none of these brought back the depth of the game, because all of these were just ‘cake-topping’ elements. They didn’t change the game fundamentally, the lack of different basic core mechanics remained problematic and untouched.

Abilitiy spamming

Lack of planning

Lack of explanation

Without strategy: skill = ?

1.The ability spamming roots in the weight ability cards gained over everything else.

Quotig this from the early version:

“The biggest portion of the Bakugans’ and the brawling’s ‘power’ got locked behind ability cards, and this resulted in a ‘snowball-Gpower racing-ability card spamming’, which annoyed me out of the Universe. To counter an ability, you had to activate another ability and so on, spiraling into a snowbally mess, and the only deciding factor to win was ‘to be the last one to pull an ability card’.(I don’t rememeber there being any regulations regarding the limitation in the number of activable ability cards.)

Ironically enough, in S2 Ep40 (where they pulled the ‘cheating-field trick’), it just showed, what was the weak point of the battles:

Volt: “The only thing, that’s going to decide the battle in here are the Bakugans’ original base power levels, which means…” ( it doesn’t matter how many abilities you activate, you’re going to lose anyway… )

That means: The monsters and players without their ability cards are effectively useless. That’s it. This shows how the abilities overweight everything else. This wasn’t really a thing in the first season, you could play around it… It was more about setting up situations to your advantage and counter your opponent through different means…”

2. I definitely miss the thinking and the tactical mid-brawl break-downs, which explained, why did the players do what they did. It gave an insight of their strategy and showed, how differently each brawler played, how many strategical options there were. Reducing the available gate cards’ numbers to one instantly removed the weight of setting up and thinking in advance.

The same goes for introducing life gauges instead of the limited amount of playable monsters.

Getting your Bakugan knocked out had it’s strategical impact, it was important not to lose 3 times. But the G power level difference didn’t matter within one round, you didn’t have to sacrifice extra abilities into a lost battle. You could risk it regardless, but that is what tactics is all about. On the other hand, the opportunity of chunking as big portion of your opponent’s health bar as possible just induces the spamming even more. To make the power difference bigger, the players throw an unnecessary amount of abilities into the game - but only swinging the match back and forth - until someone decides not to / runs out of cards (?). ( This is going to be half-answered in the 3rd pointˇ )

Talking about strategical impact, in the first season there were a lot of special effects, which could backfire if you didn’t use it right. Like ‘The monster with lower G power wins this round’ card for example. It wasn’t ensured, that the person gets the benefit, who activated it, there was a background risk-reward system going on. You could play the tricky way, a high risk-high reward style. Or going a traditional straight-up way, with less planning and more predictability. This is why you had to be cautious and mindful playing your cards, thinking before doing and not just throwing them in a pile to boost the numbers (Which they later on sacrificed on the altair of ‘We must make the fighting look EPIC and big and LASER BEAMS!! What are the G power numbers even?’)

Quoting this from earlier:

“But at the same time, there are many aspects, where things got simplified and cut off: The reduction in the gate card usage and effects (seriously, I can not recall more than like three gate card effects, which were used throughout the whole season), and most of the abilities weren’t unique or special, they just reduced Gpower from the enemy or added to their own (or both at the same time).”

Not only the card effects lost their versatility, even the Bakugan had the same set of streamlined and one-way abilities. Visually everyone had a shield, a laser beam, 5 different projectile attacks regardless of attribute or range type…

Not even attributes seemed to play any kind of role anymore. I remember something about the elements actually countering / being weaker against each other in a circular rotation, like in the Defenders of The Core game: For example Pyrus being weaker against Aquos, but stronger against Darkus attribute enemies. I couldn’t find sings of this either in the later seasons. But this was hard to figure out, because…

3. Half of the rules weren’t even explained in the show later on for my confusion. Just as an example: for a long time I’ve had no idea, how much HP the players’ life gauge had in the second season, simply, because no one stated it anywhere. I had thought, life points were randomly reduced from the opponents. Until one day, I had figured out, that a. The power level difference marked the quantity and b. The total life points were 500 points (once calculating back from 300 G power difference worthing 60% of the life gauge).

It’s not neccessarily bad, if there are things you have to find out on your own or by the help of others. My problem was, that this wasn’t stated in the very first source anyone could get about the game. ( Realising this life gauge thing was such a ‘wow! now it makes sense!’ thing for me, but it turned out to be a basic thing, and felt so dumb about myself for not noting this earlier… )

The same goes for actually noticing, that each ability was used only one time per round. But it wasn’t stated anywhere again. First I didn’t even pay attention to it, because up from the second season monsters started to have so many abilities in their kit, I thought it had been whatever, because they had enough to still spam it. Let alone, the numerical depiction of the battle was slowly neglected (and finally dismissed in the last season), so I had no idea anymore, what the heck was going on. And even if they showed the numerical changes on the ‘bakupod’ screen, those either weren’t explained as well, or didn’t show any kind of consistency to me. Without the numerical values, the sometimes seemingly random match-outcomes rendered the relative power level difference of the monsters nonsense. (^Talking about Gundalian Invaders here) The only sure thing we had known in the end, is that Drago is ‘the best’ and beats literally everyone else.

(With this in mind, it just gives me the feeling, the reason Dan could constantly faceroll literally everyone in the end and still remain ‘the best’, is because he had Drago, who was overpowered as heck. I believe Dan was a good brawler but otherwise he couldn’t have been ‘the best’ if not for Drago. He had the heart and fierceness to fight, they had the mutual respect for each other with Drago, but he was reckless and wasn’t known about planning or being too tactical about things. I also can’t go over the fact, that Drago was unbalanced and generally oppressive to play against, and I didn’t like how they made him and Dan the story’s ‘chosen one’s, which totally goes against the message of the whole show about ‘being stronger together with your friends’…But this is a topic for another day. I tried to focus here on the fighting system itself and exclude my problems with the plot or other elements��)

4. What is skill anymore?

In conclusion of all the above, I just get no sense of difference regarding the players’ strategies later on. Mostly, because the reduced room for tactics doesn’t allow them to have any options. There is just one way to play the game and it became uninteresting to watch. Streamlined ability spamming.

Nothing from the first season matters anymore. Strategy, forethinking, setting-up… skill is something, which could play around with these things. With these gone, what remains? The order, you put down your abilites?

(I even found it funny in the third season, when someone activated a random ability, their opponent went ‘Wow! That was so skillful!’… Activating an ability in itself without any context is just like pressing a button… I am confused, where is the skill in this?)

Probably this is where I end my monologue. I kind of ran out of thoughts for now. I talked more from a personal view as a viewer of the show, trying to understand, what they attempted to do with the brawling system. I hope at least I could say something relatable. If not, that’s okay too: This meant to be a rant/opinion post anyway.

If I got something regarding the show wrong / somebody knows about it better, feel free to correct me.

For those, who actually made it to the end of this mini-essay, I leave my respect and some fun facts here about the header drawing: The headline Alice-half was originally made to go with this Alice-Masquerade headcanon/opinion post, as an illustration, but I ended up forgetting to use it there. And the other half with Dan pouring abilities like my salt was innitially made to be a joke for myself, but it ultimately fits the comparation of season one vs. season four, so I put the two together and Voila! A perfect depiction of the situation.

A random thought for the end:

(Okay, I have to be honest here: After I had watched all the seasons to their ends for the very first time, I realised, that up from the second season I had less and less memories of each seasons, and didn’t get, why.. But now after rewatching Gundalian Invaders and some episodes from Mechtanium Surge, I understand why my brain used to shut-off during every battle scene possible: the only impression I will ever have of the last seasons fights is ability spamming and flashy laser beaming, nothing else…)

Thanks for coming to my TED rant!

[fly-pow-bye]

See It Firsts for 2/28/2020

Apologies for not making this article yesterday; I was busy that day, and I spent quite a bit of that day completing that ThunderCats Roar review. Yes, that’s right, I’m reviewing ThunderCats Roar until DuckTales comes back, and I just posted a review of the first episode. I’m also going to take a short look at the original ThunderCats as well. I don’t plan on doing more than the first few episodes of that, but if people demand it, I’ll oblige.

Anyway, Cartoon Network continued their trend on releasing new episodes on the internet and On Demand services before they air in the US.

First, the first episodes of Bakugan Battle Planet Season 3:

The Mysterious Boy/A New Power - The Mysterious Boy: After stopping Tiko's rampage, the Awesome Brawlers have become world-famous heroes and Bakugan-mania sweeps the globe. With the Bakugan boom, brawling has been reinvented as a sporting game. In celebration of the Awesome Brawlers efforts, a tournament is being held in their honor. But the battles are quickly cut short when a rogue brawler and his golden Bakugan crash the event./A New Power: A Rogue brawler, Agit and his golden Bakugan have crashed the Awesome Brawlers party. Who is this brawler? How can he control a Golden Bakugan? Only one way to find out - Bakugan Brawl! Dan and Drago go head to head with the outsides to get to the bottom of it. Outmatched by their opponent, Dan and Drago get a little help from a new powerful weapon - Baku-Gear.

Baku-Gear/Bakugan Rock! - Baku-Gear: The Awesome Brawlers are excited over their discovery of Baku-Gear, and want to get some footage of it in action. While they're filming, an underclassman named Trey challenges Dan to battle. Who will emerge victorious in the impromptu battle?/Bakugan Rock!: Baku-gear has shown up twice for Dan and Drago and it's starting to eat away at the other awesome brawlers. It's time they take it into their own hands. When Lia and Wynton go up against the rockin' new brawlers in town, they show Dan and Drago that they are not the only one who can summon this cool new tool!

Brawler Headhunting/Lightning's Entrance Exam - Brawler Headhunting: As acting president of Kazami International, Shun is called upon to entertain another new young CEO Luca Schmidt, who's interested in doing business with the Kazami International. But Shun quickly realizes something is up when Luca tries woo him over to his brawling team - the Glanz Five. /Lightning's Entrance Exam: The Awesome Brawlers may be world famous heroes, but that doesn't mean they get out of going to school. They are still regular kids, doing regular kid things. But teachers may have something to say when Lightening decides he wants to join his buddies in the classroom.

Trouble Busters!/French Fry Wars - Trouble Busters!: Now that the Awesome Brawlers are world famous Bakugan experts, they want to help people solve their Bakugan-related problems. When the world's quietest town is experiencing unexplained noises, the Awseome Brawlers are called in to get to the bottom of it./French Fry Wars: The Awesome Brawlers are arguing over who gets to eat the last french-fry. At first, each member makes a case for why they should to be the one to eat it. But the quarrel quickly escalates into trash talk and revealing secrets about one another. With everyone now upset, things take an unexpected turn.

The Phantom Thief Comes to Call/Phantom Thief Ajit - The Phantom Thief Comes to Call: An archeological discovery is made in Los Volmos. Exploration at the site is cut short, when a master thief and his apprentice attempt to steal the ancient Bakugan artifacts. When the Awesome Brawlers hear the news, they step in to thwart the thieves./Phantom Thief Ajit: An Ancient Bakugon artifact from an archeological discovery is placed in the Los Volmos Museum. The Awesome Brawlers are charged with guarding the artifacts from any further attempts thievery.

Also, new episodes of Power Players.

Joke's On You, Bro! - Axel and the team turn Galileo's camouflaging pranks around on him, convincing the gullible gecko that he's permanently invisible - to disastrous results!

Out of My Head - Axel must help Sarge and Bobbie learn to walk in each other's shoes - literally - after Luka unwittingly switches the toys' heads!

Freeze! - Axel and his team find themselves in a tough position after Ice Crusher makes it too cold for them to fight back at full speed.

King Axel - After a screening of the King Arthur tale, Axel holds out his sword and declares himself king, but when Dynamo uses his magnetism to steal the weapon and bestow it upon Masko, it casts doubt among the team over who is the true leader.

The Trojan Bear - When Axel opens a subscription gift-box he didn't even order, the team finds their ranks divided by a robotic bear - or Princess SugarSalt in disguise!

Thirst for Power - Axel and his toys deploy the Joyride in a "ship" to "ship" battle against Dr. Nautilus, who has punctured a water main to flood the sewers and established himself as "Admiral Nautilus."

Party On - As Zoe preps Cleo LeBall's birthday party, Axel and the team run damage control against a jealous crasher - Princess SugarSalt, who has turned the decorations and gifts into instruments of chaos!

Bringing Up Baby - Zoe leaves Axel in charge of the school project - watching over an infant simulator doll - but when MadCap brings the doll to life, Axel and the team must stop the baby without damaging it or risk getting a failing grade!

If one has a cable or satellite subscription, they can check them out. Stay tuned.

[marukrawler]

i just realized- in bakumagi, if dan has a tendency to lose control because he has too much power, then it would only get harder and harder to keep himself from rampaging. ohhh but what if the vexos all have a lower potential than the other races? like, vexos have the lowest, humans have the highest, and gundalians and neathians are mostly tied but gundalians lean towards potential while neathians lean towards control. so the struggle in new vestroia is mostly because shun and marucho just got/1

new partners and dan is so angry at what is going on that he can't transform as much because there's a higher chance of losing control. so at first dan leaves the fighting to the others or holds himself back from using much power. until spectra lands a hit on shun. after that they were lucky to be in the middle of nowhere because dan would have leveled a whole city during that rampage. it did send the message very well however. then in gundalian invaders he also held himself back during the /2

majority of the season, so the gundalians and neathians had a hard time believing him to be powerful, until one of his friends gets in danger again and it becomes clear why its a bad idea to both sides to send him on a rampage. basically dan and drago avoiding power as much as they can, but are never successful, so it LOOKS like they're getting weaker but its actually that they have so much power and so much trauma that its getting so hard to remain in control that they keep crippling /2?

themselves even more every time their power grows because the risks of rampaging are getting even worse. so in ms1 the problem is that they keep suppressing their power instead of learning to control it and so the power starts to bleed into dan's normal self. also they start to almost-rampage-oh-my-god-that-was-close at random or with the slightest provocation. basically Not A Fun Time For Anyone Involved. they have to run away into vestroia in order to learn control without risk of hurting others/e

ohhh, so like the issue of ms1, only it starts MUCH much earlier in the show and keeps getting worse? that sounds like a bad time for sure 😔😔

so i imagine that once they actually start to work on control instead of suppression, they'll start to see much better results? because i can't imagine this problem continuing 😭

i also like the idea that when shun and marucho change partners, they have to deal w new issues in terms of forming new relationships w bakugan from different planets. they get partners from new vestroia, neathia and gundalia so it must be difficult for them to achieve the same level of compatibility every season.

[luckyclownliu]

Written Commission

Greetings ladies and gentlemen, if you are looking for good writing, OC stories, Poetry, and good prices then I suggest looking at me to know that I am a publisher but most importantly a writer. So if anyone wants good artwork and detailed work done then look no further.

//Detailed Commission//

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400 DA points or $8

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300 DA points  or $10

5 pages:

800 DA points or $13

10 pages:

1100 DA points or $15

15 pages:

1500 DA points  or $20

20 pages:

2000 DA points or $25

25 pages: 

3000 DA points or $30

30-up pages:

$40

Script:

Negotiate

///Low Starting Prices///

10 words of Poetry:

5 dollars

One shot:

8 dollars (depends on the details)

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9 dollars

((It all depends on the details that are given to me because if it is an advanced style roleplay where I have to put each type of detail to make sure that the customer is Happy it might also cost more depending on what you want the characters to do and how much you want me to put in. Negotiations will be met because I'm doing this at a low price plus I'm willing to do a price that is okay with the person that's asking for a commission but it all depends on how many pages they want and how much money they're wanting to spend.))

Fanfiction-

I love Fanfictions and it warms my heart when I am able to write some in my own books. Especially when it comes down to writing about comic books or anime or Manga or even video games plus web series that I might know of:

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Yu Yu Hakusho

One piece

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OverWatch

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[coolfadingbouquetpersonblog-blog]

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[sorvete-de-pacoca]

modern witch bakugan au!

(@spectraslilbitch )

Keith looked again at the address written on the small piece of paper to make sure he was on the right place, the Old Lady won't mock him by sending him to a random flower shop right? She looked very serious when he talked to her. - I think they might have what you need my child - she told him a few nights ago on one of his midnight walks around the town.  He looked again at the building. "The Enchanted Forest" was written on the signboard, It was a small and simple building, a doll house in contrast with the larger buildings around it. The blonde man looked inside through the large window, just like his exterior, the inside was small, but organized and seemed very cozy. With bouquets and flowers pots along the shelfs on the walls. In the center of it he could see a wooden balcony, and resting his feet on it was a man, no older than him, his back laid on his chair while his shiny green eyes were focused on a book, his blue and long hair tangled with a hair bun. Well, the place sure had something "enchanted", he thought. Keith decided he won't get anything standing outside while peeking at the distracted pretty boy. He puts the piece of paper inside his pocket and opens the door, the bell next to it announcing his presence. The sound making the long-haired man take his attention away from the book, he stood up with a jump, his elbows resting on the balcony. -Good morning sir! Welcome to The Enchanted Forest. How can I help you?- the boy said with a warm and inviting smile.  Keith couldn't help but return the smile with another - good morning.- he looked around. He was right, the place sure was cozy, the flowers were arranged perfectly and a scent of lavender filled the place - it's a beautiful store that you have here friend. The man's smile grew large, with a spark of pride - thank you sir. It's not easy keep it like this but all the work is worth it - the man studied him - I think I never saw you around before. - Yeah, I'm moved to the town a few weeks ago - he focused his attention on the blue-haired man - and someone told me you could help me with something. - Well, in that case, welcome to our town - he gave him a wink - so, how can I help you sir? Keith studied the boy, he didn't seemed like the guy that could help him, but he learned to never judge a book for it's cover. He walked into his direction and rested his elbows on the balcony - I'm looking for mushrooms - he says looking into the man's eyes. The man blinked, confused. -mushrooms?  - yes, mushrooms. Special ones. The man giggled - I'm sorry sir, but i don't sell mushrooms, i have flowers, some cactus, but no mushrooms. Keith wasn't ready to give up, he tried again. - I'm sure you sell it, I heard from a person that lives on that street that you have what I need, please I will pay anything. The man's face came a bit closer to Keith - i said i don't sell mushrooms, whoever told you sir, I'm afraid that was mistaken or made you by fool - his voice was firm and serious. Keith looked at him for a few minutes, then he sighs, disappointed. - Okay, sorry to bother you. You're right, i was mistaken. The man smiled again - it's okay sir, I'm sorry I couldn't help you. Keith gave him a smirk and turned to leave. He opened the door and closed it behind It. Now outside, Keith lays on the door, sighing deeply, he promised to himself he would never trust again mysterious old ladies walking alone on the streets at 3am. He puts his hands on his pockets and starts his way back home, he passes through the window and looks inside one last time, the man was once again reading, one arm on the balcony and the other one holding his left cheek, his long sleeve showing a bit of skin, and what it seems a symbol tattoed on it. A rune maybe. A rune? Keith stops immediately. He goes back and presses his face on the window. That rune, a ordinary thing at the eyes of a normal person, but not for Keith. He didn't need to see all of it to knew what that rune meant.  He grins wide, maybe the Old Lady wasn't wrong after all. If someone could give what he needed was definitely that guy. Keith quickly goes back inside, making the man jump startled once again. - Already back sir? Keith chuckles  - Alright, quit the acting. The man looks at him confused. - You almost got me - he slowly walks on his direction - the entire "flower shop owner" thing. It's a perfect disguise actually. Very good one. - Sir, I don't know what you're talking about. Keith leans on the balcony. - oh you sure do. Now, will you give me what I want? The man leans too, visibly impatient. - I already said I don't sell mushrooms! - Of course you do - Keith comes closer - after all, you're a "child of Gaia", right? The blue haired man's eyes opens wide, shocked. Keith grins, that was all the confirmation he needed. -the book you're reading - he gesture with his head - "mystical botanic: the spiritual benefits of herbs", it's not a common thing I would find a florist reading about, it gave me a clue but i still wasn't very sure. Anyone can have a weird fascination right? The man kept his eyes on him, in silence -But your tattoo... I saw it when I was leaving, i would recognize that rune anywhere.  The man was still silent - It represents Gaia, the ancient goddess of nature and creation. Now any person, a very passionate florist maybe, could tattoo that mark. But you didn't tattooed this by the regular way right? It's burned on your skin. Why would you do such a painful thing? Maybe because it was part of a ritual? A crushing silence filled the room, the only sound coming from the birds chirping outside and the fan moving slowly on the roof. Then the long haired man broke the silence  -You said someone told you about my store - he raises a eyebrow - Who did? -a old lady I found walking alone at night - Keith says - i decided to make her company, she was so happy to have someone to talk with after a long time that she decided to help me with my problem. - How she looked like? Keith scratches his chin, trying to remember - let's see...white hair, dark skin, she is always wearing a long blue dress. Perhaps you know her? - yes I do, her name was Mrs. Viola. She died 25 years ago. - Yeah, i know. Another silence fills the room. Then this time Keith breaks it. -So... can i have my mushrooms? The man chuckles, his warm and inviting smile crossing his lips once again - Of course sir! Please forgive me my terrible manners but I didn't knew I was dealing with a special costumer.

(to be continued)

[soaker87]

A Spider Riders guide for beginners (mainly anime-centric)

Sort of a sequel to my guide for getting into Battle Spirits, but yes, I wrote a massive essay on a much smaller and easily digestible franchise. And it was fun.

Honestly, half of this is me ripping on things, but yes, I honestly love this show and wish it was more popular. And it’s my main interest when Battle Spirits is bad/on hiatus and I’m in denial about Code Geass.

Put it here instead of my SR blog, since established fans probably don’t need a guide. And I think it’s only fair when I don’t shut up about it.

1)The first pressing question that seems to bug people. Is Spider Riders a “real” anime? Not that it particularly matters, but the answer is yes. Spider Riders is officially a Japanese/Canadian co-production. But, based on official statements made by both the Japanese and western staff, the actual production went something like this. A book (which was meant to be the first in a series of 5) was published in English, and at the same time, the Japanese studio Bee Train was commissioned to make an anime based on the same general concept. The show was completely crafted in Japan. That is, the animation, writing and directing was done there. The English side of things got to make specific requests and got a minimal amount of creative control, but it was largely left in Bee Train’s hands. The people on the English side of things consider the series Yosuke Kuroda’s vision, and admitted to not really knowing any more about the characters and world than what the viewers know. So it’s just as much a “real” anime as The Big O season II, Bakugan, Dimension W and the like.

2)Now, the deal about those books I mentioned above, which were the “source material”. Well, as anyone who’s read them can tell you, they have almost nothing in common with the anime. There are characters with the same name and alliances, and the very basic setting is the same. Other than that, you can hardly compare the two. So while the books came first (at least the first one did) they are in no way a pre-requisite for watching the anime. But still very much recommended. Without spoiling anything, they’re certainly darker than the anime (while still remaining kid-friendly). Anyway, there are three canon books total, because the publisher never ordered the planned five. Thus, the story is never fully resolved. Additionally, an unfinished 4th book exists on Tedd Anasti, the main author’s website. This book can not be considered explicitly canon, because it’s basically a re-write of the 3rd book with some added plot points, and it mixes things from anime canon that contradict the previous books. However, it is highly recommended for Buguese and Aqune fans, as the added plot points concern them.

For the record, if you want to read the novels and can’t buy them (because they’re rare and expensive if you want to buy them new) I can point you to download links. And you can read the 4th one here: http://teenovels.webs.com/spiderriders.htm

3)A Spider Riders manga also exists. It’s interesting if you’re a fan, but really not suggested as a good starting point for the franchise. While the manga has more in common with the anime than the books, it’s also a very different take on things. The manga is probably the most comical entry in the franchise, only becoming serious on occasion. It also includes more violence and fanservice (especially panty shots)  than the very tame anime. The art style is considered rather unattractive by most people.

Like basically every other entry in this franchise, the manga is unfinished. 10 chapters exist total, but only 9 were released online, the 10th appearing exclusively in Shounen Fang magazine. Of these 9 chapters, only the first 6 were published in tankouban format, and only those 6 were scanlated, as the online releases of chapters 7-9 were not high quality.

Translated scans for chapters 1-6 here: http://spiderridersftw.tumblr.com/tagged/sr-manga

4)Getting back to the anime, another thing that trips people up in exactly how many seasons the anime has. Theoretically, it only has one season, consisting of 52 episodes. A series which yes, I’ll admit right here, ends with a heck of a lot left unresolved. I’ll get back to that point later. However, most anime encyclopedias list Spider Riders as having two series of 26 episodes each. The first is called “Spider Riders ~Oracle no Yuusha-tachi~” and the second is called “Spider Riders ~Yomigaeru Taiyou~”. Why? Because the series tanked in ratings when it aired in Japan. And this is starting from the very first episode, so very few people gave it a chance. It probably wasn’t on many people’s radars, due to the show getting virtually no publicity before airing in popular anime magazines, and due to the stigma it carried being a “co-production”. Because the series tanked, TV Tokyo, who was broadcasting it, stopped airing Spider Riders after 26 episodes. Another network, Kids Station, picked it up and re-aired the first 26 episodes. After that, they continued with episode 27. But they gave the series a new title. It was outright advertised as being a second season. This is most likely because of the reputation the first “season” carried. So there you have it. Spider Riders, a 1 season show, had two seasons when it aired in Japan, but the episodes were exactly the same.

However, the saga thickens. What I mentioned above about the ending being rather a non-ending? It’s because the staff hoped for a true second season of Spider Riders. So they went out of their way to leave questions unanswered. You see, Spider Riders originally did have a true ending. Teletoon, the channel that broadcast the series in Canada, put out a press-release about the anime on their corporate website very early into the anime’s run. This press release contained character bios and episode summaries, which essentially spoiled the entire series. It became known as “the Teletoon Corp spoilers”. For the first 24 episodes, everything these spoilers said matched up with what happened in the anime. The second half of the series, the “second season” in Japan, did not. There were some things that matched, and others which didn’t. So yes, they changed a perfectly thought out second half to the series for the sake of leaving opening for a sequel. A sequel that was never going to happen with the ratings the series got in Japan. In hindsight, Spider Riders ~Yomigaeru Taiyou~ may very well be a “second season”. Because that’s when the series starts to diverge from its intended route.

Because of the convenient break, I’ve actually suggested to people to just watch the first 26 episodes and stop there. The story won’t be resolved, but you’ll still have a lot of questions even after watching the second set of 26. And ep. 26 is actually an epic one, so it makes a pretty great ending point. Better than episode 52 anyway.

Obviously, I don’t hate the second half. I just have very mixed feelings about it. There are severe pacing issues. Plot twists that don’t really make any sense (probably due to having no basis in the first half/original plans). Beerain/Buguese/Aqune/Hunter/Corona love triangle nonsense that goes nowhere. Yes,  I spoiled it. None of them end up with anyone. (Also, I am under the impression that love triangles are a plague and rarely ever done well.) Hunter and Corona becoming black holes in terms of focus, while other characters are mis-handled in various ways, especially Magma and Aqune. And Beerain’s handling is a whole separate issue I’ll talk more about later. But probably, the biggest problem with the second half is the forced portrayal of a certain character as sympathetic when I personally did not see them that way. (And no, I’m not talking about Beerain. This could apply to her too, but she didn’t cross the line like this character did.) Also, the writers go out of their way to make sure this character gets everything they want in the end, even when the more important characters have massive unresolved plot threads. Though, considering that I occasionally go to TV Tropes to try and prune some of the leather pantsing for this character, many other fans saw them as sympathetic too. So maybe it’s just my problem, but it still bugs me.

Now, the second half has some good episodes and scattered moments that were awesome or cute or funny or whatever. It has episode 49, which was very validating for me. I love what they do with Igneous in the later episodes, because it helps flesh out his character, even if he doesn’t actually get to do anything useful. Grasshop’s subplot in the second half is well regarded by fans for a reason. Buguese gets to pilot a giant robot, which is beautiful. Stags finally gets some time to shine. Corona gets some good development. So it’s not all a lost cause. It’s just not the second half that should have happened, and the executive meddling made it suffer in quality.

4) Now, if you still want to watch the show knowing all this, should you watch it subbed or dubbed? Coming from someone who never had any problem with dubs, this is one show which really should be watched subbed. While the dub (produced by Cookie Jar Entertainment, not 4Kids, contrary to popular belief) is not the most horrible dub ever, that does not by any means make it an acceptable dub. I’m going to break it down into a few aspects. And these are not the only flaws it has.

First, translation. The dub is not a straight translation of the Japanese script. Except for when it is. But that’s the exception, not the rule. Many times, they just take the Japanese footage and make something up that might fit with it. Even if it has nothing to do with what the characters actually said. Sometimes, this doesn’t really affect much. But other times, it’s created actual plot holes. Avoiding spoilers, the most glaring case of this occurs in episode 23, which is a very important episode about the villains and their motives. And the differences in the script are outright jarring. Especially factoring in that the dub goes back to the true story later on.

Second, the cheese factor. Yes, it is a show where people ride giant spiders. But this is anime. It’s far from the most absurd premise in the medium. And it’s also a premise that the show itself takes seriously, even in the dub. It’s not meant to be a comedy anime, despite having a fair amount of humorous episodes in the first half. So that poses the question of why the people writing the dub script decided to take the cheese factor up to eleven. The dialogue is outright cringey a lot of the time because of it. You have characters constantly shouting “Arachna Power”, a phrase which is never uttered once in the Japanese version. When every other line sounds like it was written by an 8-year-old trying to be hip, it makes the show very, very hard to take seriously. And, as I said, the anime takes itself seriously, even in the dub. So that’s why you have a problem.

Third, censoring. Now, like I said earlier, the anime is pretty tame. There’s no blood and gore. Nothing sexual. There’s not much that needs to be censored at all. Tell that to the people at Cookie Jar. When they decide to censor things like characters being grabbed by the arm (which they frequently cut), all while having other kinds of violence when the characters are fighting a war, you just have to wonder. When they cut a male and female character innocently sleeping in the same room. Characters who get absolutely no ship tease, I might add, and one of them is happily married to someone else, you really have to smash your head against something hard. There are probably two things in this show that could understandably be censored for western viewers, although I personally don’t believe in censorship at all. But the dub does not stop with those two things.

Fourth, name changes. Now, most of the main characters keep their Japanese names in the dub. This is probably to keep consistent with the books. But basically any secondary character has their name changed for no reason, even though their names don’t sound “foreign”. Even if their name is Melissa. The Insectors, the main enemies of the series, were changed to Invectids in the dub. This was apparently due to legal reasons. But due to the prominence of Insectors as a whole, it’s a notable change. Brade, called Quake in the dub, is probably the most important character who underwent a name change. (He isn’t in the books, so that probably contributed to the change.) And one character’s first name is actually their last name in the dub, in a world where no one even has last names. That’s a pretty weird one.

Fifth, the dub treats viewers like morons. Very frequently, the dub will take a scene where in the Japanese version, nothing was being said (the show has a lot of dramatic silence) and make a character whose face isn’t shown on screen state something obvious. It might not be something the Japanese script outright said, but it’s something that anyone paying half-attention would have figured out. Additionally, the dub will regularly add shots of Shadow in manacle space when he talks, assuming viewers won’t be able to pick up that he’s talking despite not being on screen. It’s really kind of insulting. Even if kids are the target audience, they’re not that stupid.

Sixth, the acting is terrible. People make fun of it for a reason. The dub has frequent awkward pauses between lines. Additionally, some of the voices do not fit the characters. And I don’t mean, because they’re not sound-alikes to the Japanese cast. I mean, it was gross mis-casting. The most glaring case is Beerain. Most fans, regardless of their opinion on her character, agree about her dub voice being horrendous, which makes her sound like an old lady, and is even worse during emotional scenes. In general, the actors also tend to change the tone of some scenes, which give off the very opposite impression that the same scenes did in the Japanese version.

And, I won’t link it in this post for reasons, but there’s a torrent for the subs on Nyaa, and it also includes a link for DDLS if you prefer (or if the torrent is dead, because it probably is.) If you must watch the dub despite reading all this, look it up on your own time. It’s definitely on some streaming sites.

5) So, now that we’ve got all that out of the way, what is the show actually about? Well, the plot follows a 13-year-old boy named Hunter Steele. (11 in the dub.) He follows the notes of his deceased grandfather, in order to find a place called the Inner World that his grandfather used to tell him about. Naturally, he finds it within the first few minutes of the show, and the rest of the plot takes place in the Inner World, which is basically like some sort of pocket dimension inside of the earth itself. Hunter meets with Shadow, a spider, and the two reluctantly become partners. After Hunter joins up with the other Spider Riders, he takes part in a war to save the Inner World from the Insectors, a race of bugs with human-like qualities.

6)So what are the characters like? Okay, here goes. First, the main Riders and their spiders.

Hunter Steele- The hero. Typical shounen lead. He loves adventure, he’s a bit clueless, but he’s generally friendly and well-meaning. Which doesn’t make him perfect, either. He can be bratty and disagreeable, especially early on. And while he has a sense of justice, he’s actually incredibly self-righteous and sees everything in black and white. But he does get to develop as the series goes on. And he’s the true heart of the team, who keeps everyone in line. Unfortunately, he does get a disproportionate amount of focus, even for a main character, especially later on.

Shadow- Hunter’s spider partner. He’s cocky and prideful. He has a tendency to bicker with Hunter, and he’s usually the one who’s right. They actually become really good friends. Their bond is pretty cute and needed more focus. Out of all the spiders, he’s the only one who really gets much screentime.

Corona- The heroine. Of course she has a crush on Hunter. That’s obvious from almost the get-go. But she’s absolutely not a bland swooning cheerleader like some shounen heroines. She’s a genuine action girl. After Hunter, she’s the character who gets the most focus. Sometimes the show feels more like it’s her story than his. Corona is riddled with insecurities, but Hunter inspires her a lot, and she gets to grow and develop as well as him.

Venus- Corona’s spider. To be honest, she has the personality of a rock. Yet she will get occasional lines that are longer than one word, unlike most of the spiders.

Igneous- He’s a knight of Arachna. Very protective of his kingdom, and the royal family. At first, he comes off as very serious, but you see later on that he’s one of the biggest dorks in the show. Refreshingly, he doesn’t become Hunter’s rival, despite early episodes hinting towards that. He takes on more of a mentor role. At first. Then the writers kinda forget about that aspect.

Flame- Igneous’ spider. He doesn’t speak. Not even once.

Lumen- The prince of Arachna, but you’ll just have to take his word for it. He doesn’t act much like a prince. He’s super lazy, and he loves to flirt with girls. Every girl. Even if they’re his sister or an Insector. And did I mention he’s only 12?

Ebony- Lumen’s spider. He does speak, but only once.

Sparkle- The princess of Arachna. Yes, her name is Sparkle, but just deal with it. She’s cute. Super cute. Apparently, the writers had no idea what to do with her and changed her character like a million times in the pre-production. So at first, she seems sort of wise and mysterious, but really, her purpose is to just be really cute. Which doesn’t make her any less awesome.

Hotarla- Sparkle’s spider. Like Sparkle, her purpose is to be cute. All she can say is “kyu.”

Magma- He’s introduced as a brooding wanderer, looking for his spiders’ long-lost sister. That doesn’t last for long. He’s also a total dork. He also basically clings on all the other guys. And serves as obsessed fanboy to an old man. Like, Magma is as gay as possible without the writers actually going out and saying it.

Brutus- Magma’s spider. Because he’s a flat character, he doesn’t even seem to care about finding his long-lost sister as much as Magma does.

Now, the villains’ side. They actually get more character development than most of the good guys, for better or for worse.

Mantid- He’s the Insector emperor. The main villain. But saying much about him is spoiling.

Buguese- The leader of Mantid’s Big Four. He looks pretty human-like, despite being an Insector. Based on old information, he might be an artificially-created Insector, except that never made it into the actual show. He’s a cold and calculating person, who treats everyone around him pretty badly. He seems to think the ends justify the means, when it comes to making sure the Insectors win the war. He’s constantly brooding, also.  He absolutely hates Hunter, and is pretty much the rival character. He always uses various robots to attack the Spider Riders. He usually has Aqune accompanying him too. It’s clear that he cares about her a lot, but because she’s a human, he makes every effort to hide it, even from himself. He’s my favorite character, as you can probably tell since I don’t shut up about him. As I’ve put it before, a fascinating mess of contradictions, who flips between being a total jerk and the most sympathetic character in the show. He really needed to be in a better show.

Grasshop- Easily the most popular of the Insectors with the fandom. This is because he’s very much the butt monkey. He’s sort of like a one-man Team Rocket. Always coming up with crazy schemes to defeat the Spider Riders. Always failing epically. And even the other Insectors treat him badly. Even Aqune of all people isn’t particularly nice to him. Well, he’s actually a lot of fun, and more than that, he has a lot of depth. He might be the most well thought-out character in the show, to be honest. And his development is very satisfying.

Beerain- Another Big Four member, and the only female. She doesn’t really do much for the early part of the series. Mostly just summons flying insects to do her bidding. Kind of a flat character, to be honest. She makes a good comedy duo with Grasshop, at least. Later in the show, she gets more focus. I found what they did with her character one of the absolute worst subplots in the second half of the series, mostly because it came out of nowhere and felt like extreme character derailment based on the little we know about her, dragged out until it became a plot tumor. But saying much more counts as spoiling.

Stags- The last of the Big Four to be properly introduced. But he’s the strongest and most dangerous. Stags actually is an honorable villain. But at the same time, he’s absolutely crazy. This is the guy who bursts out into maniacal laughter for literally no reason. And later in the series, when he really gets some focus, woah. Well, his fight scenes are epic, and he’s a character who deserved more focus than he got.

Aqune- She’s a Spider Rider, but on the enemy’s side. However, she’s not a villain by any means. She’s an incredibly nice person who is willing to sacrifice her own happiness to help others, whether friend or foe. Aqune is a very tragic character, and like Grasshop, is one of the most popular characters (though Hunter is the most popular of all.) She’s a favorite not just because she’s tragic, but because she’s incredibly tough. If Corona is an action girl, Aqune is even a step above that. She’s strong enough to take on multiple armed opponents alone, and she gets the most stylish fight scenes. It’s hard to talk too much about Aqune without spoilers, but she’s my other favorite character, and one of the best written, even considering she gets screwed over in the second half.

Portia- Aqune’s spider. She also has the personality of a rock.

There are other characters too, but like, watch the show and you’ll see.

7)Anything else? I ship Buguese x Aqune like it’s my job. Honestly, I’m much more fervent about them than I am my job. I would love more fic about them. Yes, I’m shameless.

8)Anything else else? There used to be an online game. It was a dice and card battle RPG with weekly quests. It was more popular than the anime. It was fun. It doesn’t exist anymore.

9)Final notes/warning- Okay, I’m straying from the point, but I’ve wanted to get this off my chest for a long time. The Spider Riders wiki is basically toxic and should not be treated as a good source. I don’t go and edit there because I know I’m not wanted, and I think it should be allowed to exist. Freedom of speech and all. But it hurts that people use it as a go-to source.

Basically, everything you might need to know about the anime is on the very detailed Wikipedia article. Go there instead. The reasons the wikia is so bad are as follows:

It is 100% dub biased. As I said above, the dub is not always accurate to the Japanese.

It is all about the anime with very little on the other canons. Yes, the anime may be the most famous, but it’s not all there is to the franchise, and a wikia should be more thorough. I say this as the owner of the Battle Spirits wikia.

Some of the information is outright wrong, even going by the dub. It feels like whoever edited it was throwing in their headcanons and misconceptions as if they’re fact

It’s super clear what pairings one writer does and doesn’t ship by what they wrote. That’s called bias, and doesn’t belong on a wikia. Friendly reminder that a one-sided relationship is not “close to canon” or however they put it. That would be like if I edited the Battle Spirits wiki to say Gilfam and Lucretia were probably lovers. Which they are as far as I’m concerned, but according to canon they were “friends.” Ship meta is an awesome thing, I love reading it, but keep it to your blogs and off encyclopedias.

A lot of the information was outright ripped off from my old fansite, then modified to fit the writers’ opinions. They did not ask me first. I might have even said yes, but the point is, if you’re going to copy someone else’s writing, you should ask them. I put my contact information on my site. On top of that, I don’t even consider my old website a great source for SR. It was something I threw together for a school project when I took web design, and had to follow particular guidelines on. So basically, they copied my half-assed schoolwork.

The wiki contains actual bashing of me. And my writing. I’m not kidding. That’s all the more insulting when my “writing” was good enough for them to rip off. Or at least it did have this at some point. I don’t really lurk around it, so I don’t know if it’s still there. That’s called bullying. And yes, I take it personally. Even if the wikia didn’t have all the other problems above, I would still loathe it just for this point alone.