Bakugan/YMMV

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For the anime:

• And the Fandom Rejoiced: Spectra making a reappearance in Mechtanium Surge. Better yet, he becomes the Sixth Ranger!
  • Mechtanium Surge in general, due to making everyone important again and the sheer amount of Continuity Porn involved. They've pretty much been fixing everything the fans were complaining about.
  • Three words. Runo is back!
• Big In America: Was quite the flop in Japan, while a huge hit in America and is the current go-to boy thing in South Africa.
  • Very popular in Hungary of all places.
• Cliché Storm: Bakugan is a series about monsters who are used in combat as part of a game. This game involves monsters attacking other monsters along with using cards to change the tide of the game. The plot of the anime is about how the Bakugans' homeworld is in jeopardy after Naga takes over the Infinity Core. Then the main characters have to use their Bakugan to save both worlds.
• Complete Monster: All the Big Bads have been different degrees of this trope. Thankfully they all get their karmic payback in the end (so far)
  • Naga's entire scheme resolved around murdering his own sister to gain power and his actions result in the pointless deaths and/or Fate Worse Than Death of a great many Bakugan. He also brainwashed at least two people to be his Dragons. He never once shows remorse. His thirst for power did him in when Drago and the other Guardian Bakugan feed him more power than he can absorb, causing him to explode.
  • Zenoheld's plan started out as enslaving an entire race for entertainment, then moved on to genocide, and finally to becoming an Omnicidal Maniac trying to destroy the entire universe. Not to mention he treats his son like a soldier who doesn't amount to anything else. His own ultimate weapon explodes with him still onboard, his son deciding to go with him to make sure the madman goes down with his ship.
  • Barodius started a war against a peaceful race simply for power and has no problem killing off or brainwashing his henchman at the drop of a hat. His Guardian Bakugan shares his personality. Ultimately manages to get what he wanted, but they can't handle the power and both get banished to another dimmension by Code Eve. He then becomes Mag Mel, see below.
  • Mag Mel hasn't even got the chance to show what he can really do but is already shaping up to be this. The reason he's Sealed Evil in a Can? Genocide. And now it's been revealed that his goal is to destroy the Earth. Not to mention the Mind Rape he's been putting Dan and Drago through. Does he need to Mind Rape them to siphon off their energy? No, he wants to and is enjoying every second of it. Later on, he criples a boy with total fear surrounded by his Chaos Bakugan so he can feed off his fear, knowing this leaves the Brawlesr with two, equally as horrific options. Either delete the area to destroy his Chaos Bakugan, killing an innocent person in the process, or let the Chaos Bakugan continue their rampage. Thank goodness Spectra pulled a Big Damn Heroes moment to stop it. Worse, Mag Mel laughs at this, throughly enjoying what he's doing. And when he was finally let out of his can, his first act was to attack Gundalia and try to burn it to the ground! And then there's how he kills Mistress Sellon in an extremely cruel manner while she's begging him to spare her life. He does the exact same thing to Anubius one episode later, but for him it's even worse because it robs him the honor of dying in battle with Dan. Mag Mel is by far the most evil Bakugan villain to date due to his sheer sadism.
  • Coredegon, the evil Mechtogan who replaced Meg Mel. He and his allies evolved beyond needing their Bakugan creators. So what do they decide to do? Why destroy all Bakugan just because they can! They also have absolutely no qualms about obliterating scores of humans in the process and would've opened fire on the humans at the stadium if they hadn't been stopped. He one-ups himself by leveling Bakugan city. While only the Bakugan death count is mentioned, it's clear the act killed a massive amount of both Bakugan and humans. He then goes to New Vestoria and begins obliterating everyone in his path, including pretty much all the previous hero Bakugan. Thankfully, all this is undone via time travel, but still, the fact he's WILLING to do this is more than enough to qualify him!
• Creator's Pet: Keith.
• Crowning Moment of Awesome: Maxus Dragonoid vs Maxus Helios.
  • Once you get past the Fridge Logic and Ass Pull.
• Crowning Music of Awesome: 'Bang Bang Bakugan!', 'Buchirin Generation', 'Number One Battle Brawlers' and 'Air Drive'.
• Ending Fatigue: The New Vestroia arc. Okay, so the brawlers had to free the Bakugan from the Vexos. Oh wait! Now they have to stop the Vexos from destroying all the Bakugan! Oh wait! Now they have to stop the Vexos from destroying the whole universe!
  • Mira even lampshades it nicely for us:

Mira: First you wanted to enslave the Bakugan, then you wanted to destroy the Bakugan and now you want to destroy the universe.

• Ensemble Darkhorse: The Vexos will more than likely never appear again, but after entering the second season after New Vestroia, some of the members are still getting plenty of fan art. And Spectra's popularity was a contributing factor to his return in the latest arc.
• Fan Service: Fabia, Ren and Jake both have many moments throughout Gundalian Invaders.
• First Installment Wins: To many fans, Bakugan will never be as good as it was in the first series, no doubt thanks to Nelvana changing the relationship between Dan and Runo from Official Couple to just friends ,later series slowly but surely losing various Gaming and Sports Anime And Manga elements and strategy until the middle of Gundailan Invaders where the show becomes about Kaiju spamming Ability Cards, and the women being treated so badly they wouldn't look out-of-place if they were in Naruto.
• Foe Yay: Often overlaps with Ho Yay as well, And IT'S OFTEN! But...the Face Palm-ing Head Desk example is last battle between Dan and Masquerade in Battle Brawlers. The battle was goddamn epic and...well, Intense, complete with collateral damage and...ClothingDamage, well, Masquerade turns to be Alice Gehabich. In universe this ain't a problem, out universe? NOT SO MUCH.
• Ho Yay: Spectra and Gus. Need we say more?
  • Ren and Marucho
  • Jake and Marucho.
  • After Dan faints in the first episode of Gundalian Invaders, Ren has his hand directly on Dan's crotch.
• Magnificent Bastard: Mag Mel. He's been one step ahead of everyone the entire season. Even when he loses he ultimately comes out on top. Part of this is being an extremely good Chessmaster, the other part is manipulating people to play into his hand. And even though he's an Omnicidal Maniac, he normally has multiple plans going at once to the same goal so if one fails, he's got several backups ready. While he himself lacks charisma to some degree, he realized this and created two extremely charismatic Co-Dragons to do this for him, to wonderful effect.
• Memetic Mutation: VILANTOR! Clearly the most powerful thing on the show, with a currently perfect fighting record.
  • It has also been the battle cry for King Leonidas, stopped the USS Enterprise, been commentated on and then eaten by Orson Welles, fought crime in Gotham City, defeated all of Kaiba's Blue-Eyes White Dragons, and generally been awesome on pretty much all levels.
    • I've yet to meet man who can outsmart VILANTOR!
• Moral Event Horizon: Yet nobody on the show seems to remember Keith crossing it as Spectra.
  • Mag Mel performing Mind Rape on Dan and Dragon For the Evulz. If not that, then paralyzing a boy in fear to place the Brawlers in a Sadistic Choice where they either have to kill an innocent human being or let Mag Mel's monsters continue to destroy everything in their path.
  • Coredegon and his gang cross this by being completely willing to obliterate hundreds of humans and Bakugan with absolutely no remorse.
• Nightmare Fuel: Mag Mel. Everything about him. He's an Omnicidal Maniac who feeds on fear and has been performing Mind Rape on Dan and Drago For the Evulz.
  • Mistress Sellon's death...
• Shipping Bed Death: The finale of Battle Brawlers tied up a lot of the romantic subplots. Naturally, this means there's nothing left for the female Brawlers to do and they're all either Demoted To Extras or Put On A Bus entirely in New Vestroia. Three new characters join Dan, Marucho and Shun to make up the new six-element team-- and two of them are male. Periphery Demographic? What's that? We just want to sell toys, and that requires a Cast Full of Pretty Boys, right?
  • Wait...that is going after a Periphery Demographic.
• Ship Tease: Julie/Dan for awhile, even though we all knew he would end up with Runo in the end. Shun/Alice, and Klaus/Alice
  • Dan/Alice in New Vestroia. Plus Foeyay between Masquerade (Alice) and Dan... Hmm...
  • In New Vestroia, Ace/Mira and Dan/Mira.
    • Keith/Mira, impressive considering this season is specially made for Americans at first, thus... umm...
  • Gundalian Invaders will probably have a lot of Dan/Julie and maybe even some Dan/Fabia undertones
    • Gundalian Invaders also had some Shun/Fabia, as in the deleted scene of episode 4 where it shows Shun and Fabia talking about the war in Shun's house...at night. It's implied she stay in his house for the night, as she's still shown there in episode 6. Then all the teamwork between them, especially one of the last scenes of episode 34.
      • And some shipper remarked that Fabia resembles Shun's deceased mom.... this argument can be used against the pairing or support it apparently....
• Ship-to-Ship Combat: For some reason, it's not about Dan the main character, but about Shun, his Foil & Lancer. Between Alice and Fabia, pick your choice....
• Special Effects Failure: Anything rendered in CG that aren't the Bakugan themselves (thanks to not using cel shading on those other elements), the pigeons also combine this with what may be the Uncanny Valley.
• The Scrappy: Baron.
  • And then there was the time that there were TWO of him...
  • Harpus.

For the real card game:

• Adaptation Displacement: There’s an actual Card Game?
• Game Breaker: The "H-Bomb". The card "Haos 2" (where you steal one of your opponents won gate cards by having a lower printed power) makes the "H", a "Lowest Power Wins" gate card is the fuse, and a low-power Haos bakugan is the bomb. You win two points in a single round. This is getting increasingly broken as the G-power cap rises and will probably never go out of fashion. The only limit is that you can have only one of each card in your deck.
• "Stop Having Fun!" Guys: Who are on opposing sides about rolling.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: Harpus is male… not even the shows staff got this.

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