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lady-lazagna · 1 year

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I'm not super back into Bakugan (that five-year solo special interest phase will be missed) BUT impulse buying a Shun funko pop has reignited something in me

SO I'm gonna write some random headcanons of the core six (anything after season one doesn't exist to me lol sorry) and their Bakugan:

-Hitting Shun with the Autisti-fication beam. Only talks when he feels it's important, super observant, can't tell you how he feels for the life of him (I am him, actually). In my hc, he's pretty sensitive to bright lights, fucking hates people touching his forearms or neck, as is over-empathetic.

-Runo wants to be a lawyer. No one's 100% sure where this ambition came from, but it likely has something to do with the constant sexual harassment she faces in her current workplace under the watch of her criminally ignorant father... but who knows🤷‍♀️

-Always designating this hc to the loudest mf in the show, but Dan is a youtuber. That guy is an absolute Clout Chaser. He'd do a lot of irl stuff I think, like challenges, pranks, storytimes- and of course, a lot of Bakugan content. Some would compare him to David Dobrik. He'd fucking kill those people.

-Julie lifts. Girl could bench-press you in a heartbeat. When she gets excited, she'll just grab whoever's closest to her and twirl them around like a doll. However, she's learned to ask people if they're okay with this beforehand since becoming friends with the aforementioned autistic ninja. ^^^

-Alice listens to Death Grips when she knits. That's it. Guillotine has the best rhythm for knitting in her opinion.

-Marucho had a big "in a silly goofy mood😋" phase after he stopped being his parents' bitch. He tried really hard to do silly and "outlandish" things that were actually like... bare minimum. He used an empty chip packet as a hat and thought he was going completely off the rails.

-Obviously Runo swears the most out of the group- girl has a lot to say, and a lot of it consists of "you dumb fucking bitch." Dan tries to swear just as much, but it doesn't come naturally to him so it always feels very off when he does. Marucho, Shun, and Julie don't swear as often, but when they do, it's always unexpected and very hilarious. Alice is the only one who actively doesn't want to swear.

-On the Bakugan's end, Preyas uses a lot of old-timey slang for swear words. Dan told Drago that "fuck" is interchangeable with "play" and insanity ensued. Gorem tries not to swear because he knows it's impolite. Tigrerra also thinks it's impolite, but sometimes you just need to call your fellow Bakugan a bitch (and damn does it feel good, even if they have no idea what you're talking about). Skyress only swore once, when she told Shun's grandpa that she fucked Shun's mum. Hydranoid has never heard a swear word in his life and Alice is determined to keep it that way.

-Little self-insert shipper Laz would kill current me for this, but it has to be said: Dan, Runo, and Shun are in a polyamorous relationship. Three bisexual icons. It was bound to happen. I could write a whole post about their relationship if I could be bothered. Maybe I will be bothered one day.

-Actually maybe the entire gang is bisexual (except for maybe Alice... we need a lesbian other than the pretty evil Vexo lady). At first I thought about making Julie a lesbian, because then she'd be a pink femme lesbian (just like me fr), but I do kind of like her relationship with Billy, so she's yet another bicon. I've also heard of this dude named Tsubasa Ren that Marucho has a thing for, so *slams fist on table* ANOTHER BICON.

-Okay maybe the Vexos and the Resistance and whatever other fucking aliens they added do exist to me, I'll just ignore their entire storyline and how they fucked over my three leading ladies.

Aight that's it for now. Idk if headcanoning works the same way here as it does in the beyblade world, so if you're upset by me making them autistic and gay, I offer you my sincerest eat my ass.

#new vestroia onwards is bakugan's shogun steel #I love ignoring canon #bakugan #bakugan battle brawlers #shun kazami #runo misaki #dan kuso #julie makimoto #alice gehabich #marucho marukura #preyas #dragonoid #gorem #tigrerra #skyress #hydronoid #headcanons

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shunsellon · 2 years

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new vestroia and misogyny, part one

season two of bakugan starts a trend that would persist until the end of the series, namely the cutting down of the main female cast from three to one, and eventually to none by the second arc of the fourth season. here i break down the misogyny behind this writing choice, most especially in new vestroia, and how it all boils down to one thing: toy sales.

part 2 of this will cover how new vestroia’s writing has affected its more active female characters as well as how the relationship between the gender binary and the toy market extended to bakugan’s toy packaging.

despite the large number of the fandom being comprised of AFABs, bakugan is a shounen anime and as a result has always been more geared towards a male audience. bakugan is also a show that was created to sell toys, and the show is its biggest advertisement. by putting two and two together, it’s easy to come to the conclusion that the toys are also geared towards young boys.

the gender binary has always played a big role in how toys are sold and advertised. from auster and manbach (2012), research has long shown that girls and parents of girls will be more inclined to dabble in masculine and gender-neutral things than boys and parents of boys would in feminine things:

this effect has been reflected in the merchandising of many popular series that are geared towards boys. female characters have consistently been left out of merchandising, even if they are the main character or have been on-screen longer than their male counterparts. iconic marvel and star wars characters such as princess leia, black widow, gamora, and rey have been noted to be missing from official merchandise. though abandoned, the blog @butnotblackwidow documents how black widow is forgotten in marvel merchandise. to add to this, one of the reasons for the cancellation of the 2003 teen titans show was due to a lack of toy sales -- this was attributed to teen titans letting female characters terra, raven, and starfire shine. part of why it was cancelled because girls liked it but the toy market demanded segregation by gender.

bakugan flopped in japan but did well overseas, prompting a second season. the success in toy sales is the reason for the misogynistic writing choices in new vestroia. to ensure its financial success, the writers wrote out female characters. most notable is the second season’s lack of active female brawlers in the cast -- from the 3:3 male to female ratio in season 1, it became 5:1. this tokenism of female characters is dubbed by scholars as the smurfette principle: where the female character only exists in reference to men, establishing a male-dominated narrative. season 2 onwards also sees a reduction in feminine bakugan and their perceived strength in-universe. if you’re watching the english dub of season 3 and the dubs which translate from it (which is majority of dubs outside of east and southeast asia), there would be no feminine bakugan entirely (avior is feminine in the japanese and other east/se asian dubs, she is made male in the english version). this trend would continue until mechtanium surge arc 2, where active female brawlers and feminine bakugan are cut out entirely.

however, new vestroia is particularly more misogynistic than the seasons following it because it actively undermines and writes its preexisting female characters in a way that “justifies” leaving them out of the narrative. here i list all instances where the writers blatantly write runo, julie, alice, chan, and skyress with the intention of leaving them out:

s2e01. runo and julie are purposefully left behind by drago, dan, and marucho (drago later apologizes for this, but it starts a pattern where the girls are constantly left behind/denied their chance to go to new vestroia/partake in battle).

s2e10. runo and julie fuck up, runo gets stuck between dimensions, the resistance gets separated, and the vexos come to earth as a result. this episode prompts the audience to place the blame on runo - establishing a pattern where female characters are purposefully written to look bad, blames themselves, then are written off from battling.

s2e19 is one of the worst bakugan episodes on earth. with apollonir’s help, dan, baron, and mira make plans to return to new vestroia. they invite runo, julie, and alice to come with them. but mira betrays them, forcing them to travel using michael’s transporter, which now only works if the traveler has a gauntlet. this forces runo, julie, and alice to stay behind. again.

but this episode also contradicts what’s already been established - that alice still has the portable version of the transporter that masquerade used in season 1. she uses this multiple times throughout season 2, but somehow they never thought to use it to transport themselves to new vestroia? despite masquerade using it to transport himself in and out of the doom dimension in season 1 (see: s1e34)?

considering all this, it just reads as a shitty attempt to not get the girls into new vestroia, despite alice using the card twice in the episode without a gauntlet and with multiple people.

s2e30 sees the return of skyress. here, she is portrayed uncharacteristically bitchy - she’s never acted the way she did with ingram before. like with runo, this prompts the audience to not sympathize with her.

this all backfires when the writers forcibly make her weak against lync and aluze in the final round, leading ingram - a masculine bakugan - having to step in a save/avenge her. this pattern of masculine bakugan having to step in and save/avenge/take care of a feminine one doesn’t only apply to skyress - it’s applied to elfin with preyas throughout the second half of new vestroia.

this episode, in my personal interpretation, is one of many that seeks to defang the original six with the exception of drago and preyas. skyress has a base power of 450gs - more than neo drago who stood at 400gs but obliterated everyone in the first half of season 2. but skyress, who is stronger than neo drago, is not given a time to actually shine and win a battle?

(also consider that neo drago has the same base g-power as base drago did at his strongest. power scaling doesn’t mean shit in new vestroia, the season is so plot-focused and hates women so much that it refuses any attempt at cohesion.)

in the end, skyress admits that she was wrong and is never seen again until she gets killed in ms arc 2.

s2e32. there’s bad episodes and there’s this. there was no reason to make alice and chan lose this battle. hell, i’d argue there’s no reason to portray alice as so scared to battle. her entire arc in season 1 is coming to terms with the fact that she is a battler and stepping into her place as the group’s darkus battler - it is part of her entire identity and informs a lot of who masquerade is (additional reading: marukrawler’s analysis on alice and masquerade). in s1e19 she is also shown to be more than willing to travel to new vestroia and save hydra, but like runo and julie, the writers decided that she isn’t allowed to.

the writers forget that in the first half of the season alice fearlessly ran towards spectra and gus, that she physically hit lync for threatening michael, and that she eagerly accepted dan’s invitation to travel to new vestroia in favor of portraying her as scared to battle shadow. her fear of battling shadow - of battling in general - just rehashes season one problems that were already resolved within season one, resolved by s1e48 to be specific.

anyway. alice and hydra get their iconic moment together and destroy hades. that should’ve been the end of it. but no, alice and chan get beaten by mac spider. this defeat by mac spider does not make sense at all, because two episodes later preyas defeats both mac spider and dryoid.

like i said with the skyress episode, s2e32 is an episode that seeks to defang and belittle the original six. it fails to make sense when you consider that hydra was The Shit in season one is already in his final evolution - the most powerful he can be via natural evolution - and is unable to defeat mac spider with help from fortress, but preyas can? preyas on his own, without angelo/diablo? and beats dryoid at the same time, who defeated an evolved nemus?

oh and they depowered hydra. from 550gs to 500gs. but somehow preyas rose from 340/400gs to 500gs on his own. stronger than storm skyress and the same level as alpha hydra. it does not make sense. oh wait, it does. it’s because skyress is a feminine bakugan and hydra’s partner is a woman but preyas is none of that, so he can stay.

the destruction of michael’s transporter happened for two reasons. the first is to make chan and alice look more like incompetent battlers despite shadow being the one who actually destroyed the transporter. like runo and skyress, alice is shown to regret battling and is shames herself. chan also never appears again after this.

the second is to write out alice and have no reason for her to appear. the destruction of michael’s transporter doesn’t mean anything because the following episode shows that klaus has his own. eventually, spectra will lend them his transporter, and then drago will evolve into helix drago which gives him the power to open gates between dimensions.

but the show contradicts itself again, because alice is still able to use the card version in the literal next episode. which can be used to travel between dimensions as established in s1e34, but is somehow forgotten in season 2?

s2e34. this episode is the sole episode where runo is able to brawl. in the japanese dub, she’s prompted to go out because dan asks her to make him curry. by contrast, the english dub changes this to make it so dan tells her she’s a shitty brawler. she goes out to either get curry or prove herself in battle, depending on which dub you watch.

mira goes out to tell her that it’s not safe (despite runo having nothing to lose as she doesn’t carry an attribute energy, but mira holds one, and she goes out. with wilda. and was of sound mind when she made the choice to go out. with wilda.). they run into lync and mylene, brawl, and mira loses the attribute energy. despite mira the one going outside and taking wilda with her, the show decides to make runo blame herself for mira’s loss because runo chose to go outside.

this also the same episode where runo and julie make the sound offer to be the resistance’s first line of defense as they don’t carry attribute energies. this episode becomes even more misogynistic because baron and ace question their capabilities (despite runo and julie being the ones who were actually able to defeat the ancients, while baron and ace stay bringing in Ls) — even worse in the english dub because dan tells runo she’s a “lousy brawler” — and the episode is written in a way to prove them right. it writes runo to be useless with the intention of writing her off the show.

s2e37. billy visits julie and the brawlers. marucho shows them bakugan interspace while shun checks the surveillance. ace battles julie and billy. this battle isn’t as bad as alice’s or runo’s on how it shames female characters (though julie still loses). that comes after, where it’s revealed at mylene and shadow tracked billy to marucho’s house and julie gets shamed by proxy of being the reason billy came over.

like episode 34, the english dub also changes dan’s lines. in english julie tells him that billy didn’t mean to get lead the vexos to them and dan says that it doesn’t matter. in the original, julie apologizes (once again placing the blame on herself like alice and runo did) but dan says that it’s fine and they should focus on the future instead.

julie being shamed here isn’t the only problem with this episode. julie is coded to be latin american, and her portrayal here is one of many instances where she falls under the spicy latina stereotype. see this post for a break down of julie and the spicy latina stereotype, approved by a mexican latina.

the last two episodes especially show how the plot and lore will bend in order to make writing out the original girls a sound choice. first, mira will tell runo it’s not a good idea for her go outside as the vexos pose a threat. but in e36, dan tells baron it’s fine for him to take maron outside because he already lost his attribute energy and thus would not be a liability if he went. this is cut from the english dub - you can watch it here unsubbed and still get the gist as dan mentions the lumina energy and baron is shown feeling like shit over it.

second, it’s shown that the vexos track the brawlers via attribute energy. e35 has a clip of hydron smiling as he receives an alert for the aquos energy once elfin goes outside without marucho. the clip of hydron is also cut from the english dub; you can watch it subbed here.

when put next to episodes 34 and 37, it becomes obvious how the girls are purposefully made to look bad. why is runo blamed for mira losing the attribute energy, when mira was the one who went out knowing she’s the liability, and baron went out without an attribute energy just fine? why is julie shamed by proxy for billy unwittingly being tracked by mylene and shadow because of his gauntlet, when the vexos track the resistance via attribute energy?

it’s because they’re actively trying to write out the girls and make it seem to the audience that it’s a logical choice, but it isn’t and it’s obvious they don’t want women here, that’s fucking why. the english dub makes it particularly worse because it omits these small details and then changes the script to make dan an even shittier character.

all this eventually leads to two instances where the girls are left behind. first is s2e38, where spectra takes the resistance to the mother palace. despite them saying in the beginning of the episode that they wouldn’t leave runo and julie behind, they’re still left behind.

second is in s2e51, where tigress and golem retire from battling because they think of themselves as liabilities in comparison to the rest of the team. this also terminates any chance of runo and julie battling. hydra is never given a speaking role after his battle with shadow, and alice also stays behind. what a coincidence that this final nail on the coffin also comes after runo, julie, and alice are repeatedly denied opportunities to go to new vestroia, made jokes of in battle, and are blamed when things go wrong. what a coincidence that this is the one episode where the girls can pass through a dimension gate, but instead are written to willingly stay behind.

it’s in this episode where julie also says that she and runo “were never the brawlers that they (the resistance) were” when anyone who has ever paid attention to season 1 would know otherwise. this line is also a complete assassination of character on julie’s part - her whole trial was about not comparing herself to others and in season one she was willing to die if it meant the brawlers would complete their mission.

this character assassination also becomes worse when you factor in julie’s short appearances in season 3. she says that she quit bakugan and that her driving force behind battling was to catch up to dan. this is again entirely untrue and inconsistent if you pay attention to season one where she battles for herself and for the bakugan, not because she wants to reach dan. again, her entire trial is about not comparing herself to others and it’s when she realizes that that golem evolves. this all only exists to give a reason, albeit a shitty and misogynistic one, for why julie isn’t an active brawler anymore.

julie was repeatedly denied opportunities to battle and help throughout season 2, and the one battle she was given, she lost and was quickly shamed for something out of her control (that never seemed to be a problem for the resistance - see baron). then the writers deemed that wasn’t enough and regressed her character even further. all for the sake of keeping girls out of the main cast, because their show is one big toy advertisement, and the toy market demands segregation by gender. the message of season 2 is clear: the girls aren’t welcome on the battlefield anymore, they should just hold the fort and make food for the obnoxious male mc, who the english dub makes even more obnoxious and annoying.

in conclusion,

*dropped down to a mere minor character for money. inesidora’s artwork, truly timeless.

thanks to marukrawler for helping me out with the japanese subs/translations. other translation credits go to nhi huynh on youtube.

#bakugan #bakugan battle brawlers #runo misaki #julie makimoto #julie hayward #alice gehabich #skyress #bakugan meta #*#*meta

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