Billions of years ago, deep the inside the churning masses of superheated gas that litter
our night sky, the building blocks of our modern world were formed…
Stars were the forges in which the elements mixed and fused to become the metals we know
today.
Scattered by supernova, these minerals would coalesce in the gravity of a newer star to
create the planet earth, with seams of elemental power trapped beneath its crust…
A power we would eventually discover and learn to harness for our own ends.
We endlessly churn the earth to uncover it’s ore.
We smelt and forge it at temperatures hot enough to kill a man instantly, breaking it
down to it’s most basic form, and once hot enough to flow like water we pour it and shape
it to our will…
…And in this case, our will is to put it on little marble toys so we can play children’s
card games.
Hi I’m Jett Kuso, and today we’re looking at the history of Metal Bakugan!
Metal Bakugan have been around for nearly as long as Bakugan itself.
And like everything, metal Bakugan started off small…
Part 1: B1 METALS
The first appearance of metal Bakugan was accompanied by no fanfare.
Dual Hydranoid and Delta Dragonoid, the first evolutions seen in the anime, were released
in normal booster packs at normal prices.
The die-cast metal ring around Hydranoid created incredible stability for forward rolls, making
him one of the most reliable Bakugan at the time.
…In theory…
"I'm choosing my ace in the hole, Hydranoid! Go!
HYDRANOID NO!"
In-fiction, this metal ring was shown as a mecha-gigan lookin’ saw wheel embedded in
his torso.
I shudder at the thought of what his internal organs must look like.
Delta Dragonoid didn’t get anything like that in the show, but the toy’s sideways
metal ring allowed for beauuutiful side-spins that I’ve shown off many times on this channel, even as
far back as my first ever video on YouTube, Awesome Bakugan Trickshots.
Except THAT version of delta was no tiny B1.
That version of Delta was a—
PART 2: MmmmB2!!!
Okay, so,
The shift between B1 size to B2 size was kind of a mystery, but I can infer that they wanted
to make the Bakugan bigger to make them sturdier and to avoid choking hazards.
Beyond just choking, even if a kid could actually swallow a B1 Bakugan, it’s the LAST thing you’d
want in your guts.
B2’s brought us the ‘Special Attack’ series.
A set of higher priced Bakugan that came out with special features.
This is where you get your Spin Bakugan and your jumping Bakugan and your Preyas II’s.
None of em really attacked specially, but it’s a fun name.
SPECIAL ATTACK, HYA!
From B2 through the near future, metal Bakugan were called Heavy Metals.
Rad name, 10/10.
Delta Dragonoid got a heavy metal treatment, but for whatever reason, Dual Hydranioid didn’t
get a B2 heavy metal version, only sad sad--
SHUT UP! YOU'RE NOT COOL!
For whatever reason, Dual Hydranioid didn’t get a B2 heavy metal version, only sad sad
plastic rings.
Instead we got Alpha Hydranoid which I don’t own a Heavy Metal version of, and Infinity
Dragonoid, which I had as a kid but traded away at Baku-Con for something way less cool.
Probably like…
Like two Frosches or something.
I was a dumb kid.
Season 2, New Vestroia, brought only 2 new Heavy Metal Bakugan.
Vandarus and Premo Vulcan, both cool in their own right.
Check it, the wiki says his gigantic fists detach from its body and fire cannon-like
balls.
Now I don’t know if that means the balls are like cannon balls, the fists turn into
cannon balls, or the balls themselves are cannon-ball-like, but either way Thas a Primo Vulcan.
[Mobster face, italian chef hand]
Speaking of Baku-Con…
PART 3: BAKU-CON TROPHY.
The only other metal Bakugan to be made in the New Vestroia era was one single fully
die-cast metal Bakugan.
A 2007 g-power Neo Dragonoid, given to the grand champion winner of the Baku-Con National
Finals in New York City…
Plus MP3 players and more…
The winner was a lad named Christopher Ruff, but this Bakugan may or may not still be in
his possession…
A man named Bakublitz on Instagram has posted numerous photos and videos proving he does
indeed own a diecast metal neo dragonoid with 2007 g-power, which he bought for 700 dollars.
It activates with a switch, it comes in the same box, but we don’t know if it’s the
diecast metal neo dragonoid with 2007 g-power that Christopher Ruff won.
I have reason to believe that, despite Johnny Bakugan’s claim of it being one-of-a-kind,
a diecast neo dragonoid was shown off at the 2019 invitational.
K1mbo filmed a video of it, so unless this one was stolen and sold, there are at least
two that exist.
But K1mbo says Tillman said THAT one was one-of-a-kind…
BakuBlitz, who also goes by supermassivenut on reddit, posted a photo with the headline
“This one escaped Spin Master’s captivity”, but they clarified in the comments.
“If may, how did you get this Bakugan?”
“I bought it from a guy who got it as a gift from his dad who was a spin master employee.
At least that's what I understand from what he told me.”
ALRIGHT FINE.
So that’s at least 3 of this one-of-a-kind Bakugan, huh?
And then this rando in the comments of Kimbo’s video says they have one!
And there have to be even more than that if random employee kids are— ugh whatever,
this is a topic for another video.
Moving on to the next—
PART 4: GUNDALIAN INVADERS
Season 3, Gundalian Invaders saw the death of Special Attack and the introduction of
SUPER ASSAULT!
Introducing the same idea with a new name for no reason!
Sure.
There weren’t any heavy metal Bakugan in the super assault line, BUT two Bakugan did
have metal on them.
Splight and Ziperator, two of the ripcord BakuZoom toys.
The metal rings on these spin at high speed, creating a more dramatic but overly complicated
version of the same stability effect as normal heavy metals.
Past that, many of the Mobile Assault Vehicle toys had metal parts as well in random locations
for no conceivable ergonomic purpose.
These are, the dumbest toys, but uh…
Hey, at least you’re ~RIDIN' ON CARS~
Unfortunately, the completely non-thought-out and random placement of metal parts on the
mobile assault vehicles was no outlier.
It was, and I say this with a heavy heart, only the beginning of what was
to come.
AD BREAK:
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Where was I?
Ah!
Mechtanium—
[Mr. Plinkett voice] part 5….
Mechtanium Surge, or: How to make metal parts boring…
[Commercial plays]
Okay, so, that looks pretty crazy right?
That looks like a heck of a lot of metal, I mean holy cow the entire bottom half of
that bakugan is me-
*Voice from off screen* Silver.
…Ahem…The entire bottom half is-
*Off screen* Silver!
…What do you mean silver?
*Off screen* It’s not metal, it’s just silver.
Yyyyeah, metal is usually silver colored…
*Off screen* Paint.
It’s painted silver.
Only the feet are metal, the rest is paint.
…Oh.
Oh no.
Yeeesss it’s true, every single Mechtanium Surge Bakugan came equipped with die cast
metal parts, just like the advertising said.
Like, these little twiddly bits on Bolcanon.
And these little flaps on Razenoid.
But they KNEW little bits like that just aren’t enough to count as a gimmick.
Not when Heavy Metal Bakugan used to have huge weighted rings.
Sooo they decided to play a little bit of what we in the marketing business call…
haha… lying.
Okay not really lying, but some slight deception, at the very least.
If you SAY a Bakugan has metal and make a big deal about it, and paint half of the ball
silver, *every* kid is going to think half of every toy is going to be metal.
So even if the metal parts would be cool even in small quantities, because they made it
look even cooler, the result is only disappointment.
They also replaced all of the secondary colors with silver.
Pair that with bad Alto Brontese Disease, and you get an ugly looking line of disappointing
Bakugan that you can barely roll.
So the metal parts, which would be neat otherwise, fall to the wayside.
Oh, but they did make BakuSteel traps also!
These are re-released trap bakugan with metal parts added, and you can actually tell which
parts are metal and they’re kind of awesome actually.
Bakugan died in the west after that, but you guys already know where this is going.
PART 6: BakuTech, AND WHY THE CONVERT SYSTEM IS THE COOLEST THING I'VE EVER-
You guys all know the story, I’m not gonna repeat myself from every other video where
I’ve talked about the Japanese convert system.
It’s just, it’s the coolest thing.
Metal parts that can be swapped out and moved around, the slick engineering, the whole thing
is cool as sshhh
sharktar.
Even when you get to the Bind System era, or BakuTech that don’t use the convert system,
they still have metal parts cleverly placed to make each Bakugan perform a different way.
Weight balance, stability, knockout power, I mean just look at THIS guy.
This guy has a metal battering ram on his chest that smacks into other Bakugan and knocks
them out.
If Gundalian Invaders had Super Assault, BakuTech has assault with a deadly weapon.
This one has metal nodes that can be shifted around to change the weight distribution for
different techniques.
Ugh.
It blows my mind.
I hope when we get metal bakugan again in the reboot, it’s done with this level of
care and consideration.
PART 7: NNNNNNNGEOFORGE DRAGONOID
OHOHOHO.
OHHHHOHOHOHOHOHO!!!
Ohhhhhh
Yeees this is Geoforge Dragonoid, not only a return of the classic Maxus Dragonoid type
combiner, but the first reboot Bakugan to feature die cast metal parts.
Well, with one exception being a funky diecast dragonoid ultra shown off at the 2020 invitational…
Which, actually might be the only real one of a kind rarest bakugan??
Who even knows.
Imma be real with you…
This scared me when I saw it.
It’s that same exact Mechtanium Surge color silver, and it has silver over the magnet
plate.
I didn’t think Bakugan could be made with metal over the magnet, since the Die-cast
dragonoids have all been nonfunctional.
But sure enough when I got a Geoforge Dragonoid, I gave it the lick test all over and every
silver piece is actually metal.
Beyond that, it might contain more metal than any Bakugan prior.
In terms of performance, I don’t actually know yet.
Everyone is worried that Geoforge is going to break their Bakugan when they slam together,
but…
I’m really not worried about it.
I’ve never had a Bakugan break during gameplay, and even when blocking, as long as you’re
blocking with care and precision rather than Maxotaur-roll slamming your Bakugan as hard
as possible, the Bakugan are going to be fine.
If someone’s being irresponsible and you’re afraid they’re going to break your stuff,
just don’t play with them.
[Toy story i don’t want to play with you anymore scene]
But either way, it is gonna be very interesting to see how geoforge performs.
It's cool! Variety is cool!
So what does this mean for the future of Bakugan?
PART 8: EVERYTHING IS CHROME IN THE FUTURE
Alright suckers,
Here’s how it’s gonna go down.
Bakugan reboot Season 4 is being produced right now.
We haven’t seen a single sight or leak of from the entire [next season], and I promise
I have 0 insider info on this, this is all prediction. I think Geoforge Dragonoid is just a test run
For metal bakugan.
Maybe metal torsos like Geoforge Dragonoid,
but i think more likely we'll just get random metal parts more along the lines of mechtanium
This is fine, as long as it's honest. I would love to see it be high performance,
like heavy metals and like bakutech but metal is cool regardless.
Exhibit A: trox's voice actor Ucal Shillingford posted a photo to his instagram story of him
recording the voice for Trox in season 4. in the photo you can see a brand new model
for little Trox, and there's a few interesting details.
Silver plates on his back.
There's something happening here and what it is ain't exactly clear, but i think it's
metal bakugan and if i'm wrong on this i will walk around in public for an entire afternoon
wearing a dragonoid costume.
this is real i will do that if there's no metal bakugan in season four it's official
that's a bet thank you again to skillshare for sponsoring the video thank you so much
for watching this is Jett Kuso and i'll see you next time
...don't pan over to show me!
Hey~