Bakugan...Saving the Universe One Toss at a Time

Last week, while doing pick-up at Northwest Laurens, my seven year old son Andrew shot out of his classroom like a lightning bolt to deliver my newest mission. "Mom, we have to go to WalMart right now and buy Bakugan balls!""Baku-what?" I asked as I checked my shopping list where I found cotton balls and tennis balls, but none of the mysterious Bakugan variety."Mom, we have to go now! All the other boys are playing with them and I'm the O--N--L--Y one in class who doesn't have any!"
"Poor, deprived child." I mourned. "I sure hope DFACS doesn't find out about this."
"Mom, we have to go NOW!"
There's no reasoning with a child who has Bakugan on the brain. So I did as I was told and drove straight to WalMart, directly to WalMart. I did not pass GO. I did not collect $200. As we dashed to the toy department, nearly running over the fabric department clerk, I took note of the expectant gleam in Andrew's eye...as if he were about to meet Bakugan in person, or warrior, or droid or whatever he is. Once we found the right aisle, which Andrew went straight to as if he were being directed by some Bakugan powered GPS, I learned all about Bakugan balls, the Bakugan game and how important it was that my son join the ranks of Bakugan players all over Laurens County. I dropped $20.00 on four chunks of plastic and some magnetic cards. Where's the "SUCKER" stamp for my forehead?

For you parents out there, who haven't heard of Bakugan (Lord, hep you) here's a little summary. Bakugan Battle Brawler balls are small magnetized plastic orbs (about the size of an extra large cherry, or a small plum or my husband's thumb). In the Bakugan battle game, players toss their balls onto magnetized cards which trigger the spring-loaded magnets in the balls to react and morph into action figures. Are you lost? yeah, I figured. This is probably one of those things you have to see for yourself. The player whose Bakugan battle figure (which used to be a ball) scores the highest, gets points. There is math involved. So I guess it can be deemed educational. It's kind of like playing a game of Sci-Fi marbles. Andrew won't explain all the rules so I wind up losing every time. After doing a good six minutes of research powered by Google and watching a 10 minute anime video, I became fluent in the language of Bakugan (which I will teach at West Laurens High School next year (just kidding!)

The Bakugan phenomenon began in Japan as an anime cartoon where everyday, ordinary kids learned that they had special powers to fight the evils of the universe in the form of magnetic game cards. Wild-haired, bug-eyed pre-teens with names like Runo, Marucho, Shun, Alice and Dan battle against other worldly bad guys. The whole concept is strangely similar to Power Rangers, Teen Titans, Ben 10, Star Wars and any other cartoon series where good fights evil with a gimmick.

Yes, your kids have to have them. So run to WalMart NOW. Nothing shows parental love like $5.00 plastic springloaded magnetic balls that will probably break between three and six days after purchase. One day, I'm going to invent something like Bakugan or Webkinz. It must be a great feeling to laugh all the way to the bank as naive parents are hurredly navigated by their obsessed kids in the throes of consumerism. Well, I'll leave that for another blog entry.

To learn more about saving the universe with Bakugan, visit http://www.bakugan.com/. To watch a full length episode, visit http://www.cartoonnetwork.com/.