Comics / Manga

Bakugan Battle Brawlers: The Battle Begins

By Leroy Douresseaux
November 21, 2008 - 12:39

Bakugan Battle Brawlers: The Battle Begins cover courtesy of barnesandnoble.com.

Rating “Y: All Ages”

Del Rey Manga and Cartoon Network Enterprises entered into a publishing partnership, and the first book to emerge from that deal is Bakugan Battle Brawlers: The Battle Begins.  Bakugan is a hit anime currently airing on Cartoon Network, and the Bakugan toys from Spin Master Ltd., the owners of this property, might end up being some of the most popular items of the 2008 Christmas and holiday shopping season.

Bakugan Battle Brawlers: The Battle Begins is an OEL manga/graphic novel.  The art is actually created by incorporating full-color stills from the animated show Bakugan into a comic book format.  This first volume (of two planned volumes) introduces the main character, his friends and rivals, and the world of Bakugan.

Here’s the general concept:  one day, cards started dropping from the sky all over the world.  Young people around the world used the cards to create a new game they call Bakugan, and the Internet helps them to communicate with one another.  Later, players discovered that the cards had real power.  Each card contains a battling beast which comes to life when a card is thrown down in combat.  Bakugan’s main character, Dan Kuso, discovers that the cards may hold even more magic than anyone imagined, and there may be a real other universe behind the battling beasts.

THE LOWDOWN:  I’d seen film-comics before Bakugan Battle Brawlers: The Battle Begins, and even own a few, including Marvel Comics graphic novel, X-Men Animation Special, which was a film-comic adaptation of the 1989 animated television pilot, “X-Men: Pryde of the X-Men.”  There is a novelty to film-comics that makes them initially attractive.  It’s the idea at being able to closely exam a printed still from an animated feature or TV show.  I imagine that it can be a difficult process for film-comic creators to choose the moments in the film from which to take stills that when combined will form a coherent narrative – one that tells a story and is true to the source material.

Bakugan Battle Brawlers: The Battle Begins’ writing and adaptation team of Elizabeth Hurchalla and Tomás Montalvo-Lagos does a good job of creating a story that both explains the world of Bakugan and also sets up a basic story with action built around the series hero, Dan Kuso.  I can’t imagine that Bakugan Battle Brawlers: The Battle Begins will be a memorable manga or comic book, but it may be just right for its intended audience.

POSSIBLE AUDIENCE:  With the “Bakugan” anime aimed at boys 6-11 in the U.S., that’s probably the same audience for Bakugan Battle Brawlers: The Battle Begins.

 

Last Updated: November 29, 2025 - 16:51