B-Legend! Battle B-Daman

If you rewatch a lot of stuff from your childhood, you’ll find after a while that half the stuff you watched as a kid was really bad, whilst the other half is surprisingly still quite good. However, considering the amount of excitement you likely felt for these works as a kid, even if you still like it, a lot more than half the stuff you watched as a kid is not as good as you remember it being. I personally have only experienced a couple pieces of media from my childhood that I liked better as an adult, simply because I am capable of appreciating ... what makes it good on a deeper level. Even rarer, though, is when you revisit something from your childhood and, despite the fact that you have changed considerably since your younger years and your taste in media has had the opportunity to change beyond recognition a multitude of times, you still feel the exact same way about it you did back then. This is the situation I found myself in upon rewatching this old favourite of my childhood, where I didn’t just like it as much as I used to, I even felt very similar about what the show was and was trying to do.

B-daman is about a world where society almost revolves around B-daman: plastic marble shooting toys that, in the right hands, are powerful enough to smash rocks. What’s interesting is the presentation of these toys. They’re not just some toys that people have arbitrarily decided to deem important, B-daman very much take this world’s place of guns. In fact, the whole world is made to suit that, with most of the world consisting of desert and most of the characters dressed up as cowboys and renegades with B-daman kept at their sides, like revolvers. The whole show has a lovely western aesthetic to it, mixed in with some human-animal hybrids of various levels of anthropomorphism. There’s also robots, but, with a couple of exceptions, they’re never remarked upon. I do find it very charming, though, to see robots walking around dressed in cowboy outfits. Overall, I am just so thoroughly charmed by the presentation of this show, especially of the world, but even of the character designs, which are a little more shaky, but still quite good.

Speaking of the characters, though this show is by no means a paragon of character writing in a post-yugioh world, I do still quite enjoy a lot of the principal cast and think most of them have pretty solid designs. Yamato is very similar to other shounen protagonists of this nature and suffers a little from the fact that as the main character he has to be broadly relatable, but I still quite like him and I laughed quite a few times at his antics. I grew pretty fond of his mom who he was always fighting with and who had the bright idea of starting a fish food restaurant in the middle of the desert and a lot of Yamato’s friends and rivals were fun too. Gray was a really aesthetically cool character and Armada is a funny goofy cat. I’m not as big of a fan of Terry, but he had his moments. The true MVP has to be Bull though, who has a whopping 3 personalities inside of his thick skull. The switching between these personalities during all kinds of moments could frequently amplify an exciting scene or undercut the tension of a serious moment and was pretty much always a fun way to shake things up. I really got to like that goofy son of a gun, which is why it’s a shame his presence tends to be undercut throughout a lot of the show.

On the bad-guy side of things there’s the evil organization ‘The Shadow Alliance’, which is initially shown to be lead by a talking cat with a third eye, but later turns out to be lead by Sauron. Yes, Sauron. Sauron doesn’t have much of a motivation in this, nor are his goals terribly clear, other than that’s he’s trying to take over the B-daworld(Yes, the B-daworld) but he’s menacing enough. I don’t think his organization is very interesting and I generally only think the shadow alliance work as antagonists because they contain members who are great individual bad guys, but not because they work well as a unit. Wen and Li were pretty Menacing when they first showed up, but lost that pretty quickly, but are still pretty fun to watch even later in the show and Gray’s dynamic as a member who was forced into the organisation was pretty interesting. Enjyu was the real star of the show, though, being almost lovingly evil, but also being an edgy dork who I can’t help but love. Watching him makes me understand on a very visceral level why good girls always fall for bad guys. Yeah, if this is what bad boys have, us good guys simply can’t compete. This is the type of show where all the bad guys eventually turn over to the good side and Enjyu is far too embarrassed to actually approach Yamato and his gang, so prefers to tail them in secret and protect them from the shadows. God he’s such a stupid dork. I love him.

Very few of the characters in the show have interesting arcs and even if they do they tend to be extremely short and come a bit late, but despite that, the characters do a pretty good job keeping the show fun for 50 episodes. I never got tired of any of the characters and generally thought they were fun to watch for the duration of the show, but I can definitely see some people getting a little tired of them near the last stretch of episodes. I personally think they do their job to keep the show fun, though, which is all I could ask of them. Another thing that might bother some people, is their appearance. I personally think their designs are pretty solid, but I also remember near a decade ago when I watched this show for the last time I was a little bothered by the fact that most of the main cast consists of three foot tall dwarves. I didn’t feel bothered by this as a kid and I only started noticing it as I grew older. I feel some people might be bothered by their short appearances, but I personally have started feeling quite amused at this fact. Seeing an adult male putting up a fighting stance against these dwarves or having to use a table made for toddlers always looks really off and makes for some amusing shot composition. This is one of those things you just gotta have fun with, for sure.

Aside from the very solid character designs and the wonderfully crafted world that they populate, I think most of the visuals in B-daman are sufficient. My personal philosophy involving what I like in anime visuals tends to be a little different from other people, so take my words with a grain of salt, but I personally was pretty visually engaged by this show. The shot composition was really solid and there was a decent amount of animation for a long running kid’s show and there were lots of moments I recognized during my rewatch because they were memorable enough to stick with me for over a decade. One interesting part of the visuals is the usage of CG. This is before anime started cramming CG everywhere it could and so its usage was limited to the toys. Not that the B-daman are always 3D rendered, not at all. During fights the B-daman are often traditionally animated. It’s before a fight when they’re shown off from all sides that they use CG and the models they use here are surprisingly good looking for being from the mid 2000s. The B-daballs they shoot are usually CG as well and that allows them to have a glossy texture. I remember later in the show there is a very pretty looking B-daball that is shown both in CG and hand drawn and even as a kid I could tell there was something weird about it, but it took until I was older for me to be able to put to words what the difference was. One of my favourite parts of watching old cartoons from my childhood is noticing the usage of CG where as a kid I would either never have noticed it was there, or I would have felt there was something weird about it, but would never have been able to put to words what it was. It makes me realize just how much I’ve grown over the years in my understanding of media.

One thing I did notice as a kid was B-daman’s best feature: the stellar soundtrack. Just like how Naruto mixes traditional Japanese music with electric guitars, this show mixes sounds that could easily be found in an old western movie with some good ol’ rock and roll. And also some keyboards, I guess. The western music is definitely the senior partner in this alliance, as most of the music in this show doesn’t build the way rock music tends to. Most of the songs tend to be fairly transient, even the exciting ones. One could argue that some of the climaxes in the show could be more exciting if the music was just a bit more climactic, but I personally don’t feel any need to speculate on such things. The music that is there is absolutely lovely and makes many action scenes very exciting. The quality of the music alone makes up a fairly significant chunk of my enjoyment of this show, especially because the action, which it frequently accompanies, is pretty darn shaky.

The actual battles in this show aren’t terribly good, action-wise at least. During a direct hit battle there isn’t much strategy other than dodge or shoot when the opponent is reloading. There isn’t much of a sense of progression in the characters skills and battles often feel like you’re waiting for one of the protagonists to simply beat their opponents. That said, the battles don’t drag the show down terribly, simply because they’re short. Even if they’re not short, they’re only long because they’re interspersed with character-flashbacks or other stuff, which generally add a lot of meaning to the conflicts. Moreover, there’s a lot of variety in the types of battles you see. B-daman isn’t just about direct hit battles, there’s also other games that can be played with them. Shoot down a bunch of pins, shoot through the pins without hitting them, shoot through a spinning gate, etc. etc. These games add some much needed variety to the conflicts in the show and are often pretty creative. And if that doesn’t work, the makers of the show found all kinds of ways to keep traditional B-dabattles interesting by changing their setting around. This mostly happens during the tournament arc that takes up the first half of the show, where the producers of the tournament find all kinds of creative ways to have the tournament’s participants risk their lives to play a game about shooting marbles at each other. But even outside of the tournament, battles are rarely the same. In one episode the gang has a saloon shootout with a bunch of pigs who can create powerful winds with their snouts. In another the players have to feel out the winds to be able to shoot at each other, because the b-daballs keep going in weird directions. In yet another, two players try to defeat each other by shooting down gigantic pillars to try and crush the other. Though I think the battles could have been a lot better, all the other parts of the show are so solid that they make up for this weaker part.

All that said, there is one big elephant in the room concerning what B-daman is, that I’ve barely talked about to this point. B-daman is an advertisement, plain and simple. You don’t fully grasp this when you’re young, but shows like this are set up on a structural level to sell plastic toys. They don’t just do this on a physical level, showing you merchandise you can find on the store shelf, or that your mom picks up for your birthday, because it’s from that show you always watch. No, these shows try to sell you on the idea that these toys are something more than plastic gunk you literally play with twice. These shows, after all, are about worlds where these toys have gone beyond even being life-style brands and have become the entity that all conflict revolves around. Of course you can be cynical about this, but, to put that aside for a second, the fact of the matter is that these shows generally do a great job selling the fantasy surrounding these toys and greatly amplify the experience of owning them. I very much remember as a kid opening a pack of Yugioh or Pokemon cards and the excitement I felt when I found a card or mon I recognized from the shows. And in a similar vein I remember how cool it was to own a B-daman that was owned by a cool character from the show. It didn’t matter to me that these toys were glorified marble shooters, the idea that I was holding a powerful weapon, capable of smashing rocks, was exciting. However, though I understand nowadays that these toys are actually the primary product of these franchises, as a kid I would never have guessed this. Even now, the shows are what I remember and the toys are but a distant memory. These shows outshone the products they were based on and outlived them in our memories and now that I have outgrown my cynicism I have regrown a fondness for B-daman and shows like it and feel that they are genuinely really cool.

You know, it seems counterproductive, but as I’ve grown older, instead of growing further away from where I was as a kid, I actually grew back into children’s anime and I know a lot of people who did the same. The fact that a work is made for young boys is too broad of measure to ascertain its quality with, be that positively or negatively. As I grew older, the things I looked for in media became more specific and now I just kinda watch anything, so long as it’s good. That does mean that what a kid’s show has to offer does appeal to me, which would be enough for many people to label me a disgusting man-child. I personally try to take my status as a man-child with pride, though. There is no need to be affected by being called a word with negative associations, when the reason you’re called that is not because of those negative associations. Nor am I ashamed of liking what I like. The fact of the matter is that B-daman has marble shooters that are also guns that can crush rocks, has Scottish ninjas, has people known to suffer from multiple-personality disorder on the loose, has an evil organisation that acts evil, not out of efficiency, but just because it feels right to do so, has an absolute lack of any safety regulations when it comes to activities involving children and has a sassy black lady who is also blue, who looks over everyone from the sky on an old TV from the 70s and I think that’s all pretty sick.

So the big problem with B-daman right now is consuming it. There is no subbed version whatsoever, though this is one of those rare occasions where people who have seen the English dub at all cannot sit through the Japanese Dub, in a very similar way to Dragon ball Z. Some of the voices just feel too off. Though this might not be a problem for someone unfamiliar with the dub, but like I said, it’s all unsubbed, so who cares anyway. The dub’s pretty good though, filled with both a lot of genuinely great voices as well as a lot of goofy ones. There’s a couple minor characters that sound pretty bad and even the better voice actors in the cast have a hard time with all the anime moaning and ad-libbing, which is a scourge to any good dub cast, but for the most part I think this dub should be pretty watchable for most people. Though if you are someone who dislikes cheesy kid’s anime dubs, like if you’re someone who doesn’t like the yugioh dub at all, then I recommend you don’t even bother with it. Sadly the dub’s only available online in over compressed 480p, so even then, it’s not going to look ideal. I recommend you watch it on YouTube though, as you often run into 360p on other sites. If you like B-daman, or if you like shows like it, I would of course point you towards Beyblade, which is the show that’s the most like it, but Yugioh or Pokémon or Bakugan should be fun as well. If you feel a little more adventurous and want to get a little deeper into children’s anime, I recommend you go on a pilgrimage to watch all of Ojamajo Doremi, an absolutely wonderful show that, despite being known for tackling pretty serious topics, is probably even more eccentric than any of the shows I just mentioned. Anyways, though I think my nostalgia for the show has affected the way I see it, I still think the 2004 B-daman show hold up wonderfully and is still worth watching and I encourage anyone with an interest in these types of shows to give it an honest try.

This anime is my childhood. When I revisited the series some years ago I thought my enjoyment of the show would change, but it didn’t. I still love it. I love the b-daman toys, I love the opening it’s just a classic, I love the main cast’s adventures, I love the drama and conflict. Yes, it can become a bit too dramatic, the voice acting sometimes feel too exaggerated, the villains/antagonists are a bit too much (tho Enjyu and Cain are great), but at the same time it is sooo goood. I hope anyone will get the amount of enjoyment I do watching this.

Battle B-Daman is Beyblade.
Battle B-Daman is Medabots.
It's Yu-Gi-Oh!
It's Bakuman.
It's every other anime that was made to sell toys!

I may be being too hard on this anime since it is for kids, but the biggest problem I have with this anime is it doesn't offer anything new. It's nothing, but a collection of cliches and character tropes I have seen been used in these previously mentioned anime and more!

Now, don't get me wrong, I like anime like Yu-Gi-Oh and Beyblade and the others, but the problem with this anime is there is NOTHING that sets it apart from the others.

... Story 4/10

The first problem I have with the story is B-Daman doesn't look that fun of a game. Half the battles they fight and the games they play are stuff like "who can knock over the most pins with their B-Daman" or "can you hit the target" which just isn't as exciting as when it's one player fighting another directly. Plus, I have a tough time imagining kids in real life playing B-Daman.

Also, the story could not be more simpler. What I liked about other anime like Yu-Gi-Oh and Medabots was at least there was a much more interesting and complex story arc and characters had better motivations. Here it's just "I'm evil because the script says I'm evil".


Characters 3/10

Take the most annoying parts of characters like Goku from Dragon Ball Z and Naruto from Naruto and be sure to leave out what made them cool and then you have Yamato. There isn't anything cool or funny about Yamato. He's just annoying, gives speeches about friendship, and wins all his battles with his main character deus ex machina powers.

The villain isn't much better, either. Marta-B was a generic and forgettable villain that wanted to destroy the world because...oh right, his only motivation is he's evil.

There were some characters I did like, however.
Bull, with his multiple personalities, was fun.
Yamato's mom was funny whenever she got mad.
However, neither of these characters get as much screen time as Yamato, unfortunately.

Art 6/10

The art would have to probably be the best part of this show.

It's cool how the show is set in this world where you have characters that are giant talking cats, robots, and sort of humans like Lee. What is with his eyes?! There's no white, it's just black! Is he an alien?

Also, there is a large variety of B-Daman and each one is pretty well and uniquely designed.

Overall 4/10

Battle B-Daman is pretty forgettable anime. There's nothing memorable or worthwhile about the characters. The story is about as bare bones as you can get. I'd recommend Medabots or Beyblade over this.