Bakugan Battle Brawlers: Mechtanium Surge

This review will contain some spoilers under "Characters" and "Ending" as I describe how well or poorly some characters were written and how the wrap-up of the story was handled. - It’s finally over. This nightmare of a season is finally over. I watched Bakugan ever since it first started airing. I really enjoyed New Vestroia (season 2) and Gundalian Invaders (season 3), so I was excited for Mechtanium Surge. Unfortunately, it was a disappointment. I watched the first 7 episodes regularly before I got too annoyed with it. I watched some episodes after episode 7, but not regularly, so I didn’t have much context of what was happening. Eventually, I decided to drop it completely. Due to my New Year's promise for this year, I decided to pick this anime up again, determined to finish it. Now that's I've finally watched all episodes, I can describe what season 4 of Bakugan got right and what went wrong. Story (5/10) The season is split up into two arcs. I’m calling Arc 1 “Dan makes everything worse”, and it was extremely frustrating to sit through. It mainly takes place in Bakugan Interspace, a virtual dimension designed by Marucho where people participate in bakugan battles. The protagonist of the story - Dan - along with his best friends Shun and Marucho are currently the best brawlers in Interspace. There are also two other important groups in Interspace - Team Anubias and Team Sellon. It’s pretty obvious that Anubias and Sellon are up to something from the first episodes. It doesn’t take long for the audience to find out that the two of them are working for the bad guy of Arc 1 called Mag Mel, who obviously must be stopped. I think this "plot twist" could've been written better. It would've been better if we - the auidience - found out about Anubias and Sellon's true motives at the same time the brawlers did. Unfortunately, it was revealed so early that it's not even a plot twist. It can't even be considered a spoiler. Arc 1 ends around episode 26 where the audience is introduced to the new villains - a couple of Mechtogans (They might be normal bakugans. I don’t really care) who seek revenge against Drago because Drago’s ancestor had banished them to the Doom Dimension, which is basically a graveyard for bakugans. Again, not a spoiler. They quickly teamed up with the main villain of Arc 2 named Wiseman, whose goal was to destroy the world. You know, the usual. I’d like to title Arc 2 as “Transformers: Bakugan edition” because they look like transformers now. Story was pretty boring overall and unnecessary dragged out. Not to mention it’s extremely predictable. The only two times MS actually made me frown in surprise were the reveals of Mag Mel’s true identity and Wiseman’s true identity. But that’s it. Honestly, I think giving this category a 5/10 is me being generous. They have no excuse to be this lazy with the script. Animation is pretty bad as well. The human (or human-like) characters are fine, but the Mechtogans look terrible and the battle scenes are truly a "hit or miss". Sometimes they're acceptable, sometimes they look horrendous. Also, there are so many plotholes in the story. For example, Shun and Marucho have new bakugan partners in Arc 1 (which they always do in each season because they’re not Dan). By the time Arc 2 starts, they suddenly have new partners again. They don’t explain what happened to the previous ones or how they met their new partners. Just…why? Let’s keep it to facts; this entire season was nothing but a big cash grab. If you’ve watched the previous three seasons, you can instantly tell that no love went into this. The amount of new bakugans show this as well. New evolutions, fusions, triple fusions, BakuNanos (basically add-on weapons for bakugans), Mechtogans and Mechtogan Titans. Hell, Arc 1 even includes bakugan on motorcycles. They just want to sell toys. And they have no shame in doing it. Characters (3/10) (Spoilers) Boy, do I have a lot to say about this category. Let’s start with Dan Kuso - the hero to the story. Grab a drink because this will take a while. This season actually made me despise Dan. In the beginning of MS, it becomes evident that Drago couldn't control his new powers while Dan had begun to see strange visions and dreams. Eventually, he and Drago decided to leave to train in New Vestroia. You know, leaving everyone behind and without telling them what’s going on. This was both dumb and irresponsible of him considering that he’s the leader of the Bakugan Brawlers, yet didn’t even give someone else the title of (temporary) leader until he came back, leaving the group in a mess. When he later returned to Bakugan Interspace (as a deus ex machina), he immediately engaged in battle despite Marucho screaming at him not to do it. The reason why was because Bakugan Interspace was very unstable. The battle was dangerous to Dan and Drago, as well as everyone else in the Bakugan Interspace. Of course, Dan couldn’t possibly have known that specific part. However, if your best friend - who’s also the creator of the virtual dimension - is panicking and yelling at you to stop, you should at least ask him why. I understand Dan was eager to show off how much how much he had learned, but he’s so blinded by his emotions that he couldn't see what was going on around him. Marucho had to physically grab Dan’s arm to prevent him from continuing the battle. What’s extremely frustrating was that Dan acted so nonchalantly when he returned, acting like everything was fine and nothing ever happened. He didn’t even apologize for abandoning his team when he’s supposed to be the leader of it. And when he found out that Marucho had become the new leader (obviously, the team needed a new leader since Dan wasn’t around), Dan had the nerve to get angry. No, you abandoned your team. You have literally no right to complain about someone else stepping up to fix the problems you caused. Moreover, Mag Mel had the ability to see what Dan could see through Dan's visions that he kept having, so when the brawlers found out that Mag Mel was heading towards the capital of planet Gundalia (from season 3) to destroy it, Marucho told Dan to stay behind since Drago couldn't control his powers and because Mag Mel could see what Dan saw. Yet, for some reason, Dan got angry, exclaimed that he was the leader and the creator of the brawlers, and that Marucho therefore couldn't remove him from the team. Let’s get one fact straight: just because you’re the group’s creator, doesn’t mean you’re fit to lead it. To make things worse, Dan even grabbed Marucho by his collar as a threat. Excuse me? He even called Marucho a pest after he left. His disrespect towards Marucho is insane. And this is supposed to be our hero? This self-centered, arrogant, disrespectful, irresponsible jerk is the hero??? He and Marucho ended up apologizing to each other. First of all, Dan only apologized for not realizing that the others were just caring about him the entire time, not because of his rudeness towards Marucho or because he abandoned his team. I don’t know why, but the others accepted this apology and started calling him their leader again. Why? The guy is clearly unfit to be a leader. He can’t even reflect on- and take responsibility for his own actions. Secondly, Marucho had nothing to apologize for. It wasn't his fault that Dan acted like a toddler throwing a tantrum. Dan got a bit better in Arc 2, but it's still not good. He’s still far too OP, just like previous seasons. Really? You couldn’t let Gunz beat him even once? I usually try to remain as objective as possible in my reviews by finding both positive and negative features, but it's difficult to avoid ranting when a character - especially the character we're supposed to be rooting for - is this terribly written. You know what would’ve saved Dan’s character? If he had actually stepped back and given Marucho his support as the new leader of the Bakugan Brawlers, showing that he’s had some self-ref…