B-Daman Bakugaiden Returns... in ENGLISH (Again)
Once more, the lesser-known spinoff of Bomberman receives new life internationally through a now completed subbing process.
Much to the surprise of many, one of the Anglosphere's oldest Bomberman archivists, Steamy Jimmy, actually came through with his promise to sub the entirety of B-Daman Bakugaiden's anime run (Bakugaiden IV and V). For context, the project's prospects were called into question when his uploads of IV's subbed episodes (and subsequently channel) were nuked around the end of 2023. For a second, it was even wondered by many if those uploads were archived or not, and thankfully they were.
For some quick context, the B-Daman series of marble-shooting toys actually started here. Around 1992 or '93, toy producer Takara and Hudson Soft collaborated to create these things, initially as loose tie-ins to games like Super Bomberman, which had just been released at the time. Starting in October 1996, the toyline would become one of the series' first spinoffs with the introduction of a manga published in Cocoro Comic. From on there, usually alongside any subsequent releases, more stories would be produced (often alongside some continuity reboot).
The first series, somewhat confusingly titled 'Bomberman B-Daman Bakugaiden II', actually featured redesigned versions of White and Black taking on 'Dark Mother' and their goons, the original Bomber Shittenou (or The Four Bomber Kings, in English) in humanoid armor akin to many Tokusatsu franchises of the time. From III onwards, the piloted mecha with the embedded marbles were introduced. Fun fact, actually: that's why the first two episodes are so different from the rest of the first anime. It's actually an adaptation of Bakugaiden III, not IV. From episode 3 forward, things do fall back into place.
The first series, somewhat confusingly titled 'Bomberman B-Daman Bakugaiden II', actually featured redesigned versions of White and Black taking on 'Dark Mother' and their goons, the original Bomber Shittenou (or The Four Bomber Kings, in English) in humanoid armor akin to many Tokusatsu franchises of the time. From III onwards, the piloted mecha with the embedded marbles were introduced. Fun fact, actually: that's why the first two episodes are so different from the rest of the first anime. It's actually an adaptation of Bakugaiden III, not IV. From episode 3 forward, things do fall back into place.
In the original announcement video for the subbing project, which has since been taken down (obviously), it was stated that V would be receiving their subs in 2025, and the time has now come without a hitch. Upon being made aware of this, I was led to a new channel 'Jimmy' had been quietly uploading to since last September. For anyone who appreciates his work, said channel contains reuploads of many of his old videos as well as a few newer ones, which more or less makes my reuploads over on the YouTube channel a little redundant, but hey. Two uploads are better than one in the chance one of them gets taken down suddenly.
While I won't provide any links on here (though, literally, they shouldn't be hard to find if you take the time to look around enough), it is great to see another piece of Bomberman's storied history be accessible to a larger range of people, even if Konami won't acknowledge anything outside of Japan.
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