

Breakdown

Bakugan reboot gets first promotional image

Toronto toy company Spin Master has revealed the first image for the upcoming relaunch of the Bakugan franchise in their 2017 Business Segment Report (pg. 12), published in May.

The most apparent inclusion is what appears to be the original show’s protagonist, Dan Kuso, now sporting a new look with a red streak through his hair. It seems like his partner Drago has also seem an update. The rest of the image? Well, I’ve got no real idea, though LeMar DeVente, who first spotted the image, seems to have a few guesses. Outside of that, the attached blurb adds some perspective on why the property is being revived.

A Bakugan revival has been in gestation since 2015. Produced by Nelvana and TMS Entertainment, the show is set to launch in 2019 and will use an 11-minute episode format. Spin Master, who serve as toy partner (likely alongside SEGA Toys in Japan), has trademarked the name Bakugan: Battle Planet, though it’s not currently known if that’s the title the relaunch will use. The original Bakugan anime, which was also a Canada-Japan co-production with the same parties involved, ran for 189 episodes between 2007 and 2012. A Japan-only spinoff series ran between 2012 and 2013.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V finale on Teletoon

The conclusion of Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V is almost here. Teletoon will air episode 148 “That’s A Wrap!” on Friday, June 22nd at 7PM eastern, with an encore scheduled for the following day at 1PM. The series became the first entry in the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise to not air on YTV, having made its debut on Teletoon on July 24, 2015. The series ran in Japan on TV Tokyo between April 6, 2014 and March 26, 2017. Australia saw the English premiere of the show’s final episode early last month on 9Go!.

At the moment, Teletoon plans on airing reruns from the beginning of Arc-V’s third season starting next week in both of the show’s current timeslots. No word on if (when?) the newest show, Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS, will hit the channel. Canada is one of only a select handful of countries barred from the show’s ongoing Crunchyroll simulcast. Yu-Gi-Oh! handler 4K Media has remained quiet about the show since the first dubbed episode was included with the Pyramid of Light remastered screenings earlier this year. The show’s Italian dub began airing earlier this week.

Beyblade Burst news blitz

Speaking of Teletoon, new episodes of Beyblade Burst Evolution resume on the French language channel with episode 35 “Sur le Podium!” on July 8th at 2:30PM eastern.

That’s not all the Beyblade Burst news, though. Series licensor Sunrights has recently signed deals with two DHX Media related companies. The first will see former DHX subsidiary Epic Story Interactive launch Beyblade Burst Rivals, a new puzzle game for mobile platforms, this fall.

The second is a two-year agreement with DHX’s Wild Brain. They’ll be controlling the brand’s multi-national YouTube presence outside of Asia. This includes utilizing the anime’s content, as well as a new partnership with Canadian YouTube channel BeybladeGeeks to produce 6 new videos. Canada is one of the many countries with its own specific Beyblade Burst YouTube channel.

Buddyfight Ace, Yo-Kai Watch dubs draw near

Bushiroad’s Future Card Buddyfight Facebook page confirmed that an English dub is on the way for Buddyfight Ace. The show stars the YouTuber son of the original series who discovers the game of Buddyfight in hopes of following in his father’s footsteps. While Bushiroad hasn’t stated who’ll be dubbing it, all prior entries in the series were produced by Ocean’s Blue Water studio in Alberta. A start date for the new show’s English dub hasn’t been announced, but the dub for the current season, Future Card Buddyfight X All-Star Fight, should wrap up this Friday, leaving Ace set for June 29th. The series premiered in Japan on June 2nd.

You might remember a story I wrote earlier this year about the English dub of Yo-Kai Watch moving to Vancouver from Los Angeles. Well, it’s almost time to see if that’ll actually happen. After a year long hiatus, the dub for the anime’s third season begins airing on Disney XD in the United States on July 2nd.

Yo-Kai Watch manager Level-5 abby has yet to acknowledge any of the rumours regarding the show. As of this writing, they haven’t even officially announced the anime’s return despite Disney XD airing promos for it. As such, it seems we may not get confirmations on voices until after it airs. One thing is for certain, Brent Pendergrass, who voiced a bunch of characters in the earlier anime/games, including Statiking in the second video game, has confirmed he didn’t voice the latter in the promo embedded above.