Counterfeit Bakugan

Glad to see the fine folks at SpinMaster are on top of this! If you haven't already looked, there were a slew of counterfeit Bakugan online. Online aution sites were nefarious for having a wide assortment of "Bursting Egg" and "Battle Brawlers" and "Bomb Ball"... Not that it matters now as the major online auction sites have removed the offending product. Should I come across more pics of the offending product, I'll be sure to post a pic...

As for what's left out there, please be careful. If it doesn't have the name "Bakugan" and SpinMaster (and maybe even Sega Toys) then its probably a fake. There are some Japanese versions available out there but even those are labeled correcly... I'll have more on the Japanese version a little later around here...

G Power

So what is G Power? Well, I'm glad you asked.... those are the point values assigned to each Bakugan. When you receive your Bakugan, their G Power may be covered by a black piece of sticky tape. Be careful when removing the tape! I had a piece of sticky tape get stuck and it affected the performance of the bakugan. what a pain to get it out.... Anyway, G Points range from 250 - 450.. now mind you, the Japanese version has all sorts of wacky numbers... in the US and Canada however, the points are in 50 point increments (I guess we can't count in North America?):
250
300
350
400
450

Now why is G Power important? Because its how you battle! If you are playing and roll your Bakugan onto a normal card and neither one of you gets a bonus from the card, the person with the highest G Power wins! (e.g. a griffon with 400G beats a saurus with 300G)....

Translucent?

OK.. So earlier I mentioned "translucent"... I hope the photo speaks for itself... It's exactly as it sounds. There are translucent Bakugan... whether they are as "rare" as other websites report must wait to be seen but they are nice to have. I also believe this is why some people call Haos - gray... the translucent white does look more gray than white... but make no mistake.. .it's white...

Here are a couple pics of Pyres Griffon. The left one is translucent.
Look at the shadow from the wings... the light passes thru the translucent wings.

Falconeer

This next little bit of errata is straight from the character card - Falconeer...

Falconeer are not Reapers.... We'll be playing this card as a Falconeer card regardless of what the text says :-)

Bakugan Errata... #2 - Griffon / Tigrerra / Tigress?!

OK.. let's set the record straight in this glaring misconception! A friend of mine really wanted Tigerra... So they went online and ordered a set from an unnamed online retailer that insisted that what they sent was "Tigrerra". Even after telling them how WRONG they were, they refused to admit their error... so let's be clear:
Tigrerra DOES NOT EQUAL Griffon
These are 2 separate Bakugan and should not be confused.

EDIT: Okay... there seems to be some additional correction involved here... For some reason, an unnamed online retailer feels compelled to sell the "Griffon" as "Tigress". I have NO idea where this originated. I will have to do more research to see if there is any correlation to the cartoon. From what I can tell, it's nothing more than a made up marketing ploy to sell Griffon's to unsuspecting Tigrerra buyers. As I learn more, I'll be happy to keep everyone updated!

In the picture, the Griffon is on the left and Tigrerra is on the right...

Bakugan Errata... #1 - Robotallian / Battletron

OK... So one of my many pet peeves is with regards to the incorrect names given to the various Bakugan. So lets get the most frequent errors and confusing names straightened out.

First off... as you can see from the list of 'Available Bakugan' on the main page there is the first glaring question... what the heck is "Robotallian / Battletron"??

Robotallian and Battletron are one in the same. However, it is almost never referred to as "Battletron"... that was a name on the promotional poster Spin Master was handing out. I don't have any clue as to why the name difference but the cartoon is what it is and Robotallian is the name we'll go by.

Edit! - Wow! good news on this edit!! Version 2 of the Spin Master Promotional poster now lists it as Robotallian! Great move Spin Master! Thanks for the uniformity!

Bakugan !

OK... So lets go over some of the basics... First off, what the heck are these things?!
"Bakugan" is translated as 'exploding ball' in Japanese... pretty cool, right? right...
anyway... lets move on... as you'll see, Bakugan come in a variety of colors and the colors represent a certain element. The elements are nice for how the game corresponds to the cartoon but really its all about the colors when adding points and determining the winner when playing. That being said, here are the colors:

Aquos - blue - water
Darkus - black - dark
Haos - white - light
Pyres - red - fire
Subterra - brown - earth
Ventus - green - air

Now before anyone tells you otherwise, Haos = WHITE!
I see all over that Haos = gray. This is wrong. Sorry if the white looks gray, but it is WHITE! I think some of the confusion happens with the translucent Bakugan... but we'll talk about those in another post.