Battle toyetic cartoons

Y

Yael

New member
A pet peeve of mine in toyetic cartoons in which the toys they are advertising, you are suppose to battle them with each other when you play with them, is how ever conflict seems to be settled the same way.

Is just me, or is in many battle toyetic cartoons, like Pokemon or Bakugan Battle Brawlers that ever single little conflict, no mater how trivial is settled by "having a battle" and the winner gets his or her way?

I know they have to sell the protect and it would be boring if everything is settled by talking it out. But sometimes it gets to the level of silliness, when characters decide where to have lunch or what amusement park ride to go on by "having a battle."

One example in Bakugan is over something not trivial, and I thought to myself just skip the stupid battle, was when Dan wanted to know if this Joe kid was a spy for the villains, instead of just answering the question, they have battle over weather or not, Joe will answer him. Excuse me, but that is important information that should be shared right away. If someone accused me of being a spy and I was innocent, I tell them right away I am not spy.
 
They have to fill the twenty two minutes of show somehow. We could have cut shows like Naruto and Pokemon down to a third of the episodes they've released if they cut out/trimmed down all the unneccesary battles.
 
Just pointing out a pet peeve, not going over board with hate for this.

What might turn me off a series, is if to show how popular the game in question is, is to have world leaders settle their differences by "having a battle." Thousands of years of war in the middle east just get settled by a game of Pokemon? That might go over the line. Though I can picture our last president doing such a thing. LOL

The stupidest reason for a battle that I saw I don't remember the show exactly, was weather or not one character was going to reveal his name to the other character.
 
Bush playing Pokemon over the fate of the free world would be oddly hilarious. We'll probably see a Family Guy cutaway or Robot Chicken sketch on that at some point.
 
For a parody that is hillarous, as long it is a parody, and not meant to be taking seriously, as it would if they did on the actual toyetic cartoons.

Speaking of which, I was thinking the same thing about this subject for a Family Guy cutaway or Robot Chicken sketch. Though it was about the example of battling over weather or not to reveal your name to someone.

Character 1: Hello my name is Peter (if it is a FG cutaway), what is your name?

Character 2: You want to know my name? First you much defeat me in a (insert name of toy in question) battle? Let's g....

Character 2 noticing character 1 leaving: Hey were are you going?

Character 1: I didn't want to know your name that badly.
 
What gets me about these shows is how amazingly seriously they take those games. I thought the original season of Yu-Gi-Oh was something else with how melodramatic everyone was about a card game. However, when I saw the second incarnation of the series which showed the game being taken so seriously that there was a school devoted to it, I was like "Okay, that's enough for me".
 
Well, if it's a cartoon that's based on a toy line or a card game, and the object of said game or toy line is to battle, you have to expect a certain amount of battling in every episode. After all, the point is to make kids want to buy the toy/game, so they have to see them in action. It's like how on The Super Globetrotters the main characters always had to challenge the villains of the week to a basketball game.

The ones that get me are the shows like Bakugan or Beyblade in which the characters treat playing a child's game as if it were a matter of life and death. Exactly how is playing a game involving cards or spinning tops in any way life threatening? And then you have the "bad guy" characters who have a repuatuion for being hardcore for playing a children's card game. That's not exactly convincing.
 
Maybe in Bakugan but in Pokemon people only battle to see who's the better trainer/coordinator, to win a Pokemon competition, or to get a prize Pokemon. There might be two or three exceptions I'm forgetting, but Pokemon rarely if ever fits into the same category your talking about.
 
I actually like these kinds of shows, not always, but sometimes they are enjoyable. The reason why I can tolorate them is because I watch a lot of anime that can often be in depth and if it's subbed then I have to focus and read the subtitles and it becomes engaging and requires using my mind to do so. Toy/Card targeted cartoons are mostly action based and less story driven, so it allows me time to just relax and not worry about getting caught up within a major plot or story and to just enjoy what is going on during the battles and whatnot. Shows like this are especially great on Saturday mornings when I am relaxing in bed and eating cereal and I don't want to get caught up in some huge plot where I have to really jump into it and commit to what is going on.
 
Chaotic handles this issue pretty well and generally avoids a lot of the cliches of these toyetic shows. The main cast basically accepts that they're fairly nerdy and uncool. It also helps that the show basically takes place in an online video game system, so it makes sense that they're always battling.
 
That being said, I understand settling things like this, is no different from flipping a coin, rock paper scezzers (I know I terribly misspelled that word. I don't feel like looking that word up), odds and evens, etc.

But a big difference, those things don't take very long, a battle in a toyetic cartoon are very time consuming. In real life, would you rather flip a coin that would take like 10 seconds or have a card game or animal like crature battle that will take 10 to 15 minutes or even longer?
 
To me, Pok?mon is more tolerable than similar shows in this regard considering that the game the characters are playing involve actual battle between fighters, and that the rules of the game are (at least seemingly) quite simple and dose'nt include people yapping away about how many "points" the contestats are gaining/loosing. In shows like Yu-Gi-Oh, the constant explanation of the games rules makes the battles feel tedious, and the fact that the fighters are in fact holograms and that all that the characters really do is playing a crad games makes the whole thing very unexciting.
 
It would depend on how important the issue in question is. Some things are minor enough to leave up to random chance; some things, I'm going to want to put a little more effort into attaining/protecting and will want my skill level to matter.
 
Bakugan gets away from mundane battle when its revealed the balance of Vestroia, and the human world, are in danger if both the two Cores aren't brought back to the center of Vestroia. Plus you can't help but take a card game THAT STOPS TIME FROM FLOWING seriously.

Beyblade also has the mystical Bit Beast which release some sort of energy in battle, energy that can be harnessed for rather impressive effect (I recall a final battle happening IN A TIME WARP!).

So yes Yu-gi-oh! is STILL the king when it comes to taking a 'children card game' as 'serious buisness'. Though I think once you get to GX they started to just roll with it and if you take it as more tongue in cheek you can enjoy it more. The silly dub helps there if you ask me.

Anyway taking stuff seriously is the nature of the beast and I personally have no problem with it.

A lot of it goes back to the concept of 'duel' where one battles to rectify a slight or to settle a manner, though instead of pistols at ten pace its a more tame game.

Man you make me feel like dusting out my Medabots tape and marathoning the first season!!
 
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