User:Hdr22

Also known as the American space agency "NASA" in some part of the internet. The last thing that stands between you and the apocalypse.

A bakugan researcher with the main focus on counterfeit, or bootleg, bakugan.

To Do

• Officially start the Bakugan Bootleg section
• Add information about patents and technical data

User:Hdr22/Sandbox

Some notable bootleg things that needs more analysis to fit on the wiki

One of the great notable mysteries of the legacy series is why didn't SM sue Lingdong, the company behind the most notable Bakugan knockoff at that time, Baowan Boy and Sacred Stone. They finally sued in 2018 to prepare for the launch of battle planet, along with a suit against Mattel on Turning Mecard in China and a suit against alpha group on Screechers Wild in US. The lingdong suit is still ongoing as of June 2019, but the latter two ended, with SM losing the mecard case but winning the Screechers Wild case. One doesn't need to have a JD to recognize that the biggest reason for those outcome is Trump and has nothing to do with the validity of SM's claims (which makes you wonder who recommended SM to sue in China), however there's some extremely interesting history and (more) questions.

The first point is why did SM sued Mattel in China. For one, Mattel isn't responsible for the manufacturing of Mecard, rather Sonokong is. Mattel merely licensed it. In addition, Mattel isn't the one responsible for distribution in China, but rather *ba dum tss* Lingdong (licensed under "Amazing Car"). It seems odd that SM decided to target a distributor, and one that's not even responsible for the distribution in that country. Bakugan was not licensed to be sold in China (which allowed knockoffs like Baowan Boy to proliferate - interestingly enough there were counterfeit SM Bakugan sold on streets) but Mecard was (more on this later), and with some artificial trade tension between US and China and the politicalized nature of Chinese courts, this was simply an unwinnable case for SM. However, there are people in the Bakugan community who thinks SM didn't sue to win but just to flex their patents. I'm not qualified to disprove or support this claim.

Before we move on, we go back to Lingdong, who after Sacred Stone didn't pursuit more Bakugan knockoffs. The simplest explanation is that Sacred Stone didn't sell well. There are still plenty of NIB Sacred Stone stocks that's not overpriced to hell in 2019 from Taobao. By contrast Baowan Boy is expensive that rivals even the most expensive legit Bakugan. Baowan Boy having a live action series instead of an animated series really helped, as the live action vs animated kids show in China is almost polar opposite to the situation in US. Live action marketed the toy to kids that want to be more mature, "edgier", while Chinese animation industry at that time was pretty terrible (it still is, but there are more gems now than before) and CCP censorship demand animated shows to be more kid friendly. Sacred Stone had an animated series, and it was markedly more childish and shoddily made. So despite stealing more molds, it wasn't successful. At the same time Lingdong was looking to expand to foreign markets. Having a bootleg product on your portfolio isn't going to draw Westerners (and more "westernized" countries), especially due to the racism towards Chinese products. Which is why despite Baowan Boy being the product that put Lingdong on the map, there's barely any mention on the company's official bio. The first foreign licenses Lingdong got was from South Korea, in which Turning Mecard was one of them. They translated it into "Amazing Car", which sounds silly, but people on the Chinese market can't read English, and hey it works, whatever.

When Turning Mecard came over to the US, the overwhelming consensus of the Bakugan community is that it's a Bakugan knockoff. The animated series was directed by the same crew that did Bakugan. It transform similarity by rolling onto a card, and in the original Korean version it has a magnetically activated mechanism. The manufacturer of Mecard was the Korean distributor of Bakugan. Many speculate that this is what made SM breaking off their relationship. Mecard didn't fair well in the US. The same may be said for China. Lingdong eventually lost their license.

Enter Alpha Group. Alpha Group, like Lingdong, got its start from bootlegging Tamiya cars. Even their original logo was a bootleg of Tamiya logo. I don't know how Tamiya thought about it (ground for research), but Alpha Group eventually moved away from full bootleg to small ripoffs. They made a ripoff series of PreCure and Kamen Rider, which have their fans, but *shrug*. So they have some experience with making cars. This led to Screechers Wild - a small ripoff of Mecard. Instead of cards they use a magnetic disc. So far the series is doing far better than Mecard in China. They tried to enter foreign market, and Screechers Wild was retrofitted by a Canadian company, but it pretty much failed just like Mecard. The suit was final nail on the coffin - Alpha Group's bootleg history, prejudice towards Chinese, Trump's incoherent rambling, and SM actually holding a magnetic transforming car patent (but they never done anything with it?) made the case a slam dunk for SM. But Screechers Wild was never a series competitor to SM anyways. Alpha Group turned their focus in the foreign market in a different way, by making original licensed figures (they made the Spongebob meme figures).

Back to Lingdong. The consensus is that Eonster Hunter was their replacement for losing their Mecard license. Eonster Hunter was their in-house IP, created in collaboration with Korean companies (same ones that worked on Mecard). It went back to their earlier bootlegging days. The toys are egg shaped magnetically activated marbles, with designs extremely similar to late Bakutech series and even Battle Planet. The fact that their cards are also hexagon shaped is one hell of a coincidence. Based on one Battle Planet CAD sheet, we know BBP was in prototype phase in 2017, and Ventus Knight said the core designs were finalized in late 2015/2016. This points to one conclusion - there's some serious foul play on Lingdong's part. Unlike Baowan Boy, Eonster Hunter was published two years before BBP launched. The only way for them to copy BBP designs was to commit trade espionage. But why? Lingdong is perfectly capable of producing their own original IP without copying another one. Was this falling on a safety net? Eonster Hunter was mildly successful - it's certainly easy to find their toys, even counterfeits. With the Bakugan reboot being public knowledge in late 2015 (there's a lot of doubt about it's existence until the trademark reg for BBP was found, however), it seems likely Lingdong decided to turn to their old sting. But the world is changing, and sure enough, they were sued.

Lingdong isn't being sued on Baowan Boy - they're being sued on Eonster Hunter. Why didn't SM sue Baowan Boy? Were they afraid the political situation weren't favorable to them?

Bootleg mysteries

BBP bootleg: Lightning cores? figures? ghost mecard bootlegs get mixed in with bbp bootlegs, does sonokong meant for it to be magnetically activated?