Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Battle B-Daman or Battle B'Daman (B-伝説 バトルビーダマン Bī-Densetsu! Batoru Bīdaman?, B-Legend! Battle B-Daman) is an anime and manga series by Eiji Inuki that first aired in January 2004 in Japan, replacing Beyblade in its timeslot. It premiered in the United States on April 2005. Like its predecessor, it is themed around an enhanced version of a children's schoolyard game - whereas Beyblade was based around spinning tops, Battle B-Daman is a dramatized version of marbles.

In Japan, it airs on TV Tokyo. In the United States it once aired on ABC Family and Toon Disney's JETIX block. At one point, it aired on the Cartoon Network, as well as G4 in the US, but on the latter was replaced by G.I. Joe Sigma 6 soon after. In Canada, it airs on YTV, in which on February 2007, the Second Season (entitled Battle B Daman: Fire Spirits) commenced with strangely a completely new voice cast, and what some have called inferior dubing from the first season, the French dub of the show airs on Télétoon. In the UK it airs on Toonami and Nicktoons and the first few episodes are currently available through Virgin Media's TV on demand service. The toys were originally made by Takara and were released by Hasbro in North America.

In Japan, Battle B-Daman: Fire Spirits! was superseded by Crash B-Daman, a new series with an all new cast and story.

The original look of the B-daman character was based on Bomberman (hence the name of the original version of the original toy: "Bomberman B-Daman"), but the belt buckle is replaced with a "marble".

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