I was born to a name that will remain anonymous but many of you would know me by my internet pseudonym, Leon Dias. My love for Bakugan and a strong urge to document them has inspired me to make BakuganDB so that fans and collectors will no longer have to tediously cycle between various websites to gain information on which toys are available. Here is my story.

While riding the bus to school, two of the neighborhood kids pulled out their Pyrus Dragonoids and compared them. Seeing a marble pop open to form a beast just floored a 10 year old Leon. Hearing the name “Bakugan” I had set out to find what I was missing out on. I came to late to the party during the second half of New Vestroia’s run. Discovering the anime, the first episode I ever saw was NV Episode 32: Shadow Attack, the infamous episode where Alice and Alpha Hydranoid destroyed Shadow Prove's robotic clone Hades, but still failed to clutch the win against MAC Spider. Watching that brawl was enough to hook me for life, even if I had zero context at the time.

Eventually I would come to own about 60 Bakugan, became the best Brawler in my neighborhood, and even won a couple of local tournaments. I built villages out of Legos for my toys to live in, and even crafted narratives around them- my Pyrus Neo Dragonoid would often crush the evil Ventus Army led by my Myriad Hades, not unlike Mario triumphing over Bowser for the 800th time. Unfortunately Bakugan was but a fad and it didn’t have the staying power of its contemporaries like Pokémon or Yu-Gi-Oh, so I would eventually grow out of it with the rest of society. It would not be until the age of 20 that I would return to the series I hold so dear. When I was 11 I had made the childish promise of obtaining one of every Bakugan that appeared in the anime- a childish dream that many children might say on a whim and mean nothing by it. It seemed it would never come to pass- or would it?

Fast forward to 2019. I had a decent amount of savings and heard that a Bakugan reboot was kicking off. I found my old collection buried deep in my closet and remembered the promise I made to myself. Perhaps... before Bakugan: Battle Planet makes everything shoot up in price, I could actually make that promise a reality! How expensive could it be? I came upon the information that a rare Mechtanium Surge re-release of Alpha Hydranoid existed, and so for $100 I made my first purchase and began my journey. I would discover the community was alive and well on the Bakugan subreddit, and there was a sizeable community on Discord- finally I could be among likeminded people!

By mid 2020, I had accomplished my goal. I had one of every Bakugan in native attribute as well as every accessory piece like Traps or Mechtogan (provided that they existed). For molds that were never seen in the anime, I just picked whatever variant I liked best. By the time I finished, the allure had worn off and the reboot didn’t really hold my attention either, so I announced my retirement. This “retirement” was more of a 2 year hiatus. I had unfinished business, more marbles to buy, more people to befriend, more memes to make, and more toys to discover. And so I made my official return in mid 2022.

The community I left behind had changed drastically. Formerly gatekept sources were now out in the open. Many marbles thought to not exist had been discovered and documented. Many collectors retired. Other collectors began to get more competitive. Prices inflated so much that it would make gas prices blush. Be it Covid or the inevitability of the market, if an oldhead like me was to make an impression again I would have to do more than simply buy balls at a 50-800% markup. I noticed the Bakugan Wiki and sites like Bakucolle had failed to document many findings for the Legacy series, leaving a lot of information out there to be entirely word of mouth and Discord archives. This was annoying to say the least- but it also gave me a niche to fill.

I, Leon Dias, set out to document every known Bakugan to exist- and The Bakugan Database is the culmination of me and the greater community’s work.