Do you think it's possible that Runo was given the 'Tomboy' label to show girls that they can be into Bakugan? This was back before they gave up and had only one girl on team for each season.
it is possible that the dub tried to label runo a tomboy as a way of giving her a distinctive personality (like how julie is super upbeat and peppy and alice is more soft spoken and shy) but in the context of the bakugan game, it makes no sense to paint runo as someone who's into 'boyish things' to justify her interest when the show already has plenty of girls that are interested in bakugan and who don't have to compromise their femininity to play it. looking at season one alone, julie, alice, jenny and jewls, chan lee (and even nene) are proof that girls can be feminine and still kick ass at the game. there's no need to push the agenda that you have to be a boyish girl to like bakugan.
i know that the show was made with a male demographic in mind and that's only to be expected but i never got the sense in-universe that bakugan was a game for boys so these comments about how girls don't know anything about battling or marucho's line about how the jj dolls probably aren't the best battlers, just the best female battlers (thanks dub) annoy me sooo badly. i guess it's just the casual misogyny of the 2000s era leaking into the script but still, i could very much do without it.
makes it all the sweeter that the best bakugan player in the world turned out not to be a boy but a girl ❤️
