Flash back to three years ago, when Beet was a loudmouthed, hyper child in Naruto mold, all ambition and arrogance and no actual skill. More than anything, he wants to be one of the Zenon Warriors, a group of five legendary Vandel fighters, or "Busters." These five men—Laio, Cruss, Alside, Bluezam and their leader, Zenon—are extraordinarily patient with Beet's bragging and strutting, and they try to help train him while still urging him to give up Busting. But he's already created a contract with the local Buster Appraiser and gotten his Buster Level (1, of course) marked on his chest. And he blithely ignores everything his heroes say, right up until he charges out to combat a five-star Vandel and gets himself—and subsequently the rest of them—badly wounded.

After that, what could be more natural than that they'd all five sacrifice their lives to save his by placing their spirit-weapons, or Saiga, within him? Never mind that they seem to be the world's last hope, while he's an obnoxious, thoughtless, disobedient little braggart. So he winds up with all the power of five mighty warriors, and over the next three years he trains, kills monsters and raises his level like any good video-game/RPG character. Meanwhile, his stepsister Poala decides she's sick of the Vandels' predation on her sleepy little village, and she starts her own Vandel Buster training, working her way up to level 21. Still, she turns out to be dangerously underpowered when she takes on her first major challenge, the Vandel whose minions are plaguing her home. Good thing for her that Beet's finally on his way back.

A game in cartoon form

Beet is the first release from Illumitoon, a new distribution company formed by three former Funimation execs. If this is how all its releases will look, then the company's courting protests and resistance from purists: This initial disc uses the dub script as the subtitle track instead of providing a direct translation of the Japanese script, and it slaps an English-language hard-rock song over the opening credits and a scratchy techno beat over the closing credits. (The original Japanese credit sequences are this disc's only extras.) The occasional typos and huge subtitles are likely to further irk sub fans. The annoying chaptering, which makes it harder than it should be to skip the many, many recaps and repeated sequences, will annoy everyone.

But then, purists and perfectionists aren't likely to line up for Beet anyway. It's based on a Shonen Jump manga series, but it feels more like Yu-Gi-Oh! and other game-inspired series. Low-level Busters work their way up by killing low-level monsters then visiting Appraisers, who "cash in" their "points" for money and upgraded level tattoos. Vandels have levels too, in the form of coveted "stars." Plus, by causing human suffering, they accumulate cashlike "sorcery bills," which they can spend on minions. The early episodes are all about explaining and enacting this system, and showing how Beet gets to sidestep it; the characters are rudimentary, and even the most complicated relationships have little depth. The dialogue is mostly repetitive and annoying, except when one of the Vandels launches an expository monologue explaining the system.

Beet shares some visual designers with Dragonball Z, which comes across clearly in Beet's spiky-headed Goku look and in the faces of many of the high-level Vandels, though others look like primitive Saturday-morning-PSA characters. The animation pulls off a few clever layering effects, but mostly it's simple stuff; this is a 2004 series, but it looks much older. Still, it made a splash in Japan, with a total of 78 episodes stretched over two series runs. Illumitoon says it'll release them all. Fighting-saga fans can rejoice, but everyone else should probably wait to see what else this company can do.