Beyblade X Season 1 Review

 

Beyblade X Season 1 has officially ended and I had to talk about it, cuz in my mind this is HUGE! It's the beginning of the 4th generation of the greatest toy franchise and will probably last a good few number of years. There are a lot of stuff I like and a lot of stuff I don't, so I think the clearest way to get these points across is a simple pro and con list. Let's go!

The good:

 

I like the new Beyblade redesigns a lot. This generation really feels like an homage and a tribute to all the ones that came before it and it's amazing how they managed to include all those elements in the designs themselves. We have the circle with the monster in the middle, which is just like the bit chips from plastic gen, the fully metallic outer layer, just like the fusion wheel from metal fight and the burst mechanic, which is also carried over from the burst series. Although I'm not a huge fan of the burst mechanic from the Burst generation, I think it makes a lot more sense in X, because of the beys' increased power and explosiveness. A bey bursting after being hit with a massive Xtreme Dash attack makes much more sense that it bursting from a simple clash like in most of the Burst series. If I had to rank my favourites of the season, they'd be Phoenix Wing, Weiss Tiger, Cobalt Drake, Unicorn Sting, Tyranno Beat, Dran Dagger, Leon Claw, Rhino Horn and Black Shell. I also really like some of the ones released irl, but not in the anime, like Aero Pegasus and Crimson Garuda so I hope we see them in season 2.

I like a lot of the characters too, with my favourites being Burn Fujiwara, Jura Rex, Manju King and Cho Pan. Burn was literally HIM when he got introduced. Having his unfinished prototype bey completely dominate the game to where amateurs were able to beat pros by simply using it was awesome. The insane reveal of the completed Phoenix Wing's speed was also on another level. It had me thinking he'd be the one to give Kamen X his first loss, but they had to pull some nonsensical infinite Xtreme Dash against him as if the concept of stamina didn’t exist all of the sudden 😔 He's definitely the standout character of the season for me and I'd personally rank him the 4th best blader of the season after Kamen X, Chrome and Manju Queen. That said, Manju King and Shiguru are also very close condensers for that 4th spot, where all 3 of them are basically on the same level if you ask me. I also loved how both Burn and King's evolution beys were briefly teased so we're definitely gonna see Phoenix Rudder and Leon Crest in season 2.

I think the real game also deserves a mention on here as it's a drastic improvement over Burst. The Xtreme Dash system is (pun indended) EXTREMELY fun and seeing the beys speed up all of the sudden is AWESOME! It kinda reminds me of the engine gear system back in plastic gen, but even more refined and easier to execute. This level of explosiveness MIGHT just be the most fun the actual Beyblade toys have been in any generation, which is a big statement considering Beyblade is already the best toy franchise in my mind.

 

Finally, the largest and most important positive I took from the series... the lore behind Manju Queen. You'll notice I mentioned her in the character overview section, but this revelation was so huge, it needed its own section. In case you're not familiar, there's this character called Manju Queen and in the story she's been a professional blader of 25 years. At the time of her introduction, she revealed she has 9,999 wins and only 9 loses. The mind blowing thing here is how they show the silhouettes of the 9 characters who defeated her AND YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE IT!!!

 

THEY'RE ALL THE PREVIOUS PROTAGONISTS!!! We not only see Chrome, who is the current world champ in X, but every main character from the Burst series, as well as GINGA FROM METAL FIGHT AND TYSON FROM G-REVOLUTION!!!

 

I cannot understate how GROUNDBREAKING this reveal was. It officially confirms all the Beyblade series are canonically related which is INSANE, especially because we always thought they all took place in separate universes/timelines. I haven’t heard anyone else discuss this, which is super weird but I LOVE IT!!! Dude... if they bring back some of these legacy characters in season 2, this would be one of the greatest pieces of fanservice of all time.

Alright, now that we've covered all the good, time to go through all of…

The bad:

 

Bird literally has no Ws… in the entire series. I mean, after like episode 20 I thought they were just meming it and was sure they'd give him a HUGE win later on, but...no. They straight up didn't. His biggest achievement is managing to score a single point in his final match, but he ended up losing 4-1. This means he is a pro duelist who achieved the top of X Tower without a single match being won, including the very last battle, which cost the team the championship. Lil bro was being boosted by the biggest smurf in the series, which created this bizarre dynamic of having the weakest character in the series on the same team as the strongest character in the series.

This brings me to Kamen X, where we see the exact opposite problem. This guy never lost a single match, which is pretty much unheard of. It was clear that the intent of his character was to embody the quote from Baki that goes "Someone who works hard can never beat someone who enjoys himself". This is one of my favorite quotes of all time and I couldn't agree more with the message, but seeing it embodied in an actual character (while admittedly unique) resulted in him feeling a bit Mary Sue-ish. The fact that he wasn't pressed or upset after team Persona lost against team Pendragon is very much in character considering he had the most fun match of his life against Chrome, but I think him never losing once in the entire series removed a large portion of relatability and any potential for deeper development. After all the hype Burn Fujiwara got in his arc, I was convinced he'd be the one to give him his loss due to the unbelievable speed of Phoenix Wing, but nope. He couldn't do it. Manju King couldn't do it, Manju Queen couldn’t do it, even Chrome couldn't do it multiple times and he was the reigning world champ. I wanna say that all of this means how when he does finally lose (likely in season 2), it would be a greatly impactful moment, but at this point I'm kinda doubting if he'll ever lose.

On a side note, I gotta say Bird's bey is unbefitting of a main character. Idk who decided it'd be a good idea to swap out his Strike Hawk for the Hell series of beys, considering his name is literally Bird and his hair looks like it's made of feathers, but it's a really bizarre decision. Also, I just found out his English dub name is Robin, which much like Bird is the reason he should have stuck with the Eagle looking bey instead of the demonic skeleton cultist... If we're thinking about other "Hell" beys from the past, we've had Burning Cerberus, Hell Kerbecs and Hell Salamander, all of which belong to either full on villains, or characters who at least have some sort of villainous side. That's why I get such cognitive dissonance whenever I see the goofy and naive main character use a bey whose design is meant for a villain.

 

Next up, we get into what is possibly my biggest problem with the series. The fact that the beys have no bit beasts/avatars/actual monsters inside them is extremely disappointing. We do see the holograms of what the creatures look like, but the characters themselves even state it's all just for show. Honestly, the lack of that supernatural element, where the bey is housing this mythical creature definitely takes away from the appeal of the series. This makes even less sense considering like I said before, all of the Beyblade series are canonically connected and take place in the same timeline. We see this level of mysticism in both the original series and the Metal saga. Burst definitely saw a drastic decrease in this aspect, but there were still a few scenes where a blader is able to at the very least "communicate" with the spirit of their bey, which is not the case in X.

Another con is the vast majority of beys not being unique with examples of multiple copies of most of them, including some major powerhouses like Dran Dagger and Cobalt Drake. One of the very few exceptions is Phoenix Wing and the teased Phoenix Rudder as those are custom made using a lot of data as well as research and development money, but it feels really weird that in theory any kid can go into the store and buy the world champion's bey. This is yet another aspect of increased realism, but at the cost of some potentially cool lore. Now it's not like there were not any duplicates in the previous series. For example, in Metal Masters we see the entire team Chandora using a varient of the Serpent bey and 2 members of team Garcia using Gasher (varients of both were also used by different characters in Metal Fusion), but it's not like there were duplicates of Pegasus and L-Drago or even some of the non-legendary beys like Eagle. This made them feel much more exclusive and unique to their owners, which is something I didn't quite feel in X. This goes double for the original series where pretty much every character who owned a bit beast had a completely unique beyblade.

Another con is that the beys don't "evolve". There are simply alternative versions, which are canonically not necessarily stronger, just different. I suppose this was made with the idea to give the bladers more variety in their approaches to battle, which is realistic in the context of the real life pro circuit, but less believable in an anime setting. Honestly, I would much prefer there being one definitive version of a bey, which the characters use for a certain amount of time, before evolving it and permanently upgrading it like in the rest of the franchise. This does a great job at making the progress of the characters feel more meaningful, which was a little less apparent in X.

 

Another issue I have is the beys simply spin way too slow when in battle. I should NOT be able to clearly see the image in the middle when I pause the episode. I've noticed this being an issue since the Burst series, where the beys all spin much slower than Metal fight (where they all felt like angle grinders) even upon launch. The reason why this is a bigger issue in X than in Burst is because of the distinct design in the middle. Burst beys ditch the design element of having the monster being contained in an image found in the center of the beyblade and instead choose to incorporate various design elements throughout the main body. When you don't have a single distinct point to focus on, a slow spin force is not as much of an issue, because the design elements blur together anyway. That's not the case in X, where they (rightfully) go back to the image in the centre, but (foolishly) choose to keep the same spin speed. This makes the vast majority of beys seem extremely slow, which is ironic considering the real toys are easily the fastest in any generation. For anyone who hasn't played with them, the easiest way I can explain this is the spin of the beys in the anime should look like when they've just been launched in real life and instead they look like they're on their last 20 seconds remaining. It's a simple job of taking the 3d model and increasing the spin speed, which was already done perfectly in the Metal saga for reference. Here's a screenshot from a paused episode to show how clearly you can see the details because of the slow spin speed:

Similarly to Burst, another aspect that’s a clear drawback is how it feels like often times the battle is decided before the match even starts through the launch itself, which was almost never the case in the first 2 generations. This relates to some of the previous points, but unlike the OG and Metal series, it seems the bladers have a much more limited control over their beys. They're mostly relying on the trajectory of their launch instead of showing an almost telepathic ability to control their bey's movements. Another one of the “realism over fiction moments”, which I'm not a fan of.

 

A more minor complaint I have is the stadium also being the same. This is another thing I very much didn't like in a lot of the other series, but it was something that was done amazingly well in season 1 and G-Revolution. These 2 seasons in particular had the most creative and unique stadiums, though in all fairness they could only work so well because of the characters' ability to fully control their beyblades. I think this is an issue that will keep persisting in X, due to its mechanic being tied directly to the stadium as the Xtreme Line is a part of the stadium itself. That being said, I've seen the new double stadium with the 2nd line in the middle, so even though we're probably not gonna see any of the wild environments of the OG series, I think the new double stadium will be a good addition for season 2.

 

My last problem is how the battles are simply not as exciting as the first 2 generations. Mfs over there had literal aura leeking from em and most characters in X seem to rely too much on strategy, rather than pulling bombastic attacks. This is the culmination of most of my previous complaints and is closely linked to the increased realism of the series. I think part of the magic of Beyblade was how when we were kids, we used our imaginations to convince ourselves the spinning top in our hands actually had a giant monster in it, which we could summon by shouting its name hard enough. This is simply not the case with the new series, which not only takes away from that feeling, but also decreases the impact of the battles themselves. Maybe I just haven't watched enough amvs of them yet, but as of now, the best fights in X don't really compare to the best fights of the OG series and and Metal saga even if we look at only their first seasons. X had some good fights involving Burn, King, Shiguru and Kamen X, but those aren't even close to something like Kyoya vs Ryuga or Kai's Black Dranzer run. A lot of the fights in X are comparable to the fights in Burst, which I'm not a huge fan. That said, I don't doubt they'll give us something better in season 2.

Overall, even though I have a lot of criticism towards the series, none of it is coming from a place where I’m intentionally shitting on it. I really wanna see it get better, cuz I actually enjoyed it and like the overall direction the franchise is headed in. I wouldn't say it reaches the same peaks as the OG and Metal Fight series, but I enjoyed it more than the 3 seasons of Burst I've seen, cuz it feels considerably more adult with its focus on the pro circuit. If I had to put a final score on it, I’d say it’s a low 7/10. If you asked me what improvements I'd like to see in the future, here they are:

 

·         Have Bird switch his bey to something different than the Hell series.

·         Have Bird finally win.

·         Have X finally lose.

·         Make their new beys house actual monsters/avatars/bit beasts, instead of using holograms.

·         Give the bladers more control over their beys instead of being locking into a single strategy based on their launch.

·         Make their beys evolve so there's one definitive version, which would also make them fully unique and unable to be mass produced.

·         Speed up the spin of the beys. I should not be able to clearly see the drawing when it's spinning.

·         Include more exciting and varied stadiums, arenas and environments.

·         Spice up the battles. Now that the plot with going pro and climbing the X Tower is complete, we should have some more wiggle room to start including more supernatural elements.

 

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