#beyburst things

[silverfae16]

BeyBurst season 6 thoughts

(Yes, I’m alive and have been peeking into BeyBurst shenanigans for the past couple of years - seasons 4 and 5 just never did it for me) So we have some info as to what s6 is going to be about, and some characters, which means I have a rough base to speculate on! I’m gonna touch on characters rather than the plot here, mostly. First off: Bell is an....interesting protagonist. He comes off as more of an asshole than Aiga did, and I don’t think he has a younger sib ala Naru to keep him straight. I’m gonna guess his interactions with Rashad (who I’ll touch on later) are going to form part of his character arc (ie if he gets better or not). Honestly, I’m just curious how the writers will handle a character like Bell, he’s so different to the usual BeyBurst protag. We have another Kiyama (Ranzou Kiyama), but interestingly, unlike the other two, this guy’s name is written entirely in katakana (vs Rantaro and Ranjiro’s name being written in Kanji). What this means is that this Kiyama is more likely to be a cousin from abroad, as katakana is used for foreign names/words. (We’ve seen this before with Chris, her last name (Kuroda) was written in katakana). I’m guessing he’s our standard practice dummy characters, unfortunately (as is standard for a Kiyama at this point), but hopefully he’ll bring something more. Rashad (the red-headed dude on the top left of the key art) is my point of interest, as we already have a name and VA for this guy. This means (most likely) that he is not the villain, as I don’t think we’ve ever had an antag where we find out their name or VA before the series begins. Which makes sense, if our protag is the villainous one. His first name is a real name, coming from Arabic, and translates to “good sense/good guidance” (coming from the word rashada, meaning “to follow the right course). Combine this with his last name “Goodman”, and we can guess that he is going to be Bell’s good counterpart. I would say he’s likely going to be older than Bell, but he gives me Xhaka vibes so we could end up with that again. Basara...I honestly don’t have an opinion on him yet. I guess we’ll wait until the season airs. As for the older characters (Valt, Lui, Shu, Flee)... Oh wow is it weird to realise Valt and Shu are like 16 and Lui and Flee are like 20-21 now. It’ll be interesting to see what their roles are now that they’re on the older end. On a different topic: The setting!  I love the aesthetic so far, like the haunted house thing we see on the website and in the trailer is *chef’s kiss*. I’m guessing the main setting is this “Bey Cemetery” mentioned in the synopsis for the season, so while we may venture out from this setting every now and again, this’ll be where the main bulk of action takes place. I suspect this place will have plenty of traps and just generally is a place of mayhem. I’m really excited for this season to be honest, and I can’t wait to see how they handle Bell. I’ll try to do episode thoughts posts but my time is more limited and you probs won’t see anything during May, as I have assignments due then (final year of uni oh boy).  Take care ^^

[silverfae16]

I know it’s been a while since you’ve done any Beyblade stuff here, but I just wanted to hear your opinion. What do you make of the relationship between Dante (Drum’s English name) and Delta? I’m just gonna say it looks to me like Delta is jealous of Dante.

It’s your standard “rival is jealous at newer character getting all the attention” imo. Delta is interesting because he’s teetering on going the Red Shu path (something Diabolos isn’t helping); iirc, Delta is part of the Top 3, achieved Gold Turbo first...and yet Valt is interested in the newbie? I’m hoping Delta avoids edging altogether (I’d be curious as to who would be the one to calm Delta down, though I’m guessing Aiga bc we went down that path last season). Their relationship could get better, or it could get worse in the coming eps...we’ll see ^^Thanks for your question, nonnie, this actually nudged me to catch up (summer has been a weird one for me) ^^ Keep ‘em coming ^^

[silverfae16]

Thoughts/Review: Beyblade Burst GT episodes 1-4 (new series let’s go)

Well, this looks interesting. 

GT is definitely different, but I’m liking it so far. This will just be a general overview of the events of the first four eps, so this will definitely be the longest of the GT ep posts, considering GT eps are around half the length of regular Burst episodes.

Spoilers ahead, so under the cut, we go~

First of all, I so far don’t mind Drum as the main protagonist. He’s certainly a breath of fresh air compared to Aiga around the same time last season. There's a baby bit of Resonance between him and Dragon, but based on the vibe of this season so far, I doubt we’ll get nearly as much on Resonance as we did last season. 

Drum is also the catalyst for the first conflict of the season--if he didn’t go to the Spark Devils’ gym in ep3, Fumiya would have no reason to launch his humiliation plan onto Victories (because Fumiya would have no idea Drum had joined).

Takane is adorable and I wanna protect this ball of sunshine omg <3. Takane is the closest to a token mini-moe we’ll get this season I think, but I love him to bits. His habit of streaming beybattles is definitely cute, and he clearly enjoys commentating when he can. Perhaps he’ll be a commentator like Hanami when he grows up? Who knows~

Amane is certainly quirky XD. He strikes me as essentially GT’s version of the Kiyamas, though instead with a Defense type. He’s probably going to be Drum’s “Japan rival” (with Delta being Drum’s “Spain rival”). I’m enjoying him so far, and his dynamic with Drum.

Speaking of Delta, he’s the Brooding Rival like Fubuki and Shu before him. We haven’t had much dialogue with him, so I can’t get much more of a bearing on him right now, but once we get through this early stage, we'll probably get more on that.

Ichika... I love Ichika so much. Her relationship with Fumiya is certainly the most interesting thing about her right now, but she’s Little Miss Snarky and I love her for it. 

Tango seems to be an okay adult figure, so no problems there. 

Fumiya is complicated because so far I love him but I also want to smack him. He reminds me of early s01 Wakiya...if early s01 Wakiya was captain of a Bey Club. It’ll be interesting to see how he gets won over, or at least becomes less antagonistic towards Victories. 

The overall feel from these first four eps is that you just wanna know why Fumiya seems to hate Victories so much, and why do Fumiya and Ichika not get along (it also hurts when Burst siblings don’t get along, considering the number of siblings that do). Fumiya and Amane being rivals is a nice detail, which may tie into what led to these two teams not getting along in the present day, but we’ll wait and see. This is all set-up for the initial part of GT, though we’re rapidly hurtling into the actual events.

What I think I love about this season is that this early situation is the kind of small-scale, character-focused conflict that Burst is good at. This is a very local problem (for now), and it’s a good starting point for Drum. He’s also a nice reason for the rest of the cast to explain what’s been going on without it running into “as you know” territory. 

Overall: So far, so good!

See ya next week~

[silverfae16]

Did you see the new GT episode with Delta and Venom Diabolos? It’s probably still too early for this, but it looks like he might become the new Red Eye.

Late af, apologies anon ^^;. I have seen the episode now (and I’ll go through my thoughts later)

But I honestly hope he won’t go that way. I initially thought he was safe because, well, he’s at BC Sol. Right now though, Delta’s likely going to go looking for more worthy opponents, and that’s when things get tricky… It is early days, and he might go more the way of Fubuki rather than S2 Shu did ^^ We’ll have to wait and see, though. 

Thanks for your thoughts, they’re much appreciated <3

[silverfae16]

Just want your opinion. Which of the long haired male BeyBurst characters do you think could best pull off wearing their hair in pigtails? (Wakiya, Shu, Zac, Ken, Ukyo, Ruway, Phi, Hearts)

Ooh, interesting question.

I’d say Ukyo and Hearts to be honest. With everyone else, I have trouble picturing their hair in pigtails, but with Hearts, in particular, it just seems to fit him. And Ukyo is the only one out of the trio who have their hair already up (Ukyo, Ruway, Wakiya) who would be okay-looking to me. 

Thanks for sending this in, nonnie, I like these slightly stranger questions. Makes you think ^^

[silverfae16]

Dead Phoenix shouldn’t exist--both the name and the bey (Spoilers for ep41+ of ChouZ)

Allow me to explain. We all know that the phoenix is associated with rebirth, not death. So Revive Phoenix made sense. Dead Hades made sense because Hades is associated with the underworld/death. A Dead Phoenix shouldn’t exist because phoenixes don’t stay dead. 

In ChouZ, Dead Phoenix only came about after Phi broke Hearts’ bey and then took part of it to form dP (thus the new Phoenix bey took on the prefix from dH). Even the mere existence of this thing shouldn’t have come to pass. So it was a neat little tie-in ^^

(Fun fact: None of the stuff involving dP happens in the manga iirc. All of this is anime-only)

[silverfae16]

Thoughts/Review: Beyblade Burst ChouZ episode 50 (Pulling out all the stops)

Holy crap this is definitely one of the most intense episodes of the season, and did the battle justice.

This is a very pretty episode as well, and there are quite a few little details that make it all the better. (I also had to rewatch this a few times so I wasn’t just squeeing over the pretty animation). Warning, this was a very visual episode, mostly bc pretty animation, so there are quite a few screenshots this time around.

Apologies for the lateness, I had a weird funk this week and so just couldn’t really work on anything >> Hopefully it won’t be a problem next week >>

Spoilers ahead, so under the cut, we go~

Hold onto your hats folks, this is a wild one.

Warning: the animation is very much like s02 ep36, with all the disturbing faces from Phi being enhanced. (There is also a call-back to said episode, but I’ll get to that)

Honestly this episode was definitely hammering in the typical Beyblade narrative that bonds are important, but it was still very pretty. (Also it was fun seeing Phi finally get knocked down a few pegs). One thing to keep in mind with this episode is that the title is “Aiga’s Super Z Resonance”, thus there is a lot of focus on that. This episode honestly felt so well put together, I wasn’t questioning why anything happened. Everything seemed to add up and I just felt happy we have this episode.

So the fourth round starts off by Phi plunging Aiga into some nightmare realm. Legit, this first bit made me cry because you could just feel Aiga start to despair, and that was something that you didn’t want to happen (thank the gods that Achilles responded to Aiga’s tears by reminding him he has people who believe in him). Also Phi’s whispering was really fcking creepy and I hope to never hear something like that again.

Honestly my favourite moment from round 4 was that moment where Phi thinks he’s got the win...and then nope, Achilles is still intact. It’s always fun to see when the antagonist doesn’t get their way ^^

In between round 4 and 5 came the scene we’ve all been waiting for--someone asks Aiga “are you having fun Beyblading/battling?”, and he answers “yes!”. That dialogue is the basic sum-up of Aiga’s character development--going from “I Beyblade to get stronger” to “I Beyblade because I have fun”. (Also Achilles is massive compared to Aiga :v)

So round 5 rolls around...and hooh boy this is the intense one. This round also has my absolute favourite moment, in that Aiga shows how he not only has the back of his Bey Soul, but also has the back of his little sibling--the two things Phi does not. (This scene also made me think of something else, but I’ll get to that in a separate post) I just love contrasts between opponents yee~ 

Hello callback to Valt doing the same thing with Valkyrie--which considering Aiga started by mimicking Valt, is a nice callback to make. Also it shows that Aiga has a stable bond with Achilles, like Valt has with Valkyrie. I’m proud of this boy

-Insert Super Saiyan joke here- Aside from the joke though, I think this was a manifestation of Aiga’s full resonance with Achilles, as it’s after this that Aiga does the whole “summon a sword ala Shu back in s02 ep36″ thing. 

I appreciated this callback, since Shu’s thing back then was a twisted early form of resonance...just reliant mostly on him, hence why he summoned a giant axe for himself and not a giant axe for his Bey Soul. This time, it’s much purer, thus the giant sword is not meant for Tiny Aiga.

I think you could tell from how the light was split that this was a classic light vs dark comparison. Interestingly, Aiga wanders into the darkness, gives Phi his bey back, and then runs back into the light--all while Phi sinks further (re: walks further into) into the darkness. This is a pretty clear “Aiga has faced the darkness but can come back out, unlike Phi who is stuck” metaphor, but I still appreciated it, especially given the primary audience. (Also it pretty much solidifies how far Aiga’s come character-development wise)

Hearts confronting Phi at the end of the episode wasn’t exactly a fun moment, but it was well appreciated. 

I just love that we go from siblings arguing (Phi and Hearts) to a sibling voicing their happiness that they have their older brother (Naru and Aiga). The contrast is great, and it made for an adorable moment with Naru. (Also the cuteness from Naru telling the seagull to be quiet made for a squee-worthy moment)

Next week brings us to the conclusion of ChouZ (has it really been a year with these characters, I wonder), and a Valt vs Aiga battle. Honestly, I’m not really fussed either way, though it would be nice to see Aiga lose and accept said loss gracefully, showing he’s grown so much since the last time they fought. I’m just hoping it ends on a good note, considering this is the end of Aiga’s story.

Overall: Damn this is one of my favourite episodes, hands down. 

See ya next week~

[silverfae16]

Are you gonna do your Thoughts/Reviews post for the Beyblade Burst GT episodes?

Yep, still plan to do those ^^ April was just a weird month for me tbh, both with uni work and mental health issues (I’m feeling better now though). I’ll do a rough Thoughts post for the first 4 eps (I’m all caught up, don’t worry), then start properly once ep5 is out. I have so far been enjoying this season, I will say that ^^ (The season 1 vibe is nice in comparison to last season’s vibe yep)Thanks for the question nonnie ^^