Lest this be foreshadowing in my life: I want to make a short parody Yugioh comic or web-series about a person living in the Yugioh world who FUCKING hates Yugioh. 

Applicable to Beyblade too, I wouldn’t split hairs.

Imagine living in a world where all decisions and arguments are made by playing with toys targeted towards an 8+ year old demographic. Not even cool like Pokemon mind you.

All executive decisions must be determined by a game of Monopoly or Sorry Sliders™. If you beat the President at a game of Battleship then they have to join your party in playing the equivalent of the World Cup but for Go-Fish.

The series would be about the ONE guy who just hates the game with the burning fury of a thousand suns but he is also a fucking prodigy at it. He hates the game because he thinks its easy and dumb and doesn’t know why people are obsessed over it.

He gets dragged into participating with the plot after his Best Friend™ becomes obsessed with becoming the world champion or something and runs off for like a year or so becoming famous for being so good. 

Main Character wants to hang out with his buddy, but his good ol’ pal is too stricken with the limelight to pay him much attention, so he decides, fuck it then, he’ll just have to become good enough to get on his BFF’s radar again. MC is the straight man to the usual Yugioh/Beyblade tropes. He wins easily, he gets frustrated when EVERYONE wants to play a round with him and he’s like got places to go, he meets and accidently/begrudgingly befriends a cast of cooky characters....

Somehow he gets dragged into the usual government conspiracy and wins or what-have-you, but he really just wants to talk to his BFF again. That’s it. That’s his motivation. He doesn’t care about becoming World Champ or whatever, he doesn’t want to play his BFF in a game, he only joins the tournament arc so when he and his BFF are in the finals, he can FINALLY have a good conversation again.

I love me a good reluctant and jaded protagonist and I just find this concept amusing. Also I’ve been rewatching a lot of Yugioh lately and like--what if someone doesn’t wanna play a round. Then what. Do they force others to play? Cuz in Yugioh prime the card game was just a card game with holograms making the monsters. It wasn’t like they were real (with some exceptions). Can’t ya just say “Yeah I don’t wanna play today fellas”

i miss beyblade (a metal top toy flavoured rant)

DISCLAIMER: i am an idiot, take everything i say here with a grain of salt. feel free to attack me as you see fit. ok bai

i miss when beyblade metal fusion first started airing on cartoon network. just something about how all the toy shelves were lined with beyblades from the show, its a sight that would let me sleep easy at night if i knew that dark bull was still on store shelves. just walking into a local target with my brother, picking up a Galaxy Pegasus W105R2F, looking at all the flashy artwork on the back. then when i got home i could unbox the bey, feel the pristine condition of the rubber performance tip, apply the stickers on the bey and launcher (and try not to mess it up), then i could use the lil code card to play online at beybladebattles.com. and then i would always spin the bey onto the tiled floor and watch it just kinda move slowly bc i didnt get a stadium until like 6 months later. idk its the kinda sensation that cant really be replicated today with beyblade burst and its 17 different subseries. or maybe im just mad that they got rid of the high quality metal tops for cheaper plastic ones hell if i know.

in my opinion (i legally cant have opinions bc i own lego rockband ds), i kinda like the characters from the metal series better than burst, but thats probably just nostalgia fog. ill probably rewatch both series at some point, but the fact that beyblade is pretty much dead here in americaland doesnt help matters.

at least beyblade burst always stuck to tops, though. beyblade split into all sorts of other things after metal fury, like beywheelz, beyraiderz, beywarriors, and also all the weird lil beyblades that you couldnt take apart like all the others, like the rc beys, light up beys, sfx beys, and the tornado beys. but even then that deviates from the classic formula and makes it interesting. beyblade burst doesnt really do that as far as i can tell, besides making the beys slightly bigger.

thats kinda why the classic beyblade series died off, though. they were too busy seeing if they could and not stopping to wonder if they should. if they stuck to the original formula, that would get boring after a while, but beyblade burst showed that there still is a market for the original spinning top formula. maybe if they were able to bring back a classic resurgence for like an anniversary (15th anniversary coming in May 2025) or something like that, beyblade would become relevant again, and i stand by that.

its probably a farfetched concept, though. the higher ups at hasbro probably see beyblades as just a way to sell spinning tops, endlessly trying to put more gimmicks onto, "the MOST powerful beyblade yet!", all in an attempt just to try and make a quick buck. it just doesn't seem feasible with a company like that at the reigns, i really dont think they would care about doing some type of legacy content like that (i know that beyblade legends was a legacy release that they did in 2014, and that line is great, i have a few of the beys from there, looking to make a full collection someday, i just wanna see these lil dinkers on target shelves again).

also something i wanted to mention, but i recently found out a couple of months ago while searching for beyblade video games that there was an original beyblade manga and anime and toy line before metal fusion. i wanna try and see what thats all about, and maybe try and pick up some metal fusion manga while im at it.

tl;dr: i miss the good ol days of beyblade, and i want them to bring it back. pls target and hasbro and wbba

sooo, you're into this thing called Owari No Seraph... never heard of it, do you think you could tell me?

Sure! Though, I went into it almost totally blind because I really needed a good distraction from some shit the other day, so it was either “start a new show that isn’t too long” or “keep clicking on 45-minute long YT videos on how to make soap” lmao, rewatching Beyblade just wasn’t cutting it that particular day. So I’ve only finished the first season of OnS so far and have no idea what’s gonna happen in the rest of the series, or even how many seasons there ARE...I thought it was short because s1 only had 12 episodes, but now I know there’s at least one more season that ALSO has 12 more episodes in it. But the base premise, animation, pacing, and the characters are all really good so far so I’m definitely going to keep watching it. This show was VERY popular and Absolutely Everywhere back when it was still new, around 2015, and I can definitely see why.

The Core Plot is that an extraordinarily lethal, apocalyptic plague has spread across the world like wildfire, wiping out most of the human population -- with the exception of the kids. Children 13 years old and younger were not affected by it for some reason [which seems a little odd to me because kids have LESS developed immune systems than adults, but also, like, this is a show about vampires and demons and magic, so normal logic probably isn’t relevant]. The vampires then basically just rose up and took over the world, because of course a human virus won’t kill them, and since they actually kind of NEED the humans to not die out completely because they eat those, they rounded up the kids to “protect” them by essentially keeping them as livestock.

However, it turns out the Ambiguous Apocalyptic MegaPlague didn’t kill EVERYONE the vampires didn’t capture, so over a period of time the surviving humans regrouped and started forming a military to Take The World Back From The Monsters. [Speaking of monsters, there are also huge chimera-type monsters running amok all over the place too, called “Four Horsemen of John”s, even though there are DEFINITELY waaay more than 4 of them so idk where that name came from. They only attack/eat humans and not vampires, so that’s another thing the vampires are “protecting” their humans from. Thus far, at the end of s1, no one seems to know what these monsters are or where they came from or why they behave the way they do, they’re just kind of There And A Threat.]

Anyway, one of the two main characters was a kid who was taken in by the vampires as livestock, who then escaped and joined the other humans in their Kill All The Monsters And Fix The Planet military. War happens. And is still happening, as of the end of s1. To avoid too many spoilers if you wanna watch it yourself, I won’t say exactly what’s going on with the OTHER of the two main characters, just that he...did not successfully escape from the vampires when his buddy did.

There are a few spoilers I will mention under the cut, as well as some disturbing content to be aware of -- it’s a pretty gritty show at times:

For the content warnings, er, at least one of the Big Important Vampires just radiates some MASSIVE pedo vibes. In episode one, one of the main human characters offers his blood to the guy in exchange for some better treatment, and this fucking vampire is just...so touchy-grabby with the kid, who is 12 years old at the time. He’s almost gropey about it. He takes the kid back to his mansion with him at night. The vampire is obviously evil and you’re supposed to hate him, and they sure do a damn good job of making you Want To See Him Killed And Maimed.

And then a little later, in episode 4 iirc, there’s another vampire who is...Confusing And Concerning in multiple ways? For one, I can’t tell if she’s supposed to be an adult woman who’s just really short and petite and flat-chested, or if she was turned into a vampire as a child and thus stuck that way forever. Either way, the Massive Pedo from ep 1 fawns over her and explicitly declares his love for her, which is icky if she’s supposed to be a kid, and THEN...this: Alright, there’s a dying kid in the room, and she doesn’t want the kid to die because she needs him for something. So she turns him into a vampire. The first thing to note is that he is 12. The second thing to note is that the WAY she turns him is by biting her own tongue to draw blood, and then...mounting him and kissing him?? Like, she fucking straddles him and just frenches the shit out of him. He is 12. This is disturbing even if her own body is permanently frozen in child-form, because she’s an old-ass vampire now, and it’s even worse if she’s supposed to just be a tiny adult. Again, she’s evil and you’re supposed to Want Her Maimed And Dead, and that desire is definitely effectively achieved. It was very yucky to watch [but it was supposed to be].

And as for the slight spoilers...it seems to me that the plague that nearly eradicated the human species was implicitly manmade, and they just lost control of it. Because the vampires said that “due to foolish humans, a deadly plague has spread” in episode 1, and then in one of the later episodes it is revealed that the humans have been performing Human Experimentation, when one of their experiments went fucking berserk and nearly destroyed everything, and at that, another vampire scolded the humans for “being greedy” and “always losing control” of the shit they try to do. The humans don’t seem to necessarily be the “good guys” here. Especially considering they’re deliberately letting children be possessed by demons, and also nearly killing them with Superpowered Steroid Drugs, in order to make them more powerful soldiers. Both sides in the war seem to be bad, but both have some good players in them. It’s quite a good war narrative, actually -- it’s not all black-and-white at all. I think this may even be symbolically referenced in their uniforms, actually! The vampires, whom one would naturally assume to be the Bad Guys, are wearing clothes that are almost entirely pure white [which really stood out to me because that’s a dumb colour for them to be wearing in this situation, it’d stain way too easily and you’d never get it clean..so then, it’d make sense that they’re wearing white for a reason other than practicality...], and the humans, who you’d think are the Good Guys here, are dressed in black.

It’s very intriguing. Everything moves really fast, and yet there are a lot of fine details to notice. There’s a pretty constant stream of action, but not at the cost of detailed storytelling and worldbuilding. I’m enjoying it a lot.

Thoughts/Review: Beyblade Burst ChouZ episode 42 (Awww, this is a cute ep...wait what the hell)

A much needed breather ep I think. Filler ep for the most part, but still cute ^^ (aside from the last few minutes)

Also before I go into the post properly, I’d just like to mention that’s looking very likely I’ll be getting these out on a Tuesday/Wednesday, as my uni schedule makes it that Monday is a bad day for writing. So don’t expect a same-day ep post ^^

Spoilers ahead, so under the cut we go~

This was an okay ep I think. It was much needed after the pain of last week, but as a separate episode, it’s nothing to write home about. 

This episode was basically a chance for the writers to throw nostalgia for the earlier part of the season at us, plus solidifying some character development over the course of this season (with most people reminiscing how they really didn’t like Aiga at first). Also this ep is the epitome of what I mean by “Japan is supposed to be where nothing too crazy happens in terms of the story”. When we go back to Japan, we generally get this sort of laid-back ep. Of course, the in-between bit between the Bey Queen arc and the Dead Gran arc was the opposite of that for various reasons...

First off, given the events of last week, there’s another update to the OP, accounting for Dead Phoenix’s existence and Phi’s outfit update (Phi what are you wearing buddy =_=). Also notable in this version is that Hearts is no longer present in the OP, so I have my concerns about us seeing him again (which is a shame because he’s so fun).

So I honestly preferred the first half of this ep over the second half, but that might be just personal preference. To me, I liked the first half because it felt very focused, what with the battle and all. The second bit (until the last few minutes) was cute but felt a bit disjointed (although that could be because I could only pick up snatches of what the characters were saying). 

I did like that the Bey Club and the Rebel Bey Club got a joint present on accounts of the fact that Fubuki, Ranjiro and Aiga have done some impressive things. Shows that Principal Shinoda does pay attention to what’s going on with his students and has their well-being in mind ^^ 

The battle itself was, uh, unpredictable. A bit meh, but unpredictable. I appreciated Tokonatsu winning the fight, since it’s always nice to see supporting characters get a chance to shine. 

Also Tokonatsu is captain of the BeyClub again, so it seems Fubuki’s got something planned (or I could be overthinking it who knows). We’ll have to wait and see.

Something I wanna mention is that lovely plot hook right at the end, since there are several implications that scene brings. One, Phi’s more aggressive than he was before, and two, we will be seeing another bey-breaking at some point during these last few eps. Do I think Flee will be the unfortunate victim? Ehhhh, unlikely. I do think next ep will be intense, but considering we just had a bey-breaking last week, it feels a little too soon. Like, we had Laban in ep24, Valt in ep28, Aiga in ep38, and then Hearts in ep41. At this point, another breaking would just reduce the impact that those moments have, since they’ve always been a big deal. 

If I were to hazard a guess at the best moment, I’d say ep49 is good point (it’s happened twice before that a bey has been broken in that ep, who’s to say it won’t happen a third time). (Also if something like Fafnir breaking was to happen I think we’d see a shocked Chris/Kit in the preview, but we didn’t iirc, so that makes me think we’re safe).

So yeah, next week brings us Phi vs Flee. I don’t think there will be pain via bey-breaking, but it sure will be intense ^^

Overall: Nice in the context of what’s going on around this ep, but not an ep I’d go back and rewatch,

See ya next week~