Sep 26, 2009
HATE FUN 2001! Beyblade
There’s something to be said that the late, un-lamented Woolworths was the main place I saw Beyblade toys and DVDs. And that it aired on FIVE, the fifth and least popular terrestrial UK TV channel. It felt a little like an also-ran, but there were a lot of them in this period, and Beyblade may have been best at coming last.
Part of cross-media blitz to make spinning tops popular again for the first time in 100 years, the Beyblade anime is cheap and stupid. The highlight of which would be the episode I saw where there was a villain who had been genetically engineered to maximise his ability to spin a top. Despite this, this is not the stupidest show designed to sell toys this decade…
With the seven year fad lifespan expired, they started a new Beyblade series this year, ready to lure a new generation into the exciting world of things that spin in one direction. More on that later. Or possibly less on that.