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sappho-rose · 2 years

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~Ranking Every Beyblade Burst Season~

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I've done a post before on my thoughts about DB and the Burst anime's conclusion, so I think that it's time to reveal my opinions on every single season and rank them from best to worst.

Before I do, I want to say this is based on my personal opinion and perhaps a bit of bias, so take this with a grain of salt.

Also, there wasn't a season that I genuinely hated or disliked strongly. I love Burst, and I got enjoyment from every single season. There were some that were more frustrating than others (*cough cough*) but I could easily rewatch scenes and episodes from every single one.

(Also, don't take the numbers super seriously. Some seasons feel like they're ranked really low despite me liking the season a lot, and that's purely because I'm putting each one against each other. Please don't come at me. This is also like- really fucking long)

With that out of the way, let's get straight in it!

Edit: It was really late at night when I wrote this, so there might be a lot of spelling mistakes and grammer mistakes. Please- I’ll deal with them in the morning and make this look prettier I’m just- I’m tired.

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1. Beyblade Burst Cho Z/Turbo

Starting this one strong, boys.

Alright, so I know that for many people, this wasn’t their...particularly favorite season. It was a staggering change going from Valt and his MC journey to Aiger/Aiga’s. Both stories had a lot of differences, so much so that it was difficult to really compare to the two, they were so different.

Perhaps this holds a bit of bias since this was the first season I watched weekly on Disney XD as it was coming out, but Turbo/Chouzetsu was- really fucking good.

Aiga’s journey was really interesting and different from Valt’s, as we shifted away from a underdog, journey to the top, kind of story, to a more person vs self conflict and the other aspects that are involved when it comes to blading. There was a lot of emphasis placed on the relationship between the blader and bey, which in my opinion, was a REALLY good option because it expanded the idea a lot more from the foundation that was laid out in the first two seasons.

Going from Valt, who seemingly was a natural at communicating with his bey and forming a bond with Valkyrie, to Aiga, who struggled a lot with it and his resonance, so much so that he got corrupted, to then working extremely hard to gain the trust and relationship with Achilles once again, really showed how the two stories contrasted each other.

Yes, Aiga did become the world champion halfway through the series, but that was necessary to show that where Aiga’s struggles lie isn’t in getting stronger, he was blessed with that talent from the get-go, he was a prodigy, but rather his relationship with that obsessive drive and how that affects his relationships.

It led him down a dark and corrupted path, where he was forced to confront himself and rethink the ENTIRE way he approached blading in order to get back up again, it was REALLY FUCKING INTERESTING. Underdog stories worked well for the first two seasons of the series, but I’m glad that they didn’t follow the same formula.

It was different, it was made to contrast Valt and provide a different kind of character as an MC. Going from an arrogant self-obsessed kid that thought highly of himself to someone that had matured and grown and learned from his mistakes and failures, from someone that everyone fucking HATED, to a more likeable character, proves how well his character development was written.

To be honest, I could go on and on about Aiga because in terms of writing, he was definitely my favorite, but I’ll talk a little bit about the other aspects of the show that made it so good.

Phi’s character and his villain arc was really really well executed, with the entire buildup, to his relationship with Aiga that gave the kid literal TRAUMA, to the structure of his arc, from being a recurring character that only gave bad vibes to someone that was an actual threat, to the way that the story was written to executed that so well??? His character may not have as much depth as some other antagonists in the series, but by far is it the most well executed out of all of them. The final battle between Phi and Aiga? The way that the entire show built up to it and the fucking quality of the episode? The way that they showcase the relationship between Aiga and Phi and gave us a real reason to despise the former? Absolutely Phenomenal.

The way that they tied things from the previous season onto this one and brought up old plot lines, still allowing development for previous characters despite the fact that their respective seasons were over was really well done and many of the characters were interesting in their own right, despite being sidelined later on.

I’ve rambled on too much, wow. Anyways, long story short, very good season and would recommend

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2. Beyblade Burst God/Evolution

While the first one was a bit of a hot take considering that many absolutely hated Turbo/Cho Z, this one wasn’t too much of a surprise.

Evolution is a fan-favorite by many in the fandom, and it isn’t too hard to see why. It is arguably the most well-written season in the show and does an excellent job of taking some of the best elements from the first season and improving on it tenfold.

It did an absolutely amazing job in taking every character and making them interesting with arcs and ultimately making them feel real, something that the first two seasons absolutely excelled at. We got to see the story of every character, both from the first season and from this new one, giving each one depth and a personality despite perhaps not having as much screen time.

The fact that they are able to intertwine so many storylines in this season was incredible to watch, and the world-building gave us a glance on what was happening outside of the main storyline. There were different teams all competing and wanting to get into the world league, glimpses into how each of these teams functioned and how that may contrast the way that BC Sol ran. It gave us deep and complex issues in most episodes that somehow made it involve every single character. That’s. Good. Writing.

The conflict with Red Eye and the way that they expanded on Shu’s initial arc from the first season in a way that made it feel natural truly puts this show so ahead from many others in the series. It was already clear from the beginning of his story that he was willing to do anything to get stronger, even injuring himself in the process. Not only that, but his bond with Valt a major driving factor throughout the initial season, so it only made sense that in this next stage of his arc, that would yet be another internal issue he would have to face, with his drive to become an even stronger blader, and his wish to not disappoint his best friend.

The Snake Pit was such an interesting concept that Beyblade Burst played with, and its a shame that we don’t get to see much of it afterwards, or even fleshed out entirely at all. The way that Shu was affected by it’s grueling and self-destructive environment was a major driving force for the story’s conflict, and seeing a character we all loved go down a spiral of isolation and absolute resentment to get to his ultimate goal, losing sight of many things along the way, made it so easy for its viewers to get invested in the show. Not to mention Ashtem, who seemed to be seemingly a background obstacle to slowly take the forefront as he takes advantage of an already self-destructive character and lead him down to a darker path. The antagonist conflict in this season was just SO well done and well written in every sense of the word.

I don’t really have much to say about Valt in the season, but what I will say is that the challenge he faced with seeing his best friend change for the worse and go down a dark path, all while being told that it seems that the old him is never going to come back and that he can’t do anything about it, was really really interesting for his character development.

To be honest, I was never super super invested in Valt’s character arc and his journey in becoming stronger. Even though he was my favorite protagonist, that was mainly because he was likeable and he was the first, so naturally there is bias that is going to come with that. Despite that though, the entire arc being an underdog story would’ve been bland if it weren’t for his bonds with those around him, the way he affects others positively and how that aids him in his own growth as a blader. Spreading the message that blading is truly about having fun.

It’s an extremely well done season, and while not my favorite purely out of bias, it is still up here, at number 2.

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3. Beyblade Burst (2016)

Ah yes, the season that started it all. It honestly feels like a crime to put this season so low on the list, but sadly that’s how the dice rolls. This one is probably going to be a bit shorter because it’s been a while since I last watched this season, but I write what I remember.

One of the things that Burst absolutely excelled at when it aired its first 52 episodes was its character writing. I kid you not, every single one of these characters that show up in the first season have a level of depth and realness to them that I don’t think any of the other seasons could replicate. There was a reason why so many of the characters that showed up in this first season are remembered so fondly by many fans, begging for a comeback.

Of course we have the original cast, the Beyclub, who all had great chemistry with each other and the writers did really well implementing them in the story. It isn’t just a half-assed attempt that making a character relevant, they gave these characters a REASON to stick around and a reason to leave the cast. Each one had a unique story. Take Daina/Daigo for example, who had a little brother that was stuck in the hospital and admires him more than anyone, enough to make Daina wish to get better just for his sake. His entire story about cheating and being desperate enough to go for a last ditch effort, and his struggle with that afterwards, made his a character that the audience could really root for and get emotionally invested it. We had Kensuke/Ken, who was a ventriloquist, a shy and soft-spoken individual who grew to be more confident in himself and express himself more, even using his real voice more often than relying on his puppets. He was unique and different from many other characters, but that is what made him so interesting, especially with the obstacle of moving to another school again, away from Valt and the Beyclub.

These are two characters from the initial main cast that aren’t given the main spotlight later in the series apart from a few episode cameos in the 2nd season. And yet they were still so interesting. Shu’s challenge with his injured shoulder and fear of disappointing Valt and not being strong enough was a perfect foundation to set for the next season, where these struggles would drive him to become the next main villain of the story.

We had Lui, who wasn’t even a villain of any kind, he was just a main rival of the series who still got development and depth, showing that he wasn’t just an aggressive blader, but rather someone that genuinely cares about the sport deeply.

Valt’s journey started in this season, and while there are many times where Valt wins out of pure luck, or just the sheer strength of his bey, it was needed to show that he still had a long way to go, tying in with the next season where he would be going to the international stage as part of a team in another country.

The fact that he lost to Lui in the final episode of the season encapsulated this perfectly, and while some may be confused as to why they made the protagonist look to the antagonist in the final episode, it was NECCESSARY to show the state of Valt’s journey.

Shu’s defeat against Lui and the destruction of his bey, Spryzen, was also another way that they built up the arc that Shu would soon go through in the next season, as an extra factor for why he had to get stronger.

There are so many other things in this season that made it so good, like the Spin Emperors/ Supreme 4, the realistic tone to the series as they focus on more grounded issues that the audience can perhaps relate to, to the other background characters that could make an appearance for just a few episodes only to be loved by many and remembered years later, and just all in all, an extremely strong start to the series.

The only things I have to say negatively about this season is its issue with making Valt win despite the fact that he had no logical reason to other than plot, and the fact that the plot and story may seem a bit more bland compared to the later seasons in the anime. However, these are minor things that didn’t really contribute to the overall enjoyment of the season, at least for me.

~ It is no surprise that the first three seasons are some of the strongest in the Burst anime, mainly because these are seasons that had more than enough time to fully flesh out and develop their characters, along with their storylines and plot points. So do keep in mind that I don’t particularly dislike these next three seasons to much capacity. Most of the issues that I have with the later half of the series is the fact that they didn’t have enough time to develop its characters or storyline as much as the initial three did. With that said, let’s get into the bottom three. ~

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4. Beyblade Burst Gachi/Rise

God, I really want to put this one higher, but I just can’t due to the issues that this season had with its pacing and structure as a result of the new time format. However, I do believe that if it had chance to have a full length 52 episode season, then this would have been able to shine a lot more.

First off, I just love Drum/Dante. While he goes back to the a similar kind of hyper and loud character that Valt was, it is still very clear that he is a very different protagonist. He isn’t so much of a newbie, having been a blader of BC Sol, and his relationship with the other characters in the show is in my opinion, what makes him so likeable. Especially with his relationships with people like Delta and Gwyn, where in that regard, he is similar to Valt as having a positive effect on those around him. His main theme is friendship, and that is shown clearly throughout the season.

On top of that, we also have Amane/Arman, who out of all of the best friend characters and an honorary Kiyama, is probably my favorite. Don’t get me wrong, Rantaro was fun to watch and Ranjiro’s bond with Aiga was sweet, but out of all of these characters that fell under the best friend archetype, Amane was the first one I saw that actually constantly pushed himself to grow and become stronger, and not just stand in the sidelines to cheer Drum on. That was a trap that the other character fell into, where they essentially just became the punching bag to prove how strong the other characters are, not only that but they also seemingly have little reaction to it and are just there to cheer on the protagonist. But Amane consistently pushes himself as someone that sees their friend grows stronger, and wants to catch up and grow even more, constantly comparing himself to the other. They address this and handle it well, by making him battle Arthur two times, beating him in the third to the last episode, AND making him reach hyperflux. Drum wasn’t the only one who was allowed to grow, other characters were allowed to shine and have their moments of growth.

One more thing that I think that Gachi did extremely well were its antagonists, or villains, more specifically one in particular. While Arthur was interesting in his debut, he quickly became less threatening and more of a nuisance to deal with, as he kept on losing to both Delta and Drum, later Amane. But while Arthur was frankly one-dimensional in his writing, the antagonist that truly shined this season was Gwynn.

I’m not kidding when I say that Gwynn’s introduction to the series was the only thing that made me truly invested in this season, because of how brilliantly they written him and executed his psychological breakdown over the course of 22 episodes, 11 in dub. The way that they introduce him as being a mathematical genius with a concrete, rigid view of the world and as a result, Beyblade when he picked up the sport, only to have that challenged by out protagonist and to see him STRUGGLE? The mental hoops that this boy goes through to desperately preserve his way of thinking, and the way that they show how much FEAR this kid has at suddenly changing absolutely everything he once knew as right? To go from believing that he knew everything and could calculate everything and that everything was as simple as that to being challenged in such as way that he is being confronted with something he has never experienced before. His relationship with Dante, more specifically his feelings for Dante are some of the best character writing I have seen in this entire show, not to mention the best executed. They constantly show the inner scopes of his mind and his thinking and denial about everything that is going on is brilliant to see. The amazing thing about his character was that it was someone that for the first time, felt a connection, a bond with another person, but they are so stuck in their own ways, whether it was out of fear of the unknown, or just pure denial that they were wrong, that they actively push that person away while also seeking to be with them at the exact same time and mental breakdown that occurs from it, and the amount of scenes that illustrate it so beautifully and fuck it’s just SO well done. I could on more, but I don’t want this to get any longer than it has to and I already have analysis on Gwyn’s character in the works, so stay tune for that.

But with some of the best parts of this season out the way, we need to talk about the issues that it also has.

There is the obvious, which is its structure and pacing. The first half of the show was not very interesting and frankly quite boring. At this point in the series, we aren’t given anything to really get invested in the series, no end goal or conflict that really tie everything together. Sure, we had Delta, but that conflict was ehh.. I’ll get to it in a moment. But the structure I must say was really not working out for this new format. It was clear that they were trying to apply a similar formula that the first three seasons had onto this new season, except due to it being half the typical length, absolutely did not work. The pacing was a complete mess, as there were several arcs that had to be cut short with no real time to be fully fleshed out in the slightest, and it seemed that we were just jumping from place to place with no real objective in mind. The arcs felt too short and the season, in the first half, just felt like it was all over the place. In the second half, they finally introduced the antagonists and that really helped with giving the later half a bit more structure, now having a concrete conflict and goal set in mind. But these aspects were introduced way too late into the season, so not only are they not given time to be legitimately developed plotlines, but they feel out of place when compared to the rest of the show. In a single episode, we go from a normal title match between Aiga and Delta, a result of the tournament that had been going on for a bit now, to suddenly having a random ass guy literally jump in and crash the party. And boom, we have our villain now. There isn’t any buildup, or time to ease into the new conflict, we are just thrown into it and expected to just go along with it. It feels unorganized.

The other problem I have with this season is honestly the way that they handled Delta. To be frank, I really didn’t like this character. I felt like they were trying to do something similar with how they did with Shu and Aiga, but just worse. Thinking about it in hindsight, and going back and rewatching a few of those scenes and episodes with Delta and Diabolos, it actually seemed that they had an interesting concept going for them, except the format of the show completely ruined it. It was clear that Delta’s relationship with his bey wasn’t healthy, since his bey demanded more out of its blader than the other way around. There is more to his character than just that of course, but these other aspects weren’t explored very well as there was little time to really develop it. A few episodes here and there and perhaps a few reactions scenes isn’t going to cut it for what they are trying to do in the season, and perhaps that it was they realized halfway through, realizing fuck- we need to fix this. That leads into the kind of Delta’s redemption for the WBBA vs Hell arc, but that redemption doesn’t feel as natural as it should because it just didn’t have enough time to be developed. Do you see the issue here? All of the issues that this season seemingly had was issues with time, and not being able to adapt to the new format of the show, or perhaps being forced into it too quickly, that they didn’t have time to adapt.

One final thing about this season is that I know that many fans took issue with them not including old characters in his season, like they did with the previous season. Many were upset that beys like Fafnir and Longinus were being owned by people that weren’t the fan favorite, Free and Lui. As for my opinion on it, I honestly do not care. I always viewed Gachi as more of a self-contained story, one that worked on its own and helped in seemingly expanding the world of Beyblade, not continuing the already developed stories that went before it. Of course, we had Aiga, whose development very much showed in this season as an improvement from the previous, but that is really the only one I can think of.

I, for one, didn’t mind that we had a mainly new cast and that Free and Lui were replaced because I did like this new cast (Fumiya and Ichika has a very interesting story and dynamic and Lodin was a cool guy, despite only appearing during the Bey Carnival arc) and I perhaps wasn’t as attached to Free and Lui as many other fans were. That isn’t to say that their opinions and views on the show aren’t valid, it’s just a matter of tastes and biases.

In the end, while this season had a heck of a lot of potential and truly did shine in some areas (*cough cough* Gwyn *cough), it ultimately suffered from the new format and time constraint of the show, making it 4th on this list.

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5. Beyblade Burst Sparking/Surge

Sparking was a tricky one to place, simply because out of all of the seasons in the Burst anime, it is one of my favorites to rewatch. And that’s just because of one of the biggest things that made this season unique, which is the interactions and return of many fan favorite characters. Despite not having as many returning characters as let’s say Cho Z, the entire aspect of older bladers now being called Legends is what marketed the show. Watching your favorites return yet again is the peak of fan service in Beyblade, so why is it so low on the list? Well, there are a couple of reasons why.

The first one is the lack of proper character to character interaction and the lack of proper worldbuilding. Something that the earlier seasons did so well, for some reason were completely lacking in this show.

It felt like each of the characters couldn’t interact or talk about anything else other than what was going on with the either the tournament or Lane, or the brothers. And if it did, it was a very vague and general statement, a copy and paste sentence that could easily be said by any other character. There weren’t many interactions in this season that made the characters feel real, or real beyond the realm of the current plot. It always had to tie back to either Lane or the Asahi brothers, they couldn’t just talk for the sake of it. They all had interesting character arcs and storylines within their respective seasons, and yet none of it seemed to be brought up or made relevant to the character in this season. At best it may be a throwaway line, or something that gets brought up, much never touched upon again. While there were some gem interactions (looking at you, Drum and Lui), others just fell flat and it made these incredibly well-written and fleshed out characters feel, well...one-dimensional.

There was also the issue of each of the Legends losing too easily to the new characters, which I feel like is just another instance of the time format affecting the quality of the season. They didn’t have enough time to build up these battles and make every single Legend a threat when there are just so many to get through in a tournament.

Another weak point of the season was the main antagonist, Lane. Perhaps this is just personal bias, but he wasn’t my favorite villain in the slightest. It felt like he was being too edgy for the sake of being edgy, and no real personality traits that made him relevant to the plot beyond just his Flare, which was poorly explained in the first place. He didn’t feel like a real natural character, and each of his interactions were tinted with the feeling that he is just there to cause conflict, to be the obstacle that has to be overcome by the protagonists. I will admit that I found the entire mentorship between Shu and Lane very interesting to watch, as we actually get to see Shu get developed even further based on what happened in the second season. I honestly wish that this kind of storytelling and writing was presented in the other characters as well, to make them feel like extensions of their characters in their respective seasons. Going back to Lane, it also really felt like they were trying to do something similar to Gwynn here, where Lane is faced with a feeling and circumstance that is different from what he expected, however I feel like it isn’t executed nearly as well as it was in Gachi.

In GT, not only did we get frequent glimpses into Gwyn’s mind and his thinking, so we are truly coming to understanding little by little why he is breaking down so much over this, but we also get a chance to see Gwyn before he is put in the antagonistic role. We are able to get a good feel for his personality, understanding that there is more to this character than this mess we are seeing. However, for Lane, this isn’t presented nearly as well, and it is especially harder for the audience to truly connect to him as well.

We can’t get invested when we can’t follow the character and his thinking because we don’t know. It is yet another case of the show trying to make you care about a character without giving any real reason to make you care about them. Not to mention the amount of plot armor that Lane has, where we barely see him train at all, or struggle in the slightest, and he beats these Legends like it was nothing. And there is little explanation for it beyond just his Flare, which wasn’t even a sound reason that the audience can understand because they don’t even know what the fuck it really is, or why it’s important.

Even with all of the flaws that this season had, there was one aspect that I believe this season absolutely excelled at. And that was the understanding and adaption of the new time format, creating arcs that better suited the shorter seasonal run time. Instead of trying to force in many small little arcs that have little connection with each other, they instead dividing up the season into two main arcs. The Legend Festival and the Ultimate Tag Series, having a major element to tie them all together, being the main antagonist, Lane. This was really smart, because now episodes no longer feel like they are going nowhere, but rather it is all heading up the main goal of eventually getting the level of Legends, along with the conflict of Lane being presented so early on that they have time for the audience to get to know him and this conflict. They didn’t run into the issue of having one-off characters only to never appear again, but rather all of the characters are presented from the beginning and remain relevant throughout the entire season. The fact that the entire season mainly consists of tournaments is also a smart way for them to get used to the new format of the show as it has a clear structure to follow, making it harder for the viewer to feel lost while watching. The tag teams were also a smart play, as we get to the see the new dynamics and developed bonds of these older bladers, seeing how they have grown and matured over the years.

We then move onto the topic of the protagonists, who are brothers have to learn to work together. I felt that it was actually a smart move to have dual protagonists in this new season. It kept things fresh, even if the interactions between literally every other character failed, then at least we can count on these two. Both Hyuga and Hikaru work really well together and seem to balance off of each other nicely. While Hikaru is more about strategizing and thinking logically about the battle, Hyuga is much more impulsive, and tends to want to do things on a whim. He may not think much about what happened in the battle other than the fast intensity of it. Hikaru is about defense, and using his head in battle, while Hyuga tends to attack a lot, caring more about the raw strength rather than actually coming up with a definitive strategy. The two balance each other, and it’s fun to see their banter along with their teamwork while they are blading.

Finally, there are the battles. If you’ve noticed, I haven’t spoken about the quality of the bey battles up to this point, and that is simply because I don’t care much for it. It’s not like Yu-Gi-Oh, where I’m pushing through every episode that has a master duel in them. Beybattles are fun to watch, but they aren’t really what I watch the series for. I watch it for the characters and story writing that goes into it, along with the occasional banger soundtrack that plays during the intense moments. But Sparking was one of the only seasons to legitimately get me enticed by every battle, but every battle seemed to interesting and fun to watch. Perhaps it’s because they all tag battles, but it felt like very beybattle hit the mark, both with the actual bey action in the stadium, but also with the fact that since they are all tag battles, each other gets us a glimpse into the dynamics and relationships that these Legends have with each other, both with their opponent and their partner. It was interesting, and never once did I feel the need to roll my eyes as the sight of another beybattle starting.

All in all, while I believe that this season definitely suffered a bit from the time format, it had many other flaws and issues that made it, in my opinion, a weaker season than GT, despite being able to adapt the 11-minute episodes to it’s advantage.

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6. Beyblade Burst Dynamite Battle/Quaddrive

Alright, alright, we’ve made it to the bottom of the list.

First things first, I don’t actually think that DB is objectively the worst season, in terms of writing. I don’t think that it’s an extremely disappointing season either, but rather a mediocre one to end off the Burst anime. Lots of the criticisms that I have about this season probably has to do with personal bias here.

This was really the first season to make me yell at my computer, which is quite funny to think about in hindsight. Many things in this season were frustrating, so we’ll break them down one by one.

First let’s start with Bel. Now, you can tell from not only the character design, but also the first couple of episodes that they are trying to go in a different direction with this character. The story isn’t about a rookie blader, or someone that started off as weak and untrained. No, Bel already proved in the first two episodes that he was extremely powerful from the start. He already had strength since the beginning, whether that was because of endless hours of training and experience or perhaps he was just a prodigy. At first, it seemed like an interesting route. They could go in many different directions with this kind of set-up, and decide to focus on different things for Bel’s character arc. It seemed that at the start, he was an arrogant, spoiled, bratty kid, very similar to how Aiga was beginning of his season. Perhaps we could end off this season with some very satisfying character development, right?

However, it seemed that this show had different plans. This was one of the things that frustrated me the most in the season, was the absolute selfishness of the main character, and how he never truly gets punished for it. To share what I mean, I present an example. In the Legend World Tour, they hold a little minigame to see who gets to battle against Free in El Astro. Rashad ends up winning, to which Bel demands that the ruling be changed or to give him another change so that he can battle against Free. Wakiya denies and tells him he must respect the results, that Rashad will battle against Free because he has earned it.

Of course, Bel is still super salty, which is to be expected because he is meant to be a spoiled bratty child. However, instead of just sitting on the plane and respecting the rules, he goes out and goes to battle against Free. That is something he is completely banned from doing at any point in the World Tour, and yet he still completely disobeys the rules for his own free gain. Wakiya, Valt, and Rashad find out and instead of actually going and stopping this battle, or putting a real stop to it, they instead watch is live back on the plane. That, on its own, is enough to justify not liking Bel as an MC, but to make matters worse, Bel actually ends up WINNING against Free.

Of course, Wakiya is fucking pissed and you can see that Rashad is upset too. Valt just brushes it off, and instead of seeing it for what it is, a complete and utter lack of thoughtfulness for someone else you may be affecting with your selfish actions, he just sees it as Bel being Bel.

Then when Rashad gets rightfully pissed and says that he won’t battle against Free anymore, because what’s the fucking point if the Legend you’re trying to beat already lost to someone you know? Of course, this gets brushed off, and when Rashad tells Bel he must follow the rules, he just completely disregards it.

Then you expected me to empathize for this character when his bey gets destroyed when he just been an absolute dick to Rashad and acting extremely selfishly the entire arc?

And the worst part is that he stays this way for the entire first half of the series, hell perhaps a little more than that, without absolutely no punishment in sight. He gets off, completely free, for being self-centered and arrogant the entire time. Even the way they tried to make him grow and be better wasn’t enough because by the end of it, it just wasn’t enough to make him a likeable character. It’s annoying and frustrating to watch.

Next is one of the biggest issues of the show, which is its structure, and oh boy. It’s bad. I thought that perhaps they were onto something when Sparking came out, that maybe they figured out this formula, but nope. It ran into the exact same issues that the first half of GT struggled with, only this time is worse because that was literally the entire show. How do we go from a world tour to a team battle to a three-way battle, and expect that to make sense? While I was watching it, I was struggling a lot in getting invested in the fucking show, or feeling any real tension for the finale, because there was no tension. There was no buildup. It was so poorly structured that it made its climax seem like another ordinary battle. They jump from small arc to small arc with little end goal in sight. The worst offender was probably the Phenomeno Payne arc, where a character is introduced just to market the new Pheonix bey and make Rashad look like more of a bad guy. And then he just left! 7 episodes, that was literally how long his arc was, 4 normal length episodes. he wasn’t even relevant in the end.

There were some good things about DB. We got to see then actual revisit the friendship between Valt and Shu, which was really nice considering that this is the final season. The Burst anime started with Shu and Valt, and it ended with the two still as close as ever. They also actually gave Wakiya interactions with the two, tying a bit of it back to how things were when the Beyclub was first created.

I thought that Basara was an interesting character that had potential to do well if he just had more time to develop. Ranzo was a lot of fun to watch! I especially love his dub voice. Rashad wasn’t a particularly bad character. I liked Ilya, I thought that she was cool and it was great to see a female blader have a unique bey and play a role in the story. There were some genuinely great aspects of the show, but they’re just overshadowed by the some of the worst bits, to the point where it really just ruined the show for me.

Who knows though, I’ve only watched this season once through, and the dub is currently being released. I might rewatch it at a later point, once all of the dub episodes get released and maybe my opinion will change by then. But for now, these are my current rankings.

If you made it this far, wow, thanks a lot :D

I love Beyblade Burst, and it holds a special place in my heart as I’ve been with the show for so long. It’s going to feel a bit bitter to see it end on such a dull note and see it soon replaced by another series, but hey, good things can’t last forever :,)

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