Playing with Beyblades in 2022

Hundreds of years ago, Beyblades were sacred weapons used by warriors of the old, to defend the world against the ancient evil. Fast forward to the 21st century, they are used to settle feuds between poorly supervised kids with inexplicable hair.

When the Beyblade hype took over, I was one of the lucky few kids to take part. They were everywhere. The show used to air on Toonami right after Dragon Ball Z. Everyone was playing with Beyblades, up until the point when we all grew up and lost complete interest in them.

Now, almost a decade later, I have decided to take out my metallic spinning toys.

The Assembly

When I opened that dust-shrouded box, I was welcomed by a cluster of disordered spinning goodness. Beyblades and spare parts from different renditions of the series in a bundled up disarray – a state where it's tough to realise what's from what. That's the brilliance of Beyblades; I could assemble whatever I want, mismatching parts from different tops, and it would still work effortlessly.

I decided to assemble one. I started with the most important part, the "blade". While assembling, I realised the older, simpler Beyblades stood the test of time superbly and were in great condition. The newer, more complex ones were in terrible shape. The dual-bladed Fang Leone looked like grains of sand glued together and could fall apart at any moment.

The seemingly less important, smaller parts actually modify how the Beyblades work. There is an attack-type, defence type, balanced equation going on here. If I manage to correctly put together the parts of one specific Beyblade, it's going to work close to the TV version (minus the flying horses and laser dragons), which is a big reason why these things were so awesome.

The Duel

After some tinkering, my Beyblades were ready, and it was time for a Beybattle. Sadly, I couldn't find my stadium, but no worries, I managed to slip away with a rusty old korai from the kitchen.

Without further ado, I let it rip, trying to launch two Beyblades as fast as I could. The Beyblades started moving towards the centre, striking each other after ages in some old cupboard. I kept rooting for my decaying Fang Leone, even if it looked like it would fall apart any moment. It kept holding on against my Phoenix's barrage of attacks as I kept praying for the metal to not fall apart and come out flying.

Thankfully, the Fang Leone stopped spinning before that, and I decided to pack everything up and call it a day.

The hype surrounding Beyblades has diminished, and it might not even return anytime soon. As an adult, seeing metallic tops spin around may not even make much sense. However, what we have are memories of the good times with friends, spending hours doing Beybattles, and arguing about which Beyblade is the best.

Perhaps the real Beyblade was the friends we made along the way. 

Syed Tamjid Tazwar likes Beyblades, clearly. Contact him at syedtazwartamjid@gmail.com