Beyblade Metal Saga Retrospective: Part 1 Metal Fusion | Incessant ramblings about a childhood show

what is that smell [Music] oh I found it it's my jam yeah that's right this series was my freaking Jam as a kid I used to watch this show all the time growing up especially because I was really watching just a lot of Cartoon Network as a kid and if you were like me watching Cartoon Network in the 2000s then there's a good chance that you've at least heard of the metal Saga of Beyblade yeah I'm not really talking about uh the OG series sorry to everybody that goes oh the OG series is better uh it's not like Beyblade is something that I would actively like go out of my way to watch I'm only talking about this because I went on a Nostalgia binge of the metal Saga because it was part of my childhood I'm not really engaging much with it outside of that and I'm not talking about freaking Shogun Steel whatever the hell this show is I'm just talking about the three that I grew up with anyways let's do this [Music] so what the hell is Beyblade anyways well Beyblade is about the spinning metal tops here okay and these metal tops stink against each other they Dink and they Dink and they just do the thing until one of them stops spinning or one of them one of them gets launched out of their little Arena yeah this is a show that's meant to promote a product yet kids anime so you know what that means it's each episode focuses on a new Beyblade uh sell the new product next next next next next next next next that's just the way the show goes okay but what made the show enjoyable though was the fact that it totally owned it basically the show doesn't make a lot of sense but at the same time though you kind of just learn to accept that because the show accepts that and it's fantastic you know it's enjoyable that you're able to start just acknowledging the absurdity of it all because there are times when you actually kind of get into it the battles are really over the top I don't really feel the need to talk about the Beyblades themselves because what the anime did was bring about more so a character Focus to the concept of bee bleeding oh my goodness isn't that just amazing oh well Metal Fusion is our first entry into the franchise and it is definitely most likely considered the best one by many people I would consider it the best objectively as well if I'm being honest it's definitely has the best pacing it uses its cast the best it's the most well-rounded and it's the most tightly written there are still flaws here and there but it is ultimately the most objectively good entry into the metal Saga okay personally it's my second favorite because even though it is uh most well written out of the three I still prefer the second entry and I will explain why but anyways let's meet our cast what what did you say who Do You Think You Are the names Jenga chinga Hagane Jenga our main character this time around is this dude his name is Jinga Hagane okay and in terms of writing this dude is about on par with your typical Shonen protagonist if I'm being completely honest with you Jinga is not really a super complex character he doesn't really stand out in terms of writing is about on par with like characters like Natsu Dragneel which isn't really much of a compliment but at the same time though in Metal Fusion he's actually enjoyable in my opinion I was able to get into his story despite how over the top and weird it is because Jenga and Metal Fusion is a fully developed character we know his past we see him interact with other characters and we just get a general sense for what his personality is and what his goals and dislikes are he does suffer from a little thing going down the line where because he is the main character we end up sacrificing other characters screen time to prop his ass up which I'm not cool with but we'll address that when we get there our next character up is Kenta yumia Kenta is is he's a cool dude you know he's the underdog character he shares a bit of a kohai senpai relationship with Jinga and that Jinga rise of town saves them and then Kent is just like dude you're cool I'll look up to you I want to be a good blitter like you he starts the series completely irrelevant and he starts the series not knowing a whole lot and by the third series he's a fully developed character and he undergoes a fantastic Arc and he just becomes awesome he becomes awesome our next character is this man right here Ben K Ben K the Chad Ben K the bull benke is a very simple dude he likes his friends he likes food and he likes to Beyblade and he's super awesome for it foreign except that he would unfortunately go on to become flanderized in the series it's an extreme tragedy because after Metal Fusion the series doesn't really know what they want to do with this guy they use him fairly well in Metal Masters but in Middle Fury he gets totally squandered so much so that he isn't even presented in the final battle I will talk about that more going down the line anyways I was saving this character introduction for after introducing Kenta and benke because I didn't want to give an extended section to her but it's time to talk about Madoka I agree but be gentle um Madoka Madoka Amano so what the hell is Madoka I'll tell you what Madoka is Madoka is nothing but a filthy Exposition vomiting machine she exists for the sole purpose of telling the audience what the Beyblade is what the Beyblade of the episode is what's going on and she does this by using her computer to scan and like analyze Beyblades and like this computer is insane because it seems to work everywhere I don't understand what it is or what it does or why no one else seems to have it but other than that she's essentially their mechanic she repairs their Beyblades you know she's she's got her little role she's definitely much more of a it's hard to explain she's a bit more of a mascot character she's a lot like soccer was in the original Naruto series except that the difference there is that they don't actually pretend that she's going to be relevant in any actual bay battle she's just there to vomit exposition and of course repair whoever's Beyblade is uh whoever's Beyblade needs fixing at last my friend it's seems an opponent worthy of me and my Rock Leone has made himself known who are you I am Kyoya tatagami Kyoya tatagami this man is insane he is another one of the faces of the metal Saga and for good reason he is essentially the main rival to our main protagonist and he's a lot like Vegeta and Sato Kaiba in the sense that he is so absurdly over the top and goes to insane lengths to get power in this series like Vegeta and just like satokaiba he's also very over the top he's a freaking fantastic kid you know in Metal Fusion because of these facts I mean this dude jumped out of a plane [Music] that sounds interesting if it helps me defeat Jenga I'll do anything yeah I got it he has a lot of legitimacy as a rival too because of these things and it also helps with the series doesn't downplay him you know the thing is the series wants to keep him relevant so they're always giving him Feats and the like he he wins battles he does really well he's by far one of the strongest characters in the entire Series without question and the series likes to give him respect he doesn't have as many wins against Jenga as Jenga does against him but at the same time though there's legitimacy there because Kyoya has defeated Jenga before that's the difference between this rivalry and other rivalries in anime like say Vegeta sorry Vegeta maybe one day you'll get your time in the spotlight anyways as the introductions go on for this series we're introduced to this dude doji he's basically our uh he's a main villain he's a main antagonist in uh Metal Fusion one of two in fact but he's the one who basically defeats kyoy at the beginning of the series and has Kyoya undergo this little training thing at this location called the dark nebula organization I stressed that it's called the dark nebula organization because that's all we know about this place it's just called the dark nebula organization we don't know what they do we don't know what their whole shtick is they're just evil that's it we don't know anything about what they did before this point but they're here and Doshi is a big part of this series and he's really over the top and he's freaking hilarious especially with the little local localization uh presence that they give to us delicious um eating a pepperoni pizza with a knife and fork is so much more civilized than eating with one's hands and this orange juice is uh foreign to the Tangy Tomato Sauce such beauty anyways as the series goes on our characters proceed to infiltrate the dark nebula organization as sort of the climax to act one and it's there that we are introduced to the best character in the metal Saga he is also the main antagonist of Metal Fusion on top of that his name is Ryuga [Music] I'm surprised to see you again still mad at me are you the one person I will never forgive too bad because you know Jenga you're no match for my Beyblade L-Drago [Music] Ryuga is everything that made kiyoya great turned up to a hundred this man is so over the top so serious and he is such an insane presence that you just can't help but love him [Music] he's hilarious and over the top and he's freaking fantastic like I can't stress enough he is the best character in this entire trilogy and it's crazy because we don't even have like a backstory to this guy he's just introduced into the series is insane has one of the strongest Beyblades and then just kind of exists the rest of the series but he does have a character Arc that spans over these three parts and in part one Ryuga is the main main antagonist he is the main villain of this part with part two he Mellows out even helps Jing out a little bit is more of a neutral party and then in part three he's again a much more of a neutral party but we get to see a softer side to the character and we get to see some more development for him which is freaking fantastic but I'll talk about that when we get there for now just know this Ryuga is a scary villain and he's freaking funny as all hell foreign the introduction of Ryuga has a lot of implications onto the plots because this is where the plot of Beyblade actually takes place it's important to note this Jinga is not a character that has any kind of active goals through most of the series he does a little bit of Metal Fusion because his goal is kind of to find the people that did what they did to his dad and so let's talk about that I need to talk about the lore of Beyblade it certainly fits in very nicely with the plans we have already made huh I think you're getting ahead of yourself yeah your first plan should ERS you don't know the real truth about beyblading within Bays since ancient times the existence of Bays can be found in moments throughout history the power of Beyblades have been used to change the course of rivers and oceans foreign they have been used to defeat many armies and create huge Empires and one person is even said to have used that power to control the Earth and bring on natural disasters that's right those who wield the tremendous power hidden within a bay may control the very World itself it's it's Beyblade don't question it jenga's backstory is this uh he was living in this Village dark nebula comes doji comes and then Ryuga God this dude this fantastic dude comes along two take it back so jenga's Dad which side tangent here what the hell is this look at this outfit what the what is this I don't I don't know I don't know what this dude is what is this dude's fashion sense oh my goodness anyways this dude comes along and Jenga thinks that his dad is dead yeah swirl or his dad isn't freaking dead he's just an extreme deadbeat but regardless Jenga thinks that he dies and for the narrative the audience think that it thinks that he dies too in a super dramatic backstory he tells Jenga to take Pegasus and to go and defeat evil and like engine is like okay we're all good well Jing is not good he just freaking got his ass kicked by Ryuga after the whole incident in the first act after this point he undergoes a little depression Arc he goes back to his village and then he gets cheered up by his dad leaving a letter telling him that in a freaking obscure place he was like Jinga do not come to this place unless you think that you were at your Wit's End and Jenga does and there's a note there saying there's nothing here stop being at your Wit's End and she is like okay Dad okay Dad I'll stop being at my Wit's End and then everything's all hunky dory we also meet this student here hyoma he's like using his childhood friend he's the main character but I don't really want to talk a lot about him because he kind of doesn't really matter after Metal Fusion so I'm just not really going to go a lot into him he's jenga's friend and he just does this crap with the guys who are trying to find Jenga that's about it with this dude this is basically the First Act yeah the plot has kind of just been Meandering along the First Act is slow it's kind of slow it exists to introduce the characters and it kind of holds the audience over with this plot about Kyoya before we are introduced to the true main antagonist Ryuga and the dark nebula organization because the plot really kicks in in the second act and it starts with this little island arc this tournament uh yeah there's not much to say here they kind of just duke it out and we're introduced to uh one of uh one of the other main antagonists of Metal Fusion and his name is utendo I just don't want it to be over it is sad I can only defeat eight more people utendo is basically a boy Genius a boy Prodigy he has a uh I was about to say stand he has a stand no he has a bay that controls vibrations and the like and he's very strong compared to the rest of the cast in fact he even defeats Jinga which is incredible actually because Jinga is our main character and going forward the series definitely does not like having jingle lose again this is another reason why I'm actually fine with Jenga and Metal Fusion it's because he actually loses you know he doesn't lose a lot but he does lose a lot more compared to what we'll see down the line but anyways so there's a lot more vulnerability to him but anyways so you defeats everybody and the whole thing with this island is that the wbba the blade blading organization or whatever the hell they're called I don't even know they're basically like okay we'll get you guys one wish if you want a wish and we'll get you whatever you want so you decides to set up uh battle Bladers which is essentially this tournament in Japan and you can only participate it if you have these things here called babe points which are not relevant past Metal Fusion but for Metal Fusion they are relevant you need 50 000 of them to participate which is why it's going to be a tournament that only the elite the most powerful can participate in in Japan and everybody's all on board and then dark nebula shows up and they're just like guys and then doji's like guys I will sponsor this tournament and then he proceeds to sponsor the tournament all over them I cannot believe this but yeah Ryuga shows up as well they're basically saying Ryuga is going to participate in this tournament as well so jenga's like okay because I'm uh because this is Beyblade and this is apparent because this is Beyblade and this is freaking crazy he's he's like okay I will participate in this tournament too I will win have fun with my friends and I will defeat the evil doers at the same time mind you he these are these are still the guys that Jenga thinks killed his dad so it's really weird because like he after remember he underwent a hole stop being at your Wit's End Arc little tiny thing there so I guess he's just kind of cool with them participating in the same tournament that he wants to participate in but we're in an interesting point now because now they are now the series actually has a driving force behind it and it's battle Bladers the characters are trying to get 50 000 Bay points where we now enter the second act foreign like I was saying before the second act mainly consists of um the characters traveling around Japan getting babe points and entering tournaments and the like and we get to have a little bit more expansion on the dark nebula plots because we are introduced to another one of our main antagonists that's right there are four going forward and his name is Tsubasa my name is Tsubasa oh and this here is my partner I think his name is I think his last name is Tsubasa otori and he's a very prominent character it's this cool dude who has an eagle he's got a pet eagle and his base and eagle and he seems like a really calm and collected individual very spiritual and the like he's a camper and stuff but he kind of just joins the dark nebula organization and everybody's like ah dude we thought you were cool we thought you were a cool dude but yeah just like you these two are essentially uh major antagonists before that are meant to be like the characters that our guy our cast has to overcome before facing off against for yuca but yeah so I'm not really gonna go too in depth here it's kind of just a matter of characters going around we meet new babe we meet we meet new Bays New Bladers our characters are doing stuff and then I guess this is a pretty major point of his character so I'll make it a point of talking about it uh Jenga starts to create a new special move a major point of this Arc revolves around that because we're introduced to a new character in his name is Fireblaze [Music] who are you my name is Phoenix Fireblaze is a weird vigilante type anti-hero character that's introduced here basically going for Jinga tries to use a new special move and during one of the tournaments during one of the battles he ends up getting third place alongside you and Tsubasa and funny enough he is defeated he's outdone by Kenta who got kind of Lucky and Kyoya you know this is that point in the series where kyoya's basically had his rivalry cemented with Jenga because he has defeated him he is overcome two of the major antagonists along with Jinga himself you know but the special move pisses off this dude Fireblaze and he comes along and defeats jinguna bay battle because Jing is a special move can't be done and then crushes Bay points and it's like what the hell is going on who is this prick why did he do this like what's this whole shtick well he the series tries to build up Fireblaze as this anti-hero because he saved Tsubasa from the dark nebula organization oh yeah should have mentioned that earlier subas is a double agent he's sent by the wbba to investigate the dark nebula organization and he escapes dramatic affection thanks to this man Fireblaze and Fireblaze is is later goes on to battle Jenga again because Jenga decides to help his friends out instead of going to a final battle that would ensure that he gets 50 000 Bay points so he goes and perfects a special move and defeats Fireblaze and then the twist happens Fireblaze was actually jenga's dad the entire time like what the hell what an absolute prick can you believe that this dude faked his death and proceeded to then dress up like a like bat like a freaking superhero like Batman or some crap and then actively terrorize and Bully his son crush his Bay points essentially crush his toys in front of him and then just be an absolute prick to him the entire time until Jinga actually defeats him and he Reveals His true identity like I know that it made Jenga stronger but God damn this dude is a complete deadbeat dad and he pretends he acts like this was some Noble thing I had to pretend I was dead because because Jenga otherwise the dark nebula organization would know that I was still alive and I'm trying to fight against them and all this crap and it's like shut up dude shut up you are a terrible father you are in some ways worse than Jing yeah you are worse than gin in some ways okay at least gone got to be raised by his aunt you know who did you get to get raised by a talking dog freaking kidding me get out of here prick anyways the battle against Fireblaze is essentially capping off the second act of the series as the characters now having to pay points to enter battle Bladers and so we enter the third act battle Bladers the climax of Metal Fusion battlebladers is the third Act of Metal Fusion it is the main climax of this little series that we have here and it's it's something you know it's just a big tournament Arc essentially and it's like cool I mean that's kind of all you needed the series is at its best when it's just being balls to the wall with a bunch of bay battles you know when it's just really over the top and just owning it so I'm glad that the climax is essentially just a big tournament and yeah we get to see a bunch of character arcs come to fruition here uh Jenga defeats you so that's something a lot of characters also defeat the minor antagonists that were introduced uh in the second act of Beyblade and everything's everything seems hunky-dory until it's revealed I mean let's get this out of the way the whole point of battle Bladers was for this dude Ryuga to gain power because El Drago Beyblade lore time L-Drago is a left rotating gay it spins counterclockwise ooh how frightening and he uses the rubber on its spin track that's right rubber to absorb spin strength so a total shtick is that it gets stronger when it fights against opponents which is why it's so terrifying because you can't be defeated by Norman means anyways every time that L-Drago or Lightning L-Drago with the dark power defeats an opponent he basically like sucks their soul out it's so freaking absurd but like look at this man Everybody Run Hikaru get out of there Hikaru like damn Hikaru should be dead but anyways so yeah this that's what the whole point of battle Bladers is and everything seems hunky-dory until the snake Dude shows up and freaking like defeats Yoma and he almost starts like freaking out that his partner's getting destroyed oh no guys but yeah I don't really care that much about you uh so yeah after that Ryuga does this thing against Hikaru and then there's all of a sudden Stakes to this battle because the characters realize oh wait a second this is not going to be like some kind of hunky-dory battle anymore this is actually kind of serious and we might be in for a serious ass beating so yeah the second round starts uh jingik overcomes his opponent uh I think his name is uh Utah I don't really know I don't really care Ben K and Kyoya had their fight which is cool and you essentially deflect defects to the other side because he finds out why battle Raiders is going on and he finds out that people part of the dark nebula organization who lose Ryuga just goes ahead and sucks their soul out so he and Kenta become friends they become best friends best buddies over here and Kenta gets this uh Peak moment where he battles against the snake dude and loses but he almost didn't lose so it was still impressive you know and he has been an underdog this entire time so the fact that he's able to put up this much of a fight is an impressive thing and the round caps with subasa's battle against uh Ryuga where he just he does his best he has a strategy so that's interesting but he ends up freaking getting destroyed yeah and gets wrecked gets his soul sucked out and the like it's not good it's not looking good so the third round starts semifinals Jenga defeats snake dude because power of friendship and a whole bunch of crap and kyoyo battles against Ryuga and it's over the top and it's insane and it's everything I wanted out of bait and it's everything I was basically expecting out of Beyblade it's freaking cool and then Kyo gets defeated and now we're on to the final round but before the final round fireplace fights against doji not really that big a deal uh yeah Jenga fights against Ryuga they use their Beyblades and they fight and it's anime and it's very over the top but it's it's cool you know and Jenga defeats him because again power of friendship power friendship Pegasus a lot of Pegasus shouting and he wins he defeats Ryuga and Ryuga is being corrupted by dark power and he's becoming more evil but Jenga defeats him and saves him and he gets spared because he wasn't the true main villain only doji's the main villain he's the only adults in uh Beyblade are villains the kids are always just victims but anyways regardless so Ryuga escapes he's going to be a lingering presence throughout the rest of the series and he's going to be doing his thing so in conclusion yeah that was something Metal Masters not Metal Masters Metal Fusion is a series that I care about a lot you know like I said I went on a binge watch of it and Nostalgia binge of it and I enjoyed it you know it was enjoyable I mean second act was very slow in my opinion same with the First Act it was kind of just a little bit slow in general because a lot of this time is spent basically establishing minor antagonists that don't really matter a whole lot to the overall plot but at the same time though it's still mostly it's still probably the best written out of all three of them because it uses its cast the best it's the most well-rounded uh nobody feels too neglected everybody plays a role yeah it's it's good you know it's it's solid but next time we're going to be talking about Metal Masters that's when crap is going to hit the fan we're going to be going on a major Journey because Metal Masters is my personal favorite so until next time well it's here I I did it I got it done take a long time but you know so if you're watching this right now I just wanted to say uh I mean if you're watching this right now you either watch through the video or you skip right to the end which is A-Okay by mid I left a comment I'm I most likely left a comment on this video that states that there's a message at the end of it so if you just watch that perfectly fine with me I do not care in the slightest you know because this video isn't really that good unfortunately I would like it to be but yikes that's just not how things worked out is it uh but it's like after all this time I finally got it done this has been in the works for a while uh it was mainly because of the fact that uh school life happened you know what can you do about it sometimes you just gotta put stuff on the back burner until further notice you know but I finally got my foot in the door with this video um because I wanna I wanna do a lot of stuff I want to talk about games I want to make skits I want to make skits about games I want to talk about things I like to talk about like movies I like shows I like a lot of stuff and I'm super excited I've been wanting to do this channel for a long time but I really couldn't because it was like there's no real videos that I wanted to do like I posted miscellaneous stuff on my channel before this point but you know that is really what I wanted to do this is what I want to do right now and I'm just super excited it's gonna be a freaking grand old time yeah oh God that was so annoying I don't care though uh what else is there to say not much uh I needed to make this because I was thinking about giving up on it halfway through uh I wanted to work on other stuff but is it really abandoning a project if there's no Channel there you know because this is like I said this is my foot in the door video I needed to just get this done so that way I have a benchmark something to force myself forward now because now whenever I give up on something I actually have a foundation there that means something which I don't want to give up on anything it's just that like I said got ideas but didn't really have the time or memory on the laptop to Spring the ideas and the freaking reality so here we are uh after all this time so I'm looking forward to the future I'm going to be working on a lot of stuff doing school stuff as well and I can't wait I'm just going to be doing this in my off time it's gonna be a lot of fun looking forward to it if you're watching this thank you so much for watching the video I really appreciate it maybe you'll heal back maybe no you will hear back from me in the future anyways have a wonderful day really [Music] wasting their time with no time to waste it foreign [Music]

Channel: A Guy Named Kai

Views: 13,040

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Id: 2fpSMQdxSvU

Length: 37min 44sec (2264 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 13 2023