I’m not even going to start touching that.

Karura: I’m glad to see that another person has watched Beyblade way back when. And I agree that while extremely cheesy and and not that good, it was still enjoyable enough to keep watching. Though I really completed season one fully. I’ve seen episodes from Season 2, but I can’t remember most of them. :P

And the show wasn’t as good as Flint: The Time Detective, or god forbid, Medabots. The latter was awesome. :P

Beyblade, like Pokemon, had its origins in ancient children’s games. And like most ancient games, they are brutal.
(Pokemon is based on finding male crickets during mating season, put two in a container, and watch them try to kill each other. Kids search for the strongest crickets they could find for this fight for pride.)

Beyblade, however, came from tops. Real tops of hand carved wood the children made themselves, using the strongest materials they know.
The tips of the tops are made of metal, and depending on the purpose can be designed as lethal weapons. (more on that later)

Here are the basic rules; you spin the top towards your opponents in the dirt circle. The goal is to knock your opponent down so his top falls and stops, while your own top spins off the circle to safety. Any top that stopped dead would then be open-target to anyone who could smash their tops on top of it, “killing” it in some cases. The special tops designed to kill often are razor-sharp, because if you split your opponent’s top in half you can keep the fallen metal tip as a trophy.

But even the attackers must be careful, because if their own tops stop dead in the circle, they would be targeted too. The owner of the dead top could also try rescuing the prised possession by knocking it to safety with another top.

Here is where Beyblade imitated; in the original version, you are allowed to keep your tops spinning by whipping it with a rope, thus controlling the movement and direction of the top.
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It is quite sad really; the Beyblade is a shadow of its predecessors, with toys that aren’t hand crafted (and as such you don’t care if it is damaged), with no skill involved (spinning a top is art, let along whipping it), and worst of all, it is childsafe. There is no point playing a spin-top battle if you know your top is in no danger of being smashed to pieces and your opponent walked off with a new scalp.

…sorry for ranting, but I just thought you need to know what my father and grandfather use to play.