Anime · Trivia
60 things worth knowing
Every fact links to where we found it. 55 are verified against a primary or reference source; the rest are marked likely. Pick a category, or shuffle.
- Origins #1
Beyblade's design and even its name trace back to the beigoma, a traditional cast-metal Japanese spinning top that children battled in improvised rings long before plastic attack rings existed.
en.wikipedia.org verified - Origins #2
Takara put the first modern Beyblade on Japanese shelves in July 1999. That debut top was Ultimate Dragoon, also marketed as Spin Dragoon, the direct ancestor of Tyson's signature blade.
en.wikipedia.org verified - Origins #3
Takao Aoki's manga began in Shogakukan's CoroCoro Comic on August 10, 1999, only weeks after the toy launched, and ran until June 15, 2004, filling fourteen collected volumes.
en.wikipedia.org verified - Origins #4
Viz Media published the manga in English between October 20, 2004 and December 12, 2006, meaning Western readers got the printed story only after all three anime seasons had already aired in Japan.
en.wikipedia.org verified - Origins #5
Aoki eventually revisited his cast: a sequel manga, Beyblade Rising, ran in the grown-up-oriented magazine CoroCoro Aniki from July 15, 2016 to March 15, 2021.
en.wikipedia.org verified - Origins #6
The hero's name is not a coincidence: the manga's creator is Takao Aoki, and the protagonist Western fans know as Tyson is Takao Kinomiya in the original.
en.wikipedia.org verified - Broadcast #7
The first anime season premiered on TV Tokyo on January 8, 2001 and wrapped on December 24, 2001, a Christmas Eve finale for the Moscow World Championship.
en.wikipedia.org verified - Broadcast #8
V-Force followed almost without a gap, airing on TV Tokyo from January 7 to December 30, 2002, and G-Revolution ran from January 6 to December 29, 2003, so the trilogy occupied three consecutive calendar years.
en.wikipedia.org verified - Broadcast #9
The original trilogy totals 154 episodes: 51 for the first season, 51 for V-Force and 52 for G-Revolution.
en.wikipedia.org verified - Broadcast #10
Canadian studio Nelvana licensed the series for English adaptation, and the dub reached viewers in 2002 on YTV in Canada and ABC Family in the United States.
en.wikipedia.org verified - Broadcast #11
The English G-Revolution arrived later than the other seasons, with YTV and ABC Family broadcasts spread across 2004 and 2005.
en.wikipedia.org verified - Broadcast #12
By November 2002 the dub was running seven days a week on ABC Family, and a promotional tie-in put Beyblade on more than four million school cafeteria menus across American primary and middle schools that month.
icv2.com verified - Broadcast #13
When Decipher announced its card game in September 2003, the trade press noted that Beyblade was airing nine times a week on ABC Family, with 51 fresh episodes lined up for the coming television season.
icv2.com verified - Production #14
Season one was animated by Madhouse under director Toshifumi Kawase; Yoshio Takeuchi took over for V-Force and Mitsuo Hashimoto directed G-Revolution.
en.wikipedia.org verified - Production #15
Both the Japanese opening, 'Fighting Spirits - Song for Beyblade', and the ending, 'Cheer Song', of the first season were performed by the same act, System-B.
en.wikipedia.org verified - Production #16
The English dub used a single theme, 'Let's Beyblade!' by Sick Kid featuring Lukas Rossi, as both opening and ending for all three seasons, while the Japanese broadcast rotated through several songs per year.
en.wikipedia.org verified - Production #17
V-Force swapped its music at the midpoint: 'OFF THE CHAIN' by TOSS & TURN opened episodes 1-21 before 'Jet' by FAIRY FORE took over, with endings 'URBAN LOVE' by Shiori and 'What's The Answer?' by Retro G Style following the same split.
en.wikipedia.org verified - Production #18
G-Revolution's first opening, 'Go Ahead (Bokura no Jidai e)', was sung by Motoko Kumai, the actress who voices Tyson in Japanese, so the hero effectively performs his own theme song.
en.wikipedia.org verified - Production #19
Marlowe Gardiner-Heslin voiced Tyson in the Nelvana dub, opposite Motoko Kumai in the Japanese original.
en.wikipedia.org verified - Production #20
Dizzi, the chatty bit-beast living in Kenny's laptop, does not exist in the Japanese version; the dub invented her, and most of her lines were originally spoken by Kenny himself.
verified - Production #21
Dizzi's role shrank once Hilary joined the cast in V-Force, and she was dropped entirely for G-Revolution, which required the dub team to edit out imagery on Kenny's blade.
likely - Toys #22
English Wikipedia dates the plastic first generation of the toy line to 1999 through 2004, after which the metal-based generations took over.
en.wikipedia.org verified - Toys #23
The Heavy Metal System, the smaller, denser generation of tops that closes out the original era, went on sale in Japan in August 2003, while G-Revolution was still on the air.
ja.wikipedia.org verified - Toys #24
Hasbro handled Beyblade outside Japan under license from Takara; Japanese Wikipedia dates the partnership to 2001 and English Wikipedia places the international rollout in 2002.
en.wikipedia.org verified - Toys #25
Within about a year of the American launch, more than five million Beyblade tops had been sold in the United States, according to figures cited for 2003.
en.wikipedia.org verified - Toys #26
In Japan the boom peaked early: more than fifteen million Beyblades were sold in the first half of 2001 alone, the same months the anime was debuting.
ja.wikipedia.org verified - Toys #27
Takara, the company behind Beyblade, later merged with rival toymaker Tomy, which is why modern releases carry the Takara Tomy name.
icv2.com likely - Film & games #28
The only theatrical film of the era, known in English as Beyblade: Fierce Battle, opened in Japan on August 17, 2002 under a title that translates as 'Fierce Battle!! Takao vs. Daichi'.
en.wikipedia.org verified - Film & games #29
Fierce Battle runs a compact 70 minutes, was directed by Tetsuo Yasumi, produced by Nippon Animedia and distributed by Toho.
en.wikipedia.org verified - Film & games #30
The movie shared its release date with Ape Escape The Movie as a double feature, and it earned about 3.2 million US dollars, good for 68th place among films released in Japan that year.
en.wikipedia.org verified - Film & games #31
Daichi, who becomes Tyson's tag partner in G-Revolution, actually debuted on cinema screens in the August 2002 film, five months before the third season introduced him on television.
en.wikipedia.org verified - Film & games #32
North America never saw the film in theaters: Miramax Family released the Nelvana co-produced dub straight to video on March 22, 2005, swapping the score for recycled TV-series music and cropping the widescreen picture to 4:3.
en.wikipedia.org verified - Film & games #33
The PlayStation game sold in the West as Beyblade: Let it Rip! was developed by Wavedge and published by Crave Entertainment; IGN awarded it a dismal 1.5 out of 10.
en.wikipedia.org verified - Film & games #34
Reviews did not stop it selling: when the PlayStation game reached Europe in September 2003, Atari reported it topping the charts in the major European markets.
en.wikipedia.org verified - Film & games #35
Beyblade: Super Tournament Battle for GameCube, based on V-Force, launched in Japan on December 19, 2002 through Takara and reached North America via Atari on September 23, 2003, advertising more than 150 possible part combinations.
en.wikipedia.org verified - TCG #36
Decipher, the company behind the Star Wars and Lord of the Rings card games, announced its Beyblade Trading Card Game on September 29, 2003, promising more than 130 cards in the first series in time for the holidays.
icv2.com verified - TCG #37
The game shipped with two rulebooks in one: a quick color-matching version aimed at players as young as seven, and a fuller deck-building game for older fans.
icv2.com verified - TCG #38
Decipher's launch plan called for a new expansion every four months, a cadence the game never came close to meeting.
icv2.com verified - TCG #39
The lone set, Collision, numbers exactly 130 cards, followed by 14 numbered promo foils (#131-144), for a complete game of 144 cards.
web.archive.org verified - TCG #40
Decipher's own checklist splits Collision into 36 commons, 36 uncommons, 36 rares, 12 foil Xtra-Rares and 10 starter-deck premiums, with cards #1-10 being the Blades themselves and the rest organized into four 30-card color blocks.
web.archive.org verified - TCG #41
Collision was sold as two 60-card starter decks at $8.99, each containing five exclusive foils, and 11-card boosters at $1.99 with an Xtra-Rare foil in roughly one pack in eight; every pack also carried a decal sheet.
icv2.com likely - TCG #42
A second set, Beyblade: Storm, was listed as coming in March 2004 in issue 68 of Scrye magazine, but it never shipped, leaving Collision as the game's only release.
archive.org verified - TCG #43
Tyson's grandfather got his own card: #122 Grandpa is a starter-deck-exclusive foil in Collision, with no non-foil printing and no booster-pack version.
web.archive.org verified - Names #44
Tyson Granger is Takao Kinomiya in Japan; the dub kept the 'T' but replaced everything else, and the Granger family name carried over to his brother Hiro (Hitoshi Kinomiya) and his grandfather.
en.wikipedia.org verified - Names #45
Kenny's Japanese name is Manabu Saien, and his nickname changed with the language: the dub's 'Chief' is 'Professor' (Kyoju) in the original.
en.wikipedia.org verified - Names #46
Max Tate began life as Max Mizuhara and Ray Kon as Rei Kon, while Kai Hiwatari is one of the few leads whose name survived localization untouched.
en.wikipedia.org verified - Names #47
Hilary Tachibana is Hiromi Tachibana in Japanese, one of the rare cases where the dub kept a character's surname but altered the given name.
en.wikipedia.org verified - Names #48
The dub shuffled the Russians' names: Tala is Yuriy Ivanov in Japan, and Bryan is Boris Kuznetsov, which means the villainous abbey master the dub calls Boris Balkov is actually Vladimir Volkov in the original.
en.wikipedia.org verified - Names #49
Spencer and Ian of the Demolition Boys are Sergei and Ivan Papov in the Japanese script, and Kai's grandfather Voltaire is Soichiro Hiwatari.
en.wikipedia.org verified - Names #50
The Russian team itself was renamed between seasons: the dub called them the Demolition Boys in the first series and the Blitzkrieg Boys in G-Revolution.
en.wikipedia.org verified - Names #51
V-Force's Zeo Zagart is Leon Zagart in Japanese, and the Japanese series titles themselves differ: the seasons are Bakuten Shoot Beyblade, Bakuten Shoot Beyblade 2002 and Bakuten Shoot Beyblade G Revolution.
en.wikipedia.org verified - Characters #52
Tyson wins the Japanese regional final on his thirteenth birthday; the episode is even titled 'Thirteen Candles', and his grandfather crashes the locker room to celebrate before the match.
en.wikipedia.org verified - Characters #53
Max's family straddles the rivalry: his father runs the neighborhood hobby shop where Tyson first meets him, while his mother Judy directs the American research center that produced the All Starz.
en.wikipedia.org verified - Characters #54
Kai's own grandfather Voltaire bankrolled Balkov Abbey through the Biovolt corporation, the same institution where Kai's childhood accident with Black Dranzer wiped out laboratories and much of his memory.
verified - Characters #55
Kenny, the team's analyst, finally competes as a blader in G-Revolution, winning match after match in the Japanese qualifier and later facing Tala in Rome, where Wolborg shatters his blade.
en.wikipedia.org verified - Characters #56
The masked 'Jin of the Gale' who upends Tyson's life at the start of G-Revolution is his own older brother Hiro, who goes on to coach BBA Revolution and then defects to BEGA.
en.wikipedia.org verified - Characters #57
The dub team likely created Dizzi to give the otherwise all-male starting lineup a female voice, a gap the Japanese version did not address until Hilary arrived in the second season.
likely - Records #58
Japanese Wikipedia puts worldwide shipments of the first-generation line at roughly 160 million units, with sales exceeding 165 billion yen.
ja.wikipedia.org verified - Records #59
More than 15,000 fans attended the Beyblade World Championships held in Tokyo in 2003, a figure Decipher's trade-press announcement used to sell retailers on the card game.
icv2.com verified - Records #60
Long after the toy craze faded, the Collision set had essentially no grading history: as of August 2026 only 26 PSA-graded cards from the entire game existed, and PSA was accepting the 130-card base set but not the 14 promos.
psacard.com likely
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