Without the boost provided by the third installment of the blockbuster movie franchise, it’s likely that Beyblade would have placed first. That’s over 11 percent of the toy giant’s 2011 revenues, making Beyblade its second most lucrative brand - just behind robo-juggernaut Transformers, which generated $483 million in 2011 sales. (Spiritual recycling, if you will.) Refreshed with colorful creature graphics, snap-on accessories and a ripcord-style high-speed launcher, and paired with a seizure-inducing cartoon series that’s best described as a 22-minute commercial interrupted by 30- and 60-second commercials, the battling tops have since spawned a burgeoning consumer fan base that generated $477 million last year for its global distributor, Hasbro. Beyblades are snub-nosed metal tops, modeled on beigoma, seashell-shaped spinning playthings that were originally invented in the 17th century, and that peaked in popularity sometime before World War II.īut Japan has always had a particular genius for mining the past to build the future - something I’ve often ascribed to the dual influence of Shinto and Buddhism, both of which deeply embed the idea that things never die, merely transform and reemerge. These are real things that you can launch, and then they hit each other, and they have special powers, like fire and stuff,” he said, rattling off a list of names that sound alternately like indie bands or microbrews: Spiral Capricorn (I used to listen to them before they got famous!) Rock Leone (bottle or draft?) Twisted Tempo (uh, that one could go either way).ĭespite the hipster-friendly names of the gamepieces, the actual game they’re used for is decidedly old-school. Hudson had, after all, invested more than a few birthday and Lunar New Year dollars in packs of Pokemon cards over the past few years, and now had a shoebox of them, most tucked lovingly into protective vinyl sleeves. “Beyblade? What happened to Pokemon?” I asked. The friend of my 8-year-old son Hudson had offered to host a sleepover-slash-smackdown at his place, featuring their school’s current “collectible creature” combat rage. Saturday, 5-7 pm.” And that, in a sense, was what it was. The emailed invitation had the solemnity and dash of a slap in the face with a duelist’s glove: “Beyblade Blowout,” it read. This article originally appeared on AlterNet.

Old beyblade game