Anime / Beyblade X

"I will show you X."

"X. That which enchants and captivates people. Is Beyblade a game? Or a sport? Reaching top speeds, X brings the fun to Xtreme levels. X, is in the palm of your hand."

— Opening Narration

Beyblade X is the fourth incarnation of the Beyblade franchise. It is comprised of an ongoing 2023 manga written by Homura Kawamoto (of Kakegurui fame) and Hikaru Muno with illustrations by Posuka Demizu (who previously worked on The Promised Neverland as character illustrator), and an anime which began airing on TV Tokyo on October 6, 2023. The English dub along with Hasbro's release of the X toyline are set for a Summer 2024 release.

Bird Kazami is a young Blader who aims to be the top amongst the Pro Bladers at the X Tower, a renowned aptly-shaped building where only the best of the best hang out and regularly compete against each other to test their worth as Bladers, but he unfortunately needs to form a team to register for the league tournaments in order to rise up the ranks, as his old team disbanded after they were soundly defeated by an infamous Pro Bladers team.

Fortunately, he soon encounters two individuals who would be the key to his answer: Ekusu Kurosu, a Pro Blader who retired from the top Bladers team "Team Pendragon" due to a lack of challenge being at the top and seeks new challenges as a "new" Blader under the masked persona of Kamen X; and Multi Nanairo, a multi-talented internet celebrity-influencer who seeks to become a Pro Blader in order to increase her popularity. Together, the three of them form "Team Persona" to challenge the ranks among the Pro Bladers in X Tower for their own goals.

I will show you the unseen tropes!

• Adaptation Deviation: In the real game, an Xtreme Finish is done by knocking an opponent's Bey out of the Xtreme Zone, basically a pocket that drops a Bey out of the stadium entirely that's seperate from the two pockets used for Over Finishes. However, in the anime, since Beys get knocked out of the stadium entirely for Over Finishes rather than into any specific zones, an Xtreme Finish is performed by knocking an opponent's Bey out of the stadium with an Xtreme Dash or any variant of it, which is usually the best way to perform an Xtreme Finish in the real game.
• Adaptation Distillation: Due to the manga's monthly-release nature, many of the scenes and story elaborated in the anime were cut out to keep the pacing consistent with the anime's run. For instance in the anime, after passing Kadovar's challenge, Team Persona still had to work their way up the floors of X Tower over the course of the next few episodes, whereas in the manga they are shot straight up to Floor 50, already halfway up the tower. The public effect of Burn releasing Phoenix Feather all over town to change the metagame was also glossed over in the manga.
• Adaptational Mundanity: Design-wise, certain generic Beys in the anime have their Gear Chip design simplified to something more generic, while their Blades end up being a recolor of an already-existing Bey. For example, Strike Hawk. In the manga, Strike Hawk has a unique tri-wing Blade design, while its Gear Chip displays a detailed side profile of a hawk's head with strike written in katakana underneath, while in the anime, it's a Wizard Arrow recolor with a minimalist forward-facing hawk head for a Gear Chip.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Despite Team Phalanx being remorseless newbie crushers, who destroyed his bey, Bird feels bad for them when their loss against X causes them to lose their pro status especially since their sponsor is a Bad Boss.
• Ambiguous Situation: Once again, the level of supernatural elements present is left up in the air; although much less prominent than prior entries. Bladers can exert a level of control over their Bey; but only inasmuch as they can change orbit patterns and attack angles, with much of the more fantastical elements being handled by the 4X system, with it being possible to outright mess up a special move when calling it out, such as when Yuni's Unicorn Sting hit with the wrong side for what should have been its special move. It can even account for extremely powerful Beys and battles, as the match between Ekusu's Dran Dagger and Burn's Phoenix Wing has the 4X systing creating a gale force wind from their clash that has everyone in the crowd reeling. However, certain special moves, such as Multi's Mirage Parry and Bird's Chain Blast, have effects that can't really be explained by the 4X system, and it's never elaborated upon as to why.
• Bad Boss: Mountain Ramen is an infamous sponsor known for pushing the team they sponsor too hard and outright firing them when they don't get the results they want with Phalanx being the latest victim due to their leader's Stone Wall strategy being not exciting enough to draw in a crowd.
• Boring, but Practical: Team Phalanx's strategy is defending until the opponent's bey ends with a sleep out, which is not as flashy as a ring out or burst finish, but it does get the job done against those unable to surpass his defenses. However, this is deconstructed since their battles are boring and their lack of popularity causes their sponsor to drop them.
• Breaking Old Trends:
  • Past entries of Beyblade usually have each character own just one signature Bey they use in all their battles, only changing it across seasons due to getting an upgrade and abandoning the previous iteration entirely. Multi, befitting her name, instead has a whole arsenal of signature Beys she swaps around for the sake of strategy, with the Stamina-type Wizard Arrow and Defense-types Knight Shield/Lance revealed so far, and it's implied she still has her own Attack and Balance types still hidden up her sleeve. In episode 9, she uses Bird's Hells Scythe, which she originally owned, to great efficiency. This even follows Bird and Ekusu, both already switching up Beys before hitting what would normally be the Mid-Season Upgrade. The same episode that Multi uses Hells Scythe, Bird debuts Hells Chain which is designed to help figure out his style better before switching back to Hells Scythe. Hells Chain has a block-like chain for its blade which helps him get accustomed to Hells Scythe's more precise strikes that Multi demonstrated. The following Episode, Ekusu debuts Dran Dagger, which trades Dran Sword's explosive power to maintain stamina and speed, giving Ekusu the ability to do even more Xtreme Dashes, but he also occasionally switches back to Dran Sword. So to sum it up, new Beys aren't introduced as a flat out Mid-Season Upgrade to replace the old Bey, but more as a sidegrade to allow for more options and strategies for a Blader to use.
  • Inversely, "signature" Beys are also not limited to a single copy or a single character's use; Multiple characters are shown to own copies of Team Persona's and Team Zooganic's Beys, with even Meiko herself owning copies of Zooganic's Leon Claw and Rhino Horn to help Persona train. Bey Crafters can create their own signature Bey, but much like how fans believe that Ekusu's Dran Sword is a replica, expect a successful Bey to be copied, or in Burn's case, straight up put to market.
• Clark Kenting: Ekusu's persona as Kamen X is basically just him wearing a giant helmet with a big red X on it while barely concealing his identity, given his name sounds just like "X" and him using Dran Sword provides a large hint of a connection to Team Pendragon. But despite making waves in his new identity no one seems to connect that X is Ekusu.
• Cordon Bleugh Chef: The Taisho of Komabazushi has a Running Gag of coming up with a new bizarre sushi dish in almost all of his appearances. Only Ekusu and Meiden’s Bizarre Taste in Food actually enjoys this, much to the rest of Team Persona's dismay.
• Crippling Overspecialization: In order to defeat X so that they can maintain their pro status, Phalanx created a whole strategy to counter X's moves, only for it to be worthless since X switched his bey from Dran Sword to Dran Dragger.
• Darker and Edgier: Setting-wise, this entry majorly tones down the fantastical elements of Beys having mystical abilities (with the creatures emerging simply being hologram projections) and instead explores the realism of pursuing Beyblading as a professional career, focusing on the necessities of finding sponsors, strategizing against opponents and basic training instead of simply "believing" in the Bey to win matches; In episode 10 Team Phalanx presented a clear example of this as they were at risk of losing their Pro status not because they lost to Team Persona, but simply because their sponsor was threatening to pull out from supporting them for not being able to bring new customers to their business.
• Decoy Protagonist: Bird is introduced first in the story, but he is actually the Deuteragonist and Audience Surrogate, sharing the role of protagonist with Ekusu who does most of the heavy lifting in battles, with the story focusing on both Bird's experience as a newbie Pro Blader and Ekusu's quest to climb back up to the top of the X Tower.
• Downer Beginning: The series starts with Bird and his teammates trying to enter X Tower, only for him to be subjugated to a brutal Curb-Stomp Battle, with the winner destroying his bey. This ended up being so demoralizing that Bird's teammates leave, leaving him alone and close to giving up his Beyblade dreams. Then Ekusu arrives...
• Dub Name Change: As per usual Beyblade dubbing tradition:
  • Bird and Ekusu's names are changed to "Robin Kazami" and "Jaxon Cross" respectively, with Ekusu's "Kamen X" identity being changed to "Blader X", while Multi's name is simply altered to "Multi Nana-iro".
  • X City and the X Tower are altered to Xenon City and The X respectively.
  • In terms of Beyblade names, several have been given a heavy overhaul with the naming scheme inverted in particular: Dran Sword and Dran Dagger being inverted to Sword Dran and Dagger Dran with Wizard Arrow also being inverted to Arrow Wizard, Hells Scythe going with a Clean Dub Name as Scythe Incendio, Knight Shield being altered to Helm Knight, and Phoenix Wing being altered to Soar Phoenix.
• Evolving Credits: With Team Phalanx now out of the picture for the time being after Episode 18, the second version of the opening from Episode 23 onward has Team Yggdrasil in their place setting their precedent as Team Persona's next big rival team.
• Exotic Eye Designs: All over the place. Ekusu in particular has gear-shaped irises while Bird and Multi have X-shaped light patches and tri-color rainbows in the corners of theirs, respectively.
• Experienced Protagonist: Ekusu is already a champion-level Blader by the time the audience is introduced to him. In fact, the whole reason he left his team and formed a new one to start again at X Tower was to seek new challenges.
  • While not as experienced or strong as Ekusu, Multi is a highly successful streamer and uses her channel to promote her team's exploits as they rise up the ranks. She's also the primary character the show turns to if they need to explain anything.
• The Face: Ekusu is literally this for Team Persona, with the team’s logo being his mask.
• Hidden Depths: When trying out a new sushi recipe Taisho created, Meiden is revealed to be just as much as a fan of his unique recipes as Ekusu is, though her reactions are more tame in comparison.
• Mythology Gag:
  • In episode 15, Bird thinks a bey has more than just three parts referencing the Metal and Burst series of Beyblade since the beys of those eras uses 4 and 5 parts at a minimum respectively.
  • Exclusive to the manga are two very heavy references to the past Beyblade generations, as one panel of X City has several company logos resembling the logos for the past series, and later on when details on Queen's backstory are being divulged, nine silhouettes are shown to represent the nine opponents that defeated her, each heavily resembling protagonists from the past series.
• Naïve Newcomer: Bird is a newcomer to the world of pro-blading, which justifies other characters explaining to him how things work in X-Tower.
• Serious Business: Par for the course with Beyblade; however Justified in that X City is effectively a city-scale Olympic village for Beyblade as a sport with X Tower being the equivalent of an Olympic stadium; meaning that everything in said city would be more or less geared towards that demographic.
• The Snack Is More Interesting: In episode 20, Team Persona fights each other with the loser having to eat the sushi made by the member, who isn't fighting. When Ekusu and Multi start, they end up distracted by how well Bird's sushi is made with everyone then paying more attention to his newfound talent in sushi making.
• Spoiler Opening: The opening makes it pretty clear that Kamen X is actually Ekusu underneath the mask, despite this mystery being revealed near the end of the first episode, though an attempt to downplay this in episode 1 was made with the sequence of him putting on the mask being cut out.
• Spotting the Thread: Hilariously subverted when Bird attempts to deduce Kamen X's identity in the first episode. The latter using Dransword and having Pro-level ability leads Bird to confidently assume he is actually Chrome Ryugu, the leader of Team Pendragon whose signature Bey was known to be Dransword at the time. Kamen X shortly takes off his helmet to reveal he is actually Pendragon's retired member Ekusu instead and mocks him for guessing wrong.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Thanks to the setting fitting more of a standard pro-sports theme rather than your typical Beyblade setting antics, X is possibly the most realistic take on Beyblade the franchise has ever seen in terms of adaptation. As such expect a lot of realistic circumstances that you'd see more in actual sports, albeit translated to Beyblade means, or even just straight from the real-life Beyblading scene.
  • The difference between the Amateur and Pro Bladers has a significant gap. Bird's terrible win-loss record is a testament to that, Bird is still developing as a pro, meanwhile he has to face off against Bladers who have been at this for a while as well as even stronger opponents than that as Team Persona rises up the X Tower. Most significant are his teammates, Ekusu is a beast in the Bey Stadium and his natural talent, along with his sheer experience having already reached the top of the X Tower, allows him to pull off feats greater than even the average Pro. Meanwhile Multi is the practical approach, researching and learning the game at a fundamental level, she's not as purely talented than Ekusu, but she is observant and adaptable.
    • It's also a testament as to why you can't just shoot up to the pro level right away. It's assumed that Bird's original team, Team Albatross, were strong contenders in their local scene. But as notated many times, Bird was a big fish in a small pond who just got dropped off into the depths of the ocean that is the pro leagues. What should have happened was that his team should have been taking on bigger challenges in increments with the goal being consistency, and if they aren't winning, they're at a level to understand where they went wrong to build up experience. This is what Bird isn't getting. Pro level Bladers see the game far differently than a casual Blader and because of this, Bird has to grind it out longer than others to understand the nuance of his losses.
  • The use of social media allows Bladers like Multi to stand out. This reflects even in real life as real life Bladers will use their channel to advertise and analyze newly released beys. Multi can use her channel to test out her newly created beys as a certified Bey Crafter, perform practice sessions with her team, or even simply interact with fans.
  • Much like real world athletes, they need sponsorships to help support their game primarily through money and by managing their play. Team Phalanx is actually a good example of what happens when your players and your sponsor don't see eye to eye. Mountain Ramen has too high of a bar for even pros to manage. Not helping is Team Phalanx's in-universe poor popularity which hurts Mountain Ramen's popularity via association.
  • The wide distribution of Phoenix Feather and how it became the go to Bey for improving skills. Sure it doesn't outright defeat Pros who had honed their skills with their respective Beys and play styles, but think about how many players in real life buy parts that are considered high tier such as the Xtend + tip during the Burst Generation. You still need good equipment to keep up with Pros.
• Trailers Always Spoil: In Episode 24, after Ekusu accepts Burn's wager that Team Persona will disband and become a part of Yggdrasil if he loses a one-point match to Burn, the episode ends with Ekusu having apparently lost the battle. However, if Episode 25's preview having Ekusu and Burn going at another round is any indication, Ekusu apparently losing looks a lot more dubious than the Cliffhanger made it seem. Indeed in Episode 25, it's revealed that both Dran Dagger and Phoenix Wing scored an Over Finish on each other.
• Wham Episode: Episode 25: Ekusu, after his "loss" in episode 24 was revealed to be a draw, manages to win a climactic battle against Team Yggdrasil's Burn and his powerful Phoenix Wing. Invitations to the Shuffle Battle Fest have been sent out to all Bladers, and a mysterious masked Blader with a Y on their mask has been revealed.
• Xtreme Kool Letterz: If the "X" in the title wasn't enough of an indication, the letter "X" is a reoccurring theme of the series with elements like the X Tower, Xtreme Dash, and Ekusu's fake identity being Kamen X.
• Your Costume Needs Work: Why Ekusu's Clark Kenting works in-universe is partly due to many others (like Bird) initially assuming his Dransword is just a mere knockoff of the original, which leads them to think the person under the mask is just a Pendragon or Ryugu fanboy at most.