Beyblade: The Movie-Fierce Battle was based on an obscure short story that was included in the original manga.
A lot of people outside of Japan would be surprised to know that the anime is an adaptation of an adaptation, being more based off the manga, rather than a fresh reimagining of the equally well-known toyline.
Arc Fatigue: Takao's battle with Kane really drags out. S2E26 is just their blades grinding against each other with no progress on either side.
In the first season, Rai was an absolute beast who had mastered his teammates' techniques and always won easily before his match with Rei and Takao. But in G-Revolution, he's overly emotional, drives himself way too hard, and in general is just nowhere near as impressive.
Judy is one of the key figures in defeating Borg in Season 1, organizing the project to get Takao a better blade for his fight against Yuriy and rounding up the remaining bladers with bit-beasts to act if Takao loses after all. Before that, she already shows herself as a hardworking, talented, dedicated, and no-nonsense woman of science. Come Season 2 and she can do as good as nothing without the Bladebreakers' help and guidance, and also happens to be redesigned with a more generic pretty face than she has in Season 1.
Base-Breaking Character: Takao is either the best main protagonist in the franchise who receives a lot of character development or an unlikable character due to his Flanderization turning him into a massive Jerkass.
Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: EP 17 of V-Force has Tyson, Rei and Max have an out of the blue Jerkass Ball to one another where they even considering quitting the Bladebreakers for good. They plot explains that it's due to the pressure of the Cyber-Bit Beasts and the constant training to match them. However, they've never gotten so pressured prior that they'd openly start snapping at each other in a manner that looks more like they've always had some underlying conflict than anything else. Plus they've dealt with prior OP bit beasts before and they always took it with a optimism and comradery. The fact that Max of all character, who's generally nice and easy going suddenly turns into a jerk makes this more jarring. It seems like the whole point to that fight was just to have Hilary come in an solve it more than anything else.
Rei's match against Moses is a subject of heavy debate among the fandom. The Ass Pull victory granted to Moses (a rock from the stadium's remains hit his beyblade and let it stay in the Stadium while Driger MS lost by stadium out) is either a Heartwarming Moment as his love for his sister pushed him through the battle and allowed him to win, or a cheap victory awarded to someone who really didn't deserve it as he did pretty poorly against Rei, who dominated for the majority of the fight.
The art design and character designs changed every season. Which season looks best is a matter of debate.
For the longest time since the first season's American Tournament, it was "common knowledge" that Max's parents are divorced, despite their lovey-dovey behavior during the Russian Tournament. The idea has largely been abandoned, but there's still people who believe it here and there.
Sergei's last name is not "Petrov". That's fanon created because he was the only one of Borg without a last name. This "knowledge" will likely disappear now that Rising gave him a canon last name.
It's always taken as fact that Yüya Minami/Wyatt dies after his usage of Digital Bird in the Japanese version of Season 2. This is never said nor implied. The moment of his death is taken as being immediately or shortly after the fight, but that doesn't match with the fact Kai hallucinates him in hospital clothes in Episode 24.
Because someone once put it on Wikipedia and nobody bothered to check the sources (that the original editor provived), it is thought that the members of the Ming-Ming Band and of the BEGA Training Squad are called Hikaru, Jelly, Killy, Billy, Gray, and Hawk. They aren't. Their names are Chiru-Chiru, Tam-Tam, [unknown], Keizō, Gamarra, and Izam.
Kai died at the end of G-Rev. Despite coming back to lend his strength during the final battle with Brooklyn, all bandaged up similarly to Tala - implying he was found, taken to the hospital after collapsing- it’s still insisted by fans that he’s dead, and his appearances after everything above is his spirit/ghost. The ending of the show ends with literally everyone acknowledging Kai’s there- alive and well, to watch him and Tyson battle again.
Mao. The most popular female character by a long shot. So much so that she was one of the first characters to make a return in the Bakuten Shoot Beyblade: Rising manga, long before the rest of her team not counting Rei. She may have also become a favorite of Aoki himself, judging by his art gallery.
Dizzi, especially since she was exclusive to the dub only. When she disappeared in G-Revolution, fans were disappointed by this decision.
Bianca and Rosetta, being two cute girls in a show that doesn't have many, are very popular for characters that appeared only in two episodes.
In regards to the Beyblades themselves, Trypio is a standout example thanks to the long range and unique design of its attack ring. It’s so popular in fact that when a poll was held to determine which Beyblades from the previous generations would be remade for the Beyblade X toyline, Trypio came in 1st place for the Gen 1 poll, beating out the likes of Driger, Dranzer and even Dragoon. Though Trypio's remake, Trypio 3-60N, would ultimately be cancelled due to safety issues as a result of the wide diameter of its blade.
It was so popular in America that Beyblade: Metal Fusion was produced with Western audiences in mind.
One of maybe three shonen anime series (another example being Duel Masters) to be popular in India.
The franchise as a whole is huge in Latin America, easily on par with Yu-Gi-Oh! not just as an anime but also as a tabletop game.
Hilarious in Hindsight: Kyouju was considered a rather weak blader, known for his spring-loaded jumping Beyblade. Come the 6th season of Beyblade Burst, the World Champion, Valt Aoi's bey possesses the exact same ability (and its low win rate).
Takao. Yes, he can be a self-centered, arrogant jerk quite a number of times but you can't help but feel for the guy in G-Revolution since it's revealed he feels alone after his teammates leave him to join other teams and even suffers from Heroic BSoD as a result of their abandonment.
Kai. He may be evil and power-hungry in the first season but it's revealed that he was raised in Volkov Abbey, where he underwent strict training and brutal discipline for ever losing. He also suffered trauma from the power of Black Dranzer after attempting to use it, which changed Kai forever. The manga reveals that Kai's father abandoned him as a child to pursue beyblading which in turn made Kai hate the sport and become the cold character he's known as.
Narm Charm: Unsurprisingly, the series is absolutely dripping with it. From the Serious Business of the sport of beyblading itself, to the overly-dramatic and hammy acting (especially from the dub). It's doubtful the fans would want it any other way.
Daichi is subjected to this for "stealing" the spotlight from the rest of the cast.
Ming-Ming could very well be the biggest scrappy of the series, especially in the dub. Her singing (in the English dub), her pop star status, her constant attention hogging, as well as her condescending personality towards the BBA (especially Hiromi) are usually the target for her hatedom. You'll be hard-pressed to find anyone who likes Ming-Ming.
Pretty much always with the Bladebreakers: The popular Kai/Takao ship will see Rei/Max as the Beta Couple. Other fans who prefer Kai/Rei cite the fact that it goes very well with Takao/Max, since Rei seems to be the teammate Kai gets along with best while Max and Takao are best friends. Even the relatively rare Kai/Max or Rei/Takao pairings slash the other two together.
Daichi usually isn't included in slash fic due to being younger, unattractive, and breaking up the established Bladebreaker dynamics, as well as the above reasons, but he may be stuck with Hiromi or Kenny alongside one of the above; Alternatively, he may be paired with Takao, while the others are shipped with someone from the team they defected to Season 3.
There was considerable initial dislike for the new art style featured in the second season as well as the subtle changes in personality the characters exhibited (e.g. Takao losing all his character development), but the second season's story arc was received as much less formulaic and overall more interesting.
Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said for the Art Shift on the beyblades themselves, since in order to show off the new 3D models, they spin considerably slower than before, making battles much less impressive.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: For the World Championships, to make the options more limited, the tag-team tournament has been changed to have two main members and two alternative reserve members alongside the Round Robin format, allowing for more participants in the matches and unpredictable results. However, with the exception of the BBA Revolution (Kenny), and Barthez Battalion (Mathilda & Aaron), the teams only resort to using their two tag bladers through the match, denying supporting members of other teams: Gaoh, Michael, Emily, Sergei, etc. from competing at all. Worse, Kenny's arc of proving himself as both a blader and a mechanic is hardly explored after the Japanese preliminaries beyond his (memorable) match against Tala.
The Bladebreakers come off as this in the episode "The Power Half Hour!!!" when they give Takao huge scorn for modifying his beyblade. In a series where the Bladebreakers modify their beys all the time (both before and after this episode), it makes them hard to sympathize with and come off as massive hypocrites. Hell, in the next season, they design an entirely new system instead of just getting resources from the other teams who still have the current system (even with BEGA taking over).
In the episode "Take Your Best Shot!", Rei telling Rai that he should've been more upset about his loss, only to tell Rai to calm down about his loss in a later episode rubs some people the wrong way.
Viewer Gender Confusion: There are a few male characters who are likely to be mistaken for female before speaking or being spoke about. Suzuka, Hikaru, and to a lesser extent Oliver and Denny all qualify.
What Do You Mean, It's Not Political?: When you consider that the Majestics' biggest issue is a lack of team spirit, the Europe arc reads a bit like a commentary on the lack of true unity among the member states of the European Union. This view is helped by the fact that each Majestic comes from a different country belonging or that used to belong) to the EU.
The Woobie: Whilst a lot of characters have their spotlight as this, these characters are arguably the biggest woobies in the series.
Rei can be seen as one after his battle against Boris.
Minami. Yes, he can be somewhat of a nuisance towards Kai but he's simply an average kid who looks up to his idol and wants their influence to make them stronger. What really sets him as a woobie is S2E16, where he's recruited by Team Psykick after being rejected by Kai in the hopes of surpassing him. This means he has the misfortune to be the test subject for the cyber bit-beast, Cyber Dranzer, which turns the poor guy into a maniac after feeding on his energy. Once he finishes the battle, he starts going insane, crumples down to the ground and has to be hospitalised (he goes mentally insane in the English dub, which is also pretty heavy). He rests in Kai's arms, leaving Kai regretful for how he treated him whilst Team Psykick leaves him to die. You can't help but feel sorry for the poor guy...
Mathilda. She's shy, timid and quiet as well as being forced to follow the strict rules from her coach, Barthez (which includes destroying her own bey for the sake of winning). She's genuinely terrified of her coach since he treats his team very poorly and tends to unleash a lot of his anger on them (as opposed to how the public think of the guy as a saint). In the Japanese version, it's even worse. Barthez physically abuses Mathilda too by pushing her against the wall after trying to stop him from hurting one of her teammates, Miguel.
Daichi. Say what you will about him but his backstory in the movie where his father dies after a construction accident and encourages Daichi to become the best blader is very heart-breaking.
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