Beyblade the Movie "Double Feature": You Spin Your Top Right Round, Right Round, Till You Go Down, Till You Go Down Down

The concept of the spinning top is one that dates just about as far back as humanity can possibly trace back to, being one of the oldest recognizable toys found in various archaeological sites. In fact, its concept is so ubiquitous that there is no singular place of origin to be determined for it, & it's generally accepted that various cultures conceived of the top independently of each other; it's essentially (& maybe even literally) a universal concept. Naturally, this device eventually found itself being used in games as a toy, both in solitary & in competition, the latter of which lead to the idea of having tops literally combat each other physically, with the goal being to make the opponent's top stop spinning, or at least knock it out of the play field. This idea of combative tops has been seen around the world throughout history, whether it be the old Malay sport of gasing pangkah or more recent commercialized games, like Battling Tops from Ideal Toy Company in the 60s or Spin Fighters from Bandai in the mid-90s. However, for the past 20+ years one version of this idea has reigned supreme over all: Beyblade.

A bey of each era's respective lead character.

First appearing in Japan in July 1999 & produced by Takara (now Takara Tomy), Beyblade is a modernized version of the Japanese beigoma, which is that country's take on combative tops. To help promote the toy, Takara teamed with Shogakukan to produce manga based on the toy that same year, and in 2001 an anime series started up, which in turn helped give Beyblade a lot of promotional popularity when Hasbro got the license to sell the toys in 2002. What gives Beyblade the longevity it continues to have is the simple fact that the toys are re-introduced in new ways every so often, resulting in (as of now) four different eras of the brand, best described by their accompanying manga/anime series: Bakuten Shoot/Explosive Spinning Shot Beyblade (w/ Takao Aoki; 1999-2008), Metal Fight Beyblade (w/ Takafumi Adachi; 2008-2015), Beyblade Burst (w/ Hiro Morita; 2015-2023), & the newly debuted Beyblade X (w/ Homura Kawamoto, Hikaru Muno, & Posuka Demzu; 2023-Present); yes, THAT Posuka Demizu, though she did admittedly start off with children's manga. While North America only ever received the original Beyblade manga in the 00s, all of the anime have continued to see English dubbing & broadcast, whether it was by Nelvana at first or by ADK Emotions NY ever since Beyblade Burst, making it one of the last remaining toy/game-based children's anime to continue seeing official English release the old-fashioned way (i.e. not a subbed simulcast), alongside Pokémon & Yu-Gi-Oh!, with Beyblade X already confirmed for an English debut in 2024.

However, despite the continued (& often resurgent) popularity of Beyblade for over two decades, it's only ever received two theatrical anime adaptations, & only one of them ever saw official English release. So bring your kids to the theater as we enjoy a "Double Feature" of stories revolving around (ha!) kids who love solving all of their problems via top battles.

"3, 2, 1, Let it Rip!"

Obscusion B-Side: A Complete Overview of the PS2's GunCon 2 Rail Shooter Decet

A couple of years ago I went over the four games that comprised Capcom's infamous/notorious (depending on the person) Gun Survivor sub-series for Resident Evil (& Dino Crisis). For those unfamiliar, they were a quartet of games that fused together the style & (sometimes the) sensibilities of arcade light gun rail shooters, but gave players full control over their movement; in short, they were FPS-likes, but were intended to be played as though they were light gun games. Ideally, these games were meant to be played with Namco's GunCon light gun controller, and since three of the Gun Survivor games were released on the PlayStation 2, those specifically used the GunCon 2, an updated take on the PS1's original GunCon. However, while the Gun Survivor series offered an interesting & non-traditional way to use that light gun... what about the games that used the GunCon 2 in the way it was actually intended?

The sixth generation of video game consoles (Dreamcast, PS2, GameCube, & Xbox, primarily) was one in which the general idea of arcade-style rail shooters truly became less & less viable/appealing at home. Whereas the PS1 saw 29 games with light gun support (either via the GunCon and/or the Konami Justifer that came before it) & the Saturn saw 13, their respective successors saw a marked decrease in light gun games, with the Dreamcast only seeing seven (one of which was just for a bonus mini game, at that), while the PS2 only saw 16; meanwhile, the Xbox only saw three, while the GameCube saw 0! Of those PS2 games, one of them only supported the original PS1 GunCon (Cocoto Funfair), another used its own device (or the PS2's USB camera) for motion tracking (The Keisatsukan: Police 24/7), one only supported the GunCon 2 as a bonus for co-op play (Starsky & Hutch), and another three were the aforementioned Gun Survivor games, leaving only 10 games in "traditional" arcade rail shooter genre. So, for the 80th entry in Obscusion B-Side (yeah, we're getting closer & close to #100!), let's go over the PS2's "GunCon 2 Rail Shooter Decet" (yes, "decet" is the equivalent of a duo/trio/quartet/etc. for a group of 10) & see how each of these games fare. Just as with with the Gun Survivor overview, I played all of these games on their default settings on a mid-00s Sony WEGA Trinitron CRT with component video, which allowed me to play them with a GunCon 2 with the best video quality possible, as they were meant to be played, so it's time to (for the most part) reload by shooting away from the screen!