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!"

Up first is Bakuten Shoot Beyblade the Movie: Gekitou!! Takao vs. Daichi, a 70-minute movie based on the original Beyblade series that debuted in Japanese theaters on August 17, 2002, in between Episodes 31 & 32 of the second TV anime, Bakuten Shoot Beyblade 2002 (a.k.a. Beyblade V-Force). The movie would eventually see an English localization as a direct-to-DVD release via Nelvana & Miramax on March 22, 2005 (in between Episodes 33 & 34 of the dub of the third TV anime, Beyblade G-Revolution) under the (mostly) directly translated title Beyblade the Movie: Fierce Battle, though the movie would later air on TV in 2006 (YTV; Canada) & 2009 (Cartoon Network; US). It'd also get re-released in 2012 by Miramax, while in 2013 it'd be part of a 8-movie box set released by Echo Bridge, alongside two Pokémon movies. Naturally, all of these releases were dub-only for obvious reasons, but unlike the dubs for the TV series (which did feature alterations that would make it impossible to sync the dub to the OG Japanese footage), Fierce Battle was actually dubbed uncut, with the only changes simply being visual tweaks for the title splash & removing the Japanese titles & credits; also, the dub was presented in 1.33:1 pan-&-scan, instead of the 1.78:1 widescreen it was animated in. For all intents & purposes, Nelvana & Miramax could have actually released Beyblade the Movie: Fierce Battle as a dual-audio DVD, but what's done is done. Coincidentally enough, FUNimation released two dual-audio DVDs for G-Revolution (done simply by including six episodes on each disc; three dub, three sub) around the same time as Fierce's Battle's initial DVD in 2005. Regardless, let's see how this movie plays out, both in its original Japanese version & its English dub.

(For simplicity's sake I'll bring up the dub names for first mentions for both movies but rely on the Japanese names overall, barring when I talk about the Fierce Battle dub itself)

Takao Kinomiya (Tyson Granger) has just won the final match of the Japanese Beyblade Championships, when from out of nowhere a kid named Daichi Sumeragi suddenly appears & challenges Takao to a match. Not one to ignore a challenge, Takao accepts & quickly realizes how powerful Daichi is. Unbeknownst to anyone, though, the fierce battle between Takao & Daichi accidentally breaks open a seal on Demon Rock Island off the coast of Kyushu, where a teacher named Prof. Tengai was leading four kids on a learning expedition. The seal on the island was for the four "Shadow Spirits", dark counterparts of the sacred Spirit Beasts (Bit Beasts) that fight alongside Takao & his friends Kai Hiwatari, Max Mizuhara (Max Tate), & Rei Kon (Ray Kon): Seiryu (Dragoon), Suzaku (Dranzer), Genbu (Draciel), & Byakko (Driger). The Shadow Spirits possess the four kids that Prof. Tengai was watching over, who now want to enact their revenge on the "Blue Spirit" that sealed them away long ago & find "Kouryu (Golden Dragon)", who will free them fully. Luckily for them, though, Takao & Co. wind up heading over to Kyushu for a vacation with their teacher, Ms. Keiko (Ms. Kincaid)... complete with Daichi following them in secret, as he wants a rematch with Takao, all to accomplish a goal he set for himself after his father passed away two years ago, leaving Daichi with the bey Gaia Dragoon (Strata Dragoon).

While Fierce Battle came out in English during the airing of G-Revolution's dub, it's important to remember that it originally came out in Japan during 2002/V-Force's original airing, because this movie very much follows the M.O. of that second series. For those unfamiliar, while the original series & G-Revolution focused primarily on tournaments & "being the best", 2002/V-Force was focused on expanding on the lore, history, & even mysticism of the Spirit Beasts themselves, with our leads having to deal with forces that either wanted to seal their Spirits away or capture them for research (the only tournament seen is literally only in the last two episodes, & solely for plot purposes), and Fierce Battle follows in that style. This movie is specifically about introducing new lore for the Spirit Beasts, namely that that they're technically just half of their original selves (the "Light"), with the Shadow Spirits being their literal "Dark" halves, while also introducing the idea that there were actually five "sacred" beasts, with the fifth being Koryu, which in turn gives Daichi his introduction to the franchise; that being said, though, Fierce Battle is also non-canon, as G-Revolution would re-introduce Daichi in its own way.

Because of this, the first half of this movie is actually mostly without much in the way of bey battles, instead focusing on Takao, Max, Rei, & their friends Kyouju (Kenny) & Hiromi Tachibana (Hilary Tachibana) more or less being kids who are enjoying their vacation in Kyushu, with the occasional running gag of Daichi suddenly appearing to challenge Takao, only for Takao to yawn him away with no interest. In fact, Takao only takes Daichi's challenge seriously once he hears of Daichi's backstory (as simple as it is), but by that point we enter the second half of the movie, which is all about the possessed kids kidnapping Daichi & converting him over to their side, eventually leading to the climactic final battle. Being a movie there was obviously a feel from the staff to up the stakes a bit, resulting in our heroes needing to take on dark Spirits who are previously shown as being so powerful that they can literally create giant tsunamis that flood parts of Kyushu (& likely killing hundreds of people) & sets an entire small city on fire... and they're fought back against using tops.

Obviously, for franchises like these, there has to be a bit of suspension of disbelief, though (to be fair) the Bakuten Shoot Beyblade era tended to show some restraint when it came to crazy stuff like this; it wouldn't be until Metal Saga era that the staff went "Screw it, let's just go all out!" from the start. That being said, however, this is a non-canon movie meant to entertain, & it wouldn't be until the final episode of G-Revolution when Takao literally flies up into the sky for a bey battle, so for this first era of the franchise I can accept this as a truly over-the-top outlier.

All that being said, though, this is honestly a very well made film, both from a production standpoint & in terms of pacing. In terms of directing, while 2002/V-Force director Yoshio Takeuchi (Cat's Eye Season 1) is credited here as "General Director", the traditional "Director" position for this movie goes to Tetsuo Yasumi (Happy Happy Clover), & the end result is a well animated film, truly feeling like it had a "movie budget", with some moments where you get some nicely fluid & stylistic cuts worthy of the term "sakuga"; I imagine this movie would actually look rather nice remastered in HD, since it was obviously done on film. In terms of the scripting pace, it's a trio effort, this time by Kouji Miura (no, not the mangaka of Blue Box; she was only 7 at this point), Yoshifumi Fukushima, & Yoshio Takeuchi, with the end result being a film that honestly feels longer than the 70 minutes it runs for, but in a good way; rather than feeling like it's dragging, it instead feels like each scene is given plenty of time to breathe. For the music, Fierce Battle Japanese musical score was done by the duo of Mitsuru Shimada & Georgio "13" Cancemi, the latter of which was part of the hip hop group Toss & Turn that not only did the 1st OP for Beyblade 2002, but also did the musical score for the show itself. That being said, though, the original musical score for Fierce Battle isn't exactly filled with hip hop & the like, instead being a mix of slower, more orchestral pieces for the plot-focused moments & some faster-paced, more dance-like beats for the bey battles; I imagine Shimada handled the former, while Cancemi handled the latter. As for the theme songs, Fierce Battle has wholly unique ones from the TV series, with OP "Victoria" by Osamu "Dynamite SHU" Masaki being an instantly memorable banger of a song that matches the footage of Daichi rushing like hell to the arena to challenge Takao, while ED "Poro Poro" by Hana*Hana is itself a very upbeat & fitting way to end things off with a smile; "Victoria" would seemingly later be re-used for G-Revolution, or at least included in its OST. Overall the entire musical score, both BGM & OP/ED, is a stark difference in tone & style from the dub, which we'll get to in a moment.

For the Japanese voice cast, it's more or less bolstered by Motoko Kumai (Boingo/Mondatta in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure TV, Syaoran Li in Cardcaptor Sakura) & Naomi "Nao" Nagasawa (Hikaru in Princess Nine, Izuna in Ushio & Tora TV), who voice Takao & Diachi, respectively. By this point voicing Takao was natural for Kumai, so her performance is great & the plot even lets her give Takao a nice introspective moment with Seiryu. Meanwhile, this movie marked Nagasawa's first time as Daichi (a role she'd reprise for G-Revolution), and she went with a very gruff, yet childish, voice for Takao's self-proclaimed rival, befitting the more animalistic nature of Daichi very well. While they admittedly don't really get to do too much in this movie, the rest of the major recurring cast also reprise their roles here, so we get Ai Orikasa as Max, Aya Hisakawa as Rei (& Ms. Keiko), Houko Kuwashima as Kyouju, Urara Takano as Kai, & Shiho Kikuchi as Hiromi, plus "Blader DJ" making a cameo early on; Mitsuaki Madono had voiced him in the first series, but for 2002 & G-Revolution it's just "Blader DJ". Finally, for the movie-original characters, we have Toru Ohkawa (Prof. Tengai), Yoshiko Okamoto (Ms. Keiko's Mother), & the quartet of Chiharu Tezuka, Chisa Yokoyama, Mio Takeuchi, & Uko Tachibana as the four kids possessed by the Shadow Spirits; their names are Shingo, Hiroshi, Ayaka, & Satoru, if you're truly curious.

Hmmm, I'm pretty sure you can't do that with the actual thing...
I bet some have tried, though!

Finally, there's the English dub by Nelvana, which overall has a bit of interesting history behind it. You see, Nelvana originally did the standard "Act like the anime doesn't take place in Japan" shtick that anime like this got back in the day (Saban's dub of Digimon was a rare outlier, for example), only for a problem to come about when the first series sees the cast go around the world for tournaments... including to the United States; whoops. Therefore, when it came to V-Force & (especially) G-Revolution, Nelvana did something neat by simply accepting that it took place in Japan (remember, this was still when 4Kids was the powerhouse for kids anime), and that applies to Fierce Battle's dub. While previously established name changes are kept, like "Tyson", "Hilary", "Kenny", & "Ms. Kincaid", the dub outright states that Tyson's the Japanese Beyblade Champion, establishes that they all go to Kyushu for vacation, keeps Prof. Tengai's name intact, & doesn't bother to change any of the visuals to remove Japanese text & whatnot; they do change the names of the kids possessed by the Shadow Spirits, but whatever. However, a notable difference with the dub in general comes from the musical score, which is totally different & still applies to Fierce Battle, despite it not having any visual changes that would have made keeping the original score impossible, ala the TV series; at this point, it was just for consistency.

For the movie's dub score we have Martin Kucaj, who did the score for all three Bakuten Shoot TV dubs, and by the point in the dubs that this movie came out in (G-Revolution) he had mostly moved over to a heavy rock style, laden with deep guitar sounds, which in turn did admittedly help give Beyblade a unique sound when compared to the generally more upbeat scores you'd find in other "toyetic" anime that aired in America at the time; even the songs for more reflective & calm moments just feel a little heavy. This is enforced even more by the dub's penchant for insert songs, complete with full vocals, and while the first series had kept things rather upbeat & bouncy, V-Force & G-Revolution went in the complete opposite by featuring comparatively gritty & even a little grungy insert songs (at least, for a kids show), and that stays true for Fierce Battle's dub, though there's only one actual "insert song" used here. This dichotomy is best exemplified by the opening & end credits, as the upbeat & fun "Victoria" & "Poro Poro" are replaced with "Swing Low Let it Rip" by Jason Dean Bennison & a vocalless version of "Rise Above the Storm" by Daniel LeBlanc & Creighton Doane, which are the complete & utter opposite by being very serious & (in comparison) harsh sounding songs, though they are definitely a memorable in their own rights. In retrospect, Beyblade's dub having these kinds of hard rock insert songs was absolutely cheesy in its own way & somewhat try hard for a show about spinning tops ("Swing Low Let it Rip" seriously uses the word "sucka" repeatedly in its lyrics), but there's no denying that it helped make the dub memorable amongst the competition.

As for the dub's voice acting, it's notable for being produced over in Canada but not by any of the usual studios that handled anime dubs at the time. Instead, it was handled by McClear Digital (the only "traditional" anime dub it had ever done was for the OVA Landlock in 2001), and because of that features a cast that mostly never worked on other anime, with only a few exceptions. That being said, though, the dubs for the original Beyblade era were generally very well done (arguably some of the best of its time for kids anime like these, at least), and the same is true for Fierce Battle. Just as with the Japanese original, Tyson & Daichi carry the film, so now we have Marlowe Gariner-Heslin (the nameless lead, a.k.a. "He", in Interlude) & Mary Long (Mimmy in Hello Kitty, Molly in DiC/Cloverway's Sailor Moon), who both do very good jobs with their roles, with Long more or less matching Nagasawa's Daichi in execution. Naturally, we also have the rest of the TV cast reprising their roles, so there's Daniel DeSanto (Tucker in Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Carlos in The Magic School Bus) as Ray, Gage Knox as Max, David Reale as Kai (who'd actually return to the Beyblade franchise to voice Tsubasa in the Metal Saga era), Alex Hood as Kenny, Caitriona Murphy (Ayako in Slam Dunk) as Hilary, Julie Lemeux as both Ms. Kincaid & her mother, & Raoul Bhaneja making a cameo as DJ Jazzman. As for the movie-originals, we have Chris Marren (Prof. Tengai), followed by Craig Lauzon, Jonanthan Potts, Katie Griffin, & Shannon Perrault as the possessed kids. Normally I'd give my final thoughts here, but for now I'll instead just say this:

"3, 2, 1, Go Shoot!"

As for our second film we have Gekijouban Metal Fight Beyblade VS Taiyou: Shakunetsu no Shinryakusha Sol Blaze/Metal Fight Beyblade the Movie vs. The Sun: Sol Blaze, the Scorching Hot Invader, which debuted in Japanese theaters on August 21, 2010. Technically, though, that English translated title should probably read "Beyblade: Metal Masters the Movie", since this 76-minute film based on the second era of Beyblade debuted in between Episodes 20 & 21 of the fifth TV anime, Metal Fight Beyblade Baku/Explosion (a.k.a. Beyblade: Metal Masters). This second Beyblade movie was actually part of a double-billing itself, running alongside Duel Masters: Honou no Kizuna XX (side note: Duel Masters is actually still seeing new anime made to this very day in Japan!), with the duo managing to earn themselves a little over $5.7 million at the box office over five weeks. As mentioned earlier, while the first Beyblade movie did eventually see an official English release on DVD the same was not true for the second movie, despite the entire Metal Saga not only getting aired in English, but was made with English in mind from the start, right down to Canadian musicians Neil Parfitt & Scott Buscis composing the score to all four TV anime for their original Japanese airings so that Nelvana didn't need to compose their own score; however, this movie did get dubbed into French & German, & has long been fansubbed. With this being the literal only part of the entire Beyblade: Metal Saga to not see English release, at least from the anime side of things, did we really miss out on anything?

To be fair, with a title that literally says "Beyblade vs. The Sun", expectations are naturally set. Also, this is the era that seriously showed Moses parting the Red Sea with a beyblade, so I better see someone fight the actual Sun with one! (spoiler: not really, but close enough)

The asteroid Adonis is on its way to pass by the Earth, and at the same time bizarre weather phenomena have been occurring, like giant tidal waves in the topics & the Egyptian desert being blanketed in snow. Meanwhile, a mysterious cult is in the middle of the ocean during a giant storm, only to see a giant acropolis rise up in front of their boat. Leader of the cult Bakim uses his bey, Poseidon, to activate something within the acropolis to free the bey of their "Sun God", Sol Blaze, & entrusts it to their "chosen hero", a young boy named Helios. This cult hopes to create a brand-new Atlantis for the modern era to act as vengeance against humanity, who wiped out their ancestors (& the original Atlantis) millennia ago. In order to achieve their goal Helios needs the full power of one with a "white heart riding the wings of the Pegasus"... and luckily for him Ginga Hagane (Gingka Hagane) is a pure-hearted beyblader who currently uses the legendary bey Galaxy Pegasus. However, rather than make a polite introduction, Helios instead crashes a WBBA tournament being held, obliterating all of the competition & even fights Ginga, not only defeating him but also damaging Galaxy Pegasus to the point where it's nigh unusable. Not content with this, as he didn't truly get all of Pegasus' power in their fight, Helios demands that Ginga prepare for a rematch... but could Sol Blaze itself, & the legendary Orihalcon that it's made out of, be the power that doomed Atlantis so long ago?

As mentioned earlier, the Metal Saga era of Beyblade is the point where the writers seemingly decided "You know, what? Let's throw away all pretense & just go all out ASAP!", and Metal Fight vs. The Sun follows that mentality to a T. While my personal familiarity with this era is rather limited (only about the first 1/5 of Metal Fight via fansubs back when it debuted, plus the Wii game, which admittedly wasn't terrible), it was almost obvious that the staff (both for the anime & the toys themselves) decided to look towards Saint Seiya for inspiration, as seen with all of the major beys being themed around constellations & the zodiac (& Ginga representing the Pegasus, natch), but even more so by just treating the beys themselves as being capable of supernatural abilities, like shooting fire, water, wind, etc., as a regular thing. There's no visual accentuation, i.e. visuals meant to invoke things but not be taken as literally happening, to be seen here; it's all very literal, & let's just say that Bakim's bey is named "Poseidon" for a reason. This is a movie, on the surface at least, about a teenager descended from ancient Atlantis wielding a beyblade with the literal power of the Sun itself wanting to create a new Atlantis, and he needs the full power of another teenager who wields a beyblade with the power of the mythical Pegasus in order to do so. To this movie's credit, though, there is naturally more to the plot than just that, especially in the final act, as there's the whole thing with Adonis, and of course there's more to Bakim than meets the eye. As for Helios himself, he's at least given a nice little character arc throughout the film, showing that his intentions, though harsh & fueled by vengeance, are still fully understandable & maybe even relatable, to some extent. This movie also marks Helios' only appearance in the franchise, despite him naturally becoming a friend by the end who likely would have been very helpful in later series, but I guess Sol Blaze was only a limited edition toy in real life.

As for our main cast, Metal Fight vs. The Sun goes in the opposite direction of Fierce Battle by not simply focusing on the core cast, instead doing its best to include a bunch of the overall cast, though primarily those who are either heroes or (at the very least) not main villains. Naturally, there's Ginga & his pals (best bud Kenta Yumiya, mechanic Madoka Amano, fiery rival/friend Masamune Kadoya, the diminutive Yu Tendo, & the big lug Benkei Hanawa), but there are also appearances form various other recurring cast, to the point where naming most of them would just be tantamount to simply listing off names, especially since most are no more than glorified cameos. Of them, the only ones of real note would be Tsubasa Otori (who does his own investigation into Helios & his Atlantean cohorts), Dark Nebula's Tobio "Death Capri (Captain Capri)" Oike, Ryutaro Fukami, & Tetsuya Watarigani (who try working with Masamune to defeat Helios, to no avail), & Kyoya Tategami (who literally pulls a Phoenix Ikki & doesn't appear until near the end to help save the day, because he's cool like that). I could mention the likes of Ryo, Ginga's dad, or Hokuto, a literal talking dog, but all they really contribute is plot exposition regarding Atlantis & Orihalcon (and, yes, it's pronounced that way in this movie), and not much else. Obviously, this movie was made for fans of this specific era of Beyblade as it was airing, so I can't really judge it harshly for appealing to that very crowd, but there is something to be said for Fierce Battle sticking to its core cast & nothing more, while Metal Fight vs. The Sun's large overall cast does admittedly feel a little like it's just ticking off boxes; hey, at least the voice actors all got paid for their work.

Yes, that is indeed Helios & Ginga about to launch their beys
while in space, hence the spacesuits. Again, this era just embraced things.

Just as with Fierce Battle, Metal Fight vs. The Sun has the director of the TV series acting as the "General Director", in this case Kunihisa Sugishima (Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters, Speed Grapher), but the main directorial duties actually went to someone else. In this case we have Yoshinori Odaka (B-Daman CrossFire & Fireblast, Azure Striker Gunvolt OVA), who's traditionally a storyboarder & episode director by trade, but overall he does a very good job here from a production standpoint. The animation here by Synergy SP is very well done, and possibly given just the little extra polish over the TV series, and while stuff like the beyblades & Adonis are handled via CG, all of the other special effects (like the various supernatural powers coming from the beys themselves) are all hand drawn & look great; there's even a quick "blink & you'll miss it" cameo from the Driger bey at one point, likely as an Easter egg. As for the script we have Katsumi Hasegawa (Mon Colle Knights, Blue Gender), who had been the head writer for Beyblade anime dating all the way back to G-Revolution,  and while there is definitely a stronger focus on showing actual beyblade battles in this movie (two Ginga vs. Helios matches, Helios vs. Capri's team, Kyoya vs. Bakim, etc.) & having to juggle a much larger cast of characters it still tells a good overall story that gives reason behind the villains' actions, leaves the full reveal until just the right moment after a bunch of hints, and embraces this era's penchant for going all out; truly, you save sending Ginga to outer space for the theaters. As for the musical score, this movie is a massive group effort, as seven different people are listed in the end credits for the music, including both Japanese composers & even two "foreign" composers (David Dean Freeman & Dave Wallace, though Hiroumi Takatsuka's name is written in English). Overall, it's a solid score, focused primarily on orchestral pieces but with the occasional electric guitar at times, but it's not something that I think most would try to hunt down after watching the movie.

However, the song that plays during the end credits, "Spinning the World" by Nao (a.k.a. Kaoru), is right up there Fierce Battle's Japanese themes by being an instantly memorable, fast paced, & addictive song in its own right, and it even temporarily replaced Metal Fight Baku's OP when the show aired around the time the movie ran in theaters in Japan. Finally, the staff even managed to sneak in Goro Taniguchi, director of the likes of Code Geass, Maria the Virgin Witch, & One Piece Film Red, who helped out with storyboarding; this is the only time Taniguchi ever worked on a Beyblade anime.

Finally there's the voice cast, which like the prior movie is mostly carried by its two leads, in this case Ginga & Helios, a.k.a. Aki Kanada (Tokunosuke in Yu-Gu-Oh! Zexal, Shinya Oda in Persona 5) & Tomoaki Maeno (White Blood Cell in Cells at Work!, Kinro in Dr. Stone). Befitting the more over the top style of this era of Beyblade, Kanada's Ginga is very energetic & positive, almost to a single-minded degree, but this movie does give her a few moments to allow Ginga to be more calm & reflective, which is nice. Similarly, Maeno's Helios is full of self-confidant assuredness & some rage, but he also gives the character those needed bits of relatability that keeps him from feeling one-dimensional. Beyond them the other notable cast would be Tessho Genda of Bakim, Emiri Kato at Kenta, Kei Shindo as Madoka, Miyu Irino as Tsubasa, & Satoshi Hino as Kyoya, with Genda naturally playing a fitting villain, while the rest are all obviously used to their recurring roles, by this point. Special credit, though, goes to Yuko Sanpei as Masamune & Kenichi Fujiwara as Tetsuya, as Sanpei plays Masamune to such a fired-up degree that it almost feels like a parody (& the movie does poke fun at that a little), while Tetsuya's "crabby" nature is handled in a very enjoyable way by Fujiwara. Also, we get a rare appearance from Hiro Yuuki as Ryutaro (a character who, likewise, rarely appeared after the first series), as Yuuki more or less went into semi-retirement after 2009, only taking the occasional voice acting gig ever since (mostly for reprisals & video games). The rest of the cast includes the likes of Kaori Nazuka (Yu), Kenta Miyake (Benkei), Akira Ishida (Death Capri), & Marina Inoue (Hikaru), among others.

Make no mistake, as these are two movies made primarily to help shill small toy tops for kids to continue buying & play with, by way of giving those kids new standalone stories starring the cast of the anime that they were also watching at their respective times. By no means will either of these two Beyblade movies go down as forgotten classics of their respective decades (00s & 10s), right up with the those considered some of the all-time greats. That being said, though, neither is a bad time to just wind down & have some fun with stories that fully embrace their concepts & aim to simply deliver some enjoyment, and both fit the respective eras that they each represent. Beyblade the Movie: Fierce Battle follows what was the focus of the Bakuten Shoot anime series at the time by focusing on the history & lore of the Spirit Beasts themselves, reinforcing the bonds they have with their current partners & giving a preview-of-sorts for the next TV series by showcasing a new character who would essentially become the deutoragonist for Beyblade G-Revolution. Meanwhile, Metal Fight Beyblade the Movie vs. The Sun: Sol Blaze, the Scorching Hot Invader is a bit more straightforward by focusing more on telling a standard "heroes vs. villains" story, but still adding in some elements that keep it interesting, not to mention the simple fact that the Metal Saga era itself fully embraced being over-the-top in its execution.

Unfortunately, I highly doubt these two films will ever see official English release, either again for Fierce Battle or for the first time with Metal Fight vs. The Sun. It's not that Hasbro, Takara Tomy, or ADK Emotions would be against allowing people to watch prior eras of Beyblade, as Discotek was allowed to release all three Bakuten Shoot dubs in their entirety on SD-BD a few years ago, while Cinedigm put out all of the Metal Saga dubs (as well as some of the Burst dubs) on DVD, & they're still available via streaming, too. However, the simple fact that Discotek has never license rescued Fierce Battle, or even released the original Japanese versions of the Bakuten Shoot era, likely means that those SD-BDs for Beyblade underperformed, so the chances of the movies getting (re-)released are slim to none now. A bit of a shame, too, as there is a contingent of anime fans who like seeing the original Japanese versions of kids shows like these get official English release, and Fierce Battle is an instance where the dub was actually 100% uncut from the start & can literally be matched to the Japanese footage with little to no real effort required; Metal Fight vs. The Sun would naturally be sub-only, but at least it's a fun little film. In fact, I decided to match Fierce Battle's dub to the original widescreen Japanese DVD myself to show how uncut it was, and you can check it out right now over at the Internet Archive!

Who knows, maybe Nelvana actually would have been all for releasing Fierce Battle as a dual-audio DVD in 2005, since they were already sending FUNimation Japanese masters for those two dual-audio G-Revolution DVDs, but it was Miramax that had no interest in going that far; this was meant to be similar to the Pokémon movies on DVD, after all.

Beyblade the Movie: Fierce Battle © 2002 Project Beyblade the Movie (d-rights, Shogakukan, Takara, Yomiko Advertising, Toho, Broccoli)

Gekijouban Metal Fight Beyblade VS Taiyou: Shakunetsu no Shinryakusha Sol Blaze © 2010 Takafumi Adachi・Metal Fight Beyblade the Movie Production Committee (d-rights, Shogakukan, Takara Tomy, Hudson, Toho, TV Tokyo, Shogakukan Shueisha Productions, AT-X)