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drudeger · 9 months

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Beyblade Burst Quadstrike Review

(spoiler warning for the entire show)

ok so let's talk quadstrike.

I think we can all acknowledge the low expectations we had for a hasbro produced season of the anime, and while the season definitely delivered on those expectations in some aspects, it also managed to surprise me with its quality in others.

Animation

let's start with the animation. the quality of the animation ranged from abysmal to passable for a large majority of the season, with the only really good animation being reused from previous seasons. that being said, in a couple of episodes, including the first and last, it was actually pretty good. overall, I'd say the quality was most comparable to that of the sixth season with only some episodes ever managing to surpass or dip below that.

Voice Acting

the voice work was great overall. the returning cast from quaddrive maintained a level of voice acting quality on par with that season, which is to say, pretty damn good and it’s a similar story for the returning cast from before quaddrive. you might expect the part of the cast returning from a 2+ year hiatus from their previous roles to need to readjust and settle back into performing their characters, but honestly most of them seemed perfectly comfortable jumping back into it with the only exceptions being xander and kit. both character voices definitely feel just slightly rusty, but considering the massive ~4 year real life time gap, you really can’t blame them and honestly they do a great job getting mostly settled back into their roles pretty quickly.

when it comes to the casting decisions made for quadstrike specifically, kieran regan was a great choice to portray a more grown-up and mature ken and he absolutely nailed the role. keru and besu’s voices were also just right, sounding like characters that are voiced by ken but are still distinct-sounding from him, and the quality of all three performances speaks to kieran’s skill.

anjali kunapaneni was practically perfect as pri, giving her a full voice that matches her character but doesn’t overdo it with shoutiness despite pri’s boisterous personality, balancing it out to accentuate the more cool outward appearance she tries to impress upon other bladers. they really bring a level of depth and nuance to their performance that gives pri a very real and unique voice and it was easily the best voice performance in the season.

darren delfin’s performance as pax is definitely a close second and his ability to portray character depth shows through a lot here with the subtle differences in tone when pax is being disingenuous (e.g. when he pretends to be happy about pri making friends) and when he genuinely wants to show appreciation and admiration (e.g. when he talks about his admiration for red eye.) honestly, I’d be lying if I said I’d caught any of this on first watch. it’s just not the sort of depth I believed I had any reason to look out for. the only reason I say it was the second best performance and not the first is because the accent feels awkward and it doesn’t sound quite right, an unfortunately important skill gap when you’re asked to voice a character with a foreign accent.

Plot

the plot itself was. ok. plot points were arranged in a sensible enough order and it almost never managed to feel too forced. except for the part where pax just calls aiga up on his phone and THAT'S how they decided to have pax challenge aiga? and absolutely nobody questions how pax got his number?? I literally laughed out loud when that happened like bro what??? 😭😭 also that one part in the finale where we get a somewhat dramatic shot with some random fucking kid and get absolutely zero explanation????? aside from these (admittedly incredibly weird) oddities, the plot was ultimately unengaging but passable. there really just isn't a lot to say about it due to its overall lack of substance.

Story

but if you asked me to describe what quadstrike is actually about — its story — I'd tell you it's a story about a bunch of kids running around with highly marketable toys. which sounds comically cynical but, despite its best efforts, quadstrike struggles to be much more than that. although that isn’t to say I wasn’t pleasantly surprised by the unexpected amount of depth in some aspects of the writing.

Themes

the season has two themes, one of which is executed decently but neither being given the time or care needed to feel nearly as impactful as they could have.

Identity

the most prominent and complete of the themes is that of identity, which is explored through the season's secondary (arguably primary) protagonist, pri forsythe/quadra. the season introduces the foundations for this theme when quadra loses to drum in the abyssal tournament after taking off her mask. pax tells pri to keep her mask on in battle because it will increase her elemental power and make her strong and pri begins questioning if he's right. it was also revealed in a flashback that pax made the mask and when pri wears it, pax says she assumes an entirely different persona and becomes quadra. this poses to pri as well as the audience three questions: does pax know what’s best and should pri therefore listen to his instructions, allowing him to control what decisions she makes? are pri and qudra the same or different? if “becoming quadra” makes her stronger, should she be ok with being her when she battles?

the first question takes a backseat for a bit while the second and third questions are explored, although we see it reiterated as pri continues to battle without the mask.

we are introduced to one position for the last two questions when, during a flashback, pax says that pri becomes a different blader entirely when she assumes the identity of quadra during battle. the other position is introduced when pri asserts that it shouldn’t matter if she doesn't wear the mask because it’s still her battling regardless. the second position is built upon when ken’s mom explains to pri that keru and besu are a part of ken’s identity and pri restates the question later that night, asking herself if she’s pri or quadra. after she loses to ken, he gives her some advice — that quadra is her too. then, after her first loss to xander where she doesn’t wear the mask, pri finds a letter to her from ken that says "it doesn’t matter if the mask makes you stronger. you’re you with or without it, it doesn’t define you,” explicitly stating the answer to both questions. with all of this in mind, pri decides she’ll wear the mask for her rematch with xander and from now on will wear it in battle at her own discretion. so at this point in the story, the last two questions have been answered.

having pri’s decision be one that retains her agency is the strongest choice they could have made, but having ken spell out the answer for her, especially not even an episode after he gives her his advice, just feels bad, and it ends up feeling unearned since she’s given such little time to actually struggle with the question and deliberate on his advice or develop as a character before coming to the conclusion she does.

(tw: this section contains discussions of emotional manipulation and generally toxic behavior from a caretaker)

but that’s only two of three questions and now that the last two questions have been answered, we finally get to see the first question being explored — does pax know what’s best and should pri therefore listen to his instructions, allowing him to control what decisions she makes? during the battle camp, we learn that pax was forced to quit blading due to an injury and it was his dream to become a legend like valt. this, combined with previously revealed information as well as pax’s constant use of phrases like “our goal” and “our dream,” makes it clear that pri partially accepts the role of quadra for pax and this sets up another part to the first question: is it really ok that pri/quadra center her identity around a dream that isn’t completely her own? while she does have her own reasoning for wanting to battle, she wants to help pax in his goal to create the ultimate elemental bey which was the entire point of him making and having her use pandora, the mask and the quadra persona in the first place. it’s a driving force behind the question, as we see pri struggling between her want to do things her way and her want to make her brother happy and we constantly see them both grappling with the idea that if pax is happy, pri should be happy too because they're convinced that this is what they both want.

as the story continues, pax begins pushing even harder for pri to do things the way he wants. near the start of the battle camp, quadra uses lightning pandora when pax wants her to use tidal pandora. pax asks why and intuits it’s because of her loss to xander. he says that it doesn’t matter if she loses, everything is going according to “their” plan, and pri lashes out from her frustration that he won’t explain what the plan actually is and he snaps, yelling at her that she doesn’t need to understand everything going on and tells her to just do as he says and she hesitates for a moment before agreeing.

later, pax tries to get wakiya to withdraw pri from the tag-team tournament because he doesn’t like the possibility of bell influencing her. jiji gets pax to allow pri to continue participating in the tournament by showing how happy pri and bell are to be battling and says there’s no doubt the two will help make each other stronger. and while pax gives in, knowing he’d only come off as unreasonable had he protested further, it’s clear pax isn’t happy he wasn’t able to maintain full control of the conversation and therefore make the decision for pri. this scene is meant to show how pax thinks he knows what's best for pri and wants to convince not only pri but the people around her of that too.

later, during the tag-team tournament, pax convinces bell to try and win the next match all by himself and he loses the match for both himself and quadra. pri, having deduced that pax said something to provoke bell, confronts pax and he says pandora should be battling on its own and the tournament is a waste of time. this upsets pri greatly and she runs from him. this scene is meant to establish pri beginning to realize pax might not have her best interests in mind.

then, aiga shows up to hell’s gate and challenges pri and bell to a 2-on-1 battle, and if they win he’ll battle them both individually. before she makes a decision, she calls pax and he says she doesn’t have to accept any team battles she’s challenged to, but she retorts that aiga will battle her individually anyway if she and bell can win. pax, not-so-kindly, tells pri to do what she wants before hanging up. this is actually a common tactic of highly controlling and manipulative people where they basically say “you don’t need me, so do whatever and see what happens when I’m not there to tell you what to do,” usually under the guise of wanting what’s best for the victim so when something does go wrong, the victim feels obligated to go back to them. she battles aiga with bell and without her mask and they end up losing. everything pax has done so far has been to convince pri to give up her individuality for the sake of achieving “their” goal, and quadra losing this battle is exactly what pax wanted to happen so she’d feel obligated to listen to him.

after the first couple of rounds in the champion challenge tournament and the first individual battle is announced as kit vs quadra, pax confronts pri and tells her she must win against aiga and that everything will work out if she just listens to him and she once again agrees. during the match, wakiya and valt explain to aiga pax’s situation and valt posits that pri took up pandora and the identity of quadra to carry on pax’s dream of becoming a legend. aiga restates the thematic question, asking if that’s what quadra wants and explains that he couldn’t ever see himself blading for the sake of someone else’s dream. after quadra loses, pax confronts her and tells her pandora should have won and that the reason they lost was because quadra chose a flawed strategy. aiga goes out of his way to defy pax and tells quadra her strategy was perfect. he declares pax has no say in the matter because it wasn’t his battle to begin with, which of course offends pax. then later, quadra loses to valt, frustrating pax even further and cementing pax’s growing belief that pri does not have what it takes to achieve his goals as long as she has any say in what she does.

later, valt gets a call from shu about the ruins in england and valt plans to leave to see what’s going on. pri talks to pax, saying she knows he’s leaving for england too. she asserts that it has nothing to do with them or their plan but pax responds saying that he’ll be the one to decide that, a clear declaration to pri that he’s the one who knows what’s right. he goes on to tell her that there isn’t any reason pandora should lose to belial and that if she loses, the only explanation is that she’s the problem. pax then admits he doesn’t believe in pri and challenges her to prove to him that he should. while at the ruins, pax declares that “his” pandora is the only bey capable of reaching the highest level of elemental power and pri hopes he meant to say that pandora was both of theirs, again giving pri more reason to doubt pax. aiga approaches pri and tells her she’s her own person and she should do things the way she wants to and reassures her that pandora is her’s as well.

the next day, it’s announced that quadra and bell will battle to determine who will face kit in the finals. pax tells pri to use twister break against bell but pri says bell knows twister break because of how much they used it in the tag-team tournament. pax says it’s the perfect chance to master twister break so she can beat aiga and valt and that bell shouldn’t be of any concern. he reminds her that it’s “their” dream to create the ultimate bey and then reassures her that pandora is both of theirs. for the first two rounds of the battle, she listens to pax but ends up hesitating before the third round, causing pax to insult her and say that if it were him battling, he would have won. this causes quadra to break from pax's plan and battle her own way and while she ends up losing, she finds herself happy in spite of the outcome. at the end of the episode, pax confronts pri demanding she tell him why she broke from his plan when she would have won if she hadn’t. she finally asserts to pax that, even if he would have won, it doesn’t matter because she isn’t him, she is herself — pri and quadra. pax demands pri give back pandora, but before he can take it, bell stops him. pri then proclaims that she’s been the one making pandora stronger, not him, so pandora belongs to her.

(end trigger warning)

and so that’s a wrap on the first question and subsequently pri’s arc as a whole. this particular exploration of the theme was good. it wasn’t nearly as deep as it could have been and the last two questions should have been far more substantial parts of pri’s arc as they have just as much bearing on the outcome of the first question as all of the things in the story that seem more directly related to it. as stated before, it’s frustrating that the last two questions get answered so quickly and require so little struggle or introspection for pri to find the right conclusion for herself, but the conclusions she comes to are those that would be rewarding and feel great if they’d actually allowed pri to earn them. the third question was obviously the most prominent with a very decent build up, though there could have been far more emphasis placed on pri’s struggle with it. we know how much she cares for pax and wants to make him happy and we know she knows to do that she needs to do what he wants, but we also know how much pride she takes in being able to do things her own way and seeing her grappling with the two conflicting motivations is engaging and impactful, but we just don’t get enough of it.

with all this being said, we aren’t quite done with the theme of identity as it is also explored a bit with pax, which makes sense considering he’s as important as he is to pri’s arc dealing with the theme to begin with.

(tw: this section contains brief mentions of emotional manipulation and generally toxic behavior from a caretaker as well as mentions of an ableist trope)

the exploration of the theme of identity through pax is shown with how he projects his identity onto pri. after it’s revealed his injury barred him from blading any longer, we see in flashbacks how devastating it is to him as it was his dream to become a legendary blader like valt and shu and pri sees this too. it’s shown to us how close they are, and that beyblade has helped them bond and so the previously presented information that pax made pandora, the mask and the quadra identity for pri and the constant use of phrases like “our dream” makes it clear that pax has to some degree imparted parts of his identity onto pri so she can carry out his dream and she accepts it because she cares for him. as the story continues, it becomes even more clear how he takes advantage of this part of pri, constantly guilt-tripping her into listening to him by reminding her that this is “their” dream until it culminates in her snapping and asserting her own identity to his face. pax is a character who goes through a devastating loss, becoming disabled which forces him to give up on something massively important to him, something entwined with his sense of self and identity. losing something like that would make anybody feel completely lost, and with pax the grief results in him pushing that part of himself onto pri so he can live vicariously through her. the logical conclusion would then be to have part of his arc be about him finding a new sense of identity, one that doesn’t require pri to subjugate herself to him, but they don’t give him that at all. in the end, pax doesn’t need to do any sort of introspection or search for a new sense of identity because he is simply cured of his disability and he doesn’t have to face any consequences for how he treated pri.

(end trigger warning)

Grief

and that brings us to the second theme of quadstrike — grief. this theme is primarily explored through the main antagonist, pax forsythe, although pri has some part of it as well.

as stated before, it’s revealed pax goes through a devastating loss after his injury forces him give up on blading and his dreams and the loss causes him an immense amount of grief. throughout the season, we’re shown through flashbacks how he feels lost without this part of himself and then it’s revealed he finds out about elemental power. he is in denial that his dream is over and he sees elemental power as a means to give pri the power needed to carry on his dream and he becomes obsessed with it and achieving those goals vicariously through her. it also explains his admiration for shu while he was red eye, a time in shu’s life where he had obsessed over power so he could achieve the dreams he had been unable to previously.

later on, after he decides he has no need for pri any longer, he creates a new bey, some sort of mechanical brace for his injured arm, and a mask. the mask actually conceals the vision on his right side, making it so he can’t see his injured arm and during the lodestar battle tournament, shu explains to pri that when pax sees his injured arm, it causes him emotional pain, compounding how much his grief has affected him and showing the extent of his denial.

(tw: this paragraph contains a brief mention of an ableist trope)

and with all of this in mind, you’d think pax’s arc should have been about him learning to accept his disability and the things it prevents him from doing, beginning a long journey of healing, but that isn’t what happens (and, to be clear, that journey of healing wouldn’t have had to have happened during the show. sometimes the end to an arc marks the beginning of another that’s implied to happen after the end of the show, and arcs that end like this can be incredibly powerful). again, he doesn’t have to accept his loss and grief, he is simply cured of his disability. aside from the gross implications of this that I will get into later, it’s just such an awful way to end an arc. no introspection, no emotional compromise, no real consequences for his actions. he’s just handed a conclusion and the conclusion is everything he wants it to be so they can force in a “beyblade is fun, buy our products please” message instead. and it doesn’t end there.

(end trigger warning)

with pri, we're shown how she sees pax grieving for this loss and how it affects their relationship. they’re no longer able to bond through beyblade the way they were able to before and pax can no longer find happiness and meaning through beyblade in the way he wants, which of course hurts pri. she cares for him and so she does what she genuinely believes will help him heal, taking up the identity of quadra and his goal to create the ultimate elemental bey and become a legendary blader for him. through her, we get to see the way grief impacts the people around the grieving person as well.

we know she eventually breaks away from his control, or at least that’s how it starts out. of course after what happens between pri and pax, pri would be going through grief herself. she denies to herself that pax just doesn’t care about her now that she’s asserted her own identity and this could have been taken in several interesting directions, but they simply go for the worst option imaginable. they have her continue to orbit around pax, every decision she makes from this point forward being for him, completely undermining her original arc and practically abandoning this second one. there is no introspection or closure and the only compromise is them compromising her entire character arc.

quadstrike starts out so strong with this theme so I have genuinely no idea how they ended up fucking it up so unbelievably badly. and the mishandling of themes isn’t the only reason quadstrike’s story feels like it lacks much substance.

Characters

quadstrike’s use of its characters for its story manages to be impressively refreshing at times, disappointingly safe and boring at others, and infuriatingly incompetent at its worst.

first, let’s talk about the secondary characters. this part of the cast doesn't really have anything all too interesting going on, which is understandable. they’re there for the purpose of serving the plot and the main characters’ narratives and they fulfill those roles perfectly competently. that doesn’t mean they couldn’t have been more interesting, but what we got wasn’t bad. a lot of the issues of shallow character-writing with most of the returning characters are things that are rooted in characterization from past seasons, and at this point you can’t really change that without either dedicating way too much time to characters that just aren’t meant to be all that important in this season or completely retconning parts of those prior seasons. if this season had been 51 episodes, maybe we could have gotten some of the former as well as more time to flesh out other parts of the plot and story, but that just wasn’t ever going to be in the cards for quadstrike.

Bell

now let’s get into the protagonists. between bell and pri, bell is very clearly the weaker character and it’s not a close competition. while pri’s arc is written to develop a theme as well as to explore her as a character, bell isn’t given an arc at all. well, ok, he gets an “arc” where the conclusion is just for him to upgrade his beyblade again so hasbro has more product to sell and it’s frustrating because they get so close to doing something actually interesting with his character.

throughout the season, bell loses. a lot. yes, he wins a lot too and a large portion of them are not deserved, but he actually does lose more than he wins. in episode 12 in particular, he’s provoked by pax to try and win the tag team battle with pri against hikaru and hyuga by himself. being an egotistical 10 year old, he falls for it and ends up losing the match for himself and quadra. while this moment is mostly used to further pri and pax’s story, bell is shown to be massively affected by this loss, at least at first. but of course, he couldn’t care less after the next episode begins. then, after bell loses the title match against aiga, he’s shown once again to feel incredibly upset and frustrated with the loss, but he simply gets over it immediately when he decides the solution is to evolve belial. and before any of this, bell loses to several other opponents as well, but only ever seems to be shaken by it a minimal amount if at all.

the reason I bring any of this up is because I think it’s such a wasted opportunity. bell loses so much and if they’d leaned harder into bell’s frustration with losing so many battles (and honestly if they’d had him lose more, like his final battle against ken and/or his second solo battle with hyuga) then they could’ve had an actual arc for him. like, have him get super upset and angry with himself that he keeps losing and maybe have him push too hard and end up breaking belial. that’d even give them an excuse to have him evolve belial. yes it would be a very similar arc to aiga in cho-z but at least it’d be SOMETHING. obviously this is only a single idea for the direction they could’ve taken and I have absolutely zero doubt any of you in the audience could come up with something more interesting than what ended up happening in the show.

that aside, bell was mostly just his usual over-confident and obnoxious 10-year old self committing acts of sillay mischief (which to many of you might be a negative but I love him and I like it when he’s obnoxious so this was a win for me<3).

Pri

on the other hand, pri was a very strong character for the vast majority of the show and was easily the highlight of the entire season. when it comes to her characterization, I found her to be very enjoyable. she’s kind and incredibly passionate and boisterous and playful but she tries to put on a cooler outward appearance in front of other bladers which she often fails at because of her hot-headed and stubborn nature. she’s caring but prideful which often ends up causing conflict between her and pax since she cares about making her brother happy by doing what he wants but she can’t help but disobey at times because she takes pride in doing things her way. her cocky demeanor in the beginning is par for the course with burst characters, but it becoming more and more a mask (haha, get it) for her decreasing self-confidence as the story went on was a level of depth I hadn’t expected to see in a new burst character at this point in the series. because of all of this, her dynamics with other characters, especially bell, are so much fun and it was an absolute joy to see her relationships with the rest of the cast and it was always fun to see her getting silly with it.

unlike bell, she was written with an arc in mind and the arc in question was pretty good for the majority of the show’s runtime. as stated previously, it wasn’t nearly as deep as it could have been but by burst standards, it was a massive breath of fresh air. seeing pri make decisions that retained her agency felt good and the moment when she stood up to pax and asserted her own identity was great.

so yeah, it sucks how they then managed to drop the ball as hard as they did right at the finish line. having pri be in denial about pax’s behavior towards her is fine, but they never give her the moment of realization she deserves. she never leaves him despite what he’s done and every decision she makes after standing up to him continues to be for him, which is such a monumental moon-jump backwards from the incredibly strong writing they’d done for her before. her identity once again becomes centered around pax and it is infuriating to watch play out, like literally what was the point of her asserting her own identity if this was what was going to happen afterwards. it’s like they just decided to completely drop everything interesting about her after her moment in the spotlight (a very familiar problem they seem to have with every strong girl character in this series hmmmmmmmm 🤔.)

Pax

(tw: this section contains discussion of an ableist trope)

and pax. oh boy what to say about pax. well, first and foremost his arc started out as another one of the best in the season. which isn’t really saying that much when there’s only two other arcs and one of those arcs concludes with the character just making more beyblade products, but still. but then they managed to blow it so fucking hard at the end that it easily became the worst of the three.

the setup for his arc centering around his grief and lost sense of identity was good, and the build-up throughout the season was even better. his motivations were understandable, but it became increasingly clear just how unhealthy his obsession with holding onto his dream was, not just for himself, but for pri especially. you want him to accept his disability and what it prevents him from doing so he can finally heal and find something else to live for and you really want him to see that what he’s doing is wrong and for him to apologize to pri. so why does none of this happen and instead he just has his disability cured.

ok, let me make something super clear here. this is a disgustingly and infuriatingly ableist conclusion to a disabled character's arc. pax’s entire arc centers around how he has to give up on his dream because of his disability, a common reality for disabled people in real life. it is an absolutely devastating thing to go through, but something disabled people stress is the importance of coming to terms with their disability so they can find some semblance of peace and continue living their lives to the best of their ability. there is no cure for disability in real life and every attempt to do so has resulted in failure at best and outright eugenics and genocide at worst, and so disabled people have made it clear that the “cured disability” narrative commonly seen in fantasy and sci-fi settings is a harmful trope. in some stories, it’s used as a “reward” for the hero, while in others it’s used as a copout so the creators don’t have to deal with having a disabled character or so the previously disabled character can have a happy ending. curing their disability is used as a conclusion to an arc because able-bodied writers cannot for the life of them imagine a character living a happy life with a disability and that’s very much what it’s used for here. from the beginning, I was hoping so so much that they weren’t going to do this, and I’d gotten my hopes up because of their surprisingly deep and empathetic handling of pri and pax’s characters for most of the season, but they went for the easy option resulting in an insulting and vile conclusion to an otherwise great arc.

(end trigger warning)

pax is, however, a great antagonist. as obvious as it may be to the audience, in the story it starts out pretty ambiguous what exactly his role is meant to be in the season, but as the season goes on, his mask begins to slip and his sinister personality becomes more apparent. this is actually a somewhat common trope with antagonists in the burst series, but pax stands out due to the fact that he isn’t even a blader until the last few episodes in the season. most of his time is spent as a coach to pri, using manipulation as his main weapon rather than a beyblade. again, not necessarily completely unique to him but it feels more present and impactful in this season due to his deep history and close ties to one of the main protagonists.

let me elaborate a bit: with drum and gwyn, the slow reveal of gwyn’s manipulation doesn’t feel as significant because, throughout the season, drum isn’t only naive to gwyn’s ulterior motives, but to literally every stranger he meets. we know he isn’t going to see it until it’s too late and we know at the end he’s going to win gwyn over with the power of friendship and beyblades. additionally, he has no previous relationship with gwyn either, so there's no reason to be invested or feel impacted when it happens.

with pri and pax, however, we see that they have a close familial relationship. pri’s trust in pax isn’t just her being naive by nature, it’s because she cares for him and has little reason to do otherwise. yes, she disobeys him early on, but it’s not out of a sense of distrust for him, but because of her own pride. and it’s not that pax just straight up doesn’t care about pri at all, he has thoroughly convinced himself that what he wants is what pri wants too. so as the story unfolds and pax’s selfish, controlling, and manipulative behavior comes through, it has a far more obvious impact on pri and therefore the audience too, and it creates a stronger reason to be invested in the developing story around their relationship.

and speaking of that story, it is easily one of the most interesting aspects of the entire season. pax’s descent and the slowburn reveal that he’s only interested in his own goals and happiness once pri has made it clear she doesn’t want exactly what pax does is paced so well and feels genuinely devastating. which makes it even more frustrating when they fuck it up right at the end. again. one part of this has to do with what I discussed about pri’s arc before. the fact they never give her a moment of realization means the break in their relationship is completely one-sided, which makes any realization pax has about what he’s done/is doing way less impactful. and then the fact he doesn’t even really have that realization, but instead realizes that “beyblade is fun,” a conclusion to an arc that pax never has, is just. what. and then on top of that, the fact he realizes this because of bell instead of pri??? there’s no real closure between them, everything is just fixed all of a sudden at the end. it just feels awful and it makes it clear that the only reason they never had pri leave pax was so they could minimize pri’s writing at the end and have bell fix everything and it is, once again, rage-inducing to watch.

and all of this — quadstrike’s unwillingness to dig deeper into its themes, its baffling mishandling of said themes and its characters, and insistence on derailing every interesting part of its story for a “beyblade is fun, please buy our products” message at the end (a message they could have easily ended with without throwing out every character arc and theme they’d established) — is why quadstrike struggles to be anything more than an advertisement. it’s a story about kids running around playing with highly marketable toys that seems to desperately want to be about a pair of siblings grappling with grief and their own identities after having experienced loss, but can’t be that because the toys need to get advertised.

Conclusion

so yeah. I enjoyed it. ok I know after how harsh I’ve been, you might be a bit confused. let me be clear: I don’t “like” quadstrike. in fact, I fucking hate it. I hate its unwillingness to defy its status as “just a children’s toy anime,” I hate what it represents as a symbol of the compromise and degradation of story-telling as an artform and art as a form of story-telling for the sake of corporate marketing, I hate how it comes so. SO close. to being something more than what it was expected to be just to fall short right at the end. I hate it!

but I also can’t help but love it. I love this series. I love the characters and their stories. I love the ridiculous and stupid shit that happens to and because of them. I love their relationships and dynamics with each other. it’s all so much fun and they all mean a lot to me, which is why I’m so hard on the burst series whenever it fucks it up. because I see so much potential in what’s here and seeing it be wasted constantly, over and over again, hurts. I know beyblade is a kid’s show and none of this is to say that it can't just be dumb fun, but the problem is when it clearly wants to do something more but ends up compromising out of fear, and I can recognize the parts of it that don’t treat its audience like idiots whose sole purpose is to be marketed to and I just wish it would wholeheartedly embrace that part of itself. I want kids to see stories about trauma, identity, grief, communication, etc. because these are real world things that kids are dealing with and are going to deal with for the rest of their lives and they deserve quality stories and art that teach them about these human things and about being human just as much as anyone else. so that's why I ask: why can’t it be that. when it constantly comes so close, why can't it just hit the mark once and be something more than a marketing trick. just once, why can't it be a piece of art instead of a piece of advertising.

with all that said, if I ever decide to do a rewatch of the burst series, you can be sure I'll only be watching quadstrike through episode 19 and then making up the rest in my head, and if you're wanting to watch the season too I'd suggest you do the same.

#beyblade burst #beyblade burst quadstrike #long post #goodeger #spam

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