There’s an official Beyblade Tiktok account now, and fans can’t get enough of the team’s quirky, Yakuza-style videos. Twitter user mistmoonblue posted one of the videos, showing a man walking in an exaggerated fashion down the street to challenge someone to a Beyblade duel, Pokemon style.
The wide stance, hunched shoulders, and dramatic run, alongside the “running in place when colliding with objects” shtick instantly reminded most of the video’s viewers of RGG’s Yakuza series. The similarities intensify when our blade hero finds his opponent, who gets a very Yakuza-style intro scene and even a special name: the Master Blader.
“Oh my god Beyblade is so back,” one commenter said. “I’m going to install this app again just for seeing these types of videos.”
Yakuza X beyblade sidequest https://t.co/eAN25ANsGp
— Tom (@RX94Tom) July 28, 2023
now this is the kind of human NPC content I'll watch. 😂 the running is SO on point. https://t.co/JU3ekWh5ve
— Joey Thurmond (@saveasdoc) July 28, 2023
“People don’t want AI,” another commenter said. “People want people pretending to act like 90s RPG charas.”
“This is the most I’ve seen beyblade be pushed in years I think it’s kinda hype,” another said.
That may be true for most of the world, where the series might have fallen from the height of its popularity in the mid-00s, but the latest round of physical Beyblades launched in Japan earlier in July 2023 and was quickly sold out nearly everywhere.
Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF