Welcome to the Fantasy Zone
This Zone is dedicated to the lesser known elements of anime hosted by the cast of Victory Script.
What weapon is the best?
Who will win in this Death Battle?
Is this costume practical?
You name it, it's all covered here in the Fantasy Zone!
This is an interesting one because I'm not doing individual characters only the Beyblade teams, this is marked on their ability as a team along with their personality, performance and general presence.
For the record I'm sticking with the original Beyblade era.
Dark Bladers
Start with the dead weight filler villains Dark Bladers who are nothing more than homages to movie monsters get completely overshadowed by the Majestics.
King and Queen
The duo arrived among a very crowded set of villains and while their position as part hunters does give them more of a purpose than cheaters or taking over the world, they really didn't have much weight to them.
Team Psykick
They lack originality being just cyber clones of the four but I give some credit that the bladers themselves are much better in personality compared to other low level villains especially Salima.
Team Zagart
They sort of came in at the end as an invincible force led by one of the most angsty villains in Beyblade history, joined by the most bland, a bad way to end Season 2.
Majestics
I think they wasted a perfectly good team here as it's incredible to see anyone take on the Bladebreakers in some of the best battles the series has to offer yet they were snubbed in G Revolution in favour of the next team.
Barthez Battalion
I was too harsh on them to begin with as their ordeal mirrors a number of real world sports teams, I'm still mad that they did the Majestics dirty but not as much as I used to be.
F-Dynasty
For the short time they appear, I really enjoyed this sibling pair, they easily win out in style, personality and design.
BEGA Justice 5
As the final villains they created the best Beyblade battles of the whole franchise with Garland being the only let down. Brooklyn then took Beyblade to some very dark places with his match against Kai being the magnum opus of the franchise.
Saint Shields
Their place in the canon is weird as their job is essentially protect the main four bit beasts but their method of achieving such a feat is spent being the main villains and considering the strength of Ozuma I was sad to not see him be Tyson's final match in V-Force.
Demolition Boys/Blitzkrieg Boys
The final villains of season 1 and full of edgelord potential with Tala and Bryan being particular favourites, even when they aren't villains they have the edgelord attitude that makes them a joy to watch.
All Starz
It's easy to write off All Starz as a cheesy sports team but that changed when Rick Anderson enters the team where they essentially have to win back respect as Rick is a poor sportsman leading to Kai's most defining moment where he silences a crowd for booing the All Starz, their arc is among the most interesting.
White Tigers
A team initially pissed at Ray for leaving, then becoming a strange hit or miss performing team with some unexpected wins along with some equally bizarre drops in personality for Lee mostly.
Bladebreakers/BBA Revolution
When it comes to G Revolution it becomes very apparent that Tyson really doesn't know how to keep the team together as the other members leaving is a sign that they don't hold his leadership in high enough regard to stay that way and this isn't the first time. When it comes down to it, Bladebreakers are more a team of individuals that only unite for a common enemy but will split any chance that the others can claim Tyson's world title.
Then as BBA Revolution, it's just a sad arc of Tyson being a colossal prick.
Dark Bladers: 3.2/10
King and Queen: 4.7/10
Team Psykick: 6.3/10
Team Zagart: 1.3/10
Majestics: 6.9/10
Barthez Battalion: 7.1/10
F-Dynasty: 9.0/10
BEGA Justice 5: 8.9/10
Saint Shields: 8.6/10
Demolition/Blitzkrieg Boys: 9.3/10
All Starz: 8.5/10
White Tigers: 7.5/10
Bladebreakers/BBA Revolution: 7.1/10
This season is the very definition of okay.
Yui carries the tried and tested formula of most pink Precure, that is not much is different compared to other Pink Precure that don't stand out, her growing up arc is pretty standard Precure as well.
Kokone is less lonely rich girl and more awkward lonely rich girl, she doesn't fall for too many tropes and her family are alot more caring than most.
Ran is a breath of fresh air and competes with Yui in personality, she actually has a goal and a decent story arc.
Amane started as a villain but very quickly switched sides, as to why she was even with the villains to begin with is never fully explained.
Yui Nagomi - Cure Precious - 6.8/10
Kokone Fuwa - Cure Spicy - 6.9/10
Ran Hanamichi - Cure Yum-Yum - 7.8/10
Amane Kasai - Cure Finale - 6.8/10
Best Dressed Award - Cure Finale
Most Hot Takes that just say a particular anime is bad without context I won't cover but will do slight variations on some select Takes.
"Dragonballz is Addictive"
Yes, it is, despite its issues, it has the same kind of popularity and story telling as Pro Wrestling which rarely falls out of favour even if you don't watch it, something about high octane fighting always gets me to come back.
"JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Is Overrated By Fans"
That's a bold statement.
Real talk, it's very much yes and no, I personally found it to be okay, so in a sense yes it's overrated but it's so unique in it's design that it's impossible to imitate so the hype is justified.
"No Game No Life Has No Redeeming Qualities"
Great music, unique art style, clever writing and fun characters are all redeeming qualities but it is aging poorly and it's not the obvious little sister character, it's actually because it's very much unfinished for a franchise with such a large world to play with.
"The Fate Franchise Is Mediocre At Best"
I was going to ignore this but I actually agree with the Hot Take, other than Carnival Phantasm, the Fate series is nothing more than a franchise of well drawn characters better suited for hentai.
"With all of the diversity and inclusiveness, gaming is better than ever"
A video game Hot Take to finish, again it's a yes and no, gaming is gender neutral as an activity so having a selection of games that cater to everyone is a win win scenario for everyone involved but then there are those who miss the point entirely and severely limit themselves to a much smaller player count because they think about winning points from the diversity crowd before making a game work first, Saints Row reboot being the best example of this, there's also the same issue as the TV and movie industry of telling instead of showing.
Welcome back to the show that looks at some Hot Takes and see where I stand on them.
"Bleach gets too much hate"
This take is a bit dated as Bleach was out of the spotlight for quite some time, in fact the idea that we have anime fans now who haven't seen the first Bleach anime is plausible while old fans don't really care anymore; back in Bleach's prime it was a narrative mess and the hate was mostly justified but it wasn't as overhated as Naruto was.
"I'm getting tired of 12 episode slice of life anime"
I'm probably more sick of the 12 episode seasonal format rather than any genre specifically, there are way too many mediocre anime that out stay their welcome by episode 6 but it's not usually the Slice of Life ones that fail.
"The anime industry overuses fan service"
Funny how most people when they bring this up never mention Free when it's more fan service than quite a high number of tamer shows.
Real talk, fan service shows have been more clever in recent years in how they flaunt the goods, normally using the one gender rule to avoid any pitfalls of being sexist, Keijo and Free popularised that, it's not gone completely and the 00s were particularly bad for fan service, it really isn't as big as it used to be, in fact the audience for it are all Gacha gamers now.
"The longer the title the more likely the anime is going to be bad"
I don't think the length of the title has anything to do with quality, but having titles that literally tell you the plot of the show is off putting, so I can see the grievance in that.
"The anime industry wouldn't be where it is today without 4Kids Entertainment"
Bull shit! 4Kids were fortunate as they were the ones who had licensed Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh for the States but they mishandled both properties and were left bankrupt as a result. The western side owes more to Akira for taking a chance on the States and succeeding followed by ADVFilms and Central Park Media taking a risk on other early anime. If we include Japan, Osamu Tezuka, Go Nagai, Yoshiyuki Tomino and Monkey Punch were the true Elite Four of anime that made modern anime what it is.
Considering I'm taking alot of these takes from today's fans the well will dry up quick so if you got a few Hot Takes of your own, I shall give you my two cents.
"Misty's still the best Pokemon girl"
That's a funny way of spelling Dawn. Dawn is the only female character in Pokemon history to have equal billing with Ash and the only former female companion to actually turn up in person to his Championship match, Misty was memorable but has very limited appeal.
"Gundam Wing is the best Gundam"
Even Heero thinks your statement is a load of bull.
Real talk, there is no definitive best Gundam series as each series brings something to the table that it's contemporaries don't have, looking at the latest series Witch from Mercury has Utena vibes for instance, anyone who does name a best Gundam series is likely to have only seen that Gundam series, another issue the franchise has, is that it's very difficult to like more than one Gundam series because of how wildly different the content can be each series.
"Goku is not a good character"
I've seen this alot, in fact it's the most common hot take next to the argument on fan service and subs vs dubs, don't think we'll be seeing the last of it anytime soon. Goku's status is usually helped by the fact that funimation made him act more heroic but he's still raised in the boonies and taught martial arts by a known pervert and it's pretty obvious when Toriyama has more input as his sense of humour is utterly juvenile, I can see where the argument is coming from, at the same time like the grandmother that voices him in Japan, it's a familiar face that reassures you that the world is okay, not every hero is written to be perfect but can still be a symbol of peace.
"Modern Isekai is the worst anime genre ever created"
It's not, you're just sick of the over saturation of the genre in recent years, the actual worst genre is surreal comedy, if you don't believe me, watch the Super Milk Chan Show and you'll be begging Truck-Kun to send you to another world.
"Sailor Moon has aged like milk, and there's nothing it did well that Nanoha and Precure haven't done significantly better since"
Precure's existence relies on homaging previous ideas from older magical girl shows, even the original referenced the Dirty Pair; Precure even had the director of the Sailor Moon anime direct Hugtto Precure.
Nanoha is just a trashy magical girl show that's trying way too hard.
While the content of the 90s Sailor Moon anime is a little dated, it still has a charm that keeps people invested, most anime fans when asked to name a magical girl show, the same three shows will turn up, Sailor Moon, Madoka Magica and Card Captor Sakura, it has the strongest staying power in all of anime along with Evangelion and the Dragonball franchise.
