Season 1, Episode 2: Day of the Dragoon

Tyson witnesses Kai's true power first-hand and vows to improve his abilities after their battle. He soon discovers that it's going to take more than just his beyblade to beat Kai.

My Review

This feels more like the second part of the first episode, rather than a brand new episode in itself. There aren’t any new major characters introduced, and it picks up the very moment the last episode ended: Tyson’s battle against Kai against that striking orange sunset.

Extending this introduction to the Beyblade universe to a second episode was a good idea in my opinion; it gives us a chance to learn more about the characters and how they react to the world around them. In the last episode we saw Tyson’s determination to defeat his opponents and his sense of duty to protect others around him (namely, the kids with the stolen beyblades). In this episode we get to see how he responds to losing a battle. The fact that he’s so quick to bounce back and formulate a new plan after his blade was completely destroyed just cements Tyson’s whole personality into place for me.

Andrew plays a major supporting role in this episode, to the point you’d think he’s a mainstay of the series. This is the episode where the concept of bit beasts is introduced properly for the first time, and leads to some fantastic animation. Season one has this really striking ghostly-glow effect for bit beast scenes and I think it stands out more than any other season by miles.

I give this episode a four star rating. If this was later in the series I’d consider the events to be a bit tame, but there’s a lot of great character interaction and artwork to enjoy here. It does the job of highlighting the world we’re looking at very nicely. The main storyline of the show hasn’t even begun yet, so this almost feels like the anime version of a tutorial level – and I’m here for it.

What I Liked

There are a few things I really liked in this episode. The first is the glimpse at Tyson’s spare beyblade parts: note how the weight disk appears to be sheets of metal glued and clamped together, suggesting Tyson built it from scratch – this appeals to my inner nerd. This episode also starts to flesh out Kenny and gives him more lines than the last, which is good because he grows to become such a great character.

My Favourite Quote

Kenny: “Right on!” *Gets pushed to the ground*

Trivia

In this episode, Tyson asks “what the heck is a bit beast anyway?” even though he seemed to know exactly what a bit beast was in the last episode.
In the manga, the warehouse that Kai and the blade sharks hang out in is owned by Kai’s grandfather - who runs the family company: Hiwatari enterprises.