Season 1, Episode 6: Dragoon Storm

Tyson finally gets to see first-hand just how tough of a competitor Ray can be as they go head-to-head for the title.

My Review

This is the first time we get to see Ray’s abilities in action, and boy can he back up his arrogance with some serious power. The aforementioned arrogance is really bemusing when you’re re-watching the show because it’s completely out of character for Ray in literally every episode from this point onwards.

At this point, Kenny is nowhere to be seen and Tyson is left without his usual support – though he still has Max – and is forced to come up with his own strategy in the battle. This goes well up to a point, where Driger shreds Tyson’s blade to pieces. Without any spare parts, Tyson will be forced to forfeit if he can’t procure some soon. It’s at this point that “arrogant Ray” strikes again, as he literally tries to walk away from the tournament. He tells DJ Jazzman “I do not have time for this!”.

Just when all hope is lost, in a nick of time, Kenny returns and it’s revealed he’s been working on a new attack ring for Tyson. This gives him a fighting chance to defeat Ray in the next battle, and defeat him he does.

”These battles are going on a bit longer than they usually do”, I hear you saying. And you’d be right. It turns out that Ray’s opinion of Tyson has done a complete one-eighty and he now respects him as an opponent. This seemingly marks the death of “arrogant Ray” because he forfeits the final battle and just lets Tyson be declared the winner. I guess he really didn’t have time for this.

I liked this episode and it’s the most bit beast action we’ve seen thus far. Visually, there are some great instances of hand-drawn artwork coming to life on the not-so-big-screen and the battles are pleasing to the eye. With that said, I’d have liked to have seen more none-battle sequences and I have to deduct a few points for the clunky dub teething problems but there were some moments that genuinely made me laugh (see the Brad Best and AJ Topper quotes) and it’s an entertaining episode overall.

I look forward to the next episode, which will see Tyson facing off against Kai for the first time in an official tournament.

What I Liked

There’s some fun character interaction to be found in this episode; Max spends most of it with his dad, and we get plenty of lines from Mr Dickenson which always makes for great watching.

My Favourite Quote

Brad Best: “Can you feel the electricity?”
AJ Topper: “Uh, Brad your microphone cord is frayed.”

Trivia

• This is the first episode which explicitly mentions that the beyblades in the show are metallic and not plastic (Kenny mentions that the new defense ring he made for Tyson is made of an “indestructible alloy”). The significance of this is that it proves the spinning tops in the show are not meant to be exaggerated versions of the real life toys, but that beyblading in-universe is a sport played with highly dangerous tops, and the real life toys are just imitations of these. This might be obvious because of the sparks and sound effects during battles, but later seasons try to retcon the tops to just be plastic toys.
• The English dub's early teething problems come into play again in this episode when Kenny refers to an attack ring as a "defense ring".
• It’s never mentioned in the English dub, but Ray is meant to be from China – he’s described as being from “parts unknown” in the English version of the episode for some reason.

Favourite Screenshots