Beyblades: (McLuhan Cycle)

Beyblade is a Japanese manga series, developed into a TV show, about a group of kids from Japan called the “Bladebreakers”, and their collective quest to win the Beyblade World Championships in Russia.  In the manga, these “Beyblades” are highly dangerous weapons, being possessed by powerful spirits and mythic beings balled bit-beasts. In reality, Beyblade tops are inanimate toys that are based off the “Beigoma” tops of Japanese origins, and are sold for roughly $18 each. Beyblades took the original 17^th century toy in a new and exciting direction by simplifying the device, adding a back story to the toy, and promoting the competitiveness of the tops to attract their young audience. Because of this, the toys fit well into the McLuhan Cycle of invention and reinvention and feature several postmodern attributes.

With the release of Beyblades in 2002, the Beigoma was obsolesced in almost every way. Takara added several features to the toy to make the new top more commercially appealing. For one, the implementation of the “rip-cord” launcher allowed the toys to be easily released, which replaced wrapping the toy in string and whipping it into the “battle ring” as was with the Beigoma. Customizability became an option with the Takara and Hasbro Beyblades, and it added to the versatility of the top, giving different combinations different personalities of game play. They also added aesthetics and graphics to the tops, which would better draw buyers to purchase the product, but which also tied the individual Beyblades to their TV show/manga counterparts. In 2005, in an ongoing cycle of invention and reinvention, Hasbro released Beyblade Metal Fusion, which in turn obsolesced the original Beyblades. They had more endurance and were made of more durable material than the plastic tops. They also replaced the original Beyblades in the tournaments that were held by Hasbro.

Beyblades have blurred the line between fiction and reality by holding actual Beyblade World Championships that mimic the ones in the show. By advertising the different Beyblades as different entities/personalities, Hasbro has further blurred the line between the show and real life. Beyblades exhibit intertextuality through the bit-beasts’ names referencing the constellations in the new TV show, as well as the continual referencing back and forth between the show and the toys. Beyblades are a postmodern product, as well as a perfect example of the McLuhan Tetrad of the cycle of invention.