Madoka Amano

Okay, no notes to start of with so...
Today's review is of: Madoka Amano
Let's dive right into this!!
(For the seasons I'm going to try to refer more to the particular role the character had in that season, so I can leave the more personality aspects in for the end, so the season analyses will be a bit shorter, but the personality notes will be bigger.)

Season 1

So Madoka enters the season very early on as a support character, and as such, she isn't entirely well receieved, since her role is clearly less significant than the other characters, despite this, I really do like Madoka.

Despite the fact that she very rarely battles herself, she always cares a great deal about her friends and is willing to help them in any way she can.

Mainly her role is throughout the series, as a support member, and while she doesn't get to as much as other characters, her personality still shines through as she remains a loyal and trustworthy friend.

Overall for this season, Madoka is a very loyal character, always caring about everyone, going to great lengths to protect her friends, despite her small role, without her, the characters would struggle a lot, so why we don't get to see much from her, she's a great deal of importance to the rest of the characters.
Score: 6/10

Season 2

Madoka, in general, keeps the same role for this season (as she does for the next season), but we do get to see a bit more from her in terms of personality, her more serious side, her more cheerful side, her more angry side, everything is more fleshed out for her in the second season.

I would probably conclude that to the travelling aspect of the series, you always loosen up a bit when you're on holiday, and for Madoka, who wasn't in the battling aspect of the World Championship team, probably saw it more as an exciting holiday around the world, well, at least before the more intense moments happened.

This doesn't stop her from having a temper, however, she clearly loses her patience at times, which she can't really be blamed for, it seems that her patience would have to be tested to constantly be with a team where 3/4 of them were pretty immature at times, this doesn't stop a bunch of cute interactions between them, Madoka really feels like the mother of the group, and that's definately adorable to watch.

Overall for this season, Madoka seems to take a new mother role in the main group, it's a good fleshing out to her character, and makes her much more enjoyable to watch, because it feels like she has a more important role now, keeping her team in line, and she does very well at it, too, at least, when her temper isn't getting in the way.
Score: 8/10

Season 3
In season 3, Madoka seems to go back more to her season 1 role, which is probably due to having a more mature group with her this time...for the most part anyway.

She still feels more helpful then season 1 however, she steps up when her friends are in danger, despite knowing there isn't a thing she can do about it, she still keeps on being completely willing to protect her friends, no matter what happens, and in the intensity of this season, it takes quite a lot to be able to go through that.

She still manages to help out her team in other ways, as usual though, such as working through the constellations to decide who may be the next Legendary Blader in terms of season, she still shows her intelligent side a lot, and while she still has the occasional temper problem, she's still useful to the team, and always ready to help.

Overall for this season, Madoka still keeps her loyal traits that make her such a sweet character, she doesn't do as much in terms of personality than season 2, but it was still an improvement over season 1, and she remains a loyal, trustworthy character who always stand up for her friends.
Score 7/10

Season 4
Madoka returns in season 4, running the B-Pit where she used to help out in the previous 3 seasons.

I like that she's still doing somthing familiar, and her personality is pretty similar, except she's mellowed out a lot, which is definately a nice thing to see from her.

 She stays very friendly to the new main characters, and she seems to have a very strong friendship with Maru (Mal), which I'll get into a little later.

But it was great to see Madoka make a return, and to see her so much more mellowed out, it's really great to see how she changed in the 7 years.

Overall

Design: I loved the colours in Madoka's pre season 3 design, it was very bright, bold, and new.
I think the outfit went well together, but it did feel a bit simple, which made it nice when they finally did change it.

Madoka's season 3 design seems a lot more mature, and in general, it's just a lot nicer, it feels a bit more detailed and complex, which, while I liked the pre season 3 design, did sometimes feel lacking in this.
So, in general, I preferred season 3's design a lot more, it just seemed to show more effort, maturity and detail.

Friendships:

Madoka and Gingka:

Since Madoka met Gingka in the second episode, and has pretty much been by his side ever since, their bond was definately worth mentioning.

Since as I said, they've been together for a majority of the show, and it's really nice to see how far their friendship has grown over the length of the series.

They're both very loyal to each other, always caring and concerning over each other, and overall it just developed really well, with lots of adorable interactions between the two of them.

Madoka and Maru:
I found the friendship between Madoka and Maru really sweet, since they both have similar roles to each other, I think it's nice to see how well they both get on together.

Maru really looks up to Madoka, and they act just like sisters, it's really sweet to see this friendship that started before we even got to see the how they met, which I'd love to see one day, how it all began, I'm really interesting in seeing more from them, I hope we'll be able to see those details at a later date.

Personality and other notes:


I often see Madoka to be one of the lesser liked characters, usually, mostly due to her not doing enough.

While I think Madoka could do more in some situations, I do believe her to be very useful in each season, and I don't think everyone would have progressed as far as they did without Madoka, the things that stand out about her most for me in general in terms of the positive sides of her character:

-She always stands by her friends, even if it puts her in danger, and she doesn't even battle, usually, so she knows her help will be minimal at best, but she still tries to help in whatever way she possible can, I think it makes her a strong character.

-Making the same point of the strong character: All the things she has to see throughout the series, she has to watch her friends struggling, getting hurt, comatose, fighting for their lives, lots of things, but despite everything, Madoka will stay strong and keep the most important things in the front of her mind, to help anyone she still can, it shows her bravery in a lot of scenes too, the one time she did battle was only to help someone else, and it was an awesome moment for her, I think it's a shame it never happened again, but it was good to see at least once from her, it shows the lengths she'll go for her friends.  

-She's an intelligent character, and it's always good to have at least one of those types of characters around for a well functioning group, it shows that even though Madoka can't help in the main ways as the other characters do, she can be there to give good advice, and the help her teammates out, she always tells them how she'll help in anyway she can, and it's nice to know, that while she doesn't do as much to contribute as others, that she's always there as someone to count on, and she manages to do a lot with her small role that makes her shine through as a good character.
 
-I really like the way Madoka bonds with the other characters, the way that she feels like the mother of the group is something I really like, seeing the way she acts with each of them individually is nice too, because the way she treats each character is usually unique, and I think it makes a good role for her, becasue, while her role was never too fleshed out, it gives her more personality, and more things to look into when assuming how she'll act towards a particular type of character.

I'm going to be putting both sides for each character, so now let's look more into the more negative aspects of her character.

- The role: now, don't get me wrong, I think Madoka is still a great character, even with a small role like she had, but like in season 1 where she got to battle, I would've liked to see more of that, personally, the things she does in general, are completely fine in my eyes, but I would of loved to just see a bit more from her in those kind of directions, it's nice that she gets her own unique traits to her character, but the time in season 1 where she battled, was just a really great moment, in my opinion, I definately would of liked to see a bit more from her, in that way.
 
 -The temper: I think it's great that we got a strong minded female character in the main cast, but I feel her biggest flaw probably comes from her temper, at times, she can really lose it quite often, and some of the time, the reasons aren't too huge, it's good to see that she's at least mellowed out in those terms by Zero-G, but for the earlier seasons, I think it gets in the way for her character, slightly, it gets a bit more under control by season 3, it's still there, but better, so I was pleased with that, and either way, it can be quite humorous to watch, in gereral, but in terms of her character, I think she needed to chill out quite a lot, mostly in season 2.

I did always find Madoka to be a fun character to watch, and I'm glad she got to be big part of the series, usually by Gingka's side, it was fun to watch her in terms of personality and interaction, and while I think she could have had a bit of a more involved role, especially towards the end, seeing her always prepared to help despite anything that's become an obstacle to them, is something that's always very sweet to watch.

Overall: I find Madoka to be a very sweet character, always ready to help her friends, and manages to help, despite traits that hold her back.
I think she's a really good character, but I think she hasn't quite reached her full potential in the way she could have, had she been a bit more involved with the plot.
Despite that, I enjoy watching her, and the unique interactions between her and each of the characters, I always find fun to see, and something I look forward to is more characters to be introduced, so I can see the way she acts around them.
Score: 7/10

That wraps up Madoka's analysis, see you soon for the next review.

- Surii

Kenta Yumiya

Okay, first thing I have to say before starting this, I'm going to change it around slightly, I wasn't completely happy with the layout of Gingka's analysis, so I'm going to do it slightly differently:
I'm still going to do the season reviews but I'm going to keep them short, more like Gingka's season 2 and 3 length, and then below that, I'll do an overall analysis which will be longer, since I felt a bit limited with only discussing seasons, I'll include friendships and design notes and things like like that in there aswell, so it should be a lot more easier to navigate.

So with that, todays review will be of Kenta Yumiya:
Let's start this right now!

Season 1
Being completely honest, I wasn't too fond of Kenta in season 1, he's a sweet kid and all, and his kindness is definately something I look up to in a character, not to mention the fact that he's a lot braver than he first comes across as.

But I think the thing that stopped me from liking Kenta as much as I could have in season 1, was probably all the crying.

Now, don't get me wrong, there's absolutely nothing wrong at all with a character being particularly emotional and crying a lot, I have absolutely no problem with that, and I respect his character for being so open about it, but I think the problem came from his reasoning, he would cry at just about anything, and sometimes there wouldn't be any reason to, I would definately let him off for some of the time he's cried, he has been through a lot, but sometimes it just feels really unnecessary.

But on the plus side, it opens him up to a whole lot of character developement, the loyalty he shows to his friends into any situation for a start, I find it really admirable how far he would go for his friends, it's a nice trait to have, especially at a young age.

Overall for this season, I think Kenta is a really nice character, loyal, and always ready help anyone, he's a very admirable character, but I think the crying at most times wasn't needed, and it brings him down by quite a bit, only for the unnecessary reasons which it usually felt.
Score 7/10


Season 2

There really isn't a great deal for me to say about Kenta in season 2, he wasn't really present enough for him to do anything particularly noteworthy, I do kind of find that shame, I would've liked him to be a bigger part of season 2, so I do kind of find it a shame that he wasn't part of Team Gangan Galaxy. (I personally think it might've been better to put him in the team, maybe swapping him out for Tsubasa?) because I could just imagine so many cute interactions for each of them with Kenta, they all have sweet moments, and I find it a bit sad we couldn't get any of that due to lack of appearance.
Though we do get to see his talent for impressions...his Hikaru one is maybe a little...toooo...good.
At least he was around for some of the second half of the season, even if his role was very small.

Since he wasn't important enough to do anything this season, I'm not going to give him a score, since I don't think it's really possible to give a fair one based on what we've seen, I'll just use the score from the first two seasons, to decide.




Season 3

Well for this season, things change completely, Kenta decided he doesn't want to be the sidekick anymore and decides to travel to help in his own way.

I really liked the idea of this, because too often, there will always be a sidekick character, and I never seem to find them improving, so I like how kenta actually acknowledges that fact of his role, and sets out independantly to change it.

During this time, he begins travelling with Ryuga, which changes him completely, giving him new strength and a stronger attitiude, sure he still cries a fair amount like the first season, but this time, there are reasons, and they make complete sense, he doesn't just cry for any old reason anymore, and he clearly shows he's matured in that way.

 

Kenta manages to achieve a lot of things this season, and by the end of the season, he's become a completely different character and he accomplishes many things: a lot of which we never would of guessed watching him from the way he used to act previous to season 3, and by the end of the season, you can really see how far he's come in terms of character developement and maturity.

 

Overall, Kenta really matures this season, he gets a ton of character developement, and it changes his attitude completely, his good traits of trying to help his friends stays, it's the whole reason he decided to go on his journey and change this way, but it's great to see how he's finally become the kind of person he wants to be: Helpful and actually contributing a huge part to his friends efforts, he did absolutely everything right this season, and he just became an incredible character.

Score: 10/10

 

Overall

 

Design: Prior to season 3, Kenta had a very generic looking outfit, but to be honest, I do like the colours, it's bright. but in general his first design was very plain, it didn't really show anything special

 

He gets a change in design in season 3, which he definately needed a lot, especially for his new role, and I like his new design a lot more, it still carries most of the colours from his original outfit, and I really like that because it feels more like an update to his design, instead of an entire re-do.

His hair also seems to change slightly for season 3, in a different style, though it doesn't look too big of a change, it still fits to his overall character for season 3, his new look really fits his role well, so I really like it, a lot more than his original design.

 

 

 

Friendships:

(As I've previously mentioned with friendships, I'll post them on whoevers page I think will be the shortest overall, to even them up slightly, and since Kenta's season 2 review is so short, I figured most of Kenta's friendships should go on his page.)

Kenta and Gingka:

I love the bond between these two, they've been close from the very first episode, and I always love to see how much the bond between them increases as we go deeper into the series, it was even quoted in the show once that they were "So close it was like they were brothers."
Kenta's determination to help out Gingka in season 3, to the point of going as far as he went, shows an incredible friendship between the two of them, always prepared to help each other out in any situation, it's really sweet to watch.

Kenta and Yu:

I find the frienship between Kenta and Yu really adorable, this probably comes from them being of similar ages.
It begins with Kenta being friendly, but seemingly wary, which would make sense, with Yu's current role, but once Yu joins their team, it leads to a proper friendship, the way they're both so protective over each other is really cute to watch, I just find it sweet how they'll always put each other before themselves, it's a really sweet thing to have in a friendship, and they're both so young, so it just makes it even more admirable, they're just both very good friends to each other, and they have so many sweet moments.

I would make a note of Kenta and Ryuga also, but the show really explains it better than words can...that and it'd be so spoiler filled that it isn't worth talking about just yet, maybe on Ryuga's analysis, whenever that comes.

Personality and other notes:
As I've said before, the thing that stands out most for me is the character developement, he really matured a huge amount between the beginning and the end of the series.
It also shows on the outside too, during season 3, Kenta just grows so much between each season, and it was done really subtly, so it wasn't even particulary noticeable until the end of the series, comparing Kenta and Yu's height, since they're shown together quite a bit, shows it off the most:



Season 3

Season 1




Season 2

Despite probably not being at his best in season 1, Kenta still always stood up for his friends, and would always put them first, it's a very good trait of his, he always acts very protective



of all of his friends, even in an early episode, a part of a tower collapses and heads right for Madoka and Kenta, and Kenta responds by standing in front of her and trying to protect her...despite the fact that she's bigger than him and would probably stand more of a chance against it anyway, it's those kind of things that make him such a good character, because he will always think of his friends first, and the be so selfless like that, is a really nice thing to see in this show, it's something to look up to. Also, later on, when the group go to find Gingka, he shows so much concern over him, and is prepared to go through that huge journey, trying to find a place with no leads at all, prepared for anything, just to find his friend, there's another instance later, when he goes with Hyoma (Hyouma) to go save Yu, he goes straight into the main hq, and when he and Hyoma have to split up, he doesn't cower at all when he finds Doji, he just demands to have his friend back, and prepares to fight, which shows a lot of bravery on his character, and that's been there since the very first season, and it only gets better later.

During season 3, he shows so much courage, determination and fight in him, it's amazing to see how far he's come since the start of the series, out of everyone, I'd say he got the most character developement, and it was in such a good way, that improved his character so much, and made it really interesting to keep watching and see how much further he could progress.

 

Overall: Kenta is a really respectable character, in so many ways, prior to season 3, his bravery, kindness and loyalty made him stand him out, and after that, how much he grew and matured, and how much developement he got throughout the series, he's a very inspirational character.

Score: 8.5/10

 

That wraps up Kenta's analysis.

Hopefully the way this review was set out is more easier to navigate and more convenient, I definately found it easier to write, and this is how I'll be writing them out in future analyses, see you next time for the next review.

 

- Surii

Gingka Hagane

Okay, it's finally time to start character analysing, I'll apologise in advance if it starts off a bit shaky, this is my first time, and I feel that I will have to get used to it.

oh, and also, just to put this in:
Season 1 = Beyblade Metal Fusion (Metal Fight Beyblade)
Season 2= Beyblade Metal Masters (Metal Fight Beyblade Explosion)
Season 3= Beyblade Metal Fury (Metal Fight Beyblade 4D)
Season 4= Beyblade Shogun Steel (Metal Fight Beyblade Zero-G)

But enough about that, time to start the analysis!!
We're going to start with the main character of Metal Fight Beyblade: Gingka Hagane (Ginga Hagane, *I go by dub names so I'll put any differences in brackets...but that'll only be for names, cause there isn't really anything that changes other than the occasional names, even if, like regular, they're only one letter changes, I'll list even the slightest change*)

Okay, enough talking, let's start this!:













Season 1: Spoilers ahead
First of all, I'd like to just note a bit about the design of the characters, I like Gingka's in particular because it seems fairly different compared to a lot of other protagonists I've seen, it's bright, but bold, and I like the scarf, for something that has to be animated to flow a lot, it's pretty cool to put it on a character who appears in every episode, it already shows effort, early on, and I like it when shows do that, especially in animation.

Okay, onto the season reviews now:
Gingka gets introduced in the first episode (well, he IS the main character), as we see, his travels take him to the city where we spend a lot of season 1, the hometown of a majority of the main cast for this season.
He gets introduced as a very laid back, relaxed character at first, but as soon as he sees trouble, we start to see his serious side, we first see in true action saving Kenta, another main character of the series, from a beyblade gang called The Face Hunters, and these two become close friends quickly.
During the time they bond, Gingka talks about how he's been travelling, searching for stronger opponents with his Storm Pegasus (Storm Pegasis) bey, and then explaining the blader spirit, it makes a nice start to the series to see how these characters interact so well.

So just like any show, this calming atmosphere can't last forever, and Gingka soons meets his first rival, the leader of the Face Hunters: Kyoya (Kyouya)

Before their first battle, Gingka meets another new friend, Madoka, who is a bey mechanic, she doesn't like to battle often, but she becomes a good help to Gingka in the series, starting by helping to repair Pegasus after damage due to all of Gingka's travels up until now, but before the repair is completed, Kenta gets into trouble.
Gingka immediately prepares to help Kenta, which already shows how willing he is to go to any lengths to help his friends, despite the fact that they've only met recently.
With this, Gingka manages to defeat Kyoya, which leaves Kyoya to deal with his own problems, which leave him out of the scene for a little while.

In this time, Kyoya's most loyal friend, Benkei spends some time challenging Gingka to battles with various people, and during this time, Benkei ends up joining Gingka's group, which leads him to have some trouble when Kyoya does return, leaving Gingka to rematch the newly skilled Kyoya, he still manages to power through and win, with the support of his friends.

After this battle, Gingka meets the person who had forced Kyoya into all this anger, Doji (Daidouji) and Gingka immediately changes his attitude completely, and goes missing overnight in search for this familiar person.
When he finally returns, he opens up to the others about this organisation, and the fact that they have a forbidden bey, this starts the search, with all of Gingka's friends helping.
With some help from Kyoya, who seems to finally be over his outburst, they manage the find the Dark Nebula organisation castle, where they all rush to reach the top, and Gingka meets an enemy from his past: Ryuga (Ryuuga)
Gingka and Ryuga battle, but during the battle Ryuga starts to insult Gingka's father, which angers Gingka to the point that he's ignoring all the advice he's given to this point, and is just set on destroying him completely, his rage ends up making him lose the battle, which completely devastates Gingka.

The next episode shows Gingka is still depressed about his loss, which concerns all his friends a lot, so after some persuasion from Kenta, Gingka goes into his backstory, which reveals that he lost his father, Ryo (Ryuusei) to the Dark Nebula organisation, specifically Doji and Ryuga, after this flashback, Gingka decides to leave, heading back to his hometown, Koma Village, without telling anyone, which leads his friends to all go to search for him.
During this time, Gingka looks for a scroll to find out how to become powerful enough to defeat Ryuga, but instead, finds a note from his father, which regains his confidence.

With him returning to his friends, a survival battle of 1000 bladers opens up and the winner recieves a wish, Gingka's comes 2nd to the newly introduced character, Yu (Yuu), who wishes to open a national tournement called Battle Bladers, which will be held by the Dark Nebula organisation.

So with that, Gingka begins saving points together to enter Battle Bladers, since Ryuga will be entering, and this will be his chance to finally settle the score, and in the middle of this time, a mysterious person called Phoenix turns up, and completely destroys Gingka's pointer when he loses against him, starting him from step one, to teach him a lesson for making a careless mistake, still determined as ever, Gingka continues, and on the last stretch, makes what seems to be a sacrifice to the final points to protect his friends from Tsubasa, a character who Gingka met during the process, which leads to Phoenix reappearing and Gingka rematching him and finally beating him, in addition to this, Tsubasa joins the team.

Straight after this, Battle Bladers begins, and Gingka manages to defeat Yu in the first round, which makes Ryuga the only oppenent still left unbeaten to Gingka, during this time Yu joins the teams, and through a series of events, they all end up in the Dark Nebula hq, where Phoenix has had a tough battle with Doji, with the result shattering his mask, only to reveal Ryo, who reveals he did survive all that time ago, leading to a very heatwarming reunion.

From here, Gingka is finally ready to battle Ryuga again, he learns during the battle that instead of trying to finish the fight, he should be saving Ryuga instead, and after a tough battle, Gingka manages to defeat Ryuga, but he loses Pegasus who disappears to rest after the exhausting battle.

This ends season 1 and overall for Gingka in this season, he had a very interesting backstory, and it was interesting to see this laid back character go so serious whenever this was brought up, it showed his drive for battling, and he really deserved his good ending.
Score: 9/10

Season 2

(I'm pretty sure the rest of the season reviews will be super tiny compared to season 1, but let's see,)
In this season, Gingka mellows out a lot, I assume this is due to his problems in season 1 being resolved, that, or due to his new friend, Masamune, but either way, Gingka really lightens up this season, and it's definately a nice thing to see him more chill now.
In this season, he is the leader of their world championship team, Gangan Galaxy, alongside Masamune, Tsubasa, Yu and Madoka.
It gives Gingka a chance to experience teamwork more instead of being individual as usual, and as someone who cares a lot about his friends, it's really nice to see his relationships grow
with his new teammates, especially how his friendship with Masamune grows as the series continues, I'll look more into their friendship on Masamune's analysis, but it's nice to see how it's just constant fighting and rivalry at first, and it grows into something similar of two best friends.
He still shows to be incredibly thoughtful of his friends, always caring about them when something's wrong, despite whatever disagreements they've had recently, and always showing concern over them in any situation.

The things that I always like best about Gingka, he will never give up, he's such a determined character, while still keeping so friendly, and this season he has nothing holding him back from his full potential.


This ends season 2 (I said it'd be short compared to the other, but there's more room to talk about just personality from here onwards) and overall, he became a lot more fun this season, still showing determination and spirit when he had to, but he's become a lot more happier, and it's really nice to see it that way, but the serious nature does get a little bit missed at times, other than that though, I like everything.
Score 8.5/10

Season 3

First thing to say: slight change in design on his headband!!
despite being such a small change, I really like it: It's new, but it's not too different overall, to his design.
Also I like the idea of giving his headband an extra wing, it looks more similar to Ryo's headband, almost like it's trying to show how much he's matured, and I really like that, because even so, it's still very subtle.

So, in this season, Gingka discovers he is one of among ten legendary bladers, who are scattered around the world in various locations, meeting these legendary bladers gave a lot of time for more interactions and developement, since the majority of these legendary bladers were completely new characters.

My favourite of these new friendships was probably the one of Gingka and Yuki (Yuuki), mainly though, because I feel without it, Yuki would of been quite a forgettable character, which is a shame, so it's good that the friendship gives him something.
There's also a lot more interaction between Gingka and Madoka, and that's always sweet to see, I see how much the bond has grown between them, watching it back.

Also what I like with Gingka, this season, is he makes a good balance between his serious

nature from season 1, and his more carefree nature from season 2, his seriousness comes from different reasons this time though, and he still keeps his fun self with it, and I think it's a really good balance between each, it's getting the best parts of him from each season, and I really like that.

This ends season 3, and overall, season 3 Gingka is my favourite, I can't think of anything I don't like about him, he's still fun and happy, while keeping with the serious nature more often, it was a good mix of his best traits from each season.

Score: 10/10

 

Season 4

I wont be scoring on Zero-G, as I said, but I just want to make a note of characters who did appear.                                                     Gingka appeared very late in the season to help Zyro (Zero) overcome his rage, I really liked the idea there, since he's tackled similar problems in his past, so it was good to see him in that kind of role.

 

Overall:

I think Gingka is a great character, especially for the main protagonist, I usually never find myself liking the main protagonist, but Gingka is a major exception, he has a wonderful personality, excellent interactions with other characters, a great attitude, and he's always fun to watch.

Overall Score: 9.1/10

 

Okay, this ends the first of my character analyses, one thing I want to say, looking back, I think I was struggling a bit at first, and I noticed I didn't really talk enough about his personality, and more about the story, I'll definately try not to repeat this in later analyses.

So I hope you enjoyed the first one, and the next one will be started soon.

 

-Surii