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Beyblade Burst TV Anime's Video Introduces Characters

Takara Tomy began streaming the second promotional video for the Beyblade Burst television anime on Saturday. The video introduces the main Bladers participating in the WBBA tournament, including the main character Bart and his friend Shū.

The story follows Bart Aoi, a hot-blooded kid who loves to attack and wields a Beyblade named Valkyrie. His close friend Shū Kurenai is an elite Blader who is a genius but still puts in a lot of effort, and wields the Beyblade named Spriggan.

The anime's official website unveiled the anime character designs for Bart, Valkyrie, Shū, and Spriggan last month.

Bart Aoi (pictured bottom) and Valkyrie (pictured top)

Shū Kurenai

Spriggan

Katsuhito Akiyama (Inazuma Eleven, Bubblegum Crisis, El-Hazard: The Wanderers) is directing the new anime at OLM or Oriental Light and Magic (Yōkai Watch, Pokémon) with character designs by Toshiaki Ōhashi (chief animation director of Danbōru Senki W, Danbōru Senki Wars). Hideki Sonoda (Pokémon franchise, Machine Robo: Revenge of Chronos, Sonic Soldier Borgman) is in charge of the series scripts. The anime will premiere in April.

Beyblade Burst is the name of the third generation of Beyblade toys that Takara Tomy launched in Japan in July. It features a Burst gimmick that lets players "destroy" their opponents' tops, the ability to view Beyblade records on the Bey Cloud System, and the evolution of Beyblade with miniature NFC chips.

Hiro Morita launched the Beyblade Burst manga in Shogakukan's Monthly Coro Coro Comics magazine last July.

The original franchise expanded into over 880 countries and regions worldwide and shipped over 350 million toys, garnering over 365 billion yen (about US$2.97 billion) in sales since 1999. The second generation of the franchise debuted in 2008 and shipped 190 million toys worldwide for over 200 billion yen (US$1.6 billion) in sales.

Takara Tomy's Beyblade line of toys inspired a manga series in 2000-2003, and Viz Media released the 14-volume series in North America in 2004-2006. The manga inspired three television anime series (Beyblade, Beyblade: V-Force, and Beyblade G Revolution) between 2001-2003, and the Beyblade the Movie: Fierce Battle film in 2002. A spinoff manga, Metal Fight Beyblade, has inspired the Beyblade: Metal Fusion, Beyblade: Metal Masters, Beyblade: Metal Fury, and Beyblade: Shogun Steel television anime series, as well as the Metal Fight Beyblade VS Taiyō Shakunetsu no Shinryakusha film.

Nelvana has localized the seven television anime series for North America, and the company has also produced the BeyWheelz and BeyWarriors: BeyRaiderz Western-exclusive animated spinoff series.

Paramount Pictures has acquired rights to create a live-action film based on the franchise.

Images © Hiro Morita, BBB Project
© Tomy