OK, so I am 25 years old and have decided to watch a number of TV shows from my youth. I found my old Beyblades and was inspired to watch the original series from beginning to end. I was concerned that the goggles of nostalgia would lead me to being disappointed watching it now. However, I was wrong and truly enjoyed watching this original series.
The concept of Beyblades is quite simple. Spinning tops fighting in a stadium for sport. Along with that there are strong overriding themes of family, friendship and teamwork. It is cheesy at times but still enjoyable. Interweaved with this are the negative themes of deceit, cheating and betrayal. It works well in the context of the series, although it was sometimes slightly too predictable as to the outcome.
In series 1, Beyblades are suggested to be the main players in a Beyblade battle. Makes sense, right? The bitbeasts were suggested to contribute special attacks and were connected to their player. Not all Beybladers had a bitbeast, so it would make sense that Beyblades themselves were the workhorses that drove a battle. However, in series 2 the concept shifted quite dramatically. In this case, a Beyblade battle was actually just a battle between bitbeasts and the Beyblades merely mirrored what was going on as the bitbeasts waged war on each other. This made slightly less sense since not all players had bitbeasts. It was also very different to how we were made to understand Beyblades in series 1. Series 3 brought a middle ground, which I believe worked best. Gone was the major focus of bitbeast battles and a new concept of Beybladers having a special link with their Beyblade. The Beyblade could be considered "possessed" by their bitbeast and the main focus of battle was now blade- on-blade, rather than beast-on-beast hologram battles.
The animation quality in series 1 was representative of the time, being quite unrefined and slightly messy at times. The Beyblades in battle lacked detail. This all changed in series 2 and 3, where the animation quality was a lot crisper and the Beyblades looked as they did if you bought them in stores. The issue I had was in series 2 where the main characters went from looking like teenagers to more like pre-teens. This was rectified in series 3 and they looked their age and had the superior animation quality.
Finally I just want to touch on the stories themselves. Series 1 was quite simple since it wanted to set the premise of Beyblades. It revolved around various championship battles and the final arc brought an interesting twist. Series 2 was quite different and I think they tried to hard to make a story. It felt quite disjointed and the actual reasoning behind the ancient origins of bitbeasts was poorly explained in my opinion. It presented a great opportunity to do what they did in the final series of Yu-Gi-Oh! to explain where the monsters came from. Series 3 went back to much of what series 1 brought and I honestly thought it was the strongest series of the three.
All in all, I recommend you watch the original series of Beyblades. If I were to rank them, I would make it 3 > 1 > 2. If you had to miss a series, I would say series 2 could be missed. However, none of them were really 'bad', it is just that some were slightly confused and poorly conceived. What I can say is that nostalgia did not blind me, Beyblades are still great fun!
