It seems the creators of spinning top battle game Beyblade lowkey want it to become an Olympic sport.
Speaking to Metro, designer Kenji Horikoshi spoke about the continued popularity of Beyblade and how its creators at Takara Tomy genuinely see it as a “gear-assisted” sport akin to golf or skateboarding.
The article comments that, on several occasions, the employees of Takara Tomy joked about Beyblade even becoming an Olympic sport, enough to suggest they genuinely hoped this would be the case one day.
BEYBLADE GRAND FINALS RESET AT #CEOTAKU!!!https://t.co/df8sWgxtkx pic.twitter.com/r4CjiPT1OO
— CEOtaku (Dec 20-22) Reg Launching Soon (@CEOGaming) September 24, 2022
“Our mission here is to make sure we continue innovating and as the years progress, even without it being an Olympic sport, we just want to make sure people globally can have a chance to really appreciate and play with each other and have that competitive feel,” Horikoshi himself said.
Beyblade began in 1999 and essentially involves two players firing a spinning top into an arena. The last one standing wins. While this makes it incredibly accessible to even young children (spurred on by the myriad anime renditions) wanting to play, Beyblades being fully customizable means a surprise amount of depth exists within the tiny tops.
It does have a competitive scene, with national tournaments already and even an international event coming later in 2024, but competitors letting it rip at the Olympics would obviously take things to a whole new level.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.
