Hiya, folks, it's me, your bayblading bruiser, Jake, here all in my lonesome,

because Holden still on

paternity leave with his adorable newborn baby daughter, and that is cute and we like this and we

support him. But before he took his break, uh, you know, we talked about topics that he'd be okay

missing out on because of the baby. And,. And number one on the list of things I was

free to cover on my own was the Japanese spinning battle toy phenomenon Bayblade. So,

with him gone, I reached out to two experts who were willing to talk tops. And among them is

returning guest Matt Alt, who's giving us some interesting cultural background

about Japan and its weirdly intimate relationship with rotational playthings.

And then I have one of the most conversations I've ever had in my entire life with Jose

Lemos from Team Zanky, whose YouTube channel has over 500,000 subscribers all dedicated to

Blading and the competitive scene that is still thriving to this day.

But before we played those interviews, here's a quick crash course on the Bayblade franchise.

So in case you didn't know, Bayblade is a series of games, anime, manga, and movies dedicated to the toy line where two players launch fast spinning tops into the middle of a bowl-shaped arena.

The winner is decided when one Bayblade is knocked out of the ring or stop spinning.

This game is actually pretty much the same thing as a traditional Japanese game called

Begoma that involves small metal tops that were intricately wound with string and required

a very specific throwing technique.

And then the same rules applied.

They clink, clink against each other to one flew out or one stop spinning.

But the franchise really got its start in 1999 when Osamu Mashimo, an employee at Takara,

a large Japanese toy company whose story you may remember from our Transformers episode,

...