#I think maybe Valt had way too much [unrealistic] faith in Shuu's mental fortitude...

[crystalkleure]

Which Burst characters do you think had the best character development? I think the best contenders would be Valt, Ken, Daigo, Wakiya, and Silas.

I…uh…man, out of those choices I’m torn between saying Dyna, Wakiya, or Sisco. I think it might be a tie there. They all got such good, satisfying character arcs…Sisco {X} is especially impressive though, because he actually got some Good Writing amidst the burning wreckage that was the s2 plot. S2 had a lot of good, well-written characters, but too many of them didn’t get a satisfying arc CONCLUSION of any sort [like Joshua……]. Sisco’s arc was actually decently completed. He got the friends he wanted so much, those friends learned to trust him, and he got to win a tournament for them. He proved he loved them all and they all loved him right back and he was so much more calm and content by the end of the season and hhhhhhhhh it was just SO GOOD………….

And Wakiya {X} started out with, quite frankly, almost the same sort of problem as Shuu, also caused by parental neglect; his self-worth was directly tied to his outstanding success. Wakiya had a lot of pressure on him, as the only Komurasaki heir, to Be Extraordinarily Great at everything, which he of course interpreted as meaning “There is no room for failure ever and I must be perfect at everything IMMEDIATELY”. So of course after he loses a few times he has a total meltdown, though he is kept from self-destructing and he learns to get over his crippling perfectionist mindset when it becomes apparent to him that people actually don’t really think any less of him for not winning every single fight, and also he can just…keep trying again until he wins. Unlike Shuu, Wakiya was able to get the proper support needed to pull him through his crisis. Also Wakiya used to pretend to hate the BeyClub but now he’d do absolutely anything to protect his Friend Squad if he feels like they’re in danger. Wakiya just…wanted friends…Real Friends who weren’t just servants [though Hoji is a Real Friend who happens to BE a servant but I digress]…and he got them [just like Sisco…INCLUDING Sisco, actually]…I’m so happy

Dyna {X} presented himself as being a total little ruthless asshole at first, but then it turned out that he was only doing whatever was necessary to win in order to make his sick little brother happy. Dyna didn’t actually enjoy playing dirty; he was bothered by it every time he did it. And then he eventually realized that Souta would NOT be happy if he found out HOW his big brother kept winning, which would cancel out any happiness he got from Dyna winning in the first place. Cue the “Oh…oh no. What have I done. tHERE WASN’T EVEN ANY POINT TO THIS BC THE INEVITABLE END RESULT OF IT WILL ACTUALLY BE THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT I WANTED XSJHGDSSDHJAAAAAAAAAAA” breakdown, facilitated by a ton of pent-up cheating guilt. And since then, Dyna not only makes a point of only playing completely fair, he’s also turned out to be a fantastic strategist. He’s proving he doesn’t even need to use dirty tricks to succeed. I’m so proud of him.

Kensuke {X} had some amazing character development and I’m so happy he learned how to come out of his shell and make friends of his own accord, but unfortunately he…kind of did a lot of that off-screen…Still, he went from being so shy that he didn’t even like to talk to people without his puppets, to learning how to not only be able to put the puppets down sometimes and speak normally when needed, but also actively make friends with Ben/Team Beasts himself [when Kensuke befriended the BeyClub, it was only because THEY came to HIM, he would never have been able to properly approach them himself at the start of the show].

Valt, on the other hand…I’m not really sure has actually LEARNED very much? He didn’t really…change much at all in s2 vs s1. He still doesn’t really know what he’s doing when it comes to beyblading and tends to only spontaneously pull through when he really needs to [presumably because of Valkyrie – thanks Monster Mom!!], as in, he still pulls off impressive stunts without even REALIZING it, like he’s doing it unconsciously [*ahem* possessed…]. When Valt does something Really Really Well Very Suddenly, it still looks like it’s often not deliberate. And his core personality hasn’t changed a bit either; he’s still bubbly and cheerful but nnnnnot so great at dealing with any sort of complicated problems that his friends may have [he even made the Sisco vs Ghasem tension WORSE, which resulted in Sisco getting kicked pretty hard to protect Valt from Ghasem, which shows that Valt is also still super ditzy and oblivious and has an unfortunate knack for wandering directly into Immediate Danger]. When it comes to Shuu, arguably Valt’s Biggest Problem in s2, there’s this {X}, which I’ll build onto by saying that I think Valt always KIND OF knew that Shuu had problems, but he didn’t understand how SEVERE they were – they were actually kind of slowly driving Shuu totally insane – until Shuu…went totally insane. Valt just always believed that if Shuu had a problem, that Shuu could solve that problem by himself and it was totally nbd, and I think s2 may have made Valt realize that maaaaybe that’s not always the case and Shuu does have a breaking point because he is only human. But even then…at the end of s2, when Shuu was no longer brainwashed, it looked like maybe Valt might have immediately gone right back to assuming “Oh, he’s over it. He’s fine now. Everything’s back to normal and Shuu is definitely 100% A-OK immediately!” which was…definitely not the case. The thing there is that the Problems that CAUSED Shuu to be vulnerable enough to end up in the Brainwashing Situation were never actually resolved. Shuu never even talked about them. Shuu never ACTUALLY got over them. Christ, it looks like as soon as Shuu “woke up” in the s2 finale, he just immediately went right back to how he was before – pretending to be okay, to be “fine”, to be “over it”. Lying again. This might be a cycle doomed to repeat itself. The fact that Shuu is nowhere NEAR Valt [or any of his other friends] as of s3 [two years later] so far only makes me think that even more. Hm. [And now that Valt’s not the Main Character anymore, I’m looking forward to seeing more of him in s3 because maybe he will be written a little differently…honestly, he got the worst of the Bad Writing in s2]

However, I actually think Shuu probably had the best character development of all. Understandably, too – he’s the Main Rival [I could go into more detail about how it actually does make a lot of sense for the Main Rival to be more developed than the actual Main Character due to the genre of the show and the target audience and all, but I’ll spare you that huge meta paragraph for now because this was a simple question you asked and I’ve gone and turned the answer into a text wall, ahaha]. This {X} was one of the longest character dissection essays I’ve ever written…God, I love Shuu so much…