originally written feb 7 2014 (9 years ago, my god) on tumblr, but i wanted to shore it up a bit with some nuanced rewriting

rei kon is a character from gen 1 of beyblade - a shonen for kids about spinning tops and the kids who become top international atheletes by being really good at them. i'm being flippant but this anime was hugely impactful on kid!me. so much so that i have an entire shrine dedicated to it. & rei was (& still is) my favorite character.

speaking broadly, rei is probably one of the most popular characters in the fandom as it existed then and now. he's pretty, charismatic and capable - all the traits that appeal to teens in the audience who are probably a bit obsessed with bishonen as a character type. his laidback and friendly nature lent itself well to various ships; he's also what is colloquially known as a neko-jin (cat-human), which, like, if you know anything about fandoms they love themselves a catboy. in short: he was basically designed for me to get obsessed with.

as it usually goes with popularity and a(n at the time) large-ish fanbase, misinterpretations (#tome) and mischaracterizations (#tome) run rampant. the goal of this little rewrite is to retread some original ground from the first time i posted this, and expand a bit more effectively on the points 21-year-old me made. so! let's get shit popping.

common takes on one rei kon

1. "Rei doesn't have a personality, he's so forgettable, etc."

   I find I run into this opinion a lot with some of my favorite characters. My reasoning back in '14 was that because Rei's personaltiy is basically a grabbag of a number of different anime char archetypes: the loner, the selfless hero, the lighthearted goofball, and so on - basically, the archetypes each member of the Bladebreakers represent individually - people tend to read him as being "nothing" rather than the sum of separate parts. Mostly, I think this is still true. His personality is defined by middle-ground, by being equal parts aggressive and prideful scorn, resilience and occasional recklessness, the levelheaded and even temper - all of his closest relationships molded into one. In my original post, I mentioned that he embodies (in some respects!) the concept of yin-yang as understood at its most basic. His personality is a delicate balance between extremes, and because of that it can be easy to misattribute it to not having one at all.

   Personally, one of Rei's most compelling traits is his vulnerability. For as much as this show is a cheesy shonen for little kids, it does a fairly decent job exploring insecurity and self-doubt. Rei struggles with feeling inadequate and unsure, with imposter syndrome most of all, and these feelings affect his capability and skill as a 'Blader. As a teenager, this was very affecting. It's an imperfect arc, to be sure, but still a very moving one.

2. "Rei never wins any battles, why's he even on the team?"

   This one was a tough cover, even for 2014!me. The reality of it is that Rei is frequently written as the fall guy, typically to prop up Takao (& to some extent Kai) as the #TrueShonenHero. It's a frustrating, if expected, symptome of the anime's genre (again: shonen for kids. There's a lot of protag armor going on here). In the manga, however, Rei is written more forgivingly - his win/loss rate is more in his favour, plus his backstory and development is given more detail and attention. It's your usual case of the book (or in this case, the manga) being better than the movie(/anime).

3. "I don't like him because I hate [insert ship here]!"

   I kept this one only because it's a part of my original post, but really there's not much to say about it other than the obvious. At the time I wrote that post (& right now), the majority of the Gen 1 Beyblade fandom are adults - and (probably?) not just 18-21-year-olds, I mean adults. It's a bit silly to be an adult and still so vitriolic over fictional characters and their associated ships. Preferences are preferences, but at the end of the day none of this is real, and its for everyone's benefit if we remember that.

addendum

A "problem" I keep coming back repeatedly when I think about Rei and characters I've liked since is the way potentially interesting traits are flattened in favor of singular tropes. In my original post I talk about things like uke/seme tropes, the "associated" character traits and the way characters have personality elements removed retroactively by fandoms in order to slot neatly into these tropes with probably more frustration that is necessary, but I do still think that, while fun occasionally, the focus fandom spaces apply to these things renders interesting and dynamic character understanding inert. This isn't a new thing, to be sure - it's been going on quite literally as long as I can remember - but sometimes it does grate.

In both the anime and manga Rei proves that he's a powerful 'Blader, a clever tactician, a fearless warrior, a supportive friend and a reliable leader, though you would never guess it by the way he's rendered by the Beyblade fandom (back then; I have no idea what it's like now). All these things were often ignored in favor of having him play fragile, defenseless baby for whatever character he was shipped with. I think you can imagine then why 2014!me was so frustrated. Those feelings are less acute now, but if I cast my mind back to 9 years ago (again, my god) I can still clearly remember that version of me's exasperation.