Tyson Granger

Tyson Granger, known in Japan as Takao Kinomiya (木ノ宮タカオ Kinomiya Takao) is the main protagonist from the Original Series, consisting of Beyblade, Beyblade: V-Force and Beyblade: G-Revolution. He is a member and leader of the G-Revolutions and the BBA Revolution. His Bit-Beast and Beyblade is Dragoon - one of the 4 Sacred Bit-Beasts.

Appearance
His first appearance in Jisedai Bēgoma Battle Beyblade was based on the main character of the first Pokémon games, Red, hence Tyson's similar appearance to Red.

Tyson himself is one of a number of video game characters from the 90's era who was loosely based on Red from the Pokémon games. Hudson had also made other Pokémon-like games besides Beyblade, as such Tyson was one of a handful of Hudson game characters based on Red.

In Beyblade, Tyson has black hair, blue eyes, peach skin. He wore a backwards red, blue and white hat, an open red jacket (with white collars), yellow buttons, yellow shirt under it, brown fingerless gloves, blue shorts, long white socks and shoes that were red, white and yellow shoes. Tyson is 5' 0" (152cm) tall.

Tyson's hat originally belonged to his older brother, Hiro Grangerwho gave it to him after winning a beyblade match. In the manga he later passes it on to his son Makoto.

In V-Force however, all the characters obtained a major redesign including, Tyson. Tyson's eyes turned to brown but kept the black hair, got lighter skin, but, still kept his backwards hat (except the white part turned red and the blue outline turned white), kept the open jacket, however the yellow buttons were removed but the collar was kept. He kept the yellow shirt but with longer sleeves, the gloves turned blue, his shorts were replaced with grey jeans and his shoes were red, grey and blue colored. Tyson is now 5' 3" (160cm) tall.

In G-Revolution, he received a minor redesign. His gloves turned a darker blue. His red jacket received short sleeves with white highlights; covering his yellow t-shirt, long sleeves which were removed. He obtained a blue and yellow Beyblade container on his left arm and received new red and white shoes. He also replaced his grey jeans with dark blue ones.

Personality
He is the #1 Beyblader in the World, having won three world championships in a row, winning the first with the Bladebreakers, the second one with Max Tate and the third one with BBA Revolution.

Tyson was introduced as a cocky, confident, and fearless Blader who strived to be "Number One", even when he failed. Over the course of the series, Tyson matured and has taken his responsibility from being a beginner to becoming a professional Beyblader seriously.

Tyson is a strong-willed Blader who is not afraid to speak his mind and in doing so, he seems to get into more trouble than most kids his age but he handles those troubles very easily.

Tyson is famous for his sense of humor which declines with each passing season until he becomes a young man beyblading seriously.

Tyson is a really popular person inside the series. He had a lot of fans, even when he was an amateur. When he first won the regional tournament, many people picked up Beyblading just to be like him and defeat him. He has a lot of fans in his school as shown in Beyblade: V-Force, much to Hilary's dismay.

Although he is popular, he doesn't seem to have many close friends outside of his beyblading ones. Outside of Beyblade, Tyson doesn't make friends easily because of his competitive nature, but he usually leaves a profound effect on the ones he does, completely changing their attitudes and way of life.

Skills
Tyson's reason for Beyblading, both in the manga and as briefly mentioned in the anime (Japanese version, it was cut in the English dub) was owed to the loss of his mother. In her absence growing up, he began turned to Beyblade.

While he is determined and strong of spirit in battle, Tyson can be rash and take too many risks. Tyson isn't very good at beyblade customization and sometimes lacks common sense. Tyson's beyblades uses special attacks that take on the form of a dragon, and they are generally one of the fiercest, more powerful beyblades around. They use the wind element. Dragoon's beyblades are known to get better with each model possibly describing how Tyson develops as he grows up and learns from his mistakes. Tyson's Bit-Beast is Dragoon.

Tyson and his Bit-Beast Dragoon share a bond that is legendary throughout the series as no other Blader shares this sentiment, not even his teammates can do this with their own bit-beasts. His Bit-Beast often gains more power due to his vigor and endless supply of confidence, coupled with his ability to push himself to unimaginable levels.

As well as Dragoon at one stage he used Kai's Dranzer. He was able to successfully fuel Dranzer with his own anger at Kai for what he had done during the Russian tournament. Combined with Dranzer's own anger at his former master abandoning him, the two successfully won their battle against the more powerful Black Dranzer bit-beast with aid of Max's new Draciel beyblade, wherein the combined forces of Driger and Dragoon had failed moments before them. Tyson therefore has skill with not only his Dragon beyblade, but can use other beybaldes fairly adeptly and even summon other Bit-beasts.

Tyson seems to get his strange skills from his Dragoon beyblade, such as being able to outrun dogs and cars. In the final episode of G-Revolution, the shared power between him and Dragoon gave him the ability to fly for the duration of his battle with Brooklyn. This could also have been an effect of Brooklyn's alternate dimension.

He is one of the few left handed Bladers featured in the Beyblade franchise.

In the GBA games, Tyson can often end up unintentionally one of the weakest bladers due to his stat growth. He gets huge growths in Attack, resulting in a weakness in other areas. As the levels progress and he gets stronger his Attack is pushed to maximum before most other bladers. This gives him a huge damage advantage. However, this begins to wane as once at max he cannot raise it any higher and since his other stats are often so weak he quickly wanes as the other Bladers in the games reach their higher levels with more balanced state distribution. However, early on in the game he can dominate many bladers due to his high attack, allowed him to progress in these games quickly, but due to weak defence equally means battles end fast if he takes a beating.

Beyblades
Like his teammates, Tyson's Bey/Bit-Beast is based on one of the Four Saint Beasts in Chinese mythology; Dragoon is modeled after Qing Long the Azure Dragon of the East and its Japanese name is "Seiryu". Its name of "Dragoon" comes from the main bit Tyson had the option of raising (if the player choose) until it reached maturity as Spin Dragoon. He shares this with Kai, whose Dranzer gets its name from his main bit of the game Ultimate Frostic Dranzer.

Like "Dranzer" "Dragoon" is a play on words, while "Dranzer" is a play on "Dragon" and "Panzer", "Dragoon" is a combination of "Dragon" and "Dragoon". Unlike Dranzer, his species did not change and all variations are dragons. Even though the Beyblades of the F-Dynasty and the HMS beyblades can spin left, Tyson's series of Beyblades are the only ones which exclusively use the left-spin gear (except for his first Beyblade, Grip Attacker). Like Tyson also being left-handed this is a nod to the upper hand of which swordsman who are left handed have against right handed swordsman.
 * Despite being left-handed, mistakes are made in the anime in regards to this, Tyson is the only left-handed member of his team and one of the few Bladers overall in the entire franchise who is left-handed.
 * Furthermore, despite being left-handed, Tyson often launches with his right hand. This is often done to provide more control when holding the launcher.

In each season, Tyson starts out with the latest series of Beyblades, while the rest of the Bladebreakers use their previous models, with the exception of Ray in V-Force, who uses Driger V in his first beyblading appearance. In V-Force, Tyson and Ray start the series with Dragoon V and Driger V (Driger F was seen briefly once however), while Kai and Max do not get V series beyblades until later in the series. In G-Revolution, Tyson starts out with Dragoon G, while Kai, Ray, and Max use their V2 beyblades until the World Championships start (again, Ray can possibly be excluded, as he first uses Driger G in the Asian qualifying tournament, while Kai and Max use their V2 blades for the Russia and America qualifiers respectively). Daichi also gets Strata Dragoon G later on in the series.

Appearance
Dragoon is essentially a combination of the European and Chinese dragons, with it's legs large and long enough to enable it to stand up in an intimidating manner and a long neck which is always arched when standing up. Dragoon also has two arms ending with claws on both the hands and elbows, along with several spikes along its back and tail, giving us an idea as to why Dragoon's attack rings are always spikes. Dragoon's design has changed time to time in the original series. In the first season, Dragoon along with the other bit beasts were designed to look like spirits, being given monochrome colors. In this Dragoon's color was a ghostly electric white. In the second season, Dragoon was updated to look like it's picture self when coming out of the beyblade. In G Revolution, there were glimpses of Dragoon only during special attacks, sometimes interspersed with the shape of Dragoon being shown in it's wind attack moves.

Dragoon can also sometimes talk, though mainly it's only Tyson who can always hear him. Also, like the other bit beasts, Dragoon's pose always changes with each beyblade upgrade.

Attacks & PowerEdit
Since it is the wind spirit, Dragoon's moves are mainly wind based. The most common and most powerful among those moves are giant tornadoes, created out of the surrounding air(though at two points in the first series, the tornadoes are created by the beyblade spinning at high velocities). Tyson has used this power to literally blow opponent's beyblades out of the stadium.

Initial System

 * Spin Dragoon (Jisedai Begoma Battle Beyblade and manga)
 * Dragoon Grip Attacker

Spin Gear

 * Dragoon Storm - Storm Attack
 * Dragoon Fantom - Phantom Hurricane

Magnacore System

 * Dragoon Victory - Victory Tornado
 * Dragoon V2 - Hyper Victory Tornado

Engine Gear

 * Dragoon Galaxy - Galaxy Storm, Twin Tornado Attack (Only with Daichi).
 * Dragoon GT - Galaxy Turbo Twister, Dragoon Tank (Only with Daichi)

Hard Metal System

 * Dragoon Metal Storm - Evolution Storm
 * Dragoon Metal Fantom - Fantom Evolution Hurricane

Burst System

 * Dragoon Storm Wing Xtreme
 * Dragoon Fighter Gravity Variable

Trivia

 * His birthday is March 21 sharing his birthday with Valt Aoi.
 * Tyson is the only member of the Bladebreakers who has a sibling, prior to Bakuten Shoot Beyblade: Rising.
 * Tyson is the only member of the Bladebreakers to never temporarily lose his Bit-Beast to someone else in the main Anime.
 * The only exception being in Beyblade: The Movie - Fierce Battle.
 * In the manga, he temporary loses it and reclaims it in battle against Ozuma (much like how Ray got Driger back in V-Force).
 * Tyson has had a couple of characters based on him.
 * The character Captain Arrow from Beyblade: Shogun Steel is based on Tyson.
 * A female counterpart called "Tatsumi Ryou" made an appearance in the two part manga Beyblade Battle Saint Lolita alongside female counterparts to the other Bladebreakers.
 * Tyson originally starts off in the English dub of Beyblade 2000 as a 12 year old, but turns 13 in the seventh episode Thirteen Candles. The "Birthday Party", however, was originally a pre-battle celebration to give him support. In Japan, Tyson is 10 years in most media in Japan, with the anime aging him up a year each season. In fact he did not age officially until Bakuten Shoot Beybade: Rising as this was the first official time gap in the manga storyline being that os a year since his last battle with Kai at the end of Bakuten Shoot Beyblade.
 * In Japan, Tyson is the most popular character, along with his Bit-Beast and Beyblades. In the West, however, it was Kai.
 * Tyson's mother is briefly seen in the manga when his grandfather is thinking of her. His father appears in the anime but his mother is only mentioned once when Max is introduced.
 * This, however, was not the original intention. In Jisedai Begoma Battle Beyblade one of the first characters to interact with Tyson is his own mother. Since the game was based on Pokémon, this simply mimicked the role of the child's mother in these games being one of the first character to speak to the main player. His mother in this game did not look the same as his mother in the manga.
 * Tyson is the only character to appear in every episode.
 * Tyson's all battles in finals of international tournaments were either in another dimension or against an inhuman being in every season.

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