Crush Gear Turbo

A 56-episode anime produced by Sunrise, Crush Gear Turbo seem to be a run-of-the-mill Merchandise-Driven show, involving mechanical vehicles being thrown to a ring to fight other machines called Crush Gears, which according to some detractors, looked like Beyblades in steroids. But deep inside, this involves a considerable degree of drama; the protagonist of the story, Kouya Marino, was the brother of the deceased Crush Gear champion, who wants to follow up to his brother's legacy. Problem is, he is just one of the few members of a fledgling Crush Gear club whose sole claim to glory is that it was once his brother's club. However, he is helped by few friends and some Crush Gear players who defect to Kouya's team.

Crush Gear Turbo also spawned a sequel called Crush Gear Nitro, but it wasn't as popular as the original.

Crush Gear Turbo provides examples of:

 * Ancestral Weapon: Kouya uses his brother's Garuda Eagle at first, until it breaks.
 * Animal Motif: Quite a few, most notably eagle for Kouya, dragon for Takeshi, and tiger for Wang Hu.
 * Conspicuous CG: Most of the fight scenes in the anime.
 * Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Kouya uses one one too many times and shatters the Garuda Eagle as a result.
 * Dead Big Brother
 * Defeat Means Friendship: How the team came together.
 * Dynamic Entry: The main method of deployment of the Gears in both the manga and the anime, which could be rather problematic when people start thinking that this is the correct way to use the tie-in toys.
 * Everything's Better with Spinning/Spin to Deflect Stuff - Gears can spin for a more defensive approach.
 * Five-Man Band
 * The Hero - Kouya Marino
 * The Lancer - Kuroudo Marume
 * The Big Guy - Jiro Oriza
 * The Smart Guy - Kyousuke Jin
 * The Chicks - Shared by Lilica the Manager and Kaoru the Assistant Manager.
 * Gadgeteer Genius: Kyousuke.
 * Hey, It's That Voice! - Dearka and Cagalli were Takeshi and Kuroudou respectively.
 * Keep Circulating the Tapes - Raws are hard to find in this series.
 * Merchandise-Driven - played straight.
 * The merchandise is almost as hard to find as the TV show, though.
 * Mid-Season Upgrade
 * No Export for You - in America, in that case.
 * The Phoenix: Not so surprisingly, Garuda Phoenix.
 * The Rival - Takeshi Manganji
 * Raised by Wolves: Wang Hu.
 * Rule of Cool
 * Serious Business
 * Shorter Means Smarter - Kyousuke Jin.
 * Spoiled Brat: Takeshi.
 * Trademark Favorite Food - Jiro and his thing for red bean buns.
 * Training From Hell: Quite a few phalanges were broken in the process of trying to find the right way to throw the Gears into the arena.