Toys: War of the Whirls

Each day, Kodai Saito longs for school to end so he can go back to banging his whirling Beyblades tops off the walls of his suburban Tokyo home. "My favorite toy," says the seven-year-old blader. That's an understatement: The first grader has painstakingly assembled 25 of the armored tops for combat against his friends' 'blades. "[It's] better than staring at a home video game for hours on end," says his mom, Junko, 35. "Plus, the toys are cheap."

That twin appeal has created a juggernaut in Japan, where moms and their brood have been staging pre-dawn vigils at toy store entrances in order to snag the latest Beyblades delivery. No surprise, then, that manufacturer Takara Shuzo Co. is racing a pack of rivals to break into the huge U.S. market, a proven gold mine for a string of Japanese hits ranging from Power Rangers and Tamagotchi to Sailor Moon. With the once-omnipotent Pokemon doing a quick fade, toymakers everywhere want to fill the gaping opening for the next boys' toy bonanza.