Toppa Bashin – Episode 2

And we’re back! With Episode 2 of Battle Spirits Toppa Bashin, here we get a little bit of an intro now about the show’s plot, I suppose this is there for people starting halfway.

Also the jump in screenshot size has jumped with the Episode quality, this will probably happen a lot.

So to summarise, Bashin wants to be the strongest, and to do that he needs to beat some “Mysterious Adults” likely to set off the red flag of Stranger Danger, steal his cards, and build a better deck.

Or he won’t be able to defeat King Uchuuchouten… Whoever the hell that is.

No wonder no one’s beaten him yet, they can’t get X-Rares out of being too freaking logical and running away when some man in a flasher coat offers you some cards.

Not depicted, but the Icemaiden that blocked Eyeburn here had +3000 on it like the last one, so the assumption is that Bashin swung with Eyeburn and J played another Defensive Aura.

Also it was J’s turn when the episode ended, so it seems they’ve skipped a few turns ahead again.

Ah, yes, the famed Dream Ribbon.
This taps into another feature of White cards, the ability to remove cards from the field by returning them to your opponent’s hand. This can be used to end an attack before it reaches you without uncharacteristically harming the attacking spirit.

But it also allows you to remove cards from the board, so your opponent will have less blockers.

At the moment, it seems that J is being presented as a “Magic-User”, Battle Spirits like to categorize certain players by the type of card they like using most. In this case, J likes using Magic, so he would be a “Magic-User”

Sadly just using Spirits isn’t defining enough of a trait, so Bashin gets no cool nickname.

Bashin is declaring that he still has a Spirit with which to defend. So he must at least have enough lives to endure even if that spirit blocks.

Bashin’s currently at 4 lives, and J has 4 spirits.

With a single spirit left over, this means Bashin can endure.

While early in the game’s life, so I don’t believe the show has officially banned Invisible Cloak by this point. This is still a pretty horrible card to run into when you’re trying to defend.

Invisible Cloak makes a Spirit unblockable. While being unblockable isn’t too problematic in and of itself, being unblockable is a trait certain White spirits have written on their card text, so you can prepare for it accordingly once the offending card shows up.

Invisible Cloak can come out of literally nowhere, and being a Cost 3, it’s relatively cheap to use in basically any deck, not just White, Making Invisible Cloak a really dangerous card to have available.

And that’s not to mention some combinations of cards later make turning any card unblockable a real problem. So it’s fine that they banned this card. Even with Battle Spirits’ inherent Power creep, the fundamental simplicity of this card keeps it too strong for competitive use.

I’d chew him out for being bad at the game but J using a now banned card really dilutes how horrible Bashin was playing to begin with.

The anime doesn’t typically make a habit of using banned cards or non-viable strategies… Of course the banlist and viable strategies change over time so what’s being presented here is child’s play. Specific rulings that turn up are also upheld with the anime, so at the very least it’s an accurate source for certain interactions.

So the Battlefield logic here is that only certain players are able to invoke it, yes that does mean they’re going to make the conditions really loose so that they can invoke it when needed.

In later anime iterations the Battlefield system is universal for anyone who can play Battle Spirits, meaning that you don’t need to fulfill some arbitrary requirement to play.

Also does calling the Battlefield “Isekai World” make this technically an Isekai?

Bashin is curious about whether or not J was playing around with Suiren and orchestrating the come from behind victory.

Regardless of whether or not J drew it first turn, or drew it later, the timing he used it was the best, Suiren had only a single blocker, and J waited for his life to be reduced so he could use more core later.

Aiming for a “Come from behind Victory” was the best way to win, I’m not sure what Bashin’s point here is.

For the record, he’s talking about Gowsilvia. Considering Bashin just used the card instead of playing it properly…

YEAH I’M QUOTING YUGIOH GX, FIGHT ME!

That… ASSHOLE.

He was put on cleaning duty, received help, then LEFT THE HELP to do his job for him.

I’d be mad even if it was just some random extra, but it being MEGANEKO he did this to just takes the cake. I officially hate Bashin.

So Card Sensei canonically likes Hayami. And the fact that this is common knowledge to anyone who knows Card Sensei is slightly worrying.

Are there laws preventing relationships with the parent of a student you’re teaching? There doesn’t seem to be any particular law for going to a school that your biological parent teaches, and then being taught by that teacher so I suppose not.

It bothers me, It bothers me that someone who’s always in such a rush is so GOD DAMN SLOW.

It took him a good 30 seconds to realize what the problem with his talking mouse is.

So basically that red gem Bashin is wearing, that also seems to be a hand-me-down from his father is what’s known as a “Cornerstone”, it gives Bashin the ability to talk with animals that have their own, as long as the matching cornerstone has been “awakened”

It seems the condition for Bashin’s awakening was to card battle J in Isekai World.

I hope Aibou strangles him with it.

I certainly hope no random who fulfills the apparently loose requirement of being “chosen” doesn’t say the words “Gate”, “Open” and “Release” in that specific order while carrying a deck of at least 40 Battle Spirits cards.

That would certainly put an end to that secrecy… I’m taking the mick since the likelihood of that happening is obviously very low unless they say it as a courtesy before battle.

What is the condition for being “chosen” anyway? It can’t be interacting with Isekai, because that was the condition for awakening his Cornerstone, not being chosen, and Okyou seemed to be aware that he was chosen before his Cornerstone awakened so being chosen and awakening the Cornerstone seems mutually exclusive.

Like I know you need to be all secretive and shit, but like you can do it without being a BLOODY ASSHOLE!

Jesus, and you could have just said it was J and you had a card battle, nothing Isekai related whatsoever.

And the other option is that you could LIE and say it was just an ordinary battle and you got your ass beat.

Absolutely zero need to be mean to Meganeko.

Alright boys, when someone is trying to figure out what’s the problem with you it’s because they give a crap.

There is no reason to be this awful.

What’s not depicted here is that Bashin actually swatted a hand at her. That’s actual abuse. I hate him, I really do.

So Card Sensei’s name is Kyouji Kawatou? (Surname comes first in Japan, so I’m reading it backwards for the sake of the English commentary).

I’m glad he has an actual name at least, I was half expecting him to just be “Card Sensei” for the whole series.

Also I suppose he’s challenging him to cards because if he rightfully got in there and beat Bashin’s ass he’d get fired.

So the guy working at this Batosupi Center just re-opened the shop to let them play in it.

This is the face of a man who loves his job.

Alright, time for a battle! And it seems like it’s starting from turn 1 again.

Let’s hope we don’t get turn skipped halfway…

If that was your plan why did you leave Goradon at level 1?

Though I guess he says this because he’s about to summon 2 more Spirits.

Well Bashin has enough Spirits to swing and take some lives now.

He still hasn’t levelled up anything.

See in this case, Bashin wants to get to Card Sensei’s life unimpeded, so he swung with the weaker Goradon to prompt Card Sensei to block it.

Now unless Card Sensei has Magic, Bashin doesn’t have to be ambiguously afraid of when Metalburn is going to block.

This is literally halfway through Bashin’s attack step. We don’t even get a “Turn End” to see if he attacked with anything else.

It’s episode 2 and this is already bothering me.

Since we didn’t get a Card of the Day last time, let’s talk about this new card.

In the Early stages of Battle Spirits, cards didn’t have a lot of power or reductions, and either had to make up for it with abilities to boost them, or had limiting effects like this one.

See Main Character Key Spirits up until Ultimate Zero had a Level 3 Power of around 9000-11000, and they’re almost ALWAYS Cost 6.

This being a Cost 5 tapping that level of Power at Level 3 was likely considered unusually strong at the time of it’s creation. But it was appropriate for Red to be the power type.

Just giving them more base power would make them objectively better than every other color, so they applied restrictions like this that made them unable to block, either under certain circumstances or at all. In order to ensure that their powerful BP was used for attacking.

Lizardman isn’t the only example of this. It’s a recurring theme for this early stage in the anime’s lifetime.

J realizes he needs to fire his driver for still being in an area they were in seemingly hours ago, decides to go to the card store to watch Bashin fight for the honor of… not apologizing to a girl who was worried about him…

Hey look it’s that thing that’s seemingly invincible to mutually assured destruction.

I wonder if he’ll use that non-existent ability here now.

Let’s hope this doesn’t get to THIS level of repetition.

Thankfully in this game all cards have a card cost, so the draw in this case isn’t necessarily as free as you want it to be.

Offensive Aura lets you give all your attacking spirits +2000 BP for the turn.

I also like how since this is a casual game, he hasn’t put away Double Draw before after drawing into Offensive Aura and immediately playing it. Or maybe they just wanted to leave it there so they had something to decorate the field with.

The problem with fansubs is that they can sometimes get things incorrect.

But I won’t make a fuckup tally for sub mistakes, they do good work, and allow me to enjoy my favourite card game series.

Nah, in honesty, J has realized Bashin has won, and has no reason to see through to the end of the match.

He also says that if Bashin can’t beat his opponent with the current gamestate then he’s not fit to be J’s rival.

The fact that he’s considering this abusive jerkass to be a rival bothers me.

Card Sensei dropping the ever so symbolic Defensive Aura.

Note that against Offensive Aura, Defensive Aura has a net +1000 advantage. So Bashin is in no better position now than he was before.

I didn’t ever expect them to pull this. I can only think of 3 other situations that an illegal move has occurred anime wise. And 2 of them was teaching a new player how to play, so those are kind of expected.

The last one, on the other hand, generates such an uproar from the opponent that he flat out quits. But we’ll look at that one when we get to it.

When it takes your opponent misplaying to get you the win, you know you suck even more.

Bashin seems to realize this though, so he apologizes anyway.

Good on you Bashin, you’ve started your redemption arc with me. I still hate you.

Meganeko seeing the bright side of this whole endeavor being that she is now interested in the card game. Which is good.

Meganeko is a precious soul and her playing Battle Spirits is definitely a plus.

Now if only I could get my significant other to play this game…

While I understand the notion of this advice being “Don’t take your anger out on unrelated parties”, this is terrible advice.

If you’re angry with something or someone that means there is an inherent problem with your relationship to it or that person.

Yes, being angry at the game can only be solved by bettering that relationship with the game, but if you do it without identifying what that problem is, you’ll just get angry at the game.

And sometimes there isn’t a reason, I love Battle Spirits but even I get demoralized over excessive losing. But that’s due to a poor relationship I have with losing, not Battle Spirits.

So I shouldn’t take that out on the game, but I should avoid losing, since the game enables that, I therefore need space from the game to quell my anger while coming to terms with a loss.

This wasn’t meant to be anger management advice, but Card Sensei gives terrible advice with no context.

GOD DAMMIT!
Honestly the amount of “Show, don’t tell” advice this show needs is impeccable.
Come on show, give me something I can appreciate.

Ah yes, like card discussion! Nothing like exploring the game the series is based around. It seems they’re trying to contemplate the potential of Defensive Aura had Bashin not used Offensive Aura at a time where Card Sensei was unable to use it.

Fortune favors the prepared mind.

Louis Pasteur

Luck is a factor in any game, and your 40 card deck is the slot machine.

Thankfully you have control over what’s inside the slot machine, so you need to operate in a way that makes it so that all the cards you draw are cards you can use to help you win.

Big cards are Risk vs Reward, They cost a lot and can hurt your position if you just play them like Bashin played Gowsilvia.

Of course, Cost Reduction is designed to mitigate that risk… Not that Bashin would know anything about that.

Must.. refrain.. from.. declaring.. understatement…

No one but your first love should see you like this

Hayami Bashin, Mother of the Protagonist.

I know that’s a re-used image but WordPress has a 3GB limit on anything in my Media Library, I’ve been switching to Imgur to host my uploaded images for now.

A lot of Bashin being an asshole about losing to J. Not much really happened here other than establishing that Bashin and J are special in some way, and that Meganeko is interested in playing Battle Spirits

Oh, and that Bashin somewhat knows the rules of the game.

Well, I guess I’ll discuss them anyway. Defensive Aura and Offensive Aura are pretty bad cards, and it’s obvious for what they’re used for. Offensive Aura is designed to ensure your Spirits will overpower the enemy when blocked, while Defense Aura ensures you overpower the enemy when attacked.

Despite Power Creep being what it is, Battle Spirits have remedied the issue with a special type of reprint, known as Revival Cards.

Defensive Aura’s Revival version has a spoiler in it, so I won’t specify it here.

But since a lot of other cards later in the series allow for BP gains of up to 5000 with other cards, they decided to up the boost of Offensive Aura to +5000 instead of +2000 for all your attacking Spirits.

No card of equal cost would grant that much to all your spirits for a whole turn, so it’s certainly useful, still not very applicable when you can’t tell when the opponent will block, so it’s much better used for attacks that force a block, like when the opponent has low life, so that they end up with a low spirit count after your onslaught.

Anyway, that’s it for this episode, once again I’ll leave Episode 3 as a footnote and edit a Hyperlink when it’s done.

Episode 3 ->