Toppa Bashin – Episode 4

I know I said I probably wouldn’t make another post on Discord til Monday, but I absolutely love doing these, so I’ll break my promise for now.

Plus I have snacks to enjoy with my watch. So let’s get into it.

Episode Title is “The Idol is My Sunshine”

D’awww, is someone going to fall in love with an Idol?

I hope not, the last episode made me sick.

Okay I know she’s an Idol, but she looks to be barely older than Bashin and that outfit is SKIMPY.

So apparently 10 people in a raffle will get free concert tickets.

Only 10?

Must not be that popular.

Find me a Battle Spirits fan who doesn’t fall into the category of “children and adults”

Don’t worry, I’ll wait.

Your program was stupid anyway.

I’m not bitter… I swear.

Card Sensei needs to find him a woman that isn’t mourning over her husband or struggling with a pain in the ass child that reminds her of said husband.

I’m convinced Bashin has ADHD.

No one can be this ignorant of someone calling after him.

And it’s quite obvious from this shot that he didn’t even stop for Meganeko.

It’s gotta be ADHD.

And 2 of them no less.

Greedy bastard.

Bashin just snatched them from his hand.

Who in the name of Siegfried does he think he is?

Is what okay?
He didn’t offer you shit you just yoinked them out of his hand.

This is basically robbery.

Hayami for once I hate you.

This is supposed to be a comedic scene but the guy didn’t win 2 out of the 10 limited free tickets just to give them to a pair of kids in his class.

Is using your attractive mother as a way to steal someone’s property considered armed robbery?

Dude didn’t even say it was okay yet and Bashin’s popping off.

And get Card Sensei to willingly give up 2 out of 10 limited edition tickets for no extra cost.

The fact that he needs to be prompted enrages me more than you know.

But it’s typical of kids to receive lots of gifts when they’re young because they’re unable to earn money to get things themselves.

It’s a shame that conduct spoils them to no end… Seems Meganeko got the right upbringing and she only has her grandfather.

Not even 5 minutes in and we’re already at the concert the episode is about.

You’d think it be some sort of fight over who gets tickets or something.

Didn’t take Striker for an Idol fan.

How is he surviving without a Football attached to some area of his body?

Bashin get out of my head.

I need that space to comprehend Striker’s hair.

Bashin doesn’t take this as an insult.

Always be proud of your hobbies guys, even if they take up large amounts of your time.

…Especially if they take up large amounts of your time.

No I’m not speaking from experience, what makes you think that?

I hate it when people make exception-based arguments like this.

Though in this case My Sunshine being an exception to your life revolving around Battle Spirits isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Something tells me you need more exceptions.

Something… Something… Breach of contract…

Being unable to estimate when My Sunshine will appear means My Sunshine hasn’t turned up.

Or has gone missing.

It would likely be on her contract that she can’t pull a stunt like intentionally so it’s likely something is holding her up.

It being entirely her fault is like the most unlikely thing you could possibly do.

And if you like her as much as you say you do then you shouldn’t assume it’s her fault ya dingus.

Minor grammatical error here. Nothing too big though.

Also if the worst thing I had to fear from my Manager was his Tears I’d do as I like as well, not going to lie.

Oh, she’s a repeat offender?

I’m surprised she’s not notorious for it, that’s not a good look.

Always?

How can she be notorious for doing it to her staff but not her fans?

Or are the fans just so fanatical that they blissfully ignore her mistakes once the show starts?

YO WTF
THE ANIMATION JUST GOT SUPER SMOOTH IN A CREEPY WAY.

OH GOD PLEASE DO, I CAN’T TAKE MUCH MORE OF THIS…

Back in normal animation land…

We have the Manager doing a lot of wondering where My Sunshine is but not a lot of searching.

Much like the game actually, a lot of cards in the game usually only search the top 3 or 4 cards of your deck rather than directly looking through your deck for a card.

I like it, because it means you need a strong gameplan before your ace card comes out, and while you can try to get to your ace card quicker, it’s likely you’ll need to burn through a lot of cards to get to it.

It’s much simpler to simply build your deck around your main method of victory, rather than to build your deck around accessing it.

I somehow turned the Manager’s incessant whining into a Battle Spirits lecture, back to the show.

…Shouldn’t this be a restricted area? I’m fairly sure backstage and where My Sunshine’s room is located should be staff only.

I can’t believe the Manager didn’t immediately try to verify who was snooping around in the staff area…

He doesn’t deserve to manage My Sunshine if he can barely pay attention to his Staff.

Bunch of people talking bad about My Sunshine and calling her selfish as a result.

See this is what I’m talking about, she should be notorious for this.

Bashin questions the validity of their statements, as any reasonable thinking person should.

Not a bad idea from Striker but there needs to be some context behind it, I don’t buy it.

Meganeko with the power of “The benefit of the doubt”

It’s always good to assume honesty when you’re unable to prove malice.

Bashin, backstage is likely a restricted area.

Secondly I wouldn’t place any bets on you figuring out what color your own hair is while staring into a mirror.

So it turns out Bashin made it backstage alright with 0 issues.

And Aibou Ex Machina has been invoked. Likely due to the fact that there’s a talking Chameleon involved.

Aibou you’re a freaking mouse.

You’re not biologically inclined to give a rat’s ass about My Sunshine.

No wonder people are able to wander through backstage freely.

The Guards are playing Card games.

Aibou, it’s too late, we’ve lost him.

The Subject of the series has kicked in, nothing else matters.

I think Bashin would sell you to Satan for a Battle Spirits match.

I assume here she means “Preliminaries”
Also mystery girl X needs a name I can give her until she’s unveiled, since her get up reminds me of Mimi’s similar outfit from Duel masters as a Guardian, I’ll call her “Mimi” for now.

Anyway, why the hell does Mimi care about how well a Guard plays?

Dude doesn’t have time for Preliminaries, let the guy play his game in peace…

…Is what I would say if he wasn’t currently neglecting his job.

Riling opponent’s up to convince them to have a battle with you is a good way to find opponents.

I just wish you’d use something that stung more like saying he’ll never win something he probably won’t get time to enter in the first place.

I love how he’s just referred to as “A Guard”

They couldn’t be any more literal without calling him “An Extra”

This appears to be Mimi’s board.

I question the need for Rib-Reaper in whatever deck she’s using. It’s a card that gains +1000 BP while you control a Red Spirit.

You can see why this is slightly useless here.

Oh that’s just cruel.

You can’t tell someone they’re weak and then use Hate cards.

Bone-Gladiator has the effect of not being able to be blocked by a Green Spirit, and the guy’s entire board (and I’m going to assume entire deck) is Green.

Oh? He’s going for game?

Alright, let’s see how “Mimi” counters.

Ooo, Ziga-Wasp and BlastTiger Tigald.

Those are 2 new cards.

Ziga-Wasp has the High Speed ability, this lets you summon it during Flash timing…

The Catch is that any core you end up using must be from your reserve, no using Spirits to supply it.

Tigald is basically the same but he’s bigger.

Also this is definitely not worth it for a High Speed Quasi-Vanilla…

By Quasi-Vanilla I mean a card that effectively does nothing. Once Tigald and Ziga-Wasp are out they’re no different to Vanillas.

but Ziga-Wasp is at least cheaper.

You.. You just said you could finish this in one move.

You played 2 High Speed Spirits straight from your hand with little reason to do so.

And then PASSED.

You don’t deserve the win.

My expectations may have been wrong…

But boy am I not disappointed, this is going to hurt in the worst way.

For the record she’s preserving the cost for Desperado, she needs 6 core, 5 for the cost that she’s reduced by 3, and 1 to keep Desperado on the field.

YEP
Desperado is nasty if you’re trying to amass a board of a lot of Spirits.

Because usually they won’t have much core on them, and if you’re caught with your pants down and a board of level 1 spirits, you’re gonna have a terrible time.

Desperado is one of those effects that is a double-edged sword, it hits both ends of the board.

You can circumvent the negative effect by just ensuring there’s at least 2 core on every spirit you wanna keep.

You’ll notice somehow Desperado jumped up to 7 core when it had 1 a moment ago.

That’s because 6 spirits on the opposing side were depleted by Desperado’s effect.

Desperado gains a core on it whenever it depletes a spirit through that ability.

Deplete at least 3 and Desperado bumps itself up to Level 2 for absolutely free.

Not going to lie I do feel bad for this guy.

But Battle Spirits is a cruel game, you can lose to a lot you aren’t prepared for.

Or in some cases you can prepare for something and despite your best efforts get ran over by sheer force.

When playing against purple, it’s important to ensure that you do not manage your core carelessly, or the opponent will make you want to quit.

A lot of early “When destroyed” effects in the game also don’t get set off by depletion, though later cards also state they trigger on depletion too.

This is why he should have kept the high speed cards in his hand. He would have survived on at least a single life once “Mimi’s” attack step started. (Wouldn’t have helped against the Bone-Gladiators since Green spirits can’t defend against them)

If anyone says this and they’re playing Purple.

They know exactly what they did, and they intend to do it again.

“Sorry” is the farthest thing from what they are.

I don’t have the heart to tell her.

Evil laughter coupled with an offer to play again.

See what I mean? Purple players don’t know the meaning of “Sorry”

Bashin being Bashin and wanting to fight “Mimi”

Bashin doesn’t just throw caution to the wind.

He throws it to the flames, along with logic, consideration, and intelligence.

You’ve been given enough evidence as is to suggest the answer to that question.

Not depicted, but that line was made by a different voice than Bashin or “Mimi”

I see the Manager has finally stopped neglecting his job and actually started hunting for My Sunshine.

And found himself an Asshole and an Idiot.

What’s the worst that could happen? Getting busted by the Manager?

If the end result is the same then I might as well go with what gives me the higher chance of success.

That sounds way more Romantic than it actually is.

I give Bashin flack for being an idiot but he’s doing okay today.

And as expected, this is “My Sunshine”

She’s looking a tad gloomy, I’d call her “My Moonshine” but that’s way less innocent.

Someone would probably need Moonshine to be able to miss that she was “My Sunshine” though.

I wanted to keep the illusion for those who were slower.

Bashin.
I just commended you for not being an idiot.
Why are you like this?

First of all, how do you mess that up?

You’re wearing a god damn cloak, you couldn’t have possibly slipped like that unless you WANTED to get caught.

Secondly, “giving your autograph in replacement?”
WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?

Is it your Autograph of My Sunshine?
Is it your Autograph until he gets one of My Sunshine?
Come on.

From who’s ass did he pull that out of?
Cuz after all the crap he’s said I don’t think there’s much left in his own.

Staff don’t make exceptions for friends anyway, restricted area is restricted area.

Also you already acknowledged he doesn’t listen, Sunshine.

Why would you expect him to do so then?

I’ve lived long enough to know any statement along the lines of “What would you know?” is the prequel to a lecture.

Just because someone hasn’t lived through your pain doesn’t imply that they don’t understand it.

Expecting people to suffer the same as you have just to relate is wishing those misfortunes on them.

Bashin calling her selfish is extremely scummy but that doesn’t change the fact that My Sunshine has a duty (and likely a contract) to fulfill.

This is equivalent to the complaints of a small child… Wait.

After a quick check, this character is 13 as of right now.

That means she probably can’t legally consent to any contracts without the permission of a parent involved.

So it’s likely this duty has been forced upon her rather than being a willing participant who’s having a bit of “buyer’s remorse”

I’ll take back what I said about calling her a child, but the pain arguments stand. You can understand something without relating to it.

On everything besides her 1st rhetorical question, I agree with.

Why is that the take away from her rant?

He’s killed the depressing mood sure, but for god sake.

Back to breaking the established norm, Bashin has a point. Kinda.

How My Sunshine feels about the whole thing has no bearing on the fact that she’s here now, and there are people waiting on her.

Something tells me she’s trying to get discontinued though, since her age makes it unlikely that she can back out the contract herself. But there may be better ways of trying to get fired.

I’m sure if I offended someone they wouldn’t offer me Card games as a method of resolving the issue.

It seems the Cornerstones have begun reacting to chosen Card Battlers meeting.

So My Sunshine is now one of the “Chosen”

Watch out boys. J is a fan of My Sunshine.

And apparently one can tell how many reactions there are from a single glow of a Pendant.

I wonder if the other 2 can decipher that J is around?

I didn’t expect everyone with a Cornerstone to be localized to the same town.

How convenient.

And My Sunshine reveals herself to beeeeee.
Suiren!

Now I don’t have to call her “Mimi” anymore.

Anyway, this is Suiren, and as you all know, she’s a Pop Idol, the Suiren disguise is designed as a way to play Battle Spirits undercover. She’s the series’ designated Purple player.

In most series you’ll get a relatively important character that represents each color and that character will stick til the end of the series and be the person who uses the most varied strategies of the color in question.

So far we have Bashin for Red, J for White, and Suiren for Purple.

So we’re missing one for Green and we’ve got a set of 4.

No one is lucky to have to face Purple.

Don’t kid yourself.

I’d cry.

I’d cry all the tears.

Purple scares me.

Sounds like a good offer. But knowing Bashin…

…He’s treading the fine line between Bravery and Stupidity.

It seems for this bout, we’ll be using the Battlefield.

I’m assuming she’s saying this because…

Since CG is a pain in the ass to get all the subs gathered, and text is boring. Here is the field arrangement.

Core Arrangements not depicted.

Bashin has 5 Life, Suiren has 2.

Now I do remember something about destroying exhausted spirits in terms of Darkwitch…

Darkwitch swings and destroys the exhausted Taurusknight through it’s effect. Which reads:

[LV2][LV3] (When Attacks) Destroy target exhausted spirit.

Bashin takes a life.

The second Darkwitch attacks, destroying Metalburn through it’s effect.

Bashin takes a life, and he’s now on 3.

He did have a refreshed Skeleton Jaw, but unfortunately due to it’s own ability, it can’t block.

The short answer is “No”

When it comes to effects that are triggered on an attack, they will always be the first things to happen, and nothing can really come before it.

And if effects would occur at the same time, the attacker gets to select which goes first.

So the long answer is “Possibly but only if your opponent lets you”

You’re assuming he has the brain capacity to recognize that there is nothing going on in his head.

Bashin ends his turn after this. Leaving Taurusknight as a blocker.

Do we really need a reminder? Suiren?

Fuckup Tally: 5.

I actually went back through the footage to check. Bashin swings with Lizardman and Skeleton-Jaw and then ends, Taurusknight shouldn’t be exhausted right now.

Whatsoever.

But since it IS exhausted, Suiren has 3 Spirits to Bashin’s 3 lives.

She swung with both Darkwitches and Bashin is now on 1 Life.

Suiren acknowledges Lizardman as a blocker and then ends?

What? Lizardman attacked!

Why has Taurusknight suddenly switched places with Lizardman.

Lastly, Lizardman can’t block anything with lower BP than himself and Bone-Gladiator has only 2000 BP at level 1…

Lizardman’s is 4000 BP.

She could have won this turn anyway.

Fuckup Tally: 7

I’m adding 2, one for the sudden switch from Lizardman to Taurusknight being exhausted, the other for Suiren thinking Lizardman can block Bone-Gladiator.

Bashin plays Skeleton-Jaw and Double Draw.
Bold move, let’s see how it plays out.

Flame Tempest will clear Suiren’s last blocker, and they won’t affect his 2 Spirits as they both have over 3000 Bp.

With 2 Spirits and no blockers, Suiren’s cornered.

I won’t lie.

I had to double check Darkwitch’s BP.

This checks out.

And because of this, Suiren loses.

This doesn’t sit well with me since had they just not messed up whether it was Lizardman’s or Taurusknight’s attack, neither mess up would have occurred.

See Taurusknight doesn’t have a block restriction, so if they maintained that then the match would have went the same without any issues.

This anime needs to fix up.

He is, he can attack with Lizardman while exhausting Taurusknight.

Also this win makes Bashin tournament material, he defeated the runner-up of the Battle Spirits Championship in episode 1.

Okay this is the second Cornerstone animal that could reasonably eat Aibou.

Leave the poor mouse alone, he just wants to progress the plot.

Has he just been chilling there the whole time?

How is he not surprised by the fact that they popped out of thin air?

Not even friends are allowed in prohibited areas without special permission.

So even if the Manager did recognize them, he’d be well within his right to kick them out just because he hasn’t spotted My Sunshine yet for her consent.

I don’t know what it is but the prospect of My Sunshine being kicked out of the very concert she’s meant to perform at is very amusing.

Bashin rightfully questions whether or not Suiren’s friendship with My Sunshine was true.

It’s likely the Manager would have recognized her in such an event.

Not that the result would change, they haven’t been given permission to enter a restricted area.

Bashin immediately concludes Suiren has no friends?

Based on what? Being My Sunshine’s friend makes her slightly up in League than everyone else on your friends list.

Just because the most famous person among your friends isn’t actually your friend is not a good enough reason to deduce that you have no friends.

Bashin now states that the pair are friends out of mutual interest for Battle Spirits and My Sunshine.

But… Sharing a mutual interest isn’t enough to constitute friendship Bashin.

Something Something Meganeko was first…

Back off.

I’m… not sure how that factored into the conversation just now Bashin.

This is basically the show’s equivalent of “See ya later”

SUIREN IS MY SUNSHINE!…

Do I get the Guinness world record for most Sarcastic statement ever?

Having a Headache would constitute a nap.

Or a walk within the confines of the restricted zone.

Not a full on disappearing act for a good hour or so and possibly making half the audience bugger off back to their lives they came to escape from.

There should be a word for when the correct answer to a Yes or No Question isn’t Yes or No…

When even Meganeko thinks little of your ability to stay on task, you know you’re unreliable.

Well at least you got something out of it.

Except that you didn’t take this mission for yourself, ya moron.

I don’t believe that for a second.

And neither did anyone else in the audience… Until now apparently.

Someone get me out of here.

I don’t want to be a part of this any longer than I have to be.

Thank God, well, time for my opinion on this episode as a whole.

Well we got Suiren introduced, something like this was kind of necessary regardless if you intended to make My Sunshine have a double life as a Professional Card Battler.

Suiren’s supposed to be one of the tougher players, since she was a runner-up in what was meant to be a championship match, and only lost to J due to Silent Wall.

Her 1st Match against the guard was a great way to display her Power for the audience, by summoning Desperado and wiping 6 Spirits off the board. As well as gaining 6 core.

What slightly bothers me is that the 2nd Match neither had her play Desperado, or win for that matter. Bashin just won in the same way he beat the Nazo-Otona, by using Flame Tempest.

Also, since he was aware that Suiren had an X-Rare, I’m surprised he didn’t unveil his own X-Rare this episode, they’re taking their sweet time getting Bashin to use his new card.

The result was a fight that wasn’t particularly intense as neither had played their X-Rare, but also Suiren lost and both didn’t really seem to mind it.

They could have established where Bashin’s level is at approximately by having Suiren beat him, Bashin’s win was… Kind of pointless.

Suiren’s runner-up placement now just kind of seems like a fluke rather than as a result of her being a potent Card Battler, and Bashin is now just a few steps behind J… And he’s on Episode 4…

Come now, if he won with his X-Rare at the very least I’d be a little bit content considering that would least be evidence of a Power boost.

Anyway, Our cards of the day, this time we got 2.

The first is Bone-Gladiator, a card that cannot be Blocked by Green Spirits at all levels.

As I said further up when Suiren was using it, Bone-Gladiator is what’s referred to as a “Hate Card”

What I mean by Hate cards is that it’s a type of card that is only effective against a specific type of deck or card type, in this case, Bone-Gladiator is most effective when used against a Green deck.

The reason why it’s bad to use Hate cards normally is due to the fact that you have absolutely 0 control over the cards in your opponent’s deck.

And Battle Spirits has no sideboard feature either. Since tournament games usually don’t support Best of 3.

Meaning the only reason you’d want to use a card like this is based on what the Meta deck is at the time, and feeling the need to directly counter it.

Darkwitch is the first example of one of Purple’s odd traits, the ability to destroy an exhausted spirit.

Interestingly, when mixing colors, some of the best combinations involve combining opposites colors together.

Red and White are considered a good combination as you can cover both a powerful offensive and a powerful defense.

Meanwhile, this is one of the inherent synergies Purple has with it’s own opposite, Green. As Green has abilities that can exhaust opposing spirits, enabling for Purple cards like Darkwitch to synergize by destroying those exhausted spirits.

But outside of it’s proactive use in mixed decks, Darkwitch is more of a card designed to punish the opponent for treating their cards carelessly, as Purple is very well known for doing.

The Exhausted condition can be literally any spirit that has attacked, making Darkwitch rather dangerous if you’ve just swung with your best card, for example.

Anyway, that’s the card of the day for today. I’ll see you guys next time in Episode 5!