Toppa Bashin – Episode 14

Whew, Been a while since I did one of these, I didn’t get any done during the weekend at all thanks to EVO (I’m a big Fighting Game nut as well as a Battle Spirits fan, so that took up most of my time)

But now that’s over and done with I can get back to these with EVO committed to my memory!

“The First Final is Smile After Tears”

I don’t quite get what this means, but I guess Smile will be participating in a Finals match after he’s done with J?

Back where we left off, Smile unveiled not only a new card, but a whole new colour, The HellDog Cerru-Berus

Seeing the new card Smile just played causes Commentator-San to remember something important.

It seems our lovely pair of Commentators is only just now figuring out who Smile is.

Also Smile was a “Japanese card battler active in America”?

I was about to protest the authenticity of this information, however we did actually get an English translated version of the game up to a particular set.

It’s entirely plausible for Smile to have been an active card battler in America.

That is, ignoring the fact that all Card Game anime treat their card game like it’s the best thing since sliced bread of course.

Apparently Commentator-San’s mind works faster than his ability to locate lost files as he remembers who Smile is.

Wait, Smile is a master of Gunslingers? Such that he’s referred to as the Gunslinger’s apparation?

So basically he’s extremely skilled at taking on large amounts of Card Battlers and defeating them in small amounts of time? Dang.

Being good at making people cry is not necessarily a remarkable trait there Commentator-San.

But it seems like Smile likes to play in a way that upsets people.

I get the irony with this statement though, he’s “Smile” but he doesn’t necessarily bring them.

Well now we apparently jump to Turn 20 of the Gunslinger match, which is okay I guess since we did already start halfway through the fight without a single turn marker.

Smile only has The HellDog Cerru-Berus on his field. At Level 2.

While J has a Level 2 Berserker-Gun, a Level 2 Baby-Loki and finally a Level 3 The ImpregnableFortress Odin.

Given that its the beginning of Smile’s turn, I can only imagine what’s going to happen.

As we discussed yesterday, Yellow has a supreme number of wacky effects that can give you an advantage.

Cerru-Berus has the oddly situational effect of taking control of a Cost 6 Spirit.

Smile takes control of The ImpregnableFortress Odin.

And since Cerru-Berus triggers on the Start Step of a given turn, Odin being exhausted is a non-issue, as Smile can simply Refresh it on his Refresh step.

The only drawback of course being that Smile isn’t allowed to alter Odin’s Core arrangement (As the Core belongs to J)

Smile summons The Fairy Tanya to his field at Level 1.

Well it’s clear to us that Smile is a Yellow user, but it seems he was using a different Engine up until this point as J only stopped recognising J’s cards when Cerru-Berus came out.

Smile Levels up Cerru-Berus to Level 3, again if you remember the review yesterday, Cerru-Berus isn’t allowed to attack or block if he’s at Levels 1 or 2.

Cerru-Berus and Tanya attack.

Also that is a super nice particle effect on Tanya’s attack, I’m impressed.

They Snatch 2 of J’s lives, leaving him with just 1.

Since all of J’s Spirits are exhausted, Smile intends to finish him off with Odin.

Anyone else thinking Smile looks like he’s been animated a tad differently here?

He looked significantly more sinister before, at least he’s still as animated as before.

Odin makes the final attack on J’s life, winning him the game.

Not that the defeat actually matters, you were having a Tiebreaker match to determine the Gunslinger Champion.

There is still a Finals match to be had, and Smile’s eagerness to fight J just allowed J to learn of The HellDog Cerru-Berus.

Smile’s trashing of J is awesome to watch though.

J’s gotten his ass beat by Bashin as well, you’re not really looking in the right place for Strong battlers Smile.

Was it? J just kind of played Odin and then flopped.

Speaking of things that are less than amazing, why is Suiren looking so depressed?

…Is she?… Upset that someone defeated J before she got a chance to win her revenge match?

Is she literally depressed because there is someone better than J at this very moment in time?

Just because Smile used a super-situational card against J to beat him with his own Spirit doesn’t mean you’re outclassed by Smile, Desperado’s a Cost 8, you don’t have to worry about Cerru-Berus.

SUIREN FOR FUCK SAKE.

IF YOU’VE GOT TIME TO BE DEPRESSED YOU’VE GOT TIME TO REALISE THAT SMILE’S GOT NOTHING ON YOU. QUIT BEING A BITCH AND KILLING EVERYONE ELSE’S VIBES!

Bashin’s talking about Smile here, there’s apparently something off about him?

Did the Zombie-like posture and the immovable smile on his face not tip you off Bashin?

Bloody fiery haired moron.

And here we have a depressed-looking J.

Also I guess those rumours were untrue, J isn’t bawling his god damn eyes out.

And here we have this sleazy looking weirdo who looks like he just missed the 60’s.

But given his unique design, I suspect we’re going to be seeing this asshole far more often than I’d like to.

Also that “Beautiful” was in complete English, he follows it up with an English “Wonderful!” as well.

Okay so this guy is speaking in Broken japanese, mixing in English words like “Daddy”

For a 12 year old like J though, I wonder how he’s meant to piece together what the hell this guy’s on about.

Nevermind, apparently our boy J understands English.

J is questioning why the hell the guy is applauding him, given that he lost.

Also, that guy’s got a ring on his index finger, Smile and Nine had one too, and I’m pretty sure I remember Eight having one as well.

Oh just take the compliment and fuck off, J.

Like jesus you’re being awfully stubborn about the praise you’re receiving.

That’s a surprising level of detail there, J never once mentioned that he lost because Smile was using a new card.

Again, how are you so sure that was why J lost?

Even though Smile insulted J for his lack of knowledge, J never once asked about Cerru-Berus, he simply referred to it by “That Spirit…” and then carried on playing.

Game Designer, Micheal Elliott.

That is definitely not a Japanese name, also I love how his business card has an email attached to it, batosupi@daisuki.co.bs

I’m curious about whether or not that would be an official email, given that co.bs isn’t a domain I recognise.

But given it’s Japanese they likely use different domain endings for their emails.

Anyway! Micheal Elliott is actually an anime likeness of a REAL LIFE MICHEAL ELLIOTT

This is Micheal Elliott, He’s a Card, Board and Mobile Game Designer, which according to his Wikia page, He was responsible for the Battle Spirits Game for the duration of it’s English release, but is also a man who works on the extremely popular Magic: The Gathering.

But anyway, that’s enough of an introduction to Micheal Elliott the man, this is the character, who is designed in his image, but apparently is wearing 60’s Rockstar clothing, and a Visor.

Which means you’re complicit in J’s defeat, which means J has very little reason to be talking to you right about now.

Also it’s not like Smile is using new cards he isn’t allowed to use, we know from Bashin’s littered cards last episode that BS02 is currently available to everyone.

But I’m going to assume that Mike here (I will be calling him Mike, Micheal Elliott is a bitch to type out constantly) provided Smile with specific cards he wanted from the new Set.

Actually I definitely blame your dumb ass for not researching the new set release, Bashin clearly did, he got some new Red cards from that set.

You shouldn’t have had any surprises dealing with either Yellow OR The HellDog Cerru-Berus if BS02 cards are readily available to the public.

This is obvious to anyone who isn’t a literal salt-shaker.

And I doubt there was any fear that J was going to quit over being blind-sided by a card he didn’t know about (but had the ability to find out about)

So Mike is offering J the opportunity to Study in a completely different country, something tells me Smile got that strong with cards from Mike after accepting this offer.

Now before J gets to give an answer, we’re jumping to a match between Suiren and what appears to be Nine.

…Yes, that is what people with Egos generally think Suiren.

Thank you for the redundant explanation of what “Ego” means.

…WHOA!

HOLY SHIT.

HE JUST ADOPTED BASHIN’S CATCHPHRASE AND HE MAKES IT SOUND SO MUCH COOLER.

I AM MELTING IN AWESOME, FUCK YOU SUIREN, HE DOESN’T THINK HE’S COOL, HE’S VERY DAMN COOL.

And now we jump to Turn 12! The Awesome Number Nine’s turn!

Kick her ass Nine! I need some coolness in my life!

Well, the Field is basically summed up in these 2 screenshots, which saves me time, I feel bad for the subber since he mispelt Lizardedge.

Also, Lizardedge is a new card!

A Cost 0 from BS02, since he doesn’t have an effect, I’ll go over the benefits of Cost 0.

Cost 0’s are costless, meaning that they will only sap core for maintenance, the reason why Cost 0’s are useful is because when summoning a spirit, you may deplete their core instead.

By summoning a Cost 0, and using it to pay Cost, you effectively get a free reduction just for playing it.

BUT FOLLOWING FROM THAT, NINE PLAYS THE FREAKING DRAGONEMPEROR SIEGFRIED AT LEVEL 2!

He’s even using Bashin’s X-Rare! It lost to Suiren last time because Bashin wanted to defeat Desperado.

I wonder how Nine will handle it differently to Bashin.

Apparently Suiren wasn’t expecting to see Siegfried in this match, and considering how Nine is the Nazo-Otona who awardedBashin with Siegfried, the likelihood that he would still have one drops.

It seems Nine is rather resourceful, he gave Bashin Siegfried knowing that he still had other copies of it to use.

Nine attacks using Lizardedge, and snatches a life from Suiren.

It seems Suiren’s trying to gather Core, she could have safely blocked the Level 2 Lizardedge with Bone-Gladiator or Skulldevil as they had a higher BP.

No reason to take a Life unless to use the Core.

Makes me curious as to why Nine attacked with Lizardedge then if it was so unsafe?… Maybe he was anticipating a block and had a Flash ready and Suiren read into that.

Man the mind games.

Suiren summons The SevenShogun Desperado.

Desperado’s effect depletes the pair of Rokceratops Nine had.

Also Fuckup Tally… Ah screw it I can’t remember the number.

Anyway, Lizardedge should NOT be in a refreshed state here.

Suiren only depleted 2 Spirits with Desperado’s ability, so she has to manually level up Desperado.

I’m surprised she didn’t level up at least 1 other Spirit. By my count she should have another Core in the reserve.

And finally, Desperado’s Level 2 effect comes into play, Reducing Siegfried to 1 Core.

About time Suiren remembered Desperado had a Level 2 effect, geez.

Nine declared a Block with Siegfried, but judging by his face here, he’s got a response.

…Hoo boy I wasn’t expecting this.

New card! Let’s do it!

Awaken is a Red Magic that lets you move 3 cores from your Reserve to a Spirit you control, then you get to draw a card.

Awaken is interestingly written in it’s Romaji on this particular card, so in reading the Japanese would read it as the English “Awaken”, but on Siegfried’s ability of the same name, they read it’s Japanese translation, “Kakusei”

Regardless, it’s definitely related as it’s moving core from the Reserve to Siegfried, which covers the Awaken Keyword’s Weakness of being only able to move from Spirits.

Awaken adds 3 cores to Siegfried, who then uses his Innate Awaken Keyword ability to deplete Lizardedge, bringing him to Level 3.

It’s cool that it wasn’t the simple reflect animation there this time, they showed Desperado slashing away at Siegfried and him responding with a Roar that blew Desperado away.

Apparently skipping the rest of the fight, Nine seemingly wins after cleanly defeating Desperado with his Siegfried.

First round of the finals for Suiren and she’s already been knocked out, and not even with any super powerful BS02 cards, Awaken is from the Base set.

Back off bitch.

He’s mine…

It seems Commentator-San was holding out until now, looks like there’s gonna be a short break before the next Final’s match for a potty break.

I dunno Number Eight, did you have fun getting your ass beat by a 12-year old for the second time?

Was it? You said that Number Two was going to show up earlier? That meant you were expecting him to.

Why is it suddenly unusual that what you expected to happen, happened?

Aaaah, so Elliott is Number Two.

Makes sense, considering Smile who is Number Four, got new cards through Elliott.

Well that also explains how the Nazo-Otonas are getting their endless supply of X-Rares to give out, they’ve got a Battle Spirits Game Designer on their team.

I’m having a hard time following the conversation but from what I can gather from this, it seems like Number Two is down here because he’s either trying to figure out something for the Battle System (Probably the same one J’s Dad is working on, which puts him in a working relationship with Elliott), or he’s just about done.

The Fan favourite or Nine’s favourite?

Ah, It’s J that’s battling next.

That was a bit weird of me to ask that, considering Bashin was the first person to battle.

Pleased how? You’re aware that Number Eight handed an X-Rare and a High Ranker pass to Striker right?

What would she have to be pleased about?

That’s “The Coolest Smug Man in all of anime” to you, Suiren.

Knocked out before your Revenge match with J, sucks to be you.

While Pink tries to calm Suiren down, Commentator-San finally gets to the bathroom.

And jesus I had a hard time getting this shot, he freaking SPEEDS into the bathroom.

I love how no further comment is given to Commentator-San running into the bathroom, it was significant enough to be included in the show so there would definitely need to be something caused as a result of it, other than comic relief.

also Pink going “Henshin, Henshin” Makes me suddenly want a Kamen Rider Suiren.

Apparently Meganeko has lost Card Sensei despite him being with Bashin a few moments before.

Quack Sensei has been spotted!

And he’s going to meet with Smile?

Well we did learn last Episode that Card Sensei has some kind of relationship with Smile.

Let’s see how Card Sensei is reacting to “Number Four’s” return.

…And he just comes right out and calls Card Sensei by the name of “Number Five”

So Card Sensei is, or well at least, Was, a Nazo-Otona.

What, did Card Sensei think Smile was dead or some shit?

That’s a bit dark, the hell happened to Smile?

And then they walk down a Corridor with what appears to be 2 paintings each displaying half of King Uchuuchouten on it.

The hell are they going? What does Card Sensei need to do?

Meganeko doesn’t understand a god damn thing and she’s about to follow them in, isn’t she?

Oh, well I suppose we’ll never know what Nine was referring to when he said Eight would be pleased.

Considering it was J’s Match, but he’s up against Striker.

It’s Turn 15, currently J’s move.

So J has a Board of Level 1 Spirits.

2 Berserker-Gun
Baby-Loki
and Fenrircannon.

J makes a full attack with all 4 of his Spirits and drops Striker to a single life.

Well that didn’t take long to put Striker on the brink of defeat.

So prior to Striker’s turn, he only had a single Beatbeetle.

Then Striker decides to fill his board with another Beatbeetle, 2 Flyingmirage’s and a Shockeater.

This isn’t unfamiliar in the slightest.

No sirree.

Not at all.

Couldn’t possibly have occurred in the first episode.

Well given that Silent Wall hasn’t been used SINCE the first episode, I’ll recap for you, Silent Wall ends the attack step after the battle in which it’s used has concluded.

J takes a life and Striker’s turn gets forcibly ended.

J wastes no time, and plays The Impregnable Fortress Odin.

It’s 5 Spirits to Striker’s 4 and Striker only has 1 Life.

Checkmate?

Striker saves us some screentime and does the equivalent of scooping.

Striker is a fucking bro I swear to god. NAME A BETTER PROTAGONIST THAN THIS GUY RIGHT NOW!?

He lost the same way Suiren did. Had the game stolen from him after a sudden Silent Wall.

Well that match didn’t take very long, I’m rather happy.

Now there should be one more Finals match, specifically Smile against one other participant, but who?

This Idol-Manager relationship is very abusive.

My Sunshine basically gets to go missing whenever she wants then acts like a bitch to her manager as soon as he finds her.

Can work relationships be abusive? Is that a thing?

Apparently Aibou’s trying to re-assure Bashin as if he was scared of Smile or some shit.

Smile used ONE unfamiliar card! He’s not that strong!

Ah yes, the classic fired up anime protagonist.

Excited in the face of adversity. Nothing new here.

So is this scene going to contain anything worth commenting on or is it just going to highlight that Bashin wants a battle?

Tournaments are NOT a place where you would want to “practice”, Tournaments are for application.

You’ve had up until this tournament to “Practice” your deck.

AGAIN, WILL THIS SCENE ACTUALLY HAVE ANYTHING WORTH COMMENTING ON?

NO ONE GIVES A SHIT ABOUT BASHIN’S STATE OF MIND RIGHT NOW UNLESS IT WAS UNUSUALLY BAD!

BUT IF HE’S OKAY, THEN FUCK THIS SCENE, QUIT PADDING THE SCREENTIME!

Skipping that worthless few minutes of my life I’ll never get back, we now get a scene with Uchuuchouten.

So it seems that Uchuuchouten is concerned about the fact that Card Sensei or “Five” as he’s being referred to here, didn’t try to enter the current tournament.

So it seems that Card Sensei only became an Elementary School teacher, and got close to Bashin and Hayami, just to observe the Cornerstone.

While I’d call him a sly piece of shit, the fact that he’s arguing that he shouldn’t need to fight against Cornerstone holders means he cares for them to some degree.

Though talking back to Uchuuchouten who appears to be his boss might do more harm to him than good.

“Numbers Elite”

Well it seems that the Nazo-Otona have Numbers due to being of the “Numbers Elite”

And Card Sensei is still apparently, a member of the Numbers Elite.

Okay I’m a little confused, we’ve skipped a match apparently.

We had Bashin vs Eight.

Suiren vs Nine

And now J vs Striker.

We’ve apparently skipped Smile’s first round, so whoever he was battling before no longer is.

Meaning that currently the winners are Bashin, Nine, J, and Smile.

And Smile got paired with Bashin, meaning Nine has been paired against J.

Jumping to turn 20, we’ve got another panning field making it very difficult to see wtf is going on.

VASSAL! SAVE US!

So to summarise, here is the field arrangement. Each player has 5 Spirits.

On Bashin’s field, we have:

Goradon – Level 1
Rokceratops – Level 1
2 Taurusknight – Both at Level 2
Lizardman – Level 2

While Smile’s field has:

2x The Fairy Tanya
Arcanabeast-Ken
2x The BalloonMan Barball.

All at Level 1, with some new cards that need review.

Barball is just a Cost 6 Vanilla in the Puppet Beast family. There’s nothing particularly remarkable about it.

Arcanabeast-Ken on the other hand, is of the Magician family, and has an effect surrounding one of the first named “Archetypes” in Battle Spirits.

That being the “Arcana” archetype, and all “Arcana” Spirits gain +2000 BP when blocking. (Kind of seems like it’s stealing White’s thunder there)

For those who play games that don’t use these, Named Archetypes are a Card Game’s way of forcing synergy between a set amount of cards.

Not by giving them effects that do well with each other, but by making it so that their effects will only work on very specific Spirits that have a specific name. And then justifying giving powerful effects under the pretext of “but it only works in this deck”

Rewarding those spirits for being used with each other purely because they are named a certain way, and the cards themselves support that naming. It’s honestly extremely lazy and I’m happy that Battle Spirits doesn’t use Named Archetypes very often.

Named Archetypes are bad for games because they’re an easy way to drive up sales of new sets rather than trying to promote the game’s creativity, making a deck out of a Named Archetype is rather easy, because it supremely narrows what cards you are meant to be looking for, thankfully this particular habit didn’t stick, and were used sparingly over the course of the game’s lifetime.

Now there are quite a few more Named Archetypes nowadays, but they’re significantly better handled, and quite a lot of the cards in them, especially most of the bosses, don’t need to be thrown into the Archetype deck to function.

Anyway, enough about Named Archetypes, more Show!

Bashin apparently having watched J’s fight, still doesn’t know about the Yellow colour just yet.

They’re not weird, they’re the same as the spirits you normally play with, just Yellow.

This guy’s brain runs on a timer.

And Smile decides now is the best time to play a new card.

Welp, time to have a look.

This card selects a colour, and treats all Spirits of that colour as being at it’s highest level.

This makes up for any lack of Core to make a strong attack with.

Of course, Smile selects Yellow. Lucky that Bashin doesn’t have Yellow Spirits, or it would treat those as being Level 3 as well.

That was a rollercoaster of a move, Bashin’s used Taurusknight’s Awaken to deal with the Barball’s sudden Level 3 assault, Awaken’s pretty good for mounting a defense.

The Second verse is the same as the first, Taurusknight Awakens to Level 3 and defeats Barball.

Smile tries to inform Bashin of the bleakness of the situation, now that both Taurusknight’s are exhausted, and Bashin used Awaken to beat the Barball’s, Smile’s spirits will run over Bashin’s.

Bashin, being the muppet he is, smiles at him happily without a care in the world.

Smile is evidently confused at Bashin’s moronic face.

Don’t worry Smile, I feel you. We all do.

OH HO.

That’s SUPER Clever!

But firstly, new card!

This Card has the same effect whether used as a Flash or in the main step, and it grants a Spirit the ability to Awaken!

The reason why this is clever is because Bashin blocked with Lizardman and THEN played this card, that way Lizardman can overpower Arcanabeast-Ken despite it’s ability normally preventing it from blocking spirits with lower BP than Lizardman.

With only 5000 BP to Lizardman’s 9000, Arcanabeast-Ken doesn’t stand a chance.

And apparently after that statement a Horn blows, signalling that Bashin would have won next turn, as Smile’s attack failed to eliminate any of Bashin’s Spirits, instead destroying 3 of Smile’s.

Possibly because any cards that Bashin didn’t immediately recognise either had no effects, or were completely inconsequential.

Unlike Cerru-Berus, which was very instrumental in throwing J off.

Magic is THE way to cover your formation’s flaws. Almost all decks need Magic.

And even if your Deck doesn’t require Magic in it’s strategy, it’s still good to run White Magic regardless, which will cover you in the case of a sudden attack from the opponent.

Anyone else watching this and hoping that Nine supremely beats J’s ass?

That man carries himself with such an Aura of mystery, and despite this seems to be taking after Bashin immensely.

I’ve never seen a man who follows the rule of “Break through the front” so calmly and it’s awesome.

Backstage, Bashin gets Aibou back, who was apparently being looked after by J.

Way to no sell Smile, who did the great feat of defeating J.

Now Smile just seems like he wasn’t a big deal as he was literally at the start of this episode.

Challenging fights are fun, but this didn’t do well to make Smile seem challenging.

They should have gone out of their way to make Smile seem far more threatening.

Seems Bashin’s rooting for J to beat Nine.

I hate to say it Bashin but no one agrees with you, Nine is the clear favourite here.

We’re at Turn 19 of J’s turn, Nine has Rokceratops, Skeleton-Jaw, and Lizardman all Exhausted and at Level 1 while J has Fenrircannon and Dualcannon-Bell both at Level 2.

They appear exhausted here of course but since it’s J’s turn they’re about to refresh.

J adds Berserker-Gun and 2 Icemaiden’s to his formation, all at Level 1.

Well Slap my ass and call me Trixie, it’s ANOTHER new card!

From BS02! (Adding further credence to the fact that J should have known about Yellow), The Corridor of Mirrors!

At all Levels, any card with the Armor ability (Immunity in English) that would be defeated by a Spirit who’s Color it is immune to, it remains on your field exhausted.

This is a common way of wording simply that the spirit isn’t destroyed, and you can keep it around.

At Level 2 however, if your opponent attempts to use Magic during the Attack Step, that Magic gets negated, and The Corridor of Mirrors loses 2 cores. But that effect only works once per turn.

That’s why J placed 5 cores on it, since he won’t be able to arrange the cores after his own attack step, it means that Nine can’t Fizzle a Magic just to be able to use Magic on his next turn.

Nine is losing his cool, that’s not a good look for him.

While the timing would be good here, unfortunately J had prepared for that.

The cores went in an odd direction, I’m curious about whether or not “removing 2 cores” from this nexus just means send them to the reserve or to the Trash.

Well after checking with my sources, apparently the Japanese text specifically states that you send the Core to the Void.

That means those cores are removed completely. You don’t get them back.

Hefty cost to negate a Magic.

…I’m sensing some foreshadowing, are you?

Well, J cleans that one up. Nine loses the match.

A little disappointing but hey, we apparently needed the Rivals to face off again in an official tournament.

Nothing to see here, just a Balding Elvis-ified Robocop wondering if he can turn a 12-year old kid into a Nazo-Otona.

At least he won a round, shame you didn’t get that far Eight.

You all collectively suck.

Except for Nine, Nine is still cooler than the pair of you combined, Smile is starting to lose his coolness with me.

Neither were you Eight.

Why is she talking so much shit when the pair of them got way farther than she did?

Also you can tell the animators enjoyed drawing that.

It seems Eight isn’t a particularly big fan of Number Five.

Also “Ran away from the Numbers”? He just went to report to Uchuuchouten about what his mission was, I’d say he’s still very much in operation.

Smile makes this weird comment toward Eight.

Why would Eight want to specifically be glad about Five?

…

Gonna go out on a limb and say that Card Sensei and Eight used to be in a relationship.

And whatever happened, Card Sensei jumped ship, and now he wants to bang Bashin’s Mom.

Well, Card Sensei has returned from reporting to the enemy.

Nice save there Card Sensei, if you lead the conversation then Bashin will never have to have you answer the question you don’t want to answer.

Considering that Bashin has been beating all the people who beat J previously, and he’s beaten J once before.

All bets are on Bashin really.

But J is apparently using “Techniques” that even Nine has never seen before, meaning that Elliott may have hooked him up with some new cards.

…

Nevermind, Bashin’s fucked.

He apparently has a plan to beat J preconceived before going into the match and that is definitely not within the realms of Bashin’s brain capacity.

So just gonna move all my bets to J winning.

After some encouragement from his friends, our shounen protagonist goes to battle J.

Normally you’d expect this to give him strength, but the power of friendship seems like a concept Bashin might not be able to make use of.

Meanwhile, J gets encouragement from the only friend he really has, his sister.

I feel bad for J, you’d think a guy as popular as him would have some genuine friends.

Meanwhile Smile pops up out of bum-fuck nowhere to tell J that he’s actually from the Lollipop Guild and they want him to join.

Does it involve the moving arrangements to Munchkin Land?

J tells Smile he ain’t about that life and basically gives him the least vulgar equivalent to “Fuck off” as you can get.

Why is Smile calling him a Lover boy?

Who is he meant to be in love with? Bashin?

I am so very confused by Smile’s insult here.

You have no idea how much the words “At Last” resonate with me right about now.

J, kick his ass so we can go back to the plot.

So it seems that it’s J’s turn, and Bashin has a Level 1 Siegfried and Goradon, as well as a Level 3 Taurusknight.

So it’s been a pretty even match thus far, but apparently J doesn’t have any Spirits on his field has he hasn’t displayed what’s on is board.

I can only take that to assume he has no Spirits.

…Uh oh. That’s not good.

That’s right Bashin, that means we unfortunately have to look at it.

This is The Sacred Mjolnir, a Cost 2 Spirit of the Armed Machine Family.

The reason why J put 2 core on this one is because it requires 2 Core to be at Level 1. That means a Card like Desperado can deplete this simply by attacking.

This is the first of a series of cards all named “The Sacred”, the reason I say series and not a named archetype is because there are no cards specifically supporting them.

At the moment there’s nothing admirable about it, besides being a hefty 7000 BP at Level 3 despite being a Cost 2, its a very powerful spirit for the time.

But this is why I was saying “Uh oh”, because where there is Mjolnir.

…There is Thor.

Now I would post the English translation but they changed the Art for it, to that end I’m going to use the Japanese Art, and post a translation.

It’s… It’s such a good looking card in it’s Japanese Art.

Alright, let’s go over this crazy White X-Rare’s effects.

Thor is a Cost 7 White X-Rare in the Armed Machine and Android families.

At all Levels, when Thor attacks, he can exhaust an “Armed Machine” family spirit to add the Armed Machine’s BP to Thor’s BP.

Starting at Level 2, Thor doesn’t exhaust when blocking a Red Spirit.

And finally, at it’s Strongest Level, when Thor is done attacking, you can destroy an “Armed Machine” family spirit to refresh Thor.

This is one of the earliest examples of a card directly supporting an entire family of cards.

And unlike Odin, who gradually get’s stronger per Nexus, this thing only needs itself, and a high BP Armed Machine to hit high levels of BP.

J levels Thor up to Level 3 of course.

He’s quite a good-looking Spirit, but failing to understand how his effects work can cost you, given that he’s only 8000 BP at Level 3 despite being Cost 7.

Yes, and one that is amazingly good at taking down Red Decks like yours, Bashin.

I still can’t get over the amount of Red hate in J’s deck.

In any case, Bashin is dumbfounded, he likely planned for Odin, not Thor.

Once again, just going to say, impeccable job from the team working on the CGI for this show, they look absolutely brilliant in this shot.

J ends his turn, given that attacking now would reveal his combo.

Besides, Thor is all he needs to stave off Bashin’s attacks.

Bashin levels up Siegfried to Level 3, his BP now hitting 10,000.

That’s an interesting point, Thor’s effect to boost his BP only applies when he’s attacking, so I’m suspecting some Defensive Aura action here.

Thor blocks the attack and just whisks the flame back at Taurusknight like a badass.

J, and I need you to listen for this one.

EXPLAINS TO BASHIN THAT THOR DOES NOT EXHAUST WHEN BLOCKING A RED SPIRIT.

AND THIS HAIRY FUCKING TANGERINE.

DECIDES THE BEST IDEA WOULD BE TO THEN ATTACK WITH GORADON!

AFTER HAVING IT EXPLAINED TO HIM, THAT THOR WILL NOT EXHAUST WHEN BLOCKING A RED SPIRIT.

I need a Coffee, I have been Caffeine starved since I arrived in Portugal.

If it wasn’t clear before, I’ll spell it out for you readers now.

BASHIN, IS A BLOODY IDIOT.

Oh but apparently you had the Brains to not throw Siegfried to the flames at least, so why did you think Goradon needed to take the Thor Discount Deal to the god damn CARD TRASH!?

And J declares an attack, prompting Mjolnir to turn itself into a fucking hammer.

Gotta love these Norse references.

Bashin takes a life from Mjolnir’s (quite literal) swing.

I don’t quite understand J’s logic here, Mjolnir is exhausted, so how is Thor going to beat Siegfried’s 10,000 BP?

…Oh, he’s either going to Refresh Mjolnir or make Thor unblockable.

Bashin Blocks with Siegfried, who as it stands, has more than enough BP to take out Thor.

J goes for option B and uses Invisible Cloak, now Bashin isn’t allowed to Block Thor and is forced to take a life.

See what I mean? Card just comes out of nowhere and ends games when Bashin had enough resource to take on Thor.

Not a competitively healthy card whatsoever.

On a sidenote, Bashin declared that he’d blocked, meaning normally Invisible Cloak wouldn’t work, so it can be assumed that J used this during Flash Timing 1 (Before any blocks are declared)

Thor PLANTS HIS GOD DAMN FIST INTO SOME INVISIBLE WALL.

Could they not have just put a model of a core there? No?

Bashin unfortunately loses his final life.

And the Finals go to J!

BE SADDER YOU MONG!

You just lost what is probably the most important match in this series so far!

Ah yes, more reason for you guys to nail yourselves to his groin area.

Because you weren’t brown-nosing him enough apparently!

I dunno, I wanted Bashin to lose mostly because I hate Bashin, but J here has obviously received help from Elliott and received powerful cards.

I don’t think the answer to losing to Smile, who was using cards gained from Elliott, was getting cards from Elliott.

That literally just makes you as bad as Smile is for blindsiding you like that.

I don’t like it, not one bit, J gave in a bit too quickly to the promise of power.

More like “If not for the opponent being a little bitch and needing to receive power from a 3rd party”

What J is talking about here doesn’t make a lot of sense but I’ll sum it up.

Basically Invisible Cloak has to be used before Blocks are declared, making a card unblockable means absolutely nothing if it becomes that way after being blocked.

Meaning when J attacked with Mjolnir, he held onto Invisible Cloak to save for Thor, and Bashin had the opportunity to block Mjolnir using Siegfried.

He could have taken a life from Thor and then not had to worry.

And it’s not like J could boost Thor’s defense again, because the only card in his hand was Invisible Cloak, Bashin could have destroyed Thor then.

Stop.

Being.

Happy.

You just lost a finals match! You’ve changed nothing in the hierarchy of power that is this show!

Meanwhile, someone’s reporting to Uchuuchouten.

Uchuuchouten decides to give a question to Two, aka, Elliott.

Why is Uchuuchouten asking for Elliott’s opinion on specifically Japanese card battlers? It’s like he’s trying to impress Elliott in some way, even though he’s meant to be the almighty “King” in this situation?

Elliott decides to make like a politician, and answer a completely different question to the one he was asked.

He then explains that the Numbers were observing the Cornerstone bearers to confirm whether or not they had awakened.

Seems that Uchuuchouten wants the power of the Cornerstones.

According to Uchuuchouten, the hearts of each Cornerstone holder has to “awaken” before the full powers of the Cornerstones are shown.

That’s a bit weird, so simply being able to access Isekai isn’t enough? What else can the Cornerstones do?

I still find it odd that his room is littered with pictures of the Numbers Elite.

Do you reckon Card Sensei is getting a little sick and tired of everyone bitching at him for “running away” from the Numbers? Despite the fact that he’s STILL been carrying out his mission to observe the Cornerstone bearers?

And of course, in classic “I don’t want to answer your question” fashion, Card Sensei answers Smile’s question by asking a completely unrelated question.

Considering that Elliott is the reason you were able to surprise J with all new cards.

You may want to clean your mouth with all the bullshit spewing out of it.

It seems that Smile intends on making J a member of the Numbers Elite, and is trying to make a deal with Card Sensei for him to not intervene on anything concerning J, in return he gets to ensure Bashin’s safety.

Though I’m highly curious how Bashin is in any way involved with the Numbers Elite given that none of the Numbers besides Nine has actually showed any avid interest in him.

I wonder what Nine’s fascination with Bashin is about, more than Smile’s cryptic request.

Huh… And that’s apparently the end of the episode.

That was a freaking monster of one, how many fights did we end up getting? Lemme go back and count.

After a quick count, we got a total of SIX fights in this episode, as opposed to the usual 2, they did a lot of cutting off the end of the fight however in some, but at least in Striker’s case he just admitted defeat to save J the trouble.

This Episode’s huge number of Fights was a clear attempt at advertising various new cards in BS02 of course, and I’m more than happy about that, because reviewing new cards as they appear is awesome.

I’m also starting to get super invested plot-wise, now we actually have something to follow here, Uchuuchouten wants the Cornerstone’s powers and to that end, they want to recruit J into the Numbers Elite.

And it turns out Card Sensei is a member of them, but for some reason is evidently distancing himself from the Numbers Elite, possibly to protect Bashin.

This Episode was definitely enjoyable, you can also see some small tells that J might end up going Dark on us.

The reasons I say this is because of his rather serious expression when using Invisible Cloak to defeat Bashin, there was also the fact that he was approached by Elliott after losing to Smile, which Elliott admitted to providing Smile with new cards.

To go from losing to Smile due to unfamiliar cards, to being approached by the man who made that possible and then suddenly displaying new cards of his own (as evidenced by Nine’s own confusion), It seems like J received these new cards from Elliott.

He’s becoming a little complacent for power from my perspective at least.

My only real criticisms with the episode was mainly, that they failed to properly display Smile’s strength.

They did a GREAT job foreshadowing him, and Card Sensei referring to him as “Number Four” was a confirmation of Smile being in league with that of Eight and Nine, and then cleanly beating J through his sudden use of the Yellow Colour (which he debuted)

And then in this episode! They called Smile “The Gunslinger’s Apparation!” and stated the rumour that his battles have an adverse effect on his opponent’s mental states.

Only for J to be marginally unfazed by his loss to Smile until Elliott just kinda shows up, and then Smile goes and loses to Bashin almost immediately after that display of ability.

If I had to change certain things around, I’d have had Smile take on Suiren instead of Nine, the reason for that being that Suiren would have lost anyway, and adding a win to Smile would have been another win added to testify to his potential strength.

Losing to Bashin should have been way closer than it was, and Bashin should have had far more than the scene he got, worrying about how Strong Smile was.

But oh well, my gripes aside, let’s have a look at our card of the day.

Aw Dang, since I jumped the gun and reviewed Cerru-Berus yesterday due to there being no Card of the Day, they’ve slapped me in the face by making Cerru-Berus THIS episode’s card of the day.

Welp, Let’s see if I can pick a card that definitely won’t be next Episode’s card of the day.

I suppose it would be better to just go over the Yellow attribute as a whole.

I already stated this before but I said that if I were to summarise each colour in a word, Yellow would be under “Confusion”

Yellow is really hard to nail in terms of playstyle identity, because it never really follows any one set rule. As you saw with Arcanabeast-Ken, some cards have traits you’d typically see in White.

For now, a lot of them just have quite a few wacky effects that seem to have very little synergy with each other, the only consistent part of it being the focus on Magic, and Spirits of a particular Cost.

Though at this current moment in time, the X-Rare that Yellow uses (which supports the Magic using identity) is banned from competitive play, I won’t review it here since it may show up later, being an X-Rare and all.

Well, until next episode! I’ll see you guys later!