Toppa Bashin – Episode 19

Lovely, so this is another Episode focusing on this silly Tag ruling.

This is the 3rd episode with the concept, and I’m already tired of it. Sweet gimmicky jesus.

Bashin arrives home and is just about to leave again but Hayami delivers a letter to him before he does.

Apparently Bashin has a letter assigned to him… Wonder what that’s about.

Oh, Striker got one as well. And if both Striker and Bashin got one, then it’s either from J, or both J and Suiren got one as well.

Still wanna know what’s in it though.

It seems the shop didn’t take long to get refurbished, the shop’s been fitted with the newest tag battle system now, so now the public get to participate in tag battles.

I wonder what the purpose of introducing the tag battle was for, I doubt they’re just advertising it for seemingly 0 reason.

Striker turns up, having opened his letter. With a relatively confused look on his face. I’m wondering what’s on that letter that’s got him so bummed out.

Who wants to guess its got another word like “Gunslinger” that he doesn’t understand?

…OH… I GET IT.

HE’S CONFUSED BECAUSE IT’S IN COMPLETE ENGLISH!

HOLY SHIT THAT WAS UNEXPECTED. Toppa Bashin writers sure know their humour.

So lets read it, apparently there is a Battle Spirits University in spring, an orientation meeting held on Sunday.

And the Agenda is the School Orientation, Booster Draft and Tag Battle?…

Okay Orientation I think is just a fancy way of saying they want to get Striker interested in the University by holding a meeting about it. But they’re also advertising Tag Battles and a word I’ve never seen in a show before, Booster Draft.

Booster Draft is a term originating in Magic: The Gathering (since the English version of Battle Spirits was also managed by the guy who worked on MTG, it makes sense)

It’s effectively a format where you get a group of people, each open a pack and each take a card from that pack, passing the rest to another person and having them select a card and so on until you have a certain number of cards, then you build a deck out of the cards you pulled.

Usually in games that have natural restrictions to building a deck, like Vanguard, they ease up the process by applying special rules that allow for synergy in a deck that wouldn’t normally have it, for example in Vanguard, units have all clans and races for the purposes of those battles.

I’m not sure if there would be a similar rule for Battle Spirits but I can imagine there would be a rule like having cards treat themselves as all families, or having reductions count regardless of colour.

It seems Striker doesn’t understand a specific word in the letter.

Oh they’re actually pin-pointing the Booster Draft.

PLEASE TELL ME THIS IS A BOOSTER DRAFT EPISODE, I WILL BE LITERALLY ECSTATIC IF SUCH A POPULAR TYPE OF BATTLE IS SHOWN!

To be fair the English language isn’t very hard to read. It’s understanding it that’s the problem.

Even people that only know English can’t bloody speak it half the time.

D’awwww, Look at Meganeko blushing at the compliment.

That is absolutely adorable that she’s feeling so happy over receiving a compliment from Bashin.

Meganeko stops all of a sudden and Bashin wonders what’s up.

I don’t remember seeing anything on the letter that was specifically worrying though.

…So much for being able to read English.

Also why are you crying Meganeko? Bashin doesn’t understand English either, you’ve gotten much farther than he has.

And you’re like 12! You’re not expected to be bilingual at this point!

I’m with Bashin on this one but I suspect he’s going to say some insensitive crap to make Meganeko feel worse.

He’s not judging Meganeko based on her ability and he’s looking for solutions rather than dwelling on the problem.

He’s spent his very limited supply of intelligence points this early in the show… I can’t imagine what level of dumbass he’s going to yield later.

I’d rather you didn’t break through the English language.

But I will admit knowing English definitely does help with ruling the world.

But of course Meganeko is too depressed to immediately follow after Bashin when he starts running.

No wonder she’s so slow. Also where’s that romantic arm pulling that was in the first episode? Certainly more practical than just hoping she keeps up with you.

And now we cut to Batosupi TV. I see Commentator-San hasn’t been fired for creeping on underage girls infront of the bathroom yet.

I wonder how they quashed that.

And the guest they’re having is J… But of course.

Do you reckon J has trouble walking with how much Batosupi TV is glued to his bollocks?

And Mr. Elliott is here too! Referred to as the “Superstar” of the Batosupi World?

What? How? He’s a fucking Game designer, that doesn’t make him a Superstar.

That means all your game-based complaints go to this loon!

Nothing like making a fool of yourself on live television.

But I suppose when you’re a Nazo-Otona trying to make use of a small 12-year old rich boy to boost some ulterior agenda, I suppose you got to cover it somehow.

I am absolutely convinced that his Tag Battle system and J’s sudden active participation in anything Elliott is doing has some purpose other than boosting the game’s popularity.

You’re on the second fucking set.

You ain’t got time to be worrying about your future until you’ve secured a fanba-

Right, this is an anime, the fanbase is already secured because they’re fictional…

Putting J on a bit of a pedestal there.

The minute he loses an official tournament will be the day you drop him completely, you know that right?

Then they’ll have to surgically remove Batosupi TV from his gonads and attach them to whoever just so happened to win.

Cuz that’s the fun thing about tournaments, it takes great effort to win, but they’re set up to ALWAYS have a winner regardless.

Effort for the players, absolutely none on the part of the spectators and those who will capitalise on that victory for the sake of publicity.

I see Mr. Elliott wants to Battle J, I’m curious what deck he uses.

Does Batosupi TV even have the runtime needed for a full match of Battle Spirits?

I imagine as a news program they have like what, 30 minutes? You’d need a full hour to get a game of Battle Spirits in at least in this era of the game-

…So that’s why they’re turn skipping?

I hate to say it but even though games take long, most of that time is due to thinking.

There is no excuse for getting to Turn 20, only having 2 weaksauce spirits, and not taking any lives.

Come on now.

It seems Mr. Elliott doesn’t want J to use his own Deck.

…Oh I know why. LETS DO IT.

BOOSTER.

DRAFT.

Also clever writers! You’re introducing not only a new Battle System (which is what you apparently call the rules of the game) but you’re ALSO using it as a cover up to hide what Micheal Elliott’s real deck is.

That’s CRAZY.

Given that Striker and the Card Shop Manager is here, I imagine the Manager will give his own explanation, I already described it but let’s see if he does it better.

Not a bad explanation actually, they’ve also made it so that you repeat until a 40-card deck is made, rather than some arbitrary number that you make a deck out of.

They also say “Give back the Rest” but to be fair you’re giving them to another player, Booster Draft is usually handled with more than 2, but with only 2 players in this one, you can gauge what cards they’ve pulled based on what you get back.

Personally, despite having never played a Booster Draft game (As much as I would love to) I absolutely LOVE this general format.

Because the greatest joy I get from this game is building decks.

They’re a bitch to set up online though, if anyone knows a way of setting up a format like this online, do tell me, I’ll be more than happy to try set a game up.

He’s right you know.

It appears the game has begun, though the packs are still on the table and no mats are there.

I can’t tell if that’s his hand, or if those are the cards he pulled from the pack, but there’s a new card among them, The PhantomBull Smowg.

A Cost 5 Purple Spirit from the Spiritual Beast family… And it’s from BS01!

Well it would make sense considering the other cards J has are from BS01, but like jesus they had TARGET ATTACKING even back then?

Nice to know the earliest target attacker I can think of was a Purple card. Jesus.

I imagine mixing Red and Purple with BS01 cards might be a beneficial combo in this Era, I’ll take a crack at it later.

Ah, the cards he’s holding are from a pack, so they’re still deck organising I see.

J selects Double Draw, his gameplan is likely to gather a large amount of Spirits, Double Draw will increase his number of available cards, making that job a little easier.

Oh, finally, now we get to see what decks they’ve built, the turn-skipping will actually assist with this.

Only turn 7? That’s pretty tame given the show’s track record. What on earth?

J’s field review was aids, so here’s his field as of currently, courtesy of Vassal.

Eyeburn, Taurusknight and The CannonArtifact Mega-Rock all at Level 1.

It seems that J was going for a Red/White Deck with this one.

It also seems that not all the packs were the same, some cards here are from BS01, and some are from BS02.

Meanwhile, Mr. Elliott has Arcanabeast Ken and The MelodyBird Crewc both at Level 2.

Which seems to me that he’s building Yellow.

Also you know what’s coming, because I ain’t seen now MelodyBird Crewc’s around these here parts.

A Cost 4 Yellow Spirit of the Song Bird family, originating from BS02.

Well ain’t this an interesting ability, further adding to the absolute weirdness that is Yellow. At the start of your turn you basically get to give a temporary family to all your Spirits in the Song Bird family.

I don’t really know the applicable uses for this, even in Yellow.

Time to add more Red to the field, J plays Lizardedge.

Arcanabeast-Ken blocks an attack from Eyeburn, since Arcanabeast-Ken has more BP, Eyeburn is destroyed.

J decides going further into minus is the best idea at the moment and Taurusknight gets blocked by The MelodyBird Crewc, resulting in Taurusknight’s destruction.

PFFFFT, No it wasn’t.

What sort of bullshit are you selling the audience?

Ah yes, I see, if you compliment J then it makes your ability to defend look even better.

Toot your own horn when you’re alone, not here.

Suddenly we skip 5 turns ahead for seemingly no reason.

But I suppose they were trying to highlight that J is having a hard time.

So Elliott’s field consists of a Level 2 Ken that apparently has yet to leave the field, Shockeater, The Fairy Tanya.

And 2 new cards in Top-Supra and Rom.

A Cost 4 Spirit of the Evil Shadow family from BS02.

Interestingly has abilities that dictate what Level of Spirits can block it, at Level 2 he can only be blocked by spirits at the first 2 levels, and at Level 3 he can’t be blocked by anything that isn’t Level 1.

Pretty simple, requires your opponent to consider it when planning their strategy, beyond just number of spirits.

And here’s a Cost 3 Vanilla from BS02, a Yellow Spirit of the Toy Beast family.

Nothing to see here. Just a vanilla really.

And J has only Lizardedge, Lizardman, and Sphereroid on his board. Further adding credence to the idea that he was trying to build a deck out of Red and White cards.

Meanwhile Elliott’s got some Colour soup, he seems to be using a Yellow basis, but he’s also got Shockeater and Top-Supra, a Green and a Purple Spirit.

Arcanabeast-Ken attacks and is blocked by Sphereroid, Sphereroid has a rather comedic destruction of it going nuts before exploding.

Top-Supra attacks and HOLY SHIT LOOK AT THE FUCKING BUDGET INVESTED ON THIS FUCKING GUY.

HOLY MOLY HE JUST FIRES A DEATH-RAY, THAT’S COOL!

Lizardedge blocks and gets FUCKING VAPORIZED.

RIP LIZARDEDGE.

Break your F key to pay your god damn respects good sirs.

J takes from the life for both of these hits. Because Lizardman is exhausted, he’s only got 1 life now.

With The Fairy Tanya available, Elliott can finish off J.

…If you’re aware of that, then finish him off.

Did Elliott just end his turn? WHY!?

He has Tanya available! Lizardman is exhausted! J can’t block!

And he’s already correctly read that J doesn’t have a strong card in his hand given his expression!

Why wasn’t the finishing blow made!?

J throws out the last magic he added to his deck, Double draw!

It seems J has drawn Flame Tempest, the other card is a Goradon.

Man his deck does contain a crapton of Red doesn’t it? He couldn’t rely on a comeback for a makeshift deck so he just decided to focus on Red cards because they have high power?

J’s Deck is White but his nature defaulted to Red, ain’t that a little bit of evidence to how much Bashin inspires him.

I think it’s cool really.

THE OTHER REMAINING CARD IN HIS HAND WAS ALSO A GORADON.

ELLIOTT, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING BY NOT FINISHING HIM OFF!?

And now all of Elliott’s Spirits are destroyed.

Might have been a good idea to uh, finish him off, yeah Elliott?

Bet you feel absolutely STUPID.

But then again you called J the future of Battle Spirits, I wonder if you’re not intentionally letting him win.

These were the ingredients chosen to create the perfect Bishounen Rich-boy.

I get knowledge, strategy and luck but I fail to see how technique doesn’t fall under a strategy, a strategy is a method you can use to win and technique is just how you go about it. Wouldn’t that just fall under strategy?

J plays the last 2 Goradons in his hand.

J makes a full attack and defeats Elliott…

Mostly because Elliott is a fucking idiot but that’s not really a hard thing to be in Battle Spirits Shounen Toppa Bashin apparently.

Yeah, you know that thing he wasn’t planning for whatsoever, and that Elliott LET him do because Elliott doesn’t know how to play the fucking game he helped design.

It’s in America!?

I’m sorry but no parent is going to let their 12-13 year old child be taken to America to be supervised by yourself, just to learn how to play a fucking Card game.

Battle Spirits is such a common thing, why would you need to open a prestigious school in a remote location just to teach it? Who would do that-

Oh you can fuck right off…

Or you can be a normal person who has a general life and be good at this game WITHOUT dedicating your absolute life to it.

…Why are you guys laughing?

So does J not need to attend then? Given he’s just beaten you?

And considering your inability to realise when you’re able to win games, that doesn’t seem like much of a milestone either.

Micheal Elliott, casually telling J that he “Has much to learn, young padawan” despite the fact that Elliott just lost a Booster Draft game he could very well have won.

I wonder if the real Micheal Elliott appreciates being made to look like a muppet by his anime counterpart?

Back with Break-Through-The-Brick-Wall-With-My-Face-And-Rule-The-World-Of-Muppets, Toppa Bashin, Card Sensei is helpfully translating the letter Bashin received.

I suppose you’d need to be fluent in English to be able to teach it.

Bashin can barely breathe on his own, I’m surprised Elliott thinks Bashin has the capability to live on his own.

You’re basically already a full-time card battler, who’s full-time education is going to waste.

Trust me, being graded on a topic you love is a fast way to become super disinterested in it. Unless you’re like me and you can love something beyond being tested excessively on your ability to do it.

Bashin is suddenly interrupted by Card Sensei, telling him this entire thing is bogus.

I agree but I want to see what his reasoning is before I fully support him.

We all know that’s bitten me in the ass before.

Ah, so he IS on my Level.

But why do I think this has something to do with Smile? Considering Smile also went to America and got really good at Battle Spirits.

Bashin misses the point completely. As per usual.

Card Sensei giving an accurate summary of the show thus far.

Meganeko has apparently caught on to the free real estate inside my brain and asserts that Card Sensei might not have been entirely sincere with Bashin.

Card Sensei says Bashin’s hit the tipping point in things that worry him.

…I’m sorry I hit the tipping point when I first saw him act like a complete idiot, he’s a lost cause Card Sensei.

I’m not saying he should be punished for his stupidity, but there’s no point to a warning sign if he’s not going to use it.

Huh, a scene cut, I wanted to see what was going on with Card Sensei.

Apparently J’s feeling all unsure about studying Battle Spirits abroad for some… reason.

Considering he’s been investing most of his money into it, and he’s kind of got enough riches to last him the rest of his life.

Why not? Its not like he’s shown interest in anything else.

For literally anything other than card games, yes Okyou.

J starts to question Elliott’s meaning on what he meant by “not knowing all there is to know about Battle Spirits”

And then asks his personal driver to let him off.

Sucks to be that Driver, but then again he gets paid literally to do nothing but drive around a rich kid, so nothing all that difficult really.

So he’s either going to be kidnapped or find some weirdo who wants to fight him.

SOMETHING CONVENIENT will happen during this time. It always does.

Yes J, it’s honestly quite sad how a person of your RIPE 12 YEARS OF AGE.

DOESN’T UNDERSTAND EVERYTHING THERE IS TO UNDERSTAND.

You’re still in Full time education, slow the fuck down there captain.

The intermission finally hits and we now cut straight to the Orientation meeting.

Well ain’t that lovely, at least Bashin will get an idea of how shitty this is gonna be before he even gets to America.

Pffft, no you’re not.

You’re staying exactly where the plot is, which is here. In fucking Toaru.

I see J and Striker got there okay.

Also “Expert” in Battle Spirits. What a loon.

Doesn’t take a genius to use the Meta, does take a Genius to create one, but no school is going to be able to teach that.

But this guy lost a match when he could have one and recognised he could have, I suppose those who can’t do, Teach.

“Privileged” is an odd word to use here considering Bashin’s an idiot.

I assume Bashin is just more so saying “They invited you too?”

Also nice to see that Suiren got invited, though if she goes to a Battle Spirits University in America she’s going to have a hard time explaining away the disappearance of My Sunshine.

Bashin once again says how studying Battle Spirits full time is going to be awesome and Suiren butts in with the reality of the situation.

Apparently my previous point popped up, and Suiren’s already decided she’s going nowhere for the duration of her idol career. Even if there’s a better option.

Hitting a bit close to home there Suiren, but a good question nonetheless.

…Unless Bashin doesn’t know what the word “Abroad” means?…

He doesn’t know does he?

Holy shit it was staring me in the face and I didn’t realise.

Suiren tries to explain to Bashin what “abroad” means but is interrupted by-
AMERICAAAAA!!! FUCK YEAH!

Comin’ again to save the motherfuckin’ day yeah!~

Sorry, the opportunity keeps presenting itself, anyway, Bashin has finally clicked that America is another country.

…Or not, he has figured out that the Americans speak English though.

Freedom is the o~nly way yeah!

Bashin finally clicks that America is finally another country, and starts worrying about the real issue…

His FACE… I.. I actually feel bad for him. Suiren’s face just adds to the seriousness of the situation and-

Oh shit there’s a fuckin’ EXAM.

Dang son, I’d love to take that.

The Participants can go fu-

Oh shit the bearded guy is here, why is he not gruffly shouting “BUHSHIN TOPPUH!” and wanting to fight him?

STOP BEING GENUINE BASHIN

IT’S MAKING IT HARDER FOR ME TO HATE YOU!

You were literally just questioning him on whether he was okay leaving his family.

Besides, you can’t go either, better to split into pairs than to leave one alone. I may hate this cast of misfits but I’m no monster.

…Language Barriers are like Olympic Barriers, you can get over them.

Lazy piece of-

Someone make it stop, he’s being a genuine person and it’s bothering me.

…What so because Bashin’s actually thinking straight for once you have to be a dumbass for him?

Et Tu, Suiren?

How the hell is a Card Game going to solve ANY of this, if you win it gives them even MORE incentive to try study abroad!

…What? Tests aren’t a bloody “We take only the best out of the bunch”

Tests take a good number of people, and as it stands with the 4 of you being Cornerstone holders, you’ll probably be in that Top 4.

That is definitely not how this works at all.

First of all, what the fuck, that wasn’t even the hand Bashin was holding up.

Second of all, RUDE. Don’t nick someone’s deck like that.

Speak of the Devil and he shall appear, apparently.

Looks like the Nazo-Otona has finally come face to face with BAHSHIN TOPPUH.

I should probably comment on the comedy in this scene because Bashin definitely HAS seen him before… but.

If you took what’s left of Elliott’s hair, and put it on his chin, you’d get this Nazo-Otona right here…

They both have the same Vizor.

Yes….

I mean it should totally be allowed, so long as he doesn’t use it.

That’s like saying you can’t bring your own Pen to an Exam because you need to use a Provided one. Come on now.

I do hope they’ve been sorted into groups, Booster Draft is best when there’s like 8 people so you can’t gauge who’s taken what cards.

Bashin opens his first pack and-

HOLD ON WHAT. BRO.

There are Yellow cards mixed in with the BS01 cards like Skulldevil and Flyingmirage!

BRO, AT LEAST TRY TO BE CONSISTENT WITH YOUR MERCHANDISE.

Also, interesting to note, each Pack seems to contain 8 cards in them, nice to know.

Of course, Bashin tries to go straight for the Red cards because he wants to use a Red deck, even though that’s not the purpose of the exercise.

Booster Draft is not there for you to make a Specific Deck, its to make the best deck possible out of the cards given to you.

It would have been better to take the best card among the set and start from there, which for me would be that MachG given it has High Speed.

Though for a moment, lets cover that new card I’ve spotted, Humpdump.

Oh, nice, pasting the text preserves the Hyperlinks.

That’s actually pretty cool, anyway, Humpdump is a Cost 3 Darkling Family Spirit from BS02

Humpdump has the “Curse” Keyword, which means it can’t lose a Battle where it’s attacking, it will either Win or Draw, which is to say, that blocking it means you’re going to lose your spirit regardless of what you do.

Good for pressuring your opponent, its a fun Keyword, we get a Character who’s proficient at using it next Season.

Bashin chooses Metalburn of course and gets the next set of 7 cards.

Since I chose MachG, now it would be clever to start picking from the Green cards, because I picked based on ability and not colour. But Bashin picked Metalburn like a fish so you know where he’s going with this.

I personally would go with Ziga-Wasp, given my MachG can provide reduction and its high costed.

He’s getting Smarter.

Hold on to your seatbelts kids, there might be a meteor heading our way!

I don’t believe we’ve seen this one either.

A Cost 5 White Spirit from the Android Family, hailing from BS01.

It certainly is the “strongest” spirit in the pile but not the most useful.

But Bashin should definitely have been looking for big hitters, so it’s not too bad if he decides to go with this.

Though I would have gone with Rib-Reaper in his situation, it directly synergizes with having a Red spirit or Nexus.

Time for the next 6, oh there’s some Red spirits here, might have been a good idea to stick with Metalburn this time.

But it also stuffs the Green idea, luck of the draw is a bitch.

I personally think getting a White Spirit for Laguna’s effect might have been beneficial, had he gone with Rib-Reaper, I’d have definitely suggested Humpdump next.

This Colour soup man, but Darkwitch does have an effect worth using.

Bashin suddenly has a flashback about Suiren’s use of Darkwitch.

That’s actually a good way to decide on cards, Bashin’s Card knowledge is starting to shine, with a White, Red and Purple Spirits, now would be a good idea to omit any card that isn’t those colours from your mind so that you can effectively reduce cost.

Pokerface? What’s that? Is that a Purple Card?

Cuz if it is, Bashin’s never heard of it.

Seems everyone’s done with their decks, I’m curious as to what people have built actually.

New decks are always exciting.

Here we have, the Polite Rich boy!

The Hard-working Sportsman!

The Cute Little Devil!

…And the fucking moron that’s the main character of this show.

How is EVERYONE a more appealing character than you Bashin? It confounds me.

BOOSTER.
DRAFT.
TAG.
BATTLE.

We’re just putting Tomatoes in Fruit Salads aren’t we? This is a clusterfuck.

This is how you teach a group of people to LEARN Battle spirits through Trial and Error, comfortably, not how you initiate people into a god damn university.

Too much luck involved.

Alright, Bashin and Suiren vs Striker and J.

Le’go!

WHAT, TURN 1?!

Is this real? What planet am I on? I must be dreaming.

SOMEBODY PINCH ME! I NEVER THOUGHT THIS WOULD EVER HAPPEN

…And BASHIN FUCKING BRICKS!

OH GOOD LORD THIS DAY IS AMAZING, SO MANY COMMON CARD GAME THINGS THAT ACTUALLY HAPPEN IN REAL LIFE AND ITS BEING CONTAINED IN THIS ONE ANIME!

Fuck you TCG anime, Battle Spirits has you completely OUTCLASSED!

It seems Bashin was selecting from only the strongest spirits in the packs he was given.

I see Suiren’s caught up on the situation, but just incase she hasn’t.

YOUR PARTNER IS A MUFFIN!

Alright lets see what J has.

Oh, J’s got Red and Yellow, he plays Goradon and Piyon, which is a NEW CARD.

Just a simple Cost 0 Yellow Spirit from the Song Bird family. No effect needed, Cost 0s typically don’t have effects anyhow.

J snatches a life with Goradon, leaving Piyon as a blocker.

Curious, Suiren’s using White Spirits. Anyway, she plays Icemaiden and passes.

And Striker plays Skulldevil.

The Pattern is set, everyone seems to mainly be using the colours of the people they want to beat. J is using Bashin’s Red, Suiren is using J’s White, Striker is using Suiren’s Purple.

And Bashin is just a fucking moron.

Look if you don’t want to Brick just don’t build like a Moron.

That being said, while you can ease the possibility of bricking, it’s not impossible to do so.

And Bashin plays one of his powerful cards, Darkwitch.

Though something tells me he’s about to screw it up.

Well this is just blatantly untrue.

Bashin summons Darkwitch and explains it’s effect, implying that he’s attacking with it.

If he’d actually read the card he’d know it only has a measly 1000 BP at Level 1, and can’t destroy anything until Level 2.

Skulldevil blocks Darkwitch and reflects the attack.

Byyyyyeeeee Darkwiiiiiiitch~

You will be missed.

Suiren just casually berating Bashin for making the dumb mistake of thinking Darkwitch’s effect worked at Level 1.

You’re… doubting the person… who plays Purple…

Come on now, don’t doubt people who invest all of their time into one colour.

You’re either wrong and their large amounts of experience prove to be accurate, or you’re right and you’ve supremely hurt their feelings because “They’ve invested long amounts of practice and got something wrong”

Just read the card and don’t be a dumbass, not that hard.

J adds The Fairy Tanya and Rokceratops to his board.

Lots of cheap Spirits here, and the Red/Yellow Split is evident.

Striker then attacks with Piyon.

The guy hard-summoned (paid full cost) a Darkwitch and then immediately rammed it into a Skulldevil for no gain or effect.

There isn’t much making up for that.

In a Tag Battle, a Stupid partner is basically just a Ball and chain.

They’re going to drag you down, you can’t cover for them if they use all the core and make dumb plays.

On the upside she can save Silent wall for later, but blocking this attack is unnecessary, you have 7 lives.

Suiren blocks with Icemaiden and both it and Piyon are destroyed for having the same BP.

2 more attacks from The Fairy Tanya and Rokceratops bring Suiren and Bashin’s lives down to 5.

We then skip like 15 turns ahead to Turn 21. I was expecting them to do this eventually, but I appreciate that they took the time to show us the first 6.

Seeing the early strategies of each player was rather nice, very fresh.

MEME REVIEW- I mean ahem Field Review!

On J’s field he has The Fairy Tanya, Arcanabeast-Ken and MachG.

I see that MachG went to good use, I’m happy for him

Striker has Skulldevil and Humpdump, but his stupid hair is covering the CGI for Humpdump.

When your character’s hair is actively interfering with the entertainment, you know its way too stupid.

Suiren on the other hand has likely been nicking all the Core to stop Bashin from doing something stupid, and has levelled up her Flyingmirage and Baby-Loki to Level 2.

Wow, 21 turns in and Bashin STILL hasn’t played a Spirit?

God damn man.

How in the name of God-Sechs did Suiren take 2 lives off of Striker and J without Bashin’s input?

Suiren is a scary battler.

I wouldn’t count on it, who gets to turn 21 without a single god damn spirit?

Oh, so Bashin actually thought to put Magic in the deck.

That’s good, so he’s not a COMPLETE buffoon.

Ah, so Bashin’s finally drawn a Spirit that isn’t super high costed, Dinohound.

But of course its Turn 21, the show is gonna focus on that Shackles of Doom Bashin has drawn.

It’s got a pretty basic effect, I wonder how he’s gonna screw this up.

Well, now J and Striker’s single-cored Spirits can’t attack or Block, this would be useful to snatch some lives.. If Bashin had any spirits.

Well, they were all exhausted besides MachG anyway…

I don’t think its that big of a deal.

Bashin then plays Skeleton-Jaw at Level 2.

Well ain’t that a dumb play, he went out of his way to get a Spirit, levelled it up, but it can’t even block.

You should have attacked, Skeleton-Jaw serves no purpose as a blocker.

…But J its YOUR turn…

This is getting a little annoying, having your partner perform actions in the middle of your own turn.

It doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Well, the Tag Battle’s inconsistent rules aside, that’s bad.

The Shackles of Doom would have been great if Striker weren’t playing predominately Purple, Purple can control core arrangements.

And now Baby-Loki only has 1 core, and J has 3 spirits to Suiren’s 1 blocker

With 2 lives, that’s “checkmate”

J proceeds to add 1 core to all of his spirits to let them attack.

Arcanabeast-Ken attacks, literally grinding Flyingmirage into dust.

WHAT!?…

Bro you like, can’t do that. Skeleton-Jaw isn’t allowed to block Spirits.

Come on show, you can’t just CHOOSE when to apply rules. I can at the very least rationalise the Poison Shoot as being during J’s first attack and nothing would really change but this is-

-Ridiculous?…

HAH, SKELETON-JAW JUST IGNORES IT!

Yes! Upheld rules AND more reason to mock Bashin for his apparent astigmatism.

(For those of you who don’t know words, that means his eyes no worky)

It cannot be overstated how many understatements there are in this show.

Speaking of Crap, This is a shit time to be remembering Skeleton-Jaw’s effect.

Now you and your partner are going to lose because you apparently throw cards on the table first and think later.

This meathead has no place playing an intellectual game.

J, just finish them off while I still have my sanity remaining.

Thanks buddy~

…So is J cheating on Bashin or am I just going insane?

Didn’t take Striker to be into Bishounens either.

Bashin has fallen into a deep depression over losing. GOOD.

FUCK ‘EM.

And Suiren stop trying to cheer the guy up, I need this right now.

…I think I like Suiren.

Because the way she’s man handling Bashin is absolutely adorable.

Enough about Bashin, he’s not worth the attention.

So Suiren for main character anybody?

I’ll keep vouching for other main characters til I get one.

The amount of Engrish that goes into Elliott’s character is literal art and you can’t convince me otherwise.

The dude just barely won his test match, and already you’re trying to coax him to come to another country with you.

You’re a literal creep.

Because of course J isn’t going to want to move to America when he’s already received new cards from Smile, and has basically not lost a match since.

What purpose would there be for studying abroad?

…What?…

I’m so confused, What is happening?

…So Elliott has too much Wax in his ears and didn’t quite realise that J declined the offer?

Good job idiots, you went out of your way to fight for nothing.

This was completely pointless. Have a clap of pity.

I’m trying my damndest to feel bad for him, but of course no one’s going to move an entire fucking country just to play a Card Game.

Why? Striker is in literally the same position as you are.

Except he actually understands more english, apparently.

Considering the current state of America, you’re not missing much.

So, battling with Bashin made you realise that Bashin is the person you want to fight?…

Or is it another person you’re reffering to?

They keep interrupting the dialogue and leaving it to suggestion.

I’m ASSUMING they’re saying that they want to fight Bashin more than anyone, and moving abroad would mean being away from him.

This line again.

Elliott said that J didn’t know everything there is to know, but apparently J didn’t want to find out from Elliott either.

Oh well, guess we’ll see where this plot thread goes.

Symbolism!

Nothing like 4 Stars in the Sky to represent the 4 cornerstone holders-

Also anyone notice that statue is defying gravity with that Orb?

And that’s the Episode?

Okay then, well, Plot-wise the Episode was rather pointless, but it did introduce a lot of fun concepts that are common in Card Games, such as the Booster Draft and ACTUAL BRICKING.

As well as what to do and what not to do when trying to build a deck during Booster Draft.

But other than that, the whole American Battle Spirits University thing was just a little dumb, but I can’t help thinking that it has something to do with Smile, given that Smile went to America and returned as a super strong battler, he even beat J.

Apparently couldn’t square up to Bashin though.

Card Sensei also knew who Smile was, and where he had gone, and also didn’t want Bashin to study Battle Spirits abroad either.

I’m curious about this system that Micheal Elliott was trying to employ, given that Micheal Elliott is infact a Nazo-Otona by the name of Number Two, and the only fighter we know who went to America and came back super powerful was Smile, who became Number Four.

The main cast may have just dodged a scheme to turn them into Nazo-Otonas…

But anyway, do we get a card of the day?

The answer seems to be no, they just talk about Booster Draft

Fuck ’em then, I’ll see you guys NEXT episode-

Oh shit next Episode is Episode 20, I should try do something special for that one too… But what?…

Hmmm… I guess I’ll try see what I can make as a deck I’d use with the current sets we have.

Anyway, see you guys in Episode 20!