The best time to start this post was after I posted the last one.
The second best time, was now.
Let’s get into it.
This title is gloriously unhelpful, I believe the only relevance is that the Season is Springtime, which Sakura blooms in.
The School year in Japan ends in March and begins in April, Sakura blooms here, so the only relevance this title has is the graduation which we already know about.
This is good, not knowing what’s going on in the episode, is good.
Behold, they are graduating.
I am quite de-sensitized to stuff like graduation, probably because very few of my friends carried over from one stage of school to the next. So I just got used to it.
Yeah, time for Card Sensei to work for his screentime.
This is certainly a revelation, Meganeko has spent the FIRST HALF of this entire series wearing Glasses.
This would be significantly more meaningful if Meganeko had actually made a fucking misplay at ANY POINT during the Tournament earlier that would have been resolved by actual reading.
That hasn’t happened, and I get what they’re going for, they’re trying to show development by updating her design, but this feels a bit forced.
This isn’t going to be awkward taken out of context, not at all.
This ISN’T MAKING IT BETTER
THANK GOD THE CONTEXT HAS ARRIVED.
What I find interesting about Meganeko’s Eye design here is that her Contacts are represented by a line running through them when I’m pretty sure most contacts shouldn’t be visible whatsoever.
Its hard to see where she’s looking due to them.
I guess you can’t be called “Glasses Girl” if you don’t have Glasses.
Then just call her “Kiiroko”, which is evidently meant to be a shorthand for “Kiiro” meaning “Yellow” and “On’nanoko” meaning “Girl”.
So “Yellow Girl”…
…Wait a sec they’re Japanese…
Oh god dammit. Time to refrain from translating “Kiiroko” like EVER.
Identification doesn’t NEED context however. As long as she recognizes you’re talking to her, “Meganeko” is fine.
Bashin gets startled by Nanarin speaking, but Aibou seems LESS surprised, and even moreso, appears to recognise Nanarin’s got a Cornerstone.
But if Aibou was aware that Nanarin had a Cornerstone then he should have ALSO been aware that Meganeko had Battling potential… Is Aibou in no rush to gather Cornerstones?
Nope, I have absolutely zero-fucking-clue, because not a single one of you has GOD DAMN EXPLAINED IT TO ME.
TO WHAT END YOU LITTLE RAT!?
BUT FOR WHAT?!
I’m losing my grip on my shit.
Ah good, nice to know I’m not the only one in the fucking Dark over here.
But being in the same camp as Bashin is probably the reasons my brain cells feel like they’re shriveling.
And that’s just rude… Why would you say that to ANYBODY?
…The Battlefield?
What is the god damn purpose of this FIGHT!? YOU FOUGHT LAST EPISODE
NOTHING HAS CHANGED
STOP!
I am hoping and praying that Turn 21 means this will be over soon.
That’s a relatively large board of weenies, 2 Piyons, Arcana-Beast Ken, Rom and the Fairy Tanya
And slightly less weenies on Bashin’s end with Goradon, Lizardedge and Rokceratops.
A ton of weenies and 2 lives? This game is begging to end!
Not that it should have even started but I guess we can only move forward.
Bashin’s setting up to defend with Siegfried it appears, with The Plateau of Duel and Siegfried.
POWERIN’ UP
This attack is pretty free considering The Plateau of Duel will make it so Siegfried is ready to block later. Doing this first means Bashin will lose the least if Meganeko, say, tries to pre-emptively end Bashin’s Attack Step.
Meganeko eats that life like a champ.
Bashin has no wayh of pushing for game here so his turn is over.
Siegfried is refreshed thanks to the Plateau of Duel.
One of Meganeko’s key cards, The Sealed Spellbook hits the field.
And a Magic to go with it, I’d show a graphic with the effect but I think Meganeko is going to explain the effect for me.
Well, she explained it, just not the best.
In any case, the card prevents Cost 6 and 8 Spirits from attacking or Blocking, the Flash effect there gives a +2000 BP power boost (which coming off a card which you can pay 1 for is pretty good)
And this card is going to prevent Bashin’s Cost 1 or less spirits from attacking or Blocking.
With that, only those with a Cost of 2,3,4,5,7 and 9+ can attack or block.
Which is… pretty broad now that I think of it, this doesn’t cover a lot of bases, it just specifically ruins Bashin.
Certified Kyouka Moment.
Bashin you were there for the Gunslinger, you should know why this is not a good idea.
Bashin, for whatever reason, hears the call of Siegfried after making that consideration.
I mean you’re dead anyway, the only difference is whether or not you wanna blow up your board on the way there.
Was this meant to be their attempt at showing the power of reading when Meganeko made absolutely 0 reading-based mistakes in her play in the last few episodes?
I hate it.
Screw it, next scene, get me away from here.
PAAAAAARTAAYYYYYY
Here’s a thought, after school, or on weekends, you go to the GOD DAMN CARD STORE AND PLAY SOME GAMES.
What part of this requires care? Are you afraid of homework!?
Screw homework, I hate homework. I am glad to be in a stage of my life where I never have to do another piece of homework again.
The muppets finally arrive.
The cast don’t recognise her immediately because her oversized glasses are not present.
Losing our shit phase 2, triggered in response to her showing off her Cornerstone.
This is just a sequence of “WTF” from everybody, they’ve been hit by three “AYO WHAT!?” moments in quick succession.
Damn, everyone out here being like “Haha that’s so funny” while Suiren’s just bein’ a fucking character.
Timeskip to a short while later as Suiren vanishes to take on her “My Sunshine” persona.
This is kind of funny.
My Sunshine’s Chick costume’s bright yellow coloration is what inspired Meganeko to later choose Yellow for her deck, and then later when trying to become a battler she modeled herself after Suiren, who was ALSO My Sunshine.
So all walks of Meganeko’s character development into a Battler has mostly been induced by Suiren, whom Meganeko completely idolizes, even when she doesn’t know it’s her.
Its a short sequence but I see it’s purpose, they’re trying to quickly erase the same revelations everyone else has already had to avoid repeating sequences and getting Meganeko on board with the plot.
Of course, its not just one sided, Meganeko has CONTRIBUTIONS to make!
Ah yes, this ol’ juicy lemon. The cast have to contend with the fact that Card Sensei is part of the group who are working behind the scenes doing… SOMETHING involving Battle Spirits.
To J this must be creepy as all hell, a Curator he was friends with turned out to be a Nazo-Otona, who work for the Thousand Spirits Group, Elliott and Smile are also members of that group who have delivered him cards before so he knows they have access to some area of the game they enjoy, and now a Teacher at Toaru Elementary, of which 3 Cornerstone Holders come from, have a Nazo-Otona.
I skipped a shot thinking it wasn’t relevant but it turned out to be SUPER relevant. But it appears J has come to the conclusion that Card Sensei remained their Teacher in order to keep watch on them and update Uchuuchouten on their status.
And out of what I can only discern to be absolutely bum-fuck nowhere, Kyouka pops out, with BOTH her parents.
This guy looks to be animated a tad weird, but there’s a reason from that, he’s FINNISH.
Battle Spirits has been relatively multicultured from the very start, it’s pretty cool actually.
This guy seems mightily pleased to be meeting Bashin of all people.
Also I haven’t shotted these in, but he seems to have a speaking mannerism where he starts all of his sentences with “Ya, Ya, Ya” or as shomentoppa has translated: “Well, well, well…”
It appears to be a tick while he looks for the words to say, makes sense for someone who likely doesn’t speak Japanese as a first language.
I’m not sure if its obvious from this shot but J is actually leaving the conversation.
And the fact that Mr. Sawaragi- Ah screw it I’ll use his name, S. Kiano Sawaragi, I’ll stick with S until an actual proper name other than “Tou-san” pops up.
Anyway the fact that S doesn’t even notice while addressing the Card Battlers indicates that earlier compliment wasn’t for J.
Kind of a dick.
From what it appears, because Card Sensei has had to confront both Smile AND Uchuuchouten in spite of the fact that he’s been trying to avoid them for this long. He’s leaving to separate himself from everything.
I guess his declaration of resignation wasn’t very well accepted by King Uchuuchouten if he’s just going to vanish.
We are scene-hopping a LOT today aren’t we? Appears that Nine has been delivered somewhere near the Battle Spirits Stadium.
Along with Eight apparently, and whatever task they have to perform they need to do in Three Hours and go back somewhere.
Bashin somehow gets lost again in J’s house, but S is able to find him quite easily.
To the discerning eye, S looks like an S-Class cunt.
He only comes down to see his kids when they graduate, so that’s once a year, and he’s spending THIS time around scouting Bashin and barely paying attention to his son who he hasn’t seen in ages.
Bashin, the clueless little munchkin that he is, expects that this jerk of an estranged father would actually give enough shits about his own son to sponsor him for his team.
It’d be a good move, J is widely known for being a particularly powerful battler.
Doesn’t he make you just want to wedge a damn wrench right in the crack of his butt-chin?
The order is EXCLUSIVE to Bashin, which means he’s ONLY scouting winners.
J’s the runner-up, and everyone else lost before that round, they’re worthless in the eyes of S over here.
Bashin, ever-loyal to the squad.
Kyouka turns up, spotting this problem. And with only a look she knows what’s up.
It appears this ain’t S’ first rodeo.
Ain’t nobody who sees their kids only once a year got time for jokes that run THAT long after all.
This isn’t relevant but LOOK AT KYOUKA BEING ADORABLE.
Bashin dropping the “I’m good, thanks” to the biggest offer of his life.
He’s either a 12-year old being a 12-year old, or an absolute chad.
You know that’s generally a problem most of us try to fix you know that?
Perpetuating the problem and then spinning something like that off as “advice” is probably the most hypocritical thing I’ve ever seen someone do.
It’s like shooting someone and then going “Hey man, People get shot”
YOU’RE NOT SOLVING THE PROBLEM.
It appears this lunkhead has decided to use the rest of his day to meet Uchuuchouten as opposed to… I dunno, spending time with his son.
The guy doesn’t even LOOK like a battler but BOY is he going to Battle the minute he shows up in person.
Ah, so he’s registered as “S.K.”
fair enough, I can do S.K.
J’s board consists of an EXHAUSTED ImpregnableFortress Odin at Level 3.
Berserker-Gun at Level 2 and The Artifact Laguna at Level 1.
S.K. has absolutely no board.
This game is looking to end soon, S.K. must have used his last few spirits to block J.
Uh-oh.
Welp, It’s finally here, so I guess I can talk about it instead of being cryptic every time the colour appeared.
As foreshadowed by the colour of Card Sensei’s Cornerstone and Guragurii, We have a SIXTH colour in the game, the final one.
Introduced in BS03, I present to you! Blue!
In the land of Colour oppositions, this Colour exists to oppose Yellow, as Red does to White, Green does to Purple, and so on.
As Yellow is themed around having a vast variety of gimmicky and strange effects, Blue is focused, most doing very specific things and being VERY good at that one thing.
Stuff like Deck Destruction, Many attacks, multiple symbols, Lockdown. It wouldn’t be wrong to call it the “One Trick Pony” deck.
And as Yellow is one of few colours that specialise in a specific card type, this being Magic, Blue also specialises in the OTHER card type, Nexuses. While all the others mostly only care about their Spirits.
J being caught off guard by this is not good, J is very good around things he can plan for.
I will say though, The Pikeman Jeffrey does NOT look entirely professional, he almost looks like a custom monster out of The Revelations of the Seal of Orichalcos.
The DragonSlayBlade Guy is also summoned by S.K. at Level Three.
Notably he sticks 6 core on it as opposed to 5.
It’s not all that special but it IS the first Blue Card with an effect so we might as well! From BS03, The DragonSlayBlade Guy.
A Cost 5 Blue Spirit of the Blue-Exclusive “Fighting Spirit” family.
And it’s effect? During your attack step, while either you OR your opponent controls a Red spirit, every Spirit you control that has “Crush” is treated as their highest level.
What is “Crush”? well it’s a Blue-Exclusive keyword that reads as follows!
Crush (When Attacks) Discard cards from the top of your opponent’s deck to equal to this Spirit’s level.
So naturally, using The DragonSlayBlade Guy alojng with a Red Spirit and a Crush Spirit will allow you to mill the maximum number of cards.
Its a shame that this card needs itself, a Red Spirit AND a Crush spirit available to actually do ANYTHING.
The DragonSlayBlade Guy attacks, snatching a life from J (2 -> 1)
It appears J’s entire board is exhausted considering he’s resorting to White Potion in order to defend.
Naturally, J chooses his biggest Spirit, Odin.
Made entirely irrelevant anyway thanks to Invisible Cloak.
Its shit like this that got that stupid Cost 3 card banned.
To be fair, in today’s day and age it might be possible to unban that card, there are infinitely MORE unblockable cards nowadays as that’s White’s thing. So I wonder if there’s a reason Invisible Cloak specifically is kept banned.
Needless to say that Pikeman’s swing struck true, S.K. is the winner.
He didn’t really show off anything special about the cards he played, they could have been White, Red or whatever, but I think the point was that they were new.
And it would have been less obvious if they were just White Cards from BS03 unless J expressly stated as such, we haven’t seen a single Blue card until now, so this lands a lot more effectively, its big and in your face about it.
To get some new cards boyo, what else?
It appears S.K. is going to Uchuuchouten in order to “cover” for J in some way, though I’m not sure what that might be for.
I am guessing it might be because J has been taking cards from the Thousand Spirits Group before getting ass-blasted by Bashin in the last round. J’s victory was likely a condition of some kind for something else.
Also we get to hear J’s name for the first time, “Juli”
Juli is an androgynous Finnish name, and has meanings that pertain to Youthfulness.
It appears J opposes that name, it’s Finnish, so he likely doesn’t like it purely for the connotation that links him to his father’s background, as well as the fact that given it is Finnish, it is his father who gave it to him.
Also is J turning into an edgelord? Please say yes.
No J, it was beautiful…
He really does like his friend doesn’t he?
Yeah, bit hard to ignore the sheer burning rage of J when he simply ASSUMED Bashin had sent Kyouka a love letter and proceeded to get a PRIVATE HELLICOPTER to BEAT BASHIN’S ASS.
It was glorious.
Your sheer force and anger is inhibited only by your immaturity J.
Come on, give me more of that rage!
I mean… This episode could just end here… Is a battle necessary?
Apparently “Yes” is the answer to that question.
Since the board state takes a bit too long to screenshot, I’ve contained it here.
Bashin has 2 Exhausted Dinohounds, Eyeburn and Metalburn, all at Level 1.
J on the other hand, has Baby-Loki, a Level 2 Dualcannon-Bell and The Sacred Mjolnir, it’s also J’s turn.
The Score is 2-5 in Bashin’s favor, needless to say J is getting his ass wooped.
J’s pulling out the Big Guns, or in this case, Big Hammer with The Gigantic Thor at Level 3.
Have we ever seen Thor at any other Level? I’m sure Suiren could beat this thing by just levelling the darned thing down.
Metalburn gets vaporized by blocking Dualcannon-Bell’s attack.
Eyeburn blocks Thor’s first swing. I never get enough of the sheer fact that Spirits just get yeeted out of existence by a fucking Hammer.
There’s a Banhammer Joke in here somewhere.
Time to start pushing, Dualcannon-Bell is now out of the picture to refresh Thor and all Bashin’s spirits should be exhausted, J can snatch from my count, 4 Core. Thor can take 2, Mjolnir can take 1 before being sacked for Thor’s effect, and Baby-Loki can take one.
A White Potion from here makes game.
Baby-Loki and Thor Swing to take 2 lives.
Thor Swinging here is a bit weird, Mjolnir hasn’t attacked yet so he’d get one less attack out of this.
Wait. What?
No-no-no you can’t do that, Baby-Loki isn’t Armed Machine, he’s just a Machine, and you’ve made NO mention of the Artifact Plant being on your board.
BRUH. YOU’VE MISSED A SLIGHTLY RELEVANT DETAIL HERE.
I guess we just have to proceed assuming J has the Nexus that he’s clearly failed to mention.
Mjolnir takes another of Bashin’s lives.
On Thor’s last attack before it refreshes again, Bashin decides to cut it short by using Flame Dance, now he can pop a Spirit with 4000 or less BP.
Naturally, he selects Mjolnir. Now if you’re thinking Bashin could have conserved a Life here by playing this on Mjolnir’s attack, you would be correct.
But Bashin isn’t doing this out of stupidity, there’s one detail here that’s important, and that’s information.
Had Bashin done that, J would have been in a state where he’d see 3 lives and 1 Thor that could not refresh after its attack, so he’d be able to end his turn and sit on Thor, who’s Level 2 effect lets him block Red spirits without exhausting.
So by letting Mjolnir take a life and letting Thor exhaust to take another one, Bashin has orchestrated a state where he’ll survive the turn with Thor exhausted, and all he has to do is give up one lousy life, which puts Bashin in a BETTER position to win afterwards.
He controlled the information available to J to make him perform a decision that was not to his benefit. J only learned that he could not win this turn AFTER he had put himself into a poor decision.
Who needs Life when you can just win the game?
Bashin blew up Mjolnir so Thor COULDN’T refresh, you don’t have a target to Refresh Thor!
I thought this was a mistranslation at first but I listened to the Japanese and J does indeed say something along the lines of popping a Mjolnir to refresh Thor which makes no sense because J HAS NO TARGET.
TOPPA BASHIN YOU WERE DOING SO WELL.
Nothing just yet but this IS good for his Dinohounds.
There it is, as if to hit the point home its at Level 3.
Ah right, before we had any kind of official or semi-official translations of this stuff we just had to go literal in terms of subbing, so “Terra Dragons” are occasionally referred to as “Earth Dragons”
It makes sense, “Terra” and “Earth” are synonyms.
Wait why bother bringing it to Level 3 on summon if you were just going to level it down for Dinohound.
Bit redundant.
So NOW you decide to correct yourselves, There WAS an Artifact Plant on the board, AND you’ve played Pure Elixir to refresh your Exhausted Thor which was JUST depicted Refreshing.
This show is fucking with me, it has to be, some god damn oracle knew for a fact that some 24-year old British twit with too much time on their hands would want to do a full series review and go through this one first.
And he made it as PAINFUL as possible.
Yeah… When a Cost 2 Spirit attacks, Ancient Fault boosts that Spirit with 2000 BP.
That Dinohound is 9000 BP.
Nothing quite as embarrassing as losing your Cost 7, Anti-Red White X-Rare to a Cost 2.
Having nothing left, Bashin attacks with the remaining Dinohound and Diranos and wins.
But… But you DID that already.
That was LAST EPISODE
what do you MEAN At last!?
DID YOU LOSE A COUPLE BRAINCELLS ON THE WAY HERE!?
J and Bashin have a nice talk about good ol’ S.K. Sawaragi, the one who developed the Battle System in this world.
Rich people don’t consider themselves to be Rich. Only successful.
And Success is something often short lived.
I’m sorry is that an Antagonistic Motivation?
On Episode 26 of this crazy series?
WHY ARE WE HEARING ABOUT THIS NOW!?
So Aibou and Okyou are Spirits? That seems to be what he’s suggesting.
Suddenly we have CONTEXT for all this crazy shit. At least from J’s perspective.
SO.
The Cards have Spirits within them, J is stating that the Thousand Spirits Group wish to extract the Souls of the cards for some purpose by using Battle Spirits.
J wishes to free Battle Spirits from the Thousupi Group’s control.
And he knows his Dad sees this as an expansion opportunity. Hence why he’s having a tiff with him.
Things are starting to make some actual sense. This should not have taken 26 episodes to fucking divulge, show!
So J’s in a bit of a rut because he isn’t strong enough to face his Father, and he doesn’t feel like he has enough time to prepare in order to do so.
Given that a Cornerstone makes you uniquely connected to the Spirits, I’m pretty sure Bashin is ALREADY involved.
Bashin makes some Shounen Protagonisty noises and we’re all set to go.
Friendly rivals are great but antagonistic rivals are even better.
Need a little more of that, this one’s a little too bright for me.
We get a nice little scene showing Eight searching for Card Sensei.
Eight has some kind of issue with Card Sensei that has yet to be indicated, interesting that she’s going around looking for him.
It could be because he revealed himself to Smile, that Card Sensei expected Eight would come looking for him, and that’s why he left.
Just need some more sips of plot
And that’s the episode, apparently.
Got a lovely couple tidbits in this plotline.
The series actually feels like its STARTING now, given that we have a plotline to go off of as well as all 6 colours.
We’re still a bit foggy on details, we’ve got no clue WHY the Thousupi group wish to extract Spirits from the Cards. We also know they need the Cornerstones for that goal.
Card Sensei has buggered off somewhere, J’s Dad is now in the field of play if he decides to stick around in Japan, and Kiiroko is now part of the squad
The Batosupi Lecture is still uninteresting, there’s some commentary on Blue and what effects it might introduce. But we already covered most of that.
And I think if I was to try and compose a Blue deck now it would be spoilerrific, so I will not do that.
Instead, I’ll leave you all with that, and see you next episode.
The Battle Spirits Commentary Archive 