Toppa Bashin – Episode 34

No point starting with an intro, might as well throw in the Episode Title for this week.

“The Treacherous Training Camp Jack”

This suggests to me that SOMEONE is going to hi-jack the Training Camp and put our club in danger, but these titles have fooled me before, god knows what the last one was meant to mean.

Given it’s a yearly activity that occurs on Golden Week I highly doubt its the first.

Seven would have definitely had a few, sure they’d have been by himself but still.

I could seriously do with Bashin and Striker not being them right about now.

OH THANK GOD, KYOUKA, SAVE ME!

So it appears they’ve made it to the same place out of sheer coincidence-

Nah I’m kidding, I’m sure there aren’t THAT many Batosupi Training Caps if there are even more than 1.

Actually yeah, it’s been a real disappointment not seeing Smile take part in the Club activities, you’d think it’d be an interesting opportunity to see him interact with Meganeko and Striker and even Seven more often than he’s done so currently.

But I guess for the sake of giving him a reason to not be around because he is THE ENEMY, MUST DEFEAT, they’ve just been randomly creating excuses to have him not be there.

First of all, get with the program Bashin, it’s JACK KNIGHT now.

And he’s uh.

Doing adult things.

Speaking of which that’s an interesting theme in this show, J appears to be trying to become an adult and do adult things far too fast while most of the cast are trying to enjoy being children as much as they can.

The show really does have a strong moral of “enjoy your childhood while it lasts” vibe.

They drop the news that Jack Knight straight up isn’t a member of the club because he’s too busy playing dress up with his cat.

Oh, there IS more than one, just apparently the other one is in really close proximity?

The one they’re apparently signed up to is at a freaking Buddhist Temple.

Places of worship are… strange, I’ve been to both Churches and Mosques and I don’t really like the air about them.

The people among them are really nice though, and sometimes they serve food, and its usually quite good.

I mean it doesn’t NEED to be a Hotel to be good for training, you can play card games anywhere.

Besides, its a place of worship, that immediately implies good food.

At least to me it does, I might be an exception though.

Well at least he seems sane enough to greet the others.

Time for a number of menial tasks that have absolutely zero to do with Battle Spirits.

Oh just scene jump already I can’t be fucked with this.

Over at the OTHER Batosupi Club, they’ve uh.

Certainly grown in size somewhat since we last saw them, I understand that might be due to the Student Council getting into it as a direct result of Kyouka’s interests AND her amazing grades.

Alright how many black-eyes and hurt feelings can we get before this event ends?

Those seats definitely look comfy, I’m going to assume this “Tournament” is basically going to be a giant Round Robin as thats the easiest way to get the most battle experience between everybody.

Okay slow down this might be a dream come true.

…So a Hot Spring? Or is it just like a segment of showers.

The President of the Student Council must have REALLY liked Manabu if she’s even gotten involved in the Battle Spirits Club.

Whatever tensions occurred in the last episode we saw with them together seem to have been fully resolved and now they appear to be good friends.

With a Student Council vouching for Battle Spirits its no wonder that the Club has so many members now. It must be the popular thing to do in that school now.

Yep, meaningless chores.

Well not meaningless for the Buddhist I guess, considering he’d likely want to keep his place of worship as pristine a condition as possible and is unable to in his old age.

I wonder what’s in that box that is causing it to be so heavy.

Luckily Striker spills it and we get to see.

They’re all Game pieces it seems, Marbles, Shogi, Spinning Tops and other things I don’t recognize.

Eight’s apparent plan for this was for them to develop “teamwork”, by having them help each other with chores so that tasks get done faster and then they can cram in more training?

Battle Spirits is a single player game, with the exception of the Tag Format, there’s very few ways to exhibit their “Teamwork”

I think the best solution to this is for Bashin to go to Isekai.

…Via getting hit by a fucking Truck.

Oh, we’re at the DOME, this is the episode I least expected to get insight on the Nazo-Otonas.

It appears Smile and Jack Knight are practicing their Tag Battling.

Nothing like a fresh sense of Winning. Wish I could see what cards were on the board at least.

Ah, they’ve been doing a number of these, makes sense, its Golden Week, ain’t nobody working, plenty of opponents to take on.

I mean you’re both relatively competent, but I haven’t seen Smile in a Tag setting just yet so I don’t really have an opinion on what he can do alongside Jack Knight.

Jack Knight on the other hand seems to have more mastery over a variety of colours now so who knows what he’s capable of.

Jack Knight is sweating, he isn’t so sure.

I see “Queen” is keeping Jack Knight’s feelings out in the open.

She’s also in on this however, so either she’s trying to help him stay those feelings by pointing out when they show, or she’s having doubts.

You joined a club explicitly to let them gain enough members to enter a Tournament, they’re VERY MUCH your concern.

As we scene switch to Bashin getting assaulted by the old Buddhist.

Violence against Bashin? Yes please.

Meganeko is not having so much luck.

MEGANEKO NO.

Bashin the hungry bastard is setting unrealistic weight loss goals by continuing to remain in shape while eating all the god damn rice.

Also why is he asking for seconds his TABLE IS FULL?

I won’t lie though I’d freaking destroy that Tube of Rice right there.

Our Buddhist, I suppose I should call him “Chief” since that’s how he was referred.

Chief appears to notice something off about Striker of all people.

We haven’t seen Striker do much, especially not since he obtained Kingtaurus, has he even played that dang thing onscreen yet?

Note: He actually has, he flopped using it in Episode 18.

Striker is definitely troubled by something.

Though it could be just Bashin’s continued existence, that certainly troubles me.

Apparently the Chief thinks this is the perfect time to ask a 13-year old boy questions about the world over a crossword.

(The Answer btw: Is apparently Istanbul)

Time for the ol’ “Wiser than he comes off” trope to fully come into play.

Again, you really need to contextualize how “Teamwork” is going to help in this case.

Especially since there’s only 5 of you, 4 without Smile, I’m sure there’s ONE of you who’s gonna fight alone at SOME point.

Striker pouring his heart out and the guy has only just clicked that his crossword puzzle is themed.

The old man has an OldSage Trenton, pretty fitting for him.

Aww yeah, time for cryptic old man lessons that don’t make sense without 20/20 hindsight!

Cue Monologue, this is gonna take awhile.

The old man at this point appears to be explaining foundational things about Battle Spirits, there are many colours, 6 total, of these 6 colours there are cards that separate those among those same colour, Nexus, Magic and Spirit.

I imagine this just translates to “Every card has a purpose”

Spirits are the most obvious thing to build your win condition around but it is certainly not the only thing you can build towards.

This seems to be a really roundabout way of saying that Striker’s currently a bit too narrow-minded to understand what he needs to do just yet

Its fucking Washington D.C. you fucking killjoy.

While snoring is generally a sign that your airways are blocked, if you’re in such a deep sleep that you’re making loud amounts of noise and its not waking you, you’re probably going to sleep all your necessary hours uninterrupted.

Striker’s talk with the Chief has generated a new fire in him to complete those tasks.

You might as well eat breakfast, chill a bit and then do it, at least they’d have a little more energy with which to do it.

But Breakfast is becoming less and less essential in today’s age even though its the most important meal of the day.

I haven’t eaten breakfast on the day of which I’m writing this line, so yeah I’m kind of a hypocrite, but Lunch will be awesome.

Striker goes about assigning tasks, and he assigns the same tasks to everyone else, Meganeko and Bashin will clean the floor of dust and Seven along with Striker will lift.

Apparently with Striker directing their focus to the tasks at hand rather than Battle Spirits, they have better luck.

That lecture earlier was a bit hamfisted so I have absolutely no idea how I’m supposed to parse it.

Though “Every card has meaning” and “Batosupi is like this world” suggests that even tasks that are not Battle Spirits might have an adverse affect on, well, their Battle Spirits.

It appears the old Chief isn’t so easily fooled by appearances, recognizing Eight as Card Sensei’s Girlfriend almost immediately.

Finally, when do we get to the card games?

Striker notices a weird scroll while everyone else hops off for breakfast.

It took me a minute to notice what was wrong with the scroll, but its got an illustration of Flyingmirage on it.

Time for Striker to spill the beans on the drawings.

Nevermind, the Chief has decided that he needs Striker for something before he can say anything about it to anyone else.

Which apparently requires him to fuck off somewhere in the middle of the woods… alone.

This isn’t a recipe for disaster at all, what makes you think that?

Cap seems to insist that there this is troublesome but Striker doesn’t seem to mind too much. I’m not sure about those choice of subs though.

This… looks familiar, and I would not be able to tell you why until we get to Battle Spirits Burning Soul.

Very few times does anyone ask that and actually get an answer, when do we get someone in a dark room going “Is anyone here?” and someone just goes “Oh shit! Sorry, hold on lemme turn on the lights, you want a cup ‘a tea?”

That would be the cave receding into darkness, Cap.

…Or an Altar with a green-ass orb on it that has BEGUN TO GLOW.

And is reacting to J’s Cornerstone apparently.

“Like a Cornerstone” doesn’t accurately describe what it is or does however, the only thing we know about the Cornerstones is that they can take one to Isekai…

Unless you’re a Nazo-Otona who can just go there anyway if Nine and Eight’s battle is any indicator.

I was mulling over these comments for a while, but I feel like the old man might be referring to Striker’s X-Rare, The Duke Kingtaurus.

This guy is apparently yielding ALL of the bad vibes and initially I thought Striker just fucking shut the door on him, I was about to erupt in laughter, but it turns out Striker didn’t do this voluntarily.

Ah, I get it, this is somewhat in the style of Hayami’s consistent Batosupi harassment plan.

“How much strength does the Duke have at its strongest”

He’s asking about the LV3 BP of The Duke Kingtaurus, which as it happens, I know off the top of my head, its 12000!

Granted you have absolutely 0 way of knowing whether or not I looked it up beforehand or not. But I don’t really lose anything whether or not you think I’m lying or not so onward!

They finally figure out he’s talking about Striker’s X-Rare

Striker explains Kingtaurus’ effect when summoned to get to his answer, I love this image of Kingtaurus behind Striker as he reads it out though. Its REALLY cool.

Its almost like the X-Rare is ominously awaiting its use.

Nice, I love riddles. They’re REALLY hard to make though.

This is completely unsurprising, the Chief recognized Eight and Card Sensei has been there before, the likelihood of the old man being a former Nazo-Otona is extremely high

He does claim however that “Right now I’m just an elder” so if he was a Nazo-Otona at one time, he no longer is.

Welp, its evident this is going to turn into a Battle now (Finally), let’s get this over with, Gate Open!

Turn 18, and it is currently Striker’s Turn. So Striker has had 9 Core Steps since starting the game, so he’ll have 13 core available + any lives lost.

Since you only gain Core on your Core Step starting the 2nd turn of the game onward, the formula for how much Core you will have ignoring any Core boosting effects will be Turns/2 + (5 – Number of Lives) if you went second, and you subtract 1 from the Turn counter if you went first as you don’t get a Core step on the first turn.

The board is pretty empty, but neither life being touched means we can reasonably assume Striker has 13 Core available to him on his turn.

Striker deploys The Fruit of Life at Level 2. With no reduction he’s paid 4 core and moved 3 to The Fruit of Life.

Striker now has 6 Core in his Reserve and 9 available core to use.

Well, this just confirms that they’ve given Striker the benefit of the doubt that he’s actually boosted his Core, by my calculation he should have to pay 5 for Trenton leaving him only 1 available Core. He’s levelled this thing up to Level 2 however so I have no way of knowing how much Core he really has.

Striker uses Trenton’s effect to summon a card I do not recognize at present.

At Level 2 no less, well, time to have a look at it.

A “Shellman” family Spirit from BS03, So at Level 2, during Flash Timing, you can pay 1 cost from your Reserve to give any “Shell Insect” in your hand the Swift /High Speed keyword. A Spirit with
Swift can be summoned during Flash Timing as long as all Core used in its payment and its levelling at the time of it’s summon is paid from your Reserve.

I would argue that you need the Core in your Reserve in order to even do that so paying from the reserve doesn’t make it that much easier but the alternative is summoning nothing with a hand of “Shell Insects”

Curiously it can’t give itself Swift with its own ability as its a Shellman, not a Shell Insect.

The only thing worse than a poor hand is an empty one.

Poor hands can be fixed, you’re incapable of playing with an empty hand.

Thankfully Striker’s not in TOO deep shit here, he’ll get a Core and a card every time his life is damaged.

I know I said just last episode that Green does not have a lot of draw and I stand by that statement, most of it comes in the form of effects like The Fruit of Life.

The Level 2 Trenton with 7000 BP attacks.

A Level 3 Scorpede only has 6000 BP, it blocks and is destroyed.

Beatpriest attacks, as the Chief has no blockers, he has to take from the life (5->4)

Apparently he’s listed in the turn order as “Nazo-Otona” so I guess we’ll call him that for now.

The Nazo-Otona plays a MachG followed by The Budding Plain at Level 2.

The Budding Plain lets the Nazo-Otona gain a Core every time he uses a Magic effect, and at Level 2, all of his “Parasite” family cards sitting in his hand get Swift

If you’re wondering why I’ve suddenly started formatting the Keyword like that, its how its written on the card.

MachG attacks.

That was sudden. The old man just drops an X-Rare on us, just like that.

A “Mounted Warrior” Family Green X-Rare from BS03.

This X-Rare, while having lower BP and Cost than The Duke Kingtaurus, has the Swift keyword. Meaning it can appear at anytime, and even worse, when its summoned, it refreshes every Swift Spirit you have.

This means you can make a blinding series of attacks from Swift Spirits your opponent doesn’t expect and then surprise them with Hercules just to do it all over again.

Quite interestingly, it looks EXACTLY like Monoqueiroz Riding a Sleiphorse, lets see if Striker will use his own X-Rare.

He refreshes his attacking MachG, and Striker takes a life. (5->4)

Striker takes another Life from MachG as its able to attack again.

The SavageKnight Hercules now swings.

Striker resigns himself to taking from the Life but that just means he lacks a Flash.

And so the absolute mad Nazo-Otona plays a fucking SECOND Hercules!

They JUST introduced this X-Rare and this crazy bastard’s got TWO of em, talk about half-decent deck building.

Most series suffer from “Sub-Optimal Deckbuilding Syndrome” where the Plot often makes a point of letting us know that a character only has 1 of a given card (which is really inconsistent) and yet the plot continues to rely on situations where if they don’t draw that card, they just flat out lose.

Yu-Gi-Oh! is quite a good example because the decks featured in that series have absolutely ZERO reflection on how decks in that show actually look. Everyone’s bumping highlander.

They are much better about it from about Arc-V onward where the decks seem much more optimized and duelists aren’t shy of using multiple of the same card, but the Main character almost always has an entire deck of 1-ofs which doesn’t help.

Vanguard was a bit better about it, as this applies to ONLY the main character and restricted to ONLY 1 card which he proceeds to seemingly get every damn time, Blaster Blade.

The writers foresaw the problem with continuing to write like that and instead created a card that SEARCHED Blaster Blade very early on in the game so that the Main character could reliably use it every game.

That combo was eventually banned for being way too god damn strong. Figures. But later in the series, I think in Vanguard G, quite literally everyone had a fully optimized deck and no one ran crazy 1-ofs anymore. The exception being one villain but that villain did so in a deck where it was MORE optimal not to run duplicates of the 1-ofs he was running.

Duel Masters hasn’t got many reliable subs but I’m fairly sure its similar to Vanguard in that respect, where the main character has a fully optimized deck and has cards to explicitly get around the problem of his card copies being relatively inaccessible and its EVERYONE ELSE that has well optimized decks, save for villains wielding 1-off cards.

Battle Spirits is very similar to the Vanguard formula, most of the decks are actually pretty well optimized and a lot of card choices that appear in later series will sometimes be very clearly indicative of choices the playerbase actually have made.

Villains will use multiple copies of their ace and the show isn’t afraid to show them doing so. Even main characters will sometimes get multiple copies of their ace IF they have a distinct reason that lets them do so, I will point these out to you when and as they come up. But in the LATEST series, I believe everyone has multiple copies of their aces, even of cards that are supposed to be special in some way, and the show isn’t afraid to use and abuse that to create interesting scenarios.

Its cool, I like the way Battle Spirits handles their show.

All the Swift Spirits are refreshed, Striker takes a life from the attacking Hercules (3->2)

Striker’s got 2 lives, no blockers and the Nazo-Otona has 2 attackers remaining.

That being said, Striker has drawn 3 cards and gained 3 core, in addition to the life lost making 6 core in his reserve at LEAST.

He’s GOT to have a counter

Striker has topdecked into a Silent Wall.

Its your Standard White Magic attack step ender, a common staple in almost every deck even today.

And this is why, sometimes your opponent just combos off but most attack wombo-combos will get stopped by a Silent Wall.

The floor is yours Striker, you have 1 life, make it a damn good one.

I expected him to play something a little more exciting but The MeteoriteArmor Monoqueiroz is still pretty good.

The Night Sky of Isekai is doing its Model a LOT of favours.

That’s more like it, Striker also plays The Duke Kingtaurus.

As Striker controls 3 other Spirits, Kingtaurus gains 3 Core and is levelled up to Level 2.

6000 BP is pretty bold, Kingtaurus isn’t very strong when its not at maximum Level.

Ouch, thats Nasty, a 2 Cost 2 Reduction Green Magic in Wild Power, with the Nazo-Otona’s board he can basically play this card for free.

And it’ll boost a Hercules’ normally base 5000 BP to 7000 BP letting it beat over Kingtaurus.

If Striker somehow plays a card to get Kingtaurus OVER that though, he’ll be able to slash a life thanks to Kingtaurus’ LV2 effect.

Monoqueiroz grants +2000 BP to all Spirits you control on the turn it’s played. That includes Spirits played AFTER it is summoned.

Therefore, Kingtaurus has 8000 BP, not 6000

I will say, while I haven’t been paying too much attention to the Music in this series, the track that plays here is REALLY cool.

Kingtaurus nabs a life from the Nazo-Otona (4->3)

Monoqueiroz attacks and literally bisects the opposing MachG.

Striker has 2 attackers, the Nazo-Otona has 3 lives and an available blocker, not sure how this will go.

Striker attacks with both Trenton and Beatpriest, which the Nazo-Otona takes from the life.

I don’t recognise THIS card either.

Oh, they make a weaker version of this later, but Flock Recovery lets you refresh 3 Spirits that have a family you declare, for 4 core that’s basically, well, a SavageKnight Hercules-level refresh.

For reference, The Duke Kingtaurus has 2 families, the “Shell Insect” family (Kouchuu) and the Blade Beast Family (Kenjuu)

Striker very accurately states “Kouchuu” here, so this “Beetle” family refers to “Shell Insects”

This enables The Duke Kingtaurus to refresh, the Nazo-Otona now has a problem, he has 1 life and 1 available blocker in Hercules which is weaker than Kingtaurus who will snatch a life if it wins a battle.

So the Nazo-Otona has 2 choices, he can take a life and die, or lose his X-Rare and die.

If he tries to take a 3rd option by preventing Hercules’ defeat, Monoqueiroz can still attack as it is ALSO of the “Shell Insect” family.

I won’t lie they really outdid themselves with the visuals on this episode, ever since last episode, cards have been looking REAL fuckin’ pretty when animated, they really stepped up their game.

And this level of animation is NOTHING compared to their later series, I promise you.

And the Nazo-Otona reveals himself to be the Chief Buddhist, a surprise to no one.

“To rely on friends, you must look, listen and accept”?

It appears Striker’s concern over their Teamwork has been answered by making himself malleable enough to be able to vibe with them at any given moment, and if he can go with their flow he can guide it.

Or something like that.

Everything the old man described in his “Life is a game” analogy makes sense except for that last line.

And as is the well-established and inverse-proportionally-well-enforced rule of Nazo-Otonas, Striker has been awarded a copy of The SavageKnight Hercules for defeating a Nazo-Otona.

How he will refactor this into his game plan I have no clue because Striker uses Swift very sparingly (I gave up using the black boxes, I’ll maintain them for effects or for direct mentions of the keyword but not for regular speaking)

Eight immediately realizes what’s occurred, given her foreknowledge of the old man being a Nazo-Otona.

Meganeko visits Eight and Eight seems to lament her status as a poor advisor.

But Meganeko is a polite girl and doesn’t fling shit where it doesn’t belong.

But we don’t actually see WHAT she came to Eight for, she doesn’t say anything beyond that.

Oh? News? I wonder what they have to dump on us at this late stage in the episode?

This news is being delivered by Nine as opposed to Uchuuchouten, though I wonder if Uchuuchouten only speaks as the Tournament begins.

He’s right but I don’t like the sound of where this is going…

So those of the Thousand Spirits Group will be stronger when they next appear in the Tournament, or so they’re announcing.

Is this an official announcement of Numbers Elite? Nine and Eight were called by their numbers when they participated in their last tournaments.

He’s actually introducing the members, that means I get to talk EXTRA SHIT about them.

How Elliott made the cut into the Numbers Elite is fucking BEYOND me after he got called out for being weak by BASHIN of all people and then got completely destroyed by him.

We haven’t seen Kiano much in action, our only indication of his level of ability is that he sponsors teams and was able to catch J by surprise through using Blue, though J would have lost anyway in that circumstance, so I suppose he can take on J head on and still come out on top?

Smile has been a rampant victim of The Worf Effect (being shown to be strong and then beaten repeatedly to show how strong everyone else is) but slowly recovered after quite soundly defeating Bashin in their last bout.

REALLY maximizing the absolute, pure, un-adulterated EDGE of Jack Knight here, I fucking love it.

Face-Heel Turn, Evil Costume Switch, Evil Wears Black!

I know I’m just spitting out tropes I’m recognizing but I freaking LOVE them!

So it appears, of the Numbers Elite, these are the 5 that they’re going with for the Tournament, Elliott, Kiano, Smile, Nine, and Jack Knight.

Eight is indisposed as Team Bashin’s advisor, and Seven is a member of that Team. Card Sensei has been missing since he took his trip so they definitely can’t use him.

That makes this set of the Numbers Elite basically the only remaining members besides Uchuuchouten who never shows himself personally.

With that announcement, the episode is OFFICIALLY over!

You know the drill, time to take a look at our Batosupi Lecture section.

And as expected, they’re talking about the New Green X-Rare from BS03, The SavageKnight Hercules.

Its an okay X-Rare but its one of those X-Rares that really need to go into a certain deck, as it’s effect is only powerful if you’re using cards that have Swift printed on the card that aren’t himself.

It’s entirely possible for this card to just be a really big Vanilla that comes out of nowhere if the rest of your deck has no Swift cards. Granted Swift cards are not hard to come by and some are actually quite effective due to their simplicity, like MachG.

Quite hilariously, I mentioned earlier its a combination in design of 2 other cards, and even more hilariously, it doesn’t actually directly synergize with EITHER of those cards.

And also with this SavageKnight Hercules, we’ve seen exactly 3 of the X-Rares released in BS03, there is one more as we only get 4 X-Rares per pack until BS06.

And we’ve seen every X-Rare so far up until now. Which means we might be able to see that last BS03 X-Rare very VERY soon.

Until then, I’ll see you next time!