Toppa Bashin – Episode 36

Alright lets get this Kyoto shit out of the way, I’m as ready to see a good fight as any.

Let’s turn this bad day into a funny one.

That’s exactly what I like to hear Episode Title, let’s get ourselves a FIGHT!

Card Sensei is fully bearded now since when we last saw him, god knows what he’s been doing but he looks all wise and shit.

It appears he’s eyeing the construction of a second Isekai World Dome. Perhaps these Domes serve more of a purpose than just being stadiums with which to play Battle Spirits.

It appears we have an argument concerning the idea of a debut match.

I wonder what Nine’s apprehension about it is.

Elliott appears to think that Jack Knight shouldn’t be fighting just yet at this exchange, Or at least that’s the message I’m getting.

Nine’s getting more and more heated about this. I guess his failed encounter with Hayami has his jammies pretty damn rustled.

Either that or he’s trying to avoid Eight saying more than she should.

She’s under the oath of battle so nothing more to do than to piss off I suppose.

Kiano, as he does, expresses that J shouldn’t even be a member of the Numbers Elite to begin with, let alone the discussion of when his debut match should be.

And Nine firmly establishes that the argument was over Jack Knight’s debut match, Nine believing it would be significantly better for the Championship.

Which makes sense, they did big him up, the best time to generate hype would be when he turns up for the Championship rather than an exchange with no stakes.

I see they’ve decided to use a TV replay of the Numbers Elite introduction to catch Card Sensei up on the general situation since his absence.

Okay so we can evidently see that Card Sensei HAS the Blue Cornerstone, so how the fuck does Seven open the gate, without an animal no less?

Even more than that, what’s Card Sensei’s Blue deck like if he owns one? He hasn’t had an opportunity to play before Blue’s release.

Elsewhere in the World, the Batosupi Club have met up with Kyouka, it turns out the “Note of Absence” was not J’s letter for the school it was one they sent to him in response to not attending classes.

He can’t exactly go freely to where his father might be, it’d be a hostile living environment, and that’s not fun for anybody.

Bashin as per usual says its fine because he’s going to try and fight J at the exchange match in order to get through to the muppet.

Sadly I don’t feel like beating him at Card Games is necessarily going to solve his Daddy issues.

Its like 2 spectrums of wrong here, Bashin foolhardedly believing that as long as he continues to make J lose at card games all his problems will magically be solved.

And Smile outright talking fibs about J’s relationship to the cast, he has no ill will against them, he’s merely prioritizing other things at the moment, that doesn’t make them any less his friends.

Of course you’d like to make them believe that because then that increases the likelihood that J doesn’t just back out of your “Let’s take on Uchuuchouten 2-on-1” plan.

See what I mean? There’s a strong suggestion that he wants them to give up.

Surprisingly reasonable response given the situation, the enemy is trying to discourage you, nothing would be better descriptive of such a tactic than to call them a dumbass.

Smile suggests his absences don’t matter because he’s studying abroad.

Em, you can’t be in Japan AND be studying abroad that’s not how that works.

…How? If you have full time education AND you’re studying abroad, you should have like ZERO free time.

Plenty of flexibility my arse.

If they were studying abroad

They wouldn’t be fucking here!

Suddenly, the Cornerstones inexplicably start glowing

Does NO ONE want to question why Terra, Ventus and Aqua have suddenly turned up in my Battle Spirits anime?

I mean they’re doing it for them too, it’s not like your need was a factor.

Okay that’s mean it obviously matters to them but it wouldn’t be the deciding factor between acting and not.

Why am I still in this scene, take me to the BLOODSHED.

I mean, er, card games.

…Wasn’t Hayami going to drive him there?

Come on you can’t tell me that wasn’t HEAVILY implied last episode!

Sawaragi Helicopter WOULD be convenient for travelling to Kyoto, so I guess Kyouka’s using her mighty resources as a Sawaragi.

…A fucking Sawaragi TRAIN.

Christ what next, do they happen to own a country?

It seems they’ve ditched Meganeko and brought the Student Council members with them.

Also I would totally devour that fruit.

Striker freaking dunked that Drink of his.

Glad they didn’t just leave that hanging, I’m sure that couldn’t have been rendered obvious at a later stage.

Should have left her at home, restraint is not the purpose of this trip.

So for the purposes of the exchange match, they’re combining their Teams.

Seems reasonable, but don’t they have a little too many members?

In a different section of the train, Eight and Seven are having a chat about putting off J’s debut match.

Though Eight mentions that the idea also goes against Seven’s debut match.

Which, given Seven didn’t have much of a club til now, makes sense that he hasn’t taken the stage as Galaxy.

Oh, they DID bring Meganeko on this trip, was getting worried there for a second that they ditched half the cast. Good, everyone even marginally relevant is here.

They’ve arrived at the art gallery, and are ready.

Alright let’s get these battles on then, I’m tired of waiting!

OH FUCK OFF-

Oh, nevermind, Card Sensei has chosen now to reveal himself to the others.

Bit of an interesting choice of time to choose but yeah I guess we can do this now of all times.

Like glasses, it’s real easy to fail to recognize someone based on whether or not you are used to their appearance with a beard.

Guragurii on the other hand is a fucking talking turtle, and you don’t see too many of those around, leading Meganeko to recognise her “Master Yellow” and “Great Master”

It appears Card Sensei has re-appeared to take it upon himself to stop J as he feels its his duty to prevent the Cornerstone children from the Nazo-Otonas then I guess?

J’s a Nazo-Otona and the others have Cornerstones which the Nazo-Otonas want, they’re ALREADY involved.

Really grinds my gears when someone pulls the whole “I don’t want you to get involved” when they’re more balls deep into the situation than the PERSON USING THE STATEMENT.

Card Sensei’s been in this game a while so that isn’t the case with him but you can’t separate someone from a situation in which they’re linked by something other than their choice to take action.

Strangely enough, despite “No longer being a Number” they still haven’t obtained a replacement Five.

They instead assigned J the new number of Eleven, and we’ve yet to see a Ten or a Six.

Bashin quite literally just said “J is a number, so unless I beat his ass, he won’t come back”

I’m not sure you’ve quite worked out all the specifics of that plan Bashin.

YES, PLEASE, TAKE ME FROM THE MONOTONY OF THIS FIGHTLESS SCENE!

As they march off, Card Sensei looks at his students and drops this wise-ass line.

That is true, just because you have taught someone does not necessarily mean that they learned anything.

Granted I wonder what Card Sensei is suggesting they “Learned”?

Seems J and Smile get their own booth to watch all the battles from for the exchange match. That’s kind of fun.

Smile comments that as J’s popularity rises, so does the game, and given that J is a White user, those who join because of J and those who have become more partial to J will use White.

It’s a pretty nice comment about how Metas function, since J is a very popular battler who wields White, those who wish to win will also likely make use of White cards knowing that popular J is a White-user.

This gets brought up in a little more depth in a later series but its interesting that they consider the idea of the Metagame and the success of one character affecting what characters use which colours.

Smile of course can’t be fucked to have this conversation, not really caring how his own image affects the Meta.

I guess he’s even too good to watch the battles.

Also Smile’s been drawn much more like his initial appearance this time around than the way he’s usually drawn. His “Zombie” vibe is back in almost full force.

J’s been in many crowds before so he’s likely used to all the attention but Kyouka on the other hand isn’t used to being a participant as opposed to being just a guest or an observer.

The Gang is all here, Two, Three, Four, Nine and Eleven.

But they’re hoping to NOT Debut J’s battle this time around, so I wonder how they plan to do that or what rules the battles will have?

I wish I could read that Japanese, honestly, I assume they’re team names. And that fighting the Numbers Elite requires winning the whole Tournament.

Oh hey, 3 Nazo-Otonas we’ve seen before.

The Curator, Amade Us, and Bashin’s biggest fan because this fucker doesn’t have a name. All we know about him is he just REALLY wants to battle Bashin.

It appears the Team each individually selects who goes first at the same time so who battles who is effectively random.

I have literally no idea what this means, will the Decks they use determine who they go up against? Will they be AWARDED decks to use for the battle?

I dun geddit.

Time to see where our brackets take us-

So couple of interesting things about this bracket, Kyouka’s playing which is already interesting enough by itself, our unnamed Bashin fanboy is called “Maccho”

My Sunshine is the ONLY person on the scoreboard who’s name is spelt with lowercase letters, and the Curator literally has his name listed as fucking KANCHOU… WHICH JUST MEANS CURATOR.

Anyway it appears that the Order Plate selects 3 random members from a team and makes it a best of 3 among all members I suppose.

If they weren’t going to battle here I don’t really know when the next opportunity for them to have their fated match would be.

I get that its a recurring joke but I really do wanna see what a battle between him and Bashin would be like.

Turn… ONE!?

Oh please, PLEASE let it be true…

Bah, they showed us the Turn 1 counter then skipped to Card Sensei BELITTLING Kyouka!

Guragurii believes that she doesn’t “get enough practice” which I find hard to believe given she’s a member of a Batosupi club?

Huh, that’s interesting, 2 new cards.

Well we don’t actually see the levels of the 2 Spirits before anything happens here or even what the board state is. So its entirely possible the White fish card Kyouka is using is capable of beating a Flame-Elk, or this could be a misplay. Flame-Elk has an intriguing effect when summoned, very devastating to Nexus reliant strategies.

Welp, given that the fish is the one spinning off the board we can tell that this was a god-awful misplay.

J is rooting for his Sister as a supportive brother would, lamenting that she’s playing poorly.

And with that, Maccho defeats Kyouka, we didn’t really see any of the fight other than the writers using the scene to show Kyouka as incompetent, which is strange given she’s in the same Batosupi Club as My Sunshine, I find it hard to believe that she would be that far back in terms of ability where she didn’t know a Flame-Elk had more BP than Angelafish.

If its best of 3 like I’m expecting it to be, Bashin’s a shoe in since he already defeated the curator, so its just a matter of whether or not My Sunshine can pull herself together against Amade Us.

To make a long story short, we see none of the battle other than My Sunshine completely destroying the poor bastard.

The same happens with Bashin vs the Curator apparently, we just don’t see much.

It IS best of 3 however, so 3 members are randomly selected from each team.

Is it possible that the Numbers Elite have it rigged to not select J I wonder?

The post victory celebration has Kyouka somewhat notice a black cat roaming about the venue.

Pretty standard fare reasoning, but its not like Queen wouldn’t have considered that.

Its not like they didn’t consider everyone’s feelings, they absolutely did and chose to make the choice they did anyway, simply desiring to return them to where they were isn’t really all that good enough a reason to get them to stop.

That is the million-dollar question, J doesn’t seem to actually be enjoying any part of this, it hasn’t resolved the situation with his Father, it hasn’t improved the relationship with his friends, infact its worsened it, its in direct opposition to his beliefs from the beginning: That King Uchuuchouten is evil, and the only other benefits that we’ve seen that haven’t been rendered useless by the above is that it is a form of protest to his Father, Kiano, and it will lead him to learning more about his Cornerstone.

Queen is of the belief that is what Jack Knight desires however, you wouldn’t exactly support something the way you do if you didn’t believe they wanted it.

Queen just leaves. I wonder what the purpose of the conversation was? It could be that she’s trying to gauge the intent of everyone there in order to keep Jack Knight informed.

Card Sensei heard the whole conversation, though its unlikely he gleaned anything interesting from it, other than Jack Knight isn’t doing this under duress, its out of free will.

Oh hey they 3-0’d them, but should the battle have not ended after the 2nd match? Why bother with the 3rd if its best of 3?

Also the Student Council guy, uh, Manabu had a round as well and came out on top, I wonder what deck he uses.

It appears Kiano has realised an opportunity to get Jack Knight removed from the Numbers, by pitting his son against Bashin.

Its a bit of a complex situation, he’s not the best Dad and he’s really poor at communicating with his son, we can see that, but we also get to see him actively struggle with trying to do the best for him as well.

I hated him deeply earlier, I kind of still do, I don’t have patience for poor parenting. But it is interesting him realizing that he’s out of his depth concerning his son and recognizing that his son has friends that can be relied on to do what he himself is unable to.

It’s a weird dynamic, his the source of all his own problems but he’s also an the odd situation that we know he’s not likely to be an enemy, he’s the most friendly person in this scene.

Nine believes that they won’t even get that far and therefore there isn’t any need to have them send out Jack Knight if it is unnecessary.

In other news, Eight is lost, again, for the umpteenth time.

She doesn’t just need a Car Navi for her giant ass truck, she needs one for life.

…Oh, that’s a situation just WAITING to happen.

It appears that’s what Card Sensei was aiming for I guess. He doesn’t seem to be trying to hide from the Nazo-Otona anymore unless he can gain information.

Then I wonder what his purpose for leaving was? Training? Gathering his thoughts?

Or perhaps he hadn’t actually resolved himself to do what needed to be done until recently.

Eight’s poor ability to sing is a point of endearment between the two of them, this sounds mean but it is his attempt to be cordial.

This is common for couples to jab at each other in place of flirting because when you love someone, you learn to love their flaws as well.

(This is also advice to leave/talk to anyone who’s flaws actively hurt your feelings for someone, rather than help)

To eliminate you. Cue blade slashing noises.

Card Sensei isn’t really fucking around with Eight’s feelings right now, as they’re irrelevant to what his goal is, that being to deal with our Jack Knight problem.

She uses the term “Us” but she isn’t exactly having a good relationship with everyone else, throughout this recent part of the series she’s been talked down to by every member of the Numbers Elite and has actively searched for Card Sensei multiple times. It’s any wonder why she even stays when she isn’t a member of the Numbers Elite Team, is literally only being used to spy on Bashin and his Club, and actively misses Card Sensei, or at least wants to resolve things with him.

So what she really means is “Because you abandoned me“, taking Card Sensei’s place can also be interpretted as an act of defiance.

Card Sensei does click that they needed a replacement Teacher for Bashin and the others because he was away, they graduated his class and wasn’t willing to continue working for them.

Card Sensei tries to appeal to any sentimental side of Eight here, since they’re both Teachers he’s wondering if she’ll come to the same realization he did after being in close proximity to them.

Weird, I wouldn’t be, what does being a “Number” even mean? That your power is recognized by people who only use it to benefit them? You’ve had your ass sorely kicked multiple times by Cornerstone wielders, its any wonder you’re even still a Number at all.

And if you do leave I highly doubt your situation will change very much from the way it is now, other than that you will have a lot more freedoms than you currently enjoy rather than being taunted by Smile every day you walk into class.

We interrupt this Romantic scene to return us back to our regularly scheduled programming involving Card Games.

Maybe we’ll actually have some visuals along with these battles as opposed to just seeing win screens that we’re not sure were earned.

To be honest we COULD calculate the actual chances of J and Bashin being paired up against one another.

The Order Plate selects at random between all the present members, Numbers Elite have 5 and TMSBC+ (Taoru Middle School Batosupi Club Plus) have 6.

The Rub occurs when you have to factor in that J and Bashin can’t be paired with anyone else, meaning you have to multiply 4/5 with 5/6, then multiply 3/4 with 4/5, and THEN multiply 1/3 and 1/4.

And then you also have to do it with situations where Bashin and J are at the start and end and add them together what you have is… moderately more than if it was just at the end but still kinda crazy.

Commentator-san believes that Number Nine will surely battle in this, I wonder what makes him believe that specifically.

Regardless, the pairings are here, and we’re seeing an interesting one, Smile vs Striker.

So, uh, let’s talk Tropey roles for a second, we have a bit of a strange situation but I’m sure there are a collection of Tropes that can accurately capture what’s happening here.

So, in many stories with antagonists you have a Big Bad, in our case that Big Bad is evidently Uchuuchouten, as he’s been said to be for quite a while.

A Trope quite commonly associated with a Big Bad that tends to take backseats for any length of time is “The Dragon”, his Number Two, his sidekick, etcetera.

“The Dragon” referring to just the Villainous Number Two obviously, has a number of subtropes in how that Dragon is handled, in this particular case Number Nine is “The Heavy”, the villain that seems to take the most active role in carrying out Uchuuchouten’s orders by issueing them to other members of the Numbers Elite.

The thing is, as Uchuuchouten has yet to do fuck-all, this also means that Number Nine CAN be interpretted as our Big Bad for the majority of this plotline.

Assuming that Number Nine can fill that role, it becomes painfully obvious that Nine has his own Dragon. Which in this case appears to be Smile as Smile is even more active than any other Nazo-Otona when it comes to carrying out his tasks.

Its also evident that Smile and J are the strongest members of the Numbers Elite, barring anything Nine has up his sleeve.

So, my point is, Smile is our second-hand Dragon, who has been squaring off with J and Bashin since the series fucking began with a one-off loss to Meganeko and proceeding to get wrecked by our badass old man, Card Sensei.

Striker, who is understandably secondary to most of the characters in this show despite being our chosen Green battler, is now being pitted against the character who’s been more of a pain in the ass to J and Bashin than anyone else in the series.

Simply put, based on this scenario, Striker’s going to get fucking destroyed.

The next bout is Elliott vs Meganeko, we know Elliott is most likely to be the WEAKEST member of the Numbers Elite, you really can’t take back Bashin calling him weak before kicking his ass. That’s cemented his role for the rest of the series.

He’s quite wise in terms of people. But in battle his skill is sorely lacking, and Meganeko has been shown to be relatively competent in battling, defeating Eight, Smile and regularly taking on Bashin while ALSO training under Card Sensei.

Elliott will likely lose this one, which will bring us to game 3.

We haven’t actually seen what changes being “Jack Knight” has made to J’s deck, and this is the first time the 2 have actually interacted before then, Bashin is going in not understanding J’s situation and therefore likely isn’t going to get through to him first try because they lack a mutual point of understanding just yet, Bashin isn’t going to have time to understand J’s viewpoint to tackle it at this juncture.

Which may manifest itself in reality, as Jack Knight defeating Bashin.

These are my predictions, lets see if my narrative analysis is reliable.

So apparently the order WAS rigged, and then changed, and not by Nine.

Damn I missed a frame that was actually relevant, lemme go dig it up.

Both Eight AND Three wanted J to go out and fight Bashin, this shot was shown after Kiano made that plea with Nine which Nine quite frankly refused.

Smile had this strange look on his face after examining Bashin’s battle and he apparently changed the order to pit J against Bashin?

I wonder what incentive he’d have had to do that though? He’s wanted to disassociate J from Bashin for a while now, and everyone who’s wanted Bashin to face J has done so from a position of wanting to either respect Bashin’s feelings or free J from the Numbers.

My guess is Smile thinks that if J wins it will drive the nail into the coffin of their relationship and render J unwavering in his current position, as opposed to the doubts he’s been consistently expressing ever since he became Jack Knight.

Starting from Turn 23, on Smile’s turn.

Wait what?

Battle Spirits has never been afraid to make character’s decks samey when it comes to new cards and honestly its one of their strong points.

Smile has a Valiero, which makes sense considering works for the people that award X-Rares, why would he not have a large collection of them?

Either way, bye Striker.

Now we move onto Meganeko’s battle with Elliott.

Jesus, 30 turns. Fuck me.

MachG blocks an attack from Arcanabeast-Paira and is destroyed.

And Elliott is the one who gets beaten this time around.

Really expediting us toward Bashin and Jack Knight’s battle aren’t they?

Nothing like the meeting of 2 friends on the battlefield and not a single look of friendliness in their eyes as they begin to fight to the death!

Well this is just a card game but still, emotionally charged fights are the best.

J’s face is positively enraged holy shit.

I see Bashin sees that J’s answer means nothing has changed because J is unwilling to.

Sweet Jesus Bashin is completely unafraid to call his friends out when they’re actively acting in poor ways, holy shit.

There’s not even an appeal to J’s emotions here, he’s just straight up going “Fine, fuck you then.”

Then what is the purpose of this outward mask you’re putting on? Do you feel the need to completely dissassociate yourself with everything just to obtain knowledge on your Cornerstone?

Turn 27, big jump, also it’s Bashin’s turn.

And the fucking Spirit preview is god damn MASSIVE so I gotta bust out Vassal to save me again.

On Bashin’s field we have THIS.

Lv3 TwinRowdy Diranos
Lv2 DragonicFortress Giga
Lv1 Pikeman Jeffrey
Lv1 Rock-Golem
Lv1 BattlingBeast Rhino-Ceros
Lv1 BattlingBeast Bun-Ffalo

The last THREE are new cards, lets talk about em. Can we also talk about how how FOUR of Bashin’s SIX spirits are fucking BLUE!?

Finally, a Spirit with Demolish , why has it taken us this long to see one!?

For reference, Demolish is the Translated Japanese word “Funsai”, In the English version of the game this Keyword was changed to what most of us know to be “Crush” but we all know how much I try to avoid English Localizations where I can.

Card is pretty simple, its for Blue’s Strategy of decking out, a Cost 3 Spirit that can discard cards, its simple and effective for straightforward strategies.

The BattleBeast Rhino-Ceros is also pretty good for Deck Destruction, with the only limit to the cards it can get rid of entirely depending on how much Core is on it when it dies. Since it doesn’t require the opponent’s contribution in order to engage this effect when destroyed, you could use a card to wipe it off the board yourself for some benefit after throwing massive core on it.

And this guy’s a big vanilla.

Oh wow, Bashin’s upped his Nexus game with The Burning Battlefield.

The Ruby Sun is pretty good but lets talk about The Burning Battlefield since I don’t believe we’ve seen it despite being a card from BS01.

This Nexus is cheap and gives you GOOD bonuses, doesn’t require a super high investment for its Lv2 ability either which is really good.

Everything is stronger when swinging and at Lv2 you can force your opponent to block the attacks you want.

This can be kind of nasty with Rhino-Ceros which we saw earlier.

Anyway, that’s Bashin’s board, let’s have a look at Jack Kni-

oh… um… uh…

I uh, I didn’t think we’d get this far honestly.

So uh, well, Jack Knight has ONE new card among his board.

So uh… Let’s uh…

Talk about it I guess

Updated my little Card Review Template a little more just for some eyecandy, I also included a little something in the corner just for this card since its relevant.

Because THIS is a card… from BS04.

They just dropped it in there like I wouldn’t fucking notice!

Jack Knight’s got access to newer cards now, once again. And that Fenrircannon Mk-II isn’t too shabby, having Armor to both Red and Green, its first effect is left a bit wanting as it only gains BP when blocking Spirits of equivalent Level. However if its at Level 3 its not too bad since battling any Max-Level Spirit will mean it will have 11000 BP, that thing could take down a Siegfried.

And Jack Knight’s got The Diamond Moon at Level 2, with both players wielding Hate Cards against one another its any wonder they can’t find a crack in the other’s defense.

They both STILL have 5 lives.

considering you just artificially started at Turn 27, probably not.

Smile’s got a VERY dark expression on his face holy shit.

Oh Jesus, Bashin plays a 7th Spirit. The IronFist Tiga at Lv3

Its another BS03 Vanilla, the crazy part is that its actually got a relatively decent cost and high BP.

Bashin then follows up with Offensive Aura and attacks with IronFist Tiga

Well dang, now anything that swings will do so for an additional +3000 BP.

BECAUSE of the Burning Battlefield, Jack Knight now has to block the 13000 BP IronFist Tiga with something.

Its a super strong Blue Spirit as well, so it won’t get caught up by The Diamond Moon.

Jack Knight elects to give up Odin, It makes sense since Fenrircannon can take on Lv3 Spirits at 11000 BP while Odin is only sitting at about 9000.

A very cool sequence plays out, displaying Tiga ripping Odin to pieces.

Bashin attacks this time with Rock-Golem, he’s REALLY animated in this scene, holy shit.

He follows up with Buster Spear, since Odin is out of the picture, Bashin can get rid of the Diamond Moon with this.

And of course, draw a card.

Seems Bashin pulled an interesting one.

Rock-Golem’s Demolish takes out one of Jack Knight’s cards, only an Icemaiden though, nothing cool

That Lv1 Rock-Golem was coming in at 6000 BP, Thor only barely wins at 8000. A Battle Booster Magic would have toppled that wall.

DragonicFortress Giga attacks, taking one of Jack Knight’s lives (5->4 vs 5)

Apparently Commentator-san believes that Bashin’s choice of attack pattern was unusual.

There seems to be a general consensus that Bashin would have normally continued swinging.

Well, that Level 3 Diranos would have been coming in at 13000 BP which could have beaten either Mjolnir or Fenrircannon, its true, but Jack Knight still has Thor and Bashin definitely would not have won that turn.

Smile notes that TwinRowdy Diranos is just as effective as a blocker, which it will have 10000 BP when doing so unless Jack Knight powers up Thor.

Otherwise Thor can’t attack, its one of Thor’s many weaknesses, its not a particularly strong spirit despite how devastating its multi-attacking abilities can be.

IM SORRY WHAT.

STOP THE SHOW, WHAT!?

We haven’t even seen the last BS03 X-Rare and yet they throw a fucking X-Rare from BS04 at us!

Here it is people, a Jet-Black Siegfried. And the first of a series of cards that become quite common among this Era of Battle Spirits, that is, Darkened versions of existing spirits.

Its got a new family, namely “Dragon Emperor” and is a Tribute Spirit. It is also the first card to have a naturally occurring Double Symbol.

What is Tribute? Well.

For a Tribute Spirit to be played, you must pay an additional cost other than simply just paying its Core, you have to send all the core from a spirit that meets the conditions (in this case, Cost 6 or more) to wherever the Tribute effect tells you to place them, in this case, the Void.

Jack Knight sends ALL the core from Thor to the Void, effectively depleting it and ensuring Thor will no longer be on the field, offered up as a sacrifice to the new Tribute Spirit.

Jack Knight doesn’t do this, sending all 4 core from Thor to the Void, however you’re only ever actually required to send ALL the core it currently has, so Jack Knight can freely level down Thor before playing Dark Siegfried if he wishes to only give up 1 Core.

The huge, evil Siegfried has arrived, this thing is ALSO Cost 9, the highest Costed thing I think we’ve seen so far.

Bashin’s taken aback by the fact that J would willingly offer up Thor, the centerpiece of his strategy to play this new card.

Kyouka comments on the unusualness of Jack Knight using a Red X-Rare over his usual White cards.

Ah, I know what Dragons he’s on about, in BS04, DarkDragonEmperor Siegfried isn’t the only card with a naturally occurring Double Symbol.

There are 6 other Tribute Spirits of the Dragon Emperor Family, which all have naturally occurring Double Symbols, 1 for each colour.

They’re all also vanillas and their Tribute condition requires sending all Core from a Cost 5 or higher spirit to your Trash. Meaning you don’t miss out on Core by sending it to the Void.

I think its cool.

DarkDragonEmperor Siegfried is brought to Level 3, a whopping 12000 BP, that thing squares off with Duke Kingtaurus evely, at 5 core.

Jack Knight plays Attack Shift, if you don’t recall, this card turns “When Block” effects into “When Attack” effects.

Aaaaand there’s a fuck up.

Attack Shift is a strong card but Fenrircannon-MkII is gaining BP through an effect that only occurs if its blocking a spirit of the same Level.

The Japanese Wiki even mentions that its impossible to turn MkII’s Block effect into an Attacking effect because of that description.

You do, Jack Knight is just cheating.

Bashin doesn’t chump block into it thankfully, he takes from the Life. (4 vs 5->4)

Jack Knight now attacks with Dark Siegfried, using its Lv3 effect to blow up any Spirit that isn’t Red and has 4000 BP or less.

that’s not a particularly powerful effect nowadays but in THIS stage of the game that is strong.

The rest of Bashin’s Blue Spirits save Tiga, and Jack Knight’s Mjolnir are wiped out.

Bashin goes to take from the life and Jack Knight informs him of the Double Symbol.

It doesn’t even seem particularly impressive by today’s standards but examining all the cards that came before it there’s VERY little one can do against it.

The only card that comes close is The Duke Kingtaurus and he can only MATCH it.

And none of the X-Rares up until now have such powerful mass-removal, its a walking Flame Tempest on swing that’s even STRONGER.

Bashin takes 2 lives from Dark Siegfried’s attack (4 vs 4->2)

Jack Knight’s gone from being Bashin’s foil to wielding a strictly superior Dragon to Bashin’s Ace.

Its almost mockery at this point, he’s using a Dark, powered up version of the card that defines Bashin.

Its Bashin’s turn and he throws out his own ace. Siegfried.

DarkDragonEmperor Siegfried Makes good ol’ DragonEmperor Siegfried look like a Common.

Even so, with Diranos boosting spirits with Awaken by +1000 and The Burning Battlefield doing the same for Bashin’s attackers, Bashin can get Siegfried to 12000 BP, the same as the DarkDragonEmperor.

That’s another strange thing Battle Spirits did, normally when you have a Dark Counterpart, most shows try to make them as equal as possible, but the Dark Counterpart will usually be stated to be the “Better half” because they’re Evil and unrestrained by morality despite being otherwise functionally the same.

They play with that here, there’s no equality, DarkDragonEmperor Siegfried is, 9 times out of 10, the superior card to its original. But Battle Spirits provides many avenues to win uphill battles which is why that’s not a problem.

I love this game, its so fun.

Bashin attacks with Diranos and Tiga, which Jack Knight takes with his life (4->2 vs 2)

Bashin then follows up with an attack from DragonicFortress Giga

J was prepared for that, having a Silent Wall ready.

Now Bashin will only have Siegfried available to stop the DarkDragonEmperor, and he won’t have any of his attacking boosts making him 1000 BP weaker than The DarkDragonEmperor.

J takes this one from the life as well, (2->1 vs 2)

Turn 30, the Music has a hopeless tone to it, so I’m suspecting Bashin’s going to get his ass wrecked.

Jack Knight plays Double Hearts.

Given Bashin has 2 lives and 1 blocker, the smart play would be to target Fenrircannon MkII so that if either attack gets through, Jack Knight would win.

He gives it to Dark Siegfried though… in the process creating the first instance of a Triple Symbol Spirit.

While cool its kind of unnecessary. But I guess it means Bashin can’t Shadow Potion his way out of-

…Oh, I see what’s going to happen, he’s going to force Siegfried to block the DarkDragonEmperor.

When Siegfried falls, Bashin will gain life, and when he does he’ll refresh DarkDragonEmperor with something like White Potion and win.

Showdown.

Bashin tries to pull the rug from under Jack Knight by raising Siegfried’s BP to 14000 using Buster Phalanx’s Battle boost.

Jack Knight apparently isn’t done using his myriad of White support magic.

Jack Knight is going to exhaust the 8000 BP Fenrircannon-MkII to give its power to Dark Siegfried.

Yeesh, I didn’t think they’d GET BP this high in this series, 20000 BP is crazy high!

Siegfried does not stand a chance against 20000 BP, jesus christ.

Siegfried’s destruction does award Bashin an extra life.

But Jack Knight chose this strategy because he’d planned for that.

Using White Poition to refresh the Triple Symbol Dark Siegfried.

Bashin got freaking walloped.

Okay that’s unfair, he was winning pretty darn hard before the DarkDragonEmperor showed itself, but afterwards that was just all one-sided after the appearance of a singular card.

Suddenly, Jack Knight starts MAN HANDLING Bashin, holy shit!

The hell drove him into such a rage?

I’m curious if its because his feelings toward the Thousand Spirits Group haven’t changed, so Bashin losing to one of it’s members, even himself, is unforgivable.

Kyouka makes a heartfelt plea to Jack Knight to stop kicking the crap out of Bashin.

Personally I’d like him to keep going, both of them need a good kick in the head for all the dumb shit they’ve pulled.

Jack Knight just fucking drops Bashin in response.

Take that ya little shit.

Smile takes this opportunity to gloat, I’m going to guess that his plan succeeded.

…That’s odd, one of the rare times Smile doesn’t Smile.

And this time it wasn’t out of irritation over losing to J, it was in warning to Bashin.

That’s interesting, he’s meeting Bashin’s efforts with anger as well as opposed to his usual demeanor.

Nine is impressed with Jack Knight’s performance.

I do have a slight curiosity about where Jack Knight got his Darkened Siegfried. And we only know one person who has handed out Siegfrieds.

Nine’s reporting to Uchuuchouten about Jack Knight?

I wonder what for? I guess it concerns the Cornerstone.

Okay no, you can’t just try and lighten the mood with THIS kind of realization-

Oh, I got faked out, Card Sensei apparently senses that Kyouka isn’t saying anything that she means.

Ah shit, I don’t do well with tears.

I can be heartless even in the face of great unfairness but god if I see someone cry that’s it I’m gone.

Kyouka’s noticed her own weakness from earlier as well as realizing that everyone used their power to carry out a task for her sake.

So now she wants to be stronger so SHE can defeat Jack Knight.

Considering you got wrecked by Maccho I don’t think you’re at all capable of that.

That’s an odd thing to present Kyouka with, The Blue Cornerstone?

Guragurii awakened to Card Sensei and Card Sensei has the Cornerstone, that makes Card Sensei the Blue Chosen Battler, even though we’ve never seen him use hide nor hair of a Blue card.

Handing it to Kyouka who’s ALSO never used Blue is odd, give it to Seven! He can open Isekai AND uses a Blue Deck with an Iconic Blue X-Rare!

Its only barely reacting to Kyouka’s new Cornerstone.

Does that imply that the strength of the Cornerstone is weakening because of Jack Knight’s choices?

Ah I see where the rage came from. Jack Knight is trying to get stronger so he can defeat Uchuuchouten, he got angry at Bashin for being “weak” because Jack Knight did not feel like he was getting any stronger from the battle.

We like to call this Hubris.

Jack Knight is basically declaring himself the strongest battler, claiming he’s only second to Uchuuchouten and needs to surmount that incredible gap he perceives between himself and Uchuuchouten.

And that’s Episode 36!

I walked in here with sheer bloodlust and you know what I think I fuckin’ got it.

Jack Knight is at the pinnacle of his Heel role, fully immersed in his role as Number Eleven, and the heroes now have to figure out how to topple the strong-ass bastard, as well as figure out how to get Kyouka as strong as everyone else.

Interestingly, when Jack Knight defeated Siegfried using his DarkDragonEmperor, he didn’t announce that he got to draw a card from, as that Spirit can let you Draw a card when it wins a Battle that it was attacking.

Either way, J’s currently got arguably the most threatening card we’ve seen, aside from Mikafar’s brokennness at least.

And still no sign of that mystery X-Rare we missed from BS03, oh well.

The only place we can move is onward, now that we’ve seen Jack Knight quite literally wipe Bashin off the face of Kyoto, we should see how exactly Bashin plans to defeat The DarkDragonEmperor.

Especially since, given the circumstances, it is unlikely Bashin will get his own DarkDragonEmperor to square off with J’s

Either way, it will be interesting to see, see you for the next one!