Toppa Bashin – Episode 43

Ah, we’re finally passed the legend of Jack Knight, and the Numbers Elite are in shambles, they lost 3 members in the span of an episode.

The remaining members consist of:
Number Nine
Number Eight
Number Seven
Number Four

And of course, King Uchuuchouten, only 4 Numbers remain, and we still haven’t seen hide nor hair of a Six or a Ten.

And they’ve evidently been crippled as the creator of the Battle System and the creator of Battle Spirits is no longer on their side, they no longer have the strongest battler either.

Gonna be hard to see how they recover from this.

It appears this episode is going to likely centre around Card Sensei, he’s the only “Master” I’d associate with the colour Blue.

And all of the above problems I just mentioned can all be sourced to one specific act of kindness, that is, Eight’s decision to be a member of Team Shomen Toppa, that specific act then led to the resignation of 3 KEY members of the Numbers Elite.

Eight’s finally getting reprimanded for that decision.

Eight states the same thing she did to Elliott, it would have been unfair for them to be disqualified because they counted on Galaxy rejoining the Numbers Elite.

Nine seems to pick up that Eight may have become attached to them due to proximity, which is exactly what happened to Five, so he’s deciding to cut her off from her Students to further benefit the Numbers.

Well, not really, you only did it at the behest of Nine to begin with. Nine is effectively freeing you from that obligation, the fact that you’re protesting that now is evidence that he’s right about your attachment.

You know, you think if you keep playing the “Number Five” card on the woman who’s evidently been deeply affected by her relationship being cut off by his leave, it would eventually stop working.

But of course, it works every time, you think she’d have gotten over it by now.

But of course, Love is a strange emotion and makes people do woefully stupid things in pursuit, or sometimes, in spite of it.

Apparently, undeterred from the last failure of a Tournament, Nine is setting up the next one, known as the “King Uchuuchouten Cup”

I do like how the invitations are colour-coded.

Specifically assigned to the members of Team Shomen Toppa, and a White one for J.

This suggests to me that this has everything to do with the fact that Nine now knows who holds the Cornerstones.

There’s that term, the “Summit” again, it seems to be used in reference to the place where Uchuuchouten will be fought.

Bashin learns the news of the King Uchuuchouten Cup, Aibou makes an interesting point that the Championship didn’t feel like the end but thinks its weird that they’re announcing another Tournament already.

I don’t think its that weird? Its a game, to keep it alive you evidently want to keep hosting Tournaments no?

It appears the news also has some details as to who has been selected. Suiren’s already received her invite it seems.

Seems only appropriate to select every member of the winning team from the last Championship, as well as the runner ups.

Bashin wonders why he’s yet to receive his invitation just yet.

I believe the answer may have something to do with the fact that Eight has directional sense of a dead ant.

Wow she doesn’t even get a car to do it with this time, really getting the shitty grunt work.

Then again long walks are not bad, being alone in your own head is actually quite liberating. During work experience at a law firm, one of my favourite tasks was having the 30 minute long walk to deliver some mail, it can be very refreshing.

Ah, seems we’re heading to Meganeko’s house this time.

Her occupational habits are starting to manifest as her typical way of thinking, though I’m not sure we need to see this struggle at this point because we already know that she’s been combatting her desire for her students to succeed for a while now.

She leaves Meganeko’s invite in the door. What some people might miss is that even though she’s catching her Teacher-like tendencies, she still chose not to interrupt Meganeko’s studying to deliver her invite.

Oh god, pay attention to your pockets! AND DON’T LEAVE ESSENTIAL THINGS IN THE SAME POCKET FOR EXACTLY THIS REASON!

God this is pain.

Because of course someone picked it up. Based on the title of the episode though, it’s very likely to be Card Sensei.

Nice to see Bashin and J are catching up on lost time with each other by going to a Batosupi Centre. I’d like to see the changes J made to his deck since discarding his “Jack Knight” persona.

Ah, right, J was already gone when Baito-san joined the workforce, so its likely he’s never seen her before.

But strange that Eight is suddenly here though. And that entire wall is comprised of cards from the base set.

The girl at the counter seems to be buying a Pentan.

Man J really wasn’t used to having friends and going to things.

He’s back at a place he’s been to before and he’s just like “awww shit dafuq did I miss!? WHY DID I STOP GOING HERE?”

Its occurred to me that Okyou must be incredibly small if she can happily chill on a 13-year old’s shoulder without any problems at all.

For reference, I’m ignoring this line of dialogue mostly because we as the audience already know J hasn’t recieved his invite, the White letter was still in Eight’s pocket when she dropped the Blue invite.

J’s confidence doesn’t appear to have been incredibly damaged from his loss as Jack Knight.

I’m REALLY more interested in J’s deck right now, I want to see how he’s altered it, and what he’s done with that Red X-Rare.

Bashin does use the opportunity to poke around J’s head a little, trying to see if there’s anyting useful they can learn about the new tournament as J might have been privy to that information before he left the Numbers.

Unfortunately, not even Eight knew about it before being asked to deliver letters, so this makes sense that J wouldn’t know.

After not facing his friends in so long its probably really refreshing for J to be able to take on Bashin freely.

This is a weird statement. Bashin has mostly been wielding a Deck comprised of both Red and Blue cards, and has had many situations where he’s sat on an abundance of Blue Spirits, though J could be noting that Bashin has toned down the presence of Blue in his deck and has more straight Red cards.

J’s got quite a mixed board, we can clearly see a Green, Red, White AND Yellow card on his field.

He’s got a Thor in his hand at least, so that’s still there. His colour mixup hasn’t changed much.

Also I think that Green card is a MachG, I can’t identify the rest from here though.

Just go and give them the fucking letter, god!

They got REALLY into their battle and Eight managed to boomerang the cards INTO THEIR HANDS.

Was there a problem with just leaving it by them discreetly? Or having someone else deliver them for you? Perhaps one of the other workers?

WAS THIS NECESSARY!?

Bashin finally gets his invite but rather than be happy that he got one, he’s more concerned about the fucking Nazo-Otona that gave it to him.

Its… a bit strange to want something from a messenger while simultaeniously and reflexively wanting to shoot said messenger once you’ve received the item.

Its a Nazo-Otona, what the hell are they gonna do? Play card games with him?

Since Nazo-Otonas need to award X-Rares, I guess its good that they’re efficient at running away once spotted.

Without Elliott there’s likely a shortage of X-Rares to award nowadays.

Bashin and J do get to run into Striker, lemme guess, he’s got his invite already?

And for my next prediction, he didn’t see who sent it to him.

Of course, because that would be convenient.

Time for a strategy meeting at J’s place.

Granted, they’ve only got 5 of the 6 letters, Kyouka despite being the one who defeated Nine has yet to recieve hers.

Meganeko has doubts that they can defeat Uchuuchouten, as the Tournament name suggests they will have to, Bashin reassures them that they’ve got a powerful user of each colour.

Nothing like simply not receiving an invitation to kick your self-esteem in the nuts.

And Kyouka has yet to be seen playing a Blue card, she’s had ONE Bun-Ffalo in her hand to this day, that is the closest she’s been to one.

That is true, the Cornerstones seem to be able to function regardless of who they’re currently with, but because Card Sensei has the speaking Guragurii, Card Sensei is evidently the chosen Blue Battler.

Ohai there Guragurii, we were JUST talking about you!

I guess Card Sensei moved back to his old apartment, nice that he’s coming back.

I guess there also wasn’t a necessity for him to be so far away anymore given that a majority of the Numbers have dispersed and Thousand Spirits Group have a much looser influence.

That business seems to be exactly between Seven and Nine-

…That sounds way worse than I anticipated it would sound.

In defense of Eight, even BASHIN got lost in this mansion, I think he found a Golden Toilet before he found where J was.

Card Sensei’s here, and he SHAVED.

Thank god, he looked absolutely ridiculous with that massive beard. (Note: I REALLY do not like facial hair, on anyone)

Card Sensei ain’t fucking around today apparently. But while his intentions are relatively noble he hasn’t exactly asked what “those kids” actually want to do, they’re more than willing to fight, and besides, they’re only card games.

…Or so they will be until they actually have rammifications. Which might be the issue here.

You keep throwing out this insult but it really makes less and less sense the more you examine it, Card Sensei has been mostly present at every single event the cast have been involved with, the only thing he’s done is openly voice his opposition to the Thousand Spirits Group. And yet he’s back here again showing his face and directly opposing you.

What part of that is “Cowardly”?

And neither have the audience, come to think of it.

We’re 43 episodes in and we have NO idea what Thousand Spirits Group are actually trying to do.

It appears Card Sensei keeps appearing to Eight nowadays because she was made to take his role as the children’s watchman. He likely sees this as an opportunity to separate her from the Numbers Elite.

I wonder if Card Sensei was also inspired by Bashin’s battle with Jack Knight, a similar sentiment is being expressed here, with less of the “Adult/Child Dichotomy” given no one’s trying to grow up in this scene.

We interrupt this Romance to bring you Guragurii’s words of wisdom.

Do not listen to them, they consist of LIES.

He LIES. Everyone knows that Japan is the only place you can have fun because Battle Spirits exists there!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have an anime to review (because that clearly is the same as playing Battle Spirits)

At Meganeko’s behest, Guragurii whips out the special training that made her so tough.

I draw the line at training that does not consist of many hours of hard, rigorous card game playing.

Ah this old thing, some of the Manju are made from 100% Wasabi while the rest contain Sweet Bean Paste if I remember correctly.

And Bashin dunked 2 of them without even bothering to wait, good job.

I guess we’re moving onto the Karuta cards mighty quick, I am uncertain how this makes anyone stronger.

These Karuta cards have random phrases adorned with them, you’re meant to hear Guragurii start a phrase and then find the matching card.

In this case, it was “Yellow cards are slightly perverted spirits to lead boys astray.”

…Which Meganeko instantly grabbed and seemed to think was correct.

Meganeko, you doing okay?

Jesus these Karuta cards got weird all of a sudden. Meganeko’s been conditioned into thinking Yellow cards are perverted and now we’re just saying Striker’s just the support.

Guragurii really just walked in here and chose violence.

Ruining my perceptions of the main cast aside, it appears Eight and Card Sensei are still fighting.

Do they have a Karuta card for “When there is an impasse, smash it with Batosupi”?

…ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS!?

How hard was it to show us this when EIGHT FOUGHT NINE THE FIRST TIME!?

WHAT PART OF THAT WAS SO GODFORSAKENLY HARD.

For those who have no idea what I’m losing my shit over, for whatever reason 2 Nazo-Otonas were able to go to Isekai despite demanding that Cornerstone holders take them there each time, implying they couldn’t go themselves. And even Seven has shown the ability to be able to open the gate without the need of a Cornerstone OR an animal available to assist.

The reason for that has been unknown, unreferenced and unexplained… Until now.

The Rings of the Numbers Elite can act as Pseudo-Cornerstones that allow the Nazo-Otonas to open the gate and battle in Isekai.

Why this was so hard to actually show us until now is fucking BEYOND me.

But hey lets look on the bright side, Eight actually has a Gate Open, Release animation.

Its not the best board in the world but Eight’s board isn’t bad, a Lv3 Hellwitch can annihilate Exhausted Spirits of Cost 6 or below, or Cost 1 or below.

And the Historic Battlefield of the Cursed will award Eight with draws anytime Card Sensei’s spirits are exhausted, something they must do just to attack.

Card Sensei seems to be working with a Blue/Yellow Mix of cards with the following Spirits:
Piyon Lv2
Barball Lv2
Rabirabi
Diatryma
The BlackFairy Ti-Tanya Lv2, a New card
And the Soldier Gustav

Both lives are at full 5 because of course they are.

From BS04, a Dark variant of Ti-Tanya to go with the rest of our Dark-versioned Spirits that are significantly better than their originals.

She works with the triple Spirit/Nexus strategy except its only with Spirits this time, if you have 3+ Yellow Spirits every Magic gets an additional Yellow Cost reduction, that stacks with itself so if those 3+ Spirits consist of multiple Ti-Tanyas, you get a reduction for each.

This card, while not seen nowadays does have a couple of rather niche uses, allowing any Magic to gain Yellow reduction, including other Yellow Magic that already have an abundance of it can be quite useful, some Magic become rather potent when used for free under Ti-Tanya’s effects.

Bitch. That says more about the player who let him get 6 spirits in the first place.

Late stage Battle Spirits anime at its finest, we’re going to start seeing a lot of characters using cards that have been used by others before.

It saves budget, yes, but its also showing the natural conclusion of a small card pool, we only get 4 X-Rares a set, and X-Rares are what make up this game’s boss cards.

Especially given the main cast are quite powerful battlers, I think it would be fair to suggest that others may draw upon their strategies, even down to using their X-Rares.

It’s entirely normal, and its something Battle Spirits isn’t afraid to do with their characters, its a good representation of what happens when a Meta forms.

…Not that I think Destlord would have had Meta relevance at all but you get the point.

Ah, its THIS old combo again, you Destlord exhaust all Lv2s and then draw for each one you landed upon.

And then Eight plays a… New card(?)

Its called “The WaterSnake Sea Serpenda” but I’ll be honest with you this is the closest thing Battle Spirits has to D&D’s False Hydra, got that’s unsettling.

It’s got a rather simplistic effect, if you clear a certain number of hand cards on the opponent’s start step you can bounce a card to their hand, forcing them to re-summon it for the cost they paid all over again. This condition gets easier as you go up in level.

Note that this is one of few cards that doesn’t carry over it’s effects to the next level, so you can’t mass bounce with this effect, you can only make the cards needed to do so much easier.

For its Cost, BP and ability, this card isn’t very good. In Card Sensei’s case most of his cards can clear the reductions required to play them for free rather easily, at worst he may have to pay 1 or 2 core to bring it back which is a minor inconvenience.

I’m sorry Card Sensei but a question about things other than the game are not suitable responses to a Spirit’s attack, please proceed.

Its such a non-answer, because the follow-up is going to be “Well why did you feel the need to do that?“

Hellwitch’s effect destroys the Cost 0 Piyon and the Cost 6 Barball.

Eight demands to know whether Card Sensei will take from the life or block and before he has the opportunity to even answer she spits this out.

His indeciveness seems directly proportional to your unreasonableness Eight.

Card Sensei blocks with Rabirabi, and Rabirabi is destroyed.

No I am not keeping track of the number of cards Eight has whatsoever.

I’d argue that the Blue cards are far from cute but that’s difficult to say when Rabirabi exists.

Could you have chosen a less annoying time to FLIRT!?

I will say for a blast this huge and the only resultant impact being ONE of Card Sensei’s lives that just give off a small “ping” its a bit anticlimactic.

Anyway, Card Sensei is now on 4 lives.

Interesting choice of tech, but I guess for Seaserpenta it makes sense that you’d want to do it, its got low BP but you can potentially snatch a Spirit’s destruction in addition to raising its Level to put your opponent on the backfoot of an effect they weren’t expecting.

Awaken is a Red-Exclusive Keyword, it makes sense that the effect of gaining it would look Red as well.

Yeesh, you either have Black Lightning or bright Violet lasers.

Card Sensei is losing spirits left and right, I think he’s only got Gustav and Black Ti-Tanya left I think.

seems like a good position to end one’s turn in, a huge hand and 4 spirits removed.

Sorry, make that 5, Seaserpenta’s effect has triggered to remove Ti-Tanya from the field.

Like I said, this is the main problem, the other being that one can maneuver around Seaserpenta so that the only cards they have available to bounce might be cards with powerful effects on summon.

You wouldn’t want to Seaserpenta a Titus after all.

It sets Card Sensei 3 core behind at least, I guess.

Didn’t anticipate that, Card Sensei threw out a Yellow X-Rare.

Normally it would be Mikafar but not this time I guess. I don’t think we’ve seen him use much Yellow Magic, I wonder what cards he retrieves.

The answer is apparently none of them, Valiero doesn’t use it’s effect when summoned and instead Card Sensei pays a whole 5 cost to deploy some Nexuses out of his trash.

2 of those Nexuses we’ve seen before, the OTHER 2 on the other hand are completely new to us, we should look at them, because they’re BUSTED.

The Victory Stand of Glory is NUTS, how nuts you may asked?

Well it’s banned, that’s how nuts, you can mill from your own deck in exchange for being able to play Nexuses for free and even worse you can gain a Core for each Nexus you play, that lets you proliferate Core and relevant cards in your Trash like crazy.

I understand it was likely intended so that Blue could quickly gather Nexuses in the Trash as needed for Construction, while also feasibly using Nexuses from other colours, but this level of resource is insane.

The other one, The Ancient Arena is less ridiculous but the fact that it locks out opposing options is pretty tough, the opponent can’t benefit from effects on summon and can’t use Battle-boosts whatsoever.

With a Core placed on each, Card Sensei takes a leaf out of Seven’s book and uses Golem Craft.

4 usable attackers out of literally nowhere does indeed sound scary, but the fact that it provides an opportunity for the opponent to destroy Nexuses seems like a nice drawback to have.

That’s also a pretty nasty counter to Golem Craft.

Eight is just fucking walloping Card Sensei, holy shit.

When you got 5 lives and you’re under a Silent Wall there is only ONE correct choice, to take from the life (5->4 vs 4)

Ignoring all the thrown out accusations of Card Sensei being a coward, THIS is an actual legitimate complaint, yes, Card Sensei has shown interest in other women, namely Hayami for example.

Wait, she legitimately thinks that Card Sensei selects his spirits based on how sexy they are?

Is that what the fucking Yellow Karuta card was meant to suggest?

Well, I’m missing context, did he officially break the relationship before he left the Numbers Elite or did he simply leave the Numbers Elite and fail to warn you?

Because I could go either way on whether or not Card Sensei’s lecherous nature is a problem based purely on whether or not he established he was no longer participating in the relationship.

Eight seems to agree that its Card Sensei’s decision to do as he likes which suggests to me that he broke up with her before acting the way he does, just that she doesn’t like it.

Which suggests jealousy.

Random ass Yellow Spirits in this predominantly Purple Deck. What is the point?!

She had a red Magic earlier too.

And a BLUE NEXUS? She had a White Magic earlier too, all she needs is a Green card and she’s got a fucking Rainbow of a deck.

I’ll give her a pass for this one because the Nexus is cheap and actually relatively strong. So much so that it was actually reprinted quite recently in a set that reprints a number of staples.

Its got 2 effects, the first one being the most useful, it prevents your opponent using Magic unless they have a Symbol that matches the card’s colour. For example, If I wanted to use “Silent Wall” from my hand, I wouldn’t be able to unless I had at least ONE White Symbol persist on my field. Its an Anti-Mixed Colour card.

Most decks, even nowadays use off-colour cards in one-off situations, like White Magic, so cards like this Nexus are still good because they cut that off.

The 2nd effect more niche nowadays but for the time the card was released, it is actually a powerful counter to prevent Mikafar from using its effect. With the 2nd effect live, Mikafar’s Lv2 effect becomes entirely useless.

Okay I HAVE to say, Eight’s animations while she’s fighting are some of the best in this fucking show, she’s REALLY cool to watch throw cards out, her movements are fluid and to top it off, she’s not a bad looker.

At the very least, her designer should be VERY proud because she perfectly captures the line between hot and cool, and not a lot of characters can do that.

I will forgive the random ass DarkPiyon if its for the sake of providing reductions for this card.

Angel Voice now makes this a battle of Levels, not BP. So as both are Lv2, Valiero is going to go down with Hellwitch.

Nevermind, she just silently levelled up the Hellwitch without bothering to draw attention to it.

Valiero, having a lower level is beaten.

Top Supra and Destlord attack, taking 2 lives from Card Sensei
(4 vs 4->2)

DarkPiyon attacks but is destroyed by the blocking Black Ti-Tanya

And Seaserpenta attacks, bringing Card Sensei to his final life.

Well, I would protest but she is correct, its one of the few cards currently available that can cause a Cost 0 to defeat even an X-Rare.

There’s a lot MORE of that in the recent game just based on how it’s evolved but I’ll concede her point here given that hindsight is 20/20 and foresight is blind.

Eight follows her last attack with Pure Elixir, allowing all her Spirits to refresh.

Lets see, we got 4 big fuckers in the way, 4 lives to punch through, and Card Sensei has 1 Yellow Spirit and 4 Blue Nexuses while only having 1 Life.

…Winnable?

Card Sensei REALLY gracing the name of Master Yellow here, he plays DarkGoradon and a Lv2 Mikafar.

The Mikafar ALONE opens up so many options for him it’s ridiculous-

Wait, no wait NO IT DOESN’T, The Absorption Triumphal Arch is Lv2! Mikafar’s Lv2 effect is worthless!

A shame too, he got Double Hearts AND Buster Spear-

…Wait a sec.

Well so much for that Blue Nexus. I guess that’s what the DarkGoradon is for.

COULD. YOU. PLEASE. STOP. FLIRTING. YOU. ARE. SUPPOSED. TO. BE. FIGHTING. TO. THE. DEATH!

Eight receives a memory of her time with Card Sensei. Also a rare time that we see her in her Masako persona without any makeup, she looks nice.

For reference if you’re a makeup user, please ignore me, I’m like super particular about what makeup I like.

With DarkGoradon and at LEAST 2 cores avcailable, Card Sensei rids the field of The Absorption Triumphal Arch using Buster Spear. Now Card Sensei can use his Magic not only freely, but for free.

He uses Double Hearts to give Mikafar a 2nd Symbol. All he needs now is Invisible Cloak and a White Potion to make this as annoying as humanely possible.

Oh, another new Blue card, and given that this one has 5 reductions I can only anticipate it’s effect…

Thought as much, it’s another BS04 Magic that supports the Double Symbol’d Dragon Emperors, dodged a bit in this case since Double Hearts is helping meet the condition.

You blow up your own Nexuses and for each, your opponent has to blow up a Spirit, it’s like a multi-use Deadly Balance, but for Nexuses and with a really difficult condition to clear.

But in this case Card Sensei has 4 Nexuses he doesn’t need and Eight has 4 Spirits.

This is what we in the business call: A Flex.

Mikafar has 2 Symbols, BlackFairy Ti-Tanya and DarkGoradon have 1 Symbol, a Full attack makes game.

And Card Sensei re-confesses his love to Eight.

I feel like what began as an attempt to protect Bashin and the others has ended going slightly off topic.

Disclaimer: Battle Spirits Shounen Toppa Bashin takes place in a fictional world where Card Games are actually taken seriously and many life choices are determined by it. It should not, under any circumstances be used as any kind of legal, political, and certainly not romantic advice.

Results obtained as depicted in the show are unlikely to be reproduced in real life and you should not, even for a second, believe that they will be.

I just, feel an excessive need to throw that out there, beating girls in card games does not make them like you.

Well with that Love potion recipe complete, they get caught by security before this entire hallway becomes something they can’t show on TV.

Quite notably you can very clearly hear Commentar-chan’s voice when J checks in to see what’s up.

also I had to specifically stop myself typing “Jack Knight”, sweet jesus.

Yes, go, quite literally ANYTHING ELSE would be more interesting than you fuckwits playing Karuta Cards at the behest of a fucking Turtle.

I was thinking “Oh hey, now we can get this confusion cleared up” and then it occurs to me that J has not been taught by Card Sensei and may very well recognise him as Number Five of the Numbers Elite.

And if not, he’ll certainly recognise Number Eight.

I need to stop jumping guns, eventually one of the bullets will hit me.

I’m positively certain there was a frame where this looks as BAD as humanly possible and I am glad that this frame is not it.

Also the sweet liberties this show takes with changing costume, by simply divesting her trousers, her entire uniform changed, she gained a SKIRT that was somehow hidden under there, her loose-fit top has been replaced with a tight-fitting one, she was able to UN-DYE HER FUCKING HAIR and to top it all off, instantly shed her Fake Tan.

AND SHE’S NOT THE ONLY CULPRIT. J, MEGANEKO AND SUIREN ARE ALL GUILTY OF THIS.

Glad that secret’s out, maybe now she can finally quit Thousand Spirits group, right after she hands Kyouka that invite she’s due.

Speaking of Kyouka where tf is she at?

There she is.

And also following on from the whole “Quitting” idea, if you’re going to get angry at some pretty-boy either way you go about it at least pick the one who somewhat gives a shit.

Bashin, once again, thinks completely differently to everyone else.

His character is consistent, and I don’t mean in the sense that he’s a hyperactive little shit all the time, but where everyone seems to see Nazo-Otonas or Cornerstone holders as an enemy to be defeated, Bashin has never once actively considered Nazo-Otonas an enemy.

That’s a lie, he does feel some need to deal with Nazo-Otonas as they show up as he’s done so this episode, but usually its for a distinct reason, I’m entirely certain that the only reason he chases them down is because of the opportunity for an X-Rare, he’s complained multiple times when he hasn’t received one after all.

And the only one who he didn’t demand an X-Rare from, Smile, he opposed for a very specific reason, because he knew Smile was after J, there was context, had absolutely 0 to do with Smile’s status as Number Four. Bashin has treated even Uchuuchouten with some level of politeness and kind of just treats the big guy as just any other person.

Suddenly, Card Sensei decides to give us a Plot dump.

Suddenly we get this thrown on us, even though we’ve had no idea what Nine OR Uchuuchouten were planning up until this point.

How the hell were we supposed to know whether Nine was going to betray Uchuuchouten when we don’t even know what the fuck Uchuuchouten wanted. I still am unclear on what he’s after, as far as I know he just wants someone strong enough to defeat him. Big ass Blood Knight.

Card Sensei says Nine has Six domes “Because of his delusion”, when in fact Uchuuchouten was fully aware of the domes and adovcated for their use.

Also, notably, one can identify where each Dome is located, and they correspond to the dome’s colour too, the Red one is located right where Kyoto is for example. Which means the White Dome is Tokyo based on its location, so this entire plot has taken place in Tokyo.

The Green one is Sapporo, which we know Elliott wanted to place one there, The Purple one appears to be in Nagoya?

The Yellow one’s in an interesting place, it’s not quite Nagasaki, its instead in Saga.

And hilariously the Blue one is entirely cut off and is on one of the smaller landmasses, it appears to be Okinawa.

I mean it would be a tad strange if they didn’t all do that.

Is.. Is that it?

That’s the grand plan? To release the Spirits into the real world using the Isekai Domes?

And that’s… not coinciding with what Uchuuchouten wants to do, whatever that might be.

J says “Right” a moment before this, so it seems like he might have already been mildly aware of this during his time as Jack Knight.

Actually, he says “Sou” right beforehand so that “Right” could be the equivalent of “I see”

But that would imply that J had no idea what Thousand Spirits Group were attempting to do or why he felt the need to defeat Uchuuchouten. Who looks MORE and MORE like a swell guy because as far as we know he hasn’t fucking done anything.

He was literally “evil” earlier because J SAID he was evil, its the entire point of his switch to Heel. Or is this show now suggesting that their evils were not the cause of Uchuuchouten but due to Nine, his “Dragon”. (Look it up on TvTropes)

How that USB isn’t corrupted due to the fact that the system quite literally locked itself up as it was downloading the data is beyond me.

I would say “They’re already involved” but from Card Sensei’s point of view there’s a level of reasonableness.

The upcoming set of card games are evidently going to have very real world rammifications, people are going to live and die based on whether or not Thousand Spirits group succeed or fail, a bunch of 12/13-year olds will either be unable to grasp the level of responsbility that entails and make a mistake because of it, or find it difficult to cope with the oncoming stress and potentially be irreversibly damaged due to it.

But you know, as Bashin said, J seems fully aware of the risks and has ALREADY been fighting this battle, alone infact.

And of course, Bashin is the only one who’s been recognized by King Uchuuchouten, therefore he’s basically the only one qualified to even fight this battle because Uchuuchouten acknowledges him as an opponent.

And of course, the problem isn’t even Uchuuchouten, it’s Nine who isn’t exactly the strongest member of the Numbers Elite.

Upon re-examination of the plot thus far, if J was aware of this type of plan being Uchuuchouten’s goal, then its likely that Nine’s betrayal is less “This is all Nine’s plan”, but moreso he’s taking advantage of Uchuuchouten’s original plan for his own benefit.

But the plot has failed to explain that, so that’s a criticism I will levy at them and will likely stand.

Card Sensei at least seems to realise that there is no point making them sit out now if they’re willing to help.

This seems like a subtle way to say “NO MORE JACK KNIGHTS, PLEASE.”

Kyouka finally gets her Invite, fuckin’ finally.

Based on this, it really does seem like its a “They want the same thing but Nine plans to pull the rug from under Uchuuchouten”

And he’s about to lose Eight.

Oh, oh shit. That’s uh. That’s a LOT of Nazo-Otonas.

Also Baito-san’s among them! But she was so nice before!

Also notably they all have colour-coded suits.

Colourcoded for each colour, I suppose each Nazo-Otona specializes in a colour.

And shit, Baito-kun’s at the front! The one dressed in blue!

Given how kind he was earlier and how much of a fun loving dork he was I have a hard time believing that he was just conditioned into becoming evil, the matching masks suggest mind control?

So it seems Nine is usurping control from King Uchuuchouten and fixing the “Loyalty” issue he seems to be frequently having by attaching Mind Control masks to every member of the Thousand Spirits group.

Can’t exactly betray Nine if you lack the free will to do so.

That is assuming that they are actually Mind Control masks and not a fashion statement.

But if Uchuuchouten is the strongest how will Nine directly deal with Uchuuchouten himself? Unless Uchuuchouten is also under his control.

That would be a plot twist and a half, but I doubt it since he was surprised by Uchuuchouten’s appearance last episode.

Anyhow, these are all questions that can be answered later and have no rammifications, unfortunately, the questions involving “Who the fuck is Uchuuchouten” and “What the hell does he want” is not something I can easily forgive for going unanswered this long.

And the Batosupi Lecture goes on about Tidal Tide, I guess I can talk about it’s relevence today.

There’s a really specific word I’m looking for that accurately describes the card’s unique situation in today’s game… Um..

Oh I know.

TRASH.

The card is bad, the only purpose it serves is to end the game by making you give up your own board presence to force your opponent to lose an equivalent number of cards.

Very few people will be so willing to lose an advantageous position, its incredibly unsafe and if your opponent answers it, you’re fucked.

Besides if the opponent has a sizeable board there’s almost no way you’re going to have anywhere near enough Nexuses to clear the whole thing. Let alone that all being gated behind needing a Double Symbol Spirit to function.

Its a bad card, use 1 if you have a REALLY specific strategy that can but even if you could, just don’t.

Anyway, That’s Episode 43.

Only 7 episodes remain. See you for the next one.