Toppa Bashin – Episode 46

Righto, got some news, well, more like a warning because unfortunate things are unfortunate.

So, Battle Spirits Shounen Toppa Bashin has had relatively high quality up until this point, however from this point onward there’s going to be a noticeable quality dip in the images.

Now, I have the option of a slightly higher quality viewing (Not as good as previous episodes regardless), however.

The Subs are quite frankly, terrible, they’re translated almost literally and some phrases are flat out incorrect and do not reflect what the character is actually trying to say.

So I will be sticking with Soaker’s Subs for these remaining 5 episodes, I apologise for poor quality but its necessary for shit to actually make sense.

And also I have an inclination towards Soaker’s subs anyway because Soaker has gone out of their way to comment on my blog before. I can at least show my respect by going that final stretch with them.

So, once again, I apologise for the drop in quality.

“The Cornerstone 6” tells us nothing because we already know who they are. That “Disappearance the Day before the finals” is a little bit ominous, considering last episode depicted Eight being approached by one of Nine’s goons I’m going to guess she’s been kidnapped.

We’re quickly guided to what appears to be an argument between Kiano, Elliott and Nine. We’ve seen Nine’s goons so its likely Nine’s begun to move and the others are in on it.

I… I can’t help but feel like a 12 or so year old child has been expressing this issue for a long time and had a father who didn’t listen to him throughout the entirety of that.

I’m not sure who that could have been, honestly.

I’ll refrain from actively being obtuse, we know Kiano was already aware of the problems the Thousand Spirits Group were causing he just chose not to oppose them for some reason, my guess is funding the Battle System.

Oh? So what Nine is trying to do is at odds with what Uchuuchouten wants to do, so let’s see what Uchuuchouten’s intent was meant to be-

Kiano realizes something mid sentence that Nine’s has done something and denies us that sweet, sweet juicy info on what the fuck it is Uchuuchouten wants to do.

I feel narratively blueballed, like jesus christ.

Nine, quite obviously, explains a plan we basically already knew, he made the invitations to the Cornerstone 6 (as we’re now apparently meant to call them) in order to get a hold of their Cornerstones.

THEN WHAT THE FUCK WERE THEY MADE FOR!?

WHAT DOES UCHUUCHOUTEN WANT?!

So it requires 6 domes to be fully powered by a Cornerstone, once each Cornerstone powers each Dome, one for each colour, Isekai will be released into Earth.

Listen I know you speak broken Japanese Elliott but now you’re just blurting out things that don’t make sense in any language.

Jesus did Kyouka knock a screw loose? What was once an intelligent calculating person now seems to be relatively deranged.

I’m not sure why he was even having that conversation with Elliott and Kiano, he’s got no reason to converse with them about his plan.

One of the many examples where the quality drop can really hurt at times.

Also really? Did Kitan damage your pride THAT much just by commenting on your poor luck?

I’m pretty sure people with poor luck don’t accumulate great wealth!

They’re discussing the multiple domes and which ones to go to, Suiren wants to go to Okinawa, where the Blue dome is…

Oh boy they’re not even going to colour code the battler’s decks with their respective location.

Kyouka wants to go to Kyoto, Blue battler in the Red dome, and I believe Okyou mentions that they’re going to Sapporo, which isn’t much better cuz that’s the GREEN dome.

J on the other hand isn’t seeing the fun in this, as he’s analyzing the domes. Apparently the Tokyo Dome, the first dome, which likely took the longest to set up is a Satellite Dome. So in essence the White Dome is where Isekai will be released while the other domes simply assist with the process.

Its like a giant adaptor that, instead of letting small children go to Isekai, brings Isekai to the entire dome.

Kyouka has the idea of simply not playing into their hand, if they don’t power the Domes then Nine can’t release Isekai and his entire plan fails.

J counters that a fight is completely unavoidable, but doesn’t explain why, thinking about it for a moment: choosing not to fight ensures the existence of the evil Thousand Spirits Group, it would effectively be waiting until a generation of Cornerstone wielders who ARE willing to fight go to those domes and activate them. Or Thousand Spirits group finds another method.

Or they can take a risk and end the problem permanently, while putting people at risk earlier, interesting dilemma.

One factor, not known to the Cornerstone 6 at this time though, is that Nine likely has those goons available to force them to go to these domes one way or another.

J constructs a theory, namely that since there are 6 domes they are likely all designed to handle the power of a single Cornerstone only, he comes up with the idea of overloading the system by forcing it to try and work with 2 Cornerstones, using a Tag Battle, and destroy it that way.

Its an interesting theory, also narratively useful, since Tag Battles were initially devised as a way for Smile and J to defeat Uchuuchouten, and is the reason Bashin chose not to face off with Uchuuchouten when he could have.

So the weapon to face Uchuuchouten being used for the purposes of stopping Nine who wishes to usurp his role, is quite brilliant.

J notes the access history of the file indicates that it has been read and even copied once before, and given that J only has his own copy its only going to have histories from before he took that data, meaning whoever claimed that copy of the file did so BEFORE J did as Jack Knight.

Bashin’s eyebrows are slightly more diagonal than usual and his eyes are slightly wider.

Alright whatever this is, its bad.

…Oh that’s unfortunate. Thousand Spirits Group is the group responsible for bringing battle spirits to the world as Elliott was a longtime member of the Numbers Elite.

That means the Card Stores are likely under the control of the Thousand Spirits Group.

So Baito-kun, and Baito-san, whom we saw with masks under the command of Nine, are not the only card shop workers, every single goon of Nine’s works or has worked at a Batosupi Centre, and for the sake of Nine’s choice to move, has shut down every single Batosupi Centre across Japan “For protection”

The audience can piece this together quite easily based on the faces of Baito-kun and Baito-san, but the Cornerstone 6 are just now somewhat theorizing that the sudden closure of every Batosupi centre in Japan is BECAUSE of the upcoming event.

Elliott tries to contact Eight, knowing she’s the closest affiliate of the Thousand Spirits Group at present, and the most recent person to see Elliott quit besides Kiano, but can’t reach her.

Well that’s ominous.

Huh, he holds a new card we haven’t seen, The Crossroads of Destiny.

I won’t review it unless he plays it but its an intriguing Nexus from BS03. One that supports Spirits with no printed effects.

Using Cards as metaphors is kind of cringey but whatever inspires these old dudes to do something.

J enters the room only to find it empty, it appears Kiano and Elliott have left.

I have seen too many pieces of fiction depicting Japanese people as overly hard workers too tuckered out to do anything when they return home such that they are quite literally unable to interact with their family regularly.

Japan work ethic needs to chill.

Ah, that’s why J was so concerned that the file had been touched, data in it could have been changed. Which means Kiano had the same idea as J did when he became Jack Knight.

And the data has apparently been “updated”, perhaps Kiano got a headstart on the theories J was producing with the data.

This is like the Card Game anime equivalent of realizing your father’s prized shotgun has gone missing shortly after he has.

Jokes aside, J is probably up to here with Kiano going off to fight without informing him.

J tries to chase after the Taxi but smol child cannot outrun car.

Turns out Kiano and Elliott were chilling at the school, rather than at home, so they didn’t leave before the Cornerstone 6 got there they were just never there.

Ah the sweet lengths they’ll go to try and hide this from J except J has already figured out that they’re going to go fight.

It appears despite all the crap Nine is doing, Smile is still loyal to him.

…Unless perhaps Smile was in on it to begin with, and was planning to use J to further Nine’s plan rather than a moral desire to topple Uchuuchouten.

…Praised by whom? Cuz I’m fairly sure the likely outcome of this plan is going to be total global annihilation

Not sure I enjoy the idea that Smile didn’t just take a weird route on his way to defeating Uchuuchouten and he’s actually just generically evil after beating Card Sensei.

God forbid a child insults your preference for suits Nine, god dayum.

Elliott and Kiano have arrived to take out some trash they left behind.

Kiano looks so serious his chin might have actually gained the ability to cut stone.

You can just imagine the butler going “Okay, I just need to make sure I don’t say anything to- Awww shit…“

To the Isekai Dome! Provided the Butler doesn’t string them along for some bizarre reason!

Seems they’re here to make a dent in Nine’s plans, the safest way probably too, if they have access to the system before the Cornerstones get there, the only danger is to themselves.

You know, I completely failed to consider that they could have also just accessed J’s computer while he was literally anywhere else and taken the data from there.

It appears something that Elliott created in the past became a Weapon for War, so he created Battle Spirits.

And now it’s threatening to happen again, no wonder he wanted to quit once he realised what the whole ordeal was turning into.

Kiano saw the benefit of the business but children got wrapped up in it, namely J and the others. Which you know, is a big no-no.

Something done fucked up.

Though to be honest, if they stole the data from J, they likely don’t know about the system’s failsafe going into lockdown when its being tampered with.

Yes… That’s like standard security protocol when someone leaves the company, if its a terminal only the Numbers Elite access then of course they’re going to change the password when members leave.

Why even allow the risk? It isn’t hard to change a password.

If a straight up businessman like Kiano thinks your plan goes beyond the definition of business, you know you’re evil.

Especially in modern day where businessman have a knack for appearing corrupt in almost all situations.

There goes Nine’s Trigger word.

The guy was already looking relatively destructive when he came in, now he somehow looks worse after hearing “Luck”

Seems Kiano is challenging Nine, that is… a weird matchup to say the least.

…That was strange hearing that come out of Elliott’s mouth, because he didn’t use a single english word in that, nor did he slur any of his Japanese.

It appears Elliott merely chose to speak poor japanese, either for the sake of fun, or to appear incompetent.

That’s interesting, Nine is setting an Ultimatum, he’s only going to fight once, and will fight only one of them.

I suppose Nine doesn’t want to rely on a Tag partner despite the setting allowing for it, and doesn’t want to put himself at a disadvantage through needing to win 2 battles to get his way.

Elliott has spent this entire episode suggesting effectively that what Nine is doing is a betrayal to the game itself, as this is only happening because of a game he made, its only fair that he take responsibility for it.

Which is fair.

Let’s throw down.

Elliott has turn 34.

He’s got a Lv1 Sacred Mjolnir, a Fruit of Life at Lv2 and a Historic Battlefield of the Cursed.

A White Spirit, with a Green and Purple Nexus, bit of a strange mix.

At least this combination of Nexuses are strong, he’ll draw if Nine exhausts or takes a Life, and if Nine takes a life, Elliott will gain core.

Elliott’s got 4 lives

I see Nine is still wielding his Bashin-like Red deck, he’s got a TwinRowdy Diranos, a Lv2 Lizardedge and DarkGoradon on his board.

A Diranos and no Terra dragons is a weird choice.

And he’s got 5 lives.

Elliott summons Ponysus, Machfly and The Berserker Troll.

I see he’s going back to Colour Salad, he’s got 5 colours present on his board, all he needs is a Red card and his field will be a fuckin’ rainbow.

Trust me, this quality also makes ME sad.

Anyway, no time for that now, we’ve got an X-Rare to review.

Photoshop acting up, so I’ll stick with this for now.

BS04’s Purple X-Rare, The SevenShogun Pandemium. The 3rd card in the SevenShogun series. A Purple X-Rare that allows you to draw a card when an opposing spirit is destroyed, you can exhaust spirits when your own spirits are defeated during the Showdown step, and at Lv3, when it’s destroyed, both Players have to drop 5 cards from their hand.

This is pretty nasty along with Elliott’s earlier Nexuses. Nine can’t go to the bathroom with out it earning Elliott a card.

Elliott attacks with MachFly which is destroyed by a blocking Diranos.

This is evidently going to trigger Pandemium’s Lv2 effect.

As Diranos was exhausted, Elliott gets to draw a card.

Due to Elliott’s own spirit being destroyed, he exhausts Lizardedge through it’s effect, allowing Elliott to draw again.

Ponysus attacks, defeating DarkGoradon, as DarkGoradon was exhausted and subsequently destroyed, Elliott draws a card from his Nexus and Pandemium’s effects.

Here Elliott and Nine have a tiny discussion about “The meaning of battle”, Elliott suggests Nine doesn’t know the meaning, and Nine suggests that there is no meaning.

Elliott gives a very short lecture that, while Battle Spirits is initially for enjoyment, it also acts as a form of communication between the 2 players engaged in battle, that appears to be a lesson taught to him after his humbling defeat at the hands of Striker.

Nine takes Elliott’s remaining attacks from the Life and Elliott ends his turn, leaving Mjolnir as the only blocker.

One of the many curses of high intelligence is the awareness of one’s own reasonableness, what a morally compromised but intelligent person may do in their self interest to continue pursuing that which they want to pursue is to be as unreasonable as possible about their views, essentially becoming narrow-minded.

Some would call that active stupidity, but they aren’t actually stupid, they’ve just simply ended their pursuit of information for the sake of not ever having to change their opinion.

It is impossible to reason with people like that, the only way to crack the shell of someone who resorts to this is often to force their hand by making use of that which they care about, as typically only selfish or spiteful people will resort to such an unreasonable defense mechanism.

Kind of makes Thanos a mildly interesting villain because he was even willing to sacrifice the things he cared about for his goal.

We cut back to the Cornerstone 6 who, as predicted, by me, are being delayed by the Butler.

The Butler can’t bring himself to break his promise to Kiano, but does implore J to go search for him.

Alright listen there’s got to be a cap on how cool you can be Nine.

Awww geez, a Cost 6 and 2 Cost 7s in the same move, Kujaraku at Lv1, The UnicornDragon Volsung at Lv2, and The EvilDeity Big-Loki at Lv3.

And they’re ALL new cards, alright.

The first is The FlameEmperor Kujaraku, a 4 Reduction, rather okayish statline Red Cost 6 with no printed effects, Kujaraku, for its reductions, is often used to meet Tribute Conditions, the downside is that its Lv1 Maintenance cost requires 2 core, so Tributing it causes you to lose 2 core rather than 1. Even if one might prefer to simply use Siegfried in this case, Kujaraku is good for limited building if you’re just playing out of BS04 for Tribute fodder.

UnicornDragon Volsung and EvilDeity Big-Loki are 2 sides of the same coin, they both have effects that support Spirits with 2 or more symbols. And both get a battle boost, Volsung when attacking, Loki when blocking.

Volsung is clearly the worse of the 2, it provides a Power Boost to 2+ Symbol spirits when it’s destroyed. Granted that can be used strategically but having to minus yourself to give temporary power to a spirit is kind of awful, most would probably prefer just using a Magic to do it.

Loki on the other hand is a little better, at Lv3 if it is able to damage the opposing life, it can refresh any 2+ Symbol spirit, notably it excludes itself despite having only 1 Symbol to avoid Double Hearts shenanigans. And of course it helps avoid it being broken with a later card type.

Volsung attacks, which Elliott takes from the Life (4->3 vs 3)

Volsung’s exhaust and Elliott’s loss of life awards Elliott 2 draws and an additional core from the void.

Kujaraku attacks but is blocked by Mjolnir, causing Mjolnir’s destruction.

Due to Pandemium’s effect, the destruction of Mjolnir exhausts Big-Loki.

As Nine has exhausted 2 Spirits this attack, Elliott gains 2 cards.

Elliott makes an interesting statement, “Unless you enjoy this deep in your heart, Someday the spirits will betray you”

Nine has a very distinct lack of foresight about this, he doesn’t seem concerned about the possibility of rogue spirits destroying him.

When you have an entire legion of goons wearing masks who are, I suspect, under some kind of mind control, its hard to worry about being betrayed.

Elliott summons 3 spirits:
The BattleBeast Diatryma at Lv2
Skulldemon
and DarkDinohound at Lv3

He’s also raised Pandemium to Lv3, now its got a relatively meh 9000 BP will discard 5 cards from both players hands when destroyed.

Berserker Troll attacks, taking a life from Nine (3 vs 3->2)

Notably, Nine losing lives is the only way Elliott doesn’t draw a card.

Ponysus attacks and is blocked by Lizardedge, Nine still has Diranos to block though.

Elliott draws 2 cards from its exhaust and destruction.

Elliott is drawing a fuckton of cards, jesus.

Jesus he isn’t even using both hands to play the game at this point, he’s FOLDING HIS ARMS and taking it.

What an imposing stance.

…Wait a minute.

Silent Wall is pretty nasty, as it is at any other time really.

Elliott won’t be able to attack anymore after this one since his turn will have ended.

Until the attack ends though, Elliott is free to play as many Flash timing effects as needed, Deadly Balance is a good combo with Pandemium. He’s likely going to try and limit Nine’s options by killing off his hand.

Elliott naturally targets Pandemium.

As Nine only had 5 cards in his hand, he’s forced to drop the entire thing.

Elliott going into full blown lecture mode. He believes failure in battle spirits comes from the inability to read the opponent’s heart correctly. If you can’t gauge a person’s intentions, or style, or understand how they like to do things, it will become difficult to operate accordingly, sometimes strategems are unreactable, so you most proactively prepare for it, as Elliott did by choosing not to play cards he could easily play in order to not leave his hand empty when he vaporized Nine’s.

Elliott also follows up that the Cornerstones follow similar logic, which would suggest why Nine wouldn’t be able to use them.

Nine gives up his X-Rare, Diranos.

Well, considering this board I probably would have ditched Kujaraku instead. Diranos doesn’t need 2 core to maintain and I’m going to guess that Nine is going to aim for a Tribute.

Oh right, there’s still an attack going, Skulldemon takes one of Nine’s lives, leaving him with 1 remaining to Elliott’s 3.

Silent Wall ends the attack step, Elliott has Diatryma and Dinohound for blockers.

Appears Nine is choosing this moment to bet on his luck.

Given the previous 2 cards he just played, there’s only 1 Double Symbol card that could function well in this deck.

Amd I couldn’t think of a better character it would suit, Nine is using The DarkDragonEmperor Siegfried.

Nine selects Kujaraku for the Tribute and summons his DarkDragonEmperor at Lv3.

Volsung attacks first, gaining +3000 BP, so its swinging for 9000.

Elliott uses this card from BS05, a strange one to be sure, a Cost 3 single reduction Purple card that enables an effect that upon the summon of a SevenShogun, all exhausted spirits are destroyed.

And given that’s a main effect, you’re unlikely to have exhausted spirits on your own turn so that’s pretty strong.

Of course, Elliott is using it for the 3000 BP battle boost.

As Diatryma at Lv2 has 7000 BP, a +3000 BP boost brings it to 10000 BP, just a single 1000 BP higher than Volsung.

This isn’t good for Elliott anyway. Now Dark Seigfried has an additional +5000 BP, not that I think Elliott has a blocker that makes that matter.

Due to Siegfried’s Lv3 effect when attacking, all of Elliott’s spirits besides Diatryma and Dinohound are destroyed.

This doesn’t really matter because Nine is winning this turn but it would certainly make a comeback more difficult.

He’s Swift summoning MachG? That would save him-

Unless he does something silly like that.

Swift into Awaken is really cool but it hurts to see him try and Level up a DarkDinohound just to ram it into Dark Siegfried.

That, on the other hand, is a little more clever, Dark Siegfried only has 7000 BP at Lv2.

Except apparently the creator of Battle Spirits doesn’t know his own cards because Volsung has been destroyed this turn, so Dark Siegfried has 12000 BP still.

DarkDinohound is destroyed.

The EvilDeity Big-Loki attacks, taking a life from Elliott has he has no blockers. (3->2 vs 1)

This of course, allows Dark Siegfried to refresh, as Big-Loki snatched a Life at Lv3.

I wonder what the meaning of Batosupi is meant to be for Nine then? Though giving he bet on luck to draw Dark Siegfried, I assume that’s the meaning he derives from it, you have to be lucky.

And he’s known for cursing his poor Luck, makes sense he’d put the game through the ringer like this by trying to bring the world to ruin using the Cornerstones.

Elliott, as expected for this episode, loses.

Looking at this narratively there was no way Elliott was going to win, its the Big bad and Elliott’s a side character who only RECENTLY took a Heel-Face Turn.

He’s effectively perfect fodder to show off Nine’s abilities.

Did Smile get his fucking creep factor from Nine? Or is Nine just taking a leaf out of Smile’s book?

Elliott apologizes to Kiano, believing Kiano would have been a much better choice to handle the likes of Nine.

Kiano isn’t an incompetent player sure, but that Pandemium Combo with The Fruit of Life and Historic Battlefield of the Cursed is nothing to scoff at.

Nothing like a little pep talk from Kiano before they get mind controlled by Nine.

I have never seen this before.

And Nine just straight up leaves.

Okay, given that they sank through the floor rather than dissipate into air, I’m feeling like they were sent somewhere rather than killed.

I am not entirely optimistic about this because death is a thing in Battle Spirits and it happens to strange people.

Meanwhile the Cornerstone 6 explore Tonari Middle School, failing to find much of anything.

And well given what just happened they probably won’t be finding Kiano anytime soon

As soon as J starts to lose hope though, a message flicks on, interesting timing.

Dead Man’s switch?

Ah, it was a dead man’s switch, probably set to trigger if they failed to return within a set amount of time after travelling to deal with Nine.

So from what I’m gathering, the purpose of that message was, in the event that their plan failed, which they expected could happen, they were to fallback on the Cornerstone holders they were trying to keep out, as they’re a last resort.

You’d think Elliott might have designed new cards for them or something, throw them a bone, give them a hand?

There’s some weird commentary from Bashin about how normally J gets mad when Kiano calls him Juli, as J attempts to protest that statement because now is really not the time.

He gets a hug from Bashin. These 2 really are on a hugging basis huh.

Bashin seems to be celebrating the fact that J and his Dad were able to “face each other” in a way, even though it was through a screen.

I guess Bashin’s really just trying to lighten the mood by looking on the brightside and providing J some much needed affection.

If friends allow for it, hug them, and hug them tightly if you think they need it.

There’s a briefcase left there. Is that Kiano’s “Prized card collection”?

Maybe they can get some new cards from there?

We don’t actually get to see what’s in the briefcase however, damn that’s annoying.

I guess we get to see Nine address his goons again.

And Jesus, even Seven here is masked, he looks almost muzzled.

…The goons are called “Sebiroth”, which was meant to be a pun between Sephiroth and Business Suit?

I think Nine has a fuckin’ problem.

Smile seems to think its funny that Nine trusts him enough to not stick a mask on him as well.

There’s no new information in this speech, he basically preaches the same exact thing he did when he addressed the uh… “Sebiroth” last time.

And we END on that note, I’m going to guess Batosupi Lecture will want to talk about Pandemium.

Huh, they opted NOT to talk about the new Purple X-Rare they threw out in exchange for talking about Big-Loki? Well I guess it makes sense, Big-Loki is BS05 while Pandemium is therefore old news.

I don’t really have anything interesting to talk about Big-Loki without spoiling card types for those who enjoy reading this and being in suspense. So I guess we shall leave it for next time.

For now, we’ve confirmed Nine’s current deck, a predominantly Red Deck that features The DarkDragonEmperor Siegfried as the ace, which means now Dark Siegfried is actually within its optimal environment, a deck that won’t suffer its own negative effects and will actually have reduction to pay for it.

It also means Bashin will have another chance to vaporize the bastard since he had to bypass it last time, without actually defeating it.

Anyway, that’s a talk for then, and for now, I’ll see you next time!