Gekiha Dan – Episode 2

Last episode was a freaking breath of fresh air from the typical pain I had to suffer for 50 straight episodes, honestly. It feels so good to be watching what will become standard for the series.

The downside is that I now have to get used to blogging using this new standard and I haven’t quite gotten the hang of it yet.

Not a problem though, Life is about learnin’!

I guess we’re about to receive some LORE.

The Otherworld, also known as Grand-Lolo, unlike earth is split into 6 disconnected “Worlds”, however due to the apparent Magic of Grand-Lolo in general its still possible to travel to these other worlds despite being disconnected. Each World has a Symbol that shines down on it, much like a Sun.

Where was we had “Uchuuchouten-Ou”, The “King at the Top of the Universe”, here we have simply “Ikai-Ou”, or “Otherworld King”

He is absolutely the Spiritual successor to the Uchuuchouten role, and is also much better at it.

Apparently, to gain the full power of all 6 core, one must acquire the power known as the “Mother Core”

To that end Otherworld King devastated Grand-Lolo.

Such that what was once a relatively thriving kingdom is now a wasteland.

Its all a bit of a plot dump but basically those who Bear the Core’s Light have the capacity to revitalize Otherworld through their ability to release the Core’s powers.

And as Battle Spirits is the main use of core, well, stands to reason that it would be present in a world that requires it.

The Episode title is “Ankillersaurus Friendship”, so it stands to reason we’ll see “Ankillersaurus” this episode, and it’ll most likely look like the card in the background.

The Otherworld Villagers are trying their best to rebuild much of what was destroyed. Kazan really did a number on the place.

Magisa explains that the segment of Grand-Lolo that the group are in is that of the Red World, Mother Core blessed the land with the Red Symbol and therefore its the Red World.

Dan is still losing his shit over the battle he had with Kazan because his spirits became real, Magisa explains that such occurrances are normal in Grand-Lolo, everyone battles like that.

Magisa’s just been fucking chuggin’ beers, she’s on her FIFTH pint?

Dan suddenly asks a REALLY rude question in hindsight, its literally the level of “Why are you so bad?“

Bro she fought off a bunch of soldiers with nothing but fucking wind.

The snake-ish style of the boots are not a coincidence, they are capable of animating and biting like real snakes.

Supposedly, whatever the Battlefield is and how it works uses a very little amount of Magic to make the whole thing work, that’s kind of crazy honestly.

Magisa is letting us in on the fact that she only has rather weak levels of Magic available to her at this moment in time. But she’s apparently far much stronger than she currently is.

Whoever was responsible for Magisa losing her Magical power happens to be a Human who stole it.

Dan’s coming to the same conclusion I would come to watching this without any foresight, Magisa goes on about a Human Thief who stole her powers, and we’ve seen Humans attack an Otherworlder Village.

Maybe its due to Zungurii’s general youth, or Dan’s display trying to protect the village but he expresses that Dan is a “Good Human”, Zungurii’s got every reason to hate humans given their attacks on his Village and his family being kidnapped.

Though we don’t know if that’s his first interaction with them or not, he just might not be making assumptions over his first encounter with them.

A ship that looks like Kazan’s is returning to this very eerie looking castle area.

Given the atmosphere, you wouldn’t be wrong for comparing this to the Thousand Spirits Group from Toppa Bashin.

Jesus christ this guy looks like an alternative universe where Waldo gets so mad no one finds him he turns into an edgelord.

Kazan probably wants to make a report about the powerful battler that just showed up, especially if he’s hostile.

Also, despite Otherworld King seemingly existing a long time ago, Kazan is still making a report to him.

Given we don’t know anything about this iteration of Otherworld King (well, if you’re watching for the first time at least), its difficult to have a clear idea as to who Otherworld King is, or even if he’s the same one in the story.

It appears Kazan is familiar with battlers who bear the Core’s Light.

And fuckin’ Waldo over here goes even further as to suggest there’s protocol for handling them. Apparently those who bear the Core’s Light are meant to be taken straight to Otherworld King.

Kazan’s a man with absolutely 0 shame, freely admitting his loss to the Red Lightbearer to a room of apparent jerkasses, given the tone of the room and the Waldo-guy

I guess its not exactly certain whether or not Lightbearers are good news or bad news, probably hence the need to bring them to Otherworld King so he can ascertain himself.

“Believe the Legend”, so they haven’t formally met a Core Lightbearer just yet but they have been made aware of them.

We’re in a place full of ice and another frame shows us a White Symbol, its safe to say this is probably the White World.

Kajitsu’s returned to visit her big brother, notably she uses “Ani-sama” in her speech.

It appears Kajitsu and Yuuki are going around dragging those who bear the core’s light into Grand-Lolo.

And as a shorthand, they simply refer to the Lightbearers as “Soldiers” of their respective colour.

Interesting discrepency created with that statement.

We’ve seen Dan is the Red Soldier, and a Blue Soldier has been sent there.

Given Kajitsu showed off her Green Symbol, its reasonable to believe she’s the Green Soldier, and let’s make a guess and say that Yuuki’s the White Soldier given he appears in the opening.

Based on that, Kajitsu should be saying there are Two Left. Not Three.

Whatever they’re after, Yuuki and Kajitsu wish to gather the 6 Soldiers together in order to revitalize Grand-Lolo.

Zungurii has apparently been aching to see what’s actually in Dan’s deck.

Its a little scattered so you can’t make out too many cards, you can see some Goradon’s and the Lizardedge, along with Rokceratops. And of course Siegwurm.

He’s got a Plateau of Duel but I don’t see a single Awaken Spirit, but he’s bound to have a few because Siegwurm supports them. Double Draw can be made out.

And another card Dan hasn’t used just yet.

We JUST saw the Plataeu of Duel without a matching Awaken Spirit, so no, I don’t think this was put together wonderfully.

At least, from what we’ve seen its an 01 Weenie deck + Siegwurm.

For reference, 01 Weenie Decks is a Deck comprised almost entirely of Cost 0 and 1 spirits that can be played very quickly.

No points for guessing why.

Zungurii of course takes this as literally as possible and genuinely believes Dan is some kind of royalty.

Eh… He could probably pass for a prince I won’t lie.

I guess it isn’t enough for Dan to be the best that no one ever was, he wants to do it with the strategy he likes the most, Clash.

Zungurii obviously sees the potential in having another King around, given the existence of the Otherworld King.

As cool as “Clash King” vs “Otherworld King” sounds, just having the title of “King” isn’t necessarily going to be enough to actually win.

And there’s the rub. Dan didn’t actually want to come here, and has no reason to do anything that doesn’t involve him going straight home.

“Yeah but its the prophecy”

Dan didn’t know anything about that until he arrived here, just because he happens to have something special doesn’t suddenly mean he’s going to be obliged to not go home.

Bit of a tall ask, but given everything is settled by Card Games in this world, it’s not as tall as it really should be.

The Humans don’t appear to treat the Otherworlders of Grand-Lolo very well.

Nothing like good ol’ fashioned “Humans are racist” to drive the plot.

Strong as Dan may or may not appear to be, asking a 12 year old to spontaeniously go on an adventure that may span several days or even months when his parents might be worried sick knowing where he might be is definitely going to give him some aversion to sticking around.

Mate you just saw a girl glow so fucking hard an Emerald popped out of her chest, you THEN had a Pink haired Magician point her magic stick at your chest to do the same thing with a Ruby.

While I can understand the potential skepticism, you have evidence suggesting that you are special in some way.

Dan of course, hasn’t thought this plan of action through, because he was brought to Grand-Lolo through a door of light that closed itself, he’s going to need one to get back

I guess Magisa was hoping Dan would give up a lot sooner so he would battle in Otherworld, but I guess has now decided not to keep him here against his will.

Of course now that you know you actually HAVE the ability to go home, you choose to feel bad, yeah okay

That’s conducive to… absolutely nothing.

Narrator: She did, in fact, have VERY strong feelings about this.

How convenient that the Otherworld is so easily accessible.

Then why did it take a set of kidnapping butterflies and a magical green-haired girl to send Dan here the first time around?

Dan of course asks if its easy to come back and Magisa says “I guess”

This is not at all helpful in the slightest. Why did Kajitsu bring Dan here if there was a huge possibility he could just leave.

“Daaaaan, you’re speciaaaaaal, belieeeeve meeeeee, pleaaaaaase”

Slight catch to the doors, you need Magical power to open them, because of course you do.

Then again, the staff Magisa uses is powered by the Core embedded in it, so it could be that you just need to be able to use Core.

Alright Dan let’s not annoy the Magic Snake-shoes witch who could literally close that door anytime she feels like alright?

Welp, that was Gekiha Dan people! See you next time for the next series.

I’m kidding, its obvious Dan’s not going to go home.

Zungurii is late seeing Dan off because he wanted to give him a card as thanks for helping out.

The effect is BASICALLY in full view so I might as well review it now.

Another card from SD01, which generally implies that if Dan is receiving it, then he doesn’t already have one, which would also imply that he didn’t acquire his Starter Deck cards by… well, buying the Starter Deck.

Its at its strongest used in Dan’s deck, as Dan likely wields many Awaken and Clash Spirits that can facilitate it’s power boost.

Zungurii seems to have taken some of Kazan’s preaching to heart, wanting to give Ankillersaurus to Dan because it will be better in the hands of a battler than in the hands of someone who doesn’t play.

Dan offers to make a trade with Zungurii, Zungurii apparently is unfamiliar with what a Trade is, and Dan explains its something friends do to make each other’s decks stronger. Which is not the worst description of it.

Zungurii’s takeaway from this is that he has a friend, as opposed to receiving a card. Zungurii is basically our loud innocent and clueless character, likely designed to ask questions everyone already knows in-show for less informed members of the audience.

I get the sentiment Dan is going for, he doesn’t cherish Siegwurm as much as he cherishes his friends, but he otherwise needs the card as he doesn’t have anything more useful on him.

But like imagine trading Siegwurm for a Cost 2.

But given that Zungurii doesn’t play and it would be better for him to actually start somewhere simple, Lizardedge will have to do.

Zungurii doesn’t seem disappointed

Oh shit, Dan actually straight up LEAVES.

Well, given that most of the “Soldiers” are people from Earth, I don’t think returning to Earth makes him any less of a Red Soldier.

This wasteland does still have bars, I imagine they get good business given the little amount of Water for fuckin’ miles.

Zungurii is chilling in the bar… Tavern? Inn? Whatever.

And gets spotted by NotWaldo. It appears NotWaldo takes the appearance of the Red Lizardedge as confirmation that a Red Battler is around somewhere.

It’s a fucking Cost 0 Red Spirit that shit can be used for anything.

Since Dan’s not planning to be around long enough to rescue Zungurii’s family, I guess Zungurii is, rather foolishly, attempting to will himself into a state where he can go do it himself.

Well Dan managed to find his way back pretty damn quickly, I don’t think any explanation is ever offered into how he found the Magic required to open another doorway.

Dan’s got a pretty noble outlook on the situation, sticking around to fight Otherworld King is one thing, but if fighting Otherworld King is what’s required to save Zungurii’s family, then perhaps Dan’s personal problems can be set aside until that’s done.

And thus, our episodic narrative that can produce as many battles as necessary has been established. With the Otherworld King having made clear that Lightbearers should be brought to him, many of the Human Battlers who work under him will basically act as walking roadblocks.

Dan realizes this will likely become a common occurrance given that he is aware of the fact that he is seen as the “Red Soldier”

So he just decides to get used to it sooner rather than later.

The guy is probably also eager to battle in Grand-Lolo again.

He beat the snot out of Kazan, and Kazan doesn’t seem to be the type to be incredibly overconfident, and even when he does, he’s more than happy to have that overconfidence humbled.

Also is there literally no worry among the humans that battle under Otherworld King about those who said King SPECIFICALLY REQUESTS BE BROUGHT TO HIM being kinda nutty in a battle?

Finally I can stop calling him “Waldo”

This is the “Magic-Obsessed, Magical Crown”, I’ll stick to “Crown” for short, but as with most of the Battler names in this series, Crown’s name suggests that he’s a heavy Magic user.

Apparently the title of “Magical” is something Dan considers lame.

I actually quite like the name “Magical Crown”, not sure what it is about it but its certainly not a bad name.

I swear I think if this show zooms in too far Crown’s chin will burst out the screen and knock me the fuck out.

That thing is GINORMOUS.

Crown has the first move. Let’s see what he’ll open with.

Hah, there’s an editing fuckup here, Crown for whatever reason has only 4 lives in his life counter.

And of course, any Magic-user worth their salt will at least need to consider using Yellow. Red, White and Purple specialize in wielding their Spirits, Green specializes in wielding Core. Blue specializes in wielding Nexuses, and Yellow of course, specializes in wielding Magic.

I guess we’re already busting out our Card of the Day, Ankillersaurus being a Cost 2 makes such a thing possible of course.

A common quirk of Dan’s which is meant to be a more proper use of Bashin’s communications with Siegfried, is that he’ll continually greet new Spirits he ends up playing.

Dan still has 2 core in his reserve, so he adds Lizardedge to the board at Lv2.

Dan goes straight onto the offensive, attacking with Goradon, Crown takes a life.

Dan has more Spirits than Crown, so its fine if he takes a potshot here.

And of course, Crown isn’t in danger, so taking a life is fine.

This is a common thing, you need Core to play Spirits, so taking from the life early to gather that Core faster is valid play.

Hence why Toppa Bashin’s turn skip to 30 at full life seems extremely jarring.

Even if Crown took a defensive stance, Dan would still be able to take at least 1 life, so since Crown offered it first to maintain his Spirits, its good to end the turn here, since you’ve basically done the best case scenario here.

Plus you don’t wanna full attack so early, that’s an easy way to get weenie rushed.

Crown uses all the Core in his reserve to summon another Froger and raise Tanya to Lv2.

Crown attacks with both his Frogers, you normally have to attack 1 at a time but of course its for the sake of speed.

Dan takes both from the life, as Dan does, I bet he’s not got another Spirit he can play for free to bring out Siegwurm.

Dan once again re-states his reasoning for those who somehow failed to watch the FIRST episode of a series that’s no longer airing.

TAKING LIVES, GIVES YA CORE.

It appears Crown decided to study up on Dan’s battle style, so he could engineer a strategy that takes advantage of Dan’s tendency to eat lives early so he can play powerful spirits quicker.

Oh, that’s cool, Yuuki and Kajitsu are also watching Dan battle.

Dan draws Siegwurm and subsequently plays it.

At Lv1 of course, Siegwurm only has 4000 BP. And Dan doesn’t yet have enough core to Level it up.

Dan attacks with Siegwurm, and activates Clash.

It is a bit risky to try and bet on a 4000 BP spirit beating a 3000 BP spirit against a known Magic user however…

I guess alls well that ends well, Tanya is defeated by Siegwurm.

As Crown has no blockers, Dan is free to start taking from Crown’s life as he sees fit. Starting with Ankillersaurus.

Crown of course, has to take from the life.

Last episode not a single card played was not a Spirit, so far in this episode the same is true. They’ve just been exchanging blows with Spirits.

Remember kids, the best way to not lose your Spirit is to simply play another one after it dies.

Crown, in a very weird choice of animation, attacks with a Froger.

During Flash timing, Crown plays Chorus Birds

Its not a bad card, something Toppa Bashin didn’t cover in its last few episodes with BS05, a Cost 3 magic that recovers up to 3 Song Birds during the Main Step. That’s quite powerful late in the game for such a cheap magic.

Of course, Crown has used this during Flash Timing, so its a Combat Trick that awards 2000 BP.

Its kind of cool that there’s a faded card graphic when he uses the Magic, what bothers me is the extended border.

With the boost, Froger now has 4000 BP.

Also if Magic really was Crown’s specialty, he’d have known he could have waited til Dan blocks to use it.

Unless of course, his aim is to take another life.

Dan blocks with the 2000 BP Lizardedge, needless to say Froger straight up wrecks it.

Huh, we actually get a good view of Crown’s Hand here, and if you’ve got a good enough eye, you’ll see that one of the cards in his hand is Royal Potion.

I can’t quite gauge what the other card in his hand is however.

Violence is never the answer, Violence is the question.

And the answer is “Froger”

Crown does make an interesting point here, he takes from the life but as far as Crown knows he only does so to get Siegwurm onto the board, so he’s a little confused as to why Dan didn’t choose to block with his available Goradon.

Crown isn’t particularly worried though, he attacks with the Lv2 Tanya.

Aaand… well I’d say “Check” but Crown’s overlooked something relatively dumb.

As we know, Royal Potion refreshes all Cost 2 Spirits, so Froger is now once again available to attack.

Dan, stubborn mule that he is, continues to take from the Life.

With 1 life remaining, Dan now cannot make any mistakes in his battle formation, lest a stray attack gets through.

Crown takes this moment to preach to Dan about the graveness of the situation as if he hasn’t just made a very crucial error in his planning.

A Froger attacks but is blocked by… Ankillersaurus.

When a card says “All”, it doesn’t just affect your side of the board, it affects both sides.

So if you’re planning to use Royal Potion, don’t be a fuckwit and use it when the opponent has a Cost 2 on their board that’s exhausted without a Sealed Spellbook to prevent the opponent getting the effect.

You will look immensely dumb.

Ankillersaurus has 2000 BP at Lv1, but since Siegwurm is out, Ankillersaurus gains an extra 1000 BP, letting Dan come out on top.

Ankillersaurus getting stronger around Siegwurm is very representative of how much Zungurii wanted to take after Dan after he left by pretending to be the Red Soldier.

Anyway, Crown ends his turn, having lost the will to continue after that mistake.

Dan brings Siegwurm to Level 3.

Dan moves straight to the attack step, attacking with Ankillersaurus.

Notably, Crown has a Blocker, and Dan only has 3 Spirits, with Crown’s 3 lives Dan can’t win from this position.

Now it’s Dan’s turn to showcase his own Magic. He plays Victory Fire.

A strong Magic which has it’s versatility offset by it’s Cost, now this is a Cost 5 Magic one might wish to use as using this 1 card can take out 2 cards of the enemy. You can either wipe out 2 3000 BP spirits, or, destroy only 1 3000 BP or less spirit in order to additionally destroy a Nexus. Its quite versatile, and good early when the threats will typically be low BP. In Dan’s Deck which has many cards he can play turn 1 with no cost its also quite useful, if he plays 2 cards for no Cost on Turn 2 and full attacks, he can counter his opponent’s oncoming attacks as he’ll have just enough core to play Victory Fire.

Combat tricks like Chorus Birds only really last a turn, and Crown didn’t make proper appropriate use of it, only snatching 1 life.

Tanya and the refreshed Froger are destroyed by Victory Fire.

With no blockers available and 3 attackers to content with, and only a Spirit in his hand, Magical Crown is defeated.

Dan returns to the lake right after the battle to verify the way home I guess, but the Lake’s been completely dried up. And something seems to be interfering with the Magic.

Turns out. Magical Crown is more sly than we thought, disabling the exit back to earth with a Froger card.

Crown apparently used this as a contingency, even if he wasn’t able to bring Dan to the Otherworld King, he wasn’t going to let Dan leave Grand-Lolo, keeping Dan where the other Humans can freely access Dan and have a better chance at bringing him to Otherworld King.

Dan of course, keeps to his word and says the equivalent of “Fuck it, lets be a Chosen Battler”

I guess Dan feels bad about taking Zungurii’s farewell gift when he’s not actually planning to leave. So he hands Ankillersaurus back to Zungurii.

In addition, Dan lets Zungurii keep the Lizardedge he was traded before. I hope Dan carries spare cards on him because if he was playing with a Deck of 40, he now has 39.

Also Magisa and Dan are hella taken aback by Zungurii saying he’ll keep “Building up from this”, because it heavily implies that when Zungurii handed Dan Ankillersaurus, it was the only card Zungurii owned.

Therefore, Zungurii at this point, only has 2 cards.

We have another scene involving Yuuki and Kajitsu monologuing about some goings on. It appears that the other Lightbearers they brought into Grand-Lolo ALL decided to remain in Grand-Lolo.

It appears Yuuki and Kajitsu were aware that they had the option of leaving once they’d arrived, and hoped they wouldn’t choose to do that, or rather, expected that they wouldn’t.

And of course, Yuuki states he wants to battle Dan, because he wouldn’t exactly be the Rival if he didn’t.

So far all we know about Yuuki and Kajitsu is that they’ve meddled in the Human World to get the Bearers of the Core’s Light into Grand-Lolo for the sake of restoring Otherworld’s “Life”, something only Lightbearers have the power to do.

So far it’s not an evil goal, despite how inconvenient they’re being about it.

And that is, of course, the Episode!

Not a bad one all things considered, though Dan’s still trudging through more Episodic characters, they’re making use of these throwaways in order to ensure that the game is being understood, first there were Spirits which had effects, now we’ve seen a Battle that makes use of Magic. The battle wasn’t bad though I criticize having Magical Crown make such a rookie mistake over Royal Potion. I will give the show a pass on that however because its the type of mistake that is likely to happen, and is a part of the effect that is easily overlooked.

The Plot hasn’t progressed much compared to the first episode but since the first episode establishes the plot that’s a hard bar to clear, we started with Dan having no way to go home, resolving not to go home until he’d done what was expected of him in Grand-Lolo, before eventually being rendered incapable of going home anyway.

We do however, have something we can compare to Toppa Bashin, we have no idea who Otherworld King is, and he’s been name dropped multiple times, but the show hasn’t just left us with random name drops that don’t tell us anything, we know the Otherworld King is something most of the Otherworlders wish to oppose, the Otherworld King is Human, the Otherworld King is responsible for Grand-Lolo’s current problems having lead them to ruin, and he has an interest in those who bear the Core’s Light, and of course, most of the Humans in Otherworld are loyal to him.

We don’t even know what he looks like, sounds like, or anything and yet we know that he is our main antagonist and he has a track record for being a shitlord. That being said, no one seems to actually fear Otherworld King in any way. Kazan failed a mission and decided to waltz right over to him to report his findings, and Crown didn’t seem to think much of Kazan’s behaviour. So the Humans, at the very least, haven’t been subdued into servitude.

This is obviously significantly better than Uchuuchouten who is somewhat mentioned but exactly 0 information was given about him to give a false sense of mystery when all that ran through my head whenever he was mentioned was “Why the fuck should I care?“

Gekiha Dan has clearly learned from its mistake on that one, we are given SEVERAL reasons to care about Otherworld King, and we haven’t even met the guy.

Our card of the day, isn’t actually Ankillersaurus, its Dan’s Victory Fire.

I guess the only thing I can comment on is recent usage, which is to say, it isn’t getting any, at least not in this state. That being said it did get granted a much shinier new effect as a Revival card that while not seeing MUCH usage is seeing very niche amounts of it.

All in all, at least for the time, it’s a pretty good Magic for what it does.

At this moment however we don’t have enough information to construct a mock-up of Dan’s current deck, once I feel like we have a relatively decent understanding of what cards Dan is using, I’ll produce one. This is something that was impossible to do with Toppa Bashin due to Turn-skipping and relatively inconsistent builds episode to episode.

Anyway, with that, I look forward to seeing Episode 3. See you all next time!