Gekiha Dan – Episode 19

And we’re back, and well, I know and recall the contents of this Episode, needless to say I’m not going to be happy with it.

As a Card Game advertising anime, Gekiha Dan naturally puts the cards on show first, and the character’s development second, as a result, not every episode gets the opportunity for us to see a character we know well enough develop differently.

This isn’t to say their development is bad, it’s usually just slow. Hence why it’s a 50 episode anime and were it not, we’d be done 7 episodes ago, or in the next 5.

I can cope with this, because Episodes that don’t intrinsically develop a character can instead be used to examine what they’re trying to show us with the game. Battle Spirits at the very least, knows what a card game community is like and what they are interested in seeing.

As a result, when character arcs, the big picture story, and the card games don’t have enough room for each other, one might take a backseat.

This however… is an episode where character development is going to be outright sacrificed for the sake of what I can only describe to be “moving things along”

So there are apparently 2 rounds, the Semi-Final, and the Finals. For reference, every “round” of brackets necessitates another multiple of 4.

1 Round consists of 2 people. This would be the “Final”

2 Rounds consists of 4 people, this would start at the “Semi-Final” round.

3 Rounds is 8 people, and 4 rounds is 16.

This would mean this Tournament started with 16 people and all the fights we saw up until now was just the Top 16.

Now we’re in Top 8, we’ve skipped over a large portion of the tournament. This is fine, as the characters introduced as throwaways were actually incredibly interesting and had cohesive and memorable decks… ‘cept Randel.

Randel gives me the creeps.

They also didn’t show us a bracket at the beginning so there was no expectation of “who was fighting who”

Given we hadn’t seen Hyoudo battle, this probably would have been an excellent fight to see… However.

Except we skip into midway through said, and ultimately the climax of said battle, we don’t get to see a very clearly important character battle a well-set up opponent.

Instead, Clackey loses outright, which isn’t particularly great. This is definitely one of the battles that we would have liked to see play out.

I’ll talk more about my understanding of why this ended up the way it did, but it’s still a pain in the ass for the “Tournament Arc” to half ass half the Tournament.

This is an excellent time to remind viewers that Hyoudo Kenzo is 9 years old and operates at roughly college-level.

Brustrom isn’t even trying to get that Popcorn into his mouth.

Also look at that ELBOW, he’s about to knock the entire pile all over that table.

And there’s CLEARLY enough space on that table for that aide of his to put down the fruit, why the hell is she carrying it.

Brustrom would burn too many calories reaching for it, it doesn’t need to be that high.

It appears Clackey didn’t get the opportunity to use the X-Rare he recieved from Seiru, The ArcAngelia Isfiel.

Granted, his usual strategy doesn’t involve the use of X-Rares anyway, and Hyoudo apparently didn’t need one to defeat him.

Suzuri being grumpy about any battle not including an X-Rare is very Suzuri.

Brustrom seems relatively unsurprised, it appears X-Rares aren’t all that easy to come by in Otherworld, meaning Suzuri is very privileged indeed.

And indicates why Brustrom is also unsurprised that Suzuri made it to the semi-finals, with many many X-Rares to construct a deck from.

Unlike Brustrom it does seem like Suzuri has rather good deck building skills, choosing to build around few or singular X-Rares like Titus rather than Brustroms ALL ABOARD THE X-RARE TRAIN.

The Episode Title confirms the card we’ll be seeing today, The BladeKingBeast Byak-Garo.

Which is a Green X-Rare.

As for that “Possessed Battle” nonsense, well it’s another one of my gripes for this episode.

We cut to the middle of the night, nothing like a Naruto Run through the hallway to get that night-time exercise in ay Suzuri?

Suzuri seems to be looking around for more X-Rares, even though he was framed when it came to Isfiel being pilfered, it seems he is indeed just buttering up Brustrom for more X-Rares, whether Brustrom wants to offer them or not.

I’m sure my first reaction to seeing an ominous glowing purple light in the middle of a book case would not be to crawl towards it…

…It’d be to burn down the Library.

I’m sorry if there are Spell Tags blocking a door, I’d figure that there’s something in there that people didn’t want getting out, what in the world are you ripping off the tag for!

It seems in whatever room Suzuri found himself in, he found The Four Symbols.

For those uninformed, these are mythological creatures that appear alongside Chinese constellations and are associated with a Cardinal direction.

The Azure Dragon of the East, Qinglong, called “Seiryu” in Japanese, representing Wood and the Season of Spring
The Vermillion Phoenix of the South, Zhuque. Called “Suzaku” in Japanese, representing Fire, and of course, Summer.
The White Tiger of the West, Baihu. Referred to as “Byakko” in Japanese, represents Metal, and the Season of Autumn
And the Black Tortoise of the North, Xuanwu, called “Genbu” in Japanese, represents Water, and the Season of Winter

There is also a 5th one representing the center, Huanglong, The Yellow Dragon, which is called “Koryu” or “Oryu” in Japanese. It also represents the element of Earth, and the changing of Seasons.

Sometimes the “Kirin” replaces the White Tiger or the Yellow Dragon, but it’s inconsistent which.

Ya’ll ordered some foreshadowing?

Suzuri, not interested in anything without a Golden “X” plastered across it, puts the White Tiger down the wrong way

Suzuri apparently does what we call in the business “Failing upwards” and gets an X-Rare purely for being disinterested enough to put down a White Tiger model the wrong way.

And now we’re treated to Suzuri’s screams as he’s attacked by a random phantom bird.

And that’s it, that’s the scene, we just get a fade to black after.

No! Galaxy!

Galaxy first starts by comemorating those who were defeated… Except there’s a slight problem, based on the way the screen is presented it appears like it was a Top 8 and we’re only now getting to Top 4 even though we know there was a 2nd round and there should be 8 more battlers.

And if they were commemorating only those who lost in the 2nd round then Shula, Gaana and Randel shouldn’t be there because they lost in the 1st.

Consistency is not upheld very well here.

It looks like Clackey’s apparent failure to draw his Sophia is what lost him the game, he also wasn’t able to draw Isfiel because Suzuri commented on a lack of X-Rares.

You’d think just Iberix and Cherubim would have been sufficient but I guess he just drew dead the whole time.

I’ll speed things along, we know 3 of the 4 finalists.

Clash King Bashin Dan.
Suzuri Hideto
Hyoudo Kenzo

The 4th remaining battler is a guy called “Gaius Bando” who is the only Blue World native who’s made it to the semi-finals.

SEE HOW YOU LIKE IT, TWERP!

In the last episode, Hyoudo was surprised at Clackey Ray’s luck for pulling Royal Potion from the top 4 cards of his deck after topdecking a Cherubim with an empty hand.

Yet, when he’s referred to as lucky by Galaxy he protests that he’s strong, not lucky.

I want to belt this kid across the room.

Galaxy tries to introduce Suzuri but he’s “mysteriously” missing.

And though he may be a master of Blue cards and deck destruction, we will be seeing precisely neither of those today.

The Matchups are randomized, the first round is between Suzuri and Hyoudo.

I presume that little text under them is who’s making the first move but I don’t know what either of them says because:

Not that Suzuri’s being given the time to show up, we’re opening the gate NOW apparently.

Gate Open! Release!

Suzuri is being given a whole 60 seconds to get his ass on the battlefield before Galaxy kicks it onto the street.

The writers ran out of time to come up with an actual fight between Hyoudo and Suzuri so they’re pulling this nonsense.

…And I don’t mean Suzuri isn’t gonna show up, he will.

Apparently Brustrom caught a glimpse of him before he went to go battle, and Suzuri’s wearing a “showy outfit”

And what the fuck is he wearing!?

For anyone wondering what that garb is, he’s dressed as an Onmyouji… Because he’s possessed by one.

…Magisa is a few centuries off from current Human history but is aware of modern concepts like Cosplay?

Is cosplay a thing in Otherworld?

…I suppose Galaxy is literally right there.

Ah looks like it was Hyoudo that was going first.

“Yamigarasu Kadou”

…Like adding Dark (Yami) to replace the “Yata” in “Yatagarasu” and then just sticking “Card” on the end?

How creative. But yes essentially this is my major gripe with this episode, it’s not Hyoudo vs Suzuri, it’s Hyoudo vs Kadou

That’s the neat part.

It does.

There’s some initial banter I don’t really care about where Kadou mentions that he’s been sealed away for 1000 years and Suzuri accidentally released him but honestly we’ll never see this stupid spirit again.

So I’ll just move onto the game, Hyoudo starts off with BlackMachG, an effectless Cost 3 with a 3000 BP base.

Just that alone is apparently enough to cause Kajitsu to faint.

Hyoudo has no core left to do anything so now it’s Yamigarasu Kadou’s turn.

The Onmyouji demonstrates incredible psychic abilities unlike any Suzuri has shown up until now. But that’s not enough to convince anyone.

No, the thing that tips off Dan that this might not be Suzuri is that he’s not wearing gloves.

Just about everything else was plausible to you Dan but the GLOVES are what tipped you off?!

Kadou starts by summoning Darkwitch, a Cost 4 BS01 card that blows up an exhausted Spirit at Levels 2 onward.

I’m fairly sure we saw another Darkwitch at another time this series so I won’t re-review.

Apparently its because you TALK TOO MUCH.

Literally no one cares!

Oh god Magisa, somehow even less people care about that.

What a basic backstory.

Essentially he had mystical powers, people were scared of them, so he was sealed away.

That’s it, that’s the backstory.

At least this ties into the current plot, Yamigarasu Kadou wants to return to the capital and get his vengeance by using Otherworld King’s Wish to restore himself…

That’s a good Watsonian reason for your existence.

BUT I STILL SEE NO NARRATIVE POINT OF YOU, WHY ARE YOU HERE!?

Galaxy does God’s work and tells Kadou to Shut the fuck up in the nicest way possible.

He says, being the noisiest one here.

…Kadou’s so offended by being told, quite rightfully, to keep his massive yap shut that he summons a Crow Shikigami and assaults the referee.

Could there BE any more time wasted?

Seems like the deck Kadou is using is infact comprised of cards from Suzuri’s collection.

Suppose now’s a good time as any to go over what this issue is.

So, in this episode we had the prospect of Hyoudo vs Suzuri and Hyoudo vs Clackey completely ripped away from us, instead those 2 ideas have been condensed by turning Suzuri temporarily into a complete jobber, and skipping over Clackey’s fight.

This is… Bad, they were going to give Hyoudo a fight and if they wanted him to appear strong, defeating the guy who won last episode is one way of doing it, or hell, defeating Suzuri who, so far, hasn’t lost a battle due to any particular permanent factors.

Remember, Suzuri’s only loss required the use of Catastrophe-Dragon, a Red X-Rare Dan only had access to for that fight. Meaning Dan can’t rely on Catastrophe-Dragon again to fight Suzuri, Suzuri has strength that isn’t just informed, it’s shown because of the asspull required to beat him in the first place, it’s good set up. This means Hyoudo defeating Suzuri wouldn’t be a poor use of the Worf effect in this case.

Hyoudo would appear skilled, as he evidently boasts to be, and Suzuri would lose, as he’s very clearly set up to do so now.

But instead, Suzuri is for some reason replaced by an entirely different character, and Suzuri himself will be punished and removed from the Tournament Arc as a result of this character’s actions, AND this “Yamigarasu Kadou” will never be fuckin’ seen again.

That is infuriating!

Now, naturally, completing the entirety of the Tournament arc with every important character battle would take a lot of episodes, this is true, much longer would have been spent glossing over details that wouldn’t matter later and viewers would get a bit bored. This is fine.

But that doesn’t cover the issue as to why this one match needed a different participant to act in Suzuri’s stead.

I have 3 ideas as to why this decision was made:

1. Suzuri has just unveiled a BS07 X-Rare, and very clearly, Hyoudo’s about to unveil another one, they don’t want to advertise right out of the gate that Byak-Garo, a BS07 X-Rare, is inherently stronger than The GiantEmperor Alexander, this is an advertising issue if Suzuri is allowed to fight as he is. But if this was going to be an issue, have Hyoudo fight GAIUS for fuck sake! (Even if this would result in Suzuri being beaten offscreen as an extra episode would be required to cover it, because Hyoudo’s deck is inevitably going to be pitted against Dan’s soon anyway)
   
2. If Hyoudo fought Suzuri in an honest battle and won, and Dan inevitably fights Hyoudo and wins, Dan is demonstrably stronger than Suzuri by virtue of that fact, and a later episode would be slightly less impactful as a result of this. This is probably also why they didn’t have Hyoudo fight Gaius as Dan would need to defeat Suzuri in that case.
   
3. You could have paired Suzuri against Gaius and then Hyoudo against Dan, which would preserve the number of episodes, but Hyoudo’s been talking nothing but hot air and his first debut match ending in a loss would cause that to resolve incredibly unsatisfyingly. Plus there’s the Suzuri-in-a-later-episode issue once more.

It’s just… I just hate it, Suzuri essentially gets shafted and the only reason I can think of is either sales of BS07 for Blue players, or trying to keep a later battle interesting… But rematches happen all the time and besides there is such a thing as new god damn cards!

Anyway it’s Turn 3 and Hyoudo summons Beatbeetle at Lv2.

BlackMachG is also brought up to Lv2.

Darkwitch is incredibly weak at it’s current level, so Hyoudo does a full attack with his 2 spirits, reducing Yamigarasu to 3 lives, and passes.

on Yamigarasu’s turn, he plays the Crossroads of Destiny.

Don’t think we’ve seen this card, let’s talk about it!

A Cost 3 Purple Nexus from BS03 that supports Spirits holding “No Printed effects”, this is cards like BlackMachG on Hyoudo’s board.

I’m not a particular fan of that Level 2 effect, but the first effect is pretty darn good, usually your bottom line consists of vanillas so this granting you cards for losing them can be quite nice.

Wait really? Under normal circumstances you’d have 6 available Core this Turn, 1 is on Darkwitch.

You spent 2 to play Crossroads of Destiny, that’s 3 remaining. The card you’re showing is Danse Macabre, a Cost 4 with 2 reductions applying, making it Cost 2.

Waddya mean “Gathered enough Core”, You have enough, get real.

anyway, Danse Macabre, should probably talk about it.

It’s quite a simple card, you toss however many cards and shoot that many core off your opponent’s Spirits, they even go to the Trash so they’re unusable this turn.

Thing is, you’d want to use this on something actually threatening, Hyoudo has a Beatbeetle and a BlackMachG.

Yamigarasu tosses out 2 Humpdumps, both are Curse Spirits.

How very curious.

Just so you get the full picture of this nonsense, Yamigarasu tossed out 2 Cost 3 Curse Spirits, each which could have taken out Beatbeetle on their own, to deplete it with a Magic.

This play is ultimately a negative 2 in card advantage.

There’s a method to this madness but I still don’t think its worth tossing them out this early.

No, this is what they call “Cutting off your nose to Spite your face”

Yamigarasu raises Darkwitch to Lv2 and attacks.

If you’re not familiar, Darkwitch has a nasty effect from Lv2 onwards that wipes out any Exhausted Spirit, as a result, Hyoudo’s last Spirit, BlackMachG is destroyed.

Without a spirit to defend himself, Hyoudo has to take a life, leaving him with 4.

Yamigarasu is out of attackers so his turn comes to an end.

Hyoudo draws a card and passes. Choosing not to do anything.

While this seems odd, Hyoudo is playing a Green deck, and Swift is an entire keyword, It’s likely Hyoudo’s lying in wait for an attack so that he can put a dent in Yamigarasu’s formation before attacking.

That’s the issue with dealing with Swift, you can be ambushed out of nowhere and lose a Spirit you intended to take a life… Though the same applies with most Magic.

Also I’ve been skipping through most of the banter because it’s incredibly pointless and I hate Yamigarasu, but DAMN does he fucking talk

Yamigarasu drops Darkwitch to Level 1.

This is the “Cursed X-Rare” that Suzuri picked up earlier, a copy of The SevenShogun Beelzebeat.

The issue here is Yamigarasu’s board state. It’s Turn 6, he’s lost 2 lives and had 3 core steps, so he’s on about 9 Core available here, 1 maintains his Darkwitch meaning he’s left with 8.

He’s just spent 5 core to play that Beelzebeat because he’s got a Nexus and a Darkwitch and that’s it.

Naturally, Dan catches onto the strategy, Beelzebeat’s effect when summoned allows it to resurrect Curse Spirits up to a Total cost of 13 from the Trash.

Mildly amusing, but the summoning of an X-Rare in Suzuri’s body causes Suzuri to regain control of himself for a brief moment

Though Beelzebub, the thing Beelzebeat is based on, represents gluttony, not greed.

If you’re not quite sure what the difference is, the Sin of Gluttony is more about a lack of self control, while the Sin of Greed is about the desire to have something for the sake of having it.

If that still doesn’t make sense, People who accumulate large amounts of wealth are greedy, Shopaholics are gluttonous.

Without a single core spare, Beelzebeat resurrects the 2 Humpdumps at Lv1, they’re each Cost 3 so they don’t even make up half of Beelzebeat’s maximum efficiency.

Yamigarasu attacks with The SevenShogun Beelzebeat, and Hyoudo takes a life, leaving him with 3.

Yamigarasu boasts about Hyoudo’s… “predicament”, but Hyoudo maintains that there’s no particular threat to him at the moment.

Easily irritated, Yamigarasu attacks with a Humpdump, Hyoudo takes another life, dropping to 2.

Yamigarasu attempts to attack with Humpdump, but during Flash timing, Hyoudo Swift Summons MachG.

Besides Beelzebeat, all of Yamigarasu’s Spirits only have 1000 BP, MachG’s Lv1 starts at 2000, so Humpdump is easily wiped out.

Humpdump’s Curse is only active from Lv2 onwards so that doesn’t activate either.

Supposedly, Hyoudo’s specialty is Swift, but it’s not an ability his Key card has.

That being said, Swift has routinely been an ability reserved for a supporting role, and is generally not featured on Boss cards as it’s an irrelevant detail once the card is summoned.

Darkwitch attacks, being at Lv1 it can’t destroy MachG with it’s effect, but Hyoudo swift summons Amenborg and takes out Darkwitch.

Yamigarasu is out of attackers, so he ends his turn.

Hyoudo begins his turn, and simply raises the Levels of his Spirits, before passing.

Hyoudo’s fully capable of ending the game now, he has a 4-card hand to Yamigarasu’s 1. The idea that he doesn’t have another attack-capable Spirit is wishful thinking at best.

Dan however says that Hyoudo’s waiting for “The card he believes in.” before ending the game. Which is all well and good if I didn’t want out of this episode before it started.

Yeah maybe you should do that less.

Or just stop completely. Existing I mean.

What the fuck does that even mean?

Yamigarasu summons Hellscorpio at Lv3 (an action requiring 5 core) and raises Humpdump to Level 2.

I feel the need to ask the burning question of WHY THE FUCK!?

Beelzebeat is your biggest blocker right now, unless you plan to attack with him this is an incredibly stupid idea!

I get the temptation to do this, going “wide” (spreading out) rather than going tall (consolidating) feels safer from the outset but the second Hyoudo plays anything big you’re boned.

I guess these just barely compete with Amenborg and MachG but Beelzebeat could take either at Level 1!

Sigh…

Yamigarasu can’t end the game as he lacks the requisite cards, that last card in his hand is clearly one he can’t use.

Hyoudo levels down his Spirits and summons a Cost 0, this could have won him the game last turn, but he’s choosing to play it now as it’s free and provides the last reduction needed for his next card.

Play Red?

It appears Hyoudo was inspired by Dan to try and recite a Summoning chant.

To be fair that’s a rather realistic reaction for that sort of thing.

Anyway, Hyoudo has finally summoned his X-Rare, and coincidentally, the Title card.

A Cost 6 Green X-Rare Spirit from BS07, Byak-Garo has a respectable Lv1 BP of 7000 and a somewhat tall order of 4 Core for Lv2 at 9000. Good thing the card is Green.

Byak-Garo holds the Windstorm effect, it can exhaust 2 Spirits when he’s blocked, essentially making it so 3 exhausts are required just to stop it. And if it just so happens to slash the life at Lv2, it can bounce 2 spirits instead.

So at Lv2, either way, the opponent is losing 2 more blockers whether they want to or not.

I wish I could say more about it’s playability but I genuinely don’t have access to that information sadly. I definitely do not think it’s a bad card by any means.

Does anyone agree with me in thinking that this guy was probably sealed away for being an incredibly annoying talker?

Byak-Garo attacks at once.

And this is why Beelzebeat should have been raised to Lv3.

At Lv3, Beelzebeat has more power than Byak-Garo can reach at 10000, though at least in this case I guess it really doesn’t matter, Yamigarasu doesn’t have a way to win here anyway.

Beelzebeat is cut to ribbons, and destroyed.

…You do know how to read numbers on a card don’t you?

Due to Byak-Garo being blocked, Humpdump and Hellscorpio are forcibly exhausted by it’s Windstorm: 2

Yamigarasu acts like a victim again, lamenting that it’s unfair for him to fail after being sealed for 1000 years.

…Also I’m not sure 4000 years being single and ready to mingle is equivalent to straight up imprisonment.

Yamigarasu is so scared of losing he just exits Suzuri completely and dips.

Of course, the first thing Suzuri notices is, is the X-Rare presently on the opposing board.

However, the battle’s over, Hyoudo has 3 attackers and Suzuri has 3 lives.

case in point, Suzuri loses the battle.

I’ve been asking myself this same question since the episode started, both of these characters were completely robbed this episode.

Magisa and Dan inform Suzuri that the Beelzebeat he was using was cursed.

Of course, Suzuri is having precisely none of it, just wanting to keep his X-Rare card.

However, a Crow comes by and nabs it immediately.

Before Suzuri can chase after the Cursed X-Rare, he gets his ass bitten by Magisa’s shoes, who commands him to never pursue that card again.

I suppose that particular copy of the card, as Mai’s doesn’t seem to be all that cursed.

The fact that the writers here acknowledge that Suzuri was robbed infuriates me more.

It’s like they’re insulting me, they’re really poking the bear here I swear to god.

Now I really want to know what the real reason behind this weird ass decision was… I suppose I’ll never find out.

And the Episode closes on this little note, as Hyoudo seems to believe that battling Dan in particular, will be “fun”.

I’m kind of at a loss for what Hyoudo considers to be fun, it’s hard to get a read on him, or what his wish is for the Tournament he’s engaging in, we know he’s incredibly intelligent and that’s shown in his Battle Spirits play, but otherwise we know nothing else about him other than he thinks very highly of himself and lowly of others.

Oh well.

The card of the day, of course, is The BladeKingBeast Byak-Garo.

I don’t really have anything else to say that I haven’t already said, Byak-Garo doesn’t have anything particularly notable due to it’s effects being so simple and yet effective.

I do question the idea of Byak-Garo being the boss of a High Speed deck for Hyoudo, but the card is kind of good on it’s own that I suppose it doesn’t need any inherent synergies, even if such things are my preference.

Well in any case, hopefully the next episode shall treat me a little better, I’ll see you all in the next one.