Gekiha Dan – Episode 34

So there are times for 2-parters, and those are times when a battle is incredibly significant enough to actually demand one.

Dan’s battle with Otherworld King was one such match worthy of a 2-parter episode, I believe Dan’s next match with Otherworld King will ALSO be a 2-part job.

This… This isn’t one of those things, it feels like they wanted to advertise the Tag match one last time, and realised how much information is necessary to cover a whole tag match.

And I don’t like Tag matches…

Oh well, what can ye do?

Let’s finish this off, shall we?

First things first, let’s review where we left off.

It’s a Tag Battle, Clash King Dan and The Noble Youth of Light Clackey are facing off against a Team of Mazoku, The Firm Heliostom and his Son, Brustom.

Dan and Clackey have Meteorwurm at Lv1, Gremly at Lv2, and Froger at Lv3.

Brustom and Heliostom have The Invaded Castle Nexus, Block-Golem, The Gigantic Thor, and The new Blue X-Rare, The GodMadeSoldier Orichalcum-Golem at Lv2.

Team Soldier is currently at a massive 4 life deficit, being at 2 lives up against Team Namii’s 6.

Heliostom taunts Dan, noting that because he’s strong, his body will stand out when added to the Wall decorations.

Again, I’m fairly sure the showriters didn’t realise that this isn’t much better than flat out dying, or hell… Such a prospect sounds quite dark.

Namii’s quite enjoying the prospect of adding Dan and Clackey to suffer on that Wall for all eternity, which is, as Mai says, incredibly warped.

Magisa and Ryoko left the battlefield, I suppose to catch up on what’s been going on, Magisa feels bad that Otherworld King has directly caused the rift in their family.

Ryoko hasn’t said a word whatsoever, so Magisa tries to make small talk about Brustom.

When Magisa tries to casually say “I bet you hardly recognize him” she’s bluntly rebutted by Ryoko answering that she recognizes her son fine, thanks to his eyes not changing.

Ultimately it seems Ryoko has come because Heliostom is here, and she absolutely has zero plans to let Heliostom get his way when it comes to Brustom.

Also she calls him “Husband”, which means marriage is a concept Mazoku use… The question is whether their culture is monogamous.

I won’t cover the Episode title here again, not because of spoilers but because it’s literally uninteresting.

No Joke the title is: Tag Battle! StarEmperorDragon vs. GodMadeSoldier!

Which are the titles of Meteorwurm and Orichalcum-Golem respectively.

Clash King Turn 9.

On Dan’s start step, Heliostom’s The Invaded Castle returns all the Core in their Trash to the Reserve.

Heliostom then boasts that Thor is prepared to protect them… which it really isn’t, as explained in the previous episode, Thor is at Lv1 sitting at 4000 BP with precisely 0 effectiveness other than being 4000 BP.

Brustom is clearly running the same Math as his Dad and getting a different answer, he notes the same possibly Clackey raised of dealing with Orichalcum-Golem, which is that while they could focus on defenses, doing so gives them time to get Magic that can be used to crack their formation.

Brustom recommends going the way they have been, having Orichalcum-Golem continue to chip away at Dan and Clackey’s Decks.

Thor’s one effect at his current level literally doesn’t fucking work without another Armed Machine on board.

I’m not quite sure what the course of action they’re arguing over is, it seems like Heliostom wants to take a defensive position now that their lives are low so as not to lose their lead while Brustom wants to keep attacking to initiate deck destruction.

Speaking of, currently Dan has 28 cards left in his deck, while Clackey has 26.

“You made one mistake that bothered me in particular so I’m going to keep using it as an example anytime you propose an idea I don’t like so I can pick and choose whether or not to trust you”

My guy you’ve spent half the last episode droning on about how you were gonna turn Dan and Clackey into Wall ornaments. Who is boasting!?

Heliostom is adamant, he wants to strategize around Thor.

Clackey makes an attempt to note to Dan the critical need to not make any mistakes here given the situation.

Which is good considering they spent all of last episode bickering like a married couple.

And Clackey’s not even into men!

Dan starts by dropping Gremly to Lv1, and bringing Meteorwurm to Lv3.

Clackey lambasts Dan, asking if he can think of any other card than his Meteorwurm.

In this case however, Dan made the correct decision, he didn’t deplete Gremly, and kept Froger’s BP a high 6000. While also ensuring he could take out Orichalcum-Golem.

Dan enters his attack step, and attacks with Meteorwurm.

Dan uses Meteorwurm’s effect, as Meteorwurm has Clash, it can choose a Spirit to attack instead, selecting Orichalcum-Golem.

Brustom panics, and looks to his father to see if he has any Magic that could be used to rescue Orichalcum-Golem. It appears Heliostom didn’t anticipate Dan would so quickly move to get rid of it.

Let’s see here…

Ah, he does have a way to save Orichalcum-Golem. He can pay for it too.

Avalanche Aura provides 2000 BP to any blocking Spirit. Orichalcum-Golem is staring down 11000 BP with 7000. With 9000 that isn’t enough, but there’s the other Magic in Heliostom’s hand…

From BS03, a Cost 5 Magic, United Power.

By exhausting a Spirit you control, for the duration of the turn, you can give that exhausted Spirit’s BP to a different Spirit.

By spending 2 Core for Avalanche Aura, and 3 core for United Power for a total of 5 (they currently have 6 available), Orichalcum-Golem’s BP could be raised a further 3000 if they exhaust Block-Golem, and 4000 if they exhaust Thor.

Either puts Orichalcum-Golem to a BP value of at LEAST 12000 BP, which would defeat Meteorwurm and protect Orichalcum-Golem.

Heliostom clearly understands the benefits of Orichalcum-Golem, but his Ego has not only forced him to demand that they center their strategy on Thor despite Brustom’s better suggestion, but now he needs to back it up, and he’s not willing to waste cards that could protect Thor just to defend Orichalcum-Golem…

Lemme rephrase, if a Key Spirit is the Soul of a Battler, Heliostom is unwilling to do anything for Brustom that he wouldn’t do for himself first.

Heliostom’s unwillingness to use his Magic for Brustom’s Spirit has cost them, Orichalcum-Golem has been destroyed, and so has Brustom’s game plan for deck destruction.

When Brustom asks for a justification, Heliostom stubbornly declares that they don’t need deck destruction, the enemy has only 2 lives remaining, they can win the normal way.

My guy, you’re bumping a White deck, you have all the time in the world!

An alternative win condition like Orichalcum-Golem is PERFECT for this strategy.

Heliostom narrowly dodges a boomerang thrown by Ryoko, holy shit what a large boomerang.

Not gonna lie, kinda wish that hit him, that deadbeat really deserves it.

Also seems like the boomerang in question is some nice clothing engineering, her long cuffs at the end of her sleeves are the boomerangs, they must stiffen when removed.

Alternatively it’s a form of Ryoko’s magic, as Mazoku have immense magical power.

Ryoko once again asks, for the sake of her son, why did Heliostom fail to protect Brustom?

Rather than state that he couldn’t protect Thor and lie, he chooses to be honest, declaring that they must “preserve” the trump card, that is, any action to protect a Spirit that could be done to protect Thor is an undesirable one.

Ryoko calls out Heliostom, being the woman who knows him more than anyone. She declares him a “Liar” and simply claims that he’s selfishly hoarding Magic for himself, purely to benefit his own playstyle, Brustom is just supplemental.

Holy fuck this lady has no chill, she even calls out the fact that The Invaded Castle was designed to enable Heliostom to use Magic in spite of spending all his core, and even though he was able to do so, chose not to.

If he’s not gonna use The Invaded Castle for it’s intended purpose because he doesn’t want to protect Brustom then what the hell is the point of it?

Heliostom dodges the subject, simply uttering his chagrin at being accused of being a shitty father by his wife after not seeing either of them in forever.

Ryoko feels like she’s held up Dan’s turn long enough, and asks him to finish them off.

Dan continues, attacking with Froger.

Team Namii take from the life, dropping to 5 lives.

Quite amusingly, Ryoko’s tossed a boomerang to interfere with the Battle system, causing all the damage that would be felt to go to Heliostom, while Brustom feels nothing.

Ryoko smiles at her son, with a gesture that I can only describe to mean “Go have fun.”

Unlike Heliostom, it seems Ryoko has made an effort to maintain an incredibly good relationship with her son.

Quite humorously, Clackey comments on the fact that Ryoko is Brustom’s Mother, claiming its a bit of a surprise and this alone is enough to make Brustom flustered about his parents being here.

Dan ends his turn, Gremly is left as the sole blocker.

Brustom has 2 attackers but it’s unlikely Heliostom will let Brustom attack with Thor even if they can go for game.

The turn moves to Brustom, and Heliostorm once again espouses Thor’s ability to protect them.

Magisa decides to make small talk about marriage, noting how she’s still looking for a Husband, but notes that quarrels between married couples can last a while.

Magisa naturally wants to set an expectation, so she asks Ryoko how long her feud with Heliostom has lasted…

Just to put it into perspective, Heliostom has been fighting with his Wife

For longer than he has been battling (he mentioned last episode he has spent 1000 years battling)

And said feud has lasted for half of Magisa’s total lifespan, she’s 4029 if you don’t recall!

Brustom brings both Gigantic Thor and Block-Golem to their highest levels. Now Thor can block Dan’s Red Spirits with impunity, though his other effects don’t work because there are no other Armed Machines to exhaust or destroy.

Block-Golem attacks, Brustom discards cards from Dan‘s deck this time, 2 for each Nexus he controls. Dan now sits with a deck count of 26.

As Dan is about to declare to take it from the life, Clackey steps in to start defending.

Clackey uses Royal Potion, now all Cost 2 Spirits will be refreshed. The only one is Froger.

Froger needs to keep it’s BP as high as possible or it’ll fall below Block-Golem, so Clackey very carefully pays his core from Meteorwurm, who holds a whopping 6 core.

Now Froger can beat Block-Golem with 6000 BP to Block-Golem’s 5000.

but Brustom uses his own Magic, Magic Hammer.

An oldie but a goodie from BS03, mainly used in Yellow Magic loops to achieve a full deck out, Magic Hammer has a nice Main effect of discarding a whole 5 cards (that’s an 8th of a 40 card deck, and a 7th of a deck that’s had at least 1 turn) from the opposing deck.

But during Flash it’s a 3000 BP battle boost.

Block-Golem now has 8000 BP for this turn, which is stronger than Froger.

Clackey, trying desperately to keep all of his Team’s Spirits preserved, uses Angel Voice.

A BS02 Yellow Magic, meaning it came when the colour was released. It changes the rules of battle to no longer compare BP to win, but compare Levels. It can be a good way of defeating large but lower levelled spirits with even the smallest higher levelled ones. This potency is why it has a minimum cost of 3 core.

Froger remains at Lv3 while Block-Golem only has 2 levels to battle with, leaving Froger the victor.

This time, Clackey decides to have some tact, he apologizes that he had to drop Meteorwurm’s Level to achieve this outcome.

Dan however doesn’t take it to heart, declaring that Clackey is the best at using Magic, given he was able to maneuver a way to defeat the attacker and keep up that situation, all while maintaining Froger’s monstrous Lv3 requirement and keeping Meteorwurm on the field.

That’s fairly good.

Heliostom reassures Brustom that the mistake is fine, as Clackey and Dan only have 2 lives remaining.

This time, Brustom attacks with Thor.

The 1000 BP Gremly doesn’t stand a chance against Thor, Clackey uses it to block anyway, and it’s defeated.

The life hath been protected.

It seems Ryoko is… very proud of her son for trying.

With no more attacks left, Brustom ends his turn.

Serge notes that Clackey and Dan seem to have repaired their teamwork, but note that the timing could have been better, they still have to somehow annihilate 5 sets of lives.

And Dan doesn’t have a Meteor Storm to work with.

Kenzo and Kajitsu have decided to make their way back into the Prison again, Kenzo mentions Kajitsu can rest but Kajitsu seems to be of the opinion that Dan and Clackey are suffering, it makes no sense that she should get a pass just because she’s having a minor headache.

They do however, get a shock, coming across Gouda’s entry into the wall.

Kenzo raises a hopeful possibility that Kajitsu might be able to use Mother Core’s powers to return Gouda from the wall, but Kajitsu maintains that she wouldn’t be able to achieve that.

Dang, this Prison outdoes Mother Core?

Clackey’s turn 11, he decides to get back 6 core by levelling down Froger.

This is then followed by a Lv3 summon of a Spirit named Kikimora.

Kikimora is a Cost 1 Yellow Spirit from BS08, nothing notable, in the same vain as Babyrouza, it has the Toy Beast family, which didn’t get any particularly notable support at any time.

Mai seems to believe that it’s so ugly that it’s cute.

If anyone’s wondering how that works, er… Try any Dog that’s a Pug or a French Bulldog, it’s that kind of idea.

Clackey follows up, summoning his own X-Rare, the ArcAngelia Isfiel.

Clackey informs Dan that he’s going to try and even out the Life difference between them, but requests that Dan trust him completely in order to let him get those results.

The attack step begins, Kikimora and Froger attack.

Heliostom immediately moves to take from the life.

Notably, this time, when Ryoko attempts to protect Brustom using her Boomerang, Brustom is the one to request that she not do so.

They take both attacks from the Life, dropping them to 3 lives.

It seems Brustom did this to show that he can stomach the pain of battle just fine, and doesn’t need protecting.

Satisfied, Clackey ends his turn.

Heliostom gets a bit uppity about this, asking why Clackey didn’t attack him with an empty board.

Well for starters it’s clear Heliostom intends to refresh Thor soon, secondly, Isfiel is capable of using it’s free magic duplication effect while she’s blocking as well as attacking.

It seems Heliostom’s going to finally start getting aggressive.

Maybe she’s just really into Game of Thrones.

I was hoping for that last episode and didn’t get it, if I have to suffer you do too Namii.

So back to the Impudent Talk.

Heliostom makes an… odd declaration, stating that he does what he does because it’s in his nature to repel human-kind, and the elimination of humans is his “Way of life”

…Yeah until you run out of humans to repel

What then ya sleazeball?

See, now, the question is, is Ryoko mad because they upset her before and he hasn’t changed?

Or is she mad because that’s what she was charmed by, and it pisses her off now?

Well based on this we now know what’s in Heliostom’s hand.

Heliostom summoned Fenrircannon-MkII, Baldar, and Berserker-Magnum.

The issue here is we didn’t see Magnum until this turn, meaning the 2 cards in Heliostom’s hand are Avalanche Aura and United Power.

The other issue is the choice of Spirits, there aren’t any Armed Machines here for Thor to make a consecutive attack with.

That being said there are still enough attackers to cause Clackey to need defense, Heliostom has 1 more attacker than he needs in order to win.

Clackey admits to Dan he’s got absolutely fuck all for dealing with all 4 of those Spirits with one blocker.

So, Namii’s grudge here is very clear, she wants to hurt Mai as much as possible by doing horrible things to her friends before subjecting them to her, all because she won a battle where she gained The Violet, Serge and Beelzebeat.

But, the sheer evil of it all really makes it hard for me to believe, she’s been boasting her ass off about her battlers, got them offed one by one, and interrupts the damn match every few seconds to say “THIS TIME, THEY GON’ LOSE”

Put up or shut up, Namii.

Heliostom takes this moment to boast about his strength to Magisa, suggesting she may fall for him for it

Magisa I get that you are giving in to whatever lust drives you but his wife is RIGHT. FUCKING. THERE.

Magisa tries to save face, claiming she’s joking, though her follow up clearly indicates that Magisa was 100% after that Heliostom dick.

So it seems like Magisa’s failure to remember people’s names is a running gag of hers, one that Kenzo doesn’t find very funny but Ryoko on the other hand has an incredible sense of humor, finding that absolutely hilarious.

Talk about a nice save, but still, hot diggity damn Magisa was down horrendous for that guy.

Heliostom attacks with Thor, then boasts about how Red decks will lose to Thor if they have no defense…

…What? Thor is, at best an 8000 BP wall, Dan clears it with Meteorwurm by himself!

All it does is prevent a Red Rush.

And that WON’T WORK IF IT’S EXHAUSTED YOU SCHMUCK!

Dan, during Flash timing, uses Victory Fire, he levels down Isfiel and Kikimora to pay for the necessary cost.

Fenrircannon-MkII and Berserker-Magnum are destroyed.

Heliostom no longer has the requisite number of attackers to win.

Seems Heliostom was counting on being able to win here.

We get it, you hate humans, Heliostom.

Dan and Clackey take a life, they now share 1 life remaining.

Heliostom can’t move upon the life now, as he doesn’t have enough attacks to clear the last life, so he ends his turn, with only Baldar as the remaining blocker.

It occurs to me that Clackey only has 1 card in his hand, and given he hasn’t used it yet, we know what card it is, it’s the Wing Boots card he got from Cherubim on his first turn.

Seems they’ve got an understanding of the pet peeves of the other, so Dan apologizes for having to level down Kikimora and Isfiel.

Clackey says it isn’t an issue, as Dan made the correct play, and didn’t sacrifice any of the spirits.

The rift has been sealed.

Mai taunts Namii, noting that she knew Clackey and Dan would make up.

Brustom takes this moment to try and re-assure his father, stating that he will try to end the game on his turn. Brustom looks like he’s going to be taking in how responsible his son is being.

But nope, Heliostom grabs Brustom by his beard, telling him not to act so proud.

God forbid your son tries to take responsibility for fighting for his family, what, that too human for you.

Clackey tells Dan that, at least for this turn, Dan’s kind of on his own, as Clackey only has a Wing Boots.

I’m sure there’s some strat that can work with alongside Meteorwurm’s target attack.

Clash King Turn, Invaded Castle returns all of Team Namii’s core to the reserve.

Dan drops Isfiel to Lv1.

And raises Meteorwurm only to Level 2…

What is the rest of the core needed for?

Oh, been a while since we saw him!

Dan summons the Original Red X-Rare, The DragonEmperor Siegfried!

Dan moves to the attack step, he attacks with Meteorwurm.

Due to Meteorwurm’s Clash, Heliostom is forced to block with the only available Spirit they have…

Gigantic Thor can block Red Spirits without exhausting, however, Thor isn’t capable of blocking if it’s already exhausted, so even though it has a Lv3 of 8000, it can’t stop Meteorwurm’s attack.

Balder’s effect gives it 1000 BP for every exhausted Spirit, there’s only 2 and Balder has 4000 BP, keeping it at 6000. Meteorwurm has 7000 BP.

Heliostom finally uses one of the cards he refused to use, Avalanche Aura, raising Balder’s BP to 8000.

If Meteorwurm isn’t able to reach the life, Dan only has Isfiel and Siegfried, Heliostom and Brustom still have 3 lives.

And since Balder has already blocked, Meteorwurm can’t reach the life from this position…

…Except it can.

Clackey uses the last card in his hand, Wing Boots, granting Meteorwurm the ability to treat itself as having not been blocked if it’s Level isn’t lower than the blocking Spirit.

As Balder and Meteorwurm are both Lv2, Meteorwurm will now ignore Balder’s block.

Meteorwurm’s attack goes straight to the life, and the best part is that Balder’s block wasn’t revoked, it was ignored, so Balder remains exhausted.

Meteorwurm hits the life, dropping Team Namii to 2.

Isfiel attacks, dropping the enemy team to a single remaining Life.

Siegfried attacks.

In the last moments of the battle, in spite of treating him incredibly shittily, Heliostorm moves infront of Brustom, to protect him from the incoming damage.

Siegfried strikes true, reducing Team Namii to 0.

For the last Tag Battle we’ll ever see, Clackey and Dan are the winners!

…Fuck this format, I hate it.

Kenzo arrives right as the battle ends.

Kankuro?!

We’re freaking crossing anime now!

So I’m not too familiar with the joke of Kenzo getting his own name wrong here, my only guess is that “Kankuro” has something similar that could cause Kenzo to extrapolate “Kanzaburo” while still technically spelling his own name.

But I’m not too familiar with Japanese writings.

If you happen to be familiar with the joke being made here:

Ryoko chastises Heliostom, basically saying that just like Otherworld King, the human he hates more than anyone, Heliostom just does what he wants.

Akshually.

Avalanche Aura ended up getting ignored by Wing Boots, and United Power ended up not getting used.

Clackey had Wing Boots the entire time, even if Wing Boots prevented Meteorwurm’s destruction at the time, they would have still survived the turn, and Orichalcum-Golem would have been able to discard more cards from Dan and Clackey’s decks.

There was still a battle to be had, had they done that, it’s not clear that they would have won, but they certainly wouldn’t have lost the way they had.

Ryoko presents her Boomerang to Heliostom’s face, Heliostom clearly wonders if Ryoko intends to kill him personally.

Dan tries to interfere but Magisa prevents him, saying this is something that needs to be resolved by them.

Ryoko decides to call out what precisely she knows is the problem with Heliostom, which explains his constant inability to confront his family, defeat Otherworld King, etcetera.

And that is because Heliostorm is a common trope of a person with great amounts of strength but no bravery to allow him to wield it.

Heliostom counters, but the issue here is his words aren’t the issue, he’s not afraid to say what he wants because the whole point of those strong words is to mask his cowardice

You can say what you want but if your actions don’t match what you’re saying then what does it matter what you say?

Ryoko finally hits the final nerve, she tells Heliostom that he challenged Otherworld King to a Battle, and then realized how afraid he was that he looked for any excuse to run from his family to hide his cowardice. And she insults this cowardice.

Heliostom’s done taking this nonsense, and demands Namii have the Wall take him as a carving.

Hoo boy, just checking out of life because you don’t like a conversation is certainly a choice.

Heliostom gets mocked by Ryoko who comments he’s just proving her point, he’s demanding the wall take him because he is a coward and doesn’t want to continue this conversation with her.

Dan goes to intervene, not wanting to let anyone get taken by the wall just because Namii has a hateboner for Mai.

But Magisa tells him it will be fine

And that’s because Brustom, who’s probably the strongest person in the room physically, aside from Heliostom, is going to try and save his father anyway.

Heliostom tries to appeal to Brustom’s resentment, essentially asking him if the choice Brustom made to become a King instated by Humans make him feel better than whatever his father thinks.

So I’m gonna summarise since it’s a bit scattered. Brustom is essentially saying that he had fun with battling with his Father.

Brustom disagrees with his Father fundamentally concerning Humans, because until he’d met them, he didn’t know anyone else other than his own family, once they arrived with Otherworld King, their knowledge helped enable a large portion of the technology they now use to get around.

Brustom says that Humans granted them Freedom, and that’s why he wanted to work with them.

But even IF Heliostom taught him that Humans were things to be rejected, he still appreciated those lessons because he knew his Father was doing so out of love for his family.

In a sentence, “Dad, I disagree with you, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t appreciate what you tried to do, nor does it mean I don’t love you or don’t have fun playing with you.”

Brustom earlier was wary of his father but once he got over it, Brustom became incredibly confident and was working with his Dad in spite of him being an asshole, because he knew that his Dad was, in a somewhat abusive way, acting out of love.

I know that some people might counter “If love causes you to hurt someone it isn’t love” but people are not that simple, people hurt the ones they love all the time, I would only say it isn’t love if said person is using love as a justification for another person’s suffering, then I’d say that isn’t love because that’s a person who wants to hurt someone because they love them.

In this case the pain is an undesirable consequence of how Heliostom is and how he chose to love his Wife and Child, were he a little more honest with himself, he could have probably avoided it, and more importantly, would have.

So remember to look at situations like this with some nuance, it’s easy to call Heliostom an abusive father, and I would agree, but you do need to look at it from his point of view to see whether or not it’s a reconcilable problem.

He’s still a deadbeat Dad and Ryoko needs to have some words with him, but it’s a reparable situation.

Brustom: 1, Wall: ZERO

Ryoko tells Heliostom that from now on, he needs to be honest about when he is scared.

There’s clearly a moral about masculinity here, Heliostom’s ideals of who he should be conflicted with what was best for his family.

Serge notes that this is a family issue being resolved after TWO THOUSAND YEARS!

Which is probably pretty difficult for all of them.

Kajitsu comments on the idea of Family, seeming to give her some pause.

I suppose she’s thinking about her Brother.

Kenzo points out that, while this is nice, Brustom still burnt down the Green World just to smoke out Kajitsu.

But Kenzo tries to resolve it in his own head that Brustom must be an incredibly complicated person deep down if he’s able to have such a happy ending in spite of such horrible acts.

Thankfully, Ryoko is a woman of high moral fortitude, and demands to know if what they just said about Brustom is true from the Horse’s mouth.

Remember kids, in a Court of Law, Apologies are an admission of guilt, and can be used to prove culpability.

So if you didn’t do what you were accused of, don’t apologise.

If you think you didn’t do anything wrong, don’t apologise.

And be very clear what you are apologising for, blanket apologies carry no weight, specific ones show acknowledgement of what the issue is. And mean a lot more to people.

Brustom is dragged away to be punished by his Mother.

Heliostom comments that Ryoko is a harsh woman… but the best people for us tend to be the ones that invest effort making us better people.

There are a lot of girls who take in bad boys because they’re hot hoping they can “fix them”

Ryoko is the type of woman you need to be in order to actually follow through on that goal. She is soft and praiseworthy and respectful and supportive of the people she cares about when they are doing things that benefit themselves without harming others. And only becomes Draconian when they do something that is actively harmful.

Heliostom very offhandedly comments that he’d rather have Magisa as his wife because of how harsh Ryoko is, and the response from Ryoko is to belt him with her Boomerang.

I can see why Heliostom would think that, Magisa is… “fun to be around” for Heliostom, but sometimes that can result in exacerbating each other’s worst traits.

What a woman, her Husband was openly considering being unfaitfhul directly infront of her and her response wasn’t to just immediately toss him out but to pull him back in with her bare fucking teeth.

She sees vices as a thing to be resolved rather than a thing to divest herself with, and has a will strong enough to not be broken down by discourse or poor events, or let them affect her judgment like with Magisa’s joke.

And she never uses her own emotions to justify harming others, or making unreasonable demands.

My only gripe is that she’s a bit commanding but I feel like she’s dealing with an absolute tosspot of a Son and an even bigger tosspot of a Husband, she was very supportive of Brustom during his battle which suggests that she’s typically gentle when in a good mood.

And the sky is fucking Purple what else is new?

I don’t even have anything to add, Mai’s just destroying her from the confines of a Prison Cell.

Namii admits that she was unable to cause any of her friends any suffering so far with either of her three battlers.

She then decides to get this situation out of the way, realizing she isn’t going to be able to get to Mai by impersonally taking out her friends, she’s decided she’ll do this the old fashioned way, and take on Mai.

While I won’t say this invalidates this episode and the previous 2, there are some… problematic conclusions to draw here.

Namii could have fought Mai at any point before now but didn’t do so because she wanted to hurt Mai’s allies.

By not doing so, Brustom’s had his character arc completed, as he’s been permanently removed as a problem on account of being reunited with a family who abhors Otherworld King, and Ryoko who clearly doesn’t agree with what Brustom did working for him.

In exchange for reconciling this 2000 Year old feud… Gouda was made a permanent part of the Prison Wall for the rest of eternity by Heliostom punishing him for losing, something not even Kajitsu, who wields the powers of Mother Core which supplies Grand-Lolo with the ability to support life, can reverse.

Just… not sure it was a fair trade there, it’s all nice and dandy but Gouda didn’t really deserve what he got to ensure this happened.

We’re finally moving on, let’s go!

We once again get a small end of episode update on Yuuki’s current position, he’s on quite a nice Core Ship, intending on reaching Kajitsu.

But what happens next is reserved for next episode!

Anyway, we’re finally at that point in the series where I don’t have to actually attempt to produce my own brews, I am unfortunately a fallible human being and I recognize that I’m not the best because I have absolutely no tournament wins to my name.

My only claim to Battle Spirits fame is my love for it’s anime and placing 38th at a Battle Spirits Saga’s first tournament before I quit the game entirely for upsetting me, I might talk about that in it’s own blog post.

However, Battle Spirits started messing around with sample decks, more explicitly there is a “Charisma Battler” Deck page which details all of the decks they use over the course of some series.

“Charisma Battlers” are battlers like Galaxy, who exist as Cameos to the series, but ultimately are roles taken by actual people.

So I’m displaying the first of the Charisma Battler Decks, the theme of course for this one is Brustom’s new ace, The GodMadeSoldier Orichalcum-Golem.

This is a deck that one of the Charisma Battlers posted, and it’s an interesting one, if you remember, Gundinos was a preferred ace for Blue Assault decks because it could perform all of the GiantEmperor Alexander’s functions a little better.

But if Gundinos was the goal, then what was the underlying strategy that demanded the necessary Nexuses? Let’s talk about them!

The Nexus in question chosen to be built around, aside from the other goodstuff Nexuses, was this one, The Gogyo Temple. The reason why is because it has the ability to generate Core in a fairly manipulative way. The first effect is that when an opposing Cost 3 or less Spirit attacks, you gain a core from the Void, placed on a “Beast Head” Spirit you control.

Now, aside from Orichalcum-Golem and Gundinos, the cards you need the core for, every other card in the deck is a Beast Head family card.

But the side strategy in the meantime is fairly nasty as well:

The deck is also littered with Beast Heads who have nasty effects producing many many restrictions on what the opponent is able to do.

Firstly, PigMan Chohakkai can prevent players drawing outside the Draw Step, this means that Players can’t access more options.

Bernald is capable of blocking all Spirits that trigger Gogyo Temple’s effect, so if the opponent plays hyper aggressively, you can use Bernald to wall them off by itself.

And The Magic Control Tower, a card that is currently banned as of 2011 due to how potent it was in combination with Gundinos, not only protects your Nexuses from destruction at the cost of a single core, but also has a nasty Lv2 effect that allows you to negate any Magic the opponent uses whenever you want at the cost of returning Magic Control Tower to the bottom of the deck, you could use this to put a stop to counters to the assault strategy, the likelihood your opponent had the same answer to the strategy twice was incredibly nasty and made the deck have a super high amount of Inevitability for what was effectively a beat down.

So, lock the opponent’s options early until you get your hyper-aggressive win condition, powerful deck, and if the life wasn’t an option, Orichalcum-Golem could single handedly wipe out the deck by triggering a high number of card-losses via it’s Demolish.

Even if one assumes you only have 2 Spirits and 2 Nexuses before summoning Orichalcum, Assault at Lv2 means Orichalcum-Golem mills 7 cards per attack.

With 3 attacks, that’s 21 cards, half of the deck, even with 1 less symbol, that’s half the deck after drawing the starting hand.

Orichalcum-Golem has the capacity to clear an entire deck by itself in 2 turns as long as it’s summoned at Lv2.

Other notes include triple Victory Fire, card was that good it was run off colour in other decks, and this one could get reductions. Storm Draw which every deck was running at 1 until it was banned, and Silent Wall for defense.

It’s a cool deck, and I like analyzing the card usage here, as it helps me (and by extension you) think about the full strategy over the course of the game.

Anyway, I yammered on enough.

This is also the first episode where the new ending for Gekiha Dan takes place, called “Galaxy Step”, and is also the only ending theme that actively relates to the game itself, sung by Galaxy’s Voice Actor.

anyway, with that out of the way, I’ll see you in the next one, with fresh, bread and butter, tried and true, one-on-one fight to the death battles!

I can almost taste it! See you round!