Gekiha Dan – Episode 35

So, while right at the end I talked about the change in ending song, I didn’t actually talk about the change in opening.

While the song hasn’t changed from “Attack! No Limit!”, the animation has, first of course, Kenzo has been added to the 4 core bearers at the beginning.

Yuuki is now displayed in his new, Clad in black uniform.

Otherworld King is portrayed in his Youthful state where he was absent before entirely.

Dark-Crimson appears to have got his own sequence, likely because it’s the symbol of Otherworld’s Three Heads having been used by both Leon and Pantera.

Replacing Dark Siegfried on Dan’s field is now Meteorwurm in this attack sequence (the card however displayed on Dan’s board is still Dark Siegfried)

Pantera and Leon get to have a brief shot as well.

Dan’s transformation sequence now uses his new, Blazing Battle Form rather than his original standard gold one.

As if to highlight Meteorwurm as Dan’s current Key Spirit over Siegwurm, Meteorwurm is the one displayed attacking rather than Siegwurm.

And finally, this segment here displays the usual pose everyone had before, but Kenzo’s added to the mix, Dan is in his new Battle Form, and the Momose Siblings are in their new outfits.

Just thought it was cool to detail.

We enter the episode with the group arriving at Namii’s door, it seems her room is specially marked as the Scorpion mark is glowing purple rather than being blank.

Who the hell needs keys when you have the sheer power of Dan’s fucking foot.

Namii and Mai are nowhere to be seen, seems like. Naturally the end of last episode indicates they likely went elsewhere to battle.

Dan figures they somehow left the prison entirely rather than just… moving to a different part of it.

But I suppose he’s extrapolating that because Namii would have known they were coming for her door, if she wanted to be away it’s because she didn’t want to be caught.

being in the prison makes that difficult.

You might think “Well what if she just wanted to kill Mai?”

Thing is she wouldn’t have kept Mai alive this long if she was going to do that

Mai tries to see if she can’t deter Namii, by suggesting that a person take responsibility for their own mistakes.

But all Namii’s doing is indicating she’s beyond rationality at this point, doesn’t really care about being a good person, just about doing what she feels she wants to do, which is getting revenge on Mai.

Serge seems to have gotten ahead of the rest of the Violet Crew and managed to articulate where Namii and Mai ended up, basically telling them to “Get this over with”

It seems Serge is a little exasperated from all this nonsense and just wants Mai to clobber Namii.

For once, Namii and Mai are able to agree on something, accepting Serge’s impatience and getting the battle started.

…Apparently now.

Well this is certainly the fastest I’ve seen an episode devolve into a battle, not that I’m complaining, it’s a standard 1v1.

Seems Ryoko has sensed that Mai and Namii have started their battle.

I’d ask how is that possible but then it occurs to me that Magic abilities are in some way related to Core. It’s possible the Core System for the Battlefield can be sensed via Magic.

Oh how nice of the Prison to have a TV system allowing the group to view the battle from this warm toasty room.

But then what’s the point of the GOD DAMN SPECTATOR BOOTH!?

…I feel like calling attention to the fact that the battle is interesting because it’s a battle between women sounds pretty… I dunno, that kind of awareness is a little misplaced.

Seems Ryoko isn’t even going to tolerate even the minorest of narrow-minded comments from Heliostom.

Ryoko further interrupts the fight.

It appears Ryoko has noted the prominence of each of the Purple battlers facing off here. Mai is the designated Purple Soldier, essentially being chosen by the colour itself. While Namii is essentially the most famous battler across the Purple World.

Ryoko states that she’ll basically offer an additional incentive for battle, a reward of sorts.

Whoever wins will receive this card.

That card is the 5th SevenShogun Spirit. An X-Rare by the name of The SevenShogun Asmodios.

If I remember correctly Asmodious is the Demon of Lust, the symbolicness of this will be apparent later.

To just win would be boring however, instead, Ryoko has installed a single copy of the card into each of their decks, both are now playing with 41 card decks, with Asmodious included.

There’s a certain detail about this arrangement that I absolutely abhor because it makes something else seem a little… pre-destined.

Namii is now extra motivated by the promise of an X-Rare for victory.

Mai just comments on the sheer ridiculousness of declaring victory before the battle has even begun, it’s gonna make Namii look incredibly stupid later.

Mai gets the first move.

Mai summons The HellFighter Balam, as all her core is used up, and its the first move, she ends her turn.

Namii summons Ashtal at Lv2 (4000 BP), and ends her turn.

Serge notes that both have summoned a rather high power spirit, Mai went for a Cost 3 and Namii went for a single spirit with high level, but didn’t attack, suggesting a passive strategy.

Namii notes that as servant to both Mazoku and Humans with basically no break in between, Serge must get tired. It seems like Namii’s trying to appeal to a desire to rest in order to get Serge to willingly leave Mai.

Serge’s got the energy output of an exploding star, the strength of a brick shithouse and is built like a male pop idol, man’s got no worries.

Mai deploys her favoured Nexus, The Depths of the Nether World. Now all of her Infernal Lord and Zombie Spirits will gain the Curse keyword if they don’t already have it. Destroying all Spirits that block them even if they lose.

Mai ends her turn, having set up the cards necessary to trigger her Curse Combo when she sees fit, as her Nexus at Lv2 will allow her to shoot cores off of Spirits anytime Curse Spirits attack.

It seems that this strategy was also utilized when Mai first came to Grand-Lolo, and is likely the strategy that defeated Namii the first time.

Mai notes that she’s not only gotten stronger since their last bout, but she’s also gotten cuter.

Not sure about that, so far Mai hasn’t received a single new card to bolster her deck in any satisfying way.

So it seems that they met due to Mai’s first venture into the Purple World, causing a number of opportunistic Otherworlders to target Mai who appeared weak. Seems they had a grudge against her due to being unable to defeat her in battle.

It appears that Namii’s idea of kindness is entirely transactional, when she saved Mai, who was a powerful battler, she expected Mai to make an attempt to repay the favour, producing a mutually beneficial but ultimately transactional friendship.

Mai however is a battler who wishes to be the strongest, and she can’t do that if she’s acting in someone else’s best interests. So she simply thanked Namii and attempted to leave.

It’s an incredibly frustrating thing when you do something for someone else, only for them to treat you poorly for the effort, whether they asked you to do it or not.

But it’s equally as frustrating for someone to do something for you that you didn’t ask them to do, only to expect you to repay them for the effort.

Neither of these responses are ultimately bad or good. People feel the karmic necessity to have good acts be rewarded but there should also not be an expectation on a given person to reward a morally good act they did not ask for.

It’s why I have a rule for things like money-lending or other related tasks, where I only expect to be repaid if I am asked for the service and not if I offered the service. The reason for this is that I shouldn’t offer something I will have trouble doing without later, and it ensures that the people that ask me to inconvenience myself for their sakes know full well that they are doing so and will likely have prepared for that outcome.

It’s a good rule, it hasn’t done me wrong yet and my friends and acquaintances feel it is a fair rule.

And Namii’s response is what puts her in the wrong, she expected her kindness to be transactionally repaid. And so challenged Mai.

Fact of the matter is Mai likely didn’t see a point in battling her for the sake of something she wasn’t willing to give in the first place without any return.

So in order to convince Mai to battle, it’s likely that Namii was willing to give up Beelzebeat, The Violet and Serge if it meant having the chance to force Mai to act within her parameters.

And worse still, after losing that fight, Namii noted that Mai has not had a single hardship since.

…You know, other than the one she’s having right fucking now.

Mai counters that all of this is entirely Namii’s fault, enforcing an ideal on someone who had no obligation to meet it, betting a series of important items to get the chance of obtaining specific performance, lost fairly, and then chose to hold a grudge against Mai instead of thinking about how none of this wouldn’t have happened if she wasn’t acting like a total control freak.

Namii gets to the heart of the matter, it seems like she understands how Mai is viewing the situation, it doesn’t make her any less angry, and she needs a resolution.

She wants closure.

Which… After all that, I suppose is fair, she’s not owed any closure by Mai but wanting it is something anybody would.

I’m also a type of person who absolutely hates being denied closure, I can accept an undesirable end just fine but closure’s really important to me. And the sad part is if someone really wants to hurt me it’s very clear to them that they can do so by denying me closure.

So, rather sadly, I’m probably the type of person who would end up in Namii’s shoes, even though I can plainly see it’s wrong.

…Still even I draw a line at methods, harm the person you want to hurt directly, hurting others is a no-go.

If you’re not sure what “Obstinate” means, either because English isn’t your first language or you very rarely encounter the word (or both!)

To be “Obstinate” is to stubbornly refuse to change your opinion or course of action in spite of reason, argument, or persuasion to do so.

Namii has every reason to blame herself instead of Mai for her own hardships and yet is refusing to do so because she’s too angry to care about the reason, she is a textbook definition of “Obstinate”

…And the sad part is 99% of people on the internet hiding behind the guise of anonymity are Obstinate people. It’s very difficult to compel someone with words alone to avert an undesirable course of action or opinion.

Scorpion Turn 4, Namii summons a 2nd Ashtal and ends her turn.

Reminder that Namii has a fairly good reputation amongst the Purple World, so Ryoko is somewhat surprised that Mai is capable of regarding her with such vitriol.

Kajitsu senses that while Mai fights using her “Light”, something shared between all the Core Soldiers, which I can only presume to be a sequence of positive feelings.

Namii’s battle style is imbued with “Chaotic Feelings”, such as Hatred and Injury. I wonder how such things will translate into the 2 different purple decks.

Viole Turn 5, she summons Demo-Bone.

Demo-Bone is a Zombie, so even though it’s not Lv2, Depths of the Nether World has granted it the Curse keyword.

Balam is raised to Lv3, giving it a BP of 5000, this trumps the Lv2 Ashtal’s 4000.

That means that this particular window is safe to attack under, Balam attacks.

Namii takes from the life, dropping to 4.

Mai leaves Demo-Bone as a blocker. And ends her turn.

Magisa notes that Namii’s hatred seems to rise when Mai damages her life.

Kenzo seems quite scared of the idea of a woman who can and will amplify the intensity of their grudges by enduring situations that can cause them anger.

While not exclusive to women, there are people who find catharsis to be a more attractive than an actual beneficial outcome, and may inflate their upcoming catharsis by allowing themselves to be wronged by a grudge-target, as the intensity of the hatred will increase the intensity of the relief gained from acting on it.

It’s kind of like holding a bathroom trip until you really need it because the relief is much more intense. That sort of thing.

I’d like to take a moment to accentuate just how awesome Namii’s design is?

she’s got a cool coat, a cool hat, flowing long hair, and she’s pretty as well.

Just, what a cool-ass character.

Namii’s turn seems to have been skipped, I don’t believe she actually did anything on her last turn and passed.

so Viole Turn 7.

Mai summons a 2nd Demo-Bone.

Mai attacks with Balam and Demo-Bone, taking 2 lives from Namii, leaving her with 2 lives remaining.

Mai ends her turn.

Brustom seems to be confused, and asks why Namii hasn’t blocked, Demo-Bone only had 1000 BP so it seemed odd that Namii didn’t block

Heliostom responds by asking if his son needs glasses.

But Ryoko quickly chastises Heliostom for using that kind of retort to educate their child.

In essence, this is what I explained before. All of Mai’s Spirits have Curse thanks to Depths of the Nether World, and Mai is having a naturally hard time sticking her Spirits to the board as a result.

So even though Mai is attacking one after another, Namii can’t block without giving up something she genuinely needs, so all she can do is take lives until she can remove the problem.

Mai tries to taunt Namii for her 3 life advantage.

given Namii’s using her anger to keep herself focused, this might be a poor idea.

Scorpion Turn 8, Namii drops Ashtal down to Lv1.

And summons The SkeletonSnake Skullpione at Lv2.

Skullpione’s summon animation starts with this lovely laughing Skeleton rendered infront of our faces.

Before it’s revealed to just be the back of Skullpione’s head. The actual “Scorpion” is a chimera of various bones all attached together.

It’s a Bone Chimera.

But what it also is… is a NEW CARD!

A Cost 6 Purple Spirit from BS08. The SkeletonSnake Skullpione hails from both the Zombie and Dark Snake families.

As a Master Rare, it’s a card similar to an X-Rare that can have a strategy designed around it.

At all levels, during either player’s Main Step, Skullpione exhausts any and all Spirits who have their cores increased, except via effects. This means that to raise a Spirit’s level you must exhaust the spirit, which means it can neither attack nor defend for that round of turns.

At Lv2+ whenever it attacks, if it’s able to take a life, the opponent must discard a card. The hand is an obvious target as it’s the only place where an unseen defense can arise from. To deplete the opposing hand is to deplete the opponent of their ability to surprise you.

In essence, Mai can no longer level up her spirits after they’ve been played without taking them out of the fight for a turn, this doesn’t apply to Spirits she summons as that’s “Selecting a starting Level” for the Spirit in question, but it means that her options are limited.

Skullpione attacks, and Mai takes from the life.

Due to Skullpione’s Lv2 effect, Mai must choose and discard a card, so she discards Berith.

Err… Both can be true, and kind of are in this case.

Namii didn’t so much outsmart Mai, moreso that she simply proceeded as she would have anyway, Curse Combo or not. Mai simply failed to faze her.

I mean she’s on a 2 life deficit, this isn’t a spooky situation for Mai whatsoever.

Oh my god! Suck her dick when it’s actually worth sucking please! She’s losing!

Viole Turn 9, Mai goes full dumbass and raises Demo-Bone’s levels, likely to ensure they aren’t defeated by the Ashtal’s.

As a result of Skullpione’s effect at all levels, since core was added to the Demo-Bones outside of an effect, they’re exhausted.

With only Balam left, Mai ends her turn.

The only reason this play happened is because Mai didn’t know Skullpione’s effect, which is an incredible contrivance but is only possible in card game anime like this.

Scorpion Turn 10, Namii summons Hellscorpio at Lv2.

Namii then uses Mind Control. It’s Main effect now forces each player to send 4 core from among their Spirits to the Trash.

Namii had given Hellscorpio one more core than it needed to be at Lv2, thereby allowing her to take 4 core by levelling Ashtal and Hellscorpio down.

You’ll note that Ashtal was levelled down on an earlier turn, it seems on the skipped turn, Namii levelled up her 2nd Ashtal, and only levelled it down to summon Skullpione.

Mai chooses to take 4 core from both her Demo-Bones, depleting them.

She could have taken 3 core from Balam, 1 core from a Demo-Bone would then clear it, but there are 2 issues with this.

Firstly, Balam has Curse at all levels, and Curse essentially turns any loss into a draw, but a draw still loses you a spirit, Balam being at 2000 BP means it’s got less survivability where as at 5000 BP it can threaten the Ashtal’s without being threatened itself, and can tie with Skullpione, which would be a worthwhile sacrifice.

Secondly, remember Namii uses a Purple Deck, one of the core facets of Purple effects are the removal of Core from Spirits, to sit on 1 core against a Purple deck is asking for a depletion

Skullpione attacks, dropping Mai to 3 lives, and forcing her to discard a card, she chooses “Soul Crash”

That’s pretty sad, Skull Crash’s main effect would let Mai destroy all Exhausted Spirits if she summoned a SevenShogun in the same turn. That was a method to get rid of Skullpione

Namii ends her turn.

Indeed, Mai is using an Aggro Curse deck, while Namii is using a Control deck.

One might wonder if the counter to Skullpione’s first effect is to just shove all your core on your high summoned spirits, but a deck centred on Skullpione is liable to be able to reduce your core, and punish you for trying to raise it.

Skullpione essentially adds a ceiling to your ability to resist standard Purple Core removal, while attacking your hand to reduce the possibility of new cards with high amounts of core appearing.

Ryoko seems to believe that Mai is somehow doomed as a result of this strategy.

Mai’s last turn was a pretty stupid play given that knowledge of Skullpione’s effect would have naturally informed a different action, but guess you gotta display the effect.

Kajitsu comments that Mai is like Light, while Namii is a Shadow.

It’d be pretty cool if we had “Bearer of the Core’s Shadows” but sadly a concept like that won’t come up until Battle Spirits Sword-Eyes.

We’ve still got Brave and Heroes to get through before that.

Serge follows up, essentially stating that the reason Namii and Mai are fighting is because they’re fundamentally different people trying to protect their own ideologies, Namii is trying to punish Mai for not acting according to hers, and Mai is trying to defend the actions she took in accordance with her own.

Naturally, as I said before, Namii being upset by Mai’s callousness wasn’t the problem, it was trying to force Mai to acquiesce to her beliefs that caused her so much anguish.

So that’s what this is, a battle of belief.

Viole Turn 11, Mai draws and plays a guessing game with Namii about the card she drew, the hint being that it’s a card that A. Ties the two of them together, and B. Can bring Mai a great turn-around.

Ding Ding Ding!

Mai summons The SevenShogun Beelzebeat at Lv2, borrowing core from Balam.

As Beelzebeat was given the core during it’s summon, it’s considered to be selecting the starting core for the spirit, and dodges Skullpione’s effect.

Mai activates Beelzebeat’s effect, summoning Curse Spirits from her Trash up to a Total Cost of 13, without paying any core.

She summons the 2 Demo-Bones from her Trash, who’s collective Costs are 2.

For reference, when checking the field for a spirit with Curse, you check to see if a Spirit has the levels required to have the Curse keyword active.

But when checking other areas where Spirit cards can’t be levelled, you merely check if the Curse keyword is on their text. So even though Demo-Bone only gets Curse at Lv2, it’s a Curse Spirit valid for being summoned from the Trash.

The key part here is whether or not you are checking the Spirit or the Card itself, Spirits checks for levels, Cards do not.

Mai ends her turn, with Beelzebeat at 8000 BP, even a Lv3 Skullpione won’t be able to so easily run through Mai’s hand anymore.

I will agree that Mai does lack a certain amount of tact when it comes to handling other people’s feelings

Namii appears to have convinced herself that defeating Mai is the only way to suppress her bitterness over something that is entirely her fault.

Namii activates something on her ring, which causes an image of Zungurii to appear.

Whatever Namii did, it’s caused Zungurii to get swallowed up by some weird energy.

Clackey gets swallowed up by a Purple Tornado.

And Dan is, most brutally, pulled into an Iron Maiden.

It seems Namii’s gone off the deep end, and seems to be using her control of the castle in order to start eliminating Mai’s friends one by one.

Magisa notably thinks this has gone too far and has gone off to assist them.

…What?

Magisa demands Ryoko move, but it seems like for some reason, Ryoko is unwilling to allow Magisa to interfere with the battle.

Whatever Ryoko’s reasons though, Magisa isn’t about to let those Core Soldiers just get swalloed up by the prison just because the person in the way is an old friend.

Someone as reasonable as Ryoko though should have a very good reason for allowing this to happen even though Zungurii, Clackey and Dan aren’t part of this feud.

So, it’s clear that whatever’s happened to them, it’s very strongly implied they’ve either died or been made apart of the Prison given they’ve completely vanished off the face of the Purple World.

Namii justifies her actions because her life took a turn due to Mai, she’s now considering this a fair response.

It seems even Serge is taken aback by the fact that Namii would kill 3 people just to rile up Mai.

Her tone doesn’t convey it very well, but Mai is pissed, noting that Clackey and Dan didn’t come this far just to get killed off by Namii.

Lady is insane and has gone full Blood Knight.

She wants nothing more than to have a fight where she can take her feelings out on Mai, and have Mai take hers out on Namii in turn.

It’d be cool if it wasn’t so cruel.

Scorpion Turn 12, Namii levels down The SkeletonSnake Skullpione to Level 1.

This seems odd at first, Skullpione is her Key Spirit, so it’d be odd to level it down for any reason.

Naturally it’s because Namii no longer needs the card, or rather, the current conditions require that she level it down.

Namii declares Tribute, and summons The SevenShogun Asmodios at Lv2.

I won’t review the card just yet as to do so would spoil a quirk of it’s effect, so I’ll only cover it when Mai uses it.

But in any case, Asmodious’ Tribute requirement is a Spirit with a Cost of 6 or higher, sending all it’s Core to the Void, hence why Skullpione was levelled down, it was Namii’s only available Tribute target.

A bloody Golden Centaur with 4 arms and 4 jagged blades, it’s certainly a cool-ass card

Asmodious’ effect when summoned is activated, sending 2 cores from every single one of Mai’s Spirits to the reserve.

This depletes all but Beelzebeat, who had 3 core, leaving Mai with just a single Spirit.

Namii enters the attack step, and attacks with Ashtal.

Mai takes from the life, falling to 2 lives remaining.

Namii’s 2nd Ashtal attacks, and Mai once again takes from the life. Dropping to 1.

This… seems like a bit of a silly time to attack with Ashtal, Beelzebeat is on 6000 BP and Asmodious is on 9000, Asmodious also has a Double symbol, had Namii attacked with Asmodious here, Mai would have been forced to block with Beelzebeat and would have lost her X-Rare.

And Namii would have had enough attacks to still take the last 2 lives.

Namii attacks with Hellscorpio, but during Flash Timing, Mai uses Bloody Coffin. This lets her destroy an Exhausted Spirit who’s Cost is 4 or less.

The Cost 1 Hellscorpio is destroyed.

WHAT

Namii why didn’t you full attack!

I get that you’re afraid of 2 spirits but GET RID OF THE BEELZEBEAT! Mai either gets 3 attacks on 1 blocker or 2 attacks on no blockers! MAKE HER HAVE IT.

If you’re dead to 2 Spirits either way then there is no reason for you to hold a Spirit for blocking! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING!?

Mai the only thing Namii is going to regret is her own fucking stupidity at not having Asmodios destroy Beelzebeat.

Namii suddenly turns this into a Humans vs Mazoku issue once again, which might be why she’s feeling so strongly about Mai in particular, because she’s Human.

Namii feels incredibly offended by the idea that someone like Mai can be so prideful while Otherworld King galavants around, branding Mazoku as savages.

This is an incredibly weird scenario where “punching up” isn’t the answer. The Mazoku are incredibly justified in their rage because Otherworld King has been treating them as essentially less than Human, branding them savages and culling their numbers each time they rebel.

As far as they’re concerned they’ve seen no reason to believe any other Human, like Otherworld King, feels any different, in spite of the Core Soldiers saying they don’t agree with Otherworld King, the Mazoku believe that the Core Soldiers are just saying that because they want his position, to control and suppress the Mazoku in Otherworld King’s seat.

Mai says to Namii, and Magisa to Heliostom, that they’ve got them completely wrong, stating to them clearly and bluntly that Dan straight up challenged Otherworld King to a battle.

They’re not disagreeing with Otherworld King on principle, they’re actively opposing the guy and have been trying their best to oust him.

While Mai’s no example of a selfish person, Bashin Dan is anything but, having fought for the Otherworlders consistently with no benefit to himself.

I bet Namii, too focused on Mai, didn’t even bother to think about who Dan was when they entered her Prison.

Viole Turn 13, Mai summons The SevenShogun Asmodios at Lv3.

For the Tribute, Mai offers up the Cost 7 SevenShogun Beelzebeat.

Since Mai has finally summoned the card, let’s discuss it.

The Cost 9 Double Symbol Purple X-Rare from BS08.

It’s of the Infernal Lord family, as all of the SevenShogun are, and in addition, it’s also a Nightling.

When Asmodios is summoned, 2 core from every opposing Spirit are sent to the reserve… However if the card offered for Tribute was either The SevenShogun Destlord OR The SevenShogun Beelzebeat, the opponent is additionally forced to discard FOUR cards from their hand.

In most lategame scenarios, that’s an entire hand gone.

Even worse, when it attacks at Lv3, if there are somehow still core on opposing Spirits by this point, Asmodious can send 2 of them to the Void. Never to return.

You can probably see the gripe I have with the card based on this description, Mai’s going to be able to bring out Asmodios’ full power… Because of the Beelzebeat Mai lost to her.

Namii loses 2 core from all her spirits thanks to Mai’s Asmodios’ effect on summon.

This causes all of her spirits aside from Asmodios to be depleted.

Mai then activates the second part of Asmodios’ effect, as Beelzebeat was tributed for Asmodios’ summon, Namii now has to discard 4 cards in her hand.

But since Namii’s hand only contained 4 cards, she no longer has a hand.

Mai attacks with Asmodios and activates it’s Lv3 effect when attacking, allowing her to send a further 2 core to the void.

As the opposing Asmodios only had 2 core remaining, it’s depleted.

This leaves Namii without a board, and worse, without a hand, leaving her precisely zero ways to defend herself from this position, and making her, unambiguously, the loser.

As Asmodios has a Double Symbol, it subtracts 2 lives when it lands, as Namii only had 2 lives remaining, she is reduced to zero.

Namii the Scorpion is defeated, leaving Viole Mai the winner.

And now I’ll discuss my fundamental issue with the battle

It’s very clear that this is being intended to be used as a moral that Namii should really have accepted her loss when she first lost to Mai rather than going on a revenge plot, because it’s painted as if the reason she lost was because Mai was the one currently holding Beelzebeat at the time.

But, that then invalidates the fairness of placing Asmodios in both player’s decks, as Mai’s variation of Asmodios is automatically stronger than Namii’s purely due to the fact that a card required for it’s effect is in one deck and not the other, if Namii had Destlord maybe it’d even the score but that’s not what happened.

They did something to produce a fair fight by placing a new X-Rare in both decks, but then invalidated the fairness because of the way both decks were structured.

If Mai had done something in order to bring out Asmodios’ full potential, like a synergistic strategy, then I’d understand, but she didn’t do that, she didn’t do anything to make Asmodios stronger other than happen to have the card it demanded.

It doesn’t leave a very good taste in my mouth because the show is telling me it was trying to be fair and then showing me why it wasn’t, and it was in the favor of the character I was supposed to be rooting for.

And more than that, they portray to us that Mai is struggling but Namii makes the dumbest play in the world by not attacking with her Lv2 Asmodios.

Mai has 2 cards in her hand, her draw step will produce an Asmodios, and Namii’s Asmodios is bigger than Beelzebeat

If Namii attacks and Mai lacks a response, Mai has to block with Beelzebeat, and Namii knows that Beelzebeat grants benefits when tributed because SHE HAS ASMODIOS’ CARD TEXT ON HER FUCKING FIELD.

outside of Asmodios, Namii essentially has to hope that at least ONE of the 2 cards left in Mai’s hand is not a Spirit, if that’s the case, Namii straight up wins the game, as her 5 card hand next turn almost ensures Namii will have enough to win.

But she doesn’t because she’s an idiot. Now you might ask “Well what if Mai didn’t draw Asmodios”

As long as Mai had any card with Curse available, she could bring Beelzebeat to Lv3, summon a Curse Spirit, and then attack with Beelzebeat at Lv3, if Asmodios blocks, it loses to Beelzebeat’s 10000 BP against 9000, if Asmodios doesn’t block, thanks to Beelzebeat having Curse received from Depths of the Nether World, it’s effect would kick in, and destroy Asmodios anyway because a Curse Spirit damaged Namii’s life and Mai would just win in that scenario.

This seems like a very strong suggestion that Namii, in fact, had White Magic defense in her hand.

IF this was the case then it makes even LESS sense that Namii did not attack with Asmodios, absolutely fucking none.

You do need some god damn brains though, what a complete idiot.

Strangely, it doesn’t appear that Zungurii, Clackey or Dan actually died there.

Well, naturally we’d be without a show if they did but.

It does beg the question what the hell Namii did if she performed an act that could have done all that but not killed them, that would mean Namii wasn’t intending to kill them in the first place.

Serge summarizes, it seems like Namii never actually intended to harm Mai’s friends, the whole point of this whole charade was for Namii to test her current strength against the tougher Mai. She did all this just to push Mai into a mindset where they could battle wholeheartedly.

…It appears Serge was more than just a worker to Namii, which explains why she was so distraught that Mai took him.

Heliostom acquiesces and mellows out a little, noting that the group are fairly different from the humans they know, based on their short time together.

Brustom, ever the X-Rare connoiseur, asks if it’s fine for them to give Mai the Asmodios card, but Ryoko says it’s fine.

Thing is she gave both Mai and Namii a copy, either they were temporarily cloned via magic or Mai gets both copies?

Dan offers a handshake to Mai, thanking her for protecting him back then, and saving him now, but Mai decides to go full Tsundere.

I’m glad that earlier altercation didn’t ruin their friendship, I suppose it’d take more than a bad prank to ruin a 2000+ year friendship.

Namii goes back to commenting on Serge’s situation, confirming that Serge is also in fact a Mazoku.

Namii decides to ask the last remaining thing she’s currently doubting, which is why Serge chose to stay with Mai.

The reason this is a fairly good question is because, in actual fact, Mai never had any intention of having Serge serve her, she just wanted the Beelzebeat, and intended to allow Serge to do as he pleased.

Also it seems “The Violet” is Serge’s ship, not Namii’s, they come as a package. The reason Mai has the Violet is because Serge chooses to assist her, and not because it’s his task designated by Mai.

The ultimate answer Serge gives, is essentially, she was just different from the Humans that were so vehemently blamed by Mazoku, capable of taking what she wanted from him and his ship, she chose to set him free for no other reason than because she wanted to. She was the first human he met that had a good heart, and that just made him want to assist her more.

He probably just wanted to see what a Good Human was like.

With that resolved, the group takes off on their next adventure…

Also looks like Gouda made it out of the wall, seems the Prison, while somewhat horrific and immune to Mother Core’s Power, does have various capacities to release the people that get taken as a Wall carving.

It also somewhat explains why Heliostom was so willing to get nabbed by the wall, he probably had a way of either getting out later, or having Namii release him.

Seeing something that catches her eye, Mai snaps a photo.

And that is because Namii, in spite of all that she lost, has smiled.

Whatever pain she was feeling up until now has been resolved by her ultimately admitting defeat to Mai.

God, imagine eating something often for your dinners on a frequent basis then being dragged away from all that.

You’d start to miss it very strongly.

I’m like that with various things, but since moving away from home I’ve really missed the Spaghetti that my Grandma made me… Thankfully I’ve managed to reproduce it recently so it’s not too bad but I just know the feeling.

What I find hilarious is that while everyone’s eating Curry, to maintain the continuity of Kajitsu saying she can’t eat anything that isn’t sweet, she’s got a plate of pancakes.

Trouble stirs, Yuuki has located them, and rather easily too in spite of the lack of a tracker.

I guess we’ll find out what it is Yuuki plans to do with them, does he plan to take back his Sister by fighting Dan? Or does he intend to join them?

We’ll only find out next episode!

Naturally, you’ve all already heard my gripes with this particular episode’s set up, a fight essentially being fair and not fair based on what idea was necessary at the time, and a moral poorly set up because of a character obtaining victory, not through their own power, but simply because of a previous victory that occurred before the plot even started. Plot armor is meant to be invisible.

Aside from that, the obvious card of the day is the X-Rare both players used, The SevenShogun Asmodios.

What’s a little awkward here is, Charisma Battler Deck samples only started in the middle of BS08, as a result they’ve only got 4 samples, and there isn’t a Purple Deck among them.

Meaning I’ve got precisely zero frame of reference for what an Asmodios deck should even look like.

Even so, I’ve made an attempt, in this case I’ve created a deck centred on all the cards I know Mai has so far, and simply added some staples where necessary.

Asmodios is very hard to number in decks like this, I have this issue with most cards requiring Tribute, the reason being that the card is functionally dead unless I have a Tribute target, as having one is a cost for the summon. Cards like that are real hard to number.

Generally my rule for cards like this is entirely dependant on how often I want to see them, if I want to, or at least don’t mind, seeing the card all the time, even in duplicates, I run 3.

If I want to see a card but would rather not see it too early, or in multiples, I use 2.

And my rule for singular card copies is usually either by restriction in the case of Storm Draw, or in the case of Soul Crash, I do it when the card itself is powerful but conditions must be ideal in order to use it, and the card, while powerful, isn’t actually part of the overarching strategy. Using such cards at 1 essentially means that I can maneuver the strategy to accomodate it if I see it early, knowing I won’t draw a 2nd, or if I see it later I can see if it fits, and if not I’m not liable to get owned by it again, Soul Crash at least functions as a Battle Boost in those scenarios.

Anyway, it’s late and I’ve got stuff to be doing! So I’ll see you all later! Buh-bye!