Gekiha Dan – Episode 40

So when do we get the sick mod for Detroit: Become Human that replaces the Main character, Connor, with Pantera?

Jokes aside, this is the 3rd fight taking a total of 2-episodes long… Within the same 10 episodes.

That’s right, in 10 episodes we have had 3 battles that required 2 episodes to resolve.

So if you’ll excuse me, Im just going to jump right in if that’s okay with you?

We’re starting off inside the Wisdom Gate, Leon notes the current situation and I might as well remind anyone watching.

All the Lightbearers have had their lives reduced to 1.

Otherworld King seems to coldly cast-aside Leon’s observation, noting that lives don’t really matter in Battle Spirits.

He… Has a point in a very general sense. Much like Yugioh, you can lose 7999 life points without suffering any kind of detriment for it. In Vanguard you can take 5 damage and play as normal, In Magic: The Gathering having 20 Life or 1 life makes no difference.

The only life that matters in Battle Spirits is the same, your last one. Everything you do, even taking lives, is all to ensure that you do not lose that one life. The last life. This kind of thinking is normal.

It is the reason some people try not to focus on raising their life totals, as doing so does not help them win, just as having less doesn’t make them lose so long as they don’t have zero.

In Battle Spirits however, time is resource, while Life isn’t the most important thing, unlike some other games, having many lives helps you win as you will always, without fail, gain 1 core on each of your turns. And the life can be used to protect spirits. Such is the goal of decks centred around Holy Life for example.

Otherworld King comments about a state of “Feeling prepared”, which is something the Core Soldiers seem to have in common with Leon.

He then goes on to say that a sense of preparation, to feel you are prepared for something, makes you strong.

This might be the reason behind Leon’s effectiveness as one of the Three Heads, he was always prepared to do anything for the sake of Otherworld King.

And he started losing once Core Soldiers started feeling prepared to perform their mission, Clackey defeated Leon after feeling prepared to protect Kajitsu, Yuuki won after feeling prepared to battle him, held back only by Kajitsu’s capture. Once that leverage was gone, Yuuki picked him apart.

Otherworld King also makes one more comment, stating that in spite of a Human feeling prepared making them strong, despair can once again reduce them to becoming fragile.

From another angle, he’s essentially saying that Human strength is inextricably tied to the faith they have in themselves.

…Which is a very protagonisty thing to say for someone who’s the main villain.

This episode title doesn’t spoil the entire plot so I’m going to talk about it, the episode title is the ominous “Grand Lolo’s Final Day”

This makes it seem like there’s a climax coming, however if we check the episode list, we know there’s another 10 episodes remaining after this.

One can only wonder what happens here then.

Currently it’s Red Hot Turn 11.

It’s currently Pantera’s Main Step, Pantera has 2x Lv2 Dinonychusaw’s (4000 BP), and The DinoCavalry Diridalus at Lv2 (6000 BP).

Dan has Rainydle (4000 BP) and The DragonEmperor Siegfried (10000 BP), both at Lv3

Pantera has 3 lives remaining, and 6 cards in his hand.

Dan has 1 life remaining, and 7 cards in his hand.

Zungurii makes a note, finding it strange that Pantera of all people is tapping as a twitch during his thinking.

The reason people tap like that is indirectly to help us think, it is difficult to think while you are anxious, tapping is a repetitive motion that helps us reduce anxiety by stimulating a sense.

In short, it’s a type of “Fidget”, a motion to reduce anxiety when we are trying to focus. Focusing produces stress, fidgeting offsets the stress, make sense?

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is kind of like this, OCD is ultimately a consistent feeling of anxiety that is managed via ritualistic behaviour. Granted the human brain tends to work both ways, and so once we find a technique to suppress our stress, we become more stressed when we are unable to perform that technique.

It seems Pantera, for the first time ever, is experiencing a sense of anxiety. This would suggest that he is, on some level, scared of losing. As a result he’s reflexively tapping his fingers to manage that anxiety.

He’s becoming more human by the second.

Dan hurries him out of his funk, asking if it’s the attack step to get Pantera’s head back in the game.

Attack Step, Pantera attacks with Dinonychusaw.

Dan blocks with Siegfried, and during Flash timing, uses Der Ring des Nibelungen.

Pantera likely had absolutely zero data on Dan using this card or having a strategy that his ace, Meteorwurm, can’t use.

As Der Ring Des Nibelungen works on “Sieg” spirits, Meteorwurm which is a “Wurm” but not a “Sieg”, cannot benefit from it.

Notably, “Siegwurm” being the first Key spirit is an interesting case in which it’s connections to Siegfried and it’s Ancient Dragon family allow it to receive more support by being both “Sieg”, “Wurm” and both “Ancient Dragon” and “Astral Dragon”

Hell it even bridges Awaken and Clash together, Siegwurm really is rather symbolic as the bridge between Toppa Bashin and Gekiha Dan.

Dinonychusaw is destroyed

Der Ring des Nibelungen activates, as a “Sieg” destroyed a Spirit in battle, all Spirits who share Dinonychusaw’s “Terra Dragon” family are wiped out. Which just so happens to be Pantera’s entire field.

Notably with Der Ring des Nibelungen, if the destroyed Spirit has multiple families, any spirits who share even one of it’s families will be destroyed.

Losing your entire field on your own attack step is… harsh.

It also means Pantera has to end his turn, as he no longer has any actions he can take.

Time for the routine check in on the other core bearers.

Wait, EvilDeity Big-Loki?

Oh how Nostalgic!

A Cost 7 card from BS05 has no business being so bad, it’s a shame too, we got a meh Thor, terrible Odin, and Loki’s not any better.

We’ve somewhat fixed that by having Grand-Woden be the new Odin, but still. Just sad.

Thankfully, “Loki” gets an upgrade later, though we never see it in any anime.

I don’t think you should be reprimanding the doll for having a “Different” thing to protect than it.

Imagine being lectured about how you’re “different” to someone trying to marry his god damn sister.

Yeah, with all your second-hand memories.

…I’ll stop.

Over to Mai, looks like the Purple Pantera is using a bread and butter Purple deck, Demo-Bone and Bronzemaiden are so generically good that the appearance of them is just not indicative of what deck is being played.

Purple is just like that unfortunately. Same happens to Green when it comes to core boost engines.

Oh how interesting, the Purple Pantera is using a Tribute deck, all the cards that were just discarded are Purple cards from BS08.

• Victim
• The SupremeDarkKnight Schwart
• The DarkDragonRider Sabna-Rook
• The Red Sand Glass

Jesus, Mai was brought to 1 life before she dropped the Purple Pantera below 4? I suppose Pantera did dabble using a Red/Purple Hybrid initially but I didn’t figure his proficiency was that high.

So Yuuki beat a crappy big spirit, Mai cleared a board, Suzuri appears to have destroyed a Castle-Golem, the fact that one was even summoned is bad news but good on him for getting rid of it.

Suzuri’s intensity’s been brought to the surface, woe betide the Blue Pantera.

Well I suppose I can use the presence of Valiero and Iberix to confirm the Yellow Pantera is also using a Light deck.

I suppose this sequence is trying to show us all that in spite of only having 1 life left, the Core Soldiers are moving on the offensive.

Kenzo’s nailed a board clear much like Mai did.

Well duh, you’re a human, he’s a robot.

I would have loved to know precisely what fucking combo you’re on about

the amount of times something happens off screen, we see like, a segment of it, like in this case Byak-Garo hitting the life.

And someone calls it a combo and I’m like SO WHERE’S THE REST OF IT?

1 card using it’s effect as god damn written is not a combo.

Ooo, we’re back at the Wisdom Gate, maybe we’ll get some commentary from Otherworld King

also Kenzo has 1 life remaining and no blockers. And the Green Pantera had 2 Spirits bounced to the hand.

The only line we get is from Leon, noting how the soldiers are mounting a response.

Notably, we can’t see Otherworld King’s face from his angle, and he doesn’t have his usual smile.

Clash King Turn 12, he skips his main step.

That’s bad, that means the card Dan just drew still wasn’t a Spirit.

Dan attacks with Siegfried and Pantera takes a life, dropping to 2

Dan ends his turn and Zungurii wonders why.

To summarise, Dan might have a big-ass hand, but he’s got 2 spirits on his board and only 1 can block

Pantera’s about to have a 7 card hand and needs only 2 of them to be spirits to make Dan start to crush diamonds with his sphincter.

Dan’s full attack wouldn’t win him the game anyway.

No no, Zungurii means to his deck.

Cuz 8 straight draws with not a single Spirit is just a god damn crime

Well duh, he kind of needs those to win.

Red Hot Turn 13, Pantera summons 2 DarkDinohounds and a Lv2 Sabecaulus.

The guy’s got a Terra Dragon baseline alongside a little bit of Awaken, I wonder if he runs any cards to support them.

It looks like Sabecaulus only exists to be a target for DarkDinohound, but a Spirit Link in Pantera’s deck would be useful for that situation. To my knowledge Pantera doesn’t use a single Clash Spirit to benefit from Sabecaulus’ Lv2.

Probably.

Unlikely.

Pantera attacks with a DarkDinohound but unfortunately he’s made a mistake, he’s left 2 Red Spirits with 3000 BP to be ripe for destruction with Victory Fire.

As a result, both DarkDinohounds are destroyed, and Pantera is unable to win this turn.

Dan notes that was an oddly naive play from Pantera, given the situation it was obvious that Dan was holding onto a ton of Magic.

Pantera is not having a good day. His eyes also look incredibly… angry.

It seems like Der Ring des Nibelungen caught Pantera completely out of nowhere, a card he had never considered to be a possibility with all of Dan’s battle data threw him into a situation he wasn’t prepared for.

Now, because he’s so worried about what else might come, knowing Dan’s using cards he doesn’t know about, he’s forgotten that he still needs to consider what Dan has used.

Pantera is suffering from the most rudimentary Human emotion… Stress.

Pantera ends his turn.

Clash King Turn 14, Dan deploys The Sunstone Shrine.

Annoyingly for Dan though, he’s got precisely 0 spirits that can make use of it, he still needs Clash to make this Nexus do… anything.

Getting it out of his hand does mean he gets another reduction out of it, if nothing else.

Someone gag Zungurii! He’s leaking secrets to the enemy!

…Though given Pantera’s earlier frustration with being caught off guard, this might make him stress more, making him more prone to mistake.

Dan attacks with Rainydle, which Pantera takes from the life.

Now Pantera’s on 1 life remaining as well.

Major pokerface malfunction there bucko.

he could have blocked with Sabecaulus but I’d have taken a life too, Dan’s holding onto a crapton of Magic and I need all the Spirits I can get.

Sabecaulus is brought down to Lv1.

How the hell do you know? You don’t even know what the secret combo is.

…That could be a problem.

Pantera summons The MasterDragonRider Dark-Crimson at Lv2.

Pantera uses it’s effect when summoned, allowing him to reveal 7 cards from his deck, and if a Dragon Knight or Dragon Emperor shows up, he can summon it ignoring both it’s Cost and It’s Tribute.

What happens twice will happen thrice, and Dark Siegfried arrives.

Out of interest the other cards are (New cards will be hyperlinked):

• Lizardedge
• Flame Cyclone
• The ImperialDragon’s Round Table
• Dragon Scramble
• Sabecaulus
• Judgment Flare

The DarkDragonEmperor Siegfried is chosen, summoned at Lv3 for a total of 12000 BP.

As a certified graduate of the university of edgelords, any combo that produces 2 black dragons, one being particularly hard to summon otherwise, is approved.

So the same situation as before has now been presented, the issue with this time is that Dan can’t run away by using Victory Fire as the Dragons have a high BP stat.

Now, the current sickest looking card in the game as of right now, Dark Siegfried, attacks!

Dan blocks with Siegfried, unfortunately at the moment Dark Siegfried currently holds 12000 BP, which is just a little higher than Siegfried’s 10000.

Dan could probably try and raise it… But if he did so now, he’d lose.

Dan uses a 2nd Victory Fire.

Pantera takes a shot of copium, and says right now is sub-optimal, because only Sabecaulus can be destroyed.

Dan however says this is fine, because unfortunately the current situation requires Pantera to have one more Spirit than he has.

Sabecaulus is destroyed, having only 3000 BP at Lv1.

Even at Lv3, Siegfried is defeated by his Dark other self…

…Sorry hold on, Lv3 Siegfried is defeated by his Dark other self.

Zungurii is despaired that Siegfried was beaten, but in this case any other outcome would have resulted in Dan’s loss.

At Lv3, when Siegfried is destroyed, it awards the player one additional life from the Void.

And in this case, Dark Siegfried’s Double Symbol is relevant, as Pantera only needs to get it’s attack through once in spite of Dan’s extra life.

As Dark Siegfried defeated an opposing Spirit in a contest of BP, Pantera is allowed to draw a card.

As Pantera has only 1 life, and only 1 blocker left, he ends his turn.

Pantera then makes this very sinister comment, stating that Dark-Crimson is waiting to use it’s power.

Well, Dark-Crimson’s 5000 BP destruction is hardly the scariest thing about it, beyond slapping a Double Symbol Dragon free of charge onto your board, I’m not sure it could have any effects to top that.

Dan notes that Pantera’s demeanor changed after he drew, so now he’s incredibly conscious of the fact that Pantera’s probably got something good in his hand.

Clash King Turn 16, Dan draws The StarEmperorDragon Meteorwurm.

Dan summons The StarEmperorDragon Meteorwurm at Lv3.

Dan attacks with Meteorwurm immediately, using it’s Lv3 effect, he target attacks Dark Siegfried.

Notably, this is a bit of a problem, as Dark Siegfried has 12000 BP, higher than Meteorwurm’s 11000.

Time to use Excavation’s Battle Boost-

…Wait hold on I swore that card in his hand was Excavation-

…Right, the card in the corner… Huh

So I made a complete mistake then! Dan isn’t using Excavation in this version of the deck, he’s got Lightning Aura.

What a complete muffin I was.

In defense of my mistake, Excavation would also have added 3000 BP.

In this case however, Lightning Aura offers 1000 BP to attacking Spirits and an additional 2000 for those that have Clash.

This puts Meteorwurm at 14000 BP, just enough to take out Dark Siegfried.

In for a penny in for a pound however, Dan follows up again with Meteor Storm, targeting Meteorwurm.

Now Meteorwurm, for this turn, gains the effect that if it defeats an opposing spirit in battle, the opponent loses lives equal to it’s number of symbols.

Dark Siegfried is destroyed.

Thanks to Sunstone Shrine, Dan can destroy Spirits that have up to a combined total of Dark Siegfried’s 12000 BP. The 8000 BP Dark-Crimson is wiped out.

One attack, 2 X-Rares destroyed.

Due to the effect of Meteorwurm, granted to it by Meteor Storm, as Meteorwurm defeated Dark Siegfried in battle, Pantera loses a life for each of it’s symbols.

Pantera, along with all of the other dolls connected to him, loses his last life.

Clash King Dan, along with every other Core Soldier, is the winner!

Completely to that end, it was kind of required that not a single Core soldier lose their battle. Even with 1 Horizon Ladder it’s possible Otherworld King can still supply enough energy to keep the Humans coming to Grand-Lolo.

Leon concurs with Otherworld King’s previous statement, if you are prepared, you have strength…

Though now I’m worried about the rebuttal that Otherworld King followed up with.

The Barrier protecting the Grand Core is gone, now it can be destroyed.

It’s the same combo Dan’s been using since he got it, it hasn’t really varied much over time.

the specificity of Sunstone Shrine does kind of mean it’s only possible to do with Meteorwurm.

Hah, with nothing else to do, Pantera tried to use the simplest skill in a Human’s toolset.

He tried to lie.

God he’s already got Dark-Crimson and Dark-Siegfried, what other X-Rares could even be fit there?

Pantera also goes on to ponder about Dan’s hand, as Dan’s play suggested he was working with complete crap (which was half true) only for Pantera to act on this assumption and get blown out of the water by magic.

It seems, when it comes to Battle Spirits, playing it makes Pantera feel like he has a heart, and emotions.

He’s a being of Core, not of Electricity, so it’s possible that Pantera does in fact have emotions, and that Battle Spirits, a game that makes use of it, allows his core to shine with emotions too.

Pantera, noble droid he is, acquiesces to the rules, and allows Dan to destroy the Grand Core.

Zungurii, having felt useless this entire time, wants to help at least once by breaking the damn thing himself.

Magisa hands him her staff to use as the club to break it with.

Oh, but while Zungurii and Dan have to do it manually, it seems like the Horizon Ladders, who were never supposed to release these things mind you, have a “Grand Core destruction” sequence programmed into them.

Wat.

I’ll just run on the assumption that they were aware of a setting they could change that would have a high expectation of destroying the Grand Core if done so.

Anyway, the Grand Cores are gone!

Suppose it’s time for the moment of truth.

It seems the Light being emitted from Dan is warm, and Dan can feel the power of the Red World’s Core flowing out through him.

This means that, unfortunately, their bodies will also have to become conduits for the expulsion of Core energy… It’s warm because they’re becoming Suns.

At the very least, it’s not an unpleasant end to their lives, supposedly it feels quite nice.

Ah better yet, those at the Horizon Ladder aren’t going alone, Kajitsu’s keeping them company using the butterflies.

I ask my friends this all the time, what I’ve learned is that asking if you’re cool tends to be the least cool thing you can do.

Teenage girl who’s never had to face a single moment of hardship as an adult yet now being forced to make the incredibly adult decision to end your own life just so you can kick a bunch of humans back to earth.

I’d be terrified too, that’s mortifying.

Ah dang, didn’t figure that Serge would be free of his responsibilities after Mai turned into a Sun.

Kajitsu keeping Clackey company in his final moments does infact mean that she’s technically the last woman he sees.

The Mimi Tribe he left to help are in the Red world so you might be a little misplaced there buddy.

Oh?

5 Teenagers and a Child are seconds away from becoming giant balls of burning gas, what the hell could be wrong at this moment in time?

Sorry, excuse me? I thought we disconnected the Worlds from Mother Core, how could it be possible to still deliver it energy?

Okay so something’s very up, Mother Core should not be receiving energy at this point in time.

For some reason the Symbol hasn’t taken, Dan’s light has gone out.

Pantera glows with a Red Light, but when he speaks, it’s Otherworld King’s voice that comes out.

Magisa comments on the fact that she doesn’t recognize Otherworld King’s voice at all, meaning that when he stole Magisa’s powers he was significantly older.

Ah, classic, the Grand Cores they destroyed were knockoffs.

That is, generally, what “Fake” means.

I also cannot believe it’s not butter.

This explains why Kajitsu felt the way she did, the Dolls took in the light of the Core Soldiers, and given how prepared they were to die in order to get there, their symbols shone bright..

so now the Grand Cores aren’t just supplying Mother Core with the World’s energy, they also have the Light of the Bearers to add to Mother Core.

In essence, what was supposed to end climactically with Mother Core being cut off has now made Otherworld King’s plans better.

Well that’s certainly compact. Not only did Pantera have the Red Grand Core the entire time, but the guy was a walking Horizon Ladder, capable of picking up where the Red Horizon Ladder left off.

Otherworld King had backups!

“Never interrupt your opponent while he is in the middle of making a mistake.”

~ Napoleon Bonaparte

From a programmatical standpoint, part of security and data protection is the ability to not only circumvent problems as they may occur, and foresee actions that may cause issues, and plan around them. But it’s also prudent that in the event that something goes wrong, there are systems in place to recover you back to the point you were initially at.

The Horizon Ladders were the bread and butter of Otherworld King’s goal, once all were complete, he’d have completed Mother Core.

Naturally, any plan that didn’t destroy the Grand Cores would mean Otherworld King could simply restart. So naturally, Otherworld King looked into scenarios that could cause him to be unable to recover his plan. Namely the destruction of the Grand Cores.

The information was well handled, as Otherworld King had fitted the real Grand Cores into Dolls like Pantera, and essentially used fake ones in the meantime. (these fake ones likely supplied less power to Mother Core than a Grand Core could achieve)

Ultimately it seemed like Otherworld King felt as if he needed the Bearers of the Core’s Light’s power to add even more energy to Mother Core, but naturally most would arrive with the pretext of opposing him.

So, using the fakes as red herrings, and leaving the self-defensible dolls as guards, the Soldiers attempt to defeat the dolls, who also absorb the light of their symbol as Otherworld King did with Dan, (it’s likely where he got the idea), and once “defeated” and the fake cores are smashed, it opens up the Horizon Ladder to allow the real Grand Cores to be set.

And these Grand Cores can’t be so easily destroyed, able to overpower any human by themselves while performing their function.

Not even Leon knew that Otherworld King had performed this little trick.

And it’s possible this was Otherworld King’s goal from the start, think about it.

Yuuki built the Red Horizon Ladder under Otherworld King’s instructions, meaning Yuuki knows the makeup of the Horizon Ladders. Final Horizon ladder is rendered incomplete because of this.

Otherworld King needs to get more energy to Mother Core, so he requests the set up of a 2nd Core System in the Blue World which also fails.

Dan is captured, Yuuki brings him to Otherworld King’s HQ. Pantera makes a white lie to fight Dan and brings Dan to Otherworld King, The King’s probably less than pleased but decides to see what Dan’s made of, he realizes that the light of Dan’s core can be converted into energy usable by Mother Core, which with Magisa’s magic he uses to make himself Young, he hits upon an idea, if taking damage can allow him to harness the power of the symbol, maybe that would work for the Horizon Ladders too? And Yuuki is acting weird already as he’s suggested giving Brustom a real harsh punishment and placed Suzuri as King, potentially to ensure that Suzuri’s location would be known at all times to make the Core Soldiers easier to gather. As well as gave Kajitsu to the enemy. Leon’s probably said as much too.

So Otherworld King suspects Yuuki is going to betray him, Yuuki knows how the Horizon Ladders work and how to destroy them, and he’s just learned that damage taken from Soldiers can produce Life energy. How does he play this to his advantage? Well if he replaces the real Grand Cores with fakes, turns the rest into battleable dolls that can convert the energy, then all he needs is for all 6 Soldiers to be gathered and for Yuuki to propose the idea.

Suddenly, Yuuki’s betrayal goes from a suspicion to something he actively wants to instigate.

So Otherworld King lets Leon run rampant trying to acquire Kajitsu and pissing the guy off, eventually Yuuki plays his hand and defects, and naturally they know where Suzuri already is so gathering the 6 is set in stone.

From the moment Dan restored Otherworld King’s youth, Otherworld King just needed to swap the cores, make sure the new ones could battle, and then all he needed to do was let Leon poke the bear until the defection happened. Once Yuuki betrayed him, the rest would play itself out.

I can only guess that this is Pantera performing the function of a Horizon Ladder.

The need for guards is apparently none, as these Grand Core Suits are fully capable of overpowering humans on their own.

Damn, not even a clever insult, just fuck that guy.

As annoying as this is, there is an upside.

You’re still alive, and Otherworld King’s plan still dies with him.

See what I mean? These things can break Big Magical Swords without a problem, who needs guards?

Naturally, since energy is on the Mother Core express, Kajitsu’s going to do what Kajitsu does and pass out.

Nooooooo!!

I don’t believe yoooooou!

What tipped you ooooofffff!?

Dan tries to reach Pantera, using their battle as a pretext to say that Pantera is no different to Dan, a Human being.

Pantera’s personality at least, seems to have come back.

Jesus christ, Otherworld King can remotely control all that energy from all the way in the god damn Wisdom Gate?

Pantera begins to talk about something, mentioning Siegfried’s Thunder.

This is an accurate translation, that is what he says… It’s also stupid.

Because Siegfried breathes fire, It’s Siegwurm that has anything to do with Lightning..

Erm, Pantera I believe what you’re describing is the Light of the Grand Core that’s currently fucking The Core Soldiers’ plans in the ass.

Holy shitballs! Pantera’s pierced his own chest to reach for something.

Seems Pantera’s just ripped something out of his chest, a Card infact.

The cracks caused by Pantera’s self-operation are spreading across his whole body.

Dan approaches, telling Pantera one more time, that he isn’t a Doll.

You could be grim and think about the fact that his head is about to be smashed into a thousand pieces, so forget he very much will.

…But he’s being the most human here as he’s ever been, guy may have not had a heart, but he has a soul, one can only hope it goes the same place everyone else does.

As soon as Dan takes the card, Pantera shatters.

The rest of that energy going to Mother Core.

The rest of the Horizon Ladders also have a similar surge of energy.

Well, guess we’ll see what happens when Mother Core is “Completed” then.

“It’s open”? What’s open…

…Wait.

Well before I state the reasoning I suspect we should be following…

It seems Mother Core’s spitting out so much Light it’s become visible from Grand-Lolo.

Think.

Humans go through gates to get to Grand-Lolo, the Horizon Ladders make this possible.

Stopping the Horizon Ladders, cutting off Mother Core’s Power, would cause Earth and Grand-Lolo to be separated, Humans would no longer be able to get to it.

So… assuming the reverse happens… and Mother Core is instead flooded with energy instead of deprived of it…

Average energy produces small doors… No energy produces no doors…

But a lot of energy…

Would theoretically produce… a very big door.

After a fade to white, Dan wakes up on what looks like a very modern pavement.

Dan’s made it back to the Human World, somehow.

And now we get a good look at the card he was just given.

Even players who have only played Battle Spirits Saga should know this one. One of the most famous cards in all Battle Spirits.

If I had to think of one card that was the face of Battle Spirits above all others. It would be this one.

The SupernovaDragon Siegwurm-Nova

Seems not even time passes accurately based on it’s connection to Otherworld, as in spite of being in Otherworld for what I can only assume to be around a Month, Dan’s been returned to the exact same day he left.

So anyway, about that big door.

What looks like the Red World, has been brought to be directly above Japan. And it’s not just that, it seems to have produced some of it’s natural rock formations on Japan itself.

Haha, Leon says “A section”

It seems Leon was so enamored with the Otherworld Observation Records that he tossed away everything to achieve this result, likely Otherworld King let him in on the fact that Mother Core gaining energy would allow them to bring Grand-Lolo to Earth.

Get real, he wielded Magisa’s Power, and the stolen power of 6 worlds and 6 chosen battlers.

So, that spire makes me think that’s the Empire state building. Which is in New York.

…So in other words, America got the White World.

That’s a pretty funny jab at America.

More plot relevant comments, so The reason Earth and Mother Core are intrinsically linked is because Mother Core is meant to be the Earth’s symbol? Because the Earth is the 7th World of Grand-Lolo?

So in other words, Humans are predisposed to being able to play any colour, right if they come from the World exhibiting all colours.

Egypt got The Green World, the result of it’s presence seems to be the appearance of Greenery growing in the otherwise harsh desert.

Suppose Kazan was thinking too shallow, he wanted to move the Humans to Grand-Lolo…

Otherworld King just did one better, and moved Grand-Lolo to Earth.

Also hold on, is space like, not a thing right now?

How does this gravitationally work?

Out in the middle of nowhere seems to be the Yellow World, Though it’s hard to tell if these structures appeared on earth or if they fell…

I’m gonna go with “appeared”, given that Dan was placed quite gently on Earth with no injuries.

Hah, the Purple World ended up in the Arctic.

So the place which is almost universally dark is now in the one place the Human sun remains up in for half the year.

…Well this is assuming that we’re in the South Pole.

Seems Otherworld King didn’t much care where he ended up along Earth’s timeline, but had suspicions that since all the Core Soldiers were from the same Era, the energy that opened the door to Earth would lead them to that Era.

Oh well I’m glad that Zungurii and Magisa made it on the Human world alright… but doesn’t that mean some select other Otherworlders are also on Earth right now?

Well if this isn’t going to up-end Human understanding as we know it then I dunno what does, the stakes just shot up.

But that’s a problem for next episode isn’t it?

Either way, The Core Soldiers aren’t dead!

Naturally given the type of show, Pantera being the final boss would make for one hell of an anti-climactic final battle, especially against something that isn’t quite new.

Given that the character has officially completed their role in this show, I should really give my formal review of the character.

Pantera, to me, is the spiritual representation of one of the core components of Toppa Bashin’s plot, that is the Nazo-Otona. In this show he seems to take most of his design and function from Number Nine. He dresses in rather nice suits, takes after Red battlers that he is interested in, and ultimately wishes to defeat the man he is working for.

Conversely to Nine however, of the Three Heads, Pantera is the most altruistic, seeking only to battle people he finds interesting, his deck is a mirror to Nine’s, while displaying his own X-Rare in Dark-Crimson, he still wields the DarkDragonEmperor that symbolized the Nazo-Otonas.

In this case, they decided to take the part of Nine that was most interesting, and make it Pantera’s entire character trait, stripping him of all the rage and “luck” that defined Nine somewhat in contention with his actual actions, for Pantera however, his entire character is defined by his interest in particularly, the Red bearers of the core’s light.

In spite of this being his essentially only defining character trait, that being his fixation on one character precisely. Pantera is a character we get to see grow, he initially does odd greetings before a battle, he’s shown taking Dan’s statements to heart by visually using the post-battle handshake Dan said he should do, he starts smiling whenever Dan is around, and more still, he begins to form Human habits.

It’s only when he seems to have fully developed his own identity that he’s then heartlessly ripped away from us, he’s shallow because there are blanks to be filled in, and once they are, he’s shattered to pieces.

And in his final moments, he fulfilled the final function of a Nazo-Otona, when he was defeated by a Battler he acknowledged, he handed them an X-Rare.

I think the character is compelling because he’s the type of character who shows signs of growth and you see it happen in realtime, and if you felt robbed at the end when he was destroyed, then the writers succeeded.

Personally, Pantera is one of my favourite characters in Gekiha Dan, he’s definitely in my Top 5 at least.

In honour of the character, and in the absence of a Card of the Day.

What I’ve produced here is my attempt at recreating Pantera’s final deck, while I had a good idea of the cards he was using, I did have to make guesses or additions. Also if you click the image it will hyperlink to a Bandai-TCG Plus decklist.

Dan spent all game playing around Victory Fire, so it makes not a lot of sense to not include it. Silent Wall was chosen as a must-have defense card, and finally, Rayblitz.

The ThunderDragonRider Rayblitz serves 2 purposes in the deck as an inclusion, 1, it’s a Dragon Knight, and therefore it is summonable using Dark-Crimson’s effect, secondly, it can support Dark-Crimson and Dark Siegfried with it’s Lv2, allowing you to manage your levels better while low on core, freeing up some for Destruction Magic.

Finally, if for some reason Dark-Crimson is not drawn, but Dark Siegfried is, and you get this card, it can be an alternative way to summon Dark Siegfried without needing a Tribute.

Ultimately, looking at it, the deck is rather simplistic, as the key concept is the same as his last one, play as normal, use destruction where necessary, summon Dark-Crimson, profit.

I think I much preferred his Red/Purple strategy, but thems the breaks.

Anyway, next time we’re back on Earth, let’s see what an Earth dealing with a sudden alien invasion looks like?