Righto, this post will be the first post concerning Battle Spirits Brave, I’ve said in multiple previous posts that I would do this but if you are only here for Brave, which naturally some of you might be, I will re-explain what I am covering.
After Battle Spirits Brave, the world is only re-visited when an OVA comes out concerning the world created in Brave, that is Battle Spirits Saga Brave.
This story covers events taking place after Brave, but in a set release around the time of the OVA, a series of stories were published.
This story covers the events of the 2 year time gap between Battle Spirits Shounen Gekiha Dan, and Battle Spirits Brave.
Its a short story, and naturally I give credit to Ayumu Seiki, the owner of the Battle Spirits Community Server and the one who posted the translations, I will be taking snippets of that information
This story is formatted in chapters, so what I will do is rewrite it to convey the same information but structured so that there is less repetition. I will also convey comments between each snippet, and where I’ve rewritten it. Story in italics, my text will be not in quote fields
I will also only be covering information and chapters that are spoiler free for the lore of Brave, I will not be mentioning anything that spoils details in later series.
The Fixer
This chapter covers the enigmatic “Fixer”, this is posted after Dan however I believe it would be important to cover these guys first, before covering what happened to each character individually.
The Fixer was a shadow world government controlling the global economy, and was also the source of economic inequality and wars. It could also control the energy source. When the Otherworld King appeared, it could feel the threat from the ‘Core Energy’ which the King brought along, so it decided to ally with the King.
This section covers what the Fixer is and their role in Gekiha Dan. This lines up with Kenzo’s explanation, they were an Illuminati-style Shadow Government that controlled economy, any and all conflicts caused by resource, economy, including wars, were caused by The Fixer.
Just to preface, something which is outlined but not mentioned in a nice order, is that upon Otherworld King’s defeat, the Bearers of the Core’s light switched gears and tried to deal with the problem of “The Fixer” by exposing their existence to the world, that was the next “Quest” for the Bearers of the Core’s Light.
The chapter has detailed descriptions of how Dan and the other core bearers were persecuted by the Fixer. At first, it was just rumours and conspiracy theories against them. But then, the US president George Thorman, who supported Dan and turned his back against the Fixer and the Otherworld King, was hit with a scandal about women with ‘undeniable evidence’. This ‘evidence’ was never proven, but even when Dan and the others tried to prove his innocence to the social media, their plans were forced to stop mysteriously, and Thorman was also forced to retire.
You’d think being backed by a US President would give the Lightbearers some influence, but nope, it appears that even though they had a good start, and The Fixer’s vague rumours weren’t gaining any ground, their greatest advocate, George Thorman, appears to have been falsely accused of either taking advantage of women, or adultery… Or both.
The Fixer clearly knew what they were doing with that one, as even today such accusations are taken incredibly seriously. Due to the difficulty in proving these crimes, people are very much inclined to follow a “Guilty until proven innocent” standard and believe the victim until due process shows clear innocence.
Furthermore, the Fixer tried to hide any evidence of the Core System, even erasing information from the dark web. Those who tried to look for information or sell them would be arrested and eliminated. Also, Dan and the others, who tried to expose the Fixer, were also being eavesdropped. Even their parents’ jobs started to have problems. The Fixer used rumours and conspiracy theories to make the situation even worse.
It appears that The Fixer took great pains to suppress the events concerning Otherworld King’s visit, denying the existence of the Core System and burning all evidence it existed. If the beginning to Brave seems depressing to you, it will be because of these guys, as they’re the main foe in this story.
Bashin Dan
Now that we have a general idea of what The Fixer was doing, the Lightbearer’s role in it, we can cover individuals.
Dan’s father was a normal salaryman, his mother a housewife. However, Dan as a normal boy who simply likes curry and plays BS suddenly became a world hero after coming back from Grand Lolo. It was like he became another person, persuading countries to drop their conflicts and change their policies. It was a great shock to Dan’s mother, and she started to become afraid of him.
Dan talks about his Mother in Gekiha Dan, however it appears that Dan has a very average household, Dad works a standard Job, Mum stays at home, and Dan eats Curry and does basically what he wants.
The sudden return of your son from a long trip to another world, and having actual political sway with their words must have been quite the transformation.
It’s just a shame, the woman who’s curry Dan loved so much before Zungurii’s is afraid of her own son.
Furthermore, there was a shadow government called the Fixer creating rumours through the social media, talking about how the core bearers were just children, they were just the successors of the Otherworlders, they were the underling of the Otherworld King, etc. This caused worries around Dan’s life, including his father getting asked by his colleagues if Dan was safe. Dan’s parents were also getting doxxed by those who believed in the rumours. The two started to argue, eventually divorced. To them, their son was already dead after visiting the other world. So Dan moved to an empty villa owned by the Hyoudo, along with Yuuki.
Dan’s particular victimization at the hands of the Fixer seemed to be the disruption of Dan’s family life, his family was doxxed by the Fixer, and the incoming backlash from just their relationship to the boy caused them to get divorced.
It seems in their fear they blamed Dan for this, his clearly doing the right thing was causing them unnecessary pain, so they disowned him. Believing blindly that the original Dan to have died when he left for Grand-Lolo.
Dan, with no family left, needed a place to stay, and so he chose to go live with Yuuki in the villa we saw in the last episode.
Dan entered the hall of fame through constantly winning in BS tournaments, and received a job related to the game. He was maintaining his life simply with this salary. The only thing that gave him relief was the children challenging him to BS games every day.
Then, in order to avoid getting the innocent children into his incidents, he gave up pursuing the Fixer.
Naturally, Dan’s battles with Otherworld King makes him the strongest battler, he likely was able to compete at the highest of levels, given Kenzo had never lost, even in many many tournaments, and Dan defeated him before being picked apart like Otherworld King, the difference between Dan’s monstrous power and the average battler who never fought for anything in their life must have been Heaven and Earth.
So, naturally, a powerful battler like that probably became what we call a Charisma Battler, an icon to interact with players, which naturally involved Dan battling many many of his fans.
Dan probably saw that getting involved with innocents like this put them at risk, so he stopped pursuing the Fixer… They’d beaten the Clash King.
The Core Bearers
Viole Mai
Her mother seemed to be just a housewife, and her father was a representative of a growing IT company. After the fight against the Otherworld King, Mai believed that exposing her real name would lose her identity back in Grand Lolo, so she asked Dan and the others to not talk about her real name.
As the Fixer continued to apply pressure, Mai was receiving verbal abuse from the internet. Eventually, Mai’s father’s company was affected negatively, and was forced to lower their scale of business.
Mai also decided to close down her blog. The photos which she shared on her blog about Grand Lolo were used for photoshops and made fun of as UFOs and UMAs. Nobody believed these photos anymore.
So, this little tidbit explains Mai’s abilities to program in spite of her age, her Dad’s an IT company rep, so naturally she’s likely been involved with his work in one way or another, especially given she runs her own blog.
“Viole Mai” is not Mai’s true name naturally, its her alias for her blog, it seems she grew attached to “Viole Mai” as a name however, as her identity in Grand-Lolo, not wanting to lose that, she had her friends refer to her by the name she chose, and not her family name.
The Fixer’s plan for Mai is the same for any internet personality, throw a bunch of nasty commenters at her, and damage her father’s company. The ongoing backlash from Mai’s attempt to stop The Fixer caused her to lose hope, so she closed her blog. Now the internet trolls completely deny Mai’s photos of Otherworld, simply using them to make memes out of, no one believing that they truly depict what they do.
So we have Dan, relegated to being nothing more than a Battler, and Mai essentially got cancelled.
Momose Yuuki
Much of what concerns Yuuki is dealt with in a later part of the story, but I will cover it.
After the fight against the Otherworld King, as he had no other family members, he was arranged to live in the empty villa owned by the Hyoudou.
As I mentioned in Gekiha Dan, Yuuki has no living family, and clearly has no suitable residence with which to stay, so Kenzo put in a word for him and allowed him to stay in a Hyoudo-owned villa.
Then, Dan joined the villa after being abandoned by his parents. Dan was very puzzled about how people didn’t care about the chaotic world. Yuuki sighed:
“The Fixer has no relation to their lives, it’s not worth the effort to stand against them… Not everyone is Bashin Dan”
This is the final bit we hear about Yuuki until a different character’s story, it seems Dan was unable to understand why the Humans weren’t willing to assist him. While Battler’s are usually alone, and as such, Otherworld King was defeatable irregardless of support, The Fixer isn’t an enemy you defeat by battling… defeating them requires that the World believe they exist, and the Illuminati always sounds like a conspiracy theory.
Hyoudo Kenzo
His grandfather was actually a member of the Fixer, having a huge impact on Japan’s political and business circles and anti-social organisations. He was called the ‘After-War Lord’. As he also had influence on the election of the Japanese prime minister, he was also called the ‘King Maker’. Kenzou’s father and uncles were also active in the political and business circles. Kenzou loved his grandfather the most.
This explains Hyoudo Kenzo’s rich background, his Grandfather was ONE of the Fixers, this also explains how Kenzo was able to get assuredly classified information enabling the execution of the Brustom Virus.
I do love the nicknames they give Grandfather Hyoudo, “After-War Lord” and “Kingmaker” are excellent titles to have.
After the fight against the Otherworld King, his grandfather asked the social media to not over-reporting the core bearers. But then when Kenzou wanted to expose the Fixer, he was put under pressure instead. Knowing that they were being eavesdropped and aware of the danger, in order to protect Kenzou, his grandfather commanded him to study in Italia for the long term. Although the grandfather was called the ‘After-War Lord’, his power was only limited within Japan.
You’d think having a Fixer on the inside would enable their exposition to be easy, but I’m sure The Fixer have many contingencies in place involving a defector of their own.
For Kenzo’s effort in trying to expose the Fixer, the result is that he was forced to study in Italy, separated from his friends in Japan.
For a Fixer with many admirable titles, Grandfather Hyoudo can’t extend his influence beyond Japan, and Japan is a small country compared to the rest of the world.
Suzuri Hideto
His parents were still around, but because his father was very busy in work, their relationship wasn’t at the best state. When the Fixer started picking on them, Suzuri was getting bullied at school again. Contact with him was lost after he sent an email to the other Core Bearers that he went to Singapore.
Suzuri’s story is rather short, but it doesn’t necessarily need to be long. It seems The Fixer caused Suzuri’s bullying to worsen, Suzuri has never had the greatest constitution, and bullying is a nasty trigger for him.
It’s no wonder that he moved to Singapore instead, much like Kenzo, he had to leave Japan entirely.
Clackey Ray
His mother was Puerto Rican, and was single. His father seemed to be Japanese, but he never met him. His mother had a shop in the kabukicho in Shinjuku City, working along with other Latino and Asian women. Clackey grew up around these women. Knowing that his mother’s business was unstable was how he developed his optimistic personality.
So if you were ever wondering what was the deal with Clackey Ray’s choice of skin colour, this is why, he has a Puerto Rican mother. His odd sense of resignation is due to his Mother, who has to look after Clackey on her own as a single mother, running a business that evidently wasn’t great.
If you’re not familiar with the Kabukicho in Shinjuku, well, I can tell you, cuz I’ve been there…
It’s Japan’s Red Light entertainment district. And if you don’t know what that means… Well I can’t sugarcoat it, it’s a place for sexual entertainment. Host clubs, Love Hotels, etc.
Clackey had a close relationship with his mother, but when the Fixer started putting pressure on them, his mother got tricked and lost both money and the shop. She and the other female workers were sent back to their home countries due to illegal activities. Since Clackey was worried about his mother, he left Japan with her, but she passed away shortly afterwards.
The first of the Fixer’s stated fatalities… the result of forcing their business to close caused Clackey’s Mother to be deported from Japan, he followed her, likely to Puerto Rico, but it seems that things going from bad to worse caused Clackey’s mother to lose her life.
So Clackey, thanks to the Fixer, is both without a Mother, and has no idea who his Father is. Naturally the Fixer also ruins the reputation of those they attempt to destroy, so aside from the Lightbearers, Clackey also really has no friends left.
Otherworld King
The Otherworld King was supposed to work with the Fixer and became the Mother Core Bearer, controlling the Core power and ruling over the world. However, his hatred was sparked up again, and he intended to start another Ice Age in order to catalyse the evolution of humans.
This made everything that he had done become meaningless on the surface.
There’s a section here concerning Otherworld King, and I’m not about to ignore it. The story seems to acknowledge the fact that Otherworld King’s stated plan, the steps he took to pursue it, and his subsequent attempt to cause an Ice Age using Mother Core, makes absolutely zero sense.
The stated reason is that he just got angry about it.
After getting pressured by the Fixer, Dan started to research on the effects which King had caused. He suspected that the Otherworld King hated the fact that there was little improvement between the Age of Discovery and the modern age; and tried to persuade the Fixer via the Core System, destroying their profits and creating a new order. Dan mentioned again that the Otherworld King had met politicians all over the world through his theory of Core System solving the problem of energy.
Okay some nuance is added here, Otherworld King appeared to be frustrated between the small amount of advancement in the 500-600 or so years between the Age of Discovery (a span of time between the 15th and 17th centuries) and the Modern Age (2010).
But it’s clear this was the motivation he used to determine the Fixer’s existence, and his subsequent control over them.
After all, many of The Fixer’s methods of manipulation is the control of Human energy, Core energy is sadly infinite and even a single rock can do plenty, wiping out The Fixer’s ability to control it. Not to mention they couldn’t challenge Otherworld King directly anyway.
That’s all that’s stated on him, but now I suppose we move on… To the story of Haga.
And no, not Insector Haga, we don’t even have an image for this guy.
The Story of Haga
Note, this story takes place after everyone had already given up on The Fixer.
He was a freelance reporter who visited Dan and Yuuki. He claimed that one of his colleagues, who had been investigating the Core System, was arrested in accusation of selling drugs overseas. In order to write a book on the incidents around the Otherworld King, he interviewed Dan and the others who knew about the Core System and tried to bring down the Fixer. Through the internet, Kenzou and Mai found that Haga had been working under a big news report company, and after quitting his job, he had been writing eagerly writing articles, hence confirming his validity.
It appears that “Haga” was a reporter who showed up, wanting to gain aid from the Light Bearers as his own allies were arrested on false charges when trying to investigate the Core System, which the Fixer has put a lethal gag order on.
As Dan and the others had been threatened by the Fixer, they struggled to believe Haga. However, Haga visited them every day, making detailed explanations, and disclosing all his interview records. The Core Bearers were touched by his passion, and decided to work with him.
It seems Haga successfully convinced them to be spurred back into action, in spite of initial suspicion that he might be a Fixer agent, he took great pains to confirm his validity with them.
Haga told them that he knew someone from Kyoto who knew about the Core System, and invited them to come along. However, he was aware that the Fixer was watching them, and told them to take separate transport, only meeting up at the final destination. Dan took the shinkansen, while Yuuki took a flight from Haneda Airport to Osaka International Airport.
For the uninitiated, the Shinkansen is Japan’s fastest bullet train, incredibly well managed, I’ve been told by a tour I was receiving while there that it has an astronomically low accident rate.
In any case, Haga has a friend in Kyoto who knows about the Core System, awfully suspicious, but erring on safety, had Dan and Yuuki take separate transport.
…And here is where things get sad.
Yet Yuuki’s flight failed to land properly, and all 405 passengers in it passed away.
The shinkansen having an accident would be incredibly unusual, and The Fixer wouldn’t be able to explain that one away, however, Yuuki’s flight failing is incredibly foreseeable…
Dan was shocked when he heard about it in Kyoto. Haga told him that Yuuki’s death was no mere accident. He claimed that he had seen a lot of cases where people were eliminated through ‘accidents’.
But more importantly, Haga confirms that Yuuki’s death was very likely orchestrated by The Fixer. Not just Clackey’s Mother, but now an actual Light bearer, the one who didn’t do a thing against them, and the one who very much did not deserve that fate, was killed by The Fixer.
The one who knew about the Core System in Kyoto said that he was frightened and retreated. Haga also said he received warning from the Fixer, and in order to protect his own life, he left Dan.
And even worse, it’s the most direct attempt in which The Fixer has caused a death, once again, using a Sledgehammer to crack a nut, in their aim to kill Yuuki, they also killed 404 innocent people who had nothing to do with any of this. And after getting Dan’s friend killed Haga just bails.
After a while, Mai, who was still investigating, sent Dan an email that although Haga was a reporter, he wasn’t opposing the Fixer. In fact, he had a deep connection with the Fixer, and that from the moment they were contacted by Haga, all the way to the plane crash, was completely scripted.
And the ultimate kicker? Haga was a reporter, and could prove that he was… but he was working for the Fixer, not against them, meaning he completely orchestrated this situation.
He pulled Dan and Yuuki, who had already given up, out of inaction, arranged for them to travel elsewhere, and then killed the one person who had not done a single thing besides taking his flight at Haga’s behest.
Taken from Dan’s exerpts about the incident, there’s more:
Whether Yuuki had died from an accident or an incident was unknown. Dan realised that it was the Fixer’s intention to make him realise the fear of the unknown. It made him remember the Otherworld King. In order to protect those around him, except for continuing to dedicate himself to BS, he had no other choices.
The Fixer killed Yuuki, even after Dan had given up, to send Dan a message about the Unknown, Dan couldn’t live a comfortable life simply by not going after the Fixer, his knowledge of them was crime enough. Dan would forever have to live a life wondering if the next Taxi he’d take had an explosive engine. The next Train having an incompetent conductor and crashing, he couldn’t even leave Japan out of fears the planes and passengers would disappear without a trace.
All Dan could do, is exist, stripped of his ability to fight.
Closure
This is all a rather sad story, and while The Fixer clearly win this fight, Brave will show us something that I’ll be able to comment on regarding this story, that may at least put at ease what feelings you might have concerning this.
I can understand that horrible stories like this one might leave one feeling down, so please, do go do something you enjoy today if you find yourself feeling terrible.
…Actually, why wait for the Episode to do it, I won’t say the cause… However.
Over time, and during the time Brave’s main timeline is set, The Fixer have been destroyed. Entirely because of messing with forces beyond their control.
The Fixer, while not defeatable in battle, were destroyed by things they could not fight physically…
…Things that, despite their superior power, prefer to settle their differences in Battle.
So if nothing else, rejoice in the catharsis in knowing that The Fixer who used their strength rather than battling in a fair fight, lost in a contest of strength, against beings more than willing to engage in a fair fight.
And let the knowledge gained here, inform us in what happens next time, in Battle Spirits Brave.
I’ll see you then.
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