Gekiha Dan – Epilogue Review

Well it’s been a wild ride, shall we close off with a full review?

Battle Spirits Shounen Gekiha Dan is an excellent successor to what was the growing pains of Bashin Toppa.

The Plot

The story of Gekiha Dan, in summary, is just an adventure plot, from the first episode it is Dan, Magisa and Zungurii questing to defeat Otherworld King, a role assigned to Dan by the Red Light that he bears in his heart. They explore a world unknown to Dan and so meet many strange people on the way until eventually it culminates into a climactic battle with the man himself.

The second half is a repeat of the first, with distinct differences I’ll get to when I review characters. But ultimately, the plot itself is not entirely complex, the premise is simple and easy to digest, and a simple plot is a good choice for when you’re trying to accentuate the complexities of the characters and the themes more than the actual story.

Dan goes on an adventure to defeat Otherworld King is a single sentence that comprises the story, which is more than I could say for Bashin Toppa, as the “Story” is very difficult to parse in Toppa and doesn’t take any meaningful form until a point where most viewers may have bowed out from it.

After all, Toppa’s premise is similar, “Bashin Toppa must defeat King Uchuuchouten”… But Bashin doesn’t even know who he is until roughly a quarter of the way through the series. And they open with that line from Episode 2.

In any case, the plot of Gekiha Dan is simplistic… but it knows what it is trying to be, and doesn’t try to be anything other than what it is, which makes the story flow nicely.

The Characters

Here I’ll go over some important to note characters individually:

Bashin Dan – The Hero

Bashin Dan, the successor both to Toppa’s name and role, is the Hero of the series. While we see Toppa develop incredibly inconsistently over the course of his own series, Dan’s arc isn’t actually intended to be one of development as his values aren’t wrong they’re just incomplete.

Dan goes over the course of the series wielding his power to defeat Otherworld King in the name of the Otherworlders, but over the first half he’s consistently met with strange people who oppose him for stranger reasons. Otherworlders content and loyal with Otherworld King’s rule, a Light Bearer like him who’s actively assisting Otherworld King instead of the role he should be taking to defeat him. A former Red Soldier who gave up his mission believing it to be impossible. Humans who see no other alternative than to follow through with Otherworld King’s plans as their own future is an uninhabitable mess.

Even Otherworld King starts to make statements that cause Dan to doubt his previously pure convictions and causes him to give up battling when he’s been defeated, his heart too badly damaged to deal with Otherworld King in the manner he is meant to be dealt with.

Eventually however, Dan does the equivalent of putting pen-to-paper, his “Development” is merely putting reason to his motivations and not just instinct, as it is the combination of both instinct and reason that can make actions powerful.

Dan returns to his usual goal, defeating Otherworld King, but he’s now properly evaluated what it means to do so, and his already strong conviction is strengthened by it.

He’s not a Flat character by any means, he’s forced to reconcile with strangeness all the time over the series, but his growth involves just being able to put what he feels is wrong about something int words and conveying it.

Clackey Ray – The Substitute

Clackey on the other hand, is a Flat foil to Dan, he has no developments that are required of him, as his journey is meant to mirror Dan’s beginning, that being the refusal of the call phase of the Hero’s Journey.

Like Dan does at the beginning of the series, Clackey refuses to join the quest to battle Otherworld King, on the grounds that he must protect the Mimi Tribe personally… And because he’s different to Dan.

But, enraptured by Dan being like himself at the time, convicted and flat, he finds himself coming along anyway.

His development kind of just starts and ends there until Kajitsu, which is then resolved in a single episode, his role in the series is actually quite sad, since he’s an incredibly under-utilized character who’s only development is, like Dan, doing what he was always going to and defend women.

However, the reason this doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb is because, once again, the writers knew what they were doing with the character, Clackey acts as a substitute when nothing creative can come as a result of Dan doing yet another battle, and so Clackey offers a method of having a Yellow deck take the spotlight for an episode, it lets the writers vary what’s going on instead of “Siegwurm go brrr”

Viole Mai – The Girl

While I can accept that this may not have been the intention, never attribute to malice what is adequately explained by incompetence after all, Mai’s role in the 6 bearers is being the Girl.

While Kajitsu is initially displayed as bearing the Green light, she’s then relegated to bearing Mother Core instead, while this was potentially always the plan, Bearing Mother Core is distinctly different from the mission of being a Lightbearer, as upon this reveal Kajitsu does not battle.

This relegates Mai as being the sole female, though with Magisa and Kajitsu in the group, this is diminished somewhat.

As for her actual character, I’m not gonna lie, I fucking hate her.

She is my 2nd Least liked Character in the series, I can get behind that she is a popular person, values her independance, and likes to use Battle Spirits as a way to display her style, to “dye the field her colour”, but jesus christ it makes her obtuse at the best of times and actively a hindrance at the worst of times.

Expressing one’s independance is an important thing for some people, I get that, but if you’re being a nuisance, you’re annoying another person, that’s not very independent is it?

She’ll make it up to me later, as she becomes a much better character.

Yuuki Momose – The Rival
&
Kajitsu Momose – The McGuffin

It’s damn near impossible to talk about the Momose siblings independantly of each other because so much of their dynamic is defined by the other’s presence, this is what makes Kajitsu’s death so significant, because even the viewers don’t know what Yuuki is supposed to do when every single breath he’s taken has been in the service of Kajitsu.

They do however, have 2 different roles, Yuuki is the Rival, he is a semi-antagonistic force that complicates Dan’s quest to defeat Otherworld King. The reason for this becomes clear later in that Yuuki was attempting to use Otherworld King before later defeating him.

As a result, Yuuki who’s been at this longer, gets first stab at the man, and loses, due to being pained by Otherworld King cutting Yuuki off from his other half, it’s entirely possible that were Kajitsu alive to centre Yuuki’s thoughts, Yuuki may actually have succeeded.

The pair are rather tragic, being 2 near-newlyweds being deprived of live right before the moment their marriage was sanctioned, and as a result are cursed to reincarnate under circumstances that disallow them to get their love requited. In their past lives they could not live a married life because they were killed on their wedding day, in this life, they cannot live a married life because they have been born as Human Siblings who cannot and should not be married under normal circumstances.

I like Yuuki, he doesn’t seem to overstay his welcome, and he questions his own motives once he’s been pushed into a situation where he realizes his harming someone he cares about.

Kajitsu on the other hand is.. bothersome, she’s a Human McGuffin, an item of some untold power that’s been given legs and can walk and talk, Kajitsu’s purpose for this is to accentuate 2 things as she currently holds the McGuffin that is Mother Core.

Firstly, that Otherworld King wants it, and Secondly, that it is actively detrimental to have.

I just don’t have any opinions on her as a character, because she’s a function first, and a character second.

As for Yuuki’s relationship to Dan, they have an excellent Rivalry, Yuuki starts from a position of superiority and from there Dan catches up so quickly that by the time they square off again they’re on equal ground, it’s nice, and does what it needs to do.

Suzuri Hideto – The Contrast

Suzuri Hideto, the Blue Soldier, acts as a contrast from the other Light Bearers and his role serves to highlight that.

Dan fights for those he cares about
Clackey fights for those he finds attractive.
Mai fights for those watching.
Yuuki & Kajitsu fight for each other.
Kenzo fights because he’s good at it.

Suzuri on the other hand is the only person among this lot who fights purely because it benefits him. White is the opposite of Red narratively in BS, so Yuuki fights for similar reasons on opposite sides to Dan, but if I ask what the opposite of Red is colour wise, most will answer “Blue”

And so Suzuri is meant to be a different kind of Mirror, he fights for completely opposite reasons to Dan, fighting for no one other than himself.

That aside, Suzuri never feels like he overstays his welcome, he doesn’t steal every scene he’s in but he also doesn’t stand out like a sore thumb. And more importantly, his card collector status also functions to give an in-character excuse to have him constantly throw out what could be an optimized deck.

For this reason, I love Suzuri, I think while he isn’t necessary for the story other than the need for 6 characters for each colour, he serves a unique function that no one else does. His difference in contrast to Dan is also why in Episode 30, they pit Yuuki against Suzuri, because they both are opposites to Dan in different ways.

Hyoudo Kenzo – The Quota

Hyoudo Kenzo is a bit of an awkward situation because his development both starts and ends from his time as an antagonistic force.

So, against Otherworld King is the Red, Purple, and Yellow Lightbearers, and it’s clear that Yuuki serves Otherworld King, and Suzuri, by extension of being appeased by Brustom giving him gifts, and Brustom working for Otherworld King, Suzuri is also against the trio.

So it makes sense that, firstly, the reveal that Kajitsu only bears the Green Light because she bears ALL light necessitates the question of “Well who REALLY is the Green Soldier”

But also to make the numbers match, to have that Soldier be an Antagonistic force.

This makes Kenzo’s introduction absolutely excellent… It’s just everything that surrounds him crumbles after that.

His introductory fight showing him as a genius battler has him battle a possessed Suzuri, when Genius battler vs Genius deck builder should have truly been an excellent first battle. I understand that Suzuri’s disdain over being possessed provided motivation for him to be in the right place and the right time but it squanders Kenzo’s introduction.

Secondly, once he’s defeated, his character arc just kind of ends, he’s used as a facilitator to explain card effects and such but Clackey was already doing that. And then does nothing significant for the rest of the series other than losing to Leon twice.

Trust me, there is absolutely zero function Kenzo serves beyond his defeat that could not be served by a different character, which makes Kenzo stick out like a sore thumb because of the stupid running gag of Magisa pronouncing his name wrong.

Ultimately, it’s clear that Kenzo existed to fill a quota, they needed another Green Battler to make up for Kajitsu’s reveal and it’s obviously a last minute inclusion beyond then to include him in all of the events that require all 6 of them.

Absolutely a waste.

Magisa – The Wizard
&
Zungurii – The Noob

Zungurii and Magisa need to be dealt with together, as they are met around the same time and ultimately serve similar functions.

The two exist as guides to Otherworld, and they convey information to us by being reasonable characters to allow information to be spoken.

Zungurii is a child in a world he already lived in, which means that Zungurii will ultimately ask all of the questions about stuff he doesn’t know, namely about Battle Spirits, and of course is the voice for the Otherworlders in any given situation that has anything to do with them. This gives us insights about how the Otherworlders might feel because he’s too young to keep the big thoughts to himself. When Zungurii voices irritation about Humans, its clear that he’s speaking for all Otherworlders, his development is also a mirror to the possibilities that Humans can co-exist with Otherworlders, just not easily.

Magisa exists as a foil to this, she answers the questions Zungurii asks about the game (initially), and answers questions Dan might have about Otherworld, she functions as the guide not only for Dan but also for us to help build the world.

As a result, once Magisa has completed her function, given that the Light Bearers ended up on earth after Otherworld King brought them back, Magisa doesn’t have a function to perform because she can’t guide them. So instead there’s a small subplot about her getting her powers back, something she’s said were quite powerful across the whole series, only to show them off against Leon for one battle. After that, she’s used as the “answer” to the problem posed by Mother Core because she is of similar power to Otherworld King himself.

It’s an excellent way to finish her off as a character.

Otherworld King – The Shadow

And finally, the last of the important characters I haven’t given my thoughts about at the end of their run, Otherworld King.

So, as you might have noticed, I mentioned right at the beginning that this guy is my favourite Battle Spirits villain. This is true, but what you might have also noticed, conversely, that later into the show, I start getting increasingly irritated with him.

This is because the character very clearly speaks in a profound manner and acts in accordance with his goals, which could create a type complex villain who is very clearly doing harm, and doing so for a good reason, but is callously disregarding the damage he’s doing rather than not realizing it, or claiming it’s justified.

The thing is the Light Bearers are right to oppose him on principal, Humans have no business forcing things like unison on Otherworlders even if it would benefit them, but naturally the Otherworlders’ lack of understanding of the Light that sustains them complicates the process as Humans evidently have control over whether or not Grand-Lolo thrives even if they aren’t together. And Grand-Lolo should have some kind of control over their own sun which they can only do through interaction with Earth.

It’s a piece of minutiae which makes his goals incredibly profound because while he is very clearly using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, and allowing his bias against the “Barbarian” Otherworlders and the “Immature” Humans to control his actions, it’s hard to disagree with his goal unless you’re Pro-Separation, which Dan was.

It turned Grand-Lolo’s situation into one of politics and that made it interesting. Otherworld King actively is presented as, introduced as, and even seems for a large portion of time, to be reasonable, but also dangerously callous. You almost think if you could make an impasse with the guy he could even be a somewhat cool and incredibly wise ally against an even Greater Evil.

And then this happens.

I’m sure that the writers probably figured it would be more interesting to clearly highlight Otherworld King’s deeper evils, he has a disdain towards Humans that makes him unwilling to act in their benefit even though less than 5 minutes before in the same god damn episode he had just made a deal with The Fixer to provide the Core System as long as they enforce his rule.

And then he just goes “Nope, I don’t like it, Humans can fuck right off”

And becomes a raging madman who decided “Fuck the Fixers I want to hurt the Humans”

They spent so long building up this supposed glorious saint of a villain, who you feel like you could grab a drink with, who in spite of their choices and methods you could probably trust to do right by him.

And they made him a monster, and the only discernable Watsonian reason I can fathom is “Because he was always a monster”

Are you telling me the only motivation to become so old and wise and persist for so long is something as petty as hatred? That the only reason I’d ever get that far is because I was spurred on by despair?

You could say “well Magisa’s the counterpart” but Magisa lived a long life simply because she hadn’t died yet, Otherworlders live insanely long lives, Otherworld King had a reign of at least 2000 years, something he was only able to achieve via Magic.

He doesn’t lose any intelligence, he’s clearly not stupid, his methods don’t change in their cold callousness and how they inconvenience others… But his motivations for me seem to change completely and I could never tell you what the jumping off point was other than he just felt dissatisfied randomly. This is even lampshaded in some areas of the canon where it’s stated that Otherworld King simply “changed his mind” at some point and went off the deep end.

Imagine an alteration to this ending.

• Otherworld King gets to Episode 44 but doesn’t show an interest in having the Humans kneel.
• Otherworld King still goes to find Kajitsu, and humbly requests Mother Core, Kajitsu, not wanting Otherworld King to complete his plan, refuses, and Otherworld King regretfully takes it forcefully, resulting in Kajitsu’s death and Yuuki’s rage as normal.
• Otherworld King, now in a position to fully monitor Mother Core, absorbs its power to establish his position.
• Trouble in Paradise, Otherworld King’s history and impure soul blackens Mother Core, Mother Core proves to Otherworld King that his goals are not pure and are officially unrealizeable with him alive. But Otherworld King must ascertain that his evolved state is possible for someone other than just him before he dares relinquish it to a purer soul. This is his God complex acting in a way that doesn’t make him seem unreasonable.
• Undeterred, Otherworld King intends to groom a new, purer vessel for Mother Core, he eventually decides the only 2 candidates are Yuuki, who can sacrifice his symbol to revive Kajitsu and then receive Mother Core, and Dan, who challenged him before and survived defeat.
• Otherworld King decides he won’t give Mother Core to anyone if the Humans can’t prove they can evolve like he does, for that, a Human would need to defeat him.
• Yuuki battles Otherworld King and his rage causes him to lose.
• Otherworld King then informs Dan right before the final battle that should Dan win, he will receive Mother Core and become Otherworld King, something Dan doesn’t want, he also informs Dan that should he lose, all the youth he gained in battle would disappear immediately as it’s shown to do, meaning that Otherworld King will die for Dan’s goal.
• Dan now has to follow Otherworld King’s example, showing how similar he is to him, by sacrificing Otherworld King in order to save the world.
• Show resumes as normal, Magisa saves Dan from Mother Core by taking it into herself, and the show ends as normal, Otherworld King gets a “win” by proving he and Dan are not so different as they think, and recognizing Dan’s “Evolution”, and he doesn’t seem like a raging madman nor lose his reasonability OR callousness
• This follows into the fact that Dan is consistently compared to Otherworld King in Brave.

It’s just so… Come on!

ugh, sorry, it’s clear I’m probably getting irritated because my image of Otherworld King in my head doesn’t line up with the reality of his character. It can just be so frustrating when that occurs.

My only other gripes with Otherworld King is something I have an issue with involving other characters who supposedly specialize in all colours, Otherworld King is an all colour specialist, but is only shown playing Red, they attempt to rectify this with his new build containing various colours everywhere but ultimately it’s just a Red and Green deck with some off colour Cost 4s. This happens I think twice in the entire Battle Spirits anime, and Otherworld King is the first one to run into it. The second is a Purple player in Battle Spirits Heroes.

Anyway, I’ll get off the Ikaiyo train now, sorry.

The Battles

The battles from here on are consistent, adhere to the rules, don’t try to jump turns unnecessarily, its a big difference from Toppa and I’m really glad they keep to it for the rest of the anime’s runs.

The only time it gets particularly egregious after is an OVA which is, well, an OVA, so it’s not really a fully fledged anime like this one is.

The decks, while not completely optimized, adhere to the knowledge of the meta at the time, with Victory Fire being a big problem and even having entire episodes centred on planning around the darn thing, many older X-Rares take center stage in their own episodes and the decks that are shown are varied and incredibly creative.

Decisions seem to make sense under scrutiny, it’s all good.

From now on however, I will talk about Battle quality not in terms of accuracy but in terms of flow, because different series have different flows. And accuracy is WELL kept from here on. Something I’m happy we’re well passed.

Final Notes

Anyway, without further ado, those are my final thoughts on Battle Spirits Shounen Gekiha Dan, next up for me is to move on to Battle Spirits Brave, but before I do that, I will be reviewing a small side story that that takes place between this series and Brave.

This is the story of “The Fixer”, which will be covered in the next post.

The reason I would like to do this, is “The Fixer” story is ambiguous and it’s really hard to infer what happened between now and Brave that made Dan and his friends feel so bitter, I want to examine Brave under the lens of having known that story, something first-time viewers wouldn’t have been able to do.

Ultimately though, Gekiha Dan is in a unique place in my heart, mostly because while it isn’t my favourite Battle Spirits series, it is the precursor to my favourite Battle Spirits series in Brave and holds my favourite Battle Spirits villain in Otherworld King. There are so many things that I like about it and yet my preference for other things is very clearly apparent. But it does an excellent job of setting up what the formula is for the rest of the series because it very clearly worked. It was like a 2nd 1st attempt.

Either way, I think I’ve said all I can think about talking about, so I think it’s time to go, much like Magisa, this is farewell, but only until next time. I’ll see you all in the next one.