Back on my bullshit I go, last time we had the official introduction of Clackey Ray, along with his Deck and Playstyle, that being a deck focused on the ‘Light’ Keyword.

Now Team Dan are cool with the Mimi Tribe now, so onward with the story.

The title of this episode is “Deathmatch! The HellFighter Balam’s Fierce Attack!”

Which means we’re going to definitely see 3 things this episode, the Deathmatch Group, A card by the name of The HellFighter Balam, and Purple.

Ah, we’re continuing almost directly from where we left off, the festival being thrown for Team Dan.

“It’s just like Sushi”

I assume the Mimi Tribe have a completely different name for a similar food item for Sushi because that’s how language works but I’m sure even if its using Otherworld Fish, its basically Sushi.

Also if you’re questioning the realism of a completely separate race of humanoid-like people finding a recipe very similar to humans: There is actually a theory that suggests that could happen, I think its called the “Similar Solutions” theory, which is the theory that extraterrestrial life, in their quest for evolution, will find similar solutions to Humans, and therefore Aliens if they exist, will be humanoid, and look very similar, if not indistinguishable from people.

God dammit, now I want Sushi.

Also I’m not sure how I feel about Luphia calling Dan and Zungurii by the “-Sama” honorific.

And of course with popularity comes admirers who jump for their affections.

I’m still not ready to talk about the implications of humans dating non-humans, but I assume the more progressive stance is “If they can communicate in a language the other understands and there’s a non-vague declaration of consent then its probably okay”

Your first thought at this might be “Dan is bad with women”

My first thought on the other hand was “Dan is pleased, but knows he isn’t interested in a relationship right now”

Dan is a responsible 12 year old.

Be more like Dan, Kids.

That Sake plate is bigger than Magisa’s head.

Be less like Magisa, Adults.

Drunk Magisa is inherently confrontational it seems, deciding to confront Sophia about the fact that the Deathmatch Group, while Dan and Zungurii’s counterparts are arguably similar, Magisa’s looks nothing like her.

Here’s the thing, the Mimi Tribe are evidently Cats that have gained Humanoid Traits (And we know they’re not Humanoids who gained Cat traits because that’s actually brought up later)

And Cats, while having greater peripheral vision and exceptional night vision, lack precision in their eyesight, what that means is, they can see wider, and can see in the dark, but what they DO see is less defined, or blurry.

So its likely so long as they vaguely resemble the cast (which they evidently do, in the smallest capacity), the Mimi Tribe would have a hard time telling the difference.

I WOULD take this up with Clackey, who unfortunately does not have this problem and therefore has 0 excuse.

Well, we have an interesting detail on what the Deathmatch Group do, they’re basically Card Game variants of Raiders. They Raid villages, attack the residents, and take anything valuable.

I initially thought the specific words for this would be “Highwaymen” but Highwaymen didn’t attack stationary villages, they attacked carriages.

Reminds me of a really good old song, “Stand & Deliver”

Magisa suggests the Mimi Village’s fear is due to them KNOWING they have something rare that a bunch of bandits would like to steal.

And there it is, the Super Rare Card “Guarding” the Mimi Village, is the Strongest X-Rare, The final hurdle of the previous series: The Deity Catastrophedragon.

Dan hears “Catastrophedragon” and goes completely nuts.

Dan very childishly asks to see the super important card precious to the village and acts as a historical protector, and of course Sophia says Dan is allowed literally anything else.

Sophia details that even she hasn’t even glimpsed at it, Shrine Maidens of Mimi Village do not make use of Catastrophedragon except in very specific circumstances, the rest of the time they just need to ensure it is protected.

To even touch it would be unforgiveable to the Shrine Maidens.

Dan of course has a bajillion more brain cells than our previous protagonist, immediately going “Alright, I get it, its special and so you’ve got traditions, I respect that shit SO much I’m going to help you out.”

Immediately goes from being a muppet to correcting himself and offering to help, what a good kid.

Clackey Ray on the other hand, does not like the idea of letting Dan help.

There is no reason anyone would deny help when offered unless it’s either evidently bad faith (which this isn’t), or the denier is bitter.

Clackey goes on to state that he quite literally has a hundred things he’d rather be doing than fighting the Deathmatch Group alongside Dan of all people.

Our tiny little yes-man Zungurii perceptively indicates that Clackey is being bitter about losing to Dan, and is being difficult as a form of revenge.

Clackey then proceeds to, with the worst pronunciation of “Baby” I’ve ever heard, apologize to Sophia while stating that there isn’t a need for 2 bodyguards to guard the village, suggesting he’s capable of protecting it by himself.

Dan protests this line of thought (Because it’s dumb), 2 High Rankers are evidently better than one for the purposes of protecting a village from Card Battling Thieves.

Clackey immediately re-declares the reason why he lost, stating he lost his last life because he chose not to block over Sophia getting destroyed. The fact that Clackey could have had another turn (With his empty ass hand in a Deck full of Magic) is apparently his evidence for Dan’s strength being false in some way.

The fact that Dan had you in that situation in the first place says more about his strength than the fact that he won, Clackey.

I mean you were defending a village from potential robbers staking the treasures of the village on the outcome of a game, I am not certain at all that the match was intended to be fun whatsoever.

This however is played off really seriously with a whole sound cue of Dan going “Wait, he DIDN’T ENJOY THE BATTLE?”

Clackey then goes on a bit of a tirade about how Games are “Supposed to be Fun” and that his lack of desire to fight alongside Dan is somewhat tied to the fact that battling Dan didn’t seem “Fun” so battling alongside him will be equally so.

And then drops a whole “I feel bad for the spirits in your deck.” Which is a suggestion that Dan’s way of battling shows no care for his Spirits.

Which is, you know, completely wrong, Dan specifically uses a Battle Style that defends his Spirits on the board using his own lives until such time he’s the one who needs protecting.

Though then again Clackey absolutely refuses to see Sophia get destroyed even if it’s HIM that needs protecting, but is more than happy to sacrifice anything else, Favouritism at it’s finest.

Dan angrily declares that he still believes Clackey enjoys the game and is simply sulking because he’s a sore loser.

This would probably be a good time to discuss Card Game mentalities,

The Cards used in the show of course, are designed to promote new stuff and therefore doesn’t take into account the Meta relevance of particular decks when characters use them, it does however listen to specific choices players make frequently and will happily adopt them which is what makes the show’s games so compelling.

Aside from this, and unlike Yu-Gi-Oh! And perhaps, Vanguard, Battle Spirits doesn’t try to excessively “Uniqueify” certain cards or decks, Clackey’s Iberix-Sophia Combo was something Dan was already aware of, likely because he’d seen it before, while being relatively surprised enough that Clackey used it, indicating that the person he saw use it wasn’t Clackey.

The reason why Battle Spirits does these things differently is because the message of “Use the cards you like” and “Every card has a use” is routinely unhelpful at making a player better at the game. Clackey embodies this above mindset but in a way that is handled appropriately, in that he uses cards because he likes them (e.g. Sophia is a beautiful Spirit), but does so in a way that is a tried and true strategy (The “Popular” Iberix-Sophia Combo)

We see examples of this in Toppa as well, the first thing Bashin tries to do is claim to see the value in Gowsilvia, placing them into his deck even though his Deck isn’t capable of properly supporting them, the Gowsilvias then caused him to lose because he was il-equipped to wield them even though he wanted to.

This is a long drag to my point but bear with me, to speed things up a bit, this means the show of Battle Spirits is fully aware of the problems with those sentiments and desires to promote helpful competitive mindsets. And it’s doing this now by showcasing a bad one.

When a person loses at a game that is competitive in nature, there is only one thing you can do, observe what went wrong with the game, and improve your deck for next time so you have a better chance of winning. Unfortunately what a lot of sore losers like to do is immediately presume that they had made all the best decisions they could have made under that circumstance, asserting that because they didn’t make any mistakes, there was nothing to improve upon, and therefore something else must be the problem.

Except this usually involves either the goal posts being extremely strict on what they could have made a mistake on (E.g., no mistakes in play but perhaps a mistake in deckbuilding), Actively asserting a mistake as not a mistake by justifying the decision (just because an option has a reason to be taken doesn’t make it the best option), OR it ignores all of that by asserting some other base value is incorrect.

Like the opponent isn’t playing in a way that is honourable, or something else is fundamentally wrong about the game, or basically any number of changes that could have been made which would have put the losing player in a better position than they were in.

These are all summarised in something widely popular in Fighting Games but are applicable to anything popular: I give to you, the Scrublord’s Prayer.

For reference, ensuring your controls work is the responsibility of the player, much like ensuring the consistency of your deck is the responsibility of the player, hence the exchange there. If you’re drawing bad hands often, then perhaps its the consistency of your deck that’s the problem, not your luck.

All’s fair in love and war, play within the rules of the game is by default: Honourable play, Yu-Gi-Oh! and Vanguard fall into this trap, you’ll see it in strange ways.

A strong example in Vanguard is in Season 1 when Protagonist Aichi starts becoming a bit overconfident due to the power of PsyQualia, an ability that has the voices of the cards tell Aichi what the best plays to use are, as well as showing him how he will win before the game starts.

Now, evidently the problem is the use of the power itself and not the cards being used with it, but when Antagonist Ren recommends a Shadow Paladin deck to Aichi everyone begins immediately scolding Aichi for choosing to use Shadow Paladins because it’s inadvertedly meant he’s discarded his previous favourite card: “Blaster Blade” for a stronger deck. Which in a competitive setting is an entirely normal practice.

The result is that Vanguard has a really weird set of Clan purists, who effectively don’t play the game unless the meta has taken a shape where their respective clans are good. And you can’t say that’s absent the influence of the show because the show outright directly encourages it.

Even worse is the second season where Aichi spends the whole thing stressing about not having his main clan, eventually goes “you know what these guys are fine” and then the whole thing is rendered irrelevant because all of his old cards become the new Clan anyway so he gets to have his cake and eat it too.

Vanguard does REALLY cool things with it’s cards, I love it to bits, but the message it sends to players are not particularly healthy ones.

Anyway, I’ve droned on about this long enough, onward.

Clackey passing by Magisa’s Staff triggers a strange reaction causing it to glow Yellow, given it glowed Red when it passed over Dan, this would suggest that Clackey is in fact the Yellow Core’s Lightbearer.

Clackey goes to do bodyguard duty, retreating to a Watchtower, where he’s apparently… uh… roleplaying romance with his cards.

The sheer levels of cringe this scene brings me is immense.

And it’s only going to get worse.

Magisa of course, finds this completely hilarious.

Clackey of course, screams in embarrassment, since Magisa has basically walked in on him doing something awfully private.

Magisa of course tells him to carry on to try and re-assure him which isn’t helpful.

Passed High School age, you should never walk into your child’s room unannounced unless you believe they are in danger.

Magisa questions Clackey on why he “Purposefully lost to Dan”

Again its entirely possible he would have lost anyway.

You would have needed to draw a Spirit in a Deck we know for a fact is bumping tons of Magic. Your hand was EMPTY.

But yes, tell me again how you would have totally 100% won against Dan if you just blocked.

Clackey actually gives a slightly more healthy reason where if he doesn’t win in a way he wishes to win then there’s no meaning to that victory in the first place.

It’s still a shit reason, competitive games don’t care about the meaning of victory. Just the victory itself.

Magisa concludes that Clackey’s weird choice of playstyle is because he’s trying to be kind to his cards, which explains the previous statement of “I feel sorry for the spirits in your deck” earlier. (Even though Dan is kind to his cards in the exact same way, just not to the extent of which he’s willing to give up everything to do it)

Now things are going to err on the creepy side, Magisa says there’s Magic to make a more “Interesting battle”

They’re talking in terms of cards of course, Clackey could very well include Magic that allows him to protect Sophia AND himself.

But uh, their faces suggest something else which is very weird when you consider that Clackey’s a 12-year old kid.

…Wait hold on a sec lemme-

Ah, alright, Clackey’s actually 15 years old at the present time. So he’s evidently going through puberty hence his higher focus on Girls while Dan is less interested.

But he’s still not of-age there is no reason this scene should look like the 4029 year old Magisa is propositioning a 15 year old.

Clackey tries to deny Magisa by suggesting he’s got nothing to give back, at least, that’s what the Metaphor of a “Penniless Visitor” would suggest.

Magisa then puts her Snake boot on Clackey’s head, pins him to the fence and says the equivalent of “I don’t give a shit”

Can we NOT be doing this right now? This looks very uncomfortable and I have no idea what this scene is meant to be a metaphor for.

This was of course, all a ploy to get Magisa’s staff close enough to Clackey to confirm his status as The Yellow Soldier.

Clackey seems surprised at this choice of statement, which indicates he was unaware that he was special in any way.

We skip to the next day of course (thank fuck, that was getting strange), and the Deathmatch Group comes down for REALZIES.

There’s uh… Significantly more of them than one would expect… And way more than is on the poster.

Again, HOW did Dan, Zungurii and Magisa get confused for these guys? They weren’t even riding Bikes!

This guy who appears to be the leader stands up on his own bike and uh… Straightens his oversized pompadour.

If I had a pompadour that big I’d get satisfaction from straightening that shit as well.

But thankfully, I don’t have one, nor do I want one.

Until their names are introduced, I’ll refer to them by their counterparts, currently announcing is Deathmatch-Zungurii, passing over the Speaker to the group leader, who’s named Jin.

This Speech is indicative of uh… “Dark Lord Jin’s” personality. Firstly, he’s got a rather Grandiose sense of himself.

He’s particularly lazy.

And a possible symptom of that laziness, he’s incredibly forgetful.

Dan and Clackey finally announce their presence.

This of course, doesn’t go particularly well as both Clackey and Dan are still at each other’s throats, Clackey wants Dan to step aside.

While Dan feels the need to continue protesting that it doesn’t matter who deals with the group.

Dan, if that’s the case then let him proceed.

Magisa, evidently done with their shit, flings them straight off the Watchtower.

Zungurii’s fucking FACE is priceless.

You’ll notice the animation has gotten incredibly cartoony, it appears this sequence may have had a different member of staff directing it? But it’s fine for this moment anyway because it’s being played for comedy.

Dan introduces himself and declares the stakes, stating that if he wins, the Deathmatch Group will give up on the X-Rare and promise not to return to Mimi Village.

Well who’s THIS recognizeable pretty boy?

I’m kidding, we all know who this is by his shirt and his blue hair, even if his face is obscured, it’s Suzuri Hideto from the opening.

He appears to be playing the part of the Deathmatch Group’s tactician, alerting Dark Lord Jin to the fact that Dan is a High Ranker.

Jin, despite seeming Human, has never heard of Dan apparently.

So Suzuri fills in Jin that the reason Dan got his name was thanks to, and hold your butts for this, SPECIFICALLY Siegwurm’s Clash effect.

This indicates that Dan likely lacks any other Spirits that hold Clash, instead relying purely on Siegwurm’s Clash that it has along with the Clash it can grant to other Spirits. This is good insight.

Deathmatch-Zungurii (Apparently named “Chuu” by Jin) runs over to Suzuri with what appears to be a full on Deck Folder.

Given Suzuri’s knowledge of Dan and the number of decks available, Suzuri is likely assisting Jin by offering him Decks that are strong against those he’s aware of.

I have no idea what it is, but I REALLY like Dark Lord Jin, he’s a complete insufferable asshole but I dunno, I guess I might have a thing for Punk-types.

I do really like Bikers so.

Anyway, Jin asks Dan what he’ll do in the event Jin wins.

Dan refuses to answer, because he doesn’t plan to lose.

I understand that for translation’s sake, “Dark Lord” makes more sense than “Dark King” but the parallel between Jin being Dan’s “Deathmatch” counterpart is lost unless you’re aware that Jin’s title is read as “Mei-Ou” and Dan’s is “Gekitotsu-Ou”

The general idea is that Jin is meant to represent an Evil Dan of some sorts, even if it’s not meant to be particularly plot relevant, so I just feel that “The Clash King vs The Dark King” represents that a lot more.

But you know, minor nitpicks, Battle Spirits is not easy to get subs for, so I will appreciate the ones I have.

Jin seems rather excited to take on another person with the title of “King”

To the battlefield we go! Gate Open! Release!

Jin’s Battle Form is, much like his Biking Gear, full of Spikes.

Dan tells Clackey to watch him, given that they’re still having disagreements and Dan isn’t able to convince Clackey with his words, he plans to do so with his cards.

Dan goes to take the first move, entering his Start Step, and then taking a look at his hand.

He’s… Not looking too hot about that draw, something in his hand has made Dan extremely worried.

Dan proceeds to draw a card very nervously.

Indeed, something is very wrong.

Jin’s picked up on Dan’s lack of a Poker face but just wants him to move on with the game.

Aaaaand Dan passes without playing a card.

Jin makes this scene far more hilarious than it is, this is meant to be tragic because Dan’s unable to play a card for reasons we’ll see later but Jin’s whole “…You fuckin’ with me?” response just makes me splutter with laughter

I do like Jin, he’s a very funny character.

Magisa thinks the choice is strange and thinks it might be a bluff.

But Clackey, based on his interactions with Dan, seems to believe that Dan isn’t the type of person who would readily attempt to bluff his opponent.

So, for the sake of this episode, they’ve shown us the 5 cards currently in Dan’s Hand, and boy was it a POOR shuffle.

He’s got THREE Victory Fire’s, and 2 Offensive Auras.

No Draw cards either, this is awful.

…Sort of, Victory Fire is very good early game, the minute Jin over extends he’ll lose his advantage.

Worse though, Jin seems to catch on to the idea that Dan likely has drawn a bad opening hand.

These things happen.

You can load a deck with all the cards you want but there will still be hands you don’t want to get, but Battle Spirits isn’t the type of game where it’s over once you draw a poor hand, you can still fight your way out of a poor situation and get yourself to a better hand, it all depends on how you play it.

Jin can’t believe his luck and has a laughing fit, but then proceeds to his turn.

Unlike what one would expect of a Dark Dan counterpart, this one is playing Purple, opening up with a Skulldevil.

Dark Lord Jin then plays a new card right infront of our eyes, and it’s not a bad one, The HellFighter Balam.

A simple Lv3 Spirit, with respectable BP values, Level requirements and the Curse ability at all levels.

It’s a well rounded and nice-and-easy-to-use Curse card for all Curse Decks at this time from SD01.

Jin, animated as ever, moves to his attack step.

Skulldevil attacks, as Dan has no Spirits, he has to take from the Life.

Clackey then explains with no Spirits, the opponent is free to take from your life at their heart’s content.

Jin continues, attacking with Balam.

Now Dan could counter here using Victory Fire, wiping out both of Jin’s Spirits, he has the Core for it after all.

But Dan chooses not to (I probably would have used Victory Fire there but it’s not the end of the world yet)

and Balam goes full JoJo on Dan’s life.

The animation for this show is so good.

Clackey uses this to call into question Dan’s previous statement, asking if Dan is still “enjoying the battle” despite the stakes, and the circumstances. Dan’s fighting for something important AND he’s drawn a poor hand that prevents him from playing.

With no attackers left, Jin ends his turn.

Our Blue Bishounen is apparently using the commotion of the battle to get a headstart on nabbing the X-Rare before the battle finishes

It’s Dan’s turn, he draws, and his smile suggests he’s got something he can actually play at this point.

But it quickly turns to one of anguish, the shot angle here suggests what the card is after all but he’s never made this face during it.

With an EMPTY BOARD, Dan plays The ThunderEmperorDragon Siegwurm, at Lv1 of course, he doesn’t have nearly enough core to raise it’s Level.

Clackey even shows pity for the spirit.

Both Dan and Clackey know something Magisa and Zungurii don’t.

Dan ends his turn with that.

To which Magisa is once again surprised, because Dan’s go-to move after summoning Siegwurm is to attack immediately and use Clash to reduce the opposing number of Spirits.

Not a valid move here, because all of Jin’s spirits are exhausted, and none would get wrapped up in Clash.

Alright let’s talk about what’s going on here, Dan’s hand is complete cheeks, that much is obvious, he got dropped 2 lives earlier because Jin picked up on it, so Jin is naturally going to take a very aggressive stance believing Dan isn’t capable of countering, if Dan attacked with Siegwurm, he’d be giving Jin core AND Jin would only need 1 spirit to finish Dan off in a situation where Dan can’t actually do anything.

The thing is, I disagree with Dan not using Victory Fire earlier, Jin would have had to end his turn, he’d be a Core short for Siegwurm sure but Jin would have a high bar to clear 4 lives and Dan has 2 more Victory Fires.

Instead, Dan ate the attacks, and played a Siegwurm with only 1 Core, now Jin straight up wins if he plays 2 more spirits because Dan does not have a counter, and now lacks the core to play Victory Fire in any capacity on Jin’s turn.

This was a very… unneeded update on Suzuri’s progress toward the Mimi shrine I won’t lie.

Though we do learn that the Mimi Tribe are growing Catnip. That’s a plant with an aroma that triggers a strange endorphin response in Cats, I was gonna be like “LOL THEY’RE GROWIN’ CAT-WEED” but Catnip isn’t a drug, and doesn’t cause a high, just makes them act funny.

Still for the sake of hilarity. LOL, THEY’RE GROWIN’ CAT-WEED

It’s the Dark Lord Jin’s turn.

He raises Skulldevil to Lv2… This seems like a weird choice but it preserves the most core.

He then follows up with “Soul Crash”

I don’t actually remember if we’ve reviewed this card so let’s look at it again

Well this isn’t… particularly useful in this situation, Soul Crash allows you to wipe out every exhausted Spirit if you summon a SevenShogun, but Dan has none of them.

That would suggest Jin is perhaps using the second effect.

Flash effects, unless a timing is specified on the card, can be used on the Main Step even if its a Magic with a Main Step effect, in those scenarios you select which effect to use.

Dan takes a life from Skulldevil’s attack.

Jin then proceeds to call Dan an idiot for not blocking, because Siegwurm was supposed to defend him.

HellFighter Balam is next up.

Dan now chooses to block, under normal circumstances this is the correct play, as Balam has less BP and thus Siegwurm can be preserved.

But this is not a normal circumstance.

Balam has Curse, and therefore Siegwurm won’t be preserved no matter which Spirit he blocks, more importantly however this is STILL the correct play, as Balam won’t be preserved, Curse or not.

Clackey knows Siegwurm is Dan’s favourite card and Key Spirit and begins to become confused as to why Dan chose to block with it.

This basically comes to the core of Dan and Clackey’s differences, Dan is more than willing to take lives but when it comes to defending his last few that’s a Job for his Spirits, while Clackey will not so readily offer up his Spirits to be destroyed even IF it causes him to lose his last life.

Dan once again, begins to talk to his cards as he did in the earlier episodes.

Dan is talking to his cards but it highlights the fundamental difference between him and Clackey, as long as Dan is willing to continue fighting, he won’t lose and therefore his Spirits’ destruction won’t be in vain, the losses still have meaning.

Whereas Clackey feels he can’t fight the second his precious Spirits are put into danger. Which means the battle is effectively over.

Given Clackey’s aversion to Dan and the fact that he’s been such a prick to him you wouldn’t think Clackey’s problem would be straight up pacifism.

Jin, I love you, but shut up, Plot is happening.

Dan interrupts Jin’s taunt by declaring he hasn’t yet lost.

Clackey is now face to face with the situation he couldn’t bear to endure, Dan’s lost his Key Spirit, however he will continue to battle.

Clackey claimed there would be no meaning to a victory that required his Spirits’ destruction, Dan presents an alternative, to make their destruction have meaning, you must obtain victory.

I mean, this has no competitive merit whatsoever, but uh, “Just win” is pretty good advice for when you lose your win-con.

Dan makes his move, drawing and summoning Erimakilizard.

While Dan could raise it to Lv3 its a bit irrelevant to do so here, Jin has no blockers, and Dan needs the Core anyway.

We have a rare post-Bashin fuck up.

Bask in it, we won’t see many of these, anyway despite us seeing the correct Erimakilizard thrown on the board, its become a Goradon on Dan’s swing.

People watched this episode before it aired did you know that? And didn’t catch this.

Dan then follows up, using Victory Fire!

In Battle Spirits, unlike other Card Games, there are very few cards that you cannot use.

Across almost all BS cards, even an out of place high cost Spirit in a deck not designed to reduce it’s Cost, it’s just a matter of time.

Every card in your hand, if unusable now, is just a card you can’t use yet.

Skulldevil gets wiped off the board.

And Jin eats the attack, losing 1 life.

While Zungurii cheers at Dan’s ability to snatch a life from Jin, Clackey isn’t so confident, Erimakilizard is exhausted and Dan’s only spirit. Jin only needs to play 2 Spirits and Dan’s in danger.

Or so he would be, Dan has 4 core in his reserve, he’s got plenty o’ juice left in the tank for another Victory Fire if Jin tries to weenie rush him.

Jin IS at 4 lives though, even if Dan draws another Spirit its gonna be an uphill battle trying to beat Jin.

Jin plays those 2 Spirits, Skulldemon and another HellFighter Balam.

Skulldemon attacks, taking a Life from Dan. And it will be the last time we see Dan do that.

Jin has Dan cornered, and tries to finish him off with Balam.

This wipes out both Balam and Skulldemon, as both have 3000 BP or less.

Victory Fire is a good card, saw a lot of use.

Clackey breaks into joy by Dan’s apparent sheer genius.

Magisa isn’t the “Ara Ara” type, but we do get one singular “Ara” out of her.

Talk about being caught red-handed, or in this case, red-faced.

Also I feel the need to talk about blushing in anime, because a lot of people straight up assume blushing means attraction when it doesn’t.

The reason a lot of blushing occurs in romantic sequences is because of the real-life reasons for blushing: Embarrassment.

If you’ve got a flushed face, its because you’re one of 2 things, Drunk, or Embarrassed, Love doesn’t even factor. The reason it occurs during romantic sequences is because romance is inherently embarrassing for a lot of people. Telling someone you love them deeply and sincerely is a very vulnerable time, obviously you’re going to get flushed.

The reason this shit annoys me is because Shippers like to use blushing faces as evidence of attraction, when it isn’t evidence of shit. To the extent where for example small children in anime blushing immediately makes the author a pedo even though small kids GET VERY EASILY EMBARRASSED.

Anyway, Rant over, onward.

Jin ends his turn and declares Dan won’t beat him, he’s half right, Dan needs to somehow get 3 Spirits from 1 draw and a hand of all Magic, seems impossible right?

I see Clackey’s giving us the ol’ vote of 0 confidence despite being VERY excited about his play earlier.

It didn’t quite occur to me that Clackey was completely unaware of the fact that Dan was the Red Soldier up until now, even though he’d found out he was the Yellow Soldier earlier.

Now whether Clackey likes it or not, he and Dan have something in common that binds them together irrevocably.

Clackey’s not done protesting Dan’s worth yet, deciding ONLY if Dan makes a turnaround in this situation, that he’ll accept Dan as one of the legendary bearers of the Core’s light.

For someone who’s kind to his cards he’s really shitty to people isn’t he?

I’m not sure “That’s not what you said last night” is particularly appropriate…

It appears even though he’s aware of what being a Bearer of the Core’s Light entails, he’s unwilling to bear the burden as that implies battling for more than simple fun.

Doesn’t want to take on the task he’s been assigned because it negates his reason for battling seems like an interesting internal dispute.

STOP

Magisa you are officially banned from making that face around Clackey.

Dan finally moves, using the one card in his deck that can get him to 3 Spirits where he’d usually have none. Extra Draw!

It’s got a nice battle-boost for 2000, but more importantly, it’s a Cost 5 SD01 Red Magic that allows the user to Draw 2 cards, and then reveal the next card, and if it’s a Red Spirit, you can add that card to your hand.

The general idea is Dan needs 3 spirits, so the first 2 cards he draws need to be Spirits, and then he needs to reveal the 3rd card and have THAT be a Red Spirit to acquire the Spirits he needs.

This is quite a powerful draw Magic, balanced by the fact that it’s Cost 5 and only gives you the extra card on a Red Spirit, so while Double Draw and Fourth Draw can be mostly universal, this one almost certainly can’t be used off-colour unless you REALLY need that info about the top card of your deck.

Much like Victory Fire, this card DID see use in Red Decks, just a shame most of those were weenie rush decks.

right off the bat, Dan draws Lizardedge and Erimakilizard, just needs one more.

Because this show was meant for people who didn’t know the cards as well, Clackey gives a brief explanation of Extra Draw’s effect.

Clackey realizes that this can get Dan his turnaround victory, so he’s eagerly waiting to see what the 3rd card is.

Um, I’m not gonna lie I completely forgot he draws that here, I’m as stunned as everyone else is.

The cool thing about not having a perfect memory is that cool moments like this can still hit you in the face on a rewatch if you don’t recall them.

Clackey’s got a real “Wat da fawwwwwwq?!” face.

Ah balls, Jin actually says this right after he says “Im so lucky” earlier in the episode, Dan stole his phrase.

Dan plays the Cost 0 Lizardedge and Erimakilizard in his hand.

Now for one of the coolest sequences ever, the summoning of an X-Rare.

X-Rare summonings tend to have these very cool sequences where the background changes and special effects happen, unlike when he summoned Siegwurm and just lightning appeared, which while still cool was nowhere near as spectacular.

And rather than arriving from behind the Battlefield, Siegfried would rather burst out of the ground in an eruption of flame.

Eat your fucking heart out, Bashin Toppa.

THIS is how you summon a Siegfried.

Dan of course, is pleased to finally make use of the X-Rare Zungurii gave to him.

Dan then suddenly breaks into a lecture about how Jin treats his Spirits.

Eh, I’ll let this one slide, this is more about being kind to the cards rather than a playstyle lecture.

Of course, a lecture about being kind to the cards is going to strike a chord with Clackey.

Jin, being an evil nutcase punk doesn’t really get it.

And one more reason we like Dan more than Bashin, Dan gets enraged far more frequently in a way that is awesome.

Dan throws his Cost 0s at Jin who’s unable to block any of them.

Siegfried, in this show onwards, is animated beautifly and honestly there’s nothing that makes me love the old card better.

Jin’s last life is smashed, the Winner is The Clash King: Bashin Dan.

Quite literally immediately after Jin loses, the Deathmatch group piss off.

It appears that massive beating he took due to his poor hand took the wind out of Dan’s sails.

Dan doesn’t even have the energy to reassure Zungurii that he’s okay.

Clackey catches Dan’s wobbling and applauds him for the game.

Clackey is now no longer locked on the Character Select screen.

The Mimi Tribe, now that the Deathmatch Group have been driven off, return to congratulate Dan on his victory.

Clackey finally accepts Dan completely. You can see the contentment on his face.

And like that, 7 Episodes in, we have our Main Character’s best friend safely secured.

And right before our episode exits, we finally have Suzuri take off his Helmet, revealing his face and the fact that he’s found The Mimi Shrine, and therefore, The Deity Catastrophedragon.

Due to this episode’s airing date indicating some kind of special, we don’t have a Card of the Day which sucks.

What I do have, is plenty of time and Photoshop, I believe now would be a good time to get a look at my mock up of Dan’s Deck.

Now that we’ve seen enough of Dan’s cards, we can compose a deck out of it, we know he’s only got 1 Siegfried, and he gave back Ankillersaurus, hence why they’re missing from the deck.

Offensive Aura, Plateau of Duel and Buster Spear are cards we saw in his hands at certain points, so we know to include them.

Based on this information we can surmise Dan’s deck is definitely centred purely on Siegwurm’s Clash, his only other way of getting a different Spirit of it is through Awaken which we’ve seen him use a lot of support for.

It uses a lot of low cost to get a quick advantage and provide fast reductions for the higher cost plays.

Obviously this deck isn’t going to be good in an sense of the word but I feel it’s an accurate representation of what we see going on with Dan’s deck.

Anyway, thoughts on the episode, it’s good, Clackey has lingering doubts about Dan that wasn’t cleared up in his defeat (and worse, was perhaps enhanced by it), and Dan clears those doubts through an honest battle, leading Clackey to accept Dan, and through Dan, accept himself as the Yellow Soldier.

All the while re-introducing the Curse keyword into the show since Cursed Kazan was unable to make use of it. And finally unveiling Dan’s X-Rare, The DragonEmperor Siegfried, finalizing Dan’s transformation as the successor to Bashin Toppa.

We’ve got a much better albeit similar plot, much better characters, much better animation, and the Main character has a much more concise and sensical deck, with much better battle choreography.

[Brief Intermission for Audible breathing in]

Yep, we’re in the GOOD shows now people! I’ll see you next time for Episode 8! And we can guess who we’ll be seeing play next! Ta-ta!

Been a hot minute hasn’t it? Its taken me a bit longer since I’m trying to do multiple things at once and these things take a bit.

Regardless, I’ll prioritize this next episode for now, since I don’t want this shit to get stale like it did last time.

Plus there’s the new Video Game, Connected Battlers coming out soon, I’m HYPED.

So let’s raise that hype a little with another episode of what is an awesome show, Gekiha Dan.

Our intro isn’t long, merely consists of this Cat Lady getting a Fish.

First we had the tangentially monkey-like beings of the Gurii Tribe characterized by their sideburns, now we have these… Cat-like girls.

We’re off to a start with this Episode Title, it’s naming not one but TWO cards depicted in the title card. Cards which I will detail later.

Dan and Zungurii are wandering through what is apparently a very hot day, you’d think the “Red Land” would be a little hotter than this as a standard.

It also appears Zungurii didn’t pack any water for the occasion, having only brought food.

I’m not the arbiter of survival tactics, but Water is more important than Food, you can go 3 times as long without Food as you can without Water.

Zungurii apparently is able to sniff out water, this isn’t too weird even by normal human standards though, Rivers and such have a distinct smell.

We don’t know much about Grand-Lolo Landscape, but it does have Fish. That doesn’t tell us if the Water is salty though, it could be that Grand-Lolo Water is uniquely saltless (and therefore actually hydrating, Salt Water dehydrates you so it’s not a good long term solution)

If its a River on the other hand it’s usually fine.

Oh, it’s a stream, that kind of renders the entire above shpeal about Water kind of irrelevant.

Of course, Zungurii and Dan are scorched dry so a little bit of Water to refresh them is probably a good idea.

One would think they’d take their clothes off first though, I’m not sure wetting them will make the hot weather any more bearable.

Dan also hops in, because of course he does.

Dan eventually comes face to face with the cat-girl from earlier once he pops his head out of the water.

Apparently something about Dan makes the Cat-Girl cry, so Zungurii comes to see what’s going on.

Our exposition-tool Magisa arrives to save us from this crazy level of confusion.

The Otherworlder Tribe consisting of Cats however, is the “Mimi Tribe”, now I can stop calling them Cat-Girls.

Apparently she hasn’t done much to help because this Mimi Tribe Girl is straight up not having a good day.

Magisa then rationalizes this fear with what appears to be evident projection on her part. Only Magisa would care enough about romance to make that kind of guess.

This is of course, designed to make the peanut gallery spawn a peanut allergy so they STFU.

This can only have disasterous consequences, because she’s probably going to alert the people that reside wherever she came from which means they aren’t going to be welcome wherever that is.

The Mimi Tribe girl was so panicked she forgot her freshly caught fish, and we also see a small WANTED! sign that depits shapes that look NOTHING like our heroes, but interestingly has “Deathmatch-Dan” on the cover which could be confusing if one hears Dan’s name.

Here we cut to a shot of the Mimi Village! It’s actually kind of nice looking, large resovoirs of Water so they’re doing pretty well for themselves.

If this were made this year you can almost bet 100% those Dancers would be dabbing.

The Mimi Tribe girl we saw earlier returns, alerting everyone that she saw “Them”, whoever that is but probably referring to the “Deathmatch-Dan” on the WANTED! poster.

And finally we get some names. Our Orange Cat Girl in Blue Dungarees is “Luphia” which is a nice name if it weren’t attached to a more vigilant person.

This Raven-haired, more measured Mimi Tribe member is “Sophia”, I wonder if that has anything to do with the “Sophia” in the title.

Apparently the Mimi Tribe operate very similarly to normal Cats, even using Foxtails to pacify each other which is a bit strange but alright.

So in Japanese, “Dan” is a suffix that means “Group”, so while the subtitles are correct, Japanese people are treated to a pun because “Deathmatch Dan” sounds like a title, and its possible that in spreading rumors, they’ve been distorted and reached places in strange situations.

Apparently whoever this Deathmatch group is, they’re known for stealing cards.

Cards in Otherworld, are power, and allow people to enforce rules, without them one is powerless.

Based only on context we have so far, Either this “Shrine” is well-fortified, or it contains something they can use in case of emergencies.

I of course, know what it is, but sometimes you have to examine things based on only first-time knowledge to see the value of something.

Sophia is unwilling to leave the village alone, whatever the Shrine might have to deal with this situation.

The Mimi Girls are interrupted by good ol’ Clackey Ray over here, The Noble Youth of Light, who promises to get rid of them.

The Subtitles Say “Master” but the Mimi Tribe say “Sensei”, I understand “Master” can be used interchangeably from Teacher due to “Master” recognizing Skill while “Teacher” recognizes role, but come on.

Clackey Ray shows in this scene 2 things I’m not about to screenshot the lot of. Both of which are character traits.

The first is that he talks a lot and likes to, the second is that he’s a hopeless romantic.

Regardless of how happy he seems to help the village out, Clackey isn’t too enthused about the whole ordeal because it ruined his plans for a good afternoon.

Someone could make a leap of logic and deduce that Clackey perhaps doesn’t like responsibility, in spite of the fact he was readily willing to take it on to impress the girls.

Team Dan have finally arrived at the Mimi Village to return the Fish.

Unfortunately the place is now a Ghost town, everyone’s either locked themselves in and is unwilling to answer or has vacated.

Magisa does confirm that its not that the village is empty, just the Mimi Tribe are hiding.

Despite this, Sophia, Luphia and the other members of the Mimi Tribe who were with Clackey confront Dan and the group.

Pretty brave, they’ve even got staves ready.

Dan goes to try and return the Fish Luphia left behind but Sophia instead tries to encourage them to leave by offering them food and water.

Dan’s already got enough food with Zungurii, he’s got quite literally all the Curry a person can eat. And they just had a dip in the Water in what appears to be a rather well maintained area. Plenty of Water to go around.

Sophia calls them Robbers and Dan protests the designation, obviously, because he hasn’t stolen anything.

Unfortunately you’ve gained the Reputation of Robbers and you’re not exactly going to pacify them by getting irritated.

Magisa suggests Dan calms down and tries to make small talk

I feel like we’re passed this point, It’d be way more practical to ask why the Mimi village think they’re Robbers

Sophia introduces herself along with her occupation, pretty forthright for someone who doesn’t want to deal with thieves.

Magisa also makes some mention that she’s “heard the Mimi Village had shamans” but the relevance of this is minimal.

They’re in a village of cat-girls, what more could any self-respecting person POSSIBLY want?

Whatever it is she thinks they want it’s in that Shrine.

Now you’re just dragging this out. Dan states that they just wanted to return Luphia’s fish but in tossing it back the fish flies and out Luphia’s tale gets caught in it’s mouth.

Luphia in her panic runs around and falls over, Dan does the sensible thing and checks if she’s okay.

Luphia doesn’t seem like the brightest, or the bravest, especially if she’s crying about falling over.

Dan is unfortunately interrupted by a Yellow Flower cutting his hand.

Right, 2 problems with this, remember that roses are not sharp nor sturdy enough to be flung unless it’s fake.

Secondly, even if it WAS a fake flower and designed to be a thrown weapon, where the FUCK would Clackey have gotten the materials for it?

I’ll counterbalance this with one good thing though, Roses have a language, and different colours of a Rose when gifted to people have different meanings. Red of course, is Love and Admiration.

Yellow on the other hand, other than obviously being Clackey’s colour at this point, when presented as a Rose, means “Friendship”

Foreshadowiiiiiing.

Clackey says “Akuto” here, “Aku” means Evil I think so is he saying “Evildoers”?

Please note: Bragging about being a Gentleman disqualifies you from being a Gentleman.

Dan attempts to plead his case.

Unfortunately the only court hearing this is the Court of Public Opinion.

Clackey eventually descends from the House he was standing on, declaring he’ll protect Sophia.

Sophia seems to be extremely pacifistic in nature, not even wanting Clackey to start a fight.

The guy’s being cheered on by a crapton of Cat-Girls, I don’t think stopping was ever in the cards for a Womanizer like Clackey.

I’m not sure the universe is ready for the idea of dating alien species from other worlds.

Can we get to the fight already?

Few things are more irritating than a person who won’t listen, and one of those things is a crowd who won’t listen.

Clackey is so used to being surrounded by apparently extremely gullible cat girls that he’s surprised that his display of confidence didn’t chase Team Dan away.

I think the only thing special about Clackey is that he doesn’t bat above his age-range, seeing as how he isn’t interested in you, Magisa.

This is, I believe, the first time we hear Clackey Ray’s name, the only time he’s ever referred to himself was “The Noble Youth of Light” earlier.

Finally, exposition! The thing inside the Shrine is an X-Rare card.

Also notably, the Cat statues are stylized like Komainu Lion Dog Statues, but instead of Mouths, one Cat has its eyes closed and the other, its eyes open. Komainu Lion Dog Statues were meant to ward off evil spirits.

It’s pretty easy to guess why his title is the way it is, in the same vain as why Dan is “The Clash King”

As soon as the Battler name is mentioned, Dan immediately recalls who Clackey is, remembering him from the Battle Spirits Championship.

Clackey confirms his presence there by displaying that he has a High Ranker Pass.

The significance of a High Ranker is much less than it was in Toppa Bashin, I don’t really think the concept of High Rankers gets addressed in any more detail than it is here.

Point is, Clackey’s good

Dan’s apparent strength is explained as already High Ranker level as Dan tries to see if Clackey remembers him from the tournament, Dan remembers Clackey after all, the reverse should be true.

This is also interesting because based on these findings, we can only assume Clackey is every bit as strong as Dan is. And if Dan is evidently tougher than everyone who came along, Clackey is the best match that Dan can hope for thus far.

Clackey’s head unfortunately, is entirely ruled by his own dick, as a result he doesn’t even bother allocating memory space to remembering anyone who isn’t female.

This seems initially like Clackey’s gotten the same memo the Otherworld King’s battlers got.

But his memory of Dan is ENTIRELY because he’s tangentially related to a memory of a Girl.

He makes up for his refusal to remember men by remembering any and all details about women, including their associates.

That’s hilarious.

Even more hilariously is that in this shot, Dan’s face is completely blurred out because Clackey didn’t bother to remember his face because it’s shown from the view Clackey had of the board therefore his memory.

That’s hilarious.

This rage isn’t understandable by anyone except Dan, because the only person it’s a sore spot for is Dan, he was beaten pretty badly by Kajitsu and he’s had his life thrown out of balance by the girl very shortly after. Someone taunting him for losing to her is naturally ignoring everything that’s happened to him after the fact.

Clackey draws the conclusion that Dan is using the High Ranker Pass to assist in stealing by using it to get “sympathy”

I’m not typically a fan of simp-type characters who fawn obsessively over girls, if it wasn’t for that one specific trait Clackey would actually be REALLY fucking cool.

I just faulted Clackey for simping but anything that gets between me and Magisa looking confident shall be vaporized.

Why are they going all the way over there? Just open the gate and walk through the doorway.

If I didn’t know better I would probably say something like “The effect Revolver West has on the show cannot be understated, even characters that don’t know him are readying their decks like pistols”

FINALLY WE GET A BATTLE.

Clackey’s Core Trooper is actually pretty simplistic, there’s no fancy all-around armor like Dan’s, its just a crest on his chest.

Zungurii’s cheering for Dan isn’t appreciated in these here parts, only Clackey cheering is allowed.

Very notably, Sophia is the only one not displaying the signs of rage the others are, as she’s the only one genuinely worried about Clackey.

Clackey takes the first move.

Clackey opens with Arcanabeast-Ken as his first move.

Unsurprisingly, Clackey is using a Yellow Deck, this is the second one we’re seeing up until now, I think we’ve seen every colour used except for Blue.

The card isn’t bad looking with the new CGI revamps either.

Either Clackey wanted to mount a high defense to discourage attacking, or he plans to evoke cards out of his opponent’s hand by having them perform a weenie rush (which would get around the single blocker)

Or I’m thinking too hard and he just doesn’t have a card he can play for no cost.

Dan draws and plays a new card, Erimakilizard.

Nothing special, it’s an Erimakilizard.

It’s a Reptile Beast and a Cost 0, the 3rd one we’ve seen Dan play.

The Sad part is, Weenie rush is a viable strategy, and has topped many events.

Not a bad looking Cost 0 if I do say so myself.

I would protest the idea that Dinosaurs are “Cute” but unfortunately I have a partner I love very much who adores Dinosaurs as one of the cutest things ever.

I know it’s a “Reptile” but that’s evidently based on a Dilophosaur.

Clackey seems to be going with the mental attack angle, if he riles Dan, Dan will take an overly aggressive position, goading him to attack.

As Yellow’s main specialty is Magic, this gives Clackey much room to counter.

When Clackey isn’t hard simping, he’s actually a VERY cool character.

I mentioned earlier that Clackey Ray is intended to replace the roles of Striker and Card Sensei, in the sense that his role later matches that of Striker and his vice is the same as Card Sensei’s.

That being said, besides those 2 things, Clackey is almost an entirely different character.

He doesn’t embody any specific character and isn’t a spiritual successor to any of the ones from the previous series. He’s original.

Which says more about the fact that Striker and Card Sensei type characters are absent from the show than it does about the show itself.

Yes, I’m claiming they were useless, fite me.

We interrupt this heated battle to bring you the siblings conversing over Kajitsu’s finest batch of White roses.

Kajitsu considers herself and her brother to be like that of a White Rose, while Yuuki is the White Petals that need protecting, she’s the Green thorns that lie at the stem which props them up.

For now, based on what we currently know, they’re a tightly knit pair of siblings.

It appears Kajitsu has just heard back concerning the battle between Clackey and Dan.

We’ve skipped the progression of a turn apparently, Clackey’s got The Fairy Tanya added to his board now.

And in addition to Erimakilizard, Dan’s now got Rokceratops and DarkDinohound which we hadn’t seen played up til now.

Ah, its turn 4, uno momento while I make a catch up calculation.

We don’t know the levels, but it appears on Turn 3, Clackey played The Fairy Tanya at no cost and passed, while Dan played Rokceratops and DarkDinohound this turn.

If that’s the case though, there’s a problem, because Dan has 1 extra card in his hand than he should. Though it might correct itself later.

And before you ask, no, he lacks the Core to use any of the Draw magic we know he has.

Dan does a Multi-attack (Once again, an invalid move because you can only attack one at a time, but for the sake of speed…)

Clackey takes both attacks from the life.

Also that COOL ASS THEME IS PLAYING AGAIN, I WANT TO KNOW WHAT IT IS BECAUSE IT ISN’T IN THE OFFICIAL OST.

Turn 5, Clackey plays an additional Fairy Tanya.

He’s got 8 Core available, and 3 Symbols on board, he could go for something pretty strong here.

Clackey responds to Dan’s aggression in kind, attacking with Arcanabeast-Ken and The Fairy Tanya.

Not sure I’d make the same move, might as well have attacked with both Tanyas and left Ken, Ken’s a better blocker.

Granted, that might be the point.

Dan takes both from the life, the pair are now even once again.

For reference: To Swelter literally just means “To be uncomfortably hot”

Dan continues to maintain his “Style” of taking lives early to empower his plays. Though Yuuki did inform him to vary his Style where possible.

Seems that lesson hasn’t sunk in yet.

Dan raises DarkDinohound to Lv2 and Rokceratops to Lv3.

DarkDinohound attacks, which Clackey once again takes from the life.

Clackey once again goads Dan, calling his Spirits “Repulsive.”

As Dan motions to respond to that with another attack, he realizes the problem with doing so, namely that it would put him in a position where Clackey only needs 1 Spirit and a full attack to win.

So of course, Dan having seen the problem, elects not to do as his opponent says, choosing not to attack.

Turn 7. Let’s see what Clackey does.

One of the featured cards arrives, and we haven’t seen this one before, let’s review it.

The GreatAngelia Sophia is a Divine Spirit family Master Rare from BS05, Master Rares are non-X-Rares that hold almost as much power.

It’s first effect allows one to summon any “Imaginary Beast” without Cost, in exchange for not activating it’s effect on summon, this was released in the same set as The PhantomLord Rean, so while you could use this to cheat out The PhantomLord Rean cheaply, you did so at a deficit to it’s effect on Summon, which is fine since it doesn’t always go off.

The other thing you can do with this, is play a Spirit that doesn’t HAVE an effect on-summon and circumvent the drawback altogether.

And of course, from Lv2 onwards, Sophia is a Light Spirit, allowing Clackey to recover any Magic cards he used during her attack at the end of her battle should she survive it.

Her ability to potentially play a Powerful Imaginary Beast for no Cost is balanced by her otherwise very low BP.

Clackey uses his summon of Sophia to uh… Put the moves on the Mimi Tribe Sophia.

The fucking Cat-Girls with hearts in their eyes are distracting but if you look closely at Sophia she’s actually smiling AND blushing.

So it’s possible she actually does have feelings for Clackey, or at least, appreciates the fact that he’s affectionate toward her.

Because Sophia was summoned, this enables Clackey to summon an “Imaginary Beast” family Spirit.

The Beast he chooses, is the Cost 7 The CleverBeast Iberix. He summons it at Lv2, taking Ken’s Core, depleting it.

Seems Dan is aware of the type of Deck Clackey is using.

See? This show is awesome, even though this Combo is characteristic of Clackey, the Show is well-aware that Clackey likely isn’t the only person who’s going to be using it.

Anyway, I’ve droned on for long enough, Let’s look at Iberix shall we?

Using a slightly wider dimension just to fit more text here, it blurs the low res image a bit but better than squinting at it.

Anyway, during Either attack step, Iberix can afford 1 additional Yellow Reduction to all Magic in your Hand, this not only makes your Yellow Magic even CHEAPER but can enable the use of Non-Yellow Magic without having to pay full cost.

And like Sophia, at Lv2 onwards, it’s a Light Spirit.

Hence Clackey’s title, “The Noble Youth of Light”, he’s a Battler who specializes in that Keyword.

The Sophia-Iberix Combo is likely one that plants 2 Light Spirits on the board very quickly, at no setback to Iberix as it has no effect on summon, and as a result enables many Magic combos much earlier than they would be otherwise achievable.

Also, Iberix is a card from BS06, meaning we’ve finally dipped into the new set beyond the Catastrophedragon from Toppa Bashin.

Zungurii doing what Zungurii does best and not realizing that Siegwurm can’t exactly deal with every situation, a Light combo will likely result in either the rest of Dan’s lives vanishing before his eyes or both of them being exhausted, meaning Siegwurm can’t Clash with them.

Sophia and Iberix attack Dan, who takes both hits from the Life, dropping him to 1.

It’s Turn 8, Clackey was unable to finish off Dan because he has 2 blockers, so Clackey decided to hold onto his Fairy Tanyas as he’s only got 2 lives himself, after all.

I’m… Not sure why a Cost 4 Spirit from BS02 gets it’s own Siegwurm-style summoning but hey I’m down.

Dan plays The RiseDragon Balmung, a Spirit with Awaken.

Balmung attacks immediately.

Time for the mind games to begin, Clackey uses the card that repelled Dan against Yuuki, Blizzard Wall.

Iberix gives Blizzard Wall a singular Yellow Reduction, meaning he only needs to pay 4 for it.

As a result, where he’d normally need to give up both Tanyas, he only needs to get rid of 1.

Safe from further attacks after Balmung, Clackey takes Balmung’s attack from the life, bringing him to 1 and now Dan isn’t capable of snatching further lives from Clackey without an effect.

Alright, fuck it, he’s obviously a giant actor who overplays his role for the sake of coolness but damn is it cool.

Clackey once again raises the BP of Sophia and Iberix to Lv2.

He’s got a lot of Core available, 12 in total, he could have brought them to Lv3.

But that’s the point after all.

Clackey attacks with Sophia and Dan blocks with the Lv2 Dinohound, as both have 5000 BP, both will be destroyed if allowed to proceed.

Not to be deterred, Clackey uses an additional card from BS06, Imagine Field.

Nothing like a Cost 6 Yellow Magic from BS06 to make my day.
To simply it’s effect, instead of a Battle being decided by comparing BP, the battle is now decided by comparing the Core on each Spirit.

Now, it’s easy for one to think that perhaps this is a bust since both Sophia and DarkDinohound have matching Core.

But what cannot be solved with Yellow Magic, perhaps other Magic can.

After all, Yellow is meant to be the specialist of ALL Magic, not just Yellow Magic.

Clackey uses Nature Forces, which naturally holds a caveat of being unusable during the Main Step, it allows Clackey to add every Core from his Trash to a Spirit.

Through this Combo, Clackey’s able to, in one stroke, change the way Battles are determined to make up for his Yellow Spirits’ naturally low BP, while at the same time accounting for situations where he might be at a disadvantage under those rules.

DarkDinohound no longer has enough Core to face Sophia, so it’s destroyed.

And worse still, Clackey can continue to make use of that Combo as many times as he likes, as Sophia is a Light Spirit, recovering those cards from the Trash to his hand.

Here’s a thought, the next time someone has “Light” in their title, and starts using Yellow Spirits, perhaps draw the connection that Yellow has a Keyword with a similar name.

Though perhaps I’m barking up the wrong tree, “The Noble Youth of Light” uses “Hikari”, which is Light, while the “Light” Keyword uses “Kobo”, which in Chinese Kanji is read as “Guangmang” which means Light, but in Japanese it’s more like a “Light beam”

Iberix attacks, which Dan takes on using Rokceratops.

He uses Sophia’s Core to wield the Magic, and repeats the Combo, taking the 5 Core he spent and moving them to Iberix who will now hold 7 Core.

This seems strange as Iberix already has enough BP to beat Rokceratops, but Dan is playing Red, and re-using the Combo allows Clackey to get around any BP Boosts Dan might have in his hand.

Besides, Clackey will get his cards back if Iberix survives.

Rokceratops is destroyed as it lacks the Core to face Iberix.

Once again, as Iberix is a Light Spirit, Clackey recovers the cards he used.

Magisa applauds the Combo, while a little on the complex side, it ensures that Clackey always has enough Core to use the effects, and can return all used resources back to his hand.

Clackey attacks with The Fairy Tanya, re-using his Combo for a 3rd time after Dan blocks with Erimakilizard.

Dan points out that even if Clackey does this, his Defense will be completely empty, as Fairy Tanya is his last Spirit, Clackey has 1 life, and Clackey won’t be able to return Imagine Field and Nature Forces to his hand because Tanya lacks the Light ability.

99% of cases in Card Game anime, if there is an obvious flaw in the plan pointed out by a character before it’s been completed, that’s almost always the cue for the planner to show how they totally thought of that.

Pure Elixir, a common-use White Magic to enable Blockers despite full-attacking.

Erimakilizard is destroyed, and all of Clackey’s Spirits are refreshed in exchange for being unable to attack further.

Clackey mentions that he’s been “Fighting on the Side of Love”, when Dan acts confused, Clackey starts giving a backstory.

This of course, makes 2 things very clear, first off is the reason there are no men besides Clackey in the village, it’s because they were taken.

I find this kinda strange since the Gurii Tribe, had Girls taken from them, though it’s possible the Otherworld King’s subordinates are sexist af, and the Gurii Tribe are an exception because they’re very strong.

The other thing it makes clear, is that Clackey and Dan are VERY fucking similar.

Both were dropped into a Tribe as the Humans were attacking, both Tribes had people taken, and both Clackey and Dan fought to protect what was left of the Tribe.

And of course, both have Battler names that signify their Keyword. Both infact have their ace cards as Master Rares.

All 5 of them have one line running through their mind.

That Line is: “I think I have made a terrible mistake”

How much blood will spill until everybody does what they were
always going to have to do from the very beginning:
SIT. DOWN. AND TALK

12th Doctor

Any situation easily solvable by just having one side open their fucking ears is ALWAYS frustrating.

No Dan, Good guys have these things called EARS.

Undeterred, Dan plays a new Rokceratops at Lv3

And then plays his Key Spirit, The ThunderEmperorDragon Siegwurm.

Dan, once again, immediately proceeds to attack with his Strongest Spirit, that being Siegwurm.

Clackey responds in kind, choosing to block with Iberix, I’m unsure as to what Level Iberix is on but I’m guessing the 5 moved to him from earlier was transferred to Tanya, leaving him at Lv2 with 6000 BP.

Siegwurm’s only got 4000 at Lv1, and I don’t think Dan levelled him up.

A Red Magic from BS06 and the first card from BS06 we’ve seen Dan actually use, it’s a weaker Offensive Aura for any Spirit that lacks the Clash ability, but is otherwise stronger if you have many Clash Spirits.

This leaves Siegwurm with 7000 BP.

I double backed to when Clackey refreshed his Spirits to confirm, yes, Iberix only had 2 core, and as a result, its BP was lower.

Clackey looks to his Sophia in worry.

Instead choosing to block Rokceratops with The Fairy Tanya.

Not a bad move anyhow, if Sophia blocked both would be destroyed as Lightning Aura is boosting Rokceratops with additional BP.

Following up, Dan attacks a 3rd time with Balmung.

Balmung’s got 3000 BP at Lv1, Lightning Aura boosts it to 4000 BP.

I’m not gonna lie, I completely forgot about the possibility of using Awaken.

Simple Batosupi Hard.

Balmung depletes Rokceratops of Core to raise itself to Lv2, leaving it’s total BP at 7000, higher than Sophia’s standard 5000.

Dan plans to force Clackey to block Balmung so he can destroy Sophia, leaving Clackey with very few options of counter attack as Clackey currently has no cards left in his hand. Without a Spirit to draw he straight up loses and in a Magic-Heavy Deck that’s going to be hard.

Clackey, has other ideas.

With vonly one life remaining, taking Balmung’s Attack loses Clackey the Game, the Winner is Dan.

Dan is evidently irritated, because Clackey had options to continue but chose not to take them.

Clackey of course, decides to let Dan know that any victory that requires the sacrifice of his favourite Spirit, Sophia, isn’t a victory he wants to achieve.

While I understand that Dan doesn’t mean any harm due to this misunderstanding, that’s pretty shallow if you WERE facing actual robbers.

Luphia laments that she dun-fucked-up-good

Controlled Luck. There is a non-zero luck factor in every game but you have control over anything beyond that.

Apparently, the Mimi Tribe’s idea of an apology is lots and lots of food.

I’d say “Sure I guess Cats like food” but many Cat owners will attest that their Cat flat out ignores food they’re given, even when they ask for it.

Sophia attempts to get Clackey to join in the feast as he made a valiant effort trying to protect them. But he’s not having it.

Nothing apparently a group of smitten Cat-Girls can’t fix.

Listen you can’t ALL have him, Mimi Tribe can’t survive on Clackey alone.

Listen, it was cringe when Bashin Toppa’s Nine fucking did it, and I liked Nine.

Please don’t start comparing situations to cards.

We actually get a decent look at the Deathmatch Group on the Poster now thanks to whatever wind blew it into Magisa’s face.

Magisa and Zungurii, fair enough, there’s no way you can confuse them with their counterparts on the Poster.

But I dunno about you, Dan looks quite a fair bit like his counterpart here.

Magisa is understandably irritated at being compared to someone that fucking ugly.

Though I guess this is no time for rest, given the REAL Deathmatch-Group have arrived to ruin our days.

And that’s the Episode!

Quite a nice battle took place, we saw some more advanced tactics involving Card combos to get a desired result using Light.

Yellow’s always been a rather versatile colour with all of its gimmicks, finding a balance can be hard.

Our card of the day is The CleverBeast Iberix, I haven’t talked much about it’s usage.

Probably because it doesn’t actually have any usage, this stage of Battle Spirits didn’t adhere much to using Big Spirits all that much, your choices for decks were either Weenie Rush, Mikafar Turbo, or apparently some Green Kingtaurus deck up until Mikafar got banned.

At the moment, Dan hilariously has the most Meta relevant deck with his bunch of weenies, Victory Fire and Draw cards, can’t say much about his usage of Balmung and Lightning Aura though since those are not Weenie Ceritfied.

I’m saying “Weenie Rush” a lot but I don’t think I’ve defined it, the “01 Weenie” deck is a deck that uses a very large number of Cost 0 and 1 Spirits, preferably of matching colour to very quickly gain victory by attacking with loads of Spirits when your opponent can’t deal with them, if your opponent doesn’t play a Spirt and you’re going second, you win.

And if you go first and the opponent only plays 1 Spirit, you also win.

Of course, responses notwithstanding, the opponent will get Core to respond to the attacks with so it can be answered, but its much harder for a non-rush deck to reverse weenie rush.

But anyway, the existence of these decks make high cost combo decks such as Iberix and Sophia rather inefficient.

And that’s all I really got to say, I’ll see you all next time around! Buh-bye.

Well after that Battle Spirits episode blitz, I decided to take an absolutely much-needed break to cool down a little bit, though it wasn’t purely because I needed the break, I had a lot of friends who wanted to hang out with me and I don’t exactly like blowing people off because I want to write a blog post, I do these when I can.

There’s also the matter of me setting up for something I feel might be exciting that I can actually put on YouTube without being boring as all hell, so here’s hoping I can actually pull that off.

Anyway, enough about “Why the long wait”, my point is I’m not planning on taking a hell of a long time off like last time.

The point we left off on in the last episode is now the intro for this episode, Zungurii is still trying to make a good Curry for Dan but Dan isn’t really having any of it, the Curry being far too spicy.

The Curry is bleeding RED for goodness sakes.

Personally all this curry making is just making me want a Curry of my own, but alas, at time of writing my Dinner is looking to be Broccoli & Stilton Soup (which is still pretty good mind you)

Also please forgive the ever-changing resolutions of the images I’m using, I’m trying to capture a balance of consistency and unfortunately I couldn’t get one, the Video opens in it’s native resolution and difficult to downsize without going too far, while I could edit manually I’m definitely not doing that so I can only really downsize to about 75% automatically.

I’ll go with this for now and if it doesn’t work out, I’ll try something else.

Zungurii gives it another attempt.

Of course, while the Curry now isn’t spicy, it doesn’t actually taste good.

I actually really want to try what a “Sour” curry tastes like, I actually like the taste of Sour things, they usually have very intense flavours that makes them enjoyable to eat.

While I do like very intense things, I abhor bitter items, the one exception to this used to be Dark chocolate which is notoriously bitter but I’ve since lost my taste for bitter things now.

Excessively dry food can also get bent.

You’re asking a small child who doesn’t cook human food to create a Curry exactly the way you, a Human 12-year old, likes it without any frame of reference to work from.

Fuck off Dan.

Yeah food isn’t so much as just “Having the right ingredients for the meal”, it’s one reason why I feel so overwhelmed if I have to cook (I’m not very good at it, much as I want to be)

Even if you have the correct ingredients, the ingredients themselves also need to be of a specific quality (sometimes HIGH quality foods lack something that makes a lower quality ingredient better for the dish etc.), the process of making is also going to be different between people even if they’re effectively doing the same instruction.

Point is, even if you gave 2 people the same ingredients, with the same recipe, you will end up with 2 different tasting meals.

I want to punch people like this. Zungurii’s followed the instructions and gotten subpar Curry every time, if Zungurii’s failed to make it correctly, perhaps one might turn their eyes to the instructor rather than blaming Zungurii for doing something correctly and still failing.

Anecdotal evidence, but I believe this was mentioned before this episode at some point, Zungurii is a very good cook by his village’s standards.

And we finally get a look at the bar Dan is actually setting.

Its not that the curry is Bad but it’s not the exact flavor Dan is after.

So all the times Dan has given it crap, it’s because he’s comparing it relative to a specific type of flavor he’s after.

It’s not that the Curry was “Spicy”, it was just “Spicier than his Mother’s Curry”, same for “Gross” and “Sour”, they would likely be much more passable for someone less fussy.

This is a common Dan problem we’re seeing, first it was his stubborn Battle Style that he chose not to change up against Yuuki, and now its his taste in Curry that he’s refusing to back down on even though Dan’s got 2 entirely different problems, non-Earth ingredients and a non-Human cook.

Zungurii of course has realized that Dan is putting a really specific standard on him that would require way more cost and effort than he’s willing to put in just to get Dan to not yell at him.

So Zungurii tells Dan to piss off back home if he wants his Mum’s Curry that bad and plans to deal with the problem himself.

This episode is titled “Green Hurricane! Swift Amenborg!”

So we’re going to be seeing a Green player using Amenborg this episode. Otherwise not really much details to be gleaned from the Episode Title.

Zungurii is alone, and hungry, since in storming out, he actually left all of his supplies with Dan.

And he wants something that I assume is meant to be “Acorn Stew” but I have no idea what such a thing would look like.

There’s Acorn Soup but that’s a bit different.

On his way, Zungurii comes across a small shrine with a little box in it.

Someone apparently felt the need to leave their DragonEmperor Siegfried inside the Shrine Box. The only other X-Rare we’ve seen since this series started was a Gigantic Thor.

Also its kind of funny how Zungurii has spent what appears to be a couple hours without Dan and has already found a card rarer than Dan’s entire deck.

I’m sure there’s some fanfic potential in if Zungurii decided to oppose Dan with Siegfried, given a proper teacher.

Of course in Zungurii’s excitement he drops off the small Shrine and passes out.

I like how Zungurii’s dream sequence here involves him seeing visions of his loved ones before going “Sorry guys, I might have died, which sucks cuz I’m also hungry”

I hazard to laugh at this considering its a joke about a small child dying after getting into an argument with his friend and running off, but given the context of the show it’s obvious Zungurii isn’t dead.

Zungurii eventually does wake up in a small tent, and the first thing he does is look for the card, which is neatly placed beside him.

Its obvious someone saved Zungurii, his unconscious body definitely wouldn’t have been able to grow legs and piss off somewhere.

But the voice indicates that it’s not someone we know, the voice is deep after all, and doesn’t know who he is, given the nickname of “Sideburn-boy”

We actually get to see the guy’s deck before we see his appearance. It appears he’s got a 100% Green deck, we can see MachG, MachFly, Beatbeetle, BlackMachG, BlackMonoqueiroz, Bug-Lesia, and The Thorny Colosseum.

The only card we haven’t seen here is The Thorny Colosseum, I don’t think it will get used onscreen ever so I’ll review it.

A Cost 5 Nexus with a low level 2 requirement, it prevents Cores being removed from Battling Spirits and makes Battling Spirits unaffected by Spirits or Magic.

This card is designed for cards like Kingtaurus or Deathtaurus who benefit from defeating Spirits, a common way to get around their downsides is to remove your Spirit, either through depletion or self-destruction before they’re able to be defeated by BP-Comparison. The Thorny Colosseum prevents this from happening by preventing depletion in any way, and then flat out making so the Spirits are unaffected by effects so you can’t Deadly Balance your way out of the problem either.

Oh, and he’s actively working on his deck too, that’s kind of cool.

Cap’n Cowboy over here is “Revolver West”, as if he could have any more of a “Wild West” name than he already has.

He’s got very varied cards at his disposal, I see a Fruit of Life in the top corner next to MachG.

His hand has Emerald Boost, Carry Cores, The Cape in the Red Sky and The Earth of Fertility.

Besides Carry Cores, the rest are recent cards from SD01.

Suffice it to say, we have ample reason to believe that Revolver West over here is a Green Battler.

Green Curry is of course, another form of way of making Curry. Rather than most Asian Brown Curries, in Thailand, their method of making Curry is Green.

Thailand also has a variant of this Green Curry that looks very similar but is otherwise Red in colour, hence Thai Green Curry, and Thai Red Curry.

I for one, am an avid lover of Thai Curry.

It appears Revolver West managed to produce a very tasty Green Curry by using ingredients from Otherworld, which is also helped by the fact that it eating it exclusively provides very balanced nutrients.

HE’S SO WESTERN HE’S SPINNING HIS DECK LIKE A REVOLVER.

And even has a Deck Holster meant to emulate a Gun Holster.

Because why not?

Zungurii has a strange upbringing, his Dad apparently taught him that he should repay displays of kindness.

While its good to repay kindness with kindness, don’t teach people that they’re obligated to do something just because someone chose to show kindness to them unwarranted, what the fuck?

And of course, Zungurii has a gift on him, The Red X-Rare, The DragonEmperor Siegfried.

I am hella unsure why Revolver West, a Battler using a Full Green Deck would want anything to do with a high cost Red X-Rare.

From the title and the fact that he have a very evident user of Green here, it’s probably going to be absolutely no surprise that our Amenborg-using friend is going to be this guy, Revolver West.

Zungurii decides to use this opportunity to compare the Curry Revolver made to the curry he’s been trying to make for Dan, Zungurii’s attempts have come out unpleasant, and despite being so different from how Dan has explained how to make it, The Green Curry is delicious.

Zungurii’s having a series of Freudian slips here, he’s saying what he actually means instead of what he wants to say. He’s inclined to show contempt for Dan because of their previous arguments but keeps catching himself because he doesn’t actually believe that, he’s just irritated by the fact that Dan dislikes his Curry.

This is not a question you want to hear from anyone who has no context on who Dan is. So the fact that he’s aware of “The Clash King” is a giant red flag that he’s a Battler for the Otherworld King.

He then asks if Zungurii can take him to meet The Clash King.

We cut back to Dan who is quite literally incapable of moving from his spot, because Zungurii is noted to be incredibly physically strong and Dan, well, isn’t.

There’s a lesson here, don’t treat the people you rely on like shit.

It seems Dan has made his own attempt at recreating his ol’ Mother dear’s Curry.

Dan actually starts to look a bit down, though its hard to tell if that’s because he’s realized he needs the kid, or if he’s genuinely remorseful for being a dickhead.

This is a Shounen anime so probably the latter.

Magisa’s finally back from her Investigation using her Magical Bike.

Well it’s not like the investigation was fruitless. The Horizon Ladder is protected by a giant barrier that Magisa, and likely other people, can’t pass through normally. And even Magisa with all her current Magic can’t force her way through it.

Magisa goes off on a bit of a ramble concerning Dan and Zungurii’s situation, the best I can parse from it whatsoever is that Magisa was aware that Dan and Zungurii had a fight, and spotted Zungurii’s attempts on his own before letting Dan know they should look for him, since he won’t hold out.

And then is lamenting about their fight saying she expected this to happen sooner or later because she’s 4029 Years old.

This is of course the moment we get the revelation of Magisa’s actual age, 4029 years old, they of course slashed off 4000 years from her age and gave her the appearance of what I can best describe as a 29 year-old woman.

The point is, as old as she is, she doesn’t physically age.

Magisa’s “Shut up” is in English, which is a bit jarring

Despite the fact that Magisa presents very very youthful and is still relatively attractive by Human standards, she still seems very insecure about her age.

Of course we don’t, if a woman pulled off your good lucks at 40 let alone 4029 they’d feel like a GOD.

Magisa then goes to sleep in the tent.

At this moment, Zungurii comes back, along with Revolver West.

Dan takes this opportunity to return to being sour about their previous argument. Asking Zungurii why he came back if he said he was going to go look for his family by himself.

Nothing like Revolver West pulling up with the “You’re BOTH idiots” energy.

Nah fuck you, Spicy food for breakfast is THE SHIT.

Nothing wakes you up like feeling like your mouth is on fire.

I’d pull up to a Nandos for Breakfast and I’d like to see anyone try to stop me.

Nothing like a little more Engrish to spice up this show, but given there’s no Elliott to speak massive amounts of broken Japanese I suppose we gotta find it elsewhere.

I haven’t depicted it, but Dan shows surprise that Revolver was able to create the Curry so quickly. Revolver West prides himself on the fact that his Curry is not only balanced and possible to live purely on, but also the fact that it’s very easy to make and done so very quickly.

You’ll notice that a lot of what he does is emphasized for “Speed”

It’s easy to see why he might be a Green player.

It appears Revolver West carries a personal make of Green paste to assist in the quick creation of his curry.

A good rule of people is that they like to feel attractive. That’s not just a girl thing, that’s universal. You want ANYONE to feel good about themselves? Call him hot, cute, sexy, beautiful, handsome, whichever applies.

As long as the delivery seems genuine, you’ll generally get a good response.

Only works once though, don’t litter your words with compliments or they’ll start to get uncomfortable. But its certainly a good one-time thing to drop into a conversation.

General consensus around the group is that yes, the Green Curry is awesome, but while Dan believes the Curry is delicious, he hesitates to call it “Curry” because of how different it is.

First rule of Curry, everything that involves ingredients in a spiced sauce and served along with rice, can count as a curry. Its how you get Beef Curry, Chicken Curry, Veggie Curry, even FISH can be in a curry.

If its got Spiced Sauce and can be served with Rice, it’s a Curry.

Revolver’s been modest up until now, but he says something rather uncharacteristic of him, which is that he insists that Dan is eating the best curry he’s ever had.

And finally announces his intent to defeat him.

Calling him the “Red Soldier” is a final confirmation that he’s working with Dan’s enemies.

He seems to be “playing the villain” here, he was sent to battle Dan by Kajitsu, and claims to be doing it to try and have the Otherworld King “succeed in his dream.”

But the Otherworld King’s desire, is stated to be: to fight the strongest Deck.

And we saw last time that anyone who beats Dan can have their Deck considered to be the strongest and therefore can take on Otherworld King to get a wish granted.

So I wonder why Revolver doesn’t divulge that information to explain his opposition, its possibly because he feel he doesn’t have to, because sentiments would make Dan play more reserved.

Revolver appears to be a very honest Battler, so he wants an honest opponent.

His Battler’s Title is “Quick Draw Revolver”, its almost like a personal handle at this point, I really like the whole “titling” thing.

Without further ado, let’s get into this battle!

We unfortunately don’t get to start from Turn 1 here. With a MachG damaging Dan’s life right when we get passed the eyecatch.

I can’t accurately gauge Dan’s lives here.

Revolver’s on the other hand is much easier to see, he’s on 3 lives left.

Dan’s field consists of a Lv2 Lizardedge, a Lv3 Rokceratops and a Lv2 Goradon.

Ah, we now have a better view of Dan’s life count, he’s got 3 lives remaining, okay that’s fair.

I’ve decided to refer to the Wiki just briefly to get a gist of the layout, Revolver has 2 MachG’s and a MachFly on the field.

And this turn will begin from Turn 5 on Revolver’s end, so Dan has had 2 Core Steps. And lost 2 lives, so his total available Core is 8.

Which matches up with what’s on his Spirits right now.

Revolver would only have had 1 Core Step right now, but he’ll be on 8 Core starting on his turn.

Addressing Dan’s complaint, HOW THE FUCK WAS ZUNGURII SUPPOSED TO KNOW? THE GUY SAVED HIM FROM CERTAIN DEATH AND FED HIM CURRY.

Gun of the Fast Pull decides to analyse Dan’s current play style thus far, from the Wiki, its apparently only been 4 turns.

Though its also possible he’s had a passing look or heard of the battles Dan had with Kazan, Yuuki and Crown.

Revolver then criticizes the strategy, claiming that the way Dan uses Red relies on their natural toughness (Red is known for its ability to obtain high BP), but Dan otherwise doesn’t make use of the attribute in any other way, relying on Clash and High BP to obtain wins.

Revolver resolves to show Dan the depth of Green cards.

The guy then starts running through the steps really really fast rather than going through them one at a time.

Magisa of course notes that while it is faster it doesn’t make any difference if he had just done it normally.

Revolver brings MachFly up to Lv3 which gives it 6000 BP.

Pretty hefty amount of Core to give it, that’s basically all of Revolver’s remaining Core.

Revolver then goes on a short tirade about how Dan was preaching his love of Curry, yet wasn’t aware that Green Curry existed, he likes Curry, but doesn’t even know which Curry is the best because he’s completely uneducated when it comes to Curry.

I’m sure there’s a moral here that relates to Battle Spirits in some way, I don’t exactly agree with the idea Revolver is suggesting that Dan should have no right to criticize Zungurii’s Curry when he himself doesn’t know what is and isn’t Curry.

It’s not like Dan was saying Zungurii’s dishes were not Curry, he simply said it wasn’t like his Mother’s Curry.

But you don’t need to have a fucking portfolio to prove you can criticize someone else’s, you don’t pull up at a Job Interview demanding the Interviewer prove they’re qualified to interview you.

That’s not how that works, many Music and Movie critics don’t make Music or Movies, the only requirement is that they know what goes into the process and know what makes it good, even if its informed by their own point of view.

Revolver does take a moment to praise Zungurii’s ability to cook.

…You can’t tell me THAT’s his problem.

Alright, let’s digest (no pun intended) what Revolver actually wants here.

The Wish he wants from Otherworld King is for people to know about his delicious Green Curry. He believes the problem that is causing his Green Curry to fail on Earth is because people simply aren’t aware of what Curry is, despite the fact that everyone he’s managed to serve in Otherworld has apparently stated they quite enjoy it.

…So in short, because people do not feel obligated to learn about his Curry, they’re ignorant, and that’s the reason his Curry is failing.

Revolver has a case of what I can only describe as Toxic Honesty, he’s likely made no attempts to properly advertise his Curry in a way that makes people want to try it. I don’t know if that’s because he feels they should want to try something new themselves or whatever, but I’m getting a very “My Curry should succeed based on whether or not it is good and nothing else” vibe from this guy. He wants the Curry to succeed honestly and it’s bottlenecking what he actually needs to do to get it noticed.

The Lv3 MachFly attacks. He likely levelled it up so it could overcome Rokceratops.

Pffft, he’s making Dan out to be the soldier of “Red Curry” as he puts it. Even though Red Curry is very very similar to Green Curry and is exclusively a Thai Dish, I think the show is making Japanese Beef Curry out to be a “Red Curry” when it isn’t.

I’m sad this show also doesn’t make reference to the lesser known Yellow Curry.

Dan takes the opportunity to Flash and use Buster Phalanx

It’s a base set card and we’ve seen it mentioned before but I think its worth re-reviewing even if we haven’t. Its a base set card that wipes out all Nexuses, but can be used during Flash timing to provide a 4000 BP boost.

Dan lacks Core in his reserve as all of them are on his Spirits, and he needs 3 Core, so he brings Lizardedge and Goradon to a single Core to pay for it.

Rokceratops receives a 4000 BP boost to 8000 BP and blocks the 6000 BP MachFly

Rokceratops wipes out MachFly and Revolver ends his turn.

Zungurii lets out a cheer but then catches himself, remembering that he should be annoyed.

Magisa then tells Zungurii to as we say, “Quitcha Bitchin'”

While I’d say Dan suffering consequences for an argument he had isn’t really a good enough reason to forgive them for them being a jerk. It was Zungurii that said he was leaving, Dan at no point asked or even expected him to go.

The Crux of her argument is that Dan does indeed worry about Zungurii, and that some altercation over Curry shouldn’t really break them up.

It’s Dan’s turn, and Lizardedge and Goradon are brought up to Lv2.

Dan’s only got 3 cards in his hand, so he can’t carelessly make additions to his board without having fewer answers later.

Goradon attacks.

Zungurii then panics because he remembers that he gave Revolver The DragonEmperor Siegfried and things that might come back to bite Dan in the ass.

I will say, I’d love an alternate take on this episode where Revolver DOES use Siegfried, a Red Dragon suits him in a strange kind of way.

But maybe it’s just me being a fan of Dragons.

DON’T. USE. CARDS. YOU. CAN’T. AFFORD.

A White Magic or anything cost 4 or under you can somewhat justify running without reduction but for god sakes its not worth running a 6 cost spirit just so you can hard summon it.

And I say that but there’s this card that comes out in like 5 sets that people just ran 3 ofs ANYWAY without reduction!

No one actually uses it in the anime, so I think its fine to mention, but yeah people were just running this card in literally anything because it prevented your opponent from doing anything if it wasn’t Yellow, and Yellow is not exactly the pinnacle of good defense cards.

It was so egregious they BANNED it. But people ran THIS card because it won you the game.

Siegfried will not win you the game in the same way.

The way Revolver Responds in Flash Timing is to shoot the card, complete with smoke, out of his hand as if he’s firing a gun.

The Card he used during Flash Timing was Amenborg, which he summons using Swift.

Amenborg is rather simple, a Cost 2, 1 Green Reduction, Parasite Family Green Swift Spirit.

In the BP department it only reaches 4000 BP at Lv2 but besides that, 4000 BP can get you quite far in the early game. Especially if it comes out of nowhere.

Its summon is kind of cool, the Green Symbol it bursts from comes out of a pool of Water, which it then lands on and disperses.

It’s a bit over the top for what is a Cost 2 card from a Starter Deck though.

I should give it more credit where due, Amenborg IS a pretty good card for the time, it has a lot of traits that make it good beyond it being a Cost 2 Swift Spirit, it’s a Parasite meaning it supports the many other cards that can make use of Parasite Spirits.

The little Water Strider cuts through and defeats the 3000 BP Goradon.

Of course, the hype surrounding this little sequence is because it’s our first time seeing the Green keyword in THIS series. So they make a point of playing it up.

Gekiha Dan, as an anime, unlike all other animes, did not mark the start of a new “Saga” in Battle Spirits unlike every other series did. So the big sell of this series, for now, is Keywords.

Dan ends his turn, having had his battle plan interrupted.

It seems Revolver’s motto in both Battle Spirits, and in life, is to not waste time and do things quickly.

That manifests in a battle style that relies on surprise and the Swift Keyword to quickly amount small advantages that will eventually pile up into a win.

He actually does a fucking TWIRL before running through the steps again.

He levels down Amenborg to Level up the 2 MachG.

This is a tad strange at first glance because with 9 Core available, he should be able to keep Amenborg well levelled.

Unfortunately Swift has a Drawback, while normally having Core on Spirits isn’t a problem, Core for Swift can only be paid from the Reserve. Most Swift Spirits require 1 Core to play, and need 1 Core to maintain, so at least 2 core in the reserve is required at any time.

Dan takes lives from 2 of Revolver’s MachGs, leaving him on 1 life.

Revolver sets up his endgame by attacking with Amenborg and then playing God Speed during Flash Timing.

Its one of those cards where one look at it makes it hella obvious as to why it’s not been shown in Toppa Bashin, there was never a need to reduce the costs of anything when you’re on turn fucking 30.

God Speed is a 3 reduction Cost 3 Green Magic that changes any Spirit that’s cost 6 or higher AND has Swift into a Cost 4 Spirit with the caveat that the Card cannot be used during the Main Step.

At max reductions the Card is free and makes Swift spirits easier to summon. For cards that reduce the cost of cards in your hand, it does NOT change how much reductions reduce it by, so if I have a Cost 7 with 4 reductions and this card changes that card’s cost to 4, if I meet all that card’s 4 reductions I can play the card for free.

Needless to say, THIS is cool!

With God Speed, The SavageKnight Hercules’ usual 7 Cost 3 Reduction is made into 4 Cost 3 Reduction, allowing Revolver to play it for 1 Cost.

Not to mention God Speed was free thanks to meeting the same reductions Hercules did, its quite a nice combo.

Hercules is normally a straight pain in the ass to play since the most effective us of it requires at least 5 core in the Reserve at Flash timing, God Speed makes a Turn 7 Hercules possible.

Revolver refreshes the 2 MachGs that were exhausted.

Notably this was done during Amenborg’s attack, so Amenborg is also exhausted, and will be refreshed by Hercules’ summon.

All in all, this is a 7 Attack Combo brought about by 5 cards.

Well, Dan has yet to actually make use of his Keyword whatsoever this battle.

Revolver on the other hand has made EXCELLENT use of Swift this game.

Ah okay, he actively refers to it as “Red Hot Curry” referring to Dan’s Curry being typically spicy.

Curry generally is, and I’ll fight anyone who says otherwise.

Dan then declares, strangely to the untrained eye, that his favourite curry is in fact Zungurii’s spicy curry.

Now he WAS criticizing it the entire time, but he never actually stated whether or not the curry was bad, merely that it wasn’t the same as his Mother’s.

And there’s a few times throughout the episode after Zungurii leaves where Dan has at Zungurii’s last attempt at Curry multiple times, picking it out with a ladel and eating from it.

So its likely that he eventually got what we call, an acquired taste.

Acquired tastes are why Children seem fussier when it comes to eating food. A lot of what we eat and don’t like right out the gate becomes a lot more appreciated when we’re used to eating it until eventually it becomes something we enjoy.

Dan casts Victory Fire, destroying a refreshed MachG and the attacking Amenborg.

Dan still has 2 blockers and Revolver has only 2 attackers, Hercules and a refreshed MachG, he’s not winning this turn without another Swift.

Dan once again re-affirms his resolve to save Zungurii’s family.

All things considered, Revolver has a fairly good position here, he’s got 3 lives to Dan’s 1 and 4 core in his reserve. But ending his turn here gives away to Dan that he doesn’t have a Swift spirit in his hand, if he did, he would have continued attacking.

As it stands though, Dan NEEDS 5 Spirits to win. Or a way to get around the 2 blockers.

For some reason Dan checks the card upside down even though he picks it up from the bottom, but I assume that’s to make the insertion of the card into his hand later a lot smoother.

Dan plays one extra Goradon.

And then plays Siegwurm at Lv2.

He still doesn’t have enough Spirits to clear the attacks he needs to win. But I got a shot at his hand very briefly before he began his turn and it appears he’s got another Victory Fire in his hand.

The Must-be-blocked Siegwurm attacks.

Dan levels down his Rokceratops and Lizardedge to clear the cost required to play a 2nd Victory Fire.

This takes out Revolver’s remaining MachG and prevents Revolver from making use of it to chump-block.

Very notably, MachG requires the same amount of Core to reach 3000 BP as it does for Amenborg to reach 4000 BP, and both Spirits have 2000 BP at Lv1.

Revolver levelling down Amenborg for MachG’s Lv2 made him explicitly vulnerable to Victory Fire (though it’s clear he wasn’t anticipating the first one).

Though had Amenborg been level 2, Dan would have had to Victory Fire the 2 MachGs, and then block the Amenborg and sacrificing a Spirit, Dan would have had 1 Blocker to Revolver West’s 1 Attacker and Revolver could have made a push to eliminate Dan’s last Spirit, had any one of Dan’s cards remaining in his hand NOT been a Spirit in that case, Revolver could have won the game there. And we know one of Dan’s cards was Victory Fire which wouldn’t work on a 4000 BP Amenborg or a 5000 BP Hercules.

Meaning had Amenborg been Lv2, Revolver would have won, a single instance of 1000 BP completely fucked Quick Draw Revolver.

Hercules has 5000 BP but it isn’t enough to stop the 6000 BP Siegwurm.

Dan’s 3 remaining Spirits take the last of Revolver’s lives, marking the end of Quick Draw Revolver.

Spice is the essence of curry, which Revolver loves, so a Spicy Battle should be taken as him saying it was a good battle, or a fun battle.

Revolver awards Dan with the X-Rare Zungurii gave to him, The DragonEmperor Siegfried.

I bet you’re just waiting for me to bring up my little “spiritual successor” speech again.

Indeed, a Red card will see the most love in a deck with Red cards.

Revolver West was a good example of a couple of things, firstly that not everyone who works for Otherworld King is evil. Revolver West is extremely kind, offers hospitality and will straight up offer advice to those who are in his opposition. He’s not an evil person, and the only thing he wants is to spread the joy of his food, which is what ANY proud chef wants.

And given that he claims he went there on the direct orders of Kajitsu, this could be good foreshadowing to the fact that Kajitsu and Yuuki are not necessarily evil, given they are sending kind people to test Dan.

It seems Kajitsu’s having a post-battle meeting with Revolver West about his battle with Dan.

Revolver notes his long service to Otherworld King as his response to her question, which makes her catch on that perhaps he’s re-thinking his service to him.

And once again, Anime’s lovely trope of indicating the morals of “Dreams” and “Fulfillment” to be things that only have meaning when achieved through one’s own effort, as opposed to having it granted to you.

Though I’m not sure its an adequate application here, defeating Dan requires great effort, achieving one’s dream through an unorthodox method that also requires great effort.

Perhaps its a more of a “There are no shortcuts in life” kind of message.

You can hear the neigh of a horse in the background when he says “Heigh-ho Silver!”

Once again, very Cowboy.

It appearsKajitsu doesn’t have a “You have outlived your usefulness” policy with people who want to leave, I guess if the offer of a wish isn’t compelling enough for some to act in her or Yuuki’s desires, then they’re free to go about their lives.

Dan of course, apologizes to Zungurii for being anal about Curry and Zungurii apologizes to Dan for pissing off and bringing back an enemy.

Dan once again has at Zungurii’s curry, after stating that he said Zungurii’s spicy curry was his favourite, he’s gong to have to take all the Ls that come with that.

Except this time it doesn’t, once Zungurii is given the freedom to just, make a Curry as opposed to Dan’s mother’s Curry, it turns out its actually quite tasty.

Both Dan and Zungurii are completely stumped as to why the Curry tastes good now. Once again, it’s likely because Zungurii was given free reign, outside the boundaries of having to do it to Dan’s mother’s recipe.

Zungurii is a good cook but he isn’t Dan’s mother.

Magisa then randomly pops out of nowhere and suggests that Dan should be exhausted because he quite literally did not sleep during the night waiting for Zungurii.

And then Dan completely ignores this going back to the Curry conversation, and stating that he now needs to tell his Dad that his Mum’s Curry is only 2nd best.

Also Dan has 2 completely living parents.

They have 0 appearances and no further mention is made of them, however there is a Chapter from a Premium Box much later that gives some indication of the events that occur to Dan after this series.

I won’t go over them until after we get to the end, but some details in those indicate that Dan’s father is a Salaryman, and Dan’s mother is a Housewife.

Could you believe this is a show about Card Games? I’d expect it to be one about fucking Curry at this point.

This episode isn’t bad, its a bit episodic, and Siegfried seems sort of planted in there to ensure people don’t skip it if they’re watching only for the Card Games, but at least for the characters its a good episode because it resolves the differences Dan has with Zungurii which are amplified by the fact that Dan is human and Zungurii is an Otherworlder.

It’s also a warning that those wishing to get a wish granted by Otherworld King will not be doing so out of malice, there are many good wishes they’ll have to step on if they’re going to prevent Otherworld King from doing as he likes.

There’s not much special plot detail beyond that but its not a bad episode, and one worth watching, not to mention I believe its the first time we’ve seen an X-Rare used up until now, and Dan finally begins his role as Bashin’s spiritual successor with the acquisition of Siegfried, Bashin’s own ace.

Which as it happens is our featured card for the day.

We’ve discussed the applications of this card, which is to say, Siegfried has near 0 meta presence for any reason because it’s just a Big Awaken Spirit that occasionally shits a life when it dies.

Interestingly however, it has interesting uses in Dan’s deck, we’ve seen Dan having Awaken support, and his Siegwurm also grants any Awaken Spirit the ability to use Clash, suddenly Siegfried’s Awaken and BP become useful to beat your opponent over the head with a stick.

And additionally, it’s destruction is more likely to occur because it can fight more battles with Clash.

Cool as that trick might be, you need 2 specific Cost 6 Spirits and well I’ll be honest, no one topping was bumping Siegwurm, so Siegfried benefitting from Siegwurm was irrelevant.

But it IS a small look into the potential of Siegfried in Dan’s Deck, not to mention it completes the idea of Dan being a better Bashin. Once again, this show on a very basic level, seems like an attempted remake of Toppa Bashin.

Anyway, that’s all I got for this episode! I’ll see you all in the next one!

Hoo boy, Last episode ended on a cliffhanger, I kind of REALLY want to jump right into this one I won’t lie.

Anything I particularly want to say can be saved til after the battle you were left hanging on.

But first thing’s first, eagle-eyed viewers may notice that in the opening of Gekiha Dan, Dan is actually depicted with the X-Rare from BS04, The DarkDragonEmperor Siegfried.

And while such a card is perfectly usable in his deck, Dan is never once depicted having or even using it in the show. It’s kind of crazy.

The opening even shows you the darn thing’s updated model, it’s chest apparently glows now.

Just a cool tidbit.

Anyway, here’s the episode, pretty standard, ThunderEmperorDragon vs. IronKnight.

Seeing 2 cards we’ve seen before on the title card so we have no clue what to expect.

Let’s review where we left off, the Score is Yuuki’s 2 lives to Dan’s 3.

Yuuki has a Berserker-Gun, an Artifact Droiden, and Yggdrassil, while Dan only has an exhausted Siegwurm on his board after Goradon and Rokceratops were removed.

It’s Yuuki’s attack step. And he starts with Berserker-Gun.

Dan of course, takes this moment to note how completely fucked he is.

An intriguing hand here… Dan’s Hand consists of 2 Buster Spears, 2 Goradons, Lizardedge and Rokceratops.

Dan could make a pretty effective weenie rush against Yuuki next turn, but we all know Yuuki’s got this.

And of course, signalled by what appears to be Yuuki’s theme, Berserker-Gun snatches a life.

No seriously, I mean it, if anyone can tell me what this theme is and where I can find it I HAVE to know.

Yeah don’t mind that Yggdrassil is just floating in the air, it leapt to the sky when the episode started and I’m not certain why.

Yuuki attacks with The IronKnight Yggdrassil.

Now Yuuki’s just shit-talking Dan’s Battle Style. He brought up that Dan’s battle style is very one-note, it does one specific thing and doesn’t waver from that style, Dan’s won 2 battles that way but Yuuki, at the very least, seems to be trying to get Dan to abandon such a one-note style by smashing it to pieces.

Dan’s on 1 life and a dream. Yggdrassil not only has the capacity to wield a Sword as we saw in the opening but he can also fire MISSILES

There’s this pretty awesome sequence where Dan and Yuuki are shown much closer together, I assume as a representation of their battle on a much more personal level, its a really effective way to hit home just how out of his depth Dan is.

And it’s not like Yuuki’s just using stronger cards, Berserker-Gun’s a vanilla, Droiden has a very basic effect and Yggdrassil matches Siegwurm blow for blow. Yuuki’s just straight up outplaying him.

The show finally catches up with the fact that Droiden can very easily take Dan’s last life.

He’s being a massive asshole about it but Yuuki hasn’t exactly flung one insult or bragged about anything. He’s mentioned being “Omnipotent” as a statement of fact but isn’t lording his ability over Dan’s, he’s just been sat there criticizing him.

If one listens very carefully to what Yuuki says and how he says it, it’s evident that this battle seems more like ruthless training than a battle for life and death. Yuuki seems very keen on flat out punching the holes Dan is leaving open.

Yuuki gives Dan a second option, an offer to work together.

If I was in Dan’s position and I was aware of how Yuuki was phrasing these statements I would probably take the offer.

But Dan is in pain, being belittled and stressed the fuck out, even a rational person would say no.

Yuuki even says he’ll give Dan the information he wants if he agrees.

Zungurii, with all the wisdom of a 4-year old, of course encourages Dan not to take this offer because Zungurii doesn’t like Yuuki.

Then again at this point the cast seem to have the inkling that Yuuki is Otherworld King, the reason the world sucks.

Dan is getting his ass beat but gosh that look in his eye is making me FIRED UP!

Go out with a bang!

It’s not an easy situation audience wise, the audience hasn’t exactly been led to believe that Yuuki is evil but we know he hangs out with the crowd that serve Otherworld King, kidnapped Zungurii’s family and bombed the Gurii-tribe’s village.

But we also know he’s a Lightbearer, and he’s been gathering them to breathe new life into Grand-Lolo.

Perhaps my hindsight is screwing with my perception of the situation.

Appeal to… Prophecy?

It seems Dan’s studied up on what he’s meant to do, its likely Magisa filled him in. But they both agree on what the circumstances of their position designate them to do.

Ah Dan, you truly are the best successor to Bashin we could have asked for.

Much like Bashin, Dan doesn’t see people in black and white terms as “With me or against me”, Dan isn’t beyond getting his shit kicked in by someone pissing on his entire Batosupi Career and still considering them allies based on the circumstances like this one.

Yuuki said that restoring life to Otherworld was “Our” mission.

But it’s not HIS Mission. He wants to do something different, something that apparently goes beyond the scope of what the Core Lightbearers are supposed to do.

I guess Dan has picked up that Yuuki seems to be obligated to this World in some way despite the fact that he isn’t an Otherworlder.

Oh shit we’re going full Flashback up in here.

So incase the above images were too disjointed, Yuuki’s little flashback consists of this:

He was born a Human, he kept having dreams of his Sister however, suggesting that he needed to save and protect her, in order to do that, he needs the power of those who bear the core’s light.

Magisa decides to mention Mother Core to the cast finally, we already know what Mother Core is as an audience, sort of, its something the Otherworld King wants.

This isn’t really helping the “Yuuki is not Otherworld King” theory.

Magisa explains that she’s “heard” that if all 6 Core Lightbearers are gathered, Mother Core can be activated.

What that entails I guess is control over all 6 Worlds?

This is some real Sonic the Hedgehog Master Emerald energy.

Magisa then states that given what she remembers, Otherworld King should already have Mother Core.

And of course if Otherworld King already has what he wants then why would he, or someone affiliated with him, need the Bearers of the Core’s Light for it again?

The answer, is because something is wrong with Mother Core.

Dan interrupts this very plot-driven conversation to shout the Shounen equivalent of expletives at Yuuki.

Yeah shut up Dan, plot is happening.

Zungurii takes this moment to be cheeky, as the 4000 year old Witch for some reason doesn’t actually know something.

I think every episode thus far has had Magisa respond poorly to being belittled, this was the ONLY way it could end.

Ah yes, Mother Core is our intangible Super MacGuffin that requires 6 other unstealable MacGuffins to acquire and said MacGuffin lets you become Omnipotent.

But Yuuki I thought you said you were ALREADY Omnipotent?

Also this is the first time Yuuki’s mentioned Otherworld King. And its in 3rd person.

This question is a disguised conclusion, we can safely confirm from Yuuki’s statement that he is not, in fact, Otherworld King.

Dan’s done being ignored to the detriment of those of us who actually WANT FUCKING ANSWERS!

And Yuuki… strangely ends his turn. Deciding not to end the game with Droiden’s attack.

Dan appears to suggest the idea that Yuuki is offering Dan the opportunity to change his mind, by allowing him to continue battling despite being checkmated once already.

It’s Turn 8 and we get a nice view of Dan’s board, complete with all the Core available.

I’ve calculated this, it’s correct. Dan should have 11 core total at this moment and he does.

He’ll have 12 for his turn.

Once again, paying Core is for LOSERS. Dan plays Goradon, Rokceratops and Lizardedge, Lizardedge being at Lv3.

Which is a bit of a strange statement to make when he only visibly adds 3 core to it.

Siegwurm is also brought to Lv3.

Dan of course, opens his attack step with Siegwurm, activating “Clash”, now Yuuki’s Spirits must block if able, Dan is evidently trying to get rid of the problematic Droiden bolstering Yuuki’s field.

Yuuki counters with Dream Ribbon, a Magic we know all too well, it has the very simple effect of Bouncing an opposing Spirit.

Since Yuuki emptied his Reserve playing Yggdrassil, he has to spend the core using Berserker-Gun’s Core, bringing it down to Level 1.

Siegwurm is the obvious target. Now once this Flash Timing ends, Yuuki will have no need to block, as there is no Spirit to complete the attack.

And Yuuki’s back to asking stupid philosophical questions that Dan is far too hot-blooded to care about.

Well of course he did, you’ve fought that way twice calling it your “Style”

If you think he doesn’t have answers for Clash you’re gonna be in a real pickle.

Yuuki basically straight up told you that your fighting style is one-note and the fact that it’s a problem.

“Man I didn’t expect he’d read me like a book” said Dan, concerning Yuuki who has told him he can be read like a book.

You.. haven’t made that many attacks he’s countered. This is like the ONLY one. He’s just been punishing you for Siegwurm plays, first by capitalizing on the Core you took away from your Spirits to play Siegwurm and then just getting rid of Siegwurm.

So Dan makes a… relatively poor move given the circumstances? But of course the pressure he’s feeling might lead him to such a decision.

Yuuki only has 1 Blocker, Droiden, and 2 lives, Dan has 3 attackers but chose not to aim for Yuuki’s last life because Yuuki has been supposedly matching every single one of Dan’s plays.

So he ends his turn, the problem with this is that “Not losing” isn’t the same as “Winning” and things that seem like a good idea to stop yourself losing won’t be conducive to keeping yourself winning.

I guess sitting in the spectator chair doesn’t protect you from getting potshots out of the peanut gallery, now Kajitsu’s joining the mocking

And Yuuki even joins in.

Okay now they’re just straight up bullying Dan at this point, this isn’t conducive to getting him to work with you.

Dan was stressed enough to not swing in a state of check which is usually when you WANT to swing so that you can force the cards you’re afraid of out of your opponent’s hand. Of course some counters can only occur when you’re swinging, so Dan might only want to try and go for Yuuki’s last 2 lives when he’s in a position to recover from said Counter.

The problem is a lot of the time its going to be a card the player can use on their own turn. Which means you’re in no better position, then difference is that you get to Flash first instead of them which may not always matter.

Of the cards in Dan’s hand we know the identity of 4 of them, its Siegwurm, a Goradon (which he should have really played), and 2 Buster Spears, we don’t know what the card he drew is.

Magisa commends that removing Siegwurm from the field is damaging for Dan’s psyche.

No Magisa I think the fact that Siegwurm was rendered useless on it’s own and then promptly walked around coupled with Yuuki and Kajitsu straight up bullying Dan is what broke his heart.

We do get a chance to double check Yuuki’s field right before he moves. Right now the Core Yuuki has is correct, 10 core available, he’ll have 11 on this turn.

And Yuuki’s got 4 cards in hand for his main step.

Yuuki levels up Yggdrassil and Droiden to Lv3, notably the BP values displayed are their powered up values, so Droiden’s at a nice 7000 BP for a Cost 4 at this time, and Yggdrassil is sitting on a comfortable 10000 BP.

Dan still has 3 blockers mind you, he’s still safe provided you don’t remove another Spirit.

Yuuki attacks with IronKnight Yggdrassil.

Oh hey and it pulls out its iconic Sword to swing with, nice.

Dan blocks with Goradon and Yggdrassil freaking slams him against the Life barrier.

I don’t quite get what Yuuki means here but I guess he’s saying Dan still intends to keep battling despite the hopeless predicament.

Rokceratops blocks an attack from Artifact Droiden and is destroyed.

This is the disadvantage with the mindset of “The only life that matters is your last”

Once you’re on one life, you can’t let an attack through, this can be used to the opponent’s advantage in order to FORCE you to give up Spirits you would rather not lose.

While it’s nice to get a fast advantage early by simply not blocking, it can be abused later if it gets that far, and unfortunately Dan wasn’t swift enough in dispatching Yuuki, hence the current predicament.

Yuuki declares what he’s about to do before he does it, but given that whatever semblance of a Pokerface Dan had, its completely vanished. He’s likely aware Dan will do whatever he was going to do if it swings.

Kajitsu picks now to realize that this is the equivalent of playground bullying.

Some notes: Having the opponent in your sights but choosing not to take the game is a disrespect to them. It’s very upsetting for the losing player to constantly be given turns they should not have because of the hubris of their opponent.

Of course there are times you may not wish to attack even if it looks like you’ve won because of cards in hand, which makes plays like that more acceptable IF the opponent has maintained their Poker face up until now.

Dan of course, has not one to speak of, making the situation more frustrating because Dan KNOWS Yuuki knows he can win.

In this case however, there are plot reasons for it, Yuuki is using the battle as a mechanism to converse with him. So the longer it goes on, the longer Dan has to think about Yuuki’s offer.

Dan of course, says the equivalent of “Get fucked“

Dan’s taken an interesting stance on this, Dan’s choice to stay here involves the saving of Zungurii’s family and then going home.

Helping Yuuki falls outside of that spectrum, for any reason, and he’s certainly not inclined whatsoever to help a dude who’s been bullying him the whole game.

Wait, did Yuuki take this entire battle to make the request of Dan anyway incase he was wrong? But otherwise flat out didn’t expect him to accept?

Also he makes mention that it’s “Because he’s the Red Soldier”, does that mean that specific personality criteria is needed to bear a certain Core’s Light?

This statement doesn’t exactly make sense since its a bit of a “hang on what do you MEAN Dan will become Otherworld King?”

So to quickly check (not doubting the Subber) I double checked the Japanese in case there was another way to interpret it. “Ikai-oh ni naru” basically has only one other translation, which is a request to “Become the Otherworld King”

I’m a bit confused as to why Yuuki says that though, but I might get more context as I keep watching.

Its very out there.

So, okay. Yuuki requires the 6 bearers of the Core’s Light to come together in order to activate Mother Core.

However his secondary goal is to ensure that one of those Core Lightbearers becomes Otherworld King after the “Final Battle”

Dan of course, mentions the “Remaining three”, from what we know right now, 3 who bear the Core’s Light are here, Kajitsu for Green, Yuuki for White and Dan for Red

Once again, it LOOKS like Kajitsu is answering Dan’s question but she phrases it as “The ones who bear the Core’s Light have all been summoned to Grand-Lolo”

The question Dan asks and question Kajitsu answers are distinctly different, let’s see if you readers can figure out what’s different about the question Dan asked and the question Kajitsu answered.

As if Dan needed any other reason to go chase a MacGuffin.

And not jsut that, a WISH GRANTING MacGuffin!

So every Human in Otherworld has some kind of desire they want fulfilled, something the wish-granting MacGuffin this series calls “Mother Core”

Otherworld King currently has the MacGuffin, but the MacGuffin requires the 6 Bearers of the Core’s Light to activate, while this isn’t explicitly stated, this implies that the current Otherworld King can’t currently use Mother Core for some reason.

Either way, Humans battle it out to become the strongest, and the strongest among the Humans earn the right to battle Otherworld King, if they win, they’ll become Otherworld King and also gain the wish-granting Mother Core.

So, if I’ve got this straight, Mother Core requires the 6 Core Lightbearers to activate, Mother Core is in the possession, or at least, is accessible only to the one who has the mantle of Otherworld King.

This explains why Otherworld King is interested in the 6 Core Lightbearers, he wants to activate Mother Core, and Otherworld King is inclined to protect our wish-granting device until they can activate it with the 6 Core Lightbearers.

Makes sense.

Of course Zungurii isn’t following the conversation and just shouts that Dan couldn’t become Otherworld King.

My guess is they associate Otherworld King too strongly with a tyrant that ruled the world so its hard to separate that from the role even though it’s just one person.

Yuuki of course, decides this additional revelation is worth letting Dan chew on for a bit and ends his turn.

Dan notes Yuuki’s failure to attack, but in this case it isn’t a problem, Yuuki wouldn’t win anyway and while he could take out the last Lizardedge, he’d be left wide open with 2 lives and no blockers and all Dan would need to do is play 2 Spirits.

The situation is… well, honestly less different now, if Dan has 2 spirits he still wins.

But also that Lizardedge is at a Lv3 BP of 4000 and Berserker-Gun is at level 1, it’d be a bit foolish to swing here.

Dan draws for his turn, and it’s Victory Fire.

That’s not going to go well… For Dan.

Yggdrassil’s at Lv3, no part of drawing Victory Fire makes this situation any better.

It appears the card we lacked the identity of ended up being another Rokceratops. Which he plays along with Goradon.

So Dan’s hand now, is Siegwurm, 2 Buster Spears and a Victory Fire.

Also Lizardedge has the correct 4 core on him now!

Dan then levels down Lizardedge and plays Siegwurm at Lv2.

Was that necessary? He’s got 13 Core, 6 of which are on Spirits.

He pays 3 and moves 3 to Siegwurm, leaving him with 10 Core, 9 of which are on his Spirits.

Ah, and he needs 3 Core for Victory Fire, Lizardedge can lose 2 core levelled down, and he’s got 1 core left in reserve already.

Alright this adds up, but levelling down Lizardedge for that purpose when you can just PAY OFF OF IT is kind of telegraphing that you’ve got something else.

Okay, visually that looks stunning.

Also an interesting note, characters often skip the pleasantries of saying “Attack” when attacking with a Clash Spirit, they just tell the Spirit to “Clash” which only applies while it’s attacking. Its like a special kind of attack command which is cool.

Dan follows up with Victory Fire.

Thanks to the Red Armor granted to all of Yuuki’s White Spirits by Yggdrassil, Berserker-Gun is unaffected by Dan’s Red Magic.

This seems weird if you’re not remembering the first episode, but Dan HAS actually fought Yggdrassil before, he has no reason to be unaware of it’s Armor granting effect.

It’s normal for Card Game shows to try catch a character off-guard with an effect they’re unaware of, it happens all the time. Sometimes it can sour a victory because knowledge is its own kind of power when it comes to card games. Simply knowing what a card does increases the chances of victory infinitely more.

They didn’t actually do that here though, Dan was already aware of the ability, but forgot about it in his desperation, the minute he drew any kind of out he was like “Yes I got something” before completely disregarding his opponent.

Yuuki also brings up an important interaction between Clash and Armor.

Clash, namely, doesn’t affect the opponent, it’s not that the opponent is required to make the choice of blocking, it’s that their Spirits must take that option if its available.

Because its an ability that affects opposing Spirits, Spirits with Clash are not affected by that ability.

Eh, for a Cost 6 it does a fair bit yes. A mass bounce of all Spirits that fall under Flame Tempest’s BP limit, and Flame Tempest was ALREADY good, and then the ability to protect against White effects that would bounce them and Red effects that would destroy them.

Granted Yggdrassil is kind of at the mercy of the other 4 colours but Dan isn’t using those, making it a ridiculously strong Spirit. That’s not even mentioning the on summon effect is a complete shut-down of the way Dan plays.

And then Yuuki gets a bit cringe by comparing his ability over Armor with his desire to protect Kajitsu.

Dan quite rightfully says that it doesn’t protect Yuuki himself though, and Dan has enough Spirits to win in spite of the setback.

But of course, White is well known for one thing and one thing especially.

Defense Magic.

Blizzard Wall is a pretty effective Magic for staying attacks in a way Silent Wall doesn’t. While Silent Wall ends the attack step straight after the attack is over, Blizzard Wall does not, what it does is prevent your life being reduced any more than once by the unblocked attacks of Spirits.

Your first thought might be “Well isn’t Silent Wall just better? It ends the attack step straight away, Its cheaper and you can block to do it.”

And well… You’re kind of right.

However under specific conditions, Blizzard Wall is better, firstly at Max reductions its cheaper than Silent Wall at Max reductions. This makes Blizzard Wall, in some cases, more effective than Silent Wall.

Additionally, its an EXTRA defense Magic. And given its reductions are well suited to decks populated with White Spirits, it gives White an extra layer of impenetrability.

Yuuki takes from the life, and Blizzard Wall’s effect (represented by the Blizzard) now prevents Dan from taking any more lives from Yuuki as a result of an unblocked attack.

Oh right, Blizzard Wall has one other holdover over Silent Wall, and thats that it is effective against Spirits with 2 Symbols.

If a Multi-symbol spirit attacks and you have no blockers, Blizzard Wall will reduce the number of lives lost while Silent Wall will not.

Well at least Yuuki’s enjoying himself, can’t say the same about Dan, who ends his turn given there’s nothing more he can do.

Yuuki brings Berserker-Gun to Lv2 and instantly enters his Attack Step.

Yggdrassil attacks, but is blocked by Goradon, who ends up destroyed

Berserker-Gun’s attack is blocked by Rokceratops, Rokceratops is destroyed.

Dan’s shedding tears.

I would say “He’s still in this, he’s got 1 blocker for Droiden” but that’s not the reason he’s upset.

Since coming into this world Dan’s shown that he has a very close relationship with his Spirits which was only strengthened by their appearance in the Battlefield.

He’s upset, because to stay alive he has to continually destroy them.

The thing about Battle Spirits is that a standard battle style can be seen in 2 ways. You take lives to Protect your Spirits, or you play Spirits to protect your lives.

Dan evidently does it the first way, but now he’s in a situation where he can’t do that or he can’t save the family of someone else. So he’s forced to act against his nature and destroy the Spirits he holds closely.

Yuuki notes that even though Dan is in a really bad situation, he’s continuing to block, that implies that Dan insists on resisting Yuuki’s offer to team up.

Yuuki attacks with The Artifact Droiden.

And Yuuki follows up with a card we haven’t seen before, another new card from SD01

Armor Purge is a Cost 7 White Magic that refreshes every Spirit you have that has Armor in exchange for erasing their Armor. Notably there’s a caveat that they can’t be granted new Armor during this turn because Yggdrassil doesn’t innately have it, it grants it. Otherwise you could effectively use this card multiple times.

You get a lovely visual of Yggdrassil and Berserker-Gun smashing their barriers to Refresh.

Okay sure but why the fuck are you glowing?

Lizardedge blocks Droiden but it doesn’t even matter because all of Yuuki’s spirits are refreshed.

Hilariously, if Dan held onto his Victory Fire he… still wouldn’t win but at least he could take out Berserker-Gun.

Yuuki makes one final check to verify whether or not Dan’s will has been completely broken passed this point, and it doesn’t appear to be.

Its so eerie, having Yuuki do all of this while continuing to state that he’s genuinely having fun.

With no blockers available, Dan is unable to block Yggdrassil’s last attack, and unfortunately loses his final life.

Yuuki is the winner.

Apparently the emotional stress coupled with the pain of taking lives just proceeded to knock poor Dan the fuck out for several hours.

And in that time Magisa has gone through at LEAST 10 beers and is on her fucking 11th.

And of course, Zungurii greets Dan the way he was taught to. Incorrectly.

Dan attempts to apologise for failing but Zungurii doesn’t mind, given that Dan tried and is likely still willing to keep trying. Its not like they only had 1 shot at this.

On the upside, Zungurii has made his first attempt at making Curry.

Which is apparently far too spicy for even Dan to eat.

I need to try some of that stuff, I LOVE ridiculously spicy food, trips to Nandos are always fun when you can make the entire room gawk at how much Hot sauce you’ve stuck onto your Chicken.

It’s not like the food is overly hot it’s just spicy which requires at least SOME time before you notice how strong it is. You’d have known what it tasted like well beforehand.

Magisa acting like a Mother disciplining her child for being a shitlord to his little brother. They’re a very cute Trio all things considered, much as I dislike Zungurii he’s a very good compliment to the show and I can’t concievably say I would like the show more if he was absent.

And of course Magisa has a point, for someone who didn’t know what Curry was until a few hours ago and hasn’t even seen a picture of it, he’s made a fairly good first attempt, what he made DOES look like Curry.

Zungurii tells Dan to become the strongest and Dan promises to save Zungurii’s family.

A Deal Sealed by the consumption of Curry too Spicy for any Mortal to eat.

The group are interrupted from their bonding time to notice that Kajitsu is still fucking here.

Kajitsu produces one of Zungurii’s Sister’s keepsakes and hands it to the group.

Kajitsu tells them that the necklace was apparently from an Otherworlder who is currently working on something called the “Horizon Ladder”, it was mentioned last episode.

Specifically its this Huge tower-like thing that is for some reason in a place that’s permanently overcast.

Whatever that is, its a strong indication of where Zungurii’s family is located.

Dan evidently doesn’t trust information handed to them from the enemy but Zungurii points out that the amulet is a keepsake from his Sister which proves that she isn’t lying and has encountered her.

With no leads, they don’t really have a choice but to believe her.

Kajitsu points them in the direction of the Horizon Ladder.

That’s kind of interesting that she’s informing them despite Dan losing. But if we look back at Episode 3, Kajitsu straight up asks Yuuki to tell Zungurii the location of his family, and it was Yuuki that chose to withhold that information behind a Battle.

Nothing is going to stop Kajitsu from telling them herself, and given how strongly Yuuki stated he wanted to protect her, and Kajitsu’s evident strong wish to not see her Brother slighted, its highly likely Yuuki doesn’t mind Kajitsu yielding this information anyway.

Supposedly these Horizon Ladders are tools of Otherworld King that allow him to do… something. “Open a door to the world of his dreams” is the most unclear shit I’ve ever seen written.

Knowing shit about Otherworld King doesn’t automatically mean they’re Otherowlrd King Zungurii.

You either die a Zun-Believer, or you live long enough to become a Zun-Doubter.

Yuuki’s Omnipotent, Kajitsu’s extraordinary. These are lovely statements but we’ve yet to see what the exact nature of those statements ACTUALLY ARE.

Dan decides to drag us away from Zungurii’s singular brain cell working hard to make up for Bashin’s absence and asks why Kajitsu would volunteer that information to Dan if he lost the battle and therefore the right to that information.

While the upholding of rules in Otherworld is considered incredibly sacred, Kajitsu at no point said she’d participate in the terms Yuuki set.

And Kajitsu apparently kind of likes watching Dan fight.

Don’t worry, this isn’t a romantic attraction… And for those who know, it’s unfortunately not a romantic attraction.

And then Kajitsu vamooshes.

Man it must be convenient being able to control the insects of the world so you can be carried away.

Our Trio all decide that they believe Kajitsu’s statements but Magisa errs on the side of caution involving the receiving of information from the enemy, pulls up the strangest bike I’ve ever seen and says she’s going to go verify the claim.

Dan is left with the task of finding the other Lightbearers in the meantime.

We get a scene jump to Yuuki appearing to review the cards in his deck.

Shame we don’t see any new ones, Bashin felt the need to throw new cards at us every 2 seconds, we don’t see much of that here because this is a spiritual remake of Toppa Bashin.

And Yuuki confirms to us that Kajitsu’s actions were in fact sanctioned by him. He had no intention of keeping that information secret from Dan, but needed to uphold the restrictions placed on himself.

Xanatos Gambit is one hell of a trope.

This for whatever reason implies the existence of other Red Soldiers and that Yuuki has met many.

Whatever criteria of Red Soldier Yuuki’s looking for, Dan fits it by “knowing the core’s pain”

They’re talking like Dan just sent in a CV/Resume or some shit, Yuuki’s verified that Dan is at the very least, the ideal personality to embody the role of the Red Soldier. Now I guess they’re going to test his aptitude for improvement.

…By throwing every available Card Battler at him.

And so the episode closes with Yuuki asking Kajitsu to notify every available Card Battler that defeating the Red Soldier qualifies their deck as the strongest and therefore worthy of battling Otherworld King.

That is kind of nasty thinking about it, Yuuki has expressed a desire for a wish to be granted through Mother Core, hence he’s gathering the necessary people to activate it. And to expedite the process of testing Dan he’s going to use every other Human who came here with a wish as fodder.

That’s kind of ridiculous, this also means Dan’s basically going to get assassins thrown at him left and right.

Its kind of a reversal of the role of Nazo-Otonas in the previous series, rather than being sought after by Battlers, this story’s variant of the Nazo-Otonas, in this case, the Humans working under Otherworld King, are seeking out the Battlers.

Speaking of comparisons to Toppa, Yuuki makes an excellent successor to J, he’s a powerful White user making good use of White’s unique keyword, Armor effectively against Dan’s use of Red’s keyword, Clash.

Most of his deck mirrors Dan’s which makes him a really good Rival.

And he seems to be already employing his “Jack Knight” esque role, embedding himself within the enemy forces acting as an opposition to Dan.

Cool guy.

Our card of the day is Yggdrassil, but since I can’t really talk about that without talking about it’s status well beyond the scope of the game now, I’ll just cover Yuuki’s deck thus far.

He’s only used 6 unique cards, so far his Deck seems very basic, much like Dans, he’s got Berserker-Gun as a low cost vanilla, Droiden for power, Yggdrassil as his main Spirit, Dream Ribbon is a splashable Magic along with Blizzard Wall, and Armor Purge to benefit from Yggdrassil’s effect.

We could suggest that Yuuki has an Armor-focused deck but when you’ve got a Key Spirit like Yggdrassil, a card like Armor Purge is usable whether you’re using an Armor Deck or not.

We will simply have to see more before we make a determination.

And with that I will bid you adieu! See you next time!

Alright, we’ve gotten through 2 episodes, so far we’ve had a basic introduction to the mechanics of the game, Spirits and Magic, what next Nexuses?

And we’ve got a general basic insight on the plot, Dan is going to save Zungurii’s family on his epic quest.

But of course, to start with, we have Dan in another battle, though what’s being thrown at him appears to just be Spirits he fought in previous episodes, who in their right mind puts Humpdump in a deck alongside Tanya and Froger of all things?

Of course, since this isn’t going to be an actual battle we’ll care about, they skip to the cinematics of Siegwurm burning them all to a crisp.

Interestingly, Siegwurm is the ThunderEmperorDragon (Raiouryu) but breathes Fire…

…It appears we’re having a Shounen protagonist dreaming… and it wasn’t an awful nightmare.

He does get a nasty bump on his head because apparently Zungurii was watching him sleep.

Also they gave him a whole ass bed, he slept in it WITH HIS CLOTHES ON and didn’t even get a blanket.

Dang.

It appears Zungurii’s village uses the Japanese method of abbreviating words to take the first “syllable” out of “Good” and “Morning” to produce “GooMo”

I can’t tell if its because Dan is irritated at Zungurii for bumping into him or if he’s just playing a prank on him but if you pull shit like this you’re an asshole.

And of course, Magisa feels the need to discipline Dan for pranking Zungurii who doesn’t know any better.

Dan notes that Magisa knows quite a fair bit of how to get to Dan’s World, as well as information about it, which makes him curious.

She evidently gets this part wrong, which normally implies that her information is out of date, as Tokugawa Ieyasu died over 400 years ago. Secondly he wasn’t a King, he was a Shogun, a military dictator who was nominated by the Emperor. Finally he was only Shogun of Japan, not King of Dan’s world.

That being said, this isn’t a fuck up, its actually a potentially INGENIUS level of rewatch value which will be explained when it becomes relevant. At least concerning the time constraint.

Oh shit, the title card is promising an appearance from Yggdrassil, so we’re going to see either Yuuki or Kajitsu fight, as we both know they each hold one.

Here we get to learn a couple things about Zungurii, firstly he’s exactly the level of intelligence one would expect for his age, which is to say, not very high.

Secondly, he’s strong as BALLS.

And that Zungurii’s family is absolutely fucking MASSIVE.

The “Gurii” Tribe they’re called.

I guess Otherworlders are not separated as species but by Tribe.

I see Kazan has gotten to Zungurii’s big brother, feeling like a bad card battler.

Then again he got his ass whooped by a Humpdump, so I guess its a fair assessment.

Dan isn’t worried of course, saying he isn’t alone, and that “40 of his friends are coming”

At least we can safely confirm now that Dan’s deck consists of 40 cards, but he gave Zungurii a card left in his deck so he must have spare cards somewhere because otherwise he’d have 39.

Given that Zungurii could literally hold enough furniture to furbish a fucking Mansion all at once, I assume its going to be Dan dragging Zungurii down.

Looks like we’re getting more villain foreshadowing.

How DOES that rockface stay afloat? I suppose its Otherworld so it doesn’t have to make sense.

Kazan didn’t get nearly this ass-blasted when he lost to Dan, why is it that Magical Crown is getting humiliated?

“And totally not because I completely fucked up a play because I forgot Royal Potion also refreshes my opponent’s spirits!”

Kazan has… an interesting take on the situation, most villains are like “Damn, they’re strong, we need to get rid of them” but 2 of their rank have already been completely wrecked by Dan, Kazan’s immediate thought is to try and recruit them instead?

The ol’ “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em”, well in this case its “If you can’t beat ’em, have them join us”

Apparently Crown is aware of the contingency Kazan has suggested but I don’t really get it.

You’re going to notice some fantastic racism (That is a Fantasy variant of racism that discriminates against a fictional race, and not a real one, still pretty bad though)

And of course, you can see that there’s a hint of human supremacy here with Kazan calling Otherworld a “Utopia for Humans”

I’ll say now, Kazan’s rage isn’t justified, but it is explainable.

Kazan foreshadows their history there, apparently something “happened” to Earth that made them need to take refuge here.

But here’s the weird thing, Dan left Earth to GO to Grand-Lolo and we saw it was fine.

So what’s wrong with Earth?

More plot tidbits, whatever it is they’re hoping to do to “Save” Humanity, it relies on this very eerie looking tower, known as a “Horizon Ladder”

Subber intended to say “brought”, but basically their plan revolves around enlightening the bearers of the core’s light by bringing them to Otherworld King.

The last time you fought your best move was playing Humpdump. What’s your plan for the next ’bout?

Your Curse Deck that failed to pull off a successful resolution of the Curse effect.

Of course, after that rally, every single goon here also wants a crack at Dan.

I swear is it like a requirement that Rivals in Card Game anime take a course on how to perfectly throw cards such that their thin cardboard edge can slice through Stone?

Regardless, Yuuki sees the commotion, and offers to battle Dan, and given the title card of the episode, It’s likely this episode is leading to a Rival Match, which is a little late in compared to Toppa Bashin but at least it’s early enough.

We interrupt this tense and cool moment with an edgelord on screen to bring you the fact that this midget is not ONLY filled with enough Strength to save Amazon money on delivery trucks, but he’s also really good at cooking.

Well what else is he gonna be good at? Battle Spirits? Pfff-

Dan of course, unlike Bashin, is a man after my own heart, and suggests the ultimate dish anyone could POSSIBLY go for. Curry.

I don’t have a Top favourite but I do have a Top 3 favourite foods that I all like equally. The first which I get made for my birthday as tradition every year is Beef Chickpea Stew, the consistency of which is as close to a Curry as it gets in my house. The second is Beef Steak, specifically Bitoque, which is a Portuguese way of eating Beef Steak that involves putting a Fried Egg on top of it.

The Third of Course, is Dan’s number 1 favourite food. Curry.

Fun fact: Japanese Beef Curry is Japan’s National Dish.

Unfortunately, given that Zungurii has 0 knowledge of Earth cuisine, doesn’t know what Curry is.

And even worse, doesn’t even think it looks tasty.

Magisa returns to hurry the pair along but they ask where she vanished off to, as she tends to be in and out of scenes at random.

Ah I see, it must be hard for a 4029 year old woman to find love, so she went off to go mast-

-er some card combos… suuure.

Dan’s face is very ( ಠ ͜ʖಠ)

I’ve never seen someone ask this question and never get a satisfactory answer.

At this particular moment, Dan and Zungurii look like idiots.

But of course this is Battle Spirits, so there’s a semblance of strategy under all that dumbassery, with Dan explaining that Crown and Kazan both came and left in specific directions, so with no other indication of where to go, they’re following that direction.

Its as good a plan as any.

Bitch unless you have a better idea, quitcha-bitchin.

Here we actually find out what the place Zungurii and Magisa went to before Magical Crown showed up, its called a Card Stand, its basically a less developed version of a Batosupi Centre, it sells cards but it also lets people get information, like a regular bar I guess.

They also apparently sell alcohol.

Alcohol, Card Games and Info, interesting combination.

Just because the Beer-addicted Wizard is here for information doesn’t mean she has to be sober enough to retain it.

Come on now, you silly.

Zungurii you had nothing except an Ankillersaurus before now, expecting YOU to know what cards do is like touching a live socket with a wet hand.

Whoever’s collection this is, its pretty good, Thor, Mjolnir AND Big-Loki.

It appears Dan, as the Red Soldier, has been sent a message in the form of “The IronKnight Yggdrassil”

Now this would be pointless to anyone besides Dan, who got his butt-wrecked by an Yggdrassil in his last ’bout, I wonder if Kajitsu did this with ALL the Lightbearers just so Yuuki could pull stunts like this.

Of course, Dan would naturally ask whether or not the Card was left to him by a Girl.

But Yuuki clearly has copies to spare given he’s held one, flung one, and handed one to Dan.

This was probably intended as Magisa looking forward to meeting a cute boy, but it DOES look a lot like she’s also considered the possibility lil ol’ Dan might be just a wee bit gay.

Dan recalls a boy of that description, namely Yuuki, before he’s suddenly led away by another of Kajitsu’s butterflies.

Where the hell has Magisa encountered an IronKnight Yggdrassil?

Small chase through the forest leads Dan all the way to Kajitsu, perched on a Rock.

Somehow, by some strange force, Yggdrassil flies out of Dan’s hands.

And Yuuki catches it.

Hilariously, as physics defying as this is normally, Yuuki does actually have some measure of ability over Magic. So its entirely plausible he could do this.

And here we have the arrival of Yuuki, he does actually give his name here, “Momose Yuuki”, but we already knew about it because I explained it so yeah.

It also feels so strange hearing “Bashin” and not having either “Toppa” or some idiotic schmuck attached to it.

More like YOU returned, Dan was flung in.

I may have forgotten that little detail. It still begs the question how in the hell Dan managed to find his way back anyhow.

I find the idea that he jumped off the same balcony he was flung off of in the hopes that it was there while risking a lethal fall kind of amusing.

Qualifications to be the Red Soldier involve…

Well actually I don’t know, Dan came in with a Red deck and apparently bearing the Core’s light which Kajitsu can apparently detect (there IS an explanation for that of course), but I assume this implies that had Dan chose not to do his duty and stay in Grand-Lolo after being given the opportunity to leave, he would no longer bear the Core’s light.

Resolve appears to be a required trait I suppose.

Magisa and Zungurii have finally caught up, would suck if they weren’t able to give commentary.

Yuuki escorts Kajitsu off the rock like a princess. This is of course, entirely in character.

Yuuki seems to be divulging a lot of information rather freely. And I never noticed this but he does directly state Kajitsu can detect Lightbearers. HOW of course is yet to be explained but one will be able to draw the conclusion later.

He SPITTIN’

“Nice nickname, but YOU AIN’T SHIT”

He seems to have well-researched Dan, which leaves Dan at a tactical and social disadvantage because he doesn’t know anything about Yuuki.

…Then that would be Omniscient… not Omnipotent.

And if he WAS Omnipotent, he should certainly be able to fix whatever he wants Dan for.

Zungurii comes to the, actually rational conclusion that an “Omnipotent Person” in Grand-Lolo fits the description of Otherworld King.

Magisa’s surprise is… actually quite a clever choice. We know from earlier that Magisa has knowledge of the Otherworld King, so it’s likely she’s met him.

Eagle-eyed viewers will take her confusion to mean that she does not recognise Yuuki as the Otherworld King. Which can mean one of 2 things.

1. There was more than 1 Otherworld King.
2. Yuuki isn’t Otherworld King.

Kajitsu requests that Yuuki inform the group of where Zungurii’s family is currently located.

Yuuki decides to withhold that information, deciding to dangle it over Dan’s head as a reward for defeating him.

Understandably enranged, Zungurii charges at Yuuki and has to have a full Scrappy Doo sequence of going “LEMME AT ‘EM, LEMME AT ‘EM!”

Kajitsu doesn’t take kindly to Zungurii charging at them, using the Insects as a deterrent.

That little display was basically Kajitsu’s way of saying she doesn’t really tolerate slights when it comes to her Brother. And will respond in kind if they’re uncooperative.

After that short scuffle, we finally get to our battle! It’s Yuuki vs Dan! Rival battles are always good’uns.

Well, almost always.

Dan very quickly makes a comment about Yuuki’s battle form not actually changing despite entering the Battlefield. Even though it’s fairly obvious from the 5 blue lives on his chest that Yuuki’s been in his Battle form quite literally the entire time.

Magisa reasons the attacks on Zungurii’s families, enslaving them, along with Yggdrassil was bait to appeal to Dan’s heroic tendencies.

The enslaving was a bit much, but having Kajitsu beat the fuck out of Dan with Yggdrassil, leaving a lasting impression just to bait him with it by sending it to him is genius.

Once again, Magisa questions the idea that Yuuki could be Otherworld King.

And Magisa also comments that she doesn’t actually recognise Kajitsu’s abilities. Which for someone who has knowledge of those who bear the Core’s Light, would be strange for her.

So you know when you get those muppets who are like almost certain about what will happen in a Card game? Such that without battling most characters are like “Nah you can’t reach him, he’s out of your league, etc.”

Or you know, characters have a strange confidence in their ability to win and it’s carried through because writing, what I found, and this is especially true in real life, is that when you talk shit pre-battle, there’s suddenly a pressure to back it up.

Yuuki just got done telling Dan he was fucking Omnipotent but openly declares that he’s nervous about the battle.

Yuuki, proposes that he go first, suggesting to Dan that Dan will be the first to attack, given that Yuuki has paraded Yggdrassil about it’s evident he’s a White player, and has proposed a turn order that benefits both of them. White likes to go first whereas Red prefers to go second.

Dan doesn’t disagree with this course of action, instead noting that Yuuki thinks he can take on Red at it’s best.

Yuuki goes for a simple play, he plays a Lv2 Berserker-Gun and ends his turn, 1 Core and 3 available is pretty nice for a reserved first turn play. If he has low cost magic he can surprise Dan on his first attack.

Berserker-Gun’s an Oldie but a Goodie, Cost 1 Machine.

Meanwhile Dan is notably telling us all that “Paying Core is for losers” and plays a Lv2 Goradon and a Lv2 Rokceratops.

This does mean all his Core IS on his 2 spirits, BUT at least there’s 2 reductions and 5 core available, he could Victory Fire from this position.

Dan attacks with Goradon.

Yuuki takes a life, but notably doesn’t actually budge, which Dan, Zungurii and Magisa react to because at least according to Dan, losing lives is quite painful.

Kajitsu decides to explain by stating that Yuuki doesn’t feel pain when losing lives, which is never given any further adequate explanation.

I assume it’s meant to signify Yuuki’s experience in battling in this world, to the extend that he’s now numb to the pain of fighting but it’s a bit of a playground “He doesn’t feel it, he’s that strong” level excuse.

Yuuki explains its because he’s Omnipotent that he doesn’t feel the pain.

If you’re Omnipotent, change your hair Red, right now, do it.

I also have no idea why Yuuki parades about as being Omnipotent either.

Dan gets cold feet after this and decides to end his turn, despite Rokceratops having equal BP to Berserker-Gun, Yuuki’s playing White and White has exactly no Cost 0s. (They have ONE at time of writing and no others but it was released WELL after this series)

So a reverse weenie rush isn’t likely to occur.

If Dan was willing to risk Goradon, why NOT risk Rokceratops?

The likely answer is probably because he needed the reduction and expected Yuuki not to block his first attack.

That’s my take at least.

Oh hey! It’s a new card we can ACTUALLY talk about!

It looks dope as fuck as well.

The Artifact Droiden, is an Android family card from… SD01! You see SD01 was actually 2 decks in one, a Red/Purple Mixed Colour Deck, and a White/Green Mixed Colour Deck, so that Structure Deck actually had support for 4 different colours.

Droiden is part of the White cards, of course. And it somewhat Power Creeps the old Artifact Laguna, another Android that shared it’s effect by overall being cheaper and having more reductions.

For anyone wondering, Dan’s confusion is unwarranted, Droiden and Berserker-Gun are both at 3000 BP, which matches Rokceratops’ Lv2. As I just said, White doesn’t have any Cost 0s, making it one of the more expensive colours (beaten out only by Purple as the most expensive)

So willingly running White Spirits into Red ones before the opposing turn might not be the best plan.

This is… a weird note from Magisa, lets see if I can’t digest what it means, I THINK Magisa is saying something along the lines of the fact that Kazan and Crown both had some kind of emotional investment backing their cards and play while Yuuki is actually just playing the game as it is, a game.

Rokceratops is raised to Lv3, since it’s the highest unexhausted Spirit, Dan is safe to attack.

But… chooses to attack with Goradon again.

Its a lot of risky attacks but I guess Dan REALLY wants to have at Yuuki’s Spirits, I imagine the Clash King would probably have some inclination towards Spirits battling.

Shame about no Victory Fire, he could have wiped out Berserker-Gun and Droiden then, and put Yuuki in a real pickle.

I guess Yuuki makes a bit of sense here, Kazan AND Crown both got punished for being too aggressive, but it’s not like their blocks were voluntary, Dan had Siegwurm.

Dan’s getting caught off guard because Yuuki is playing a more defensive game, but even though Yuuki IS doing so, his attacks are hitting home.

Defensive doesn’t just mean lives, White is intended to be an Iron wall of defense, who says the thing it protects can’t just be your last life?

Dan strangely leaves Rokceratops as a blocker, he’s got a life advantage so I suppose its safer now.

By my count, Yuuki should have 8 total core this turn. With 5 on his Spirits and 1 paid for a second Lv2 Berserker-Gun, he can actually level up Droiden.

Which he of course, does.

Thanks to Droiden’s effect, the Berserker-Guns once again are equal to Rokceratops.

Well it’s a lot of pressure if you’ve been breaking even all game and Droiden comes out of nowhere but Droiden’s been out for a turn, Dan did have a turn to see if he could deal with it, and if not, prepare for it’s power up.

Yuuki finally moves, attacking with Berserker-Gun, Dan sticks to his usual battle style and eats a life.

Also there’s a theme that plays here that’s REALLY fucking cool and more annoyingly there’s no OST that actually features this theme… ANYWHERE.

For whatever reason it only plays in relation to Yuuki so I’d hazard to guess its Yuuki’s theme but Yggdrassil has a separate one.

If ANYONE can somehow find this theme, anywhere, I would really appreciate it. Its too good to leave on it’s own.

The 6000 BP Droiden now comes in for an attack.

But of course, we know Dan, he’s pretty good at being one-note.

This is kind of what I meant by Dan being at a tactical disadvantage due to not knowing a single thing about Yuuki.

Yuuki is well aware of Dan’s style but Dan has absolutely 0 insight on Yuuki, meaning that Yuuki’s appearing to play weird because he’s playing around Dan.

He’s been on the backburner in terms of Spirits and Lives most of the game but the second he was able to produce one Spirit over Dan, suddenly losing a Berserker-Gun to Rokceratops didn’t seem so daunting since Yuuki would still have the most Spirits after the fact.

The fact that he was aware that was your desired result, was the problem.

Zungurii’s like hella hostile to Yuuki here but Yuuki actually hasn’t done anything worthy of rage, other than divulging that he knows where Zungurii’s family is and choosing not to say where until Dan fights him.

But it looks here like he’s trying to teach Dan, rather than belittle him.

Dan’s style is:
Step 1: Play Siegwurm
Step 2: ????
Step 3: Profit.

Yuuki’s advice is good to take, Dan needs other options besides only Siegwurm.

Bit hard to take advice from the enemy, infact it’s ill-advised to take advice from those you think will harm you.

Yuuki doesn’t seem surprised at Dan’s stubbornness, his advice thus far as boiled down to “Hey you’re doing X, you should try doing Y”, Dan tells him to suck a fat one and Yuuki’s just like “Alright, lemme get my receipts”

Dan reduces Rokceratops and Goradon to Level 1.

And plays the ThunderEmperorDragon Siegwurm.

Let’s see, 2 core on spirits, 7 core in the reserve, Dan is probably playing this at level 2.

Siegwurm attacks, using it’s Clash, it forces Berserker-Gun to block, destroying it.

Berserker-Gun has 4000 BP thanks to Droiden, so Siegwurm would NEED to be level 2 to win.

I’m seeing a lot of “Leaving 1 Blocker” strategies here.

If Yuuki plays 2 Spirits out of the 5 cards he’ll have in his hand, Dan just straight up loses.

And I believe I’ve taken great pains not to review it’s effects just yet.

And what a hell of a spirit it is, upon hitting the field, any Spirit 3000 BP or under is evicted from the board, and from Lv2 upwards all your White Spirits get Red and White Armor.

This is THE WORST matchup, also why does the Rival have yet ANOTHER Anti-Red ability?

J had Thor which wouldn’t exhaust when blocking Red Spirits, now Yuuki has a card that just floods the field with Red Armor.

No wonder Dan had such a hard time the first time around.

Why is Zungurii only NOW confused between whether or not Yuuki is the White Soldier, or the Otherworld King?

First of all I’m pretty sure those titles are not mutually exclusive… I think.

Secondly, Yuuki STRAIGHT UP SAID BEFORE THE FIGHT THAT HE BEARS THE CORE’S LIGHT!

Yggdrassil’s effect when it hits the field activates, bouncing Goradon and Rokceratops to Dan’s Hand.

No Spirits on Yuuki’s field are affected, as Droiden is currently buffing Berserker-Gun to 4000 BP.

And Yuuki has 3 spirits, interesting how that works.

To be fair, Dan’s already lost, his deck doesn’t contain a single card that isn’t Red, and Yuuki has enough Core to level up Yggdrassil to Lv2.

As J would say, Checkmate.

And this battle’s a 2-parter, because of course it is.

Well to be fair it’s not the worst thing in the world, there was a lot of mid-battle conversation that took place that was kind of relevant to it so at least we got some insight into Yuuki’s character.

Firstly is the sense that Kajitsu is almost completely subservient to Yuuki, there’s a reason for that however and it’s not a fun one.

Ignoring Kajitsu however, Yuuki’s surprisingly forthright and talkative, offering Dan advice and letting him know about dangers, he also seems to be relatively efficient at playing cards, playing a reserved game and not making any wasted moves. Not settling for equal BP and instead waiting until he had a BP Advantage before making a powerful advance.

his IronKnight Yggdrassil, unlike Siegfried and Odin having somewhat disparate BP, matches Siegwurm’s Lv3 BP, meaning a Clash between those 2 Spirits will be decided by factors outside oft he Spirits themselves which is kind of cool. Yuuki seeming imposing and casually matching Dan makes it seem like he’s the better battler, and not just because his Key Spirit is stronger (because for all intents and purposes it isn’t, Siegwurm and Yggdrassil are immune to each other’s effects)

No card of the day today because it’s a spoiler for NEXT episode for some bizarre reason.

In which case, I’ll see you next time!

Last episode was a freaking breath of fresh air from the typical pain I had to suffer for 50 straight episodes, honestly. It feels so good to be watching what will become standard for the series.

The downside is that I now have to get used to blogging using this new standard and I haven’t quite gotten the hang of it yet.

Not a problem though, Life is about learnin’!

I guess we’re about to receive some LORE.

The Otherworld, also known as Grand-Lolo, unlike earth is split into 6 disconnected “Worlds”, however due to the apparent Magic of Grand-Lolo in general its still possible to travel to these other worlds despite being disconnected. Each World has a Symbol that shines down on it, much like a Sun.

Where was we had “Uchuuchouten-Ou”, The “King at the Top of the Universe”, here we have simply “Ikai-Ou”, or “Otherworld King”

He is absolutely the Spiritual successor to the Uchuuchouten role, and is also much better at it.

Apparently, to gain the full power of all 6 core, one must acquire the power known as the “Mother Core”

To that end Otherworld King devastated Grand-Lolo.

Such that what was once a relatively thriving kingdom is now a wasteland.

Its all a bit of a plot dump but basically those who Bear the Core’s Light have the capacity to revitalize Otherworld through their ability to release the Core’s powers.

And as Battle Spirits is the main use of core, well, stands to reason that it would be present in a world that requires it.

The Episode title is “Ankillersaurus Friendship”, so it stands to reason we’ll see “Ankillersaurus” this episode, and it’ll most likely look like the card in the background.

The Otherworld Villagers are trying their best to rebuild much of what was destroyed. Kazan really did a number on the place.

Magisa explains that the segment of Grand-Lolo that the group are in is that of the Red World, Mother Core blessed the land with the Red Symbol and therefore its the Red World.

Dan is still losing his shit over the battle he had with Kazan because his spirits became real, Magisa explains that such occurrances are normal in Grand-Lolo, everyone battles like that.

Magisa’s just been fucking chuggin’ beers, she’s on her FIFTH pint?

Dan suddenly asks a REALLY rude question in hindsight, its literally the level of “Why are you so bad?“

Bro she fought off a bunch of soldiers with nothing but fucking wind.

The snake-ish style of the boots are not a coincidence, they are capable of animating and biting like real snakes.

Supposedly, whatever the Battlefield is and how it works uses a very little amount of Magic to make the whole thing work, that’s kind of crazy honestly.

Magisa is letting us in on the fact that she only has rather weak levels of Magic available to her at this moment in time. But she’s apparently far much stronger than she currently is.

Whoever was responsible for Magisa losing her Magical power happens to be a Human who stole it.

Dan’s coming to the same conclusion I would come to watching this without any foresight, Magisa goes on about a Human Thief who stole her powers, and we’ve seen Humans attack an Otherworlder Village.

Maybe its due to Zungurii’s general youth, or Dan’s display trying to protect the village but he expresses that Dan is a “Good Human”, Zungurii’s got every reason to hate humans given their attacks on his Village and his family being kidnapped.

Though we don’t know if that’s his first interaction with them or not, he just might not be making assumptions over his first encounter with them.

A ship that looks like Kazan’s is returning to this very eerie looking castle area.

Given the atmosphere, you wouldn’t be wrong for comparing this to the Thousand Spirits Group from Toppa Bashin.

Jesus christ this guy looks like an alternative universe where Waldo gets so mad no one finds him he turns into an edgelord.

Kazan probably wants to make a report about the powerful battler that just showed up, especially if he’s hostile.

Also, despite Otherworld King seemingly existing a long time ago, Kazan is still making a report to him.

Given we don’t know anything about this iteration of Otherworld King (well, if you’re watching for the first time at least), its difficult to have a clear idea as to who Otherworld King is, or even if he’s the same one in the story.

It appears Kazan is familiar with battlers who bear the Core’s Light.

And fuckin’ Waldo over here goes even further as to suggest there’s protocol for handling them. Apparently those who bear the Core’s Light are meant to be taken straight to Otherworld King.

Kazan’s a man with absolutely 0 shame, freely admitting his loss to the Red Lightbearer to a room of apparent jerkasses, given the tone of the room and the Waldo-guy

I guess its not exactly certain whether or not Lightbearers are good news or bad news, probably hence the need to bring them to Otherworld King so he can ascertain himself.

“Believe the Legend”, so they haven’t formally met a Core Lightbearer just yet but they have been made aware of them.

We’re in a place full of ice and another frame shows us a White Symbol, its safe to say this is probably the White World.

Kajitsu’s returned to visit her big brother, notably she uses “Ani-sama” in her speech.

It appears Kajitsu and Yuuki are going around dragging those who bear the core’s light into Grand-Lolo.

And as a shorthand, they simply refer to the Lightbearers as “Soldiers” of their respective colour.

Interesting discrepency created with that statement.

We’ve seen Dan is the Red Soldier, and a Blue Soldier has been sent there.

Given Kajitsu showed off her Green Symbol, its reasonable to believe she’s the Green Soldier, and let’s make a guess and say that Yuuki’s the White Soldier given he appears in the opening.

Based on that, Kajitsu should be saying there are Two Left. Not Three.

Whatever they’re after, Yuuki and Kajitsu wish to gather the 6 Soldiers together in order to revitalize Grand-Lolo.

Zungurii has apparently been aching to see what’s actually in Dan’s deck.

Its a little scattered so you can’t make out too many cards, you can see some Goradon’s and the Lizardedge, along with Rokceratops. And of course Siegwurm.

He’s got a Plateau of Duel but I don’t see a single Awaken Spirit, but he’s bound to have a few because Siegwurm supports them. Double Draw can be made out.

And another card Dan hasn’t used just yet.

We JUST saw the Plataeu of Duel without a matching Awaken Spirit, so no, I don’t think this was put together wonderfully.

At least, from what we’ve seen its an 01 Weenie deck + Siegwurm.

For reference, 01 Weenie Decks is a Deck comprised almost entirely of Cost 0 and 1 spirits that can be played very quickly.

No points for guessing why.

Zungurii of course takes this as literally as possible and genuinely believes Dan is some kind of royalty.

Eh… He could probably pass for a prince I won’t lie.

I guess it isn’t enough for Dan to be the best that no one ever was, he wants to do it with the strategy he likes the most, Clash.

Zungurii obviously sees the potential in having another King around, given the existence of the Otherworld King.

As cool as “Clash King” vs “Otherworld King” sounds, just having the title of “King” isn’t necessarily going to be enough to actually win.

And there’s the rub. Dan didn’t actually want to come here, and has no reason to do anything that doesn’t involve him going straight home.

“Yeah but its the prophecy”

Dan didn’t know anything about that until he arrived here, just because he happens to have something special doesn’t suddenly mean he’s going to be obliged to not go home.

Bit of a tall ask, but given everything is settled by Card Games in this world, it’s not as tall as it really should be.

The Humans don’t appear to treat the Otherworlders of Grand-Lolo very well.

Nothing like good ol’ fashioned “Humans are racist” to drive the plot.

Strong as Dan may or may not appear to be, asking a 12 year old to spontaeniously go on an adventure that may span several days or even months when his parents might be worried sick knowing where he might be is definitely going to give him some aversion to sticking around.

Mate you just saw a girl glow so fucking hard an Emerald popped out of her chest, you THEN had a Pink haired Magician point her magic stick at your chest to do the same thing with a Ruby.

While I can understand the potential skepticism, you have evidence suggesting that you are special in some way.

Dan of course, hasn’t thought this plan of action through, because he was brought to Grand-Lolo through a door of light that closed itself, he’s going to need one to get back

I guess Magisa was hoping Dan would give up a lot sooner so he would battle in Otherworld, but I guess has now decided not to keep him here against his will.

Of course now that you know you actually HAVE the ability to go home, you choose to feel bad, yeah okay

That’s conducive to… absolutely nothing.

Narrator: She did, in fact, have VERY strong feelings about this.

How convenient that the Otherworld is so easily accessible.

Then why did it take a set of kidnapping butterflies and a magical green-haired girl to send Dan here the first time around?

Dan of course asks if its easy to come back and Magisa says “I guess”

This is not at all helpful in the slightest. Why did Kajitsu bring Dan here if there was a huge possibility he could just leave.

“Daaaaan, you’re speciaaaaaal, belieeeeve meeeeee, pleaaaaaase”

Slight catch to the doors, you need Magical power to open them, because of course you do.

Then again, the staff Magisa uses is powered by the Core embedded in it, so it could be that you just need to be able to use Core.

Alright Dan let’s not annoy the Magic Snake-shoes witch who could literally close that door anytime she feels like alright?

Welp, that was Gekiha Dan people! See you next time for the next series.

I’m kidding, its obvious Dan’s not going to go home.

Zungurii is late seeing Dan off because he wanted to give him a card as thanks for helping out.

The effect is BASICALLY in full view so I might as well review it now.

Another card from SD01, which generally implies that if Dan is receiving it, then he doesn’t already have one, which would also imply that he didn’t acquire his Starter Deck cards by… well, buying the Starter Deck.

Its at its strongest used in Dan’s deck, as Dan likely wields many Awaken and Clash Spirits that can facilitate it’s power boost.

Zungurii seems to have taken some of Kazan’s preaching to heart, wanting to give Ankillersaurus to Dan because it will be better in the hands of a battler than in the hands of someone who doesn’t play.

Dan offers to make a trade with Zungurii, Zungurii apparently is unfamiliar with what a Trade is, and Dan explains its something friends do to make each other’s decks stronger. Which is not the worst description of it.

Zungurii’s takeaway from this is that he has a friend, as opposed to receiving a card. Zungurii is basically our loud innocent and clueless character, likely designed to ask questions everyone already knows in-show for less informed members of the audience.

I get the sentiment Dan is going for, he doesn’t cherish Siegwurm as much as he cherishes his friends, but he otherwise needs the card as he doesn’t have anything more useful on him.

But like imagine trading Siegwurm for a Cost 2.

But given that Zungurii doesn’t play and it would be better for him to actually start somewhere simple, Lizardedge will have to do.

Zungurii doesn’t seem disappointed

Oh shit, Dan actually straight up LEAVES.

Well, given that most of the “Soldiers” are people from Earth, I don’t think returning to Earth makes him any less of a Red Soldier.

This wasteland does still have bars, I imagine they get good business given the little amount of Water for fuckin’ miles.

Zungurii is chilling in the bar… Tavern? Inn? Whatever.

And gets spotted by NotWaldo. It appears NotWaldo takes the appearance of the Red Lizardedge as confirmation that a Red Battler is around somewhere.

It’s a fucking Cost 0 Red Spirit that shit can be used for anything.

Since Dan’s not planning to be around long enough to rescue Zungurii’s family, I guess Zungurii is, rather foolishly, attempting to will himself into a state where he can go do it himself.

Well Dan managed to find his way back pretty damn quickly, I don’t think any explanation is ever offered into how he found the Magic required to open another doorway.

Dan’s got a pretty noble outlook on the situation, sticking around to fight Otherworld King is one thing, but if fighting Otherworld King is what’s required to save Zungurii’s family, then perhaps Dan’s personal problems can be set aside until that’s done.

And thus, our episodic narrative that can produce as many battles as necessary has been established. With the Otherworld King having made clear that Lightbearers should be brought to him, many of the Human Battlers who work under him will basically act as walking roadblocks.

Dan realizes this will likely become a common occurrance given that he is aware of the fact that he is seen as the “Red Soldier”

So he just decides to get used to it sooner rather than later.

The guy is probably also eager to battle in Grand-Lolo again.

He beat the snot out of Kazan, and Kazan doesn’t seem to be the type to be incredibly overconfident, and even when he does, he’s more than happy to have that overconfidence humbled.

Also is there literally no worry among the humans that battle under Otherworld King about those who said King SPECIFICALLY REQUESTS BE BROUGHT TO HIM being kinda nutty in a battle?

Finally I can stop calling him “Waldo”

This is the “Magic-Obsessed, Magical Crown”, I’ll stick to “Crown” for short, but as with most of the Battler names in this series, Crown’s name suggests that he’s a heavy Magic user.

Apparently the title of “Magical” is something Dan considers lame.

I actually quite like the name “Magical Crown”, not sure what it is about it but its certainly not a bad name.

I swear I think if this show zooms in too far Crown’s chin will burst out the screen and knock me the fuck out.

That thing is GINORMOUS.

Crown has the first move. Let’s see what he’ll open with.

Hah, there’s an editing fuckup here, Crown for whatever reason has only 4 lives in his life counter.

And of course, any Magic-user worth their salt will at least need to consider using Yellow. Red, White and Purple specialize in wielding their Spirits, Green specializes in wielding Core. Blue specializes in wielding Nexuses, and Yellow of course, specializes in wielding Magic.

I guess we’re already busting out our Card of the Day, Ankillersaurus being a Cost 2 makes such a thing possible of course.

A common quirk of Dan’s which is meant to be a more proper use of Bashin’s communications with Siegfried, is that he’ll continually greet new Spirits he ends up playing.

Dan still has 2 core in his reserve, so he adds Lizardedge to the board at Lv2.

Dan goes straight onto the offensive, attacking with Goradon, Crown takes a life.

Dan has more Spirits than Crown, so its fine if he takes a potshot here.

And of course, Crown isn’t in danger, so taking a life is fine.

This is a common thing, you need Core to play Spirits, so taking from the life early to gather that Core faster is valid play.

Hence why Toppa Bashin’s turn skip to 30 at full life seems extremely jarring.

Even if Crown took a defensive stance, Dan would still be able to take at least 1 life, so since Crown offered it first to maintain his Spirits, its good to end the turn here, since you’ve basically done the best case scenario here.

Plus you don’t wanna full attack so early, that’s an easy way to get weenie rushed.

Crown uses all the Core in his reserve to summon another Froger and raise Tanya to Lv2.

Crown attacks with both his Frogers, you normally have to attack 1 at a time but of course its for the sake of speed.

Dan takes both from the life, as Dan does, I bet he’s not got another Spirit he can play for free to bring out Siegwurm.

Dan once again re-states his reasoning for those who somehow failed to watch the FIRST episode of a series that’s no longer airing.

TAKING LIVES, GIVES YA CORE.

It appears Crown decided to study up on Dan’s battle style, so he could engineer a strategy that takes advantage of Dan’s tendency to eat lives early so he can play powerful spirits quicker.

Oh, that’s cool, Yuuki and Kajitsu are also watching Dan battle.

Dan draws Siegwurm and subsequently plays it.

At Lv1 of course, Siegwurm only has 4000 BP. And Dan doesn’t yet have enough core to Level it up.

Dan attacks with Siegwurm, and activates Clash.

It is a bit risky to try and bet on a 4000 BP spirit beating a 3000 BP spirit against a known Magic user however…

I guess alls well that ends well, Tanya is defeated by Siegwurm.

As Crown has no blockers, Dan is free to start taking from Crown’s life as he sees fit. Starting with Ankillersaurus.

Crown of course, has to take from the life.

Last episode not a single card played was not a Spirit, so far in this episode the same is true. They’ve just been exchanging blows with Spirits.

Remember kids, the best way to not lose your Spirit is to simply play another one after it dies.

Crown, in a very weird choice of animation, attacks with a Froger.

During Flash timing, Crown plays Chorus Birds

Its not a bad card, something Toppa Bashin didn’t cover in its last few episodes with BS05, a Cost 3 magic that recovers up to 3 Song Birds during the Main Step. That’s quite powerful late in the game for such a cheap magic.

Of course, Crown has used this during Flash Timing, so its a Combat Trick that awards 2000 BP.

Its kind of cool that there’s a faded card graphic when he uses the Magic, what bothers me is the extended border.

With the boost, Froger now has 4000 BP.

Also if Magic really was Crown’s specialty, he’d have known he could have waited til Dan blocks to use it.

Unless of course, his aim is to take another life.

Dan blocks with the 2000 BP Lizardedge, needless to say Froger straight up wrecks it.

Huh, we actually get a good view of Crown’s Hand here, and if you’ve got a good enough eye, you’ll see that one of the cards in his hand is Royal Potion.

I can’t quite gauge what the other card in his hand is however.

Violence is never the answer, Violence is the question.

And the answer is “Froger”

Crown does make an interesting point here, he takes from the life but as far as Crown knows he only does so to get Siegwurm onto the board, so he’s a little confused as to why Dan didn’t choose to block with his available Goradon.

Crown isn’t particularly worried though, he attacks with the Lv2 Tanya.

Aaand… well I’d say “Check” but Crown’s overlooked something relatively dumb.

As we know, Royal Potion refreshes all Cost 2 Spirits, so Froger is now once again available to attack.

Dan, stubborn mule that he is, continues to take from the Life.

With 1 life remaining, Dan now cannot make any mistakes in his battle formation, lest a stray attack gets through.

Crown takes this moment to preach to Dan about the graveness of the situation as if he hasn’t just made a very crucial error in his planning.

A Froger attacks but is blocked by… Ankillersaurus.

When a card says “All”, it doesn’t just affect your side of the board, it affects both sides.

So if you’re planning to use Royal Potion, don’t be a fuckwit and use it when the opponent has a Cost 2 on their board that’s exhausted without a Sealed Spellbook to prevent the opponent getting the effect.

You will look immensely dumb.

Ankillersaurus has 2000 BP at Lv1, but since Siegwurm is out, Ankillersaurus gains an extra 1000 BP, letting Dan come out on top.

Ankillersaurus getting stronger around Siegwurm is very representative of how much Zungurii wanted to take after Dan after he left by pretending to be the Red Soldier.

Anyway, Crown ends his turn, having lost the will to continue after that mistake.

Dan brings Siegwurm to Level 3.

Dan moves straight to the attack step, attacking with Ankillersaurus.

Notably, Crown has a Blocker, and Dan only has 3 Spirits, with Crown’s 3 lives Dan can’t win from this position.

Now it’s Dan’s turn to showcase his own Magic. He plays Victory Fire.

A strong Magic which has it’s versatility offset by it’s Cost, now this is a Cost 5 Magic one might wish to use as using this 1 card can take out 2 cards of the enemy. You can either wipe out 2 3000 BP spirits, or, destroy only 1 3000 BP or less spirit in order to additionally destroy a Nexus. Its quite versatile, and good early when the threats will typically be low BP. In Dan’s Deck which has many cards he can play turn 1 with no cost its also quite useful, if he plays 2 cards for no Cost on Turn 2 and full attacks, he can counter his opponent’s oncoming attacks as he’ll have just enough core to play Victory Fire.

Combat tricks like Chorus Birds only really last a turn, and Crown didn’t make proper appropriate use of it, only snatching 1 life.

Tanya and the refreshed Froger are destroyed by Victory Fire.

With no blockers available and 3 attackers to content with, and only a Spirit in his hand, Magical Crown is defeated.

Dan returns to the lake right after the battle to verify the way home I guess, but the Lake’s been completely dried up. And something seems to be interfering with the Magic.

Turns out. Magical Crown is more sly than we thought, disabling the exit back to earth with a Froger card.

Crown apparently used this as a contingency, even if he wasn’t able to bring Dan to the Otherworld King, he wasn’t going to let Dan leave Grand-Lolo, keeping Dan where the other Humans can freely access Dan and have a better chance at bringing him to Otherworld King.

Dan of course, keeps to his word and says the equivalent of “Fuck it, lets be a Chosen Battler”

I guess Dan feels bad about taking Zungurii’s farewell gift when he’s not actually planning to leave. So he hands Ankillersaurus back to Zungurii.

In addition, Dan lets Zungurii keep the Lizardedge he was traded before. I hope Dan carries spare cards on him because if he was playing with a Deck of 40, he now has 39.

Also Magisa and Dan are hella taken aback by Zungurii saying he’ll keep “Building up from this”, because it heavily implies that when Zungurii handed Dan Ankillersaurus, it was the only card Zungurii owned.

Therefore, Zungurii at this point, only has 2 cards.

We have another scene involving Yuuki and Kajitsu monologuing about some goings on. It appears that the other Lightbearers they brought into Grand-Lolo ALL decided to remain in Grand-Lolo.

It appears Yuuki and Kajitsu were aware that they had the option of leaving once they’d arrived, and hoped they wouldn’t choose to do that, or rather, expected that they wouldn’t.

And of course, Yuuki states he wants to battle Dan, because he wouldn’t exactly be the Rival if he didn’t.

So far all we know about Yuuki and Kajitsu is that they’ve meddled in the Human World to get the Bearers of the Core’s Light into Grand-Lolo for the sake of restoring Otherworld’s “Life”, something only Lightbearers have the power to do.

So far it’s not an evil goal, despite how inconvenient they’re being about it.

And that is, of course, the Episode!

Not a bad one all things considered, though Dan’s still trudging through more Episodic characters, they’re making use of these throwaways in order to ensure that the game is being understood, first there were Spirits which had effects, now we’ve seen a Battle that makes use of Magic. The battle wasn’t bad though I criticize having Magical Crown make such a rookie mistake over Royal Potion. I will give the show a pass on that however because its the type of mistake that is likely to happen, and is a part of the effect that is easily overlooked.

The Plot hasn’t progressed much compared to the first episode but since the first episode establishes the plot that’s a hard bar to clear, we started with Dan having no way to go home, resolving not to go home until he’d done what was expected of him in Grand-Lolo, before eventually being rendered incapable of going home anyway.

We do however, have something we can compare to Toppa Bashin, we have no idea who Otherworld King is, and he’s been name dropped multiple times, but the show hasn’t just left us with random name drops that don’t tell us anything, we know the Otherworld King is something most of the Otherworlders wish to oppose, the Otherworld King is Human, the Otherworld King is responsible for Grand-Lolo’s current problems having lead them to ruin, and he has an interest in those who bear the Core’s Light, and of course, most of the Humans in Otherworld are loyal to him.

We don’t even know what he looks like, sounds like, or anything and yet we know that he is our main antagonist and he has a track record for being a shitlord. That being said, no one seems to actually fear Otherworld King in any way. Kazan failed a mission and decided to waltz right over to him to report his findings, and Crown didn’t seem to think much of Kazan’s behaviour. So the Humans, at the very least, haven’t been subdued into servitude.

This is obviously significantly better than Uchuuchouten who is somewhat mentioned but exactly 0 information was given about him to give a false sense of mystery when all that ran through my head whenever he was mentioned was “Why the fuck should I care?“

Gekiha Dan has clearly learned from its mistake on that one, we are given SEVERAL reasons to care about Otherworld King, and we haven’t even met the guy.

Our card of the day, isn’t actually Ankillersaurus, its Dan’s Victory Fire.

I guess the only thing I can comment on is recent usage, which is to say, it isn’t getting any, at least not in this state. That being said it did get granted a much shinier new effect as a Revival card that while not seeing MUCH usage is seeing very niche amounts of it.

All in all, at least for the time, it’s a pretty good Magic for what it does.

At this moment however we don’t have enough information to construct a mock-up of Dan’s current deck, once I feel like we have a relatively decent understanding of what cards Dan is using, I’ll produce one. This is something that was impossible to do with Toppa Bashin due to Turn-skipping and relatively inconsistent builds episode to episode.

Anyway, with that, I look forward to seeing Episode 3. See you all next time!

When watching TV, make sure you’re in a well lit room, and don’t sit too close to the screen, okay?

The Otherworld Witch, Magisa

After the sheer horror that was Battle Spirits Shounen Toppa Bashin-

Actually, I’ll stop myself, Toppa Bashin is not bad, I’ll caveat the start of this series by expressing something I find very important. Internal consistency. If the events of your story are at odds with established facts of the story itself, it’s going to annoy me, and Toppa Bashin did that a lot, if I ignore the problems with it’s Internal consistency, it’s a good show.

Let’s enter Gekiha Dan on a good note, shall we?

This is Battle Spirits Shounen Gekiha Dan, translates roughly to “Battle Spirits Clash Boy Dan”, what you’ll notice about this series is that the title is structured VERY similar to the previous series, I don’t believe that is an accident as the story of this series echoes the sentiments of the previous one, the plot of this series MIRRORS the original so intently that it can almost be considered a spiritual re-do of Toppa Bashin.

And it does an excellent job of pulling it off, if you like Toppa Bashin, Gekiha Dan is simply of higher quality, in almost every way.

That is not to say you SHOULD like Gekiha Dan more than Toppa Bashin, there are ways certain characters are handled that you may prefer in Toppa Bashin OVER Gekiha Dan, but I believe looking at in a structural kind of way than a preference kind of way, I do believe Gekiha Dan is better.

You’re going to hear me compare this to Toppa Bashin a LOT because I believe fully understanding Gekiha Dan’s awesomeness is seeing how it parallels with it’s predecessor. Because there are LOTS of parallels.

Also, this show first aired in September 13th, 2009. As of right now we only have cards up to BS05, and notably, a Structure Deck. But I’ll get into that when its relevant.

With that, I’ll do something I didn’t do last time while the opening plays, I’ll actually introduce the characters that appear within it.

The reason I am doing this is because a majority of them appear very quickly in THIS episode in fact, I would have to introduce them anyway.

I am currently watching this using an alternative player to Youtube, but the Subs appear to almost be a 1:1 match with Soaker’s, its reasonable to believe these are Soaker’s subs. Glad to have you back, Soaker!

Anyway, as you can see from this, we once again have a Red-headed main character, except where Bashin was evidently a bright orange ginger, this character’s hair is a deep RED kind of ginger.

Eat your heart out, Tenth.

Anyway, enough joking around, this is our main protagonist, and as will be a theme in most series, our designated RED player. Bashin Dan.

Yeah you heard that right, he shares Bashin’s surname, the most obvious of parallels in this series, though rather than go by “Bashin”, he goes by “Dan”. However unlike the previous series, this anime, within it’s own universe assigns “Titles”, much like how a Spirit may be the “GiantHero” or the “DragonEmperor”, individual battlers may be known by titles that signify their playstyle. Dan’s title is “The Clash King”

Clash huh? I wonder where we’ve heard that word before?…

The next in our squad is our designated Yellow Player, he seems to combine the role of Card Sensei AND Striker. This is Clackey Ray, also known as “The Noble Youth of Light”, the reason why he appears to combine both Striker and Card Sensei’s roles is that he seems to have many of Card Sensei’s vices and interests, while being condensed in the role of being the Main character’s best friend.

Our third battler, our designated Purple player is, once again a girl. This is “Viole Mai” and she lacks a title due to not needing one, as she’s once again very popular in this series much like My Sunshine was in her own, reasons for which will be explored later.

Acting as our designated Blue player, and seeming to take on many of Seven’s traits from the previous series, this is Hideto Suzuri, though rather than taking on an alter ego for confidence like Galaxy, Suzuri finds solace in card collecting, maintaining his outward personality rather than masking it.

By the pattern of the opening, this is our designated Green-user, Momose Kajitsu. Besides her familial status matching that of the previous series, she is entirely unique and doesn’t parallel anything from the previous series.

This guy on the other hand, DOES, this is Momose Yuuki. You read that correctly, he is the older brother of Kajitsu, and our designated White Player, you’ll notice that the background isn’t matching the symbol of these two, that’s an interesting point of foreshadowing their present role as “Not like the others”

Fair point of warning however, there’s going to be a bit of a controversial topic surrounding these two which I will analyse with as much maturity as I can muster, just… in advance please know I don’t condone what these two characters are trying to do.

As a sidenote, once again, the designated White Player is of course, the Rival to the main character. Though given his regal and grandiose appearance he definitely looks to be far more competent than Dan right from the outset.

But that is our main cast of 6 designated coloured battlers, Battle Spirits often takes this format of “A Battler for each colour” when designing a cast.

Anyway, the opening for this is “Battle No Limit!”, one of their better openings.

And already we have our first parallel, a lot of this show makes mention of “The Otherworld” or “Ikai”, this is the equivalent of Toppa Bashin’s “Isekai”, which kind of just means the same thing.

“Kai” and “Sekai” seem interchangeable for “World”

6 Lights huh, wonder where we’ve seen THAT before.

You don’t say.

In this case, “Ikai” is quite literally in reference to what the world is, and in this case is given a name, “Grand Lolo”

Yes, this IS in reference to that “Wanderer Lolo” Nine mentioned in the previous series.

It appears during this monologue, an unrecognizeable Red Dragon is battling an equally unrecognizeable White Knight.

Not sure about you but the Dragon looks like it’s winning.

Here’s our first title, “Clash! ThunderEmperorDragon Siegwurm!”

The episode titles now have backgrounds indicating what we can expect to see. In this case we see the Red Dragon we saw earlier.

Of course I can keep being cryptic or I can say the thing we all know already. That Red Dragon’s name is “Siegwurm”

Once again another parallel, as our previous main character’s key spirit was “Siegfried”

And of course, why not start out at a tournament to get everything going? We did that last time too.

We’re actually getting a pretty nice view of some fields here, you can see how much the game has been stepped up in terms of animation, these look SO much better than they did in Toppa Bashin.

And this guy’s playing green.

Got another muppet on a different table with a Kujaraku on his field and a Mjolnir in his trash. The opponent appears to have a Fenrircannon-MK-II.

These are all entirely irrelevant but I do like just seeing the odd cards laying around.

Three of these characters are significantly more colourful than the rest.

It appears Clackey is spectating a game between the green-haired girl we know as Kajitsu, and our fiery-haired protagonist, Dan.

Someone in the crowd mentions “Yggdrassil” and this draws Suzuri’s attention, who also seems to be in the crowd.

Our attention is drawn to this card which looks rather similar to the White Knight we saw battling before, tilting my head a bit, I can read that the name is “The IronKnight Yggdrassil”

The girl also has a Machfly, and a Rainbowpapillon.

The Girl seems to be playing a White/Green mix, Rainbowpapillon is a Cost 2 White Spirit that gains +1000 BP if you control a Green Spirit.

As for Yggdrassil, I won’t review it just yet.

Suzuri of course, shows his interest in rare cards here, immediately declaring he wants the card Kajitsu has.

While the crowd are in awe of Kajitsu’s ability as a battler, Clackey decides to inform them that Kajitsu actually has a title, “The Insect-Loving Princess”

This random dude has more collective intelligence than the entire cast of the last series. Noting that for an “Insect-Loving Princess” it seems strange to use a powerful White Knight when all the bugs are in Green.

Oh boy, Yggdrassil is attackin’

Also we can see from here that Dan has a Lizardedge and a Goradon.

Dan laments that the card has a higher BP and takes it from the life. He does NOT appear to be doing well, reduced to 1 life.

Remember kids, don’t play too many card games or it can give you a headache.

Nah what’s actually happening is that for whatever reason, good ol’ Dan is getting visions of the earlier fight we just saw.

Dan is trippin’ BALLS. Also they namedrop his Battler name here, The Clash King. Or “Gekitotsu-Ou”

That being said, he’s hearing Kajitsu’s voice in his head, probably not the most comfortable sensation in the world.

Kajitsu asks if Dan knows why his Core has lit up, and mentions to him that he is the only one that can see the Core glow.

Nothing like a trippy experience to shake one’s confidence.

How romantic, though I’m not sure why you’ve slipped LSD into Dan’s coffee though.

Apparently there’s one other person in focus, Momose Yuuki.

Kajitsu attacks with Rainbowpapilion.

And unfortunately, Dan’s hand is straight TRASH. He’s got no refreshed Spirits and a hand full of Spirits.

DarkDinohound, Rokceratops and Siegwurm. The guy had 4 core in his reserve I’m surprised he didn’t play them.

Though maybe he was hoping to make the enemy think he had a counter when he didn’t, a bluff.

Yep, we had excellent view of that board state, Dan was NOT winnin’ that one.

Interesting seeing the MC lose in the first episode to a character who isn’t a rival.

Oh wow, actual tournament etiquette, you don’t see much of that… At all.

Shortly after, Dan appears to be looking for his opponent for some reason. We can see Viole Mai in the background there, also enjoying herself with a nice battle.

I suppose Dan is most likely going to ask Kajitsu about that weird sensation he was feeling mid-way through the battle, given that she probably knows something about it.

I never quite understand this trope of someone walking away at walking speed, and some other person literally BOLTING after them and yet still somehow losing the bastards.

Dan’s search is however interrupted by this guy, Momose Yuuki.

Interestingly, the meeting here has a reversal in roles compared to Bashin and J. Here, Yuuki is the one who wants to meet Dan, the Rival wants to meet the main character.

“The one who bears the core’s light”, Write that down people, it’s on the test. But for now its just cryptic shit that makes no sense at this particular moment in time.

Yuuki points out Kajitsu has been nearby for a non-zero amount of time before Dan noticed her.

I guess Dan is REALLY interested in what Kajitsu had to say about the glowing core.

And her response is to start GLOWING.

Hey, people who have been analyzing communicating with people in order to gauge non-verbal responses, what does it mean when they start glowing?

Fun fact about these series, its much deeper into the “Fantasy” kind of genre it was attempting to get into with Toppa Bashin, whereas Toppa Bashin is more of an “Urban Fantasy”, this series is straight up Fantasy.

Yes I would be understandably confused if a green-haired girl who just kicked my ass after making me trip on LSD started glowing.

Apologies for the resolution jump, player I was using was slow so I’m trying alternative methods.

Dan notes that the shine from Kajitsu has started displaying a symbol on Kajitsu’s chest. Yuuki helpfully informs Dan that its the Green Symbol on Green cards.

Now, you may be thinking “This is just a bunch of butterflies, they’re harmless”

First of all, would YOU trust butterflies sent after you by a chick that can GLOW!?

Secondly, if a butterfly is in your face you’re not going to enjoy it.

“Byyyyeeeeee”

Imagine the court case, “Your honor, she told a bunch of butterflies to lift me off the ground!”

“She… Lifted you off the ground… using butterflies?”

I suppose being the Insect-Loving Princess gives you some measure of control over… Well, insects.

We’re kinda lucky there’s a whole door there or Kajitsu would look like she’s not long for this world.

And well, I guess in some ways she isn’t.

Okay from the fact that she doesn’t leap forward and instead lets herself fall, there is absolutely NO way she doesn’t just miss the door entirely and go splat.

LOOK AT THE POSITION OF THE DOOR RELATIVE TO WHERE THEY JUMPED, THEY JUMPED FROM THE TOP LEFT CORNER.

Oh right, should point out, Dan gets flung in by the butterflies. Poor guy.

“I’m going to look at my card mysteriously after that commotion because it makes me look mysterious…”

I know its there to show us that Yuuki also holds an IronKnight Yggdrassil but he has NO reason to bust it out NOW of all times.

Elsewhere, Disaster strikes! A village of people who all seem to have really round ears and sideburns are being attacked by what I can only describe as a militia with the weirdest helments I’ve ever seen.

It’s like they’re trying to look like Policemen, Military AND have sunglasses at the same time.

HM, A GROUP OF PEOPLE THAT ALL LOOK THE SAME BEING HOARDED SOMEWHERE AFTER THEIR HOMES HAVE BEEN DESTROYED.

This is certainly a step up from Toppa Bashin that’s for sure, we’re only on the first episode and something controversial is already happening.

Kind of interestingly, the leader of the operation appears to be this blonde guy.

Out of nowhere this tiny member of whoever these people are pops out to hug his brother. The “Big brother” says the small child’s name, Zungurii.

At first glance, and it always gets me, is that this Commander looking guy is agreeing with him, but he’s not, he’s stating that this is happening as a result of the rule he set for winning a battle.

To summarise, Commander-dude took on this Big Bro, and declared before the match that he’d do all this crazy crap if he won, Commander-dude did infact win.

Zungurii protests that even if that was the rules, they don’t like the result.

The Commander-dude considers this, apparently, extremely rude and attempts to make them answer for it by beating them.

Jesus we’re getting into strangely depressing territory right from the get go.

Before they’re able though, a bunch of them get blasted away by bursts of wind.

Also I just noticed the “Shade” part is just the shadows created by the helmets.

Our awesome saviour is this pink-haired witch-lady.

Of course we’re not left in the dust wondering what her name is for long, Magisa!

And of course, she straight up kicks ass.

I mean if you can just make a display of force for not following the rules what makes them think you wouldn’t just do the same thing if they won?

In between these 2 statements Magisa says she’s “A Woman of Otherworld”, and appears to be trying to protect it.

So we’ve got a small establishment of where this is actually happening, Otherworld!

It also appears that this Commander-guy is completely human, considering Magisa speaks as if they’re trying to “Take the world away”

Commander-man says that if Magisa wishes to protect the world, she needs a deck. Which appears to be some kind of “Rule”.

I dunno she appears to be doing well without one so far.

Magisa did not like that, I guess she’s not a battler.

And what else to break the stalemate by dropping a 12-year old kid out the fuckin’ sky…

Dan has been given spontaneous headaches, hallucinations, kidnapped by butterflies and thrown into another world.

He is straight up just not having a good day.

Also if you look in the bottom right corner Kazan’s FACE IS PRICELESS

real blink and you miss it moment.

Also, despite how much older the characters look in this series compared to the last one, Dan is still infact the SAME age as Bashin was, the Shounen age of 12.

To dispel any potential confusion, Commander-guy is Human.

For whatever reason, Magisa’s staff is a multi-purpose tool that seems to do whatever the plot requires it to do, so far its list of things it can do is wind blasts so strong it can carry a fully grown human being off the ground, and detect those who “Bear the Core’s Light”

Whatever the fuck that thing is.

For anyone going “Red Flag”, don’t worry, she has standards, and Dan does not fill them.

Commander-Cockwaffle over here informs Dan under no uncertain terms that he is in “Grand-Lolo”, which is the name of the Otherworld.

It was like 5 fuckin’ minutes ago.

I won’t blame him for forgetting, Kajitsu WAS kind of doing a myriad of other crazy shit that perhaps speech wasn’t the thing Dan was paying attention to.

Commander-Blondey apparently seems to want to take Dan to meet a higher-up, and bear in mind the only thing the Commander knows about Dan is that he’s Human. And I guess that he bears the Core’s Light thanks to Magisa.

I guess when someone falls out the god damn fuckin’ sky you don’t just pass it off as a coincidence.

Magisa gets captured and I guess being a Witch doesn’t allow her to summon Smile from beyond the 4th dimension to take on these “Cowards”

Remember kids, if you strongarm anyone who speaks Japanese, you can turn them into a Pokemon who’s name is “Hanase!”

Otherworlders appear to live for VERY long lives, in this case, Magisa is exactly 4029 at the time of writing.

Why specifically 4029? Because she’s drawn with the appearance of a 29-year old woman.

The Commander states that if Magisa wishes to stop them, then he can use the Deck the Big Bro used, as Magisa appears to lack her own.

Interestingly the Commander seemed aware that Magisa lacked a deck and has lived for thousands of years, so Magisa is either well-known or a common problem to these guys.

Dan is a voice-activated automaton that only functions properly when “Battle” and “Spirits” are shown or spoken, explicitly in that order.

Disclaimer: Winning against someone in battle does not entitle you to claim that person’s stack of 40 cards.

Well it wasn’t very well the “Strongest” if it lost then was it?

Getting some insight into Battler philosophy, and this Commander states that Battle Spirits cards exist to be used by powerful people.

He seems to be a “No weak cards, only weak battlers” type of person.

He goes on to give an interesting speech which sort of goes like this:

These cards weren’t happy to be used by a weak person before, the first reason for the cards’ existence is to be used by a strong person. If I gave them back, they would lose like before. But if they’re mine, they can be reborn in a strong deck.

Human Otherworld Commander

To summarise, “Cards are useless to weak battlers, and therefore weak battlers should not have them”

Dan erupts at this line of thinking.

Finally, I can stop referring to him as the “Commander”, this guy is The Cursed Kazan, or “Jugeki no Kazan”, from this point onwards you don’t get any points for guessing what he specializes in.

Dan of course just seems to believe, quite rightfully that Kazan has no right to take something someone poured great amounts of effort into creating.

Kazan’s main takeaway from that statement is “Oh shit, this guy can card battle”

It appears whatever Kazan achieved in his battle he doesn’t necessarily need to risk again, but he’s willing to anyway, I guess we call that over-confidence.

Kazan states the terms and conditions of the battle, in the (according to him) unlikely event that Dan wins, Kazan will leave with the other soldiers and return the deck.

But if Kazan wins, he’ll keep the deck.

Not sure what in there is of value, it appears to be a Red/Green mixed colour deck.

“Uniform” is an interesting way to put it, and its not actually wrong.

So they modified the functionality of the Battlefield in this series from the Isekai method. Where Isekai requires a Cornerstone and a Pet and causes you to phase out of existence when you call out the words, in this world, anyone can use the Battlefield as long as they’ve got a deck. And creates a convenient doorway.

Dan doesn’t quite get very far before Magisa decides to reveal a Red Symbol from within him.

I think the “Gate Open! Release!” animation sequences are LESS prevalent than the previous series basically using at least one for every battle and occasionally using 2.

You do get this cool animation sequence of a door opening though.

The set up isn’t much different in layout to Isekai’s old layout, but where Isekai is clearly using Sci-Fi inspirations for its layout, Grand-Lolo’s Battlefield is clearly more Fantasy oriented.

The series does add one extra thing to get rid of the monotony of constantly having to show the life counter on the board.

That is, the Battle Form.

While the board will still represent the life, now we have a visual indicator of Dan’s lives on his person, as he loses life, those Blue Cores will become grey.

Behold the inspiration for many later Battlefields to come, this layout is quite honestly perfect in many ways. Though it gets retired in the 5th, 6th and 8th series, its played with in the 7th and brought back from the 9th series onward.

Intermissions don’t have the same boring “Turning BS” sequence, instead they add these “Eyecatches” to the intermission, generally showing a character that’s relevant in the episode.

Where Isekai had no spectators, Grand-Lolo has these little floating booths that allow non-battlers to be able to spectate and give commentary.

Dan seems okay with the layout as it seems relatively normal, but wonders where the Core pool, or the “Void” as its referred to is, where is he gonna take core from?

Using Core is more automated in this series. Battlers can play quickly without having to think about how much Core they’re moving from one end to the other. The Core will move automatically, and if a move is illegal, the board will reject it.

The Core has a nice 2D graphic rather than the 3D one Toppa Bashin used, probably makes for easier animating.

And the indisputed GREATEST change! WE SEE BATTLES START FROM TURN 1 TIL IT FINISHES!

For most of them, turn skips do occur but they are less frequent.

Kazan goes first, on his Main step he’ll have 4 core in reserve and 5 cards in hand.

I will assume you have watched Toppa Bashin for a majority of the cards shown, I will re-review cards if they are special or otherwise interesting.

Anyway, Kazan plays Hellscorpio and Skulldemon, we can see how he got his “Cursed” name, because he’s already played a Curse Spirit.

Ah that’s MUCH better, I truly have retruend to the Battlefield.

Spirits in this series display their Symbols before they burst out of them, the Models are tuned up really nicely as well.

And as anyone would in this situation, Dan loses his collective shit.

Dan makes a rather standard play of his own, playing Lizardedge and Rokceratops, in this case its a Cost 0 and a single reduction Cost 1, so while Kazan paid 2 core for his spirits, Dan pays none.

Rokceratops is HUGE, but Lizardedge is so smol and adorable, look at him.

Dan’s quite an easily satisfied kid, but then again if I was in his shoes I’d probably be overly happy about this too.

I can’t discern the other 2 cards, but given that they are Cost 0s and different cards we can surmise that those cards are in fact Goradon and Erimaklizard. Of course the last card in Dan’s hand is The ThunderEmperorDragon Siegwurm, of which this line indicates Dan is aiming for.

And why not I guess? He pulled a rather poor hand for doing anything else.

Dan ends it on that note. Deciding not to attack.

At he’s got 5 Core available, it is possible for him to level up Rokceratops and have it attack, but on Kazan’s turn he would have additional core and Dan would have an exhausted Spirit, with only equivalent Spirits, Kazan would probably get a very quick life advantage.

Kazan plays a 2nd Hellscorpio and a tried and trusty Skulldevil.

He’s got a couple Spirits that are capable of attack now.

With Skulldevil and Skulldemon at 2000 BP each, Kazan can safely attack, at worst he takes 2 lives, and at best he destroys Dan’s spirits.

While one SHOULD keep their spirits as levelled as possible, as core can be freely used from them, keeping them low level as Dan does here can coax one into attacking.

Hah, what an error, Kazan was very clearly depicted with 2 cards remaining in his hand and having played 2 cards a turn, that should be what’s left, but he’s animated with 3 here.

Oh interesting, he’s aware Dan wants lives. And so chooses to attack with the weaker Hellscorpio expecting him to take them, that leaves the stronger Skulldemon and Skulldevil as blockers.

As Kazan has more spirits, he’s also safe to attack with Hellscorpio because even if Dan blocks its a 1-1 trade.

And Dan just got these Spirits, he’ll need them for reduction later. Though based on his hand he can afford to lose 1 of them.

And now another cool addition since last series, we actually get to SEE lives get taken, represented by a Barrier being smashed based on the attacking Spirit’s colour.

And of course, since the Life is attached to the Battle Form, when the life shatters, the Battler also feels the impact.

Its dulled since most of the impact is handled by the Shield but still.

It still hurts a fair bit though. Its an actual battle now.

After a brief explanation from Magisa about how damage taken will carry over to him, Dan seems to have the rather interesting outlook that such a feature makes him “Part of the battle too”

Dan’s spirits respond to Dan’s statements by roaring.

Much like Bashin spoke to Siegfried as an inheritor of the Red Cornerstone, Dan of course speaks to his Spirits as a Bearer of the Core’s Light.

Being a “Bearer of the Core’s Light” is much like being a Chosen Battler of the Cornerstone, it doesn’t come with an associated MacGuffin or Pet, but also doesn’t come with as many abilities like exclusive access to a Battlefield. In this series, there’s not actually much being a Core’s Lightbearer does other than signify one who is chosen by a specific colour.

Hellscorpio attacks once more, and Dan blocks using Rokceratops.

With equal BP, they’ll destroy each other.

It is indeed a draw, its not like Dan has any Magic in his hand at present.

Skulldemon attacks, nabbing another Life from Dan who wants to keep Lizardedge around, as he should, given that he can fulfill the maximum reductions for the Siegwurm in his hand.

Kazan ends his turn leaving 1 Blocker.

At this point I feel the need to mention I did try to keep a record about where all the core was flying but you can kind of do a simple calculation if its really needed so if ever the Core is important, I’ll probably calculate it then and there.

Dan summons another lizardedge, and an oldie but a goodie, Goradon!

Goradon’s had a much needed tune up from its appearance in the previous series.

Summon chants are ALSO a new feature of this series! For a player’s Key Spirits, they have Summon chants for them.

They also don’t appear on the Battlefield the same way other Spirits do, usually having some special animation that brings them on the board.

Siegwurm in this case, climbs out from behind Dan.

Compared to Siegfried’s rather chonky look, Siegwurm is a REALLY skinny Dragon.

Having a Spirit of at LEAST that level is kind of a requirement for a deck.

Okay well its not a hard requirement but you’re not going to win much without a heavy-hitter.

Dan immediately takes aim, attacking with Siegwurm.

Kazan laments that he didn’t leave any blockers (even though he did)

In any case, he chooses to take from the life.

Despite wanting to take from the life, Kazan’s Skulldevil blocks Siegwurm anyway, being destroyed in the process.

Now would be a good time to go over what this little beast does.

A Master Rare, from SD01, the first structure deck. Pre-built decks were often sold but they always contained cards from the main sets and just acted as another way to get cards. SD01 however featured cards unique to it’s release, and this Master Rare spirit is one of them. It’s also got a new family, “Astral Dragon”, a designation used for Spirits that are somewhat related to Stars.

Dan here is the “Clash King”, and his Key Spirit at present, wields the Clash Keyword. Dan’s claim to fame is basically the same Keyword the main villain of the last series used.

Kazan of course, made preconcieved assumptions about Dan’s ability, and didn’t think he’d be able to use such a terrifying keyword.

Normally you’re at the mercy of your opponent’s choices when attacking as they can select what order they block in and if they want to block at all. Clash removes that choice, and can be a good way to deny the opponent Core by attacking their Spirits over their life.

Kazan takes a hit from both Goradon and Lizardedge. Now Dan is even with him.

Now it’s Kazan’s turn! He compliments Bashin on the fact that Clash seems to suit him.

Bit friendly for someone who’s the enemy.

Kazan does actually play a card we’ve yet to see.

Simply put, it’s a Curse Spirit that’s Cost 3, not much else to point out

Another cool new feature is the fact that levelling up now displays the new BP of the Spirit! Kazan levels up Hellscorpio.

Skulldemon attacks, Dan has Lizardedge available to block but doesn’t want to lose it, so he takes from the life.

Lizardedge blocks an incoming attack from Hellscorpio, its 2000 vs 1000 BP in favor of Hellscorpio, so Lizardedge is destroyed.

Big Bro laments that Humpdump was left in a refreshed state.

apparently, despite the “effort” big bro put into his deck, the straw that broke the camel’s back was… Humpdump.

We’re on turn 6 and the score is 3 – 2, and yet Toppa Bashin thought we could get as far as turn 38 without a single life lost?

Dan plays one more Goradon. This is check, Kazan only has 1 blocker and 3 remaining lives. Kazan also can’t adequately play any counters without spending from his Spirits, and with only 2 cards in his hand he probably won’t be making any comeback plays even if he does.

A quick calculation suggests to me that Dan has 6 core unused in his reserve. More than enough to level up Siegwurm.

Which is precisely what Dan does.

I do love these new CGI models and new viewer friendly ways of displaying information.

Siegwurm attacks, thanks to Clash, Humpdump is forced to block it and is destroyed.

With no blockers left, Dan full attacks with his 2 Goradons and Lizardedge.

Kazan is forced to take all 3 from the life, and loses the battle.

We can tell who loses since they get ejected from the battlefield and have a valiant soar through bright light.

Dan proceeds to explain how he likes to battle. His battle style isn’t exactly a “No-Guard” strategy, but he tries to play his strong Spirits for the cheapest they can be played and as soon as possible, as such he takes lives and sacrifices spirits only based on how much Core he actually needs to get to his next play. Hence why he destroyed a Hellscorpio with Rokceratops because he already had the resources to play Siegwurm at maximum reductions.

Kazan is quite likeable, honouring his word and returning the deck.

I won’t lie its becoming a bit of a problem with the fact that he’s “Bashin Dan”, because I’ve mistyped “Bashin” over “Dan” many times over the course of this post.

Kazan, keeping to his word, pisses off.

And Dan of course, has to come to terms with the reality of the situation, he ain’t got no fuckin’ clue where he is.

And of course, our NEW “To be continued” screen has this lovely BS logo on it.

The ending theme of this series is called “Kimi ga Matteru” or “Waiting for you”, its a rather soft song unlike My Sunshine’s rather pop-based music, and is a nice one to end off with.

And of course, with this series, comes a new feature!

A somewhat spiritual successor to the Batosupi Lecture, we have these segments that basically act very similarly to them, usually they’ll be “Cards of the Day” but I’m going to hold off on saying they 100% are because its entirely possible it throws a curveball and talks about something that isn’t a specific card.

For now, it IS a card of the day so lets talk about it.

The ThunderEmperorDragon Siegwurm is an interesting card for various reasons, It’s Dan’s current Ace but unlike Siegfried, it’s not an X-Rare, and Bashin lacked any such ace before he obtained Siegfried.

Ancient Dragons are somewhat scarce in Battle Spirits, its a family that’s currently only relegated to powerful Spirits. Interestingly this card actually came out BEFORE the set Catastrophedragon did. So it is actually the introducer of Clash to the game while Catastrophedragon did so for the show.

Clash is… actually a pretty good keyword, setting up a Clash Spirit early can allow one to control the pace of the game very early as Dan did.

Interestingly the Lv3 effect of Siegwurm allows Dan to use it alongside Bashin’s old strategy, as it gives any Spirit with Awaken the ability to Clash. You can also make interesting combos with Spirit Link and a Lv3 Siegwurm, effectively giving any Spirit both Awaken AND Clash by having Siegwurm out.

As for Siegwurm itself, its a good card to make use of Dragons’ Rush, as Siegwurm must be blocked, he will be able to defeat a large amount of Spirits before attacking the opposing life.

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Let’s talk about the Episode for a bit.

Summarising the plot thus far: Dan, after being defeated by a girl who was giving him strange hallucinations, is sent to Grand-Lolo against his will by her. Upon arrival in Grand-Lolo he defeats Cursed Kazan while being guided by the Otherworld Witch Magisa in order to win back the deck of a villager who lost to Kazan before eventually coming to terms with the fact that he has no idea where he is.

You’ve seen me compare smaller things that parallel Bashin Toppa, but the plot itself completely takes a different route, as its basically an Isekai which, hilariously, Bashin Toppa isn’t. It also changes the main character’s general competence. He does LOSE to Kajitsu but he doesn’t seem to be weak (Or, well, about as strong as you can get with only Cost 0s, 1s and a Siegwurm), completely flooring Kazan, unlike Bashin who couldn’t even get through preliminary rounds in the Batosupi Championships.

So far, it’s evident that this anime is being marketed in much higher quality, as like an actual anime, rather than the cartoon-ish nature of Toppa Bashin. The plot is also much darker right from the outset.

All in all its a good start to what is a GREAT series. And I can’t wait to get to the next one.

That’s it, it’s over! Battle Spirits Shounen Toppa Bashin is done. But it wouldn’t be much of a review if I didn’t give my thoughts on the series as a whole.

This segment is going to be a lot of text, I will add images if I feel they are relevant but do not expect any.

First and foremost, I’ll discuss the characters.

Characters

The most important thing to drive any story is Characters, characters are, essentially what drive a story, because we are people, we are driven by stories that have characters.

The Cornerstone 6

The “Cornerstone 6” quite frankly are done fairly well… with the exception of one of them. Each character is given a relatively decent amount of focus, even Bashin takes a backseat in order to flash out the other members of his group at times. And they’re handled quite nicely. There are some issues though.

Bashin drives the story and the story will bend and break to suit him if need be, it doesn’t feel like it does that, rather it seems to punish him when he attempts to, Bashin, while he does start off annoying is consistently humbled by the plot, and eventually gets quite a fair bit of wisdom and maturity once he reaches the end of the series. I will admit, while I hated him to begin with, he’s certainly high on my list of characters now.

J is handled rather consistently up until his issues with his Father come into focus. He continually makes agreements with Bashin, goes back on them because he refuses to actually act on them, and then gets depressed about it. Even making a Face-Heel turn (becoming a bad guy) while still feeling like he’s betrayed Bashin by doing so. This becomes inconsistent with how he treats Bashin while in that state though, he pours his heart out to Bashin and then proceeds to say he’s worse than weak and practically assault him. For someone who was doing this because he felt he had to in order to get closer to Uchuuchouten to eliminate the Thousand Spirits group to free his father, he certainly didn’t act like he felt forced to do it. In short, J suffers from having several depicted moments that suggest he should be acting one way, and either fails to do so or outright contradicts them.

Striker is more relegated to a supporting character role, not much develops after he learns to play Battle Spirits, my issue with him is that he’s extremely under-utilized around the middle section of the series, he gets an X-Rare, uses it once and then is never seen playing again for an extremely long amount of time.

Suiren/My Sunshine is, fine, a lot of her problems come from being an idol but nothing actually threatens it, so she just seems like an interesting supporting character, I don’t have any complaints with how she’s handled, much as her Idol persona frustrates me.

Meganeko is handled VERY well, she’s given basically what Striker doesn’t get, she develops from a non-battler into a fully fledged one, upgrading from a character that revolves around Bashin into her own, independant being. Her personality even developing small changes before becoming almost nigh-unrecognizeable without me even noticing. Meganeko is done VERY well as a character. My only complaint that involves her is more a problem with Smile than herself.

Kyouka is done horribly, and to talk about her I also need to talk about the character of Card Sensei.

Card Sensei is, early on in the series, quite drastically indicated to be the Blue battler for the series. He wears a lot of blue, Guragurii has the same collar the other animals do, and even talks. Etcetera. Unfortunately this completely clashes with the plot because Card Sensei is built up to leave for an extended period of time. Which would be fine if he returned when BS03 was released and Blue was unveiled. This doesn’t occur. Instead returning on the cusp of BS04 only to hand his baton to Kyouka.

Kyouka is given the role that Card Sensei spent all series being foreshadowed and built up towards having, and her only claim to fame was battling Meganeko like once. She’s there to tick a box, once she HAS the Cornerstone she’s not shown battling AT. ALL. Except in a dream sequence in an Episode that might as well have not existed! All of that Episodes features could have been used detailing the Battle with Nine and I would feel so much better about it. But its losses all around and they paint her to be an awful character despite her being motivated to play and take part in the Battle Spirits club, fighting the likes of My Sunshine all day, a Tournament level battler, yet still being awful enough that she doesn’t know an opposing card has higher BP than her own?

It’s ridiculous, she’s used like bin to throw whatever trash you forgot to fill out at. Which feels even worse because she acts as a happy and composed female battler counterpart to the emotional Meganeko and the cocky Suiren. But she’s awarded MacGuffins for no discernable reason and then tossed aside. How do you effectively manage 5 characters at once and can’t find it in you to even give the 6th a LITTLE spotlight.

The Thousand Spirits Group

These guys, as villains act as opposition to the characters, I have nothing much to say about a fair few of them. Those being Two, Three, Five and Eight.

Five is obvious, covered my issues above. Two, Three and Eight serve very specific purposes as supporting characters/minor antagonists and fulfill that role almost perfectly. Two, along with Smile acted as a mechanism to try and coax J toward eventually becoming Jack Knight, once Jack Knight was close to being finalized, Elliott no longer served a purpose and thus retired.

Three, Kiano, he spends a lot of the series missing and only arrives precisely when he needs to. He’s an excellent mechanism to finalize J’s eventual role shift. I did have complaints about how he’s painted to be sympathetic right when J does his role shift but in all honesty he’s not around all that long before he is presented to be that way, I retract that criticism.

And Eight has been a mentor-type for the characters in a roundabout way, awarding them X-Rares and eventually taking over Card Sensei’s role directly.

Anyway, them aside, let’s talk about the other Numbers, starting with Seven.

Seven’s role seems almost perfectly set up to be the alternative Blue Battler given that while Card Sensei and Kyouka are the chosen Blue Battler, Galaxy Seven is what the show deems to be the designated blue player for the show, unveiling 2 out of the 3 Blue X-Rares the show depicts. But because of his role as a member of the Numbers Elite he’s effectively rendered incapable of inheriting the Cornerstone as he wouldn’t be able to take part in many of the battles the heroes involve themselves in. But given how few Kyouka gets in her role I’m not sure it would have mattered. I’m just not sure why Kyouka needed to become a relevant member of the Cornerstone 6 when Galaxy Seven could have filled that role nicely. Eight being a member of the opposition in Team Numbers Elite might have gotten the “Masako” sub-plot resolved a lot neater if Galaxy made the developed decision to stay with Team Shomen Toppa. Or you know, just make Card Sensei do what he was supposed to and the Galaxy Seven thing wouldn’t have been a problem, attempting to put Kyouka into a Blue role created more problems than it solved.

Smile… Smile Smile Smile, honestly, I think he’s become my favourite character in the series after the nightmare that was Episode 50’s redeeming of Nine. His existence and his backstory create tension when Meganeko studies under Card Sensei, because he’s the conclusion of what happened the last time Card Sensei took on a student. His initial personality reflected Meganeko’s before he completely discarded it. He’s brought into the series introducing a new colour, defeats the series rival, and is effectively placed there as a threat.

…Before proceeding to have the crap kicked out of him battle after battle with no discernable effect on his psyche up until the LAST one where they do salvage the problem a little bit by having him curse his inability to defeat any other character. This is good, a problem that was becoming pervasive eventually gets addressed in-story, it was good.

And then J becomes Jack Knight and he kind of just does nothing the whole series, we’re not seen a single FRAME of his tag with J and yet the show continues to keep telling us “They’re strong! Please believe us!”

He never fully reconciles with anyone about any part of his backstory despite being a consistent appearance in episodes since his introduction, even in the epilogue he doesn’t develop ONE IOTA whatsoever when that should have happened once he broke down in front of J. None of his tensions are ever resolved and his most developed moment was him ripping off Seven’s Mask at the end of the series because Nine was a coward. That’s it, and he’s not apologetic for being freed after the fact. He’s a good character and his energy carries a lot of enjoyment but nothing about him changes and it makes him get pretty stagnant pretty quickly.

Nine, geez, how to ruin a completely perfect villain, he’s the most composed of the cast and seems to take an interest in Bashin explicitly, even ordering Eight to keep an eye on him outside the orders of Uchuuchouten. All of this suggests SOME intrigue in Bashin specifically…

And then at some point after he interacts with Hayami and Hayami rejects him he just 180’s, there’s no distinctive display of his anger developing anywhere, there’s no breakdown, no shift, nothing indicates his sudden change in behaviour, he just dons a red suit after Jack Knight leaves and then immediately ignores Bashin and starts targeting Cornerstones, and wants to end the world. He then spends the whole series getting called out for Poor Luck before displaying RIDICULOUS feats of Luck. Gets his ass beat by Bashin, gets his Main Antagonist role nabbed back by Uchuuchouten, and then proceeds to be INSTANTLY redeemed by a post-hoc rationalization of “Oh, Nine was being controlled by his Rage and now Uchuuchouten has it, we cool now”

WHAT!?

Nine’s entire “Magnificent Bastard” persona… was the product of him just being really angry? To say I feel jipped is a complete understatement.

They never explained what he was angry about, though implied to be due to his poor luck, they never explained what caught his interest in Bashin such that he EMULATED HIS DECK. They never explain why his rage was special enough that it could have been taken away by a shiny rock along with his memories.

It’s ridiculous.

And don’t get me started on Uchuuchouten. From EPISODE ONE, Uchuuchouten is straight up name-dropped, and we don’t see or hear from him until around the first Tournament by which all he does is start the tournament with a speech. He’s then not even brought up except as a motivator for J to aim at and no one says why.

It’s not until Episode TWENTY SIX that he get a MILD idea of what he’s up to.

Only in the LAST Episode do they explain anything about him and it’s not much, things still up in the air involve how Bashin Touha became Uchuuchouten, Why he did so, why Uchuuchouten wanted to destroy the world pre-absorbing Nine’s Rage, How he has the ability to summon cards from the Future (which could have been a useful ability to use earlier in the series when debuting new cards to the cast like the ones Smile and J got)

Uchuuchouten was so under-utilized despite the amount of potential he had as a main villain, its like the Writers were almost scared to use him out of fear that he wouldn’t be a mysterious villain, his mysteries shouldn’t persist PASSED the show’s end. It seems highly rushed and they couldn’t get that info in because Episode limits.

Speaking of which.

Episodic/Narrative Structure

This is by far the WORST Battle Spirits series just on account of how its Episodic structure takes place. None of the main plot actually OCCURS before Episode 26, and the first half is spent just introducing characters before throwing a bunch of meaningless events at them to get them to battle while not showcasing anything interesting.

A new card here and a new card there could be showcased while the plot was going on rather than forsaking it so that you could.

And oh jesus the TURN SKIPPING. Battle Spirits may not be the quickest game in the world, but it is not long, very few games grind so far that you reach Turn 11 without many lives lost or in some cases, a player having won. And yet the show insists on consistently starting from a super late turn. 20 or 30 or whatever.

It’s completely unrealistic because it’s being done to showcase multi-card combos that wouldn’t work otherwise, but I’ve calculated the core used during those episodes and they overshoot the amount of core they should have on those turns CONSISTENTLY, so the one reason I could think of that they would do such a thing doesn’t even fly, anyone paying attention is just expected to assume they got core they don’t have from SOMEWHERE earlier in the game.

Now, I don’t mind a Card Game anime having one-off episodes that don’t further the plot, that’s completely fine, but for example Episode 17 didn’t further the plot, NOR did it succeed in actually doing anything, it didn’t even have a battle and the topics detailed in the episode don’t actually get followed up on because the Main character, while promising to use off-colour cards doesn’t do so, and then has the same argument much later during the game against Amade Us. So then what was the point of Episode 17? It’s genuinely an episode that could be skipped and absolutely nothing of value would have been lost. Episodes like that appear and take up spots for things that could have actual meaning, like Episode 44 giving Kyouka some spotlight except it doesn’t because she’s just a dream in spite of the cool X-Rare she unveiled.

What a pain in the ass.

Mechanics

And oh joy the inconsistent story-telling. Facts we establish very early on get either ignored or straight up retconned later with no explanation. Some can ONLY be inferred if you’re paying very close analytical attention like I was.

Here’s a couple established facts of the show:

• A Cornerstone AND it’s related Animal partner is required to open the Gate to Isekai
• A Nazo-Otona awards X-Rares when defeated. Players who receive X-Rares in this way receive a High Ranker Pass.
• Elliott, in an attempt to raise interest in the game, created the Tag Battle System and hosted a Secret Tournament with J to unveil it.

At some point in the show, these established facts get broken multiple times.

The Cornerstone 6 have shown on multiple occasions the ability to open the gate without the presence of their Animal Partner, before recalling that requirement, for example J does so against Elliott during their meeting at school in spite of Okyou’s absence. While conveniently remembering it when Bashin and Striker need a Batosupi fix.

Nazo-Otonas, have consistently been stated to award X-Rares when defeated but Nazo-Otonas have failed to do so MORE times than they’ve succeeded, granted Bashin himself gets angry about this at times but they don’t ever explain or even suggest WHY they choose to award X-Rares at all if the notion is il-concieved.

Elliott creates a Tag Battle System and hosts a secret Tournament for it, its marketed as a new thing, yet it somehow existed WELL before Elliott announced it, because Hayami and Touha, along with Kiano and Aunt Kiano were tag battlers forever ago?

I dunno about you sunshine but that shit don’t add up.

Final Thoughts

The battles as a whole at least, are good, the times they choose to debut cards is relatively good, the battles are engaging, with the exception of Episode 49 and another one I can’t remember off the top of my head, but the time when the part of the fight we DO get is uninteresting is few and far between.

I believe the story’s problems comes from an oversaturation of characters and rather than letting side characters be side characters they try to get as many of them developed as possible resulting in strange situations where a character is given an important role and then does nothing with it. It feels like they went with a more episode-by-episode basis for storytelling and only decided to shift into an overarching plot halfway, that would explain away at least half the narrative troubles.

Less characters means the ones you do have can be focused on a lot more, the other characters don’t need to just stop existing but don’t show any focus to something you’re not intending on making use of later. The characters you WERE able to put a healthy amount of focus into, did come out rather well, you had a nice and varied cast of believable characters and then just failed to use them at times.

I feel like writers need to take notes of established facts they need to consider when doing or stating things that are relevant so that new information does not out right contradict previous information WITHOUT appropriate reason to do so.

All in all, these are all problems that just follow on from close examination of it, if watched as an episodic series just wanting to see some battles and not particularly worried about the plot holding itself up under scrutiny then you know what? It’s a good show, the Episodes themselves don’t contradict themselves within the scope of the Episode, its usually between them that issues occur.

all in all, Battle Spirits Shounen Toppa Bashin is a series that sets a lot of standards in the series that are carried over in later ones, and does an excellent job for a first anime in 2009 making use of CGI 3D Models to showcase the games. The characters are all fairly good and the plot, in general, doesn’t entirely fail at being unique. Where it falters can basically be summarised as internal consistency in, basically everywhere. A little out of touch with the actual game itself sprinkled with a bit of lack of creativity in producing battles that could be believed to have happened, and combos possible under low amounts of core. As well as extremely poor treatment of the show’s main villains compared to the rest of the cast.

In any case, that’s all I really got. Battle Spirits Shounen Toppa Bashin is, at least for me, completely over. And I can’t wait to move on to its Spiritual successor, Gekiha Dan, which I will absolutely be comparing to Toppa Bashin as its practically a rewrite of Toppa Bashin’s plot under close examination.

I’ll see you then!

We’re here! The final episode of Battle Spirits Shounen Toppa Bashin!

Last time Bashin had just defeated Nine in what I can only describe as the coolest and yet most uninteractive game of Battle Spirits I’ve ever seen.

Now, Uchuuchouten is challenging Bashin to one final battle.

Strangely enough, the opening, while STILL PLAYING, has an entire scene occurring in the middle of it.

I’m not sure how to feel that Kiano is sat here sounding terrified to the tune of “Go Ahead”

It appears that whatever segment of Rage Nine had, it infested the Star-shaped stone he stole from Uchuuchouten, and when it returned to Uchuuchouten, it took Nine’s rage with it.

So it appears whatever Uchuuchouten wanted to do, its been overridden by Nine’s burning rage.

Also note how Uchuuchouten says My Isekai World.

Bashin asking the obvious question of “Why are we staking the fate of 2 worlds on Card Games?”

Wait what? That’s what the Cornerstones are meant to do? They’re meant to destroy the power of luck?

Is THAT what Uchuuchouten meant when he said Nine “wouldn’t be lucky”? It wasn’t that Nine wouldn’t get good luck its that good luck isn’t enough to defeat someone who holds a Cornerstone.

Ahah, that’s kind of cool. They parodied the series title. The episode title says “Shomen Toppa Bashin” which is translated as you see here. But the show’s title is Battle Spirits “Shounen Toppa Bashin”.

You might think its a bit strange because Japan standardizes name Surname first and yet its listed in English order, but in Japan, “Toppa” means “Breakthrough”

So actually the title sort of translates to “Breakthrough Boy Bashin”

It’s quite cool

A surprisingly responsible statement from Bashin, he can’t be responsible for the world because he doesn’t speak for it, he CAN however, speak for himself, and will happily offer himself up in exchange.

Hayami intervenes with the inevitable, as she’s apparently clicked onto the identity of Uchuuchouten.

And doesn’t like the idea of Bashin battling whoever Uchuuchouten is.

I personally wouldn’t stand infront of a guy who’s just ingested a fresh bowl of anger from someone who was willing to put free will suppressing masks on even small children.

Bashin interrupts Hayami’s reveal of Uchuuchouten’s identity, stating that whoever Uchuuchouten is, it really doesn’t matter.

Once again, bit old fashioned but hey.

Don’t get between 2 people who BOTH wanna fight each other.

Bro you have literally this episode and no other time to do it, “Not yet” is not an appropriate answer.

Uchuuchouten once again clarifies that this battle won’t have any continues, winner takes all, etc.

…The Floor below him just faded in. Not even like a flash of light or anything.

The “Six Life System” appears to be a system that incorporates the Cornerstones, since there are 6 and Batosupi only uses 5 lives, they have to add an extra one.

Whatever that system does, its affected the Cornerstones

Oh hey, the Lives have been populated, the Core is even one of each colour. Guess that’s where the Cornerstone’s shine went.

Meanwhile Uchuuchouten’s Red 6-pointed Star has also gained the Colours of the Cornerstones.

It appears without functioning Cornerstones, Isekai World vanishes, along with the Cornerstone 6’s pets.

So Uchuuchouten’s GOAL is to create Isekai World? Like, on Earth? Like Nine did?

So in other words Uchuuchouten was intending to use this system to acquire that goal which Nine wasn’t quite aware of, or at least if he was he decided he didn’t wish to use it, instead just using the Cornerstone Holders as a power source instead of using the Six Life System.

The Battle Spirits Priest had something very similar to the Emerald Cornerstone. Does that mean that Uchuuchouten’s little Red star was the PREVIOUS Ruby Cornerstone?

So Uchuuchouten wanted to lay out the stakes before he accepted Bashin’s challenge.

How nice of him, to clear up the severity of the situation before letting Bashin get into something crazy.

Aibou decides to speak for the animals, choosing to risk their lives in order for Bashin to face Uchuuchouten.

I guess they’re not too worried about dying.

Nice to know that Bashin’s clear on the stakes because I’m not just yet, I’ll wait for the battle to start. So if Bashin loses, the animals are rendered incapable of communicating as they have been, return to being regular pets, and Bashin loses access to Isekai. Allowing Uchuuchouten to have full control of Isekai World through the power he steals.

Bashin has been offered a card by each of Team Shomen Toppa. This becomes a standard of the series that the main character has quite a unique deck for the last battle, often incorporating a mix of cards from their allies. 2 of our many available series do stray from this though, one of those series has the main character not receive ANY cards, and the other has the main character receive only ONE card rather than multiple.

Anyway, of the cards Bashin took, we know 2 of them, its Meganeko’s Valiero and Striker’s SavageKnight Hercules.

Turn 31 ay… And it’s Bashin’s turn.

Quite a simplistic board state, Bashin has 2 Cost 4s in a Lv2 Balmung and Lv1 TaurusKnight while Uchuuchouten only has a Lv2 Kujaraku.

It doesn’t appear like Uchuuchouten is using anything interesting, other than this particular Red card, but discerning his deck from Kujaraku would be an exercise in stupidity.

Due to the Six Life System, the players have 6 lives as opposed to 5. Interestingly, Uchuuchouten’s lives are black.

Bashin’s hand is apparently THE TITS, because he’s played a Lv2 Siegfried and a Lv2 Diranos.

Though compared to the more recent X-Rares, they’re kind of lackluster, Diranos is very low power and more of a support X-Rare while Siegfried just… doesn’t really do anything. I guess it has a high BP?

I guess its a showdown, Taurusknight has 3000 BP as it’s Lv1, and Kujaraku has 6000 BP at Lv2. Taurusknight can beat it at Lv3 with 9000 BP.

Time for Awaken.

Only 2? I suppose Diranos’ Lv1 effect will grant Taurusknight +1000 BP but going for a tie isn’t the best. Balmung is level 2 at 4 core, Bashin should have enough Core for it to reach Lv3?

but nope, settles for a Draw, Kujaraku and Taurusknight defeat each other.

Balmung attacks with Siegfried, giving it Balmung’s Core to raise it to Lv3 from Lv2.

Uchuuchouten takes it from the life, making it the first blood of the game.

Card Sensei is a bit slow and only NOW realises that the dome is connected to Isekai.

This is a lovely use of these last few seconds of the show.

As far as Kiano was concerned when he developed the system, he developed the Battle System for the purposes of Linking to the Battling Spirits of Isekai, but didn’t plan for it to go any further than battling.

Why have we waited until the LAST POSSIBLE episode for anyone reasonable to ask WHO THE FUCK IS UCHUUCHOUTEN!?

WHY HAVE I WAITED 50 EPISODES TO HEAR THE ANSWER TO A QUESTION I HAVE BEEN ASKING SINCE EPISODE ONE!

And there’s the confirmation, Uchuuchouten’s true identity is that of Bashin Touha, Bashin Toppa’s father.

The foreshadowing of which is indicated in the series by 2 things, the first is that Hayami describes Bashin has behaving exactly the same way as his father with very few differences.

The second, is that Uchuuchouten responded to Bashin’s catchphrase by finishing it.

From those 2 things it is very easy to guess that Uchuuchouten may have been Bashin’s father.

…THAT IS HOW HE DRESSED!? He’s just a fucking power ranger! Also his Cornerstone is the same as Bashin’s so wtf is that Star-thing. I guess its just a vessel to contain the power of all 6 Cornerstones given its look.

Also he’s got Eight’s Shades, he must have inspired Eight to wear them.

Oh, no, that’s bad, that’s a HUGE retcon, Elliott had an entire secret tournament with exclusive invites to specifically introduce Tag Battles as a new format of play. Based on this information, Tag Battles existed long before Elliott had introduced them. Which makes no sense for the Tournament to be secret if it was already a well-known format.

“Kiano siblings”

Wait, so S. Kiano Sawaragi inherited the Wife’s name instead of having her take his.

That’s… surprisingly fucking progressive actually, well done for a series released in 2008.

That also means we can call Auntie over here “Aunt Kiano”

You played out of nothing but BS01 for SEVERAL YEARS, that couldn’t have been golden whatsoever!

Haha, his name is written as “Uchuu-Chouten-King”, which means his name is not the longass “Uchuuchouten-Ou” its a title.

“Uchuu” means Universe, and “Chouten” means Top, or Summit.

So a rough translation of King Uchuuchouten’s name is actually, “King at the Top of the Universe”, or “Universe’s Top King”

For now we’ll stick to Uchuuchouten at the very least.

Uchuuchouten plays a Goradon at Lv2, and DarkGoradon at Lv1.

Nice side by side comparison between Goradon and it’s Darker Counterpart.

I kid, the last episode of Bashin Toppa was actually the first episode of it I ever watched.

But uh, THAT card, hoo boy, considering how the rest of the series has been going its kind of jarring to see a card like that in this series.

A Huge, 6-winged Cost 10 Black Dragon.

You wouldn’t have, this episode’s airing date was the 9th of July, 2009.

The Set this card comes out in quite literally does not exist yet.

Its not wrong, watchers would have likely had no way of being aware of this Spirit before now when watching this as it first aired.

Nothing like a little bit of Nine’s rage leaking out there. Uchuuchouten still intends to use the Cornerstones to erase Earth using Isekai.

I suppose now’s enough teasing, I guess its time I give you the low-down on the card.

What you think because I’m reviewing this in real time I can’t pull information from the future?!

Do you realize who you’re talking to!?

Fine, I’ll do it myself.

No title, no “King” no “Emperor” no “Lord” no “Hero”.

It is simply, The “Deity”, its name is Catastrophedragon, the Strongest X-Rare… Or so its titled. A card from the now currently non-existent BS06, setting a trend for the main antagonist’s cards to be cards from the next Saga of Battle Spirits. This is the only exception as the next series takes place in the same “Saga”

Cost 10, a natural Lv3 BP of 20,000. And 3 effects.

The first, when summoned, you draw a card for every “Ancient Dragon” you control, Catastrophedragon is an Ancient Dragon so you will at least gain 1 card worst-case scenario.

The Second effect, from Lv2 onward. A new Red-exclusive Keyword, Clash, “Gekitotsu” in Japan and “Rage” in the English game, A Clash Spirit craves battle, so if there are available Spirits to block, your opponent must block the Clash Spirit, and cannot opt into taking from the life.

And Lv3, it’s strongest effect, if you think you could escape the huge beast by simply chump-blocking it with a weak spirit you’re sorely mistaken, as when Catastrophedragon is blocked by ANYTHING Cost 5 or below, it refreshes.

It’s like an in-built Dragon’s Rush but better, because you can’t escape it by empty blocking, it refreshes the second its blocked, not when it wins. And its unlikely to lose any battles because of it’s outrageous 20,000 BP.

Uchuuchouten unveiling one of his many abilities. The ability to call Spirits from across Time.

Uchuuchouten attacks with The Deity Catastrophedragon.

As Catastrophedragon is a Clash Spirit from Lv2 onwards, Bashin MUST block it’s attack.

Also Catastrophedragon’s theme is freaking AWESOME.

Bashin decides to make what would be the correct choice on any other day, and block with his weakest spirit.

Balmung stands no chance of course.

Bashin didn’t block using a Spirit of Cost 6+, so Catastrophedragon is able to attack again.

Catastrophedragon is appropriate for the title of “The Deity”, unless you present a high enough quality sacrifice, it will continue to rampage.

Diranos was an okay choice too, its a relatively weak in strength X-Rare.

Since Catastrophedragon was blocked by a Cost 6+, it does not refresh.

Undeterred, Uchuuchouten attacks with DarkGoradon. Bashin has no blockers, so now he has to risk the lives that hold the shine of the Cornerstone.

Bashin’s Blue Life has been shattered (5 – 6->5)

So when Bashin loses a Life, the respective Animal’s collar turns black, and the animal is rendered unable to continue communicating through speech.

Card Sensei awakened his Cornerstone first, so he’s been with Guragurii the absolute longest. Many years of his life in fact.

He’s basically just lost a long-time friend forever.

Seems I was right, that Star-like Cornerstone is like Master Cornerstone, it’s designed to gather all 6 of the Cornerstone’s Lights in a single place, a transfer that can only be done through the Six Life System. Uchuuchouten ends his turn.

Unfortunately Battle Spirits is a game where very often you’ll find that you have no choice but to lose lives. So this Six Life System is going to be brutalizing because Bashin can’t properly defend his life AND win. Especially not against Catastrophedragon which demands a strong enough opponent to not claim one of Bashin’s lives.

Bashin plays the card Suiren gave him, The SevenShogun Destlord.

Uchuuchouten’s only blocker is Goradon at Lv2, so it’s exhausted.

I wonder if Bashin intends to full attack. It’d be reckless with his lives though.

Siegfried attacks, taking a life from Uchuuchouten. (5->4 – 5)

Bashin decides the best course of action is to end his turn with Destlord as a Blocker.

Not the worst move to ensure Catastrophedragon doesn’t get at your life, but the problem is Uchuuchouten has 2 Goradons that can attack and you’ll have a hard time blocking them.

Catastrophedragon attacks, It’s Clash ability forcing Destlord to block it and be destroyed. Catastrophedragon fails to refresh having fought a Cost 7 Spirit.

If a guy that wants to take your lives to power his Master stone sees an opportunity to take them, he probably will.

The Yellow and Purple lives are destroyed (4 – 5->3)

Bashin’s now behind.

Nanarin leaves some parting words for Meganeko to stay with Bashin.

And Pink reminds Suiren that she’s no longer alone as an idol, she has friends.

Kind of bittersweet, honestly.

Uchuuchouten now has half the Cornerstones necessary to destroy the Earth by unleashing Isekai.

Bashin immediately takes his turn and goes on the offensive, attacking with Siegfried.

Bashin then Swift Summons The SavageKnight Hercules.

Score is now 3 – 3, but the situation hasn’t changed, Bashin now has a big meaty X-Rare that’s a quasi-vanilla in this situation.

Bashin… Chooses to attack with Hercules? That will leave him open to the remaining 3 Spirits…

Uchuuchouten decides to match Bashin’s Green X-Rare with his own.

The 2 Knights Strike each other, since they have equal BP, they’re destroyed.

Hayami has a small flashback to when Bashin was very small and his father had recently left, asking his mother to teach him Battle Spirits.

The card in Hayami’s hand is a fucking DragonEmperor Siegfried.
WHAT NEED WAS THERE TO HAVE NINE HAND IT TO HIM?

Did the writers have a fucking Toriyama moment and just forget what had been established by the plot at this point?

Knuckles the Echidna attacks with Catastrophedragon, as per usual.

Bashin pre-emptively apologizes to Striker as Bashin knows that he can’t protect the lives AND beat Uchuuchouten at the same time.

The Green Life has been smashed (3 – 3->2)

And another one bites the dust~

Uchuuchouten once again mobilizes his Goradon’s to take Bashin’s last 2 lives but Bashin plays Flame Tempest.

Since Uchuuchouten was in a rush and failed to level them, the 2 Spirits are wiped out.

Uchuuchouten’s face is pretty indicative that he’s aware that he made a mistake there in his urgency.

When in doubt, play Double Draw.

That’s what Bashin does.

And he manages to draw both Meganeko AND Kyouka’s cards.

Valiero makes sense, we saw that, but Titus is Kyouka’s card? I guess Bashin must have handed the X-Rares Seven gave him to Kyouka and she handed them back.

I’m briefly showing a frame from the other sub because the cards are SUPER low quality in Soaker’s own vid. We can see here that Uchuuchouten’s deck is looking a lot like a Red/Purple mix.

I won’t bother calculating what’s left in Uchuuchouten’s deck, Bashin likely won’t win through deck out anyhow.

Bashin makes an observation that he has Uchuuchouten in check, which is to say, if Uchuuchouten is unable to do anything, Bashin wins here.

Siegfried attacks, which Uchuuchouten takes from the life
(3->2 – 2)

Of course when Bashin attacks with Valiero, Uchuuchouten counters with Binding Thorn.

I guess it wouldn’t be too farfetched to suggest that Uchuuchouten has also mixed in green, between this and Hercules.

Titus is the only other target that can become exhausted, so Uchuuchouten selects that.

Bashin’s now down to an all-exhausted board, and Uchuuchouten’s on 1 life to Bashin’s 2.

Uchuuchouten’s preparing for the worst in case Bashin tries to get around the exhausted Catastrophedragon again. Deploying The Hermit Wise Tree at Lv2.

Uchuuchouten will get +1000 BP to any attacking Spirits for every exhausted Spirit he owns, but at Lv2, Uchuuchouten’s whole field refreshes once his turn ends.

He then follows up with a Lv3 UnicornDragon Volsung, with the +3000 BP it gets from attacking and the +1000 from Hermit Wise Tree, it can hit in for 12000 BP.

And just for good measure. Uchuuchouten plays Double Hearts.

Catastrophedragon is given a second Red Symbol.

Also you can see Catastrophedragon’s setcode from here.

Apparently, he’s not done, playing Lightning Ballista on his main step.

With it, as he controls a Multi-Symbol Spirit, he can destroy a Spirit with 7000 BP or less.

He selects the ArcAngelia Valiero.

Uchuuchouten plays a SECOND Lightning Ballista.

And uses it to destroy GiantHero Titus.

Bashin starts to panic, as he’s on 2 life staring down a multi-symbol spirit, and if that weren’t enough, Volsung is also around.

Aibou uses this moment to give Bashin some words of encouragement.

Somehow Aibou managed to have Cap raise him up by his tail, even though Cap is no longer capable of speaking with a Human-like conscience.

Uchuuchouten’s judgment is being affected by Nine’s rage, stored in his Master Cornerstone.

Hot Tip, you have a Double Symbol Spirit and a Single Symbol Spirit, your opponent has 2 lives and no blockers.

The Play is never. And I mean NEVER to attack with the Single Symbol first.

Because otherwise THIS happens, had Uchuuchouten attacked with Catastrophedragon, Silent Wall wouldn’t have mattered.

As it turns out, J didn’t offer Bashin an X-Rare but chose to hand him something functional.

The animals losing the ability to speak after having it for about a year and the cast becoming used to it must be like living through a death. Sure the animal is still alive but their interactions and expressions will never be the same.

With The Hermit Wise Tree, Volsung is refreshed, ready to block.

And Bashin’s got an uphill battle, as Catastrophedragon still has a great 20000 BP.

I mean, sure it looks bad but Uchuuchouten’s on 1 life, and it’s Bashin’s turn. Uchuuchouten lost a LARGE amount of cards trying to pick apart Bashin’s field, and Bashin’s got 4 cards in his hand.

It’s a fairly good situation for him all things considered.

Isekai World is fueled by the power of Luck and Enjoyment? So if one of those things run out Isekai World just dies?

Doesn’t really make sense.

Supposedly Kitan believes that the conditions have been met, Luck has been destroyed and no one is exactly enjoying Battle Spirits right now.

Also Nine is approaching, Danger?

…So its the BELIEF in Luck that’s fading? I don’t get it.

This maketh no sense. Everything’s being described in really awkward and off-handed ways.

Hayami meets Nine’s approach by offering him an Eel and Pork Cutlet Special.

Nine seems, interestingly, genuinely confused.

Are they fucking redeeming this magnificent bastard by chocking up his evilness to something he can’t even remember?

Kitan’s explaining that Nine was apparently “Controlled by the Hatred in his Soul” which was SO great that when the Master Cornerstone left Nine, it took his Hatred with him and when that left Nine he completely forgot EVERYTHING that’s happened in the series.

It appears Nine, when not a magnificent bastard, is quite loyal to Kitan.

But that also means that Nine and Uchuuchouten were Training partners if both of them were trained by Kitan.

It appears Bashin is taking a leaf out of Seven’s book and performing his OWN variant of the “Galaxy Draw”, The “Break through the front Draw”

Because of course, we have to make it dramatic, right?

Siegfried has basically taken all the lives thus far and has remained on Bashin’s field for several turns, attacking Uchuuchouten.

It’s put in some work. Its deserving of a thanks from Bashin.

Bashin offers Siegfried as a Tribute.

In order to summon Bashin and J’s combination X-Rare, and in this case, a representation of Bashin’s promise to defeat Uchuuchouten with J. The SacredEmperor Siegfrieden at Lv3.

As Siegfrieden tributed Siegfried, Bashin can destroy a Cost 8 or below Spirit, Volsung is the only available target.

Bashin then plays Dragon’s Rush, now when the “Ancient Dragon” family Siegfrieden defeats a Spirit, it will refresh.

The problem will be somehow topping a 21000 BP spirit with the 15000 BP Siegfrieden, Hermit Wise Tree will add +1000 BP to Catastrophedragon.

King Uchuuchouten is literally ALL ham and I’m SO here for it.

The 2 Dragons are clashing, now how will Bashin clear that 6000 BP gap?

Bashin manages to shrink the gap slightly by adding 2000 BP to Siegfrieden.

Catastrophedragon appears to have the upper hand still. There’s still a 4000 BP gap Bashin needs to close.

That’ll do it! Bashin plays Lightning Ballista!

This puts Siegfrieden’s BP at the highest the series has seen, 22,000 BP!

The Deity Catastrophedragon is DESTROYED.

Due to the effect of Dragon’s Rush, Siegfrieden is refreshed after defeating Catastrophedragon.

Bashin declares one FINAL attack with Siegfrieden!

And shatters Uchuuchouten’s final life.

Even Siegfrieden does a Victory pose this time, this becomes more standardized in later series where a main character will do a pose with their winning Spirits.

However as soon as Bashin wins, Isekai World fades.

Well, Uchuuchouten DID risk Isekai World, now whatever connection they had to it is gone.

Despite Bashin winning, Aibou’s stone still fades, rendering him unable to speak.

The animals exist to act as guidance to Isekai World (at least, sometimes they are), if Isekai World no longer exists due to it being the thing Uchuuchouten risked in his battle. Then Aibou, and by extension, the Cornerstone’s purpose, goes with it.

We interrupt this program to inform you that shit is, in fact, happening.

Uchuuchouten’s Master Cornerstone seems to burst, the lights within it leaving.

And they pull a Dragonball Z, firing in equilaterally opposite directons to each other.

God knows where the lights will go though, given they’re not returning to the cornerstones.

Whatever control that master cornerstone was exerting over Touha, its now gone.

He does indeed look like an older Bashin.

Oh hey, Touha calls Bashin “Aibou” much like Bashin does his pet.

I know it was mentioned but I’m glad they remembered stating it.

So, do you by any chance want to explain to me how the actual fuck Touha ended up becoming King Uchuuchouten? And why he didn’t come home?

Apparently not, apparently we instead get urgent news from Batosupi TV.

I guess it shall end the way it started, with useless characters being useless and saying nonsense.

That’s completely fair, the Group has too much power concentrated within it and has been abused far too much over the course of several years.

It drove one guy angry enough to end the world, another guy left his family for like 7 years because he became the King (I’d REALLY like that explained)

It was being used to stalk children, has technology that can suppress free will.

Yeah that’s a mine of nope, off it.

While Thousand Spirits Group is dissolving it appears their assets have been transferred over to the Sawaragi Foundation, which makes sense given the Sawaragi Foundation helped build half their shit. As such, Tournaments will now be hosted by them.

Oh, that’s intriguing, J finally took Michael Elliott’s offer, and pulling a Smile, studying Battle Spirits abroad in Elliott’s Batosupi University.

Nine, or, rather I should say, Kyuusaku, is also taking this opportunity to go to America, as he’s got significant memory loss and wants to “power up after waking up”

Bashin and his friends see J off on the Plane that will take him abroad.

Interesting note: J’s suit still has the Cornerstone embedded within it, but its blackened.

Really? That’s the end?! That was a REALLY short epilogue.

Alright, well typically at times like this, the show has some additional stuff, so let’s see.

Ah, we DO have ending stuff. Card Sensei becomes a Teacher at Tonari Middle School!

The Student Council President becomes an active battler.

Smile decides to become a regular member of the Batosupi Club, he hasn’t mellowed out whatsoever from his transformation as Card Sensei’s student.

The Priest frequents the Otonashi residence to play Battle Spirits with Kitan during his retirement.

Baito-kun AND Baito-san return to work, happy and healthy it seems.

I guess we’ve got a little scene before the end detailing what Touha will do…

…And it appears he’s LEAVING again.

Considering what happened the first time and how long he’s been gone I REALLY don’t think this is a good idea.

…Alright Hayami get his will, cuz he’s going to need to write one.

Does this shitlord have NO sense of danger whatsoever? He just got back, is leaving again even though he spent like some SEVERAL YEARS as a ruthless King.

Before he leaves however, he tosses something to Bashin.

It’s Bashin’s old Cornerstone, the Light seems to have returned to it as well.

And it’s still fully functional apparently, Aibou is now able to speak again!

…Are you REALLY resetting the status quo here show? Is THAT what you’re doing!?

So Isekai is once again fully functional, and bright again for that matter.

And apparently, it even functions LONG DISTANCE now, J’s Cornerstone has regained it’s colour now as well.

That’s the end, huh?

For now, I’ll give my thoughts on the ending, and then give my thoughts on the series as a whole in a subsequent post.

This wasn’t a bad ending episode, in a vacuum at least. The Main character beats the Bad guy, the stakes set in the battle are carried out its all very grim and the final battle is very cool.

The problems I have with the episode is that, all of the stuff established BEFORE the episode doesn’t flow into it properly.

As an Episode its fine but it doesn’t adequately serve it’s functional purpose.

In the last 2 episodes, they retcon the Tag matches as existing far earlier than suggested despite Elliott introducing it as a new system. They don’t adequately explain why Uchuuchouten is doing what he’s doing, they don’t EVER explain how Touha became Uchuuchouten, why he did it, and how he got overidden etc. Nothing about Uchuuchouten besides his motive is explained.

I’m not too fussed about Isekai returning and the animals becoming able to speak again, mostly because that seems like the type of thing that COULD happen, the Cornerstone’s lights dispersed and eventually were regained.

And worse still, the main antagonist, Nine (Uchuuchouten is more like an Extra Final Boss than an antagonist) gets absolved in 2 seconds with very LITTLE explanation or even foreshadowing suggesting that he was in the state that he was.

It’s like they wrote it in last second because they couldn’t cope with just killing the character in a Shounen (Young Boy’s) anime.

There are good parts to the Episode though, the Battle itself is nice and symbol, they managed to write in each Key Spirit of Bashin’s allies nicely, and Uchuuchouten is defeated by the combination of Bashin and J’s X-Rares, which symbolically means Bashin and J defeated Uchuuchouten together.

That was perfect. The battle even shows how similar Bashin and Uchuuchouten are with them mirroring each other at times. It was a good battle.

The farewells were heartbreaking, the emotions expressed were awesome. Emotionally, it was a good episode but narratively it was just… bad.

I’m not disappointed however, how could I be? This is the final episode of Battle Spirits Shounen Toppa Bashin! And with this final episode, I shall prepare!

For Battle Spirits Shounen Gekiha Dan!

Gate Open!

Release!

Here it is, the second to last episode, things are going to be at their bleakest this episode. So let’s not delay and head right into it!

Oh wow, the EPISODE TITLE contains “Take it from the Life!”

Given that Seven and Smile have 7 lives and Bashin and J have 5, we can bet that there’s going to be a LOT of that this episode.

It appears Sebiroth members are surrounding the venues so fans who watched Batosupi TV can’t enter and interfere.

Oh, J’s mother is here at this event? I guess she’s going to be naturally worried about her 2 children going into something dangerous. And hard for her not to realise when her Husband also went missing.

Seems Miyako isn’t particularly worried about them being suspicious, she’s already involved. She’d probably take on Darth Vader in mortal combat if it was for her children at this point.

Speaking of Parental instinct, The Speed Star is uh… Speeding, potentially to the Isekai Dome.

And we’re back to the battle, the only irritating part about 2-parters in this series is the field review.

Bashin only has The Middle of Hard Battle on his field.

J on the other hand is a little better off, having a Lv3 Thor and a Lv2 Burning Battlefield Bashin gave to him.

Smile has no Spirits but the 2 Nexuses he had before, Topaz Meteor and Blessed Sanctuary.

Seven on the other hand has his 2 Nexuses, Collapse of the Battle Line which won’t do anything unless he uses a Demolish Spirit, and The Loss of Heroes which has served its purpose last episode, destroying Bashin’s Deck with Titus’ destruction.

He also has MobileFortress Castle-Golem.

The Score in Lives is 7-5 in favour of Team Smile/Galaxy, and Bashin has had 25 cards vanish from his deck, we’re on like turn 37 so Bashin has had a fair few Draw steps.

Needless to say, its nowhere near over, but Galaxy is really doing a lot of heavy lifting this game.

Bashin declares he’ll “Unify the world” as opposed to “Rule it” before proceeding with his turn.

Oooo, we’re greeted with an interesting shot of Uchuuchouten being imprisoned.

And given that the lights surrounding battlers before taking them away were colour-coded based on the Colour that battler used, Uchuuchouten’s prison being Red is a strong indicator of what Colour HE uses.

It also sets an interesting standard for Villains in Battle Spirits in general

Uchuuchouten seems to be echoing Bashin’s feelings, which is a little ominous, and also he seems to have something resembling a Cornerstone underneath that outfit of his.

Deck destruction has useful benefits other than being an alternative win condition, you can take away useful cards from the opponent before they ever have the ability to draw them.

Bashin of course, gets his usual once-in-a-pinch Double Draw.

Emptying your deck further against Blue is not a very good idea for when you want to win, its doable if you HAVE to but il-advised if you can produce a game plan without it.

As with Nexuses to be deployed onto the Field, you may also use Magic on your ally’s field as opposed to your own.

I wonder if Spirits can be summoned in the same way honestly. Though not sure why you would given you’d normally want to attack with them straight away.

Accepting Bashin’s Double Draw, J draws 2 cards from his deck.

This is good since White is the deck with the least ability to accrue Card Advantage through adding cards from the deck to the hand. The reason for this is as a downside as being the best at maintaining board presence.

For a character named “Smile” he really doesn’t like it when other people have them.

Bashin believes that due to having a similar relationship with Card Sensei, Smile should really have been friends with the rest of the main cast.

He’s got a good point, sharing a teacher is enough reason to be invested in someone to eventually spawn a friendship.

Smile shares the age of the rest of the Cornerstone 6 as well, he fits in very well with them, he’s almost meant to simply be an opposing Counterpart with the rest of them, even pairing up well alongside J like the others did, the only difference is Smile lacks a Cornerstone but he’s the same in almost every other way.

Smile is really hung up about J leaving the numbers, for someone who doesn’t care about friends you don’t seem to take well to “Traitors”

Its a hypocritical stance in and of itself.

The Origin of the Name Smile: The Card Battler who steals Smiles.

I have every reason to dislike Smile but he’s such a good character.

Smile plays the card he drew I guess, The ArcAngelia Valiero. Notably he doesn’t use its effect when summoned to return any cards to his hand. Instead just Levelling it up to Lv3.

Smile attacks with Valiero, naturally, and plays White Potion to refresh it.

This is a pretty nasty Lategame Combo, Valiero will return White Potion to Smile’s Hand and Smile can continually re-use it until he runs out of Core.

Team Bashin/J take from the life (7 – 5->4), Smile recovers White Potion thanks to Valiero’s Light

Smile’s really going nuts in this game, but its not like he’s doing it out of rage or desperation, he’s just being as himself as he can be.

Smile once again uses the Valiero/White Potion Combo to snatch another Life from Bashin/J while recovering White Potion (7 – 4->3)

Notably with Mikafar at Lv2, if Smile still had it, it would have been quite LITERALLY Infinite attacks as the White Potion was free.

Smile repeats the Combo again (7 – 3->2)

Yeah eating all these lives isn’t really helpful unless you need the Core for a counter, but I assume you turn jumped because that wasn’t a problem right?

Bashin only played Double Draw last turn, I’m not sure this is necessary.

Oh nevermind there is ONE other purpose to doing it this way, every use of White Potion empties Core from Smile’s available set, using it at the latest possible timing will mean Smile will have the least core to counter with.

Smile once again attacks with Valiero, playing White Potion.

Smile is REALLY bitter about losing Jack Knight, sweet jesus.

You could have paired with him ALL you wanted if you were on THEIR side Smile. It seems like an obvious solution.

I mean, they’ve also yet to win against anyone, yet anyway.

Ah, interesting. J blocks with Thor and then Life Chains it to gain Core equal to its Cost.

Thor had equal BP though, he could have easily defeated Valiero. Was the extra Core a necessity for something?

Anyway, even though Thor vanishes during the Battle, the Attacking Spirit has already been blocked, and thus Valiero will not take a life even though Thor has been removed before it could be defeated.

Informally, its a move that’s known as an “Empty Block”, because you’ve effectively blocked an attack with a Spirit that doesn’t exist.

J destroys Thor, gaining 7 core, which is 2 more than he just paid for it.

Flash timing doesn’t end when a spirit leaves however, it ends when the players stop playing cards.

J follows up with Silent Wall, now Smile’s attack step is over.

Note: They don’t cover this but Smile will still get his White Potion Back, and his Valiero is still refreshed. Plus the Score is 7-2 so this isn’t great.

J informs Bashin that he’s going to use ALL the core they’ve accumulated.

Now you may have thought he meant A LOT of core. Let me restate, ALL the core.

Smile continues to taunt the enemy, because he’s Smile.

Bashin decides he’s had enough of Smile’s taunts and tells him that “being a match for Smile” has never been the point.

Ouch, just gonna flat out tell em they’re not even the goal they’re aiming for.

Possibly the harshest way to punch someone in the gut when they’re trying everything they can to topple you and ONLY you.

J even notes that Nine is his only goal as he’s betrayed quite literally everyone, INCLUDING Uchuuchouten.

Dang, J’s even willing to fight for Uchuuchouten, that’s a turnaround.

J plays The ImpregnableFortress Odin and then IMMEDIATELY offers it as a Tribute.

I was right, Siegfrieden was sitting in J’s deck, hence why Bashin deployed his Red Nexus to J’s field.

Here it is, debuted in the Second to last episode of the series! The SacredEmperor Siegfrieden, at Lv3.

They gave it a SUPER anime combination sequence and everything.

Oh shit, a new track in the OST is playing, and its pretty damn good.

J activates Siegfrieden’s effect when summoned, he’s able to destroy any Cost 5 or below Spirit, since Odin was offered as the Tribute, that limit is raised to 8.

Valiero is only Cost 8, so its wiped out.

But J isn’t done, he plays a Lv3 EvilDeity Big-Loki.

J uses Invisible Cloak, targeting Siegfrieden, which makes Siegfrieden unblockable. Don’t want it getting dealt with by a White Potion’d Castle-Golem after all.

Bashin follows up, using Double Hearts on Siegfrieden.

When a Spirit has 2 differently coloured symbols, Double Hearts only grants it an extra symbol of one of those colours, Bashin of course selects Red.

Holy shit, Black Lasers?

This attack was modelled earlier but now its animated in 2D.

3 down, 4 left to go.

Yeah there’s the problem, if they take out EvilDeity Big-Loki, Siegfrieden can’t refresh.

Unless of course they just do that and make the whole thing pointless.

And this is why its banned. They had an answer and J just paid 1 cost and said “Nah”

The EvilDeity Big-Loki takes a life, reducing them to 3 lives.

Nothing is quite as satisfying as watching the moment the enemy crumbles emotionally.

Thanks to Big-Loki’s Lv3 effect, Siegfrieden refreshes, as it has more than 1 Symbol.

The Triple Symbol Siegfrieden attacks, taking the last 3 lives of Smile and Galaxy, winning J and Bashin the battle.

Also gosh darn, Siegfrieden is a VERY cool Spirit, and its also satisfying with the main cast finally having a relatively powerful Spirt on their end instead of fighting increasingly uphill battles.

The losers are, of course, punished accordingly.

I guess it would be hard to compare Smile and Jack Knight against the Tag of J and Bashin. I still don’t forgive it for not showing us an actual battle with the 2.

Nine, the magnificent bastard he is, isn’t particularly concerned about Smile and Galaxy after Smile releasing Galaxy from the black mask.

Bye Smile, Bye Galaxy, you were cool battlers. And you have officially outlived your narrative usefulness.

Welp, I guess Bashin and J are going to be transported to a change of venue rather than battling Nine there.

Bit of a mood killer but its not like anyone’s actually watching, the Stadium is filled with Sebiroth.

NO, THEY ACTUALLY GOT ANNOUNCER AND COMMENTATOR-SAN!

I HATE THEM SO MUCH BUT NOT LIKE THIS, THEY DESERVED SO MUCH MORE!

If you didn’t have a bad feeling being surrounded by the enemy I’d applaud your clearly oversized cajones.

This is a tad strange though, isn’t J’s Cornerstone required for Nine’s plan?

Unless Nine plans to take them on one at a time, in an environment that doesn’t allow them to analyze Nine’s strategy.

Basically being a coward, it’d be entirely within his character.

Bashin naturally protests but J decides actually Bashin should listen to them.

Especially considering they’re all twice as big and thousands as many.

Bashin surmises J has things he can do from outside rather than just entering the Palace room.

Since J is unable to battle alongside Bashin, he hands his Deck to him. Kind of interesting, most card game anime just offer like a key card or something, but J offers his ENTIRE deck just incase something else might be useful.

Considering how many episodes we’ve got left I would be VERY worried if we didn’t.

You can hear Uchuuchouten breathing loudly. Which suggests to me that not even air gets through those prisons. The guy must have been practically choking to death.

Whatever that Star shaped object that glowed in response to Bashin’s will, Nine has just mugged Uchuuchouten for it.

Uchuuchouten musters enough strength to grab Nine and tell him he won’t be lucky.

Jesus, aiming right for the equivalent of his balls aren’t ya Uchuuchouten?

Its short lived, Uchuuchouten falls unconscious again, Nine looks genuinely panicked by the experience though.

Something tells me Uchuuchouten got the shit kicked out of him rather than an actual battle had with Nine, if Nine is still THIS scared of Uchuuchouten in this state.

It does just look like a giant Cornerstone, I wonder what it is.

It appears the “King” is determined by whoever holds that.

And whatever it is, it doesn’t seem particularly picky about its wielder.

Does Nine not need to have victory over the Cornerstone holders to make use of the Cornerstones? So in other words he’s literally just taking a shortcut by using the Black Mask on J.

Convenient, Bashin arrives JUST missing Uchuuchouten. Damn, no potential for interaction between them.

Is Nine stalling for time so Bashin has to take on J and either way he gets a Cornerstone? Is that it?

Whatever intrigue Nine seemed to have in Bashin at this moment in time seems to have completely vanished. Bashin just seems like an oversight to him now, turning J back into Jack Knight makes sense for reforming the Numbers at the very least so its not like that can be considered a factor.

Alright, here we go, what seems to be the final battle!

Um, that’s not what USUALLY happens when you say those words…

I guess Nine at the last second developed a slightly newer Battle System for their final battle. I dig it.

Now what Eldritch Nonsense is Nine going to become halfway through this battle that actually makes the battle surprising?

So it appears this new system uses Isekai’s little card system here to elevate them as close to Isekai as possible. So they fight high in the Sky, closer to their Spirits, much like actually fighting in Isekai

Except this is a human colosseum, not the Battlefield Isekai uses.

I certainly hope Nine has something interesting up his sleeve, then again, Dark Siegfried vs Siegfrieden does sound pretty cool. Still.

…Nooooo…

NOOOOOOOO.

My Sunshine’s inspiration to become Suiren was Bashin’s OWN MOTHER!?

COME ON!

Does that mean that Hayami INDIRECTLY inspired the creation of Kiiroko, the Yellow Masked Fighter that Meganeko became?

Geez Hayami, you directly inspired TWO of the SIX Cornerstone holders in ways that supported them, that is kind of cool.

For reference this doesn’t feel awful because it only suggests Suiren got the idea from watching Hayami battle when she was much younger. Hayami has also inspired almost each and every single Cornerstone holder with the exception of Kyouka, she taught Bashin Battle Spirits, she gave Striker new hope as a battler when Sports was not an option, she got J while he was Jack Knight to pour his feelings out, she inspired Meganeko to take on Bashin.

And now we learn she was the first one to pull a Suiren therefore being who Suiren is based on? That’s awesome.

So, Turn 28, it’s Nine’s Turn. Bashin has Skulldemon and Goradon but no Nexuses.

And Nine’s board is just flat empty.

Each of them have full lives.

That would indicate 14 draw steps each, with Nine’s draw on this turn putting each of their Decks at 26 cards

with 14 Core Steps, Nine has 18 available Core, pending Core boost, but we know they won’t respect that in the slightest.

See what I mean? The guy throws out 25 Core’s worth of Spirits.

Also, THE GUY THROWS OUT 25 CORE’S WORTH OF SPIRITS.

Three X-Rares!?

So Nine summons The GiantHero Titus, The Gigantic Thor and The IceBeast Mam-Morl.

Most characters have a hard enough time dealing with one, if we’re lucky characters might get out a second, I think this is the first time we’ve had a single player wield three at once.

Titus’ effect when summoned destroys 10 cards in Bashin’s deck.

With a 40 card deck, Bashin would be at 16 cards.

Nine attacks with Mam-Morl but Bashin responds with a new card, Warning Attack.

Its a Simple BS05 card, if a “Winged Dragon” or “Flying Fang” family spirit attacks the turn its used on the Main step, the opponent has to block them. Otherwise its a +3000 BP combat trick.

Skulldemon is chosen as the target, gaining +3000 BP. At Lv2 this means Skulldemon is at 6000 BP.

Mam-Morl quite unluckily, also has 6000 BP at Lv1, the problem Nine ran into here is he played the 3 X-rares at once, and thus has very little core to ensure they’re strong enough.

With their BP equal, both are destroyed.

Mate he just took down a Cost 8 X-Rare with a Cost 2 Common card because you were a fucking moron.

Goradon blocks an attack from Thor, getting him bonked out of existence.

Nine completes his full attack with Titus, taking a life from Bashin. (5 – 5->4)

And throwing out 3 completely unrelated X-Rares at Lv1 will?

From the looks of things, Nine’s running what I can only describe as X-Rare soup, he’s stacked his deck with extremely large and complex cards and intends to keep using them one after another. I assume his excessive core rates are due to the fact that he’s used a deck to generate that core for him so that he CAN facilitate the high core requirements for those X-Rares.

The problem is, while the X-Rares might be good they’re not going to do much in a deck not tuned for them. Bashin’s “Simplicity” at least implies a strategy other than throwing big bunguses at people.

And as I say that he plays The Fairy Tanya, Rock-Golem and Gowsilvia.

This is a weird deck makeup.

That’s a cute line of logic but not one that’s conducive to an ACTUAL STRATEGY.

3 Random ass X-Rares are going to be better than 3 Random ass Spirits with no synergy!

Bashin full attacks, taking 3 lives from Nine (5->2 – 4)

And due to Rock-Golem’s effect, Nine loses a card off the top of his deck, and what a card it is.

That’s one less attack step Nine is ending.

Nine really is the smuggest prick of this show. Bashin’s out of spirits to attack with so his turn comes to an end.

You know what? I completely forgot that the Pets were on a mission to access the control room. Completely drew a blank on that.

Strangely enough, in the control room is where the other Cornerstone holders are being held. There’s even 2 empty slots for Bashin and J.

So it would SEEM that whenever a Cornerstone holder loses in the Satellite Dome they’re brought down here, and their Cornerstone’s power is used to activate the respective Dome in each area, 4 Domes have been activated.

But apparently this also drains the energy of the people being used as energy sources. So basically they’ll die in there if left unchecked.

That’s kind of a brutal thing to do to a bunch of middle schoolers who just want to play Card Games.

Never fear, a human with a basic understanding of Technology that an animal can never hope to achieve is here… doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue that one does it?

Speed Star takes off her shades, and J is also here which makes this process a lot easier given J wrote the program.

Titus is brought up to Lv2, thats gonna be dangerous for Bashin since he’s only got about 15 cards left in his deck, he can’t take on Titus head on.

Nine adds The TwinRowdy DIRANOS to his freaking legion of X-Rares apparently.

Nevermind, apparently Diranos was just the appetizer, Nine’s going straight into a Tribute.

Of course, playing The DarkDragonEmperor Siegfried at Lv3.

Every single Spirit Nine has played has been an X-Rare. This is starting to bother me.

And that’s not just because Nine has 3 X-rares with enough symbols to wipe out Bashin’s life.

Bashin takes a good long look at his board before deciding to take Thor’s attack, that’s kinda interesting.

The DarkDragonEmperor’s effect when attacking anihilates Bashin’s board as all of them are Non-Red Spirits with less than 4000 BP.

Bashin takes from the life, the score is now 2 – 1.

Nine of course, decides it would be poetic to finish Bashin off using a “Hero” with “The GiantHero Titus”

Bashin has other plans, using Mist Curtain.

Mist Curtain is a very simple Defense Magic that’s relatively low cost, but it has a nice effect that gives it interesting niches aside from Silent Wall. Simply put, Mist Curtain prevents a Spirit of your choice from damaging you this turn.

Its good for situations where the opponent has exactly enough to kill you in order to catch them off guard like Bashin did with Nine just now.

Bashin selects Titus in this case, therefore it cannot snatch any lives from Bashin this turn.

I dunno man, you’ve got a board of exhausted spirits and 2 lives, I’d say you’re in a wee bit o’ trouble.

Seems like the long and short of it, shame it assumes he could very well CONTROL the spirits to begin with if he even achieved such a thing.

Whatever it was, its no longer going to work now, kind of strange that its only like this BEFORE the climax of Nine’s battle as opposed to after incase Nine pulls a “fuck you I’ll do it anyway” attempt?

It turns out that control program was what was powering the Black Masks, so now the members of Sebiroth are free. And apparently super fuckin’ confused.

Oh hey, and they even went out of their way to become stress relievers for Bashin, now even if Nine wins he gets nothing out of it.

Nine is breaking dwon but it strangely feels VERY low impact.

His appearance has shifted ever so slightly to indicate his deranged state but… like… Why does it feel so hollow?

Does the guy even have the will to battle anymore? I certainly wouldn’t if every reason I was riding on this match just walked out on me.

Bashin’s in a pinch, so therefore its time to get 2 free cards.

Card Sensei and Eight are now free, and apologize to the group for being pains in the ass by being caught.

Smile is persisting in being an ungrateful little shit but he wouldn’t be likeable if he wasn’t.

Seven quite confidently suggests Smile has an opportunity to be friends with them since they saved him.

This is literally just the gathering of every somewhat relevant character in the series (which to be fair, is a fuckin’ lot here) before Bashin rips Nine a new asshole.

The ost takes another shift I’m liking the sound of though as Bashin plays Siegfried.

Bashin wastes no time offering up Siegfried as a Tribute in order to summon Siegfrieden at Lv3, Now Siegfrieden can wipe out any Cost 8 or less Spirit.

Titus is of course chosen, as the highest Cost Spirit Bashin can destroy.

Bashin then uses Dragon’s Rush on Siegfrieden, which is pretty nasty.

Now if any Ancient Dragon, Winged Dragon, or Dragon defeats an opposing spirit through the Showdown step, it will refresh. Siegfrieden inherits Siegfried’s “Ancient Dragon” Family. So its a valid user of that effect.

I mean, you ARE cornered. You can block all you want but Siegfrieden will just refresh anyway.

Nine uses Pure Elixir (This is a REALLY recurring staple in this series, along with Silent Wall) and we get this BEAUTIFUL frame of The DarkDragonEmperor refreshing, its really pretty.

Nine then follows up with Lightning Ballista, as Dark Siegfried has multiple symbols, its BP is raised by +5000. That puts it at 17000, which is higher than Siegfrieden’s 15000 BP at Lv3.

Lets see which Combat Trick Bashin pulls out here.

Its HIS OWN Lightning Ballista, that’s gotta be a giant middle finger to SOMEBODY.

Oh wow they made the 2 Evolved Siegfrieds mirror each other with Lightning Ballista, that’s REALLY fucking cool.

Anyway, with +5000 BP, Siegfrieden now operates at 20000 BP.

Which, quite interestingly was Dark Siegfried’s BP when it FIRST defeated Bashin.

This is actually really fuckin’ cool. A Clash of Firebreath!

Dark Siegfried uses the explosion to grab Siegfrieden by it’s throat.

Problem, Siegfrieden has cannons.

And you don’t want to be in the way of them when they fire.

The DarkDragonEmperor Siegfried is defeated by The SacredEmperor Siegfrieden.

Thanks to Dragon’s Rush, Siegfrieden is allowed to refresh and attack once more.

Ah gotta love it, no chance of a counterattack because Nine’s hand is FLAT EMPTY.

Siegfrieden gives one FINAL attack, wiping out the last of Nine’s lives AND whatever was left of his ambitions.

Everyone of course, comes to congratulate Bashin for his valiant effort in disassembling Nine.

I’ll admit, that last clash was pretty darn cool, though the fight itself was a little lacking in anything particularly technical, given it was basically just a slugfest with Bashin and Nine constantly full attacking each other.

Nine is, of course, throwing a shitfit because he lost.

Rage instead of defeat in an enemy is… uh… Not a good sign that they’ve lost.

This is a bit of a kick in the pants when Kitan AND Uchuuchouten declare that Nine has “Poor Luck”, while Nine has been displaying, above many things, TREMENDOUS Luck in his play.

Are you suggesting that Kitan and Uchuuchouten were just flat wrong because that seems strange.

Hayami comes to the conclusion that Nine isn’t relying on anyone but himself, so its love he lacks, not luck.

…Hm, Unsettling Burning Red eyes, yeah that DEFINITELY isn’t conducive to this being over.

Thanks for pointing that out show, I’d have been a little worried if our last battle was just Nine throwing X-Rares at Bashin, seems a little strange. But also there’s a second voice overlaying Nine’s.

Oh, Uchuuchouten’s little Cornerstone-like object has emerged from Nine’s body.

And its moved to the centre of the Dome, summoning up a Pillar of Red.

It appears whatever it did, it called upon Uchuuchouten to reclaim it

At that moment, we get the Internet’s greatest clickbait, a King Uchuuchouten FACE REVEAL.

Behold, this was who was under that weird Smiling Mask the whole time. This is apparently King Uchuuchouten’s true form.

Not gonna lie, kinda wish he kept the suit mostly. There’s very little design on this guy besides the armor, cape and head, his torso to leg area is just a splotch of Maroon.

Hayami of course, recognizes the voice, and this guy has BLAZING RED HAIR!

It appears now that Uchuuchouten has seemingly freed himself from that previous form he’s a lot more… “Gallant”

And refers to himself as “King Uchuuchouten the Great”, like Alexander the Great?

Uchuuchouten is now cashing in on his promised battle with Bashin now, after having recovered his Star thingy from Nine.

Uchuuchouten’s been this imposing figure for a while now, he’s telling Bashin to “Risk everything” but I don’t really see what stakes are being risked in this case?

But I guess we’ll find out next time! Cuz that’s the end of the episode!

We had 2 battles concluded this episode, Seven and Smile vs Bashin and J, and Nine vs Bashin.

The Tag Match was, actually, surprisingly good, Smile had a very nice emotional moment using his repeated Valiero White Potion combo to continue attacking.

And the first appearance of Siegfrieden was, of course, equally awesome, its a card that certainly leaves an impression with all the animation and effects its got.

It was a good battle, interesting methods and strategies employed.

Nine vs Bashin, while the final moments were certainly the COOLEST thing this series has ever deigned to show us, the fight itself was not all that special, Nine and Bashin throw out full attacks and the only thing indicative about Nine’s Deck is that it’s full of X-Rares. Its not a good battle because nothing interesting is happening until Siegfrieden vs Dark Siegfried.

As for the plot, we’re near the end, I did think the choice of J disabling Nine’s plan well before Nine was defeated was odd but that’s only really the case if Nine was the final villain, because there’s still one more step after this, finally taking on Uchuuchouten, who til this point has never battled so we have 0 idea what his deck contains.

Not to mention all the cast are actually here to witness the battle, so every character feels involved and important even though its only our MC that’s battling.

In any case, its late and I stayed up too late to deal with this, the Batosupi lecture only concerns Siegfrieden anyway, so I’ll see you all next time! For the FINAL episode!