We’re in the final stage, the King Uchuuchouten cup, last episode was the build up to that, which seems to be the reason why I seem so restless concerning its pacing.

Either way, Eight and Nine vs Striker and Suiren! Let’s get back into it!

Bit of a tautology but then again, most of Battle Spirits’ names are walking tautologies so I’ll let it slide.

Batosupi has never been the type to pass up the chance to overstate something.

It appears that plugging in the Virus J developed to shut down the Isekai Domes is a task to be handed to the animals and not the battlers.

Back to the battle however, Striker has a now Lv1 Beatbeetle and Flyingmirage, as well as The Fruit of Life and a Shackles of Doom that Suiren deployed to Striker’s field.

Suiren has a Draculious and The SevenShogun Desperado, Desperado was raised to Lv2 thanks to sweeping the enemy board last episode.

And of course, empty af field after Desperado picked it clean.

And we finally get a look at Nine’s Sides lives, they have 3 each, so this game is probably close to the end now.

Suiren has 2 attackers and Nine has 2 blockers however, so its not ending this turn if Suiren doesn’t change her board state.

It apparently won’t, considering Suiren just attacks with Desperado

With Desperado’s Lv2 effect, Taurusknight is reduced to 1 Core and rendered unable to block thanks to The Shackles of Doom.

Nine responds using a card that he caught Suiren with in their last battle, Awaken. It’ll let him move 3 Core from his Reserve to a spirit and then let Nine draw a card.

Taurusknight is brought to Lv2 thanks to Awaken.

And to ensure he claims Desperado with the block, he uses Taurusknight’s KEYWORD Awaken to raise its Level to 3 using Lizardedge’s remaining Core.

Taurusknight, with 9000 BP, ties with Desperado, and both are destroyed.

Kind of unfortunate, Suiren took every measure to ensure Nine wouldn’t be able to do that and he basically just did it anyway.

Nine levels up Lizardedge to Lv2, then plays a Lv2 UnicornDragon Volsung and a Lv2 Rokceratops.

I can’t help but feel like he’s setting up for a Destlord play later.

Incidentally, he plays Volsung BEFORE the Rokceratops, which is bad because Rokceratops is free but Volsung will have been given extra reduction if Rokceratops is played first.

Hard to see, but Suiren blocks with Draculious, Unfortunately Volsung is too strong for it right now at 9000 BP vs Draculious’ 6000.

Due to Desperado’s effect, Striker’s Spirits were afflicted by Desperado, and therefore have been brought to 1 Core, now The Shackles of Doom which normally assists Suiren’s strategy has screwed her partner over.

Nine full attacks, reducing Team Shomen Toppa to 1 life.

With only 3 lives and Striker with 2 spirits, that’s kind of reckless, either Nine or Eight has counters.

We have yet to hear a single one of Nine’s motivations for doing any of this whatsoever I’ve just realized, so its hard to contextualize most of his reactions other than he’s just being evil.

You know not having people you can call friends is a really easy way to get depressed to a level where you might consider wanting to pull a stunt like Nine is pulling, I certainly hope his motivation for this bullshit isn’t that.

Striker plays 2 Lv2 MachGs and raises the other 2 Spirits on his field to Lv2 once again, this is a necessity because The Shackles of Doom would otherwise have them not be there.

Because Green is the fastest colour and Purple is quite difficult to deal with, it appears Nine structured the brackets himself to ensure that Suiren and Striker were paired up, to make the first rounds faster.

Striker plays The Duke Kingtaurus, as Striker has 4 other Spirits, he gains 4 core which is enough to bring it to Lv2 on its own.

Striker was hoping to use Kingtaurus to get through to Eight but Eight doesn’t respond, Mask control too strong I guess.

Um, there isn’t a rule that states you can’t Level Down a Spirit once it gains core, so Striker offering up Kingtaurus while its at Lv2 with 5 Core is a little silly, especially considering the Core he’s offering goes to the VOID.

And the first dual-coloured spirit to be played in the series arrives, The GreatArmoredLord Deathtaurus.

The cool thing about Dual-Coloured spirits in this show is that often times you get cool effects like this showing the combination of the 2 colours.

I wish I could be certain that it looks as cool as it seems but QUALITYYYYY

Hold on.

That’s a little better, I hopped to the alternative sub as they have slightly better quality video. But a significant drop in the quality of subs.

Nine is evidently started by the appearance of an X-Rare he couldn’t have possibly planned for because it otherwise didn’t exist until Elliott supplied the kids with it.

And its this moment where the battle system fucks Nine because Isekai will realise the card regardless.

Striker triggers the effect when summoned, since all of Nine’s Spirits are exhausted, it gains 3 core.

For some reason the show acts like this extra core brings Deathtaurus to Lv3 but it was already at Lv3 when Striker played it.

Oh, seems Nine was mildly aware of their existence but didn’t expect him to have completed them in time.

Deathtaurus attacks, represented by both Striker AND Suiren declaring it.

Eight interrupts, using Pure Elixir to refresh all of Nine’s Spirits.

Volsung is selected as the Blocker.

But very few things are a match for a natural 13000 BP. DarkDragonEmperor Siegfried wouldn’t be able to take Deathtaurus in a straight fight.

With Deathtaurus’ effect, Rokceratops’ 2 core is sent to the Void.

Oh right, Striker DOES have 4 other Spirits. With 1 Blocker, Nine can’t defend.

Unless he does exactly that I guess. I wasn’t anticipating it, seemed perfect almost.

Striker’s Spirits and Nine’s remaining Lizardedge are destroyed, leaving Striker and Suiren with only an exhausted Deathtaurus and 1 Life.

Which is… Bad.

I mean they used it fine, that wasn’t the problem, it was the REST of their spirits.

If you’ve got Flame Tempest and can pay for it, you’ve got Flame Tempest.

Eight plays The SevenShogun Pandemium, the Purple X-Rare debuted by Elliott.

Eh, its a better fit in Eight’s hands anyway given she actually uses a Purple Deck… When she’s not using a Green one anyway.

Naturally all Eight can do is attack with Pandemium.

Apparently it isn’t going to be over so easily, as they refresh Deathtaurus using White Potion.

Since its here, I might as well use the higher quality images for segments where the low quality actually makes things hard to see.

Deathtaurus wipes out Pandemium no problem, but that appears to be a problem for the Cornerstone holders at least.

Nine gives a short laugh and then shows a face of what I can only describe as the annoyance one has when they can’t get a speck of dirt off their suit.

At this moment, Eight declares the effect of Pandemium when its destroyed, forcing Striker and Suiren to discard 5 cards. Striker’s only got a single card but Suiren’s hand is quite hefty. Though I’m sure that there are 5 or somewhat less than 5 in there.

Eight and Nine’s fields are empty though? They can’t play any new spirits at this timing, and well, the Cornerstone holders still have Deathtaurus, so what’s the play?

Oh wait, I’m being stupid, Deathtaurus isn’t capable of attacking because it’s STRIKERS Spirit. Any player can block but Players can only attack with their own Spirits I believe.

I don’t think hoping you would White Potion Deathtaurus could be considered an aim when the alternative was your last life, more a well-placed contingency.

either way, Eight’s got no cards in hand, Nine has to defend himself.

Suiren draws a dud, Soul Crash only works if you have a SevenShogun in hand to summon, otherwise its completely useless except as a Battle-boost which Deathtaurus is not going to be in need of.

Suiren ends her turn, unable to do much.

Nine really has some poor relationship with that concept doesn’t he?

Lucky Number Nine over here draws a Double Draw.

Oh fuck off, playing “Double Draw” should not be considered ANYONE’S special move, it’s Double Draw! It lets you draw 2! That’s a RED Property not a BASHIN Property!

Nine plays DragonicFortress Giga.

Here it comes, X-Rare vs X-Rare. Tribute vs Tribute.

And Nine summons The DarkDragonEmperor Siegfried at Lv3 which only clocks it in at 12000 BP. But if Suiren’s refresh step didn’t Refresh Deathtaurus then these guys are screwed.

I like how Striker recognizes the card as “Jack Knight’s Spirit” but SOMEONE needed to have provided that card to Jack Knight and I certainly don’t think Elliott was in the business of giving Jack Knight anything besides White cards after how well Thor did.

But who knows, Smile gave him a Yellow card, so.

That was… Unexpected. I was not anticipating that Nine along with Eight would actually win. Especially after Striker and Suiren unveiled their new card while Eight and Nine used tried and true tactics.

Well that’s half-true, only Nine has actually used Dark Siegfried in the deck its meant to be played in. Red.

Not sure how, Striker and Suiren seem like they just left with them.

J gives a very optimistic “Its fine as long as NO ONE ELSE LOSES”

Thanks J, really supportive member of this team you are, no fucking pressure AT ALL.

Oh boy, Suiren and Striker are getting zapped the same way Kiano and Elliott were.

Getting sent to whatever fitting room you have them put on the masks in?

Poof. Suiren and Striker are gone. Nine must be somewhat relieved given that new X-Rare came out of nowhere and damn near ruined his plans.

Interesting how J calls out to him but then corrects himself from “Nine” to Kyuusaku’s actual name.

I guess because the Numbers Elite are meant to be elite battlers worthy of respect but Nine is being a massive piece of shit so J just defaults to his name.

I see no one actually thinks they’re dead and just thinks they’ve been captured or imprisoned somewhere to use as leverage, good optimism this show has.

ah, the ol’ “What, you signed up for this” move one tends to use on people who are expressly stating that they did not, in fact, sign up for this.

I was about to ask “What’s stopping them from just taking their Cornerstones and pissing off” and then I remembered the audience is entirely comprised of Sebiroth members and they could very well likely seize the kids before anyone has the chance to call the police, leaving Nine enough time to do as he wishes before ending the world.

Bashin answers this with his usual “Break through the front” statement, which everyone else joins in with.

It appears that Nine intends to put a stop to them by using their family members this time around to shake their resolve.

Its an interesting match up if the Decks are still the way they were before. Kitan’s Green Deck and Kiano’s White deck vs Yellow and hopefully Blue.

I guess we skip to later in the fight. Alright

Smile has spent a LOT of time calling Nine “tasteless”, I guess Smile doesn’t agree with his methods of using basically whatever tactics to win.

I don’t see a problem, it vibes with Smile’s exact brand of strenght, which is to discard kindness.

Then again, its not like Smile is going out of his way to be insensitive like Nine is.

Smile I guess catches himself muttering, given that no member of Sebiroth is really going to chat with him.

Oh… oh…

That’s the Rub isn’t it, its not that Nine is being unkind its that Nine is operating like a Coward.

That’s what’s rubbing Smile the wrong way! He feels like a hypocrite!

I’m not sure which team he’s referring to, I’m guessing that Nine’s cowardly tactics are going to result in Kiano and Kitan losing to Meganeko and Kyouka, which is unfavourable. But he could also be suggesting that Meganeko and Kyouka’s loss is a foregone conclusion based on who their opponents are.

Either way, Smile feels the need to prepare for the next battle.

And apparently Four is being paired with Seven.

Smile does not seem to like the fact that even the mask is leaving Seven in his “Nanao” state. Especially since the fact that the Numbers Elite recruited him to be Galaxy Seven.

And the caged Dragon roars!

This isn’t Smile’s idea of strength, whatsoever.

This is really accentuating Nine’s sheer despicableness that even his most loyal servant, such that he wasn’t even granted a black mask, is starting to despise their usage.

Huh, Meganeko and Kyouka lost, at least Nine’s plan requires total victory over all of them, they need to beat Bashin and J or Nine’s plan fails.

This is kind of upsetting though, Kyouka and Meganeko couldn’t bring themselves to fight family.

Meganeko has a bit of a heartfelt shpeal that I have not the patience to sit through because it doesn’t culminate into a love confession.

The Love confession would be appropriate here too because apparently these pre-transport containers are fucking soundproof.

Meganeko’s at least able to tell Bashin his catchphrase by getting him to lip read.

And they get transported away.

I bet Nine’s feeling pretty pleased with himself, his masked Numbers not even losing a single battle.

UNDERSTANDABLY IRRITATED, Bashin and J wish to challenge Nine, If J’s program functions they only need to win ONE tag battle to completely overload it.

That is, if the previous episodes are consistent with their logic, but then again we didn’t hear specifications of the plan.

Hmm… Nine selected the opponents quite carefully. In the first round he pitted Striker against the woman who taught him and who awarded him his first X-Rare, and he’s defeated Suiren before, he couldn’t use any other leverage because he lacks knowledge on Suiren’s identity and no other close friends are a member of the Numbers.

Kyouka and Meganeko are very passionate people, as such they would be deeply affected going against members of their family they care about deeply.

And now, its Smile and Seven, arguably the strongest members of the Numbers, and in addition, Smile is J’s intended Tag partner and has given J many cards, while Seven was the one who inspired Bashin to use Blue cards in his deck, and has granted him 2 X-Rares.

I’m not sure about you, but I feel like you really should have protested after the fucking first one.

…Is it not? They made J into an asshole. They made SMILE into an asshole.

Their business is asshole production, they are a group of assholes.

What part of this is off-brand?

…Alright you win, that’s pretty fucked up.

The guy just lost his girlfriend and you just lost your sister, give him a sec.

I think literally anyone involved in this was so because they either held a Cornerstone or were the enemy long before you were fucking born.

IN WHAT WAY!?

The summary of this statement appears to be that Bashin’s “Break through the front” philosophy has Bashin completely focused on what’s infront of him and what comes next as opposed to what has happened. Not understanding when he’s involved other people in his problems.

Except none of the people here were involved because of Bashin and Bashin alone!? The Pets already designated who was chosen, it was only a matter of time!

And the Nazo-Otonas couldn’t be uninvolved if they fucking tried, Card Sensei is a walking example of that.

Its nice and all its just a shame that this emotional moment is predicated on something that is straight up incorrect from my point of view.

We call that, speaking too soon, J is also bawling his eyes out even as he’s proceeding.

And to think, at the start of the series J wanted absolutely nothing to do with him and was looking down on him the whole time, then J became second-fiddle to Bashin to the extent he even stood on opposite sides to him, now they’re on equal footing on the same side.

So what happens if Nine loses this battle then? He can’t have simply left himself in a situation where one loss ruins his plan right?

Also! Hey! Galaxy Seven! Smile must have removed his mask.

Nine.exe has stopped working.

I understand that Galaxy Seven appearing here throws a giant-sized wrench into Nine’s plans but he said earlier that there are limits to the abilities of those who wear black masks, Galaxy Seven appearing here as himself means that he’s going to be at full power.

Which is bad for Bashin and J.

Smile even goes as far as to call J by the name “Jack Knight” to stir him but J sidesteps it quite easily, showing a rare moment of character development, rather than irritadedly responding with “Don’t call me that”, as he did with his Father and those that called him “J” during his Jack Knight phase, he just politely states “I don’t use that name” and follows up.

Smile is indicating that he already disagreed with Nine from the beginning but is only here because he wants to fight J and Bashin.

It appears, even though Smile and Seven both have no intention of serving Nine’s interests, their drive to find out who’s the strongest tag team completely overrides their sense of righteousness at this moment.

Well I don’t expect to find one either given that we’ve only ever HEARD of the combination between Smile and Jack Knight and never actually fucking SEEN it.

A really strong criticism I have for this show, they told us and didn’t show us the “Perfect Tag” and the whole subplot was resolved without us seeing it cracked.

This is common in Card Game anime, honestly it should really be a listed trope in TvTropes (I’m sure it already is, I just haven’t found it) where the main characters are determined to defeat our Big Bad but they’ve run into characters who, while not siding with the Big Bad, are opposing them JUST for the purposes of fighting them when they’re serious.

Bashin and J’s situations haven’t changed, if they lose they’re screwed and they NEED to win, Smile and Seven are using this as the opportunity to determine which of them is stronger given their current state of mind.

I guess Smile tearing off Seven’s mask is too many variables for Nine to allow.

Bashin’s field is, to say the least, complete trash. The Middle of Hard Battle is not a good card.

And from this angle we can see that Team Shomen Toppa have 5 lives remaining.

Team Numbers Elite on the other hand have 7 lives, and Seven has a Collapse of the Battle Line and a new Nexus at Lv2

“The Loss of Heroes” is a Nexus from the first set Blue came out in, BS03, at Lv1 your opponent has to mill cards from their deck any time their hand increases, and at Lv2 if your “Soldier” family spirit loses a Battle, the opponent mills 5 cards.

There are a few “Soldier” cards available, especially in BS03, but most are high cost. There are a couple low cost soldiers in some later sets though as well.

The relevant detail here, is that The GiantHero Titus, is one such “Soldier”

Oof, nasty, Smile has an Arcanabeast-Paira and a Lv2 Mikafar, all his Magic is costless.

Speaking of Mikafar, at TIME OF WRITING that fucking card got unbanned and restricted to 1! Its crazy how this shit happens!

Smile on the other hand has been granted TWO new nexuses as opposed to just one, lets have a look.

Smile’s got an interesting set of cards here, The Blessed Sanctuary kind of acts similarly to a Fruit of Life Nexus, except it operates on Yellow Spirit destruction, rather than Life loss. And its Lv1 gains core while the Lv2 draws cards.

The Topaz Meteor however, makes every Nexus gain 2 Yellow reduction, that’s kind of gnarly given that enables Yellow to wield off-colour Nexuses extremely effectively. Its 3 Cost 3 Reduction is a free symbol on the board as well with the right set up and as if to hit the point home it can make every Nexus Lv2 with arguably its rather hefty Lv2 requirement but its probably a lot cheaper than making every Nexus you have Lv2 manually.

Bashin plays “The Burning Battlefield” onto J’s Field at Lv2, bit of a strange choice but Suiren did this for Striker as well and Striker happened to have the Deathtaurus.

In this case, I reckon J’s the one running Siegfrieden.

Smile and Seven don’t seem to think much of it because J’s deck is not a deck for attacking. Or maybe its because his deck lacks red cards.

Even so I’m pretty sure Thor would appreciate the boost in power don’t you?

Bashin goes to ol’ faithful Siegfried.

Bashin launches an attack with Siegfried but Smile blocks it with Paira.

Smile draws and passes, citing that he’s unable to attack.

I would say Siegfried’s exhausted but perhaps Smile doesn’t have a contingency if J has White Magic to refresh it, he would just be losing Mikafar.

So erring on the side of cautiousness until he’s in a better position to deal with the problem

J plays Dualcannon-Bell, an Armed Machine, and Thor, the Spirit that wields Armed Machines.

Thor is at Lv3 too, but J’s nowhere close to finishing them off with this.

Mikafar being refreshed is a problem, as Dualcannon-Bell can’t attack that way safely, so J opts to attack with Thor and exhaust Dualcannon-Bell to raise Thor’s BP to 11000.

As I just said, The Burning Battlefield is not a bad choice for Thor.

Burning Battlefied raises Thor’s BP to 12000 and forces Smile’s only remaining Spirit, Mikafar, to block.

Thor just fucking plants his fist THROUGH Mikafar, holy shit.

J then uses the Lv3 effect of Thor to destroy Dualcannon-Bell and refresh Thor.

With no spirits its pretty safe to attack now, and its not like Smile or Seven would use Red Spirits.

Huh, J opts to leave Thor as a Blocker, alright, but Seven isn’t the type to aim for lives.

Oh hey, Bashin has Lightning Ballista in this deck, and strangely enough a “Warning Attack”… that’s a card that only properly supports Winged Dragons and Flying Fang Spirits.

Awww geez, he’s following up with Castle-Golem? With 2 Nexuses that’s a 10-card mill on top of Titus’ initial one for 20 cards.

That’s HALF a deck.

He decides to target Bashin’s deck again.

I wonder, does the entire team lose if ONE of them runs out of cards?

Balls, he’s using the Blue-Purple Titus combo, using Killer Telescope to let Titus target attack.

And of course, the only exhausted Spirit available is Siegfried.

Siegfried’s at Lv1 too. That ain’t good.

Smile notes that if Titus’ manages to defeat Siegfried that’ll be another 10 cards out of Bashin’s deck, I don’t think he’d be out of cards given there’s 4 of them and there would be 4 times the turns and half the draws but 30 cards is basically a death sentence in 1v1 Battle Spirits.

J decides the best thing to do here is play TWO Defensive Auras to raise Siegfried’s BP by 6000.

Well, that will do it, Siegfried’s BP is now matching its Lv3 BP, 10000.

With no longer having enough BP to win, Titus is destroyed.

Galaxy declares the effect of The Loss of Heroes, since Titus, a “Soldier” family Spirit was destroyed.

Bashin loses another 5 cards, it was kind of like a Catch-22, Bashin was going to lose cards either way it was just a matter of how many.

Castle-Golem decides to use Killer Telescope’s effect this time, discarding 3 cards from Bashin’s deck as Seven controls 3 Blue Symbols.

Castle-Golem is tough, at 12000 BP, Siegfried’s 10000 BP remains after defensive aura but its still weaker.

Siegfried is destroyed.

Huh, wasn’t expecting that.

I mean the situation is bad-ish sure, but Smile has no spirits and only 2 cards in his hand and you guys have 5 lives.

And checking the Wiki for Dual Battle rules, BOTH player’s decks need to be 0 for the start step loss to occur, though god knows if that’s what they’re going with for this.

Hayami has gone to the Nazo-Otona priest to retrieve a Pink Briefcase.

The past has an interesting way of catching up to people, you can move on from something but you can’t try to pretend events didn’t occur.

Oh shit, the episode’s over.

Well this one detailed a sequence of events occurring fight after fight so it didn’t have the same pacing issue the other episode had.

Interestingly I think this was the last straw for Nine and the Numbers Elite, just about every member has now betrayed him in some way or form, when people who don’t mind being legitimately evil are getting pissed off with the way you’re acting you know you’ve fucked something up.

I suppose we can review the reasons people left.

Number Two – Resigned because he had been reached out to by Striker and remembered why he’d created Battle Spirits, additionally, he felt that Nine betrayed the game.
Number Three – Resigned just before Jack Knight fought Bashin as a way of reconciling with his son after failing to do so several times.
Number Four – Didn’t officially resign, but betrayed Nine by tearing off Seven’s mask because he felt Nine’s actions were too cowardly, and cowardice is something Smile detests.
Number Five – Left the group initially under the pretense of watching those who held Cornerstones but did so in response to his failure concerning Smile, eventually handed in his resignation after Kiiroko succeeded in defeating Smile at the Gunslinger, strangely the only resignation not tangentially related to Nine. Though previous episodes have indicated he left because he was aware of Nine’s betrayal very early on.
Number Seven – Never officially resigned, but willingly offered Bashin 2 X-Rares of his own, allowing Bashin to win several games against the Numbers Elite, but was forced to wear a Black Mask and become a member of Sebiroth, indicating that Nine considered him rebellious enough to subdue.
Number Eight – Has interacted with Nine the most, generally doesn’t like him, forced to perform duties for Nine outside the designations of Uchuuchouten, but felt that his method of eliminating Team Shomen Toppa through disqualification was a dirty tactic such that she openly took part as a member of their team, and eventually was convinced to leave after being defeated by Card Sensei.
Number Nine – Not really applicable. Though it would be funny if Nine retired because of Nine.
Number Ten – Retired rather than resigned, didn’t do so for reasons that had anything to do with Nine but that didn’t stop him from having multiple criticisms of Nine’s behaviour, down to attacking his poor luck. A source of Nine’s insecurities.
Number Eleven – Resigned just before fighting with Bashin as the match would have completed his goal of either being shown an alternative path to strength or leading him to battle Uchuuchouten either way it ended. Indicated to have never been willing to support the Numbers as a member of their ranks after stealing data and being caught by Nine doing so.

And we still have no idea why we lack a Number Six, even in the Manga of this series, a Number Six doesn’t actually exist.

Though given that Number Ten has retired as an old man and never got his Number replaced, its likely that whoever Number Six was isn’t walking this mortal coil anymore.

The Batosupi Lecture covers Deathtaurus, the combination X-Rare Striker and Suiren used and then proceeded to lose with.

They do comment that because the Spirit is hellishly strong and demands 2 colours to use effectively, that it might be difficult to use.

In my experience playing this game for a relatively long time, individual cards are often not very difficult to use. Though in this case it is warranted as every other card in this series has been single-coloured and relied on nothing but its own colour to get on the field, in this case you have to have excellently gathered a balance of 2 colours to meet its maximum reductions which can be much harder than simply using off-colour cards to support your deck.

Anyway, thanks for coming to my Ted Talk, I’ll see you for the next one! 2 Episodes remain!

Last episode gave us the relative idea of Nine’s plan, a suggestion on how to stop it, and a valiant effort of previous enemies, however vain it was.

This is the 4th to last episode, let’s see what else is going to happen given the events of last episode.

This feels like another Tournament related episode, “The Curtain Raised” was used last time during the start of a tournament.

Batosupi TV giving us the updates, Bashin and J are going to be a Tag Team for the King Uchuuchouten cup.

Because who could have seen that coming?

I have literally 0 clue what the fuck a “Palace Battle” is.

I tried googling it but as you can imagine the only results I got were Pokemon’s “Battle Palice”

Oh okay, so the “Cup” is really only going to consist of 2 teams going at it, a bit like a World Cup Match in Football.

All of the games involved will consist of Tag battles against Number Nine.

And of course, if they defeat Nine’s Team, they’ll qualify for a special match against King Uchuuchouten, the details of how that would work are not said.

I can totally imagine Nine completely dismissing those details because he’s confident he will win, and if he loses, well its not his problem anymore.

Kitan was watching Batosupi TV and is interrupted by a Customer.

Said Customer is Nine of all people, you’d think he’d have dealt with all remaining matters concerning Kitan when Kitan failed to sway his opinion and left.

Nine quite literally tells Kitan that he’ll be present for the King Uchuuchouten cup, and doesn’t seem to suggest that Kitan has a choice, citing “I’ve made arrangements for that behaviour”

Welp, the masks have GOT to be mind control at this point.

We cut to Card Sensei, understandably looking for the now missing Number Eight. Deciding to look for her at her school.

Oh, apparently she managed to leave a message? Perhaps we’ll glean more info about our baddies-

Its not entirely obvious who’s speaking, its Aibou

Ignoring the fact that Aibou shouldn’t have heard shit being a domestic mouse, its possible that those who become members of Sebiroth only leave the Isekai Dome when Nine instructs them to do something.

And given the nature of the masks themselves, its equally possible that Nine isn’t risking allowing them to eat or drink lest the mask removal causes his mind control to wear off.

Which means half of Sebiroth will be in dire need of sustenance once they’re free of Nine

You’ve been jumping to conclusions literally all series, and sometimes the wrong one.

Why has it taken you 47 episodes to learn how to think?

Card Sensei is rummaging through the staffroom and found a picture of Eight and the students.

Card Sensei is apparently spotted by the cool half of the Cornerstone 6.

Meganeko continues to search the empty halls but is alerted to the sound of Piano.

Given that they’re still on summer vacation and shouldn’t actually be on school grounds right now, this is likely very strange, Bashin is deaf to rhythm and Striker likely doesn’t show an interest in anything that isn’t sport.

I get the whole “Oh shit its someone different that’s unexpected” idea but what reason does fucking Baito-san have to be here, much less why is she playing a fuckin’ Piano?

Interesting mechanism for the brainwashing, those possessed by the masks recognise their original names but don’t see themselves as that person.

She seems aware of the search for Number Eight, but why is Sebibai (Sebiroth Baito-san) here?

It could be an attempt to defeat a Cornerstone wielder but wouldn’t Nine want all of the Cornerstones on hand for the battle?

Though this could be a backup incase they don’t turn up, “Assassins” if you will, to collect the Cornerstones.

I guess that contextualizes why she’s there, she wanted to bring a bag from the school to Eight.

I was going to suggest that “vanished” or “disappeared” meant she would have been sent to the same place Kiano and Elliott were but if that were the case then SebiBai wouldn’t need to bring a bag to her.

SebiBai talks real slow so I’ll summarise, she’s mentioned that along with Eight “vanishing”, Number Two (Elliott) and Number Three (Kiano) have all also vanished.

Welp, you pushed the Grandpa button

Show her what she won Meganeko!

Strangely, Meganeko doesn’t even wait for SebiBai to answer before opening the gate.

47 Episodes and she’s only now figured out that she can actually use her ability to open the gate to trap people.

Jumping to Turn 30 on Baito’s turn huh.

So its 1v2 lives, 1v4 spirits.

Meganeko seems to have an advantage but only 2 lives with a board of fully exhausted spirits is dangerous.

Because then this shit happens…

Though not quite as spectacularly costed. Xen-Fu, Big-Loki and a Negapluto? All of which are Cost 7. I’m not even sure of any deck makeups that can handle 4 differently coloured Cost 7s.

4 Cost 7s vs Meganeko’s 2 lives sounds a little difficult, I’m anticipating either Silent Wall, or Same Tired.

That was to be expected, with this SebiBai will have all her spirits exhausted and only take one life.

Couple counters to this involve Double Hearts, Pure Elixir, you know, things that deal with precisely this problem.

Meganeko exhausts SebiBai’s entire board, however as Negapluto was already attacking, it continues, reducing Meganeko to a single life.

I won’t lie I wasn’t actually expecting SebiBai’s turn to end, I guess this game will end rather quickly because there will be a number of these types of battles this episode.

Nothing like a New X-Rare to steal you some quick wins. Even better, the 2 DarkPiyons + Arcanabeast-Ken means Rean’s Lv3 effect is live.

Rean attacks, which SebiBai uses Pure Elixir.

Pretty standard but Rean can’t really be blocked.

Oh, that’s surprising, I was almost SURE Meganeko was just going to run all over SebiBai there.

Mild turn for the worse, Rean’s Lv3 effect when attacking is continuous, it doesn’t grant itself an unblockable state for the turn while attacking, its as long as 3 cost 2s exist, if even one of them vanish, either after his attack has begun, he’ll be blockable after.

And Rean’s got a crazy low BP score of 8000 at Lv3.

Big-Loki blocks, gaining 3000 BP, we saw SebiBai put 2 core on it, so its at Lv2, meaning its BP is 9000, which is better than Rean’s

I wasn’t aware we were planning to go for the “Lose your new X-Rare” speedrun, its been 2 episodes!

AND THEN MEGANEKO SCOOPS!?

I guess the situation’s pretty dire, even with another Same Tired and the spirits to use it with she has only a single life and well, SebiBai has 4 spirits.

I can’t think of anything that could save her that mostly comprises of Yellow cards. There is a White 2-card combo that could end any attack step without even losing a life on an empty board but that would demand that Meganeko have both Silent Wall, and a card called “Mist Curtain” which prevents a Spirit from damaging your life.

Bashin and Striker, in search for Meganeko, conveniently find the rest of the Cornerstone 6 + Card Sensei.

Also, can I say? If Baito-san is still using the same voice actor, I want to applaud the lady voicing her, because she sounds NOTHING like Baito-san and genuinely threatening whereas Baito-san sounded much more playful. Good job.

Her voice actor is listed as Makiko Ohmoto.

Oh! She voices Kirby! And is also the voice of Viridi from Kid Icarus. Thats kind of cool.

Ay, Card Sensei recognizes Eight’s Bag, isn’t that cute?

What’s with SebiBai’s analysis of those who have had awakened Cornerstones? She’s probably just being aware of them but its to an unsettling degree.

Also would it not be more effective to possess them with masks? Then again I suppose the Cornerstones need free will to function.

SebiBai feels the need to once again iterate that Eight is gone.

Bashin of course, probably feels very strongly about Baito-san given that she spent a lot of time looking after him as a child.

Cool as it is, Mind Control wouldn’t be very good if it faltered at the first sign of recognition. Granted some Mind Control tropes make the understanding that the Brain is overly complex and people not fully understanding it causes it to leave gaps in the Mind control that the brain can use to free itself. Doesn’t seem to be the case here though.

Also she just fucking SWATS Bashin, holy shit.

Or to sound so fucking cool!
I know, not the time, sorry.

Meganeko is more than a little broken about her loss, given that the whereabouts of Eight and her Grandfather were riding on it.

I’m sorry, look at Bashin’s face here, that’s a rare look, has he developed as a character since the last time he saw Meganeko cry?

The first time he completely ignored her, the second time he supported her but otherwise kept his usual optimism, now though its completely different, he’s actually concerned, a face he’s been making since J became Jack Knight.

The situation is more dire of course, but he’s handling it with a much greater level of maturity than he deals with most things, he’s GROWIN’ UP!

Many things are legal in this world but still morally unforgiveable.

One of those things, is making Meganeko cry.

A rare moment of rage for Bashin, I love it.

Yes I have an extreme adoration for when characters in anime show genuine rage, sue me.

Oh, it appears the Masks have at least been available long enough for Card Sensei to know about them, there are a hell of a ton of them so they would have to have been manufacturing them for a while.

Uh, interesting way of describing Mind Control, it doesn’t “Control their minds” it suppresses their free will? I guess that’s why all of the members of Sebiroth are still aware of themselves and others within their ranks..

Based on SebiBai’s description of “The Soul of the person that had that name has disappeared”, and Nine informing Kiano and Elliott to, well, “Disappear”

The matching vague choice of wording could imply that its one and the same.

I have a hard time believing they could get a mask on Kiano’s face with his huge ass chin in the way though.

Card Sensei says something that could be considered rather reasonable, given that previous members of Thousand Spirits Group have all chosen not to follow Nine, with the exception of Smile, Thousand Spirits Group is likely not the problem here, it’s JUST Nine, so they specify that their opposition isn’t the group as a whole, it’s the current management.

The Cornerstone 6 inform Card Sensei that Elliott and Kiano left them a message.

Ah yes, that useless message that does nothing but inform them that they’re unavailable.

Oh, they DID leave Kiano’s card collection with them.

I don’t remember the tape leaving a password combination to the briefcase but hey, maybe J already knew it.

They even show us the cards, WELP, you know what time it is!

Its time to review! I should probably caveat this with that not all 5 cards in that briefcase are X-Rares, only the bottom 2 are.

So we’ll deal with the non X-Rares first.

3 members of BS05’s “Dragon Rider” series, they’re all Cost 6 Spirits that hold the ability of allowing you to ignore the need to Tribute them by having you exhaust them instead, all of them additionally have an effect that supports “Dragon Emperor” and “Vanity Deity” family cards.

We know of the Dragon Emperors, the 7 Dragons in BS04 that all wield Double Symbols, but we have not seen a single card with the “Vanity Deity” family just yet.

And that’s because they do not yet exist, this was a pre-emptive effect they were granted for Cards that come out a little later.

Regardless, the only Tribute Spirits that exist are not Dragon Emperors aside from Dark Siegfried, so hilariously these cards are more of a use to Nine than anyone else.

Now for the other 2 cards.

Behold, the final 2 X-Rares of BS05, and our first face-to-face look at a Dual-Coloured Spirit. A Spirit with 2 Reductions and even a Spirit with 2 differently coloured Symbols.

Let’s talk about Siegfrieden first, an evident combination between Siegfried and Odin, Bashin and J’s first 2 X-Rares, as such it shares their families and even has an effect when Siegfried or Odin is used as the Tribute for it. Increasing the Cost Limit of it’s destruction effect from 5 to 8. So there is value in speeding up its Tribute with a different card but you’ll hamper the damage you can do with it.

Still, that effect on attack at Lv3 is GNARLY for this time, its a relatively high BP limit, and lets not mention the wopping 15000 BP at Lv3, that’s the highest we’ve seen, its just a shame that its Lv1 and Lv2 are only 1000 BP apart before shooting up by 8000 BP.

Weirdly enough, Siegfrieden doesn’t hold ANY of the traits of its previous 2 counterparts in terms of effect, aiming for straight up destruction in both cases which neither Siegfried nor Odin can do.

The GreatArmoredLord Deathtaurus is a combination of SevenShogun’s Desperado and Kingtaurus. “Des” and “Death” are pronounced the same in Japanese as they don’t differentiate between “S” and “Th” sounds.

This surprisingly makes Japanese quite legible under the effects of Lisps and Lambdacism (inability to properly pronounce “S” and “L” sounds)

Deathtaurus has a slightly tuned variation of its 2 predecessors effects rather than requiring that its 2 predecessors be used as tribute to faciliate it’s effects. Firstly it can consider the opponent’s Spirits when gaining Core on summon with a downside of only being able to consider exhausted spirits. Getting exhausted Spirits on YOUR end of the board is hard, unless of course, you use a Dragon Rider. Its Kingtaurus’ effect, but given a Purple aspect.

At Lv3, Deathtaurus has another variation of Kingtaurus’ effect but given a Purple aspect, namely its effect when it defeats an opposing Spirit, it can send a total of 2 cores from any opposing Spirits to the Void. This is nasty because those are effectively permanently lost Cores, its 13000 BP at Lv3 isn’t much to scoff at either, its a shame it requires 7 core, which can be expedited with it’s effect on summon but still crazy.

Anyway, I’ve droned on about cool cards long enough, on with the show!

Card Sensei sees them and is like “Cool but you realise this is a terrible idea right?”

A Trap is a prediction of what a person will do, and employing an action that takes advantage of that, usually at that person’s expense. Usually this requires hiding the Trap so that the victim is unsuspecting.

However, the best Traps are those that you know someone will walk into regardless of whether or not they know about it. Because they have to. But like at that point it’s not really a “Trap” because they’re aware of it, its just the expectation of opposition.

Like they know Nine is going to try and oppose them, the Tournament being a “Trap” because Nine WANTS them to fight there isn’t really changing the situation.

You can do nothing and 100% lose, or you can do something and have a slightly lesser percentage to lose.

Elliott offered them cards but they only have 1 of each new X-Rare?
Plus there’s nothing for Kyouka and Meganeko in this particular instance.

Meganeko probably won’t need one, she just got Rean from Kitan but Kyouka is kinda chopped liver here.

Listen, he may not have a Cornerstone, but he IS really good at card games.

And in the end, isn’t that all that really matters?

Nine is also operating without Cornerstones, they’re helpful but I doubt they’re necessary to oppose Nine who doesn’t even have them.

Isn’t there like a security guard looking around the school grounds? They ARE trespassing at this moment in time.

And also being children with a little less experience at Battle Spirits you’re probably going to want all the help you can get.

Card Sensei dropped Smile with a 5 card 5-Colour combo like a boss, I’m sure he doesn’t really need it.

The Speed Star pulls up to visit Card Sensei.

Well this is a bit awkward, Card Sensei re-ignited his feelings for Eight, so Hayami is going to be a bit of a strange person to interact with at this time.

Well, if he’s immature at least, acting as he did may have given him a slightly greater maturity when dealing with women now.

Hayami I guess wanted a Drive and a chat with Card Sensei, and she brings up the old conversation of Parents Day.

God that was so long ago, but Card Sensei gave a lecture concerning Bashin’s father which reignited Hayami’s confidence.

What kind of world is the million dollar question.

And given the current theory that Uchuuchouten is infact Bashin Touha, how warped did that idea become?

Which explains the name Bashin gave to his mouse. A term of endearment for him.

Oh don’t tell me, he’s going to go on a suicide mission to damage Nine’s plan as much as possible before the Cornerstone 6 get there.

Here we go.

Welp, place your bets people, who is Card Sensei going to get absolutely mauled by after having not had a clean loss to any member of Thousand Spirits Group for many episodes?

My guess: Smile’s going to get his final victory over Card Sensei.

Well you see, Hayami, that’s the point.

WELL AIN’T THAT A FUNNY COINCIDENCE.

She’s playing dumb and she knows it, no Mother of Bashin Toppa gets to simply get away from being an awesome Battler.

Ah, Card Sensei was inspired by The Speed Star? And he’s thought she was beautiful for a long time (despite being masked)

I guess Card Sensei had already figured out that Hayami was the Speed Star a long time ago, and only aimed for her affections after things went sour with Eight.

I guess Hayami is somewhat aware of Eight’s disappearance and that Card Sensei was interested in her.

Card Sensei did mention that “The Speed Star” was spotted while he was a member of the Thousand Spirits Group, I guess she was affiliated enough to know Card Sensei’s situation with Eight.

Uses an outdated idea of gender, but she’s trying to encourage him so I’ll let it go.

I wonder if there’s a variant of that kind of encouragement that can be used gender-neutrally?

I guess in this case “Man” is being used to suggest Card Sensei’s determined demeanor and willingness to fight.

So, “If you’re a Fighter” or “If you’re willing to fight” works?

Her ability to go unnoticed while still being aware of the structure of the Numbers Elite is probably one of the reasons Nine hasn’t targeted her.

The other is probably because Nine doesn’t want to target her given Nine likes Hayami.

Also could people like stop wanting to bone Bashin’s mother? She hasn’t exactly popped out many geniuses.

HOW CRYPTIC.

A loud flag from the writers going “By the way! Hayami’s gonna be involved! But we’re not gonna tell you how!” so we’re just going to have to sit and wait wondering “When the fuck is Hayami going to get here?”

Sensei can’t even walk a mile without running into Smile.

The fact that Smile is STILL HERE in spite of the Sebiroth being controlled should really suggest to you that the kid is fucking broken on a fundamental level Card Sensei.

You didn’t teach him to be the way he is, he chose it once he decided he was better than you.

He’s been an ungrateful little shit this entire time and you should probably spend less time talking him out of it and more time kicking his ass.

It appears “Sebiroth” is the new name they’ve given the new Thousand Spirits Group, as if to further separate it from Uchuuchouten, even in name.

It appears Card Sensei is going to have to fight as a one-man army against these Sebiroth goons.

The problem here is the minute Card Sensei loses once he’ll be fitted with one of their masks and forced to fight as “Number Five” again. Probably.

So he has to win ALL of these battles.

Card Sensei has spotted Eight among the ranks, which is the reason he went there, so that makes things easier.

Smile decides to try his luck at getting Card Sensei’s surrender, based on him seeing Eight’s state.

Also they didn’t fit Eight with a Suit, but they did give her the “Sexy Queen” outfit.

It seems a bit disconnected from the previous statement but Card Sensei is still trying his best to make it so the Cornerstone 6 don’t have to battle.

I’m trying to piece together what the hell Smile’s problem is?

Was it because he was taught to an extent where he believed himself to be strong? By a master who’s Cornerstone awakened the fastest?

And then because his Master left without a word, that damaged his belief that he was strong? Because strong people don’t run?

Is that what this is?

Smile really doesn’t like Card Sensei showing his pain over Smile’s current state. What is Smile’s baggage such that he even takes Card Sensei’s attempt to reconcile as offensive?

…Does Smile have a fucking inferiority complex because Card Sensei became strong for no reason?

How about fuck you?

Oh, Nine’s here, I thought we were just going to settle this with only Smile, oh well.

Nine intends to turn him into another member of Sebiroth it seems, wielding the Numbers Elite forcibly.

And we see Card Sensei get interrupted mid-punch by Batosupi TV at the dawn of the Uchuuchouten Cup.

Which is to say, the poor sod got captured. Probably.

I hope he punched Nine in the face, I hope Nine walks in with a bruise, and I hope several Sebiroth members got masks torn from their faces.

So I guess they ARE going to each Dome? But they need to do Tags right? I don’t really get how this is going to work.

Please, don’t fucking tell me this all powerful King has been completely blind to Nine’s movements all this time.

Uchuuchouten’s gonna be an idiot isn’t he?

I see that Nine is going to challenge Uchuuchouten directly.

Usually when a Dragon challenges their Big Bad, it doesn’t end well for the Dragon. All of the Transformers scenes I’ve seen usually have Starscream just outliving Megatron, not outright defeating him in forward combat, though maybe I just haven’t seen enough Transformers.

…They’re actually gonna fucking do this aren’t they?

…Nevermind, Uchuuchouten’s doomed. If it genuinely catches the villain off guard and they don’t maintain their composure, it usually means they’ve been caught with their pants down and they gon’ die.

It seems Uchuuchouten isn’t particularly pleased with Nine’s use of the black masks.

Uchuuchouten surmises Nine held the intend to betray him from day one, because of the fact that he chose an opportune time to perform the “Coup D’etat”

Uchuuchouten strangely returns to his lack of concern, suggesting that the Cornerstone 6 are going to beat the everloving shit out of Nine.

What is Nine’s problem against the Cornerstones, sweet jesus? Is it because he didn’t get one? Is that it?

Smile decides not to stick around for the rebellion?

Come on Smile, you don’t want to see Uchuuchouten battle? The guy barely shows up, that’s like a once in a lifetime chance.

Well the audience probably consists of Sebiroth members and TV crew so no shit.

Okay do you NEED that many members? They’re going to have 3 tag battles and they have 8 members, 2 of these masked schmucks aren’t even going to participate.

I guess the masks are not rigid and are flexible, seeing as they can just wrap AROUND Kiano’s chin.

the Mind control feature is probably in the solid earpieces.

And since the Dome Opens to Night in spite of it being Day, we can be sure that the Cornerstones are enabling the Dome to connect to Isekai.

Striker and Suiren vs Eight and Nine? That’s a weird pairing, I thought Nine would tag with Smile or something against Bashin and J.

Guess I was wrong.

If I remember these tag battle rules correctly, Life is shared but each player has an opportunity to Flash.

Striker has gone back to set 1 with only a Lv2 Beatbeetle and Flyingmirage on his board.

Nothing like the tried and true strat of “The Fruit of Life”

Considering its Eight’s turn thats nawt gud.

Nine has 2 Lizardedges, one at Lv3 and a Lv2 Taurusknight

While Eight has Bat-Bat and Skulldevil.

Jesus I don’t think I’ve seen a single spirit passed Set 2 wtf is this?

Eight plays Negapluto at Lv1 and attacks with it.

Thank god I was getting worried this would be a game of oldies, anyway Negapluto attacking at Lv1 means Striker isn’t allowed to block with Green Spirits.

Nine uses his Flash opportunity to use Double Hearts on Negapluto, giving it an extra Symbol.

Finally, we actually see ONE side’s life, Striker and Suiren were on 6 life and are now on 4.

Notably, The Fruit of Life only activates when life is reduced and doesn’t consider how much life was lost, so Striker only gets 1 card despite losing 2 lives.

Eight attacks with Skulldevil, reducing Team Shomen Toppa to 3 lives.

I see they’re leaving it with that for the turn, its now Suiren’s turn.

For whatever reason, though they’ve done this before, you can deploy Nexuses to your partner’s field as opposed to your own.

Though a card like The Shackles of Doom seems universal so it shouldn’t matter what field it’s on.

The other cards from BS01 can go fuck themselves, but I’m always up to seeing old X-Rares. Desperado hasn’t been seen in a while in favor of Destlord.

All but Nine’s Lizardedge and Taurusknight are depleted by Desperado’s effect.

That’s gonna be pretty hefty, cuz then Desperado gains 4 core out of nowhere.

It appears without free will the masked members of Sebiroth don’t have the capacity to make use of their experience and foresight, they can only operate on available knowledge present in the battle.

In short, they can’t metagame.

That was… abrupt. Oh well, I guess we’ll see where this leads next episode,

Not sure how to feel about this one, we moved kinda fast through it, we had Sebiroth Baito-san take on Meganeko, the group unveiled their new X-Rares, Card Sensei got captured and then the group found out about it and started facing Nine all in the same episode.

The Pacing was a little off, I guess they really shouldn’t have wasted an episode at the beach. (Yes, I’m STILL mad about that)

And they don’t talk about anything NEW in the Batosupi Lecture, Not gonna lie this episode kinda… isn’t good.

I know its necessary to watch because its got a number of plot-relevant details in it but the pacing is just straight up awful, why was Meganeko losing to Baito-san more interesting than the start of this tag battle?

Its a bit strange to me, but hopefully next episode will be better, there’s only 3 left after all!

See you all next time!

Righto, got some news, well, more like a warning because unfortunate things are unfortunate.

So, Battle Spirits Shounen Toppa Bashin has had relatively high quality up until this point, however from this point onward there’s going to be a noticeable quality dip in the images.

Now, I have the option of a slightly higher quality viewing (Not as good as previous episodes regardless), however.

The Subs are quite frankly, terrible, they’re translated almost literally and some phrases are flat out incorrect and do not reflect what the character is actually trying to say.

So I will be sticking with Soaker’s Subs for these remaining 5 episodes, I apologise for poor quality but its necessary for shit to actually make sense.

And also I have an inclination towards Soaker’s subs anyway because Soaker has gone out of their way to comment on my blog before. I can at least show my respect by going that final stretch with them.

So, once again, I apologise for the drop in quality.

“The Cornerstone 6” tells us nothing because we already know who they are. That “Disappearance the Day before the finals” is a little bit ominous, considering last episode depicted Eight being approached by one of Nine’s goons I’m going to guess she’s been kidnapped.

We’re quickly guided to what appears to be an argument between Kiano, Elliott and Nine. We’ve seen Nine’s goons so its likely Nine’s begun to move and the others are in on it.

I… I can’t help but feel like a 12 or so year old child has been expressing this issue for a long time and had a father who didn’t listen to him throughout the entirety of that.

I’m not sure who that could have been, honestly.

I’ll refrain from actively being obtuse, we know Kiano was already aware of the problems the Thousand Spirits Group were causing he just chose not to oppose them for some reason, my guess is funding the Battle System.

Oh? So what Nine is trying to do is at odds with what Uchuuchouten wants to do, so let’s see what Uchuuchouten’s intent was meant to be-

Kiano realizes something mid sentence that Nine’s has done something and denies us that sweet, sweet juicy info on what the fuck it is Uchuuchouten wants to do.

I feel narratively blueballed, like jesus christ.

Nine, quite obviously, explains a plan we basically already knew, he made the invitations to the Cornerstone 6 (as we’re now apparently meant to call them) in order to get a hold of their Cornerstones.

THEN WHAT THE FUCK WERE THEY MADE FOR!?

WHAT DOES UCHUUCHOUTEN WANT?!

So it requires 6 domes to be fully powered by a Cornerstone, once each Cornerstone powers each Dome, one for each colour, Isekai will be released into Earth.

Listen I know you speak broken Japanese Elliott but now you’re just blurting out things that don’t make sense in any language.

Jesus did Kyouka knock a screw loose? What was once an intelligent calculating person now seems to be relatively deranged.

I’m not sure why he was even having that conversation with Elliott and Kiano, he’s got no reason to converse with them about his plan.

One of the many examples where the quality drop can really hurt at times.

Also really? Did Kitan damage your pride THAT much just by commenting on your poor luck?

I’m pretty sure people with poor luck don’t accumulate great wealth!

They’re discussing the multiple domes and which ones to go to, Suiren wants to go to Okinawa, where the Blue dome is…

Oh boy they’re not even going to colour code the battler’s decks with their respective location.

Kyouka wants to go to Kyoto, Blue battler in the Red dome, and I believe Okyou mentions that they’re going to Sapporo, which isn’t much better cuz that’s the GREEN dome.

J on the other hand isn’t seeing the fun in this, as he’s analyzing the domes. Apparently the Tokyo Dome, the first dome, which likely took the longest to set up is a Satellite Dome. So in essence the White Dome is where Isekai will be released while the other domes simply assist with the process.

Its like a giant adaptor that, instead of letting small children go to Isekai, brings Isekai to the entire dome.

Kyouka has the idea of simply not playing into their hand, if they don’t power the Domes then Nine can’t release Isekai and his entire plan fails.

J counters that a fight is completely unavoidable, but doesn’t explain why, thinking about it for a moment: choosing not to fight ensures the existence of the evil Thousand Spirits Group, it would effectively be waiting until a generation of Cornerstone wielders who ARE willing to fight go to those domes and activate them. Or Thousand Spirits group finds another method.

Or they can take a risk and end the problem permanently, while putting people at risk earlier, interesting dilemma.

One factor, not known to the Cornerstone 6 at this time though, is that Nine likely has those goons available to force them to go to these domes one way or another.

J constructs a theory, namely that since there are 6 domes they are likely all designed to handle the power of a single Cornerstone only, he comes up with the idea of overloading the system by forcing it to try and work with 2 Cornerstones, using a Tag Battle, and destroy it that way.

Its an interesting theory, also narratively useful, since Tag Battles were initially devised as a way for Smile and J to defeat Uchuuchouten, and is the reason Bashin chose not to face off with Uchuuchouten when he could have.

So the weapon to face Uchuuchouten being used for the purposes of stopping Nine who wishes to usurp his role, is quite brilliant.

J notes the access history of the file indicates that it has been read and even copied once before, and given that J only has his own copy its only going to have histories from before he took that data, meaning whoever claimed that copy of the file did so BEFORE J did as Jack Knight.

Bashin’s eyebrows are slightly more diagonal than usual and his eyes are slightly wider.

Alright whatever this is, its bad.

…Oh that’s unfortunate. Thousand Spirits Group is the group responsible for bringing battle spirits to the world as Elliott was a longtime member of the Numbers Elite.

That means the Card Stores are likely under the control of the Thousand Spirits Group.

So Baito-kun, and Baito-san, whom we saw with masks under the command of Nine, are not the only card shop workers, every single goon of Nine’s works or has worked at a Batosupi Centre, and for the sake of Nine’s choice to move, has shut down every single Batosupi Centre across Japan “For protection”

The audience can piece this together quite easily based on the faces of Baito-kun and Baito-san, but the Cornerstone 6 are just now somewhat theorizing that the sudden closure of every Batosupi centre in Japan is BECAUSE of the upcoming event.

Elliott tries to contact Eight, knowing she’s the closest affiliate of the Thousand Spirits Group at present, and the most recent person to see Elliott quit besides Kiano, but can’t reach her.

Well that’s ominous.

Huh, he holds a new card we haven’t seen, The Crossroads of Destiny.

I won’t review it unless he plays it but its an intriguing Nexus from BS03. One that supports Spirits with no printed effects.

Using Cards as metaphors is kind of cringey but whatever inspires these old dudes to do something.

J enters the room only to find it empty, it appears Kiano and Elliott have left.

I have seen too many pieces of fiction depicting Japanese people as overly hard workers too tuckered out to do anything when they return home such that they are quite literally unable to interact with their family regularly.

Japan work ethic needs to chill.

Ah, that’s why J was so concerned that the file had been touched, data in it could have been changed. Which means Kiano had the same idea as J did when he became Jack Knight.

And the data has apparently been “updated”, perhaps Kiano got a headstart on the theories J was producing with the data.

This is like the Card Game anime equivalent of realizing your father’s prized shotgun has gone missing shortly after he has.

Jokes aside, J is probably up to here with Kiano going off to fight without informing him.

J tries to chase after the Taxi but smol child cannot outrun car.

Turns out Kiano and Elliott were chilling at the school, rather than at home, so they didn’t leave before the Cornerstone 6 got there they were just never there.

Ah the sweet lengths they’ll go to try and hide this from J except J has already figured out that they’re going to go fight.

It appears despite all the crap Nine is doing, Smile is still loyal to him.

…Unless perhaps Smile was in on it to begin with, and was planning to use J to further Nine’s plan rather than a moral desire to topple Uchuuchouten.

…Praised by whom? Cuz I’m fairly sure the likely outcome of this plan is going to be total global annihilation

Not sure I enjoy the idea that Smile didn’t just take a weird route on his way to defeating Uchuuchouten and he’s actually just generically evil after beating Card Sensei.

God forbid a child insults your preference for suits Nine, god dayum.

Elliott and Kiano have arrived to take out some trash they left behind.

Kiano looks so serious his chin might have actually gained the ability to cut stone.

You can just imagine the butler going “Okay, I just need to make sure I don’t say anything to- Awww shit…“

To the Isekai Dome! Provided the Butler doesn’t string them along for some bizarre reason!

Seems they’re here to make a dent in Nine’s plans, the safest way probably too, if they have access to the system before the Cornerstones get there, the only danger is to themselves.

You know, I completely failed to consider that they could have also just accessed J’s computer while he was literally anywhere else and taken the data from there.

It appears something that Elliott created in the past became a Weapon for War, so he created Battle Spirits.

And now it’s threatening to happen again, no wonder he wanted to quit once he realised what the whole ordeal was turning into.

Kiano saw the benefit of the business but children got wrapped up in it, namely J and the others. Which you know, is a big no-no.

Something done fucked up.

Though to be honest, if they stole the data from J, they likely don’t know about the system’s failsafe going into lockdown when its being tampered with.

Yes… That’s like standard security protocol when someone leaves the company, if its a terminal only the Numbers Elite access then of course they’re going to change the password when members leave.

Why even allow the risk? It isn’t hard to change a password.

If a straight up businessman like Kiano thinks your plan goes beyond the definition of business, you know you’re evil.

Especially in modern day where businessman have a knack for appearing corrupt in almost all situations.

There goes Nine’s Trigger word.

The guy was already looking relatively destructive when he came in, now he somehow looks worse after hearing “Luck”

Seems Kiano is challenging Nine, that is… a weird matchup to say the least.

…That was strange hearing that come out of Elliott’s mouth, because he didn’t use a single english word in that, nor did he slur any of his Japanese.

It appears Elliott merely chose to speak poor japanese, either for the sake of fun, or to appear incompetent.

That’s interesting, Nine is setting an Ultimatum, he’s only going to fight once, and will fight only one of them.

I suppose Nine doesn’t want to rely on a Tag partner despite the setting allowing for it, and doesn’t want to put himself at a disadvantage through needing to win 2 battles to get his way.

Elliott has spent this entire episode suggesting effectively that what Nine is doing is a betrayal to the game itself, as this is only happening because of a game he made, its only fair that he take responsibility for it.

Which is fair.

Let’s throw down.

Elliott has turn 34.

He’s got a Lv1 Sacred Mjolnir, a Fruit of Life at Lv2 and a Historic Battlefield of the Cursed.

A White Spirit, with a Green and Purple Nexus, bit of a strange mix.

At least this combination of Nexuses are strong, he’ll draw if Nine exhausts or takes a Life, and if Nine takes a life, Elliott will gain core.

Elliott’s got 4 lives

I see Nine is still wielding his Bashin-like Red deck, he’s got a TwinRowdy Diranos, a Lv2 Lizardedge and DarkGoradon on his board.

A Diranos and no Terra dragons is a weird choice.

And he’s got 5 lives.

Elliott summons Ponysus, Machfly and The Berserker Troll.

I see he’s going back to Colour Salad, he’s got 5 colours present on his board, all he needs is a Red card and his field will be a fuckin’ rainbow.

Trust me, this quality also makes ME sad.

Anyway, no time for that now, we’ve got an X-Rare to review.

Photoshop acting up, so I’ll stick with this for now.

BS04’s Purple X-Rare, The SevenShogun Pandemium. The 3rd card in the SevenShogun series. A Purple X-Rare that allows you to draw a card when an opposing spirit is destroyed, you can exhaust spirits when your own spirits are defeated during the Showdown step, and at Lv3, when it’s destroyed, both Players have to drop 5 cards from their hand.

This is pretty nasty along with Elliott’s earlier Nexuses. Nine can’t go to the bathroom with out it earning Elliott a card.

Elliott attacks with MachFly which is destroyed by a blocking Diranos.

This is evidently going to trigger Pandemium’s Lv2 effect.

As Diranos was exhausted, Elliott gets to draw a card.

Due to Elliott’s own spirit being destroyed, he exhausts Lizardedge through it’s effect, allowing Elliott to draw again.

Ponysus attacks, defeating DarkGoradon, as DarkGoradon was exhausted and subsequently destroyed, Elliott draws a card from his Nexus and Pandemium’s effects.

Here Elliott and Nine have a tiny discussion about “The meaning of battle”, Elliott suggests Nine doesn’t know the meaning, and Nine suggests that there is no meaning.

Elliott gives a very short lecture that, while Battle Spirits is initially for enjoyment, it also acts as a form of communication between the 2 players engaged in battle, that appears to be a lesson taught to him after his humbling defeat at the hands of Striker.

Nine takes Elliott’s remaining attacks from the Life and Elliott ends his turn, leaving Mjolnir as the only blocker.

One of the many curses of high intelligence is the awareness of one’s own reasonableness, what a morally compromised but intelligent person may do in their self interest to continue pursuing that which they want to pursue is to be as unreasonable as possible about their views, essentially becoming narrow-minded.

Some would call that active stupidity, but they aren’t actually stupid, they’ve just simply ended their pursuit of information for the sake of not ever having to change their opinion.

It is impossible to reason with people like that, the only way to crack the shell of someone who resorts to this is often to force their hand by making use of that which they care about, as typically only selfish or spiteful people will resort to such an unreasonable defense mechanism.

Kind of makes Thanos a mildly interesting villain because he was even willing to sacrifice the things he cared about for his goal.

We cut back to the Cornerstone 6 who, as predicted, by me, are being delayed by the Butler.

The Butler can’t bring himself to break his promise to Kiano, but does implore J to go search for him.

Alright listen there’s got to be a cap on how cool you can be Nine.

Awww geez, a Cost 6 and 2 Cost 7s in the same move, Kujaraku at Lv1, The UnicornDragon Volsung at Lv2, and The EvilDeity Big-Loki at Lv3.

And they’re ALL new cards, alright.

The first is The FlameEmperor Kujaraku, a 4 Reduction, rather okayish statline Red Cost 6 with no printed effects, Kujaraku, for its reductions, is often used to meet Tribute Conditions, the downside is that its Lv1 Maintenance cost requires 2 core, so Tributing it causes you to lose 2 core rather than 1. Even if one might prefer to simply use Siegfried in this case, Kujaraku is good for limited building if you’re just playing out of BS04 for Tribute fodder.

UnicornDragon Volsung and EvilDeity Big-Loki are 2 sides of the same coin, they both have effects that support Spirits with 2 or more symbols. And both get a battle boost, Volsung when attacking, Loki when blocking.

Volsung is clearly the worse of the 2, it provides a Power Boost to 2+ Symbol spirits when it’s destroyed. Granted that can be used strategically but having to minus yourself to give temporary power to a spirit is kind of awful, most would probably prefer just using a Magic to do it.

Loki on the other hand is a little better, at Lv3 if it is able to damage the opposing life, it can refresh any 2+ Symbol spirit, notably it excludes itself despite having only 1 Symbol to avoid Double Hearts shenanigans. And of course it helps avoid it being broken with a later card type.

Volsung attacks, which Elliott takes from the Life (4->3 vs 3)

Volsung’s exhaust and Elliott’s loss of life awards Elliott 2 draws and an additional core from the void.

Kujaraku attacks but is blocked by Mjolnir, causing Mjolnir’s destruction.

Due to Pandemium’s effect, the destruction of Mjolnir exhausts Big-Loki.

As Nine has exhausted 2 Spirits this attack, Elliott gains 2 cards.

Elliott makes an interesting statement, “Unless you enjoy this deep in your heart, Someday the spirits will betray you”

Nine has a very distinct lack of foresight about this, he doesn’t seem concerned about the possibility of rogue spirits destroying him.

When you have an entire legion of goons wearing masks who are, I suspect, under some kind of mind control, its hard to worry about being betrayed.

Elliott summons 3 spirits:
The BattleBeast Diatryma at Lv2
Skulldemon
and DarkDinohound at Lv3

He’s also raised Pandemium to Lv3, now its got a relatively meh 9000 BP will discard 5 cards from both players hands when destroyed.

Berserker Troll attacks, taking a life from Nine (3 vs 3->2)

Notably, Nine losing lives is the only way Elliott doesn’t draw a card.

Ponysus attacks and is blocked by Lizardedge, Nine still has Diranos to block though.

Elliott draws 2 cards from its exhaust and destruction.

Elliott is drawing a fuckton of cards, jesus.

Jesus he isn’t even using both hands to play the game at this point, he’s FOLDING HIS ARMS and taking it.

What an imposing stance.

…Wait a minute.

Silent Wall is pretty nasty, as it is at any other time really.

Elliott won’t be able to attack anymore after this one since his turn will have ended.

Until the attack ends though, Elliott is free to play as many Flash timing effects as needed, Deadly Balance is a good combo with Pandemium. He’s likely going to try and limit Nine’s options by killing off his hand.

Elliott naturally targets Pandemium.

As Nine only had 5 cards in his hand, he’s forced to drop the entire thing.

Elliott going into full blown lecture mode. He believes failure in battle spirits comes from the inability to read the opponent’s heart correctly. If you can’t gauge a person’s intentions, or style, or understand how they like to do things, it will become difficult to operate accordingly, sometimes strategems are unreactable, so you most proactively prepare for it, as Elliott did by choosing not to play cards he could easily play in order to not leave his hand empty when he vaporized Nine’s.

Elliott also follows up that the Cornerstones follow similar logic, which would suggest why Nine wouldn’t be able to use them.

Nine gives up his X-Rare, Diranos.

Well, considering this board I probably would have ditched Kujaraku instead. Diranos doesn’t need 2 core to maintain and I’m going to guess that Nine is going to aim for a Tribute.

Oh right, there’s still an attack going, Skulldemon takes one of Nine’s lives, leaving him with 1 remaining to Elliott’s 3.

Silent Wall ends the attack step, Elliott has Diatryma and Dinohound for blockers.

Appears Nine is choosing this moment to bet on his luck.

Given the previous 2 cards he just played, there’s only 1 Double Symbol card that could function well in this deck.

Amd I couldn’t think of a better character it would suit, Nine is using The DarkDragonEmperor Siegfried.

Nine selects Kujaraku for the Tribute and summons his DarkDragonEmperor at Lv3.

Volsung attacks first, gaining +3000 BP, so its swinging for 9000.

Elliott uses this card from BS05, a strange one to be sure, a Cost 3 single reduction Purple card that enables an effect that upon the summon of a SevenShogun, all exhausted spirits are destroyed.

And given that’s a main effect, you’re unlikely to have exhausted spirits on your own turn so that’s pretty strong.

Of course, Elliott is using it for the 3000 BP battle boost.

As Diatryma at Lv2 has 7000 BP, a +3000 BP boost brings it to 10000 BP, just a single 1000 BP higher than Volsung.

This isn’t good for Elliott anyway. Now Dark Seigfried has an additional +5000 BP, not that I think Elliott has a blocker that makes that matter.

Due to Siegfried’s Lv3 effect when attacking, all of Elliott’s spirits besides Diatryma and Dinohound are destroyed.

This doesn’t really matter because Nine is winning this turn but it would certainly make a comeback more difficult.

He’s Swift summoning MachG? That would save him-

Unless he does something silly like that.

Swift into Awaken is really cool but it hurts to see him try and Level up a DarkDinohound just to ram it into Dark Siegfried.

That, on the other hand, is a little more clever, Dark Siegfried only has 7000 BP at Lv2.

Except apparently the creator of Battle Spirits doesn’t know his own cards because Volsung has been destroyed this turn, so Dark Siegfried has 12000 BP still.

DarkDinohound is destroyed.

The EvilDeity Big-Loki attacks, taking a life from Elliott has he has no blockers. (3->2 vs 1)

This of course, allows Dark Siegfried to refresh, as Big-Loki snatched a Life at Lv3.

I wonder what the meaning of Batosupi is meant to be for Nine then? Though giving he bet on luck to draw Dark Siegfried, I assume that’s the meaning he derives from it, you have to be lucky.

And he’s known for cursing his poor Luck, makes sense he’d put the game through the ringer like this by trying to bring the world to ruin using the Cornerstones.

Elliott, as expected for this episode, loses.

Looking at this narratively there was no way Elliott was going to win, its the Big bad and Elliott’s a side character who only RECENTLY took a Heel-Face Turn.

He’s effectively perfect fodder to show off Nine’s abilities.

Did Smile get his fucking creep factor from Nine? Or is Nine just taking a leaf out of Smile’s book?

Elliott apologizes to Kiano, believing Kiano would have been a much better choice to handle the likes of Nine.

Kiano isn’t an incompetent player sure, but that Pandemium Combo with The Fruit of Life and Historic Battlefield of the Cursed is nothing to scoff at.

Nothing like a little pep talk from Kiano before they get mind controlled by Nine.

I have never seen this before.

And Nine just straight up leaves.

Okay, given that they sank through the floor rather than dissipate into air, I’m feeling like they were sent somewhere rather than killed.

I am not entirely optimistic about this because death is a thing in Battle Spirits and it happens to strange people.

Meanwhile the Cornerstone 6 explore Tonari Middle School, failing to find much of anything.

And well given what just happened they probably won’t be finding Kiano anytime soon

As soon as J starts to lose hope though, a message flicks on, interesting timing.

Dead Man’s switch?

Ah, it was a dead man’s switch, probably set to trigger if they failed to return within a set amount of time after travelling to deal with Nine.

So from what I’m gathering, the purpose of that message was, in the event that their plan failed, which they expected could happen, they were to fallback on the Cornerstone holders they were trying to keep out, as they’re a last resort.

You’d think Elliott might have designed new cards for them or something, throw them a bone, give them a hand?

There’s some weird commentary from Bashin about how normally J gets mad when Kiano calls him Juli, as J attempts to protest that statement because now is really not the time.

He gets a hug from Bashin. These 2 really are on a hugging basis huh.

Bashin seems to be celebrating the fact that J and his Dad were able to “face each other” in a way, even though it was through a screen.

I guess Bashin’s really just trying to lighten the mood by looking on the brightside and providing J some much needed affection.

If friends allow for it, hug them, and hug them tightly if you think they need it.

There’s a briefcase left there. Is that Kiano’s “Prized card collection”?

Maybe they can get some new cards from there?

We don’t actually get to see what’s in the briefcase however, damn that’s annoying.

I guess we get to see Nine address his goons again.

And Jesus, even Seven here is masked, he looks almost muzzled.

…The goons are called “Sebiroth”, which was meant to be a pun between Sephiroth and Business Suit?

I think Nine has a fuckin’ problem.

Smile seems to think its funny that Nine trusts him enough to not stick a mask on him as well.

There’s no new information in this speech, he basically preaches the same exact thing he did when he addressed the uh… “Sebiroth” last time.

And we END on that note, I’m going to guess Batosupi Lecture will want to talk about Pandemium.

Huh, they opted NOT to talk about the new Purple X-Rare they threw out in exchange for talking about Big-Loki? Well I guess it makes sense, Big-Loki is BS05 while Pandemium is therefore old news.

I don’t really have anything interesting to talk about Big-Loki without spoiling card types for those who enjoy reading this and being in suspense. So I guess we shall leave it for next time.

For now, we’ve confirmed Nine’s current deck, a predominantly Red Deck that features The DarkDragonEmperor Siegfried as the ace, which means now Dark Siegfried is actually within its optimal environment, a deck that won’t suffer its own negative effects and will actually have reduction to pay for it.

It also means Bashin will have another chance to vaporize the bastard since he had to bypass it last time, without actually defeating it.

Anyway, that’s a talk for then, and for now, I’ll see you next time!

Last episode? What last Episode?

Let’s… uh… Let’s not discuss last episode if we can, for both our sakes.

And this episode title is doing a fine job of telling me absolutely nothing.

So we’re going to have to gauge what the point of it is from the actual scenes we see.

Seems it might be a Meganeko centric episode if we’re seeing both Nanarin AND her Grandfather with her.

And some fucko with a basket on their head arrives. We only know one person that’s decided to pull that.

Yup, its the ol’ Buddhist Chief from the Temple.

Though Grandpa doesn’t look to be too off his guard based on his expression here.

Its an old man stand-off, now what needlessly comedic thing are we going to use to break this tension?

For reference this likely isn’t going to translate well in English because the guy is asking for a Nexus with 11 Japanese characters which are basically just syllables.

Grandpa’s got a NAME, and its Otonashi Kitan.

Also is this the first time we’ve seen Kitan even make eye contact with Batosupi as a topic? I don’t think there have been any other instances of Grandpa even so much as being in the same room as someone mentioning the card game.

Ah seems they’re ol’ friends, and I forgot we just call the old man “Priest”

I mean, is it? He has to get supplies from SOMEWHERE

And secondly does that constitute a mountain? It’s more like a hill.

I’m cherrypicking, sorry, waiting for them to get to the point and don’t want to miss anything relevant.

This guy is a Nazo-Otona, you know this guy, he came with the Basket on his head and asked you about Battle Spirits cards.

I’m pretty sure its FAIRLY certain that they don’t want to look for a fuckin’ book.

It seems Kitan is well-acquainted with Number Eight, does that mean that Card Sensei got on well with Meganeko’s family for similar reasons, as he was Number Five?

You know what, I actually saw that coming. You don’t exactly get well-acquainted with other numbers any other way.

By process of elimination that seems to suggest to me that the Priest we’ve seen here, acting as a Nazo-Otona, could be the missing Number Six.

But I’ve got no way to verify that.

Bashin gives a pretty fair 2-sentence summary of the goals of the Thousand Spirits group established 2 episodes ago.

It’d be effectively the equivalent of introducing a metric fuckton of species to the planet all that once, the ecosystem would quite literally just crumble from their attempts at living there.

There’s a lot of fluff about “Oh hey bad shit will happen but we can do it”, so I’m just going to ignore it, there’s nothing interesting to parse among it.

Then why has Meganeko, Bashin nor anyone else ever heard of him? There’s got to be records of his feats somewhere.

Card Games is not something you simply retire from.

Limelights on the other hand, understandable, plus being a member of Thousand Spirits Group IS an occupation.

That’s uh… certainly an accomplishment, however strong Uchuuchouten is, it was Kitan here, Meganeko’s father that made him that strong.

It seems the Priest and Eight wish to have Kitan defeat Uchuuchouten, believing him to be the best chance at doing so as that powerful battler was Kitan’s student.

Well that isn’t going to be awkward, Meganeko’s now seen her Grandfather conversing with the Nazo-Otonas, that makes it highly likely she’s going to interrogate him.

So, Meganeko vs Number Ten then?

That’s a bit of a weird question, that would need to imply the existence of a previous generation of Cornerstone holders that weren’t those guys.

And that doesn’t answer the fucking question.

Also Kitan really just took Nanarin with him huh?

…Wait a hot minute, is that what he’s actually suggesting? The old man had a huge Cornerstone-like object that reacted to Striker’s Cornerstone when he approached it. Is it possible there WAS actually a previous generation of Cornerstone holders?

That would suggest the Priest is infact the previous Green Chosen Battler.

Nice to re-explain what the Cornerstones actually do to us despite us being on Episode Forty-fucking-Five

Though WHY the Cornerstones exist has actually yet to be touched upon, they do exist, and we know Thousand Spirits Group wants their power, but we have absolutely 0 idea where they came from or what their criteria for selection is, and what they’re actually meant to achieve by connecting Isekai and Earth.

Meganeko is left with the impossibly easy puzzle of solving why the Priest and Eight might have been conversing with her Grandfather.

To be honest, she’s jumping to occam’s razor first (the simplest answer is usually the correct one), which is a pretty good place to start from.

Also reasonable, they didn’t exactly leave with any books, and then Kitan proceeded to leave with them, so its evident they were acquainted in some way other than as a customer.

You’re telling me the guy just kept a whole ass photo of himself with King Uchuuchouten in a random ass book left on the front desk of the Library?

Like ANYONE could have fucking seen that if they just dropped the books like Meganeko did just now.

There are CARDS among them!

And before you ask, no we don’t get to see it, Meganeko just has this surprised look on her face for the sake of suspense which will get happily resolved when the show deigns to do so.

Kitan’s heading to the Isekai Dome where Uchuuchouten resides.

Its just occurred to me that we’ve already seen Nine and his new army, that’s going to be a bit of a problem for one old man to get through.

Apparently Nine is giving off SUCH bad vibes that Nanarin is quite literally growling at him.

Kitan seems to correct Nine by suggesting that he’s actually here to talk to Nine, and not Uchuuchouten.

I suppose it doesn’t really matter who he talks to, Nine also wishes to control Thousupi Group and achieve similar goals anyway. Just usurping the power for himself rather than leaving it for Uchuuchouten.

Nine’s office is now blood red. He’s… uh, a little obsessed with that colour isn’t he?

Is that his derangement manifesting as a fascination on Bashin’s colour? Or is it like an actual blood thing?

This is a twofold statement, we know he wants to use them for sheer evil, but we don’t know what his end goal other than “The evulz” is, and we don’t know what’s motivating him to take that route.

I’m not liking that offer he’s making.

So Kitan “Taught” Nine the meaning of the Cornerstones?

I guess this has something to do with how Numbers Elite was formed, and what it was originally meant for.

That doesn’t even make sense?

He might as well have said “Yeah? Well that’s just… like, your opinion man”

Nothing like getting all up close and personal to REALLY ensure that basically saying he’s too “Old” to do anything about the problem sinks deep.

He is indeed rich considering he lives on a personal yacht with servants to tend to his culinary needs among other things.

And he’s definitely not stupid, he was able to keep up with the Numbers Elite and additionally outwit Suiren.

You have got to be kidding me, this can’t be a fucking temper tantrum he’s throwing at the world because he’s unlucky?

Unlucky in what sense? What fucking coin toss did he lose SO BADLY that he felt the need to go this far?

There’s some other commentary about the changing of eras being more of series of fluctuations than a standard process, but its also a backhanded way of saying “Even if I won’t do something, the next person will take my place, and you are always replaceable” kind of thing.

At least that’s the vibe I’m getting from Kitan here.

I’m not sure how this statement is relevant to the last one but sure thing whatever floats your boat.

Just casually confirming he’s aware of Eight’s involvement with Kitan’s sudden arrival. Not a good look for her when she pops back in for her next shift, if she even turns up at all given she’s probably making up for lost time with Card Sensei.

As soon as Kitan leaves Nine’s face cracks. Geez that mention of him having no luck REALLY got to him.

Well now we have uh… SOME context as to what might be driving him so god damn far up the wall. Something that’s given him an extreme awareness of his own poor luck.

Yep, Eight’s not going to be able to stick around, she basically has a giant target on her back now that likely what she has remaining of her cover has been blown clean off by Kitan’s arrival.

Gotta take a leaf out of Five’s book I suppose.

What’s kind of annoying about this line is that they haven’t elaborated on what exactly she’s searching for. I’m guessing a way to help stop Thousupi Group? But what kind of form would that take?

I have absolutely 0 idea why you feel the need to put that basket on your head but whatever floats your boat old man.

That’s never a good question, its so oddly specific that if someone bothers to ask it from you they’re either EXTREMELY insecure…

Or they found something to suggest that the answer might be “Yes”

I like how she’s all serious, “I found a new card I’ve never seen before, and you with the main antagonist”

And the guy’s all just like “You want it? Its yours, go nuts”

Like THAT’S NOT THE PROBLEM.

That’s a funny exchange. “You used to play?” “Gurl what made you think I stopped?“

Behold, the ultimate card game equivalent of “Fuck around and find out”

Also this guy just had a whole ass mechanical battle system installed INTO his store with a switch designed to make use of it… Long before the NEW battle system was developed by Kiano.

If he could even afford that, his inheritance is going to leave Meganeko richer than J.

I’m skipping a lot of frames but its a lot of fluff anyway, to summarise the situation, Kitan wants to see how much Meganeko has “Grown”, deciding that she needs to have some level of maturity before he can trust her with the information of his own past as Number Ten of the Thousand Spirits Group.

Meganeko of course, wants that secret, so this is basically like a “Passing the baton” test, since its evident that there was indeed a previous generation of Battlers, one that consisted of Kitan, the Priest, Uchuuchouten, Bashin Touha, Nine, Kiano and J’s Aunt.

I am unsure which of those held Cornerstones besides the Kitan and the Priest, based on the Priest’s shrine and his suggestive statement to Kitan.

We’re at Turn 29, and strangely we’re not getting a Field preview right before the action, we’re getting it as it occurs.

For example here, Meganeko summons Valiero and only then do we get to see what else is on her board.

A Lv2 Arcanabeast-Ken and a Lv1 Arcanabeast-Hart.

BS04 card, so nothing completely new, low end BP for its level but it otherwise has a low need to get to Lv3 and boosts all the “Arcana” Spirits, of which Meganeko has Ken as well on the board.

Ken provides the same effect when blocking, so they’re a good duo together.

Back to the game, Valiero activates its effect when summoned.

Bringing back ANOTHER new card we’ve yet to see before, Puppet String.

How interesting, Meganeko’s deck seems to have shifted to an “Arcana” named one. Puppet String is a Magic that grants all your Yellow Spirits the “Magician” family and even the “Arcana” name, and its a Cost 2 card with 2 reductions meaning you can actually use it for free.

This is a card from BS03? Seems pretty good, its not seeing use today but there are probably niche uses for it.

Meganeko immediately activates it, effectively trading in Valiero’s effect on summon in order to allow it to receive “Arcana”-named effects.

Levelling up Hart, the attack boost is now live.

And suddenly we have a strong attack AND a strong defense, Valiero’s traits won’t last after this turn though so a 10000 BP swing here doesn’t sound too bad.

Kitan is shown to be at 4 lives at the beginning of this attack, Arcanabeast-Hart and Ken attack which he takes from the Life, reducing him to 2.

I’m not sure if he’s pre-empting this or if Meganeko goes along with it before her next play.

That explains it, thank you, they’re just jumping the gun for the sake of speed, Valiero attacked and was blocked by BlackMachG, during flash timing Meganeko played Flock Recovery which lets her declare a family and refresh 3 spirits in that family.

So she chose “Magician” and refreshed all her Spirits.

Before the destruction of BlackMachG however, Kitan plays Silent Wall, which prevents Meganeko from attacking further.

As Valiero is a Spirit with Light, Flock Recovery returns to her hand at the end of Valiero’s Battle, which will let her pull that bullshit a second time later.

Yeah, Light is pretty nasty, allowing you to flat out re-use powerful magic as much as you like, the main problem is that the Spirits that have it are INCREDIBLY frail, and as a result can be dealt with easily, Light spirits can find themselves incapable of attacking if faced with an enemy Spirit that outfights them.

At this point I wouldn’t be surprised if the entire world new.

The fact that you need a constant blood pressure monitor at all implies that there is something VERY wrong with Kitan’s ability to handle his own blood pressure.

Pressing that usually isn’t a good idea.

Also I caught a glimpse of Kitan’s field, it appears to consist of a BlackMachG and a MachG, I am uncertain if the BlackMachG is a leftover from Valiero’s attack though.

Kitan is distinctly playing a Green deck, interesting. You’d think he’d be a Yellow player.

Then again back when Kitan was Number Ten Yellow likely didn’t exist.

Oh, look at that, a fun new card!

The SaberTiger Xen-Fu, a Cost 7 Spirit from BS05. Its on summon effect can catch an opponent out when they have low core, a more proactive player will see it as an opportunity to mix Xen-Fu with purple to facilitate that effect. Reaching Lv2 isn’t difficult with 3 Core, and it can gain a hefty amount of BP if you’re heavy focused on a Swift build, given that none of Meganeko’s spirits have 1 Core on them, its likely that Kitan is wielding a Green Swift deck.

…Even so, Xen-Fu’s effect When summoned activates.

Arcanabeast-Ken, for some reason, and a Bug-Lestia we haven’t seen before now are exhausted.

My Guess is Meganeko paid for that flock recovery using Arcanabeast-Ken’s core.

Its followed up by Binding Thorn, now Kitan can exhaust one other spirit.

Valiero’s the target, so that leaves Hart refreshed on Meganeko’s board.

…Come again? We’re getting ANOTHER Tribute spirit?!

And that’s depressing, when Bug-Lesia was tributed in Striker’s dream, the particle effects for its Tribute were Green which matched the card, I thought they’d keep that part consistent given it was White for Thor.

Ah well what does it matter, look at this giant black SHELL KNIGHT.

You haven’t seen what Kitan called it since I skipped that frame in this blog, so I’ll name it for you, this is The Emperor Kaiseratlas

Another BS04 Clad-In-Black X-Rare like DarkDragonEmperor Siegfried, this is The Emperor Kaiseratlas. Its rather simple, he’s got a Tribute Condition of 6 or more, The core of which require sending to the Void, a Lv2 BP of 9000 (not huge) and a Double Symbol.

Its low power has a Trade off though, if it DOES defeat something while at Lv2, it’ll snatch 2 lives off the opponent. A more powerful victory life burn than even Kingtaurus.

With this you can remove problem spirits AND take lives.

We interrupt this battle to bring you what appears to be an additional functionality of Kitan’s battle system, Skype.

Surpriiiise! Meganeko’s parents aren’t dead, they’re just away from home!

And it appears they’re aware of Kitan’s high blood pressure, so they get pinged anytime it rises over a certain amount I guess.

Also they’re in africa, how nice.

Ah fuck the worried old lady, Battle time!

Kaiseratlas attacks which Meganeko blocks with Hart, this is bad for the reasons I literally just explained.

Hart’s destruction causes Meganeko to lose 2 lives, now we know the score is currently 2 to 3, in favor of Meganeko.

Ah, It didn’t occur to me that the Mother wouldn’t have known that Meganeko got into Battle Spirits.

Oh, is that a name drop? Meganeko’s name is Fumiko.

So her name is Otonashi Fumiko? That’s a pretty nice name.

Speeding right along because Meganeko’s mother is about as interesting as last episode, MachG and Xen-Fu attack, taking 2 lives from Meganeko.

Machfly can still attack, and Meganeko lacks blockers. She DOES have that Flock recovery left in her hand though.

Machfly attacks and Meganeko plays Flock Recovery, declaring “Divine Spirit” to allow Valiero to block, and Machfly don’t stand no chance against an 8000 BP X-Rare.

Meganeko starts to lose faith and her parents decide to do the thing they’re SUPPOSED to do by DEFAULT and be supportive.

Meganeko plays a 2nd Arcanabeast-Ken and Pom onto her field at their highest levels.

While Ken’s effect is pointless here, at least Pom will award “Clown” family and +1000 BP.

The ArcAngelia Valiero is then offerred as a Tribute.

For THIS cool customer! A new X-Rare from BS05!

And its quite the nasty customer, its got the lowest power we’ve seen at highest level for a Tribute Spirit but that doesn’t matter once you read the effect. Rean’s capable of bouncing an opposing spirit for every Nexus they own, and can’t be blocked by any Spirit with printed effects as long as you control 3 Cost 2 Spirits.

It’s the first boss card for the “Cost 2” Gimmick Yellow has, and probably quite simple to pull off, none of it’s effects demand any prior set up, and an unblockable double symbol is quite scary.

It’s not used today, Tribute Spirits are extremely outdated and have been phased out of use for, well, ages.

But you could catch someone off guard with it, as players very seldom use cards that don’t have printed effects.

There are newer card types however that will catch this thing out if its forced to face it however.

The card quite literally blazes onto the field so we don’t get a good look at it.

This is what we call providing an opportunity to explain the effect.

Now if I recall correctly, I believe all of these have Printed effects.

Meganeko responds with “Build up” which we technically haven’t reviewed before?

Its a simple Blue card, simply treats a Spirit as if it were a single level higher. Several reasons why you might want to do this, BP increase, lack the core to raise its level normally and need to do so NOWISH, or to turn on effects when it is LEAST convenient for your opponent.

Since Rean is now Lv3 and Meganeko controls 3 cost 2 spirits (2 Arcanabeast-Kens and a Pom), Rean is now unblockable.

Without a valid spirit to block, Kitan takes 2 lives, losing him the game.

In the heat of the moment, Meganeko declares this, effectively a confession of love, shame the object of that affection isn’t here.

She tries to save face by saying she didn’t mean it but then corrects herself because she doesn’t want to suggest that her feelings aren’t genuine.

Its kind of adorable.

…Hm, admitting that you want to be Bashin’s Wife infront of your Grandfather and Mother is definitely going to lead to a couple days holed up in your room alone from sheer embarrassment.

I’d find that embarrassing and I’m a 24 year old with a fully healthy relationship, imagine how that feels for a 13 year old girl.

She’s brought back home by the statement Kitan makes that she just defeated Number Ten of the Numbers Elite.

Oh there could be ANY NUMBER of stock reasons for it. “Didn’t want you to think less of me”, “If I told you, you’d fight”, “Didn’t want you to get involved”

For an old timer, Kitan is very anti-nostalgia, even now he’s only really looking forward in time and doesn’t generally look backwards.

Which appears to be why he chose not to yield his past to Meganeko, he just didn’t think it was relevant.

Ah, Kitan wasn’t just a Cornerstone holder, he was the FIRST battler to hold one. That contextualizes his strong opinions of their usage then, he likely feels some responsibility in defining what they are meant for.

Wait, Nanarin gained the ability to allow Kitan to open the gate when he received his Cornerstone many years ago?

Um…

Wouldn’t that make Nanarin an INCREDIBLY old dog?

Does being a Cornerstone Pet make you immortal?

Forward-thinking all the way to a fault that led him to fail to yield somewhat useful information to his own Grandaughter.

Well actually if he came out with it outright he’d likely be relied upon, and he’s of the opinion their descendants will carry on, so there wasn’t a necessary need.

Since Uchuuchouten is Kitan’s student, the main cast, which is to say, the “oncoming generation” is technically facing the past generation, which comprise the Numbers.

I don’t think you need to tell him of all people, he’s a wise old man, he’s not going to willingly yield that information-

Unless of course he says it in his sleep in which case can you really blame him?

Nah, interestingly based on the context of his sleeptalk he says “Don’t give up, she’ll be your bride”, and given that Meganeko’s last name is “Otonashi” that means her surname hasn’t changed from the last generation. Which would imply that her father’s name is still “Otonashi”

Long story short, Kitan is dreaming about encouraging his son when it came to Meganeko’s mother.

Meanwhile Eight appears to have ONCE AGAIN, gotten lost.

At this point just take Card Sensei with you, he’s got a much better sense of direction than you have. Maybe he’ll get you a Car Navi for your birthday.

Or maybe if she’s feeling nice Hayami will lend you Papa Navi.

…Or none of this will actually matter because one of Nine’s masked goons has arrived.

This isn’t ominous at all!

And that’s the end of the episode!

Well, how do I put this, it wasn’t exactly filler because it filled in certain pieces of information about the Numbers Elite without actually progressing the plotline much.

From what I can gauge, the Numbers Elite still existed as powerful Battlers and many of those Numbers Elite held Cornerstones, Kitan being the first wielder of one. Kitan trained somebody who eventually became King Uchuuchouten, and taught Nine how the Cornerstones worked.

And that’s basically it, other than Kitan was therefore acquainted with the other members of Numbers Elite.

The Batosupi Lecture today covers Meganeko’s new X-Rare from BS05, The PhantomLord Rean, I already discussed its current usage rates and how strong it actually is so I’m uncertain what else I might of missed.

Yeah there’s nothing really much for me to talk about, I guess we could go on about what a good strategy for gathering Tribute Spirits is.

The thing about Tribute spirits is that its an enforced deckmakeup, your deck needs to contain valid targets for its Tribute otherwise the card is always a brick, we’ve seen Bug-Lesia used for tribute twice, and I’d hazard on the side of “Bug-Lesia is a bad Tribute target”

Its Cost 6, yes, has high power, indeed but its so poor for Tribute fodder because you have to pay a lot of core to put it on the board and just HOPE the high BP sticks, or you could not do that and play cheaper cards.

You’re allowed to Tribute when summoning for no cost, so actually for Kaiseratlas, the best Tribute target is The OldSage Trenton when summoning Kaiseratlas through the effect, Kaiseratlas will be summoned for no cost but you still have to offer up Trenton as Tribute.

For Rean I would argue The BalloonMan Barball makes a good tribute target due to its generous reductions allowing it to be played very very cheaply. Which means you can likely follow up into a Rean in perhaps even the same turn.

Those are just my thoughts on Tribute in general, and try to never emulate Jack Knight with the way he wields Tribute, because jesus christ is his deck just crazy bad for the card he’s running.

Anyway, I’ll see you guys next time! 5 episodes remain!

Righto, last episode was actually pretty okay, a large part of it was generally pointless but it did finally resolve Eight’s character arc, and give us some plot tidbits about what Thousand Spirits Group are planning.

There’s not much that could particularly ruin this next episode for me.

That is something I CANNOT forgive. We’re getting a Striker-centric BEACH Episode?

There’s no way this title doesn’t entail a Beach Episode.

Striker’s half naked and there’s a ball.

I can only pray that this is only football.

Speaking of which, how is he even KICKING that thing? I thought he wasn’t meant to be doing Sports… Like ever?

Except this is Volleyball, a game played with one’s hands, and you’re meant to aim OVER the net, not into it.

Good Job Striker, you’ve bicycle kicked your way into idiocy, I didn’t actually think that was possible because bicycle kicks are like the ONE thing in football I find actively cool.

I am not familiar with volleyball or its rules but I guess that infraction awarded a point to the other team.

J and Card Sensei are not quite sure what to make of it in-episode but their responses seem to follow the wisest words ever said in competitive history: “We take those”

Oi, back off Bashin, he did like the ONE cool Sports maneuver, followed only by the Slam Dunk.

While Bashin goes off and requests another game (Please stop him, I can’t stand sports), Striker notices My Sunshine looking espresso depresso.

Also she’s here in her My Sunshine appearance, how does she not have a myriad of thirsty fans coming after her?

You’d think she’d have like a Suiren form for this situation.

They went to school to receive their grades in the middle of Summer break? I don’t quite understand.

The only time I’ve ever had to pick up my Grades during a Holiday season was due to having an early Holiday having completed my last exam of my last year of high school.

There was quite literally no point to coming in because there was nothing further to teach. I don’t really get how they can have received their grades AFTER Summer break started while still being in school.

Unless Meganeko is referring to a bit earlier but… They went to Kyoto with no problems?

I’m lost, I assume it won’t matter, its just irrelevant small chatter to fill the scene.

Did Vanguard quite literally just copy the plot of Bashin Toppa? Is that what’s happening?

How do BOTH shows have a fucking beach episode that consists of the main characters coming in FULL fucking swimming uniform, only to go “Ocean? What’s that? I just came here to play cards”

THEN, CONSIDER THIS YOU OLD FUCKING FART.

PICK A VENUE THAT DOESN’T ENCOURAGE SWIMMING AND RELAXATION, AND SECONDLY, DON’T GIVE THEM THE WRONG IDEA BY COMING IN FULL FUCKING SWIMMING GEAR IF YOU AREN’T GONNA GOD DAMN USE IT.

Beach Episodes, the one thing that could not be more unmixable with card games if it fucking tried.

Oh, right, even though the cards are like evidently shown to have their official card backings, for whatever reason the show automatically assumes that the cards are straight up in their sleeves, it’ll get mentioned in the next series in some degree as well. So everyone’s just bought either clear sleeves, or uses sleeves that share the backing of the cards they play with.

The thing is sleeved cards need to be drawn a certain way which a lot of people just ignore for Card Game anime, its a minor detail but I think the new series of Vanguard uses properly sleeved cards and draws them well too.

In any case, J here has brought water-resistant metal sleeves in order to facilitate playing near water.

Good Job J. Weird use of Sawaragi resources but good job.

I’m not sure why you’d want to DO that, the sleeves are useful if you fuck up or a breeze blows too hard but playing them IN THE WATER sounds like a terrible idea.

Thank you Meganeko, you were once my favourite.

She’s just REALLY out of it, you’d think Pink would have shook her into shape by now.

Okay you did this before with Amade Us and it was creepy then, it is no less creepy now, please stop making that fucking face.

And now Striker’s getting flushed, listen, Shounen anime and requited love is NOT A FUCKING THING. There is so little value to teasing this when we know for a fact that the attraction won’t be reciprocated!

Okay, getting relationship advice from animals who have VERY DIFFERENT BREEDING HABITS TO PEOPLE is a bad idea.

Im calling it now, it’s not love, never has been, and never will be.

I like how he’s asking quite literally every animal EXCEPT the one that actually fucking knows her, you’d get a more appropriate answer out of Pink than literally anyone here.

…I mean for the Manager maybe but I feel like that’s not what you mean.

Remember kids, if you want to know who someone likes, the answer is almost always “Unless its you, nunya business”

Striker’s completely distracted by the question of “Who exactly has My Sunshine fallen in love with” and has decided to distract himself by focusing on Battle Spirits.

I appear to have misunderstood, he plans to solve the My Sunshine problem through Battle Spirits, rather than distract himself from it with Battle Spirits.

The picture My Sunshine appears to be drawing looks like a Rice Ball. Was she flushed because she was hungry and didn’t want to mention it?

…No Cap, no it fucking couldn’t. What part of that looks like a god damn Soccer Ball?

That doesn’t look even REMOTELY like what she’s drawing, she even filled in the hole! It’s obviously a rice ball!

The animals suggest that this means that My Sunshine is actually in love with Striker, but Striker being a complete muppet thinks she might be in love with Soccer Balls.

A tad intriguing of an idea but I doubt Soccer Balls can really provide for her needs Striker.

My Sunshine moves onto a different picture in the sand.

I am convinced she is just hungry, that is clearly a croissant.

ITS DOUBLE ENDED AND THERE’S A FUCKING HEAD BETWEEN THE ENDS, HOW IS THAT HERCULES GEO’S HORN!?

End it.

Just end it all.

I’m stumped on this one, that could literally be anything, I’m going to guess Banana, or Omelette but I’m certain they’re both wrong.

Oh come on if she was drawing that she’d at LEAST remember that his hair fucking FOLDS IN on itself!

SHE’S HUNGRY FOR A DISH, NOT THE D.

This episode is going to make me pop a blood vessel.

I FUCKING KNEW IT.

Now the next question is, “Why is she hungry? Why doesn’t she go eat”

Well the likelihood is she is, as an idol, on a strict diet of things that she’s allowed to eat to ensure that she maintains her physical form, and as such, probably can’t even contractually eat when she wants to.

Or she’s got a craving, one of the 2.

Okay, it’s a little more smaller in scope than a career-wide problem, she’s dieting because she’s got a Photo shoot soon and wants to look her best.

Still, I got close.

Oh, that last one wasn’t even food, she was coping by remembering her days in Hawaii apparently, she surfed a lot.

Striker apparently can’t quite cope with the idea that My Sunshine might be attracted to him so he swims to cool off.

And of course the more he thinks about it, the more he likes the idea of having My Sunshine as his girlfriend.

But we already know she’s hungry, not in love, so the rest of this episode is just going to be complete pointlessness isn’t it?

And now the bitch is having a delusion, he’s SUMMONING HIMSELF.

Can I just leave? And go read the Manga instead or something? Please.

The Manga can’t be anywhere near as bad as this, not with Bashin’s design like THIS:

The characters ACTUALLY LOOK COOL.

Why is he imagining trying to save My Sunshine from a Bun-Ffalo?

And he was so lost in his delusion he forgot that he was actually in the water and has now begun to drown.

Yeah fuck you, you deserve that after how you’ve wasted my time!

OH GOD NOW HE’S IN A DREAM SEQUENCE.

I don’t see any narrative value to this episode so you can bet your ass I’m just going to rip and tear into it like my life fucking depends on it.

Yep, this is definitely a dream sequence, My Sunshine is not a huggy person unless she doesn’t want you going somewhere, like with J.

Striker tries to confess his feelings but gets interrupted by what appears to be Kyouka’s voice.

…He’s dreaming about Kyouka and My Sunshine fighting over him…

I can’t believe I’m actually saying this but Kyouka has MORE chemistry with Bashin than she does with you Striker.

And BASHIN already has a designated love interest!

Interesting how the Suiren Persona has a bit of a saucier costume, that’s kind of interesting.

But either way, if 2 girls like a 3rd person and polyamory isn’t an option, they definitely aren’t going to settle their differences on a single competitive game, let alone the fact they’re doing it DIRECTLY INFRONT OF THE OBJECT OF THEIR AFFECTIONS.

Neither, you’re 13, you’ve got school to finish.

…They aren’t actually going to show us a fictional battle are they?

Please no.

Oh jesus they are.

Alright, Kyouka has a new card here among her Spirits, she has a Rock-Golem and an AppetiteFlower Bug-Lesia both at Lv1

Its just a Cost 6 Vanilla, hefty cost but high Power at Lv3. Nothing particularly interesting. And of course she’s using a GREEN card here.

Kyouka also has The Victory Stand of the Glory on her board, which we saw last episode, at Lv1 it lets her discard from her deck to pay for the cost of Nexuses she plays.

Suiren has a Level 2 WaterSnake Seaserpenta and The Beatpriest at Lv1

BOTH of them are using Green are they? Well isn’t THAT convenient for a dream sequence.

Also I like how they’re making use of a dumbed down variant of Isekai that takes place on the fucking BEACH.

More Green to appease Striker’s sensibilities…
Alright I’ll stop ragging on about it, it makes sense he would dream about Green cards because Dreams can only be comprised of stuff your brain can remember, if it hasn’t seen it before the brain can’t produce it. As such, every face you see in your dream is actually re-used from a person you actually know, even if they’re pretending to be someone else.

Also yeah, new card we should probably look at that. BlackMonoqueiroz

Another BS04 card, this time of the Shellman family, its got a similar effect to the original Monoqueiroz but its a bigger boost in exchange for it being limited to specific families.

BlackMonoqueiroz looks more like it should be called “RedMonoqueiroz” honestly.

Anyway its effect triggers, boosting itself and Stagscissor by +3000 BP.

Stagscissor and BlackMonoqueiroz attack, each slashing lives from Suiren who is now on 3. We don’t know how many lives Kyouka has.

Seaserpenta and Bug-Lesia do combat, destroying each other as both have 4000 BP.

I’m happy Striker has also noticed the sudden increase in their Green cards, I am less happy that you don’t realise they are all cards you explicitly remember.

And he’s having a fantasy WITHIN a fantasy where he’s had KIDS with her, look at the Chibi Kyouka and Striker juniors.

Granted, this place looks rather shit, the walls are cracked and the scroll is sabotaged.

You… you realise Kyouka is rich right? You’d benefit from HER family.

I don’t protest the idea that Kyouka would make a good wife, I protest the idea that she would be a wife to literally anyone in this fucking show.

Its Suiren’s turn and she plays Hellscorpio.

And she follows up with Life Chain, I imagine she’ll want to destroy her high costed Beatpriest to gain 5 core, she’ll net only 1 extra core this turn but its 5 extra core for the entire game.

She had 11 core in her reserve earlier, and she just got 5, she’s spent 5 this turn for Hellscorpio and Life Chain and there’s a single core on Hellscorpio as well.

I count 22 core total. And she’s currently got 16 available in her reserve, and 1 on Hellscorpio.

And for this move she’d pay 3 core for Hellwitch and 5 for Negapluto, the core invested for their levels is 4, so 12, she has enough core for this.

Also Negapluto is new.

oho, ohohohoho…

That’s interesting, that’s real interesting. Negapluto is an Ogre Wizard family spirit that can alter what colour spirits it can and cannot be blocked by based on its Level.

But that’s not the interesting part, the interesting part, is that it’s a card from BS05.

We’re on the 5th set baby!

At Lv2, Negapluto can’t be blocked by Blue or White Spirits. And Kyouka only has Rock-Golem as a Blocker.

Suiren attacks with Negapluto and follows up with Nature Forces…

I think I’ve reviewed this card before, but just incase we’ve forgotten, its a card that can’t be used during the Main Step. You can only use it during Flash Timing, and it moves all the Core in your Trash to a Spirit you control.

Naturally, in today’s game, its banned, because you can effectively spend all your core, use Nature Forces to get them back and THEN get the Magic in your hand live, you basically get to have your cake AND eat it.

She of course, gives it all to Hellwitch so she can get rid of both Stagscissor and BlackMonoqueiroz

Unable to be blocked by Rock-Golem, Kyouka is forced to take a life from Negapluto’s attack

And its revealed she also had 5 lives (3 vs 5->4)

Hellwitch then attacks, vaporizing the only targets available, Stagscissor and BlackMonoqueiroz.

Kyouka COULD have blocked this one but then chose not to, taking it from the life (3 vs 3)

Striker laments that Kyouka is having a bad time because “Green spirits will always be meant to use for support.”

He’s suggesting that the Green Attribute, with the ability to Core Boost, makes Green effectively relegated to a secondary colour and that wielding it as a primary colour can be an uphill battle, but Green has some of the gnarliest traits about it.

Green, like Red, can directly snatch lives out of the opponent, which Green currently does so by exercising Kingtaurus’ effect, in which it needs to win battles, and Kingtaurus has a fairly strong Lv3 BP, plus there is Swift which is difficult to adequately use unless its Mono green (with the exception of MachG)

…And then Striker has a delusion about getting sat on by Suiren.

I don’t…

Are we seeing the first ever SIMP!?

Yeah, what ARE you thinking Striker? Jesus boy, you’re too young for this shit.

Its Kyouka’s turn and she uses The Fruit of Life, deploying it at Lv2, she doesn’t state her use of the Blue Nexus’ effect but I don’t think she’d want to so willingly give up that core.

Unlike Bashin or anyone else’s decks, this deck looks like it has a nice even split between Green and Blue. She follows up with BlackMachG and Diatryma.

Sometimes all ye can do is mount a defense and hope for the best, she’s only got 1 card left in her hand which is kind of spooky.

Yeah, even IF Suiren is open, she’s not beatable, and Hellwitch will just annihilate whatever swings. She can’t annihilate both though, only 1. But right now that’s not really an option.

Striker if you’re going to have a Delusion, AT LEAST HAVE ONE THAT’S REASONABLE.

Binding woods will make the previous attempt at mounting a defense entirely irrelevant, at the very least Suiren can only exhaust 1 Spirit, probably why she played the Skulldemon so she could get the other.

BlackMachG is the unfortunate target, having selected Green.

I’m surprised, she’s still got a Rock-Golem and a Diatryma, surely Blue would be more beneficial?

If you expect me to accept the explanation of “Because she had Poison shoot, therefore she could get rid of Rock-Golem anyway” I don’t believe you.

She could have saved that for a later disruption.

Negapluto attacks, Kyouka is brought to 2 lives (3 vs 3->2)

Skulldemon attacks, blocked by Diatryma, resulting in both of their destructions thanks to Curse.

Hellwitch attacks, destroying the exhausted BlackMachG.

And is brought to her last life.

If I remember correctly, Kyouka’s out of blockers and Suiren still has Hellscorpio available.

Someone PLEASE explain to me why a Shounen anime is depicting a 13-year old boy, dreaming about being WHIPPED by one of his friends?

I am NOT ENTIRELY SURE THAT’S BETTER I’LL BE HONEST.

Kyouka answers Hellscorpio by Swift summoning good ol’ trusty MACHG.

There’s nothing quite like the Cost 1 little shit, he’s just a good Spirit, a free chump block is nothing to scoff at, especially one your opponent can’t see.

Both were Lv1, and MachG has 2000 BP at Lv1 compared to Hellscorpio’s 1000 BP.

It’s Purple’s major flaw, they have very powerful effects but VERY little power backing it.

Its Kyouka’s turn, she summons a 2nd Bug-Lesia. I’m really not sure what this (Albiet cool looking) Cost 6 Vanilla is going to do at this juncture?

I’m sorry run that by me again? You’re doing WHAT with Bug-Lesia?

Maybe I’m the one dreaming, did Kyouka just Tribute a Spirit?

TO PLAY WHAT NOW?! A BS05 BLUE X-RARE!? IN A DREAM SEQUENCE?!

REALLY?!

Forever tying Kyouka to the Beast Head family, is this card, The HugeBeastLord Behedoth. The first we see of the X-Rares of BS05.

As with all Tribute Spirits up until this point, Behedoth carries a Double Symbol. And shares the same condition with Dark Siegfried, sending all Core from a Cost 6 or greater Spirit to the Void, which if you’re playing optimally should be ONE core at any given time.

Whats notable about it is it’s effect When summoned, for every different colour of Magic in the opposing Trash it wipes out ONE spirit, of your choice, no questions asked. ANY spirit, conditionless spirit wiping is not something common in this current card pool, the best we had was the Tidal Wave card and that required your Nexuses AND your opponent got to pick the cards, on TOP of needing a Double Symbol Spirit just to use it.

And finally, at Lv3 which isn’t cheap, requiring 6 core, your opponent simply can’t answer Behedoth’s battles with Magic.

It’s not strong but it can be devastating, and in this case, rather punishing to an opponent who mixes colours, and even if they don’t mix all that much you could still time this well to wipe out a powerful spirit of theirs.

He’s depicted as a LOT DARKER than he’s displayed here, not sure I like the colour scheme they went with for his model.

As Suiren has used both Purple and Green Magic over the course of this game, Behedoth can destroy 2 Spirits free of charge.

Hellwitch and Negapluto are the unfortunate targets.

Shame, I quite liked the Undead Samurai over there, wish his effect was miles better though won’t lie.

With a full attack, MachG and Behedoth have enough symbols to take all 3 of Suiren’s lives.

Making a win for the imaginary Kyouka.

For some reason Striker, after the battle, morphs into his adult self and Kyouka spawns 2 children immediately.

Striker’s delusions have gone too far, now MEGANEKO is joining in the Striker Harem dream?

Get me out of here, I don’t want to be here anymore.

AND THAT’S JUST ILLEGAL.

Okay I’ll be reasonable, its entirely normal for minors going through puberty to fantasize about those who may be older than them and more mature.

HOWEVER, that is within the privacy of their minds and is NOT to be exhibited to the general public. Nor should any kind of relationship ever be formed between these people.

I DO NOT NEED TO BE SEEING ANY KIND OF DEPICTION OF NUMBER EIGHT FIGHTING FOR STRIKER’S LOVE.

I’m done. Get me out of here. I want out. LEMME OUT.

SO HAVE I.

No, please, for the love of whatever god rules this universe let Striker die.

What I have seen within the confines of his mind should never be relayed to the world.

No My Sunshine, I’m not alright, I had to live through whatever the fuck this episode was.

Trust me, please, when I say that you absolutely do not want to know.

Striker decides to punish the animals who led him on this problematic dream, turns out the animals admit they were just fucking with him.

And yes Striker, that’s the exact face I’m making.

A common trope in Card Game anime where they discuss topics of love always tends to be one of the parties admitting their love to the game itself to avoid the question of who they’re actually interested in.

Usually because relationships are, quite rightfully, irrelevant in an anime about playing fucking cards.

Which makes me CONTINUE to wonder, if they’re never going to show requited love in card game anime, DO THEY BOTHER WITH THESE 30 MINUTE WASTES OF MY LIFE!?

Good, Fuck him.

And I feel the need to clarify “Not literally” after the stain this episode left on me.

We jump to a segment where Striker and My Sunshine are out in the sunset.

Watch, this is standard shounen fakeoutery, he’ll try to confess and won’t quite say it.

Instead of saying ANYTHING along the lines of “I am romantically interested in you” he just comes out with the most pointless thing ever, wanting the fictional version of Suiren born in his broken mind, to win.

She doesn’t quite remember WHICH battle he’s on about but thanks him anyway since he went out of his way to say it.

Which is a NORMAL thing for ANYONE to do.

This is apparently too much for the poor boy and he goes for a run.

Yeah FUCK you! You deserve everything you’re getting for the pain you’ve caused me.

GOD THE EPISODE IS OVER, FINALLY.

I’d talk about cards or Batosupi lecture or SOMETHING but believe me when I say I absolutely want out of this post as much as possible.

Cold Shower, Brain Bleach, the lot, so I’ll see you for the next one.

And I’m sorry for what everyone had to witness here today, sweet JESUS.

Ah, we’re finally passed the legend of Jack Knight, and the Numbers Elite are in shambles, they lost 3 members in the span of an episode.

The remaining members consist of:
Number Nine
Number Eight
Number Seven
Number Four

And of course, King Uchuuchouten, only 4 Numbers remain, and we still haven’t seen hide nor hair of a Six or a Ten.

And they’ve evidently been crippled as the creator of the Battle System and the creator of Battle Spirits is no longer on their side, they no longer have the strongest battler either.

Gonna be hard to see how they recover from this.

It appears this episode is going to likely centre around Card Sensei, he’s the only “Master” I’d associate with the colour Blue.

And all of the above problems I just mentioned can all be sourced to one specific act of kindness, that is, Eight’s decision to be a member of Team Shomen Toppa, that specific act then led to the resignation of 3 KEY members of the Numbers Elite.

Eight’s finally getting reprimanded for that decision.

Eight states the same thing she did to Elliott, it would have been unfair for them to be disqualified because they counted on Galaxy rejoining the Numbers Elite.

Nine seems to pick up that Eight may have become attached to them due to proximity, which is exactly what happened to Five, so he’s deciding to cut her off from her Students to further benefit the Numbers.

Well, not really, you only did it at the behest of Nine to begin with. Nine is effectively freeing you from that obligation, the fact that you’re protesting that now is evidence that he’s right about your attachment.

You know, you think if you keep playing the “Number Five” card on the woman who’s evidently been deeply affected by her relationship being cut off by his leave, it would eventually stop working.

But of course, it works every time, you think she’d have gotten over it by now.

But of course, Love is a strange emotion and makes people do woefully stupid things in pursuit, or sometimes, in spite of it.

Apparently, undeterred from the last failure of a Tournament, Nine is setting up the next one, known as the “King Uchuuchouten Cup”

I do like how the invitations are colour-coded.

Specifically assigned to the members of Team Shomen Toppa, and a White one for J.

This suggests to me that this has everything to do with the fact that Nine now knows who holds the Cornerstones.

There’s that term, the “Summit” again, it seems to be used in reference to the place where Uchuuchouten will be fought.

Bashin learns the news of the King Uchuuchouten Cup, Aibou makes an interesting point that the Championship didn’t feel like the end but thinks its weird that they’re announcing another Tournament already.

I don’t think its that weird? Its a game, to keep it alive you evidently want to keep hosting Tournaments no?

It appears the news also has some details as to who has been selected. Suiren’s already received her invite it seems.

Seems only appropriate to select every member of the winning team from the last Championship, as well as the runner ups.

Bashin wonders why he’s yet to receive his invitation just yet.

I believe the answer may have something to do with the fact that Eight has directional sense of a dead ant.

Wow she doesn’t even get a car to do it with this time, really getting the shitty grunt work.

Then again long walks are not bad, being alone in your own head is actually quite liberating. During work experience at a law firm, one of my favourite tasks was having the 30 minute long walk to deliver some mail, it can be very refreshing.

Ah, seems we’re heading to Meganeko’s house this time.

Her occupational habits are starting to manifest as her typical way of thinking, though I’m not sure we need to see this struggle at this point because we already know that she’s been combatting her desire for her students to succeed for a while now.

She leaves Meganeko’s invite in the door. What some people might miss is that even though she’s catching her Teacher-like tendencies, she still chose not to interrupt Meganeko’s studying to deliver her invite.

Oh god, pay attention to your pockets! AND DON’T LEAVE ESSENTIAL THINGS IN THE SAME POCKET FOR EXACTLY THIS REASON!

God this is pain.

Because of course someone picked it up. Based on the title of the episode though, it’s very likely to be Card Sensei.

Nice to see Bashin and J are catching up on lost time with each other by going to a Batosupi Centre. I’d like to see the changes J made to his deck since discarding his “Jack Knight” persona.

Ah, right, J was already gone when Baito-san joined the workforce, so its likely he’s never seen her before.

But strange that Eight is suddenly here though. And that entire wall is comprised of cards from the base set.

The girl at the counter seems to be buying a Pentan.

Man J really wasn’t used to having friends and going to things.

He’s back at a place he’s been to before and he’s just like “awww shit dafuq did I miss!? WHY DID I STOP GOING HERE?”

Its occurred to me that Okyou must be incredibly small if she can happily chill on a 13-year old’s shoulder without any problems at all.

For reference, I’m ignoring this line of dialogue mostly because we as the audience already know J hasn’t recieved his invite, the White letter was still in Eight’s pocket when she dropped the Blue invite.

J’s confidence doesn’t appear to have been incredibly damaged from his loss as Jack Knight.

I’m REALLY more interested in J’s deck right now, I want to see how he’s altered it, and what he’s done with that Red X-Rare.

Bashin does use the opportunity to poke around J’s head a little, trying to see if there’s anyting useful they can learn about the new tournament as J might have been privy to that information before he left the Numbers.

Unfortunately, not even Eight knew about it before being asked to deliver letters, so this makes sense that J wouldn’t know.

After not facing his friends in so long its probably really refreshing for J to be able to take on Bashin freely.

This is a weird statement. Bashin has mostly been wielding a Deck comprised of both Red and Blue cards, and has had many situations where he’s sat on an abundance of Blue Spirits, though J could be noting that Bashin has toned down the presence of Blue in his deck and has more straight Red cards.

J’s got quite a mixed board, we can clearly see a Green, Red, White AND Yellow card on his field.

He’s got a Thor in his hand at least, so that’s still there. His colour mixup hasn’t changed much.

Also I think that Green card is a MachG, I can’t identify the rest from here though.

Just go and give them the fucking letter, god!

They got REALLY into their battle and Eight managed to boomerang the cards INTO THEIR HANDS.

Was there a problem with just leaving it by them discreetly? Or having someone else deliver them for you? Perhaps one of the other workers?

WAS THIS NECESSARY!?

Bashin finally gets his invite but rather than be happy that he got one, he’s more concerned about the fucking Nazo-Otona that gave it to him.

Its… a bit strange to want something from a messenger while simultaeniously and reflexively wanting to shoot said messenger once you’ve received the item.

Its a Nazo-Otona, what the hell are they gonna do? Play card games with him?

Since Nazo-Otonas need to award X-Rares, I guess its good that they’re efficient at running away once spotted.

Without Elliott there’s likely a shortage of X-Rares to award nowadays.

Bashin and J do get to run into Striker, lemme guess, he’s got his invite already?

And for my next prediction, he didn’t see who sent it to him.

Of course, because that would be convenient.

Time for a strategy meeting at J’s place.

Granted, they’ve only got 5 of the 6 letters, Kyouka despite being the one who defeated Nine has yet to recieve hers.

Meganeko has doubts that they can defeat Uchuuchouten, as the Tournament name suggests they will have to, Bashin reassures them that they’ve got a powerful user of each colour.

Nothing like simply not receiving an invitation to kick your self-esteem in the nuts.

And Kyouka has yet to be seen playing a Blue card, she’s had ONE Bun-Ffalo in her hand to this day, that is the closest she’s been to one.

That is true, the Cornerstones seem to be able to function regardless of who they’re currently with, but because Card Sensei has the speaking Guragurii, Card Sensei is evidently the chosen Blue Battler.

Ohai there Guragurii, we were JUST talking about you!

I guess Card Sensei moved back to his old apartment, nice that he’s coming back.

I guess there also wasn’t a necessity for him to be so far away anymore given that a majority of the Numbers have dispersed and Thousand Spirits Group have a much looser influence.

That business seems to be exactly between Seven and Nine-

…That sounds way worse than I anticipated it would sound.

In defense of Eight, even BASHIN got lost in this mansion, I think he found a Golden Toilet before he found where J was.

Card Sensei’s here, and he SHAVED.

Thank god, he looked absolutely ridiculous with that massive beard. (Note: I REALLY do not like facial hair, on anyone)

Card Sensei ain’t fucking around today apparently. But while his intentions are relatively noble he hasn’t exactly asked what “those kids” actually want to do, they’re more than willing to fight, and besides, they’re only card games.

…Or so they will be until they actually have rammifications. Which might be the issue here.

You keep throwing out this insult but it really makes less and less sense the more you examine it, Card Sensei has been mostly present at every single event the cast have been involved with, the only thing he’s done is openly voice his opposition to the Thousand Spirits Group. And yet he’s back here again showing his face and directly opposing you.

What part of that is “Cowardly”?

And neither have the audience, come to think of it.

We’re 43 episodes in and we have NO idea what Thousand Spirits Group are actually trying to do.

It appears Card Sensei keeps appearing to Eight nowadays because she was made to take his role as the children’s watchman. He likely sees this as an opportunity to separate her from the Numbers Elite.

I wonder if Card Sensei was also inspired by Bashin’s battle with Jack Knight, a similar sentiment is being expressed here, with less of the “Adult/Child Dichotomy” given no one’s trying to grow up in this scene.

We interrupt this Romance to bring you Guragurii’s words of wisdom.

Do not listen to them, they consist of LIES.

He LIES. Everyone knows that Japan is the only place you can have fun because Battle Spirits exists there!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have an anime to review (because that clearly is the same as playing Battle Spirits)

At Meganeko’s behest, Guragurii whips out the special training that made her so tough.

I draw the line at training that does not consist of many hours of hard, rigorous card game playing.

Ah this old thing, some of the Manju are made from 100% Wasabi while the rest contain Sweet Bean Paste if I remember correctly.

And Bashin dunked 2 of them without even bothering to wait, good job.

I guess we’re moving onto the Karuta cards mighty quick, I am uncertain how this makes anyone stronger.

These Karuta cards have random phrases adorned with them, you’re meant to hear Guragurii start a phrase and then find the matching card.

In this case, it was “Yellow cards are slightly perverted spirits to lead boys astray.”

…Which Meganeko instantly grabbed and seemed to think was correct.

Meganeko, you doing okay?

Jesus these Karuta cards got weird all of a sudden. Meganeko’s been conditioned into thinking Yellow cards are perverted and now we’re just saying Striker’s just the support.

Guragurii really just walked in here and chose violence.

Ruining my perceptions of the main cast aside, it appears Eight and Card Sensei are still fighting.

Do they have a Karuta card for “When there is an impasse, smash it with Batosupi”?

…ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS!?

How hard was it to show us this when EIGHT FOUGHT NINE THE FIRST TIME!?

WHAT PART OF THAT WAS SO GODFORSAKENLY HARD.

For those who have no idea what I’m losing my shit over, for whatever reason 2 Nazo-Otonas were able to go to Isekai despite demanding that Cornerstone holders take them there each time, implying they couldn’t go themselves. And even Seven has shown the ability to be able to open the gate without the need of a Cornerstone OR an animal available to assist.

The reason for that has been unknown, unreferenced and unexplained… Until now.

The Rings of the Numbers Elite can act as Pseudo-Cornerstones that allow the Nazo-Otonas to open the gate and battle in Isekai.

Why this was so hard to actually show us until now is fucking BEYOND me.

But hey lets look on the bright side, Eight actually has a Gate Open, Release animation.

Its not the best board in the world but Eight’s board isn’t bad, a Lv3 Hellwitch can annihilate Exhausted Spirits of Cost 6 or below, or Cost 1 or below.

And the Historic Battlefield of the Cursed will award Eight with draws anytime Card Sensei’s spirits are exhausted, something they must do just to attack.

Card Sensei seems to be working with a Blue/Yellow Mix of cards with the following Spirits:
Piyon Lv2
Barball Lv2
Rabirabi
Diatryma
The BlackFairy Ti-Tanya Lv2, a New card
And the Soldier Gustav

Both lives are at full 5 because of course they are.

From BS04, a Dark variant of Ti-Tanya to go with the rest of our Dark-versioned Spirits that are significantly better than their originals.

She works with the triple Spirit/Nexus strategy except its only with Spirits this time, if you have 3+ Yellow Spirits every Magic gets an additional Yellow Cost reduction, that stacks with itself so if those 3+ Spirits consist of multiple Ti-Tanyas, you get a reduction for each.

This card, while not seen nowadays does have a couple of rather niche uses, allowing any Magic to gain Yellow reduction, including other Yellow Magic that already have an abundance of it can be quite useful, some Magic become rather potent when used for free under Ti-Tanya’s effects.

Bitch. That says more about the player who let him get 6 spirits in the first place.

Late stage Battle Spirits anime at its finest, we’re going to start seeing a lot of characters using cards that have been used by others before.

It saves budget, yes, but its also showing the natural conclusion of a small card pool, we only get 4 X-Rares a set, and X-Rares are what make up this game’s boss cards.

Especially given the main cast are quite powerful battlers, I think it would be fair to suggest that others may draw upon their strategies, even down to using their X-Rares.

It’s entirely normal, and its something Battle Spirits isn’t afraid to do with their characters, its a good representation of what happens when a Meta forms.

…Not that I think Destlord would have had Meta relevance at all but you get the point.

Ah, its THIS old combo again, you Destlord exhaust all Lv2s and then draw for each one you landed upon.

And then Eight plays a… New card(?)

Its called “The WaterSnake Sea Serpenda” but I’ll be honest with you this is the closest thing Battle Spirits has to D&D’s False Hydra, got that’s unsettling.

It’s got a rather simplistic effect, if you clear a certain number of hand cards on the opponent’s start step you can bounce a card to their hand, forcing them to re-summon it for the cost they paid all over again. This condition gets easier as you go up in level.

Note that this is one of few cards that doesn’t carry over it’s effects to the next level, so you can’t mass bounce with this effect, you can only make the cards needed to do so much easier.

For its Cost, BP and ability, this card isn’t very good. In Card Sensei’s case most of his cards can clear the reductions required to play them for free rather easily, at worst he may have to pay 1 or 2 core to bring it back which is a minor inconvenience.

I’m sorry Card Sensei but a question about things other than the game are not suitable responses to a Spirit’s attack, please proceed.

Its such a non-answer, because the follow-up is going to be “Well why did you feel the need to do that?“

Hellwitch’s effect destroys the Cost 0 Piyon and the Cost 6 Barball.

Eight demands to know whether Card Sensei will take from the life or block and before he has the opportunity to even answer she spits this out.

His indeciveness seems directly proportional to your unreasonableness Eight.

Card Sensei blocks with Rabirabi, and Rabirabi is destroyed.

No I am not keeping track of the number of cards Eight has whatsoever.

I’d argue that the Blue cards are far from cute but that’s difficult to say when Rabirabi exists.

Could you have chosen a less annoying time to FLIRT!?

I will say for a blast this huge and the only resultant impact being ONE of Card Sensei’s lives that just give off a small “ping” its a bit anticlimactic.

Anyway, Card Sensei is now on 4 lives.

Interesting choice of tech, but I guess for Seaserpenta it makes sense that you’d want to do it, its got low BP but you can potentially snatch a Spirit’s destruction in addition to raising its Level to put your opponent on the backfoot of an effect they weren’t expecting.

Awaken is a Red-Exclusive Keyword, it makes sense that the effect of gaining it would look Red as well.

Yeesh, you either have Black Lightning or bright Violet lasers.

Card Sensei is losing spirits left and right, I think he’s only got Gustav and Black Ti-Tanya left I think.

seems like a good position to end one’s turn in, a huge hand and 4 spirits removed.

Sorry, make that 5, Seaserpenta’s effect has triggered to remove Ti-Tanya from the field.

Like I said, this is the main problem, the other being that one can maneuver around Seaserpenta so that the only cards they have available to bounce might be cards with powerful effects on summon.

You wouldn’t want to Seaserpenta a Titus after all.

It sets Card Sensei 3 core behind at least, I guess.

Didn’t anticipate that, Card Sensei threw out a Yellow X-Rare.

Normally it would be Mikafar but not this time I guess. I don’t think we’ve seen him use much Yellow Magic, I wonder what cards he retrieves.

The answer is apparently none of them, Valiero doesn’t use it’s effect when summoned and instead Card Sensei pays a whole 5 cost to deploy some Nexuses out of his trash.

2 of those Nexuses we’ve seen before, the OTHER 2 on the other hand are completely new to us, we should look at them, because they’re BUSTED.

The Victory Stand of Glory is NUTS, how nuts you may asked?

Well it’s banned, that’s how nuts, you can mill from your own deck in exchange for being able to play Nexuses for free and even worse you can gain a Core for each Nexus you play, that lets you proliferate Core and relevant cards in your Trash like crazy.

I understand it was likely intended so that Blue could quickly gather Nexuses in the Trash as needed for Construction, while also feasibly using Nexuses from other colours, but this level of resource is insane.

The other one, The Ancient Arena is less ridiculous but the fact that it locks out opposing options is pretty tough, the opponent can’t benefit from effects on summon and can’t use Battle-boosts whatsoever.

With a Core placed on each, Card Sensei takes a leaf out of Seven’s book and uses Golem Craft.

4 usable attackers out of literally nowhere does indeed sound scary, but the fact that it provides an opportunity for the opponent to destroy Nexuses seems like a nice drawback to have.

That’s also a pretty nasty counter to Golem Craft.

Eight is just fucking walloping Card Sensei, holy shit.

When you got 5 lives and you’re under a Silent Wall there is only ONE correct choice, to take from the life (5->4 vs 4)

Ignoring all the thrown out accusations of Card Sensei being a coward, THIS is an actual legitimate complaint, yes, Card Sensei has shown interest in other women, namely Hayami for example.

Wait, she legitimately thinks that Card Sensei selects his spirits based on how sexy they are?

Is that what the fucking Yellow Karuta card was meant to suggest?

Well, I’m missing context, did he officially break the relationship before he left the Numbers Elite or did he simply leave the Numbers Elite and fail to warn you?

Because I could go either way on whether or not Card Sensei’s lecherous nature is a problem based purely on whether or not he established he was no longer participating in the relationship.

Eight seems to agree that its Card Sensei’s decision to do as he likes which suggests to me that he broke up with her before acting the way he does, just that she doesn’t like it.

Which suggests jealousy.

Random ass Yellow Spirits in this predominantly Purple Deck. What is the point?!

She had a red Magic earlier too.

And a BLUE NEXUS? She had a White Magic earlier too, all she needs is a Green card and she’s got a fucking Rainbow of a deck.

I’ll give her a pass for this one because the Nexus is cheap and actually relatively strong. So much so that it was actually reprinted quite recently in a set that reprints a number of staples.

Its got 2 effects, the first one being the most useful, it prevents your opponent using Magic unless they have a Symbol that matches the card’s colour. For example, If I wanted to use “Silent Wall” from my hand, I wouldn’t be able to unless I had at least ONE White Symbol persist on my field. Its an Anti-Mixed Colour card.

Most decks, even nowadays use off-colour cards in one-off situations, like White Magic, so cards like this Nexus are still good because they cut that off.

The 2nd effect more niche nowadays but for the time the card was released, it is actually a powerful counter to prevent Mikafar from using its effect. With the 2nd effect live, Mikafar’s Lv2 effect becomes entirely useless.

Okay I HAVE to say, Eight’s animations while she’s fighting are some of the best in this fucking show, she’s REALLY cool to watch throw cards out, her movements are fluid and to top it off, she’s not a bad looker.

At the very least, her designer should be VERY proud because she perfectly captures the line between hot and cool, and not a lot of characters can do that.

I will forgive the random ass DarkPiyon if its for the sake of providing reductions for this card.

Angel Voice now makes this a battle of Levels, not BP. So as both are Lv2, Valiero is going to go down with Hellwitch.

Nevermind, she just silently levelled up the Hellwitch without bothering to draw attention to it.

Valiero, having a lower level is beaten.

Top Supra and Destlord attack, taking 2 lives from Card Sensei
(4 vs 4->2)

DarkPiyon attacks but is destroyed by the blocking Black Ti-Tanya

And Seaserpenta attacks, bringing Card Sensei to his final life.

Well, I would protest but she is correct, its one of the few cards currently available that can cause a Cost 0 to defeat even an X-Rare.

There’s a lot MORE of that in the recent game just based on how it’s evolved but I’ll concede her point here given that hindsight is 20/20 and foresight is blind.

Eight follows her last attack with Pure Elixir, allowing all her Spirits to refresh.

Lets see, we got 4 big fuckers in the way, 4 lives to punch through, and Card Sensei has 1 Yellow Spirit and 4 Blue Nexuses while only having 1 Life.

…Winnable?

Card Sensei REALLY gracing the name of Master Yellow here, he plays DarkGoradon and a Lv2 Mikafar.

The Mikafar ALONE opens up so many options for him it’s ridiculous-

Wait, no wait NO IT DOESN’T, The Absorption Triumphal Arch is Lv2! Mikafar’s Lv2 effect is worthless!

A shame too, he got Double Hearts AND Buster Spear-

…Wait a sec.

Well so much for that Blue Nexus. I guess that’s what the DarkGoradon is for.

COULD. YOU. PLEASE. STOP. FLIRTING. YOU. ARE. SUPPOSED. TO. BE. FIGHTING. TO. THE. DEATH!

Eight receives a memory of her time with Card Sensei. Also a rare time that we see her in her Masako persona without any makeup, she looks nice.

For reference if you’re a makeup user, please ignore me, I’m like super particular about what makeup I like.

With DarkGoradon and at LEAST 2 cores avcailable, Card Sensei rids the field of The Absorption Triumphal Arch using Buster Spear. Now Card Sensei can use his Magic not only freely, but for free.

He uses Double Hearts to give Mikafar a 2nd Symbol. All he needs now is Invisible Cloak and a White Potion to make this as annoying as humanely possible.

Oh, another new Blue card, and given that this one has 5 reductions I can only anticipate it’s effect…

Thought as much, it’s another BS04 Magic that supports the Double Symbol’d Dragon Emperors, dodged a bit in this case since Double Hearts is helping meet the condition.

You blow up your own Nexuses and for each, your opponent has to blow up a Spirit, it’s like a multi-use Deadly Balance, but for Nexuses and with a really difficult condition to clear.

But in this case Card Sensei has 4 Nexuses he doesn’t need and Eight has 4 Spirits.

This is what we in the business call: A Flex.

Mikafar has 2 Symbols, BlackFairy Ti-Tanya and DarkGoradon have 1 Symbol, a Full attack makes game.

And Card Sensei re-confesses his love to Eight.

I feel like what began as an attempt to protect Bashin and the others has ended going slightly off topic.

Disclaimer: Battle Spirits Shounen Toppa Bashin takes place in a fictional world where Card Games are actually taken seriously and many life choices are determined by it. It should not, under any circumstances be used as any kind of legal, political, and certainly not romantic advice.

Results obtained as depicted in the show are unlikely to be reproduced in real life and you should not, even for a second, believe that they will be.

I just, feel an excessive need to throw that out there, beating girls in card games does not make them like you.

Well with that Love potion recipe complete, they get caught by security before this entire hallway becomes something they can’t show on TV.

Quite notably you can very clearly hear Commentar-chan’s voice when J checks in to see what’s up.

also I had to specifically stop myself typing “Jack Knight”, sweet jesus.

Yes, go, quite literally ANYTHING ELSE would be more interesting than you fuckwits playing Karuta Cards at the behest of a fucking Turtle.

I was thinking “Oh hey, now we can get this confusion cleared up” and then it occurs to me that J has not been taught by Card Sensei and may very well recognise him as Number Five of the Numbers Elite.

And if not, he’ll certainly recognise Number Eight.

I need to stop jumping guns, eventually one of the bullets will hit me.

I’m positively certain there was a frame where this looks as BAD as humanly possible and I am glad that this frame is not it.

Also the sweet liberties this show takes with changing costume, by simply divesting her trousers, her entire uniform changed, she gained a SKIRT that was somehow hidden under there, her loose-fit top has been replaced with a tight-fitting one, she was able to UN-DYE HER FUCKING HAIR and to top it all off, instantly shed her Fake Tan.

AND SHE’S NOT THE ONLY CULPRIT. J, MEGANEKO AND SUIREN ARE ALL GUILTY OF THIS.

Glad that secret’s out, maybe now she can finally quit Thousand Spirits group, right after she hands Kyouka that invite she’s due.

Speaking of Kyouka where tf is she at?

There she is.

And also following on from the whole “Quitting” idea, if you’re going to get angry at some pretty-boy either way you go about it at least pick the one who somewhat gives a shit.

Bashin, once again, thinks completely differently to everyone else.

His character is consistent, and I don’t mean in the sense that he’s a hyperactive little shit all the time, but where everyone seems to see Nazo-Otonas or Cornerstone holders as an enemy to be defeated, Bashin has never once actively considered Nazo-Otonas an enemy.

That’s a lie, he does feel some need to deal with Nazo-Otonas as they show up as he’s done so this episode, but usually its for a distinct reason, I’m entirely certain that the only reason he chases them down is because of the opportunity for an X-Rare, he’s complained multiple times when he hasn’t received one after all.

And the only one who he didn’t demand an X-Rare from, Smile, he opposed for a very specific reason, because he knew Smile was after J, there was context, had absolutely 0 to do with Smile’s status as Number Four. Bashin has treated even Uchuuchouten with some level of politeness and kind of just treats the big guy as just any other person.

Suddenly, Card Sensei decides to give us a Plot dump.

Suddenly we get this thrown on us, even though we’ve had no idea what Nine OR Uchuuchouten were planning up until this point.

How the hell were we supposed to know whether Nine was going to betray Uchuuchouten when we don’t even know what the fuck Uchuuchouten wanted. I still am unclear on what he’s after, as far as I know he just wants someone strong enough to defeat him. Big ass Blood Knight.

Card Sensei says Nine has Six domes “Because of his delusion”, when in fact Uchuuchouten was fully aware of the domes and adovcated for their use.

Also, notably, one can identify where each Dome is located, and they correspond to the dome’s colour too, the Red one is located right where Kyoto is for example. Which means the White Dome is Tokyo based on its location, so this entire plot has taken place in Tokyo.

The Green one is Sapporo, which we know Elliott wanted to place one there, The Purple one appears to be in Nagoya?

The Yellow one’s in an interesting place, it’s not quite Nagasaki, its instead in Saga.

And hilariously the Blue one is entirely cut off and is on one of the smaller landmasses, it appears to be Okinawa.

I mean it would be a tad strange if they didn’t all do that.

Is.. Is that it?

That’s the grand plan? To release the Spirits into the real world using the Isekai Domes?

And that’s… not coinciding with what Uchuuchouten wants to do, whatever that might be.

J says “Right” a moment before this, so it seems like he might have already been mildly aware of this during his time as Jack Knight.

Actually, he says “Sou” right beforehand so that “Right” could be the equivalent of “I see”

But that would imply that J had no idea what Thousand Spirits Group were attempting to do or why he felt the need to defeat Uchuuchouten. Who looks MORE and MORE like a swell guy because as far as we know he hasn’t fucking done anything.

He was literally “evil” earlier because J SAID he was evil, its the entire point of his switch to Heel. Or is this show now suggesting that their evils were not the cause of Uchuuchouten but due to Nine, his “Dragon”. (Look it up on TvTropes)

How that USB isn’t corrupted due to the fact that the system quite literally locked itself up as it was downloading the data is beyond me.

I would say “They’re already involved” but from Card Sensei’s point of view there’s a level of reasonableness.

The upcoming set of card games are evidently going to have very real world rammifications, people are going to live and die based on whether or not Thousand Spirits group succeed or fail, a bunch of 12/13-year olds will either be unable to grasp the level of responsbility that entails and make a mistake because of it, or find it difficult to cope with the oncoming stress and potentially be irreversibly damaged due to it.

But you know, as Bashin said, J seems fully aware of the risks and has ALREADY been fighting this battle, alone infact.

And of course, Bashin is the only one who’s been recognized by King Uchuuchouten, therefore he’s basically the only one qualified to even fight this battle because Uchuuchouten acknowledges him as an opponent.

And of course, the problem isn’t even Uchuuchouten, it’s Nine who isn’t exactly the strongest member of the Numbers Elite.

Upon re-examination of the plot thus far, if J was aware of this type of plan being Uchuuchouten’s goal, then its likely that Nine’s betrayal is less “This is all Nine’s plan”, but moreso he’s taking advantage of Uchuuchouten’s original plan for his own benefit.

But the plot has failed to explain that, so that’s a criticism I will levy at them and will likely stand.

Card Sensei at least seems to realise that there is no point making them sit out now if they’re willing to help.

This seems like a subtle way to say “NO MORE JACK KNIGHTS, PLEASE.”

Kyouka finally gets her Invite, fuckin’ finally.

Based on this, it really does seem like its a “They want the same thing but Nine plans to pull the rug from under Uchuuchouten”

And he’s about to lose Eight.

Oh, oh shit. That’s uh. That’s a LOT of Nazo-Otonas.

Also Baito-san’s among them! But she was so nice before!

Also notably they all have colour-coded suits.

Colourcoded for each colour, I suppose each Nazo-Otona specializes in a colour.

And shit, Baito-kun’s at the front! The one dressed in blue!

Given how kind he was earlier and how much of a fun loving dork he was I have a hard time believing that he was just conditioned into becoming evil, the matching masks suggest mind control?

So it seems Nine is usurping control from King Uchuuchouten and fixing the “Loyalty” issue he seems to be frequently having by attaching Mind Control masks to every member of the Thousand Spirits group.

Can’t exactly betray Nine if you lack the free will to do so.

That is assuming that they are actually Mind Control masks and not a fashion statement.

But if Uchuuchouten is the strongest how will Nine directly deal with Uchuuchouten himself? Unless Uchuuchouten is also under his control.

That would be a plot twist and a half, but I doubt it since he was surprised by Uchuuchouten’s appearance last episode.

Anyhow, these are all questions that can be answered later and have no rammifications, unfortunately, the questions involving “Who the fuck is Uchuuchouten” and “What the hell does he want” is not something I can easily forgive for going unanswered this long.

And the Batosupi Lecture goes on about Tidal Tide, I guess I can talk about it’s relevence today.

There’s a really specific word I’m looking for that accurately describes the card’s unique situation in today’s game… Um..

Oh I know.

TRASH.

The card is bad, the only purpose it serves is to end the game by making you give up your own board presence to force your opponent to lose an equivalent number of cards.

Very few people will be so willing to lose an advantageous position, its incredibly unsafe and if your opponent answers it, you’re fucked.

Besides if the opponent has a sizeable board there’s almost no way you’re going to have anywhere near enough Nexuses to clear the whole thing. Let alone that all being gated behind needing a Double Symbol Spirit to function.

Its a bad card, use 1 if you have a REALLY specific strategy that can but even if you could, just don’t.

Anyway, That’s Episode 43.

Only 7 episodes remain. See you for the next one.

It’s time, time for the battle at least I’ve been waiting for, the ol’ Trope of 2 buddies, going at it in a fight to the (not quite) death.

I got nothing else to say for this intro, nothing witty or rude to say about the show, the only thing I want is some good ol’ fashioned Card Games.

Don’t disappoint me, you’re slowly worming your way into my good books Toppa Bashin.

“Death Is Rebirth” does suggest that this battle will fully eliminate “Jack Knight” and we’ll finally get “J Sawaragi” back.

Uchuuchouten repeats himself, that whoever wins this Battle is the one who has enough power to challenge the uh… currently unfought as of yet, King Uchuuchouten.

And almost as if this was planned, the Isekai Dome opens to a Night Sky.

Good audience signifier there, they’re showing us that its still daytime outside.

So the only way it could be Night time in there is if the sky they’re seeing isn’t Earth’s Sky, and we know of a place that has recently been darkened with a Night Sky, even during the Day.

It appears the Dome opening and connecting to Isekai suggests progress in Nine’s plan, the Domes were being built to draw out those who held Cornerstones, but it appears they may not even need the others if they’re all gathered here.

Responding to Isekai’s presence, The Cornerstones start glowing!

I got no clue what this means, Cornerstones glow for any fuckin’ reason nowadays. They responded earlier to the group’s feelings when Jack Knight left the stage and the only other time they have done is when a Chosen Card Battler awakens or when opening the gate to Isekai.

So it’s like what? Then again Nine said something to similar effect when he was defeated by Kyouka, perhaps he finally concluded that all the Cornerstones were gathered?

Jack Knight could be making the same observation, hence Uchuuchouten’s sudden wish to battle.

Bashin isn’t very good at being ignored. But in a battle with stakes this high I wouldn’t blame someone for getting offended that their opponent wasn’t even paying attention to them.

A Battle, from Turn 1?!…

No this has got to be a Joke, you wouldn’t reward my patience with THIS would you?!

Bashin makes a standard opening move, summoning DarkDinohound. He’ll have to end his turn after this.

Strangely, the Battle System doesn’t respond to DarkDinohound’s summon.

Before the absolutely MASSIVE bastard shows himself INSIDE THE ARENA.

It eventually hops up and takes its place in the Sky, at the very least we kind of know what’s going on.

Now that this Dome is effectively connected to Isekai, the Spirits will materialize here.

Oh fuck off, they couldn’t even give me that! Bastards! Jumping to the 28th turn!

I guess they needed that first turn to actually capture the evidently surprised reactions of everyone but still.

Bashin’s got a board of Spirits that are almost entirely Blue and 2 of which are new, so lets look at em.

Sharkhammer has the really situational effect of refreshing itself when your Nexuses are destroyed, while Deep-Arnold is just a vanilla.

Both are from BS03, so nothing astonishingly shiny.

Jack Knight has nothing particularly new as well, Dualcannon-Bell and The Sacred Mjolnir at Lv3.

His prior development when he used a Yellow Nexus has been exacerbated here, once again he’s here with an off-colour Nexus, this time Green.

5 Lives aside, they really do need to do the splitscreen for this more often.

Bashin seems to be well-focused on his Awaken strategy, deploying The Plateau of Duel.

Which is… Fairly strange considering his board is entirely comprised of Blue Spirits.

TwinRowdy Diranos follows the Nexus at Lv2.

His Board doesn’t really have any Terra Dragons, so I guess he’s just hoping to make strong attacks with Diranos refreshing after the effect, which makes sense given he hasn’t levelled up his Nexus.

Can’t forget to randomly destroy the opponent’s Deck at times.

Despite J’s offcolour Red Dragon and Green Nexus, he’s still predominantly using White in his Deck, which makes his use of the random ass off-colour cards even more confusing.

I did forget that Deck Destruction has other uses besides just winning, it can take out cards before the opponent has the opportunity to use them, Bashin might have been aiming to deal with the DarkDragonEmperor before it had the opportunity to reveal itself.

Bashin FULL attacks with everything, and the announcers go completely nuts trying to figure out how Jack Knight will respond.

And they show his COMPLETE disregard for the opponent by ignoring the problem and eating the lives. (5->1 vs 5)

He DOES have a Fruit of Life on his board so I guess it doesn’t matter too much.

And this is a strategy, the only life that matters is your last one, the rest is potential core gained.

There we go, that’s the name, a “No Guard” strategy.

You simply allow your opponent to play up until it would actually lose you the game, reaping the benefits of every other life lost until then. Its a thing you can do in Vanguard as well as damage accrues Counterblasts and gets you closer to a Limit Break.

Here we get commentary from the Peanut Gallery, Striker says the move let Jack Knight draw 4 cards, but Kyouka also points out that its reckless because its not like you can get 4 lives back.

…Wait, I’m pretty sure there is a way to get a hefty number of lives back.

Oh are we gonna see High Elixir?

Jack Knight is barely even looking at his opponent, he’s in an actually relatively bad spot all things considered, he’s at 1 life to Bashin’s 5. And with only 2 Spirits to Bashin’s 5 attackers.

So the fact that he’s just kinda “Meh” about the whole thing would be pretty irritating for any opponent.

J calls The Gigantic Thor at Lv3, and attacks with Mjolnir.

Follows up with an Invisible Cloak on Dualcannon-Bell

I know they’re doing this to expedite the process of Jack Knight’s attacks but 2 spirits attacking at once isn’t a thing.

…Once again, I feel the need to give the caveat of “Yet”, there are of course cards that do allow 2 Spirits to attack at once.

Bashin takes both hits from the Life (1 vs 5->3)

Thor attacks, which Bashin also takes from the Life (1 vs 3->2)

J destroys Mjolnir to refresh Thor and he attacks again, Thor’s currently stronger than Diranos, so even though he definitely doesn’t have enough attacks to win, he’s hard aiming to get rid of Bashin’s X-Rare.

With nothing but his usual combo no less.

Bashin eats that one, now its 1 Life vs 1 Life.

Jack Knight destroys Dualcannon-Bell, refreshing Thor once more.

How dismissive does one have to be to throw a combo that Bashin has surpassed before and likely will do again, while completely ignoring their existence?

Also J’s got only 1 Life, if Bashin lives this, he’s in very immediate danger.

Bashin has no other options than to sacrifice his X-Rare here.

Thor, with 8000 BP, happily wipes out the 6000 BP Diranos.

I’m not fucking sure what YOU’RE looking so smug for, your board consists of 1 Exhausted Thor and you have 1 Life, and a Green Nexus that is useless when you’re at 1 Life.

Even with responses in your hand, god forbid Bashin plays a Divine Chain on your ass, then your plan would be screwed.

Yeah its amazing what one can do when you spend 30 turns faffing about and then both players are reduced to a single life in one move each.

It would need to be in a refreshed state to begin with.

…Isn’t that a good thing?

Ah, God forbid we let Jack Knight have another 5 cards in his deck, this Deck destruction strategy is moving awful slow Bashin.

At least at Lv2 it beats out Thor’s BP scale almost entirely if Jack Knight relies on it to refresh.

With only 1 Nexus, Bashin destroys 5 cards in Jack Knight’s deck.

Still predominantly White, I also find it kind of curious, the Number of 2 reduction Red Cards Jack Knight uses, like Flame Tempest, as their reductions will be entirely fulfilled with a single DarkDragonEmperor.

This seems to confirm that Bashin’s attempts at removing the cards Jack Knight still needs from his Deck is pointless, he likely already has a method to win in his hand.

Bashin no likey Jack Knight big hand, Bashin go attack Jack Knight Life.

Jokes aside, he’s got an exhausted Thor, not attacking would just mean Jack Knight gets to keep the cards he’s using for defense.

Pure Elixir is not the show stopper I was expecting, perhaps a Silent Wall follow up post-block?

Deep-Arnold gets punched the fuck out.

Ah, there we go, that would do it, Pure Elixir into Silent Wall makes a nice defense when you have a remaining Spirit.

But again, god forbid Bashin was teching in Divine Chain.

Anyway with Pure Elixir, Jack Knight blocks Deep-Arnold with Thor, destroying Deep-Arnold, and Silent Wall ends Bashin’s turn.

They believe Bashin has made a mistake here by attacking with Deep-Arnold instead of Castle-Golem, as had Bashin made the same attempt with Castle-Golem, it would be Thor being destroyed, not Bashin’s Spirit.

While it is true, it could be that Bashin is aware of the DarkDragonEmperor being in Jack Knight’s hand, so he wants Jack Knight to bring it out at his earliest convenience so Bashin can fully defeat it.

Though I’m fairly sure we had an episode before where Bashin was too focused on destroying an X-Rare to actually continue winning from there.

Nevermind, apparently Bashin ALSO admits he fucked up.

WELP.

OUR PROTAGONIST PEOPLE, DUMBASSERY IN THE FACE OF HIS MOST PASSIONATE, EDGEY RIVAL.

What a mood-killer.

Though its welcome, Tensions are indeed high, sometimes you need a diffusal from it.

Jack Knight levels Thor down to Lv1 and then offers it as a Tribute.

Once again Hard-summoning his Cost 9 Red X-Rare, The DarkDragonEmperor Siegfried, at Lv3.

Upside, at Lv3 its BP, 12000, Matches that of Castle-Golems. So he can’t foolishly attack.

Jack Knight attacks with Siegfried, and its Lv3 effect goes off, wiping out all of Bashin’s Non-Red Spirits with 4000 BP or less.

Rock-Golem and Sharkhammer are both destroyed, leaving Bashin with MobileFortress Castle-Golem.

This situation is similar to before, Jack Knight needs a power boost AND a refresh to win from here.

Bashin blocks and then follows up with Scramble.

Scramble grants every “Fighting Spirit” +3000 BP during the Main Phase, but Bashin didn’t use it then, instead electing to use its Battleboost effect to bring Castle-Golem to 15000 BP.

This is the same conditions Jack Knight won under last time, Bashin attempted to overpower it but Jack Knight instead responded in kind, though this time Jack Knight doesn’t have a Spirit available to exhaust for United Power.

Pfft? Really show? Do you think I’m that dumb?

A BS04 Red magic, designed for use alongside The Dragon Emperors of BS04, by requiring their Double Symbol.

It hits a hefty 7000 BP or below Spirit on your Main Step, and during Flash Timing, awards a massive +5000 BP battle boost.

Both effects require a Spirit with 2+ Symbols to use, and the Battle-boost can only be given to the 2+ Symbol spirit.

This puts the DarkDragonEmperor Siegfried at 17000 BP.

Castle-Golem’s destroyed.

This really isn’t going well, twice now has Bashin pushed Jack Knight into a Corner, and Twice Jack Knight has used the opportunity to blow apart Bashin’s X-Rare.

Its almost like he’s saying “Throw the next one at me, I’ll beat that one too.”

He’s got almost nothing and yet he’s still hanging on by a thread with a big X-Rare.

Bashin’s got no board besides his Nexus, No Hand.

This smells like a job for Double Draw, and if we’re feeling generous, maybe Fourth Draw.

Though Jack Knight is likely holding another refresh Magic somewhere in his hand, there’s no way he doesn’t realise Bashin drawing a Spirit could be a problem.

There it is, Fourth Draw!

With an empty hand, Bashin gets to draw 4 cards.

One of those cards was evidently Siegfried, which Bashin summons at Lv2.

Bashin uses Call of Lost to bring back Diranos from his Trash and summon it.

Still scratching my head at Jack Knight’s defense plan here…

Here comes the Refresh.

Another Pure Elixir? Come on show, at least get a bit creative, you did that LAST time.

Either way, Dark Siegfried is refreshed, and blocks Diranos.

Invincible Shield? I don’t remember that card.

Oh, it gives a Spirit Armor to all colours besides Yellow and White.

Diranos gets vaporized by Dark Siegfried.

It appears the Nazo-Otonas don’t believe that Invincible Shield, a White Magic will stop Jack Knight, as he’s a Master of White.

You’d think a Master of White wouldn’t freely sacrifice his White Ace for a Red X-Rare?

Or Yellow cards, let’s not dismiss the fact that he can use Yellow Cards too.

There’s this really annoying frame by frame sequence where each member of Team Shomen Toppa say after each other, that Jack Knight has no White cards to use.

Probably the most humiliating position for a Master of White to be in.

Oh? He does have a White Card.

But its not one that can protect him in this situation, he has a Deadly Balance that he could otherwise use to destroy Siegfried if it weren’t protected under Invincible Shield.

Instead the only thing he has is White Magic that can make his DarkDragonEmperor Stronger, and not White Magic that can save him.

It appears Bashin’s trying to remind Jack Knight here that he’s a White-user, not sure why he’d need reminding of that, his Deck has been mostly White up until now?

Jack Knight has a bit of a breakdown, declaring that he could wield any of the other 5 colours he’s become proficient with (Not that we’ve actually seen him use a Blue card) but is now unable to win because of a card that is White. And of the cards that could save him now, he needed a White one.

But they’re classically ignoring that he could use Yellow but White would indeed be more effective in this instance anyhow, he’d need like a Same Tired or something to shut down Siegfried’s attack.

As Black is the inverse of White in this instance, “Black” seems to represent everything that White is not, which is to say, any other colour. Jack Knight’s break down appears to be that he can’t be expected to wield a colour that’s so far removed from what he is, The Black Jack Knight cannot be expected to wield White.

Its a bit of a silly conversation but Bashin completely sets aside Jack Knight’s complaints about Colour, an attempt to shield himself from the responsibility of his loss because he can’t deal with a White Card, claiming that cements him as “Jack Knight”

Bashin sets that colour nonsense aside because Bashin ultimately says it doesn’t matter what colour J intends to use, because its an entirely irrelevant point of discussion, the problem is not that he’s the chosen White Battler, its that he’s trying to be someone he’s not.

Its also possible to link this back to the “Adult” and “Child” theming going on with the show, this is effectively J trying to become an Adult far too fast, declaring himself to be, and completely discarding his child persona to do so, and everyone is effectively reminding him that yes, he his a child, and he shouldn’t be ashamed of being one.

Bashin wins, as Jack Knight is unable to answer Siegfried’s attack.

Bashin didn’t quite defeat the DarkDragonEmperor, but at the very least, he didn’t need to, he just needed to beat J.

You can’t hear it since this is a silent post, but J actively starts laughing.

J removes his black outfit, immediately returning to his usual White uniform.

The Lighting immediately changes to accentuate this shift, its very similar to how Spiderman 3 does it, actually watch it, Spiderman’s Red and Blue suit is accentuated with much different Lighting than his Black Suit.

Its the same here, the lighting is used to make J almost look like a shadow in his black suit, while it immediately shifts to accentuate the light tones of his White suit once he removes it.

Note how J uses the term, “I used all the power I was given“, he WAS using the Nazo-Otonas as a fast way to become much stronger, knowing he was already skilled. And yet still lost to Bashin who got even tougher with everyone else.

Can always count on Bashin to go through a tough situation and then end it with “AYO THAT WAS LIT, LET’S DO IT AGAIN”

They fucking hug that shit out. Most shows might avoid this, straying away from the gay, but this isn’t a situation that has anything to do with romance, sometimes you literally just need to hug it out.

Another thing that’s quite interesting is J felt like that was his only route to closing in on Uchuuchouten the way he was, which is why he was so ready to betray Bashin, the second it turns out that didn’t work he immediately discarded it, being shown another way out.

The guy’s probably so happy that there’s another way up to where he wants to be, no wonder he wants to hug the guy that showed him that.

Sportsmanship!

This was indeed the fight for the right to face Uchuuchouten. But this early seems, a bit weird.

Uchuuchouten orders him to open the gate. I wonder how this will go.

Wait are they seriously going to fight in Isekai? Now!?

Apparently its a little different, since Bashin is being summoned to the field as opposed to taking the position of the battler.

So, are they going to battle? Or is this just a chat? I’m fairly sure Bashin earned the right to straight up take you on no?

Bashin suggests that because Bashin is even here, that makes him the strongest card battler in the universe.

Tooting your own HORN a bit there Bashin?

Uchuuchouten confirms this is the case, apparently Uchuuchouten has standards for who his opponents are, impossibly high ones.

Bashin psychs himself up to fight Uchuuchouten but is caught off guard when Uchuuchouten finishes off Bashin’s Catchphrase.

That’s… a bit strange.

Alright, I’ll stop playing dumb for a bit, Bashin’s got a missing father who thoroughly enjoys battle Spirits and now we’ve got a Red-Haired “King” who’s completely unstoppable, known to be strong, and served by those who knew Bashin Touha.

And to hit the point home, finished off Bashin’s catchphrase, which at this point would be the first time he’s ever heard it. Because he’s never spoken at any other point in the series.

Therefore, analytical members of the audience may come to the conclusion that Uchuuchouten, is infact, Bashin Touha, Bashin’s father.

Bashin dismisses the strangeness of Uchuuchouten knowing his catchphrase, and decides he wants to say something.

Bashin thanks Uchuuchouten, because it was his interference that fully forced J into confronting Bashin as Jack Knight.

But then says that the two of them should not be members of the Thousand Spirits Group based on their position, and requests their release from the Numbers Elite.

In a surprise twist, it turns out both of them handed in resignations BEFORE Bashin took on Jack Knight. There’s no one for Uchuuchouten to “Let go of”

One might draw the conclusion that “Wait, doesn’t that mean Jack Knight thought he would lose? Then why did he think he could beat Bashin”

Just keep a note that Jack Knight would have immediately fought Uchuuchouten after his battle with Bashin, he resigned because he would have had no need of the Thousand Spirits Group after winning the battle, as he’d have attained what he wanted, fighting Uchuuchouten.

Oh, right, this, yep, gotta ensure that Bashin doesn’t go full hypocrite on us for the sake of coolness.

Bashin recalls that he promised he would defeat Uchuuchouten alongside J. And therefore can’t face him unless its with J.

Uchuuchouten initially responds in anger, I guess as the supreme ruler of Battle Spirits and the only other battler who could be considered the strongest in the universe, you don’t really get to experience many interesting battles.

He quickly mellows out, laughs and fucks off.

Well, I guess Bashin’s back from Isekai, damn I really didn’t remember much about this particular segment of the show.

That was kind of cool at least, seeing Uchuuchouten actually hold a conversation rather than ominously speaking to a crowd.

The NORMAL people in the room are promptly losing their shit because to them, Bashin said a couple words, Vanished and then got zapped back, and that was AFTER a hectic fight with real spirits happening infront of them.

Bashin informs J and Kiano that both of them sent in resignations.

A person’s resignation is usually a private matter for them, so J is quite confused that Kiano willingly sacrificed his position as Three when he adamantly refused to do so earlier.

And after far too long than should be considered normal for ANY father to make a compromise, Kiano promises to communicate with J more openly.

Notable here is what J says and how the subtitles refer to it. Normally he’s referred to his father as “Chichi-u-e” which is “Father” quite literally.

But here he says “Oto-ou”, which is more like “Dad”, as the subtitles represent here.

And here we learn that the reason J does not use a Kyoto accent is that he actively suppresses it, and occasionally falls into it when he’s “acting spoiled”

Imagine being rich and not using the opportunity to act spoiled.

Man they’re all just going down like dominoes, even NUMBER TWO is quitting, not having the inventor of the Battle System, and the creator of Battle Spirits will make exacting your plan much much harder.

Though it seems Uchuuchouten doesn’t really care too much about that, he didn’t seem concerned when Kiano left, and only ever seemed bothered when Bashin refused to fight him.

It just occurred to me that we still don’t exactly know what Uchuuchouten wants.

After everyone’s left the Kyoto Dome, we see Nine here alone with an empty and darkened stadium.

Well that’s not ominous at all, he’s exchanged his usual Black Suit for a Red one, and seems to be painting ALL the previous events as a “Game”

I guess with the locations of all 6 Cornerstones and their respective battlers known, he can finally move on to the next stage of his plan.

And that’s the episode! WOO!

A couple criticisms here and there, I really didn’t like how they sort of ignored that J could respond with Yellow Magic and acted as if White Magic was J’s only response, but I guess one could look at it as “Damn, he’s limiting the responses to Yellow and White Magic, takes balls to do that going against a White user”

The second complaint is that Bashin hasn’t yet defeated that DarkDragonEmperor, he managed to sideline it by charging an X-Rare into it to get it out of the way and get to J, but otherwise he’s yet to find a way to truly overcome that Spirit.

This could be an indication that the card may come back to bite him, given its yet to be defeated onscreen.

We’ve seen many new BS04 cards at this moment, but it occurs to me that we’ve only seen 2 BS04 X-Rares, one is currently in Bashin’s hands and the other is in J’s.

Another thing that comes to mind is, what will happen with J’s copy of The DarkDragonEmperor Siegfried? Will he continue to use it or will he stop? Will he offer it to Bashin? It IS a much stronger Siegfried but its also, well, indicatively Evil.

I am unsure that Bashin would so readily take the Key Spirit that represents Jack Knight.

I guess we’re not done with the show yet, so these might be questions for later.

The Batosupi Lecture just talks about Bashin and J’s battle, but notes that Red and White are “Best when closest together.”

It’s not entirely wrong, each Colour represents an opposite of another Colour, Red and White are opposites, Green and Purple are opposites, the same for Yellow and Blue.

And when mixed together you actually get quite hefty results because they cover the other’s bases, Green exhaust can support Purple’s anti-exhaust, etc.

Something to think about when you’re deck building.

In any case, we’ve got 8 episodes remaining, I’ll see you during the next one!

Going through these final episodes, in foresight, I thought it would be a situation of “Are we there yet”?

Though, in hindsight, now its more like “Finally!”

These next few episodes are likely going to detail the Team Battle between Shomen Toppa and Numbers Elite, and nothing is quite as enjoyable as watching a Dark version of a character duke it out in a fight, there’s lots of emotion in those and its usually all very cathartic.

Oh haha, this title actually makes me feel stupid.

I knew “Jack Knight” and “Queen” were face card references but I completely forgot that in those cards, you have 2 colours, Black and Red.

The Jack Knight is a Black Knight, but “Blackjack” is also a game played with cards.

And it also signifies ANOTHER thing, as with Poker, Jack Knight dons Black but his Ace is Red.

And even more of a comparison is that Bashin typically dons Red and is a Red user, and is being opposed by a person in Black. Even down to their new Aces, a Red Siegfried vs a Black Siegfried.

Lots of good Poker comparisons here, I love it.

Nice, we’re just getting RIGHT into this!

Interestingly, we don’t actually have much clue as to what decks Kyouka and Eight are using.

And there’s a mismatch in the numbers since Elliott’s went “Aight, ima head out” earlier.

We know Bashin vs Jack Knight is a complete shoe-in for a Match up, but I’ve got no idea who else is participating.

I think a revenge match between Striker and Smile would be appropriate, I’m not sure what would be next on the list however.

Numbers Elite would be smart to send out Seven who’s using a powerful Blue deck and is likely more competent a Battler than Kiano or Nine, but at the same time I don’t know who would be appropriate to battle him. Perhaps Eight given they’re each other’s replacements?

But at the same time Suiren has lost to Nine before so that’s also a good match up.

Naturally, Batosupi TV is up Jack Knight’s ass and he hasn’t lost a single game up to this point.

Oh damn I just realised, the Black Knight, as a trope, typically refers to a Knight without a Liege, kind of like a Ronin Samurai. Which is cool since he’s only doing all this to defeat the only person who’s a “King”, Uchuuchouten.

Only took 41 fuckin’ episodes.

The rest of the Numbers are hilariously insignificant to the goal of this battle, winning the championship is marginally irrelevant, all they want to do is crack Jack Knight’s Armor, so to speak.

As long as he’s unbeaten his path seems to be the right one, from his point of view, if they defeat him following a different path to the one he chose then it would suggest that he chose incorrectly.

Ah, so they’re doing the same method they did with the Order Plates, each one selects their order.

There’s a couple strategies you can use, typically it doesn’t actually matter because you only need to win any 2 but stress is a factor one needs to consider when selecting their order.

You could send your least confident out first, this relieves their stress because the first loss doesn’t mean its all over, but then it increases the stress of the 2 coming after it.

OR you send your strongest out first and get a quick win, they’ve got the least stress and perform well, and that will motivate and alleviate the stress of the next 2.

The best orders I’ve seen usually seem to be Second Strongest first, Weakest second, Strongest Third.

Seems we get our revenge match, its Striker vs Smile again.

That’s an interesting second game, I guess they put Kyouka in there just incase they made a fake out and sent out Jack Knight second, Kyouka also wants to face Jack Knight after all.

Nine being sent in there as opposed to Seven is weird but perhaps Nine wanted to participate so he could face off against Bashin, he does have an avid interest in him after all.

And of course, Jack Knight gets his third match against Bashin-

Or… not?

Apparently they pre-emptively said Number Eleven, expecting Jack Knight to play but instead KIANO’S on the board against Bashin.

…AHAHAHA, I GET IT.

Awww how did I not see this COMING!? Its so obvious!

We saw that Jack Knight called Bashin weaker than weak! And then later saw him resolve never to fight weak opponents again!

So of course when it comes down to the one opportunity Bashin gets to fight him, he elects not to be a part of the finals because he has no interest in taking on Bashin!

Ah I love it when gambits fail like this, the plan was entirely predicated on a specific assumption, that Jack Knight would be required by the numbers because he’s their strongest, but it doesn’t take into account that Jack Knight has the option of simply not taking part!

And if he doesn’t, well you’re kind of fucked because you can’t attempt to crack his armor if he never faces you in battle! Its such an interruption to the flow and it signifies just how far separated from the main character he’s become.

Ah and they add a small tidbit here which does 2 things, first it informs the slower members of the audience of what’s happening, this will remind them of Jack Knight’s earlier resolve.

Commentator-san AND the Crowd are in sheer uproar! The fact that the Strongest Battler is straight up picking and choosing his battles, and declaring his opponents weak before he’s even fought them publically is a big blow to his position.

I like catharsis but this kind of stuff is awesome, it doesn’t feel like its betraying the notion that Jack Knight should fight Bashin, it adds context to how much of an uphill battle that’s going to be when one side has no interest in entertaining the needs of the other, even to the extent of outright refusing to battle.

Bashin’s pretty chill about this all things considered, if Jack Knight is going to hide behind the other members of the Numbers Elite to avoid battling Bashin, then Bashin will simply just have to tear each and every other battler to pieces until Jack Knight is forced to fight him.

That’s the kind of motivation I adore.

Suddenly, and without warning, the Cornerstones respond.

It’s almost like they’re angry that one of them is separating itself from the others.

Nothing to do now than to simply play it out and deal with Jack Knight later.

Oh, Jack Knight actually has a reason for bowing out of the match, other than simply avoiding Bashin.

He’s actually using the opportunity while all the other members are on stage to hack into their system.

Problem: One of the members is still missing, Elliott.

Seems its analysis on the Isekai Dome. And yes its the “Isekaikai” dome. The repetition exists also in Japanese.

Unfortunately, everything auto-shuts down and the room is put into Red. Before Nine shows up.

We call that, meticulous villainy, the system has defense mechanisms for if members of the Numbers Elite act rogue.

This makes sense, given Five’s initial betrayal, this was likely to be a backup plan Thousand Spirits Group would employ, which would also give them the freedom to recruit potential rebels, Like Jack Knight, who notably hates the Nazo-Otonas, and Eight who is Five’s lover.

Oh that’s a surprise, Striker didn’t win his revenge match. That’s not stressful at all.

Now we have to rely on Kyouka to defeat Nine. I wonder how well Kyouka’s gonna play, and what deck she’ll use to do it.

Smile, you’re very cool and all but god I do wish we actually got to watch your recent battles.

I’m really not gonna lie to you, I have absolutely 0 idea what to expect out of Kyouka here.

I feel like having ANY opponent is a disadvantage, but yes, a regular participant like Nine who’s skilled with a Red Deck would be a pretty bad opponent for someone like Kyouka who’s never made it out of the Gunslinger.

Last we saw she didn’t even recognise basic math after charging an Angelafish into a Flame-Elk.

Let’s hope she’s a little better than that then, with her Blue Cornerstone.

Nothing like having a cordial conversation with the enemy. I guess Eight picked up Striker knew something when he failed to question her reaction to the Cornerstones.

There’s nothing really important here, Striker is just telling Eight that right now they’re friends and her affiliation with Numbers Elite doesn’t matter.

You can actually hear Bashin screaming “KYOUKAAAAAA” in the background, please for the love of god someone muzzle that thing.

There’s a lot of talking but not a lot of battling going on, on the upside we can see that Kyouka is actually using Blue.

She’s got a Bun-Ffalo and a Royal Potion in her hand though, not great.

Oh come on! At least show us how it happened! Prove to us she earned that win! Come on Card Game anime! Show us some fuckin’ Card Games!

Jesus christ the 2 filler episodes you wasted on an animal fight and Meganeko fighting Suiren could have been used on Smile’s battle with Striker and Nine’s battle with Kyouka.

Nine’s amusingly got a face of “Wait how the fuck did that happen”?

I wish I could answer that question Nine, I really do.

I will also say that watching Kyouka be happy about defeating Nine is something everyone should watch, Kyouka’s happiness is actually straight up good for the soul, I felt good watching her be happy about her victory.

It appears Nine is able to cope with his loss because he feels it was due to the Cornerstone’s power?

Whatever floats your boat, you still lost to a Girl who doesn’t have a shred of experience at this stage of the game.

It appears the entire event wants Jack Knight to take on Bashin and are more than happy to overlook a change in order if it means doing so.

They really want Jack Knight to come in place of Number Three don’t they?

He might be able to ignore Bashin but can Jack Knight ignore the world?

This is gonna be a fake out isn’t it?

Yep of course it is, Kiano turns up for his scheduled match, as any good businessman does.

I’m really not sure if there’s any real emotional need for Bashin to face Kiano here, but then again its entirely possible that is indeed the point.

Yep, that is a point, there’s no way Jack Knight doesn’t know that everyone came all this way here to face him and yet chose to waste their efforts just because he could.

Its also an interesting sense of unreasonableness. Card Games are how people talk in this show and discuss their differences, Jack Knight has done everything out of a… well, marginal sense of reason up until this point but choosing not to deal with them now could basically be seen as the equivalent of plugging his ears and talking loudly just so he doesn’t have to hear them.

Bashin, once again, straightforward

Right now Jack Knight doesn’t actually matter, he’s got a battle that needs to happen.

To be fairly honest you could just beat down his father and then call him out afterwards. The winner of the championship could hardly be called a “Weakling” under anyone’s standards, even if Jack Knight believes so.

Wait, the Crowd was deceived by Nine?

That’s… hm I’m not sure how I feel about that. Everything Jack Knight did makes sense in the context of his decision, it would be much more cathartic to have this be genuine on the part of Jack Knight and to have him respond because he has to rather than because he wants to.

Having this entire situation be brought about because Nine chose to do it and actually Jack Knight was willing to take on Bashin again is a bit… Well it betrays the previously established sentiments of Jack Knight here. Its not a good narrative move.

Oh, I jumped the gun too early, it was indeed Nine’s decision to change the order but it was done so based on Jack Knight’s wishes.

That makes sense, given Jack Knight was powerless to change the order earlier, they’re patching that narrative problem up, not creating a new one.

That’s fine by me, I’ll take it.

No reason to fight your friends when they’re not the enemy you wish to fight, at the very least.

Though its a bit belittling to refuse to even consider them opponents in the grand scheme of things, they’re being dismissed because they’re weak and won’t give Jack Knight any strength, not because Jack Knight feels they shouldn’t need to fight at all.

Kiano notes the irony of the fact that they’re doing battle with each other. Considering they don’t actually have any differences that need settling. Kiano is inspired by Bashin, he doesn’t wish to oppose him.

You can always count on Bashin to find a problem however, Bashin knows that since Jack Knight is still Jack Knight, that means that Kiano hasn’t been able to face him honestly.

And to that statement, Kiano has no answer.

So Bashin decides he’ll defeat him in place of Jack Knight, since Bashin was meant to be facing Jack Knight here.

Now that there’s a common point of conflict between the 2, they can face each other as they’re intended to be, enemies.

It appears Kiano has proven himself to be quite the dangerous competitor.

Kiano has a Lv2 Artifact Laguna, a Lv1 The Sacred Mjolnir and a Lv2 The Valkyrie-Hildr

Bashin however, has an empty field of Spirits.

Makes sense for Kiano to be playing White, he was only testing Blue against J last time, it was likely that J picked up his affinity for White from somewhere.

A full five lives.

And a turn count of 33? Come oooon.

Bashin plays a new card, DarkDinohound.

A Red Awaken Spirit from BS04, you rarely see them with Costs this low as well. Okayish statline for its Cost. And of course its a dark variant of Bashin’s old Dinohound.

Oh, and we even get a new Nexus, this one I’m familiar with too, The Seven Dragons’ Throne.

Remember those “Seven Dragons” Jack Knight mentioned when he first played Dark Siegfried? This is a support card that unites them under the banner of Red. But also fits nicely into Bashin’s deck as his ace card is an Ancient Dragon. He can play his Siegfried for a cost Cheaper and even blow something up when it hits the board.

Which he conveniently does, He’ll be blowing up a Spirit with 10000 or less BP now!

That’s a good hit, Hildr can’t be affected by Spirits or Magic, but this is a Nexus effect.

Bashin full attacks and Kiano reckons it would be a waste to block as they can both easily reach high BP through Awaken, so he takes both from the Life to maintain his Spirits. (5->3 vs 5)

Its now Kiano’s turn and he plays the IceBeast Mam-Morl at Lv2

Here it is, a rather nasty defensive X-Rare. Now he’ll be immune to ALL of Bashin’s Red, Purple and Green effects, but Bashin can still use Blue, Yellow and White to try and deal with it.

Kiano determines that his defense is perfect, and ends his turn.

Its a fucking X-Rare party up in here, Bashin plays The MobileFortress Castle-Golem at Lv2.

This is a pretty bad position to play it in though, you’ve only got 1 Nexus, and he’s the only Blue Symbol you’ve got…

Let’s see, in a 40 card deck on turn 35, Kiano would have had 17 Draw steps leaving him with 23 cards left in deck.

With this mill, he now has 18 left, he’s not in danger, but he IS in Titus range.

Your life is controlled by the number of Spirits you have to defend it with, and that’s something you can influence.

There is no such defense against Deck Destruction. Not yet anyway.

Bashin attacks with Castle-Golem which is blocked by Mam-Morl, Mam-Morl’s effect gives it +2000 BP but its only at Lv2, so its only got 11000 BP against Castle-Golem’s 12000.

Ah, I completely forgot about Laguna’s existence, Mam-Morl and Castle-Golem are infact tied at 12000 BP.

But in a battle of equal BP, all it takes is ONE Battle-booster to end it.

Cool as THAT sequence was, Castle-Golem is destroyed by Mam-Morl.

It appears good ol’ Jack Knight is feeling some kind of worry for Bashin’s plight here. Can’t change oneself that easily I guess.

Kiano plays another copy of The Sacred Mjolnir and a Dualcannon-Bell

Kiano then plays Attack Shift, effectively turning Mam-Morl’s effect into an Offensive Aura for this turn.

I don’t think using a Cost 8 X-Rare and a Cost 7 White Magic to do what a Cost 4 Red Magic can do by itself is the flex you think it is Kiano.

At least in this case he paid the same cost as he would have for an Offensive Aura in this deck, and he at least has more variance with Attack Shift than running said Offensive Aura so I’ll give him a pass.

The problem is Bashin’s capacity to counter, he can’t respond with Red, Purple or Green effects.

I guess Laguna being at Lv2 helps as well, given they all have an additional +1000 BP on top of that.

Kiano’s playing a very power oriented strategy. Giving his strong vanillas armor and BP to make an insurmountable wall.

Bashin takes lives from Dualcannon-Bell and Laguna, (3 vs 5->3)

Bashin uses Awaken to level up his DarkDinohound to Lv3 using all but 1 of Siegfried’s Core, and then destroys an attacking Mjolnir.

Bashin does the same with Siegfried on the 2nd Mjolnir.

Bashin has to eat this last attack from Mam-Morl (3 vs 3->2)

I wonder if Kiano has a Pure Elixir hiding away somewhere. A Full attack at this point wasn’t going to completely defeat Bashin.

Meganeko makes a note that all of Kiano’s Spirits are exhausted, and Bashin has 2 Spirits, 1 more and Kiano’s 3 lives are in danger.

I am INCREDIBLY certain that Kiano is holding onto a Pure Elixir or a White Poition.

It ain’t Bashin Toppa if he isn’t using Double Draw.

It STILL isn’t Bashin Toppa if it isn’t resulting in him drawing an X-Rare either.

DarkGoradon is like an easier to handle Dinohound, a Cost 2 Reptile Beast from BS04.

Siegfried and TwinRowdy Diranos make a good tag team as TwinRowdy Diranos existing powers up Siegfried. Granting him +1000 BP.

Apparently Bashin predicted that Kiano had a Pure Elixir remaining in his hand.

This is what WE call Metagaming, Bashin mentions earlier that he was informed about Mam-Morl, so it makes sense that he would have modified his deck to include it’s most effective out, Dream Ribbon.

Eat shit, shitlord.

…In the most literal way possible, yeah I guess?

They’re REALLY milking Double Hearts as a game-ender here aren’t they? I don’t think I’ve seen a Red-user go without it.

…How do you plan to do that?

Der Ring des Nibelungen?

That’s another new Magic from BS04.

The first case of named support for the “Sieg” series. A Cost 3 Magic, its quite situational in use since it depends on your opponent’s deck makeup, but if you catch them out with Spirits in the same family, Der Ring des Nibelungen can quickly wipe out an entire formation.

Dualcannon-Bell and The Artifact Laguna share the Android Family, so they’ll both be wiped out. And Bashin has 3 remaining attackers.

Dualcannon-bell is defeated, and thanks to the effect of Der Ring des Nibelungen, Artifact Laguna is destroyed for sharing its “Android” family.

The first directly named support card I believe, at least that we’ve seen on this show.

Bashin full attacks with his remaining 3 Spirits, winning him the game.

And with that victory, Team Shomen Toppa are Kyoto Champions, and the Champions of the first Team-based Tournament.

Kiano seems to believe Bashin is capable of “reaching his father” but we don’t know what that means because we don’t actually know how strong Bashin’s dad is, he hasn’t appeared on screen to battle and there are no specific feats to base his strength off of that he’s known for.

Kiano doesn’t seem strong based on his appearance and generally how he carries himself but he is known to be an excellent player as detailed by J’s own prowess and J’s Aunt being his battle partner.

So Kiano’s competence in this sequence, while it seems a bit off for a big-chinned man in a business suit, is warranted.

I mean, how? Numbers Elite still make the domes and host the events? I’m not sure how Team Shomen Toppa winning here makes an actual difference.

Unless its because this is the first time the Numbers Elite were participating as a Team instead of individually and therefore their individual losses meant less than their collective one today.

Apparently Announcer-chan believes that until Jack Knight loses they aren’t true Champions but I’m pretty sure Jack Knight squandered that chance when he chose not to fight a “weak” opponent.

Most people would be thinking he was a coward right about now.

At this moment they receive a comment from Jack Knight.

Which says what Commentator-san says right here, apparently.

That could be interpretted in many ways but I assume its meant to mean that Jack Knight is conceding they were the better team.

The Crowd Boos at this development and even Bashin’s unhappy.

Nothing like a good ol’ fashioned public callout to REALLY get our feathers rustling.

I wonder if Bashin will call him weaksauce, throw an insult, taunt him into appearing?

Or say the equivalent of “THAT’S COOL, SEE YOU NEXT TIME”.

Of course he does follow up with what he actually means, which is “Waiting til next time to see the strongest is fine, but that’s not what I came here to do, I came here to kick Jack Knight’s ass”

So Bashin declares that he wants to fight Jack Knight, publically, and as the Champion he’s effectively the strongest person in the room.

There are some challenges you just can’t ignore, Jack Knight wouldn’t be much of anything if he turned this down.

Smile REALLY revels in being a Heel, enjoying the idea that they’ll be disappointed.

Except Jack Knight actually gets up to go battle.

Like I said, at some point you’d be a coward for not responding to a challenge, this isn’t a “Schoolyard Taunt” that can be dismissed its an open declaration of War.

Jack Knight has a very “Alright, let’s get this over with” approach, he’s not even seeing Bashin in this situation as anything other than a minor nuisance.

Wait what? Before Jack Knight can leave something ELSE happens.

A Call for Jack Knight to battle Bashin has been answered by apparently non-other than fucking Uchuuchouten.

Okay I did not anticipate that.

We don’t know much about Uchuuchouten, other than 2 things: He wants the Cornerstones for some purpose and is using the Isekai Domes to gather them.

And 2. He abhors those who are unwilling to fight, expressed when Five objected to being called to battle. He’s expressing in just a few words that he’s COMPLETELY aware of Jack Knight’s purpose as a member of the Numbers Elite and is providing him an incentive to face Bashin with something more than just half-assed resolve.

He’s giving him what he wants, the opportunity to face him.

Nine clearly didn’t anticipate this, Uchuuchouten’s acting entirely outside of what his own members were expecting.

Jack Knight has had his position changed, he’s gone from Battling because he feels he should to battling because he has no other choice.

When you want to provide the incentive for someone to face you. The best way to do it, is to stand in the way of what they want.

Right now Jack Knight stands in the way of Bashin getting back his friend, and Bashin stands in the way of Jack Knight reaching Uchuuchouten.

It’s gonna be good, they’ll spare no expense trying to tear each other apart to get what they’re after.

And that’s the end of the episode!

I don’t have much to say, there’s a lot of high emotion going on right now and I like nothing more than passionate, hot-blooded battles.

There’s a sense of catharsis with feelings so resonant that fucking Uchuuchouten, a guy we simply do not see do anything responded to the notion of those 2 Battlers being the absolute strongest.

His silence, while I don’t think is narratively compelling for him being a villain, is extremely powerful, very little stirs him, so when he IS stirred, the impact is astonishing.

Its a very “Oh shit, this entire situation actually made him do something!“

It’s good build up, and it makes his otherwise completely immovable nature get put into a little more context and used to powerful effect. I will actually forgive the prior crimes Uchuuchouten committed by being inactive just because of how they made adequate use of his inactivity by making him move here.

The Batosupi lecture details the Der Ring des Nibelungen and Seven Dragon’s Throne Combo in support of Bashin’s Siegfried. And makes the adequate note that anything Siegfried is capable of, The DarkDragonEmperor can make MUCH more effective use of.

Its an interesting problem for Bashin to solve, how does he win with Siegfried when the opponent quite clearly wields, in all sense of the word, a better one?

Its a question we’ll happily get answered next episode, I can’t wait! Jack Knight vs Bashin! Let’s go!

Alright here we go, NOW there’s no way than keep us from the Tournament, we’re gonna get a darn good battle and I’m going to LIKE IT.

“The Space between family and team” sounds like this will be a Jack Knight episode, wasn’t expecting us to take him on this early.

Yes, Team Battles have not been a mainstay for Tournament matches at all, infact the concept of Teams in general has not been a thing until this tournament.

Having other formats officially supported can be refreshing for a game.

And of course, we need to cement that Jack Knight and Smile are unstoppable without actually showing why, I don’t think I’ve seen a single ounce of their ability as a tag team.

Nothing like a bit of informing everyone that the 2 teams we actually want to see duke it out with each other are doing well, I’m not sure if there actually ARE any other relevant teams in this sequence, I didn’t see any on the board.

It appears Elliott and Kiano didn’t even bother to turn up for their team’s battle, confident they would win.

Also appears Nine has paired off with Galaxy, interesting combination, I wonder how their teamwork is.

Jack Knight’s sheer overconfidence is as radiant as ever.

Isn’t that a bit risky? I thought the whole idea of pairing off Jack Knight and Smile was that they were to be THE prime combination, Why split them up now?

Which leaves Nine with Elliott.

I don’t like this one bit, somethin’ smells off about this change in order.

Jack Knight also sees the issue, Smile and himself are a “Perfect Tag” as he puts it, so there’s no reason to split them up.

While that is true you’re not giving them any reason to compromise because there isn’t a problem.

Screw his orders, the old man sits on his ass all day and hasn’t had one battle while throwing out orders.

When the guy actually shows himself to be good at battling then I’ll actually give a shit, how about that?

Ah yes but the fucking gargantuan one you’re making right now isn’t.

I feel slightly cheated, I wanted to see that “Perfect Tag” of theirs torn to pieces by the main cast, the audience won’t actually get to see what made their tag so perfect.

This is also quite literally self-sabotage, of all the pairs you could have created you put Jack Knight with his own Father who he quite literally would love nothing more than to pound the everloving shit out of?

This line actually expresses a lot more than it suggests, by claiming he is not “His father” but “Number Three”, he’s indicating that he likely doesn’t like this either. And if he were “His father” and all the problems that came with it, he would probably agree with Jack Knight here.

But since he is acting as “Number Three” of the Numbers Elite, their relationship problems are secondary to the problem right infront of them, and should take a backseat.

I don’t like this anymore than you do buddy, this is a really stupid decision to make, I don’t see any reason, narratively or otherwise to split Jack Knight or Smile up.

I get you want to make drama between Jack Knight and daddy dearest but if you were going to do that then you shouldn’t have painted Smile and Jack Knight as the perfect tag.

So now we’re getting drama instead of seeing how Team Shomen Toppa would deal with the otherwise insurmountable wall.

It appears Bashin and Suiren are having a disagreement on… “Who gets to be the Captain”

Whatever that entails.

Kyouka has arrived to act as the mediator.

…I’m not sure what Bashin yelling “Shomen Toppa” has anything to do with the possibility of you losing a round?

Wait, what? I’m completely losing the plot here, nothing is being explained.

And apparently Suiren takes THAT to mean she’s going to be captain for the next match.

I don’t… I don’t understand what is happening.

I don’t even know what “Being the Captain” means in this situation!

This is a very silly argument, I get the idea but no one is saying anything that makes sense.

Suiren wants to be the Captain because she thinks Bashin has been operating poorly. Bashin is claiming that she has no basis for that claim because they’ve won every match they’ve had with another team.

I think Kyouka brought up the fact that they have lost a round or 2 but won the match anyway which Suiren takes to mean that Bashin does have flaws in his judgement.

And as if to make matters worse, Eight is now missing.

In searching for her, Striker finds her as “Number Eight”, walking with Elliott.

How much spray-tan is she going to go through today, switching between “Eight” and “Masako”?

This is likely going to concern her participation with Team Shomen Toppa.

Why the fuck does it matter? The Tournaments are meant to draw out those who hold Cornerstones aren’t they? Not allowing them to battle would be completely stupid.

That explanation is almost APOCALYPTICALLY cryptic.

She might be able to change her appearance but she can’t change her voice.

This is such a Parental way of solving the problem of 2 children arguing, “Why can’t there be two captains?”

BECAUSE being a Captain likely involves selecting the order, and if both select different orders, which one takes precedence?

Striker thinks this is a JOLLY good idea because they’re paired up.

Well okay then.

Well that was certainly close, she only managed to change her top half-

Wait, her midriff still has the Spray Tan, what the hell?

Welp, that’s another bottle of Spray Tan completely wasted.

“The Young use it to play and the Old use it to earn” sounds like a really capitalistic way of looking at it. Also extremely enraging because I love this game despite being an adult.

Adults should not get used to the idea that they are not allowed to enjoy things that children have the capacity to enjoy.

Elliott re-raises the initial problem, Eight has committed an offence against Thousupi Group.

Very rare moment that we actually get to see Eight’s eyes.

Quite interestingly, she’s actually quite beautiful with her glasses off.

But back on topic, apparently being a Teacher has implored her to ask how much she’s actually enjoyed Battle Spirits for herself, since she’s been using it to support the Nazo-Otonas all this time.

Elliott has a bit of a think about it and comes to some sort of conclusion that the reason he believes she joined them is different to the reason she actually did so.

It appears that there was a misunderstanding? Let’s see if I can put this together.

Eight joining Team Shomen Toppa was seen as a betrayal by the Nazo-Otonas because they believed she was lending them their strength in order to support them against Thousupi Group.

However, Eight is explaining that she didn’t do it because she was actively rebelling against the group, she did it because Battle Spirits is enjoyable for children and she wanted to protect their entry to let them enjoy it further. As well as enjoy the game herself.

Hence, she’s not betraying the group, she’s simply acting in her own interests.

And I’m one of them, sat here in my little room wondering why the fuck you haven’t thrown a battle at me yet.

It appears Jack Knight and Kiano are still doing well despite the fact that they haven’t composed the “Perfect Tag” like Jack Knight and Smile would.

Seems once Bashin clears out the Mutsugo Brothers (whoever they are) there will only be the Finals, leaving Numbers Elite to face off against Shomen Toppa.

After their Tag match together, Striker apparently sees Eight drop something.

I certainly hope that wasn’t the letter from Elliott. Because that would make things REAL awkward.

Oh, Striker used that as an opportunity to call out Elliott? And not Eight?

This is a very “You know too much” situation.

Striker having caught onto Elliott’s vague letter is a problem because it likely means they might be able to take advantage of Eight’s status as a Nazo-Otona.

Ah yes, the 5th Amendment: The Right to Silence, the ultimate defense of the American. The ability to plead silence when asked to give testimony that may be considered incriminating.

There’s that recurring theme again, seeing the events in terms of “Adults” and “Children”

There’s a recurring theme of the cast, the “Children” being left in the dark about situations that concern them purely because they are children, and Adults continuing to dismiss them, again, because they are children.

The antagonists all share a very “Children have no business involving themselves in Adult matters”, its the core of the debate between J and his father as well. J AND Striker in this situation are trying very hard to understand why certain things are happening and at every turn, Adults are telling them they have no business knowing because they are not yet Adults.

So J, in his case, is given no other option than to force himself to grow up, and forcibly cements himself in his Father’s world, he becomes an “Adult”, and even earlier in this episode he’s treated as a child because he’s been forced to Team up with his father and is offerred no explanation than “Their leader said so”, even being an Adult doesn’t allow him to do as he likes as he’s still offered no explanations for the things he is forced to do.

Its an interesting theme, I wonder what the moral is meant to be.

There it is again, Elliott’s dismissal of Striker, because he’s a Child.

Elliott bets the Truth about Eight on a Battle, as one does in Card Game anime.

This is interesting when thinking about the earlier themeing, Elliott said “Batosupi is not only for Children”, this makes Battle Spirits as a game, a medium by which Children are on the same level as Adults.

It appears we’re getting another out-of-tournament battle, this time it’s Striker vs Elliott.

It appears Striker has 0 Spirits, and only 2 cards in his hand, that’s… pretty bad.

And while I would hazard to say Elliott is using White, he’s only got Fenrircannon Mk-II

And Elliott has been known to throw out off-colour spirits like crazy anyway.

We’re not shown the lives.

Striker plays 2 copies of The Fruit of Life and levels them up, before passing.

He’s in need of resources, so this isn’t a bad way to get them, but without a good look at his lives its hard to tell if its a good move.

Well we can at least confidently say Elliott is using a White Deck this time around, he plays the new BS04 White Vanilla, Berserker-Magnum, its Cost 2 and a member of the “Machine” family.

He also follows up with another new card, The Valkyrie-Hildr.

A new Cost 6 White Spirit from BS04, its unaffected by Spirits or Spells, and refreshes whenever your life is damaged. It’s quite an okay defensive card considering it can block every other attack.

Striker takes lives from attacks from Fenrircannon Mk-II and Berserker-Magnum, awarding him 4 additional core and 4 extra cards.

We also learn that he had full life, and now he’s on 3, still haven’t seen Elliott’s.

Striker responds to Valkyrie-Hildr’s attack with MachG.

But still chooses to take from the life. (3->2)

That’s a clever move, he’s still accruing resources, but by putting Swift Spirits on the board on the last attack, their core will return to Striker’s reserve when his turn begins, and he’ll have more reductions available.

Striker plays 2 more new cards. Machfly and BlackMachG.

Both are Parasite Vanillas, Machfly is from BS03 while BlackMachG is from BS04.

Striker then deploys The Budding Plain, this will enable Striker to gain Core anytime he plays a Magic during the Attack Step.

Striker then plays The Duke Kingtaurus, allowing him to gain 3 extra core as he has 3 extra spirits.

This would matter more if we actually knew how much Core Striker was working with but we don’t, at the very least, Striker doesn’t need additional investment bringing it to Lv2

The Duke Kingtaurus is sent out to attack.

Elliott takes from the life. Showing us both sides had full life during the Board preview. (5->4 vs 2)

Because Striker damaged Elliott’s life, Hildr’s Lv2 effect kicks in, refreshing it.

Undeterred, Striker sends Machfly to attack, which is promptly defeated by Hildr.

Striker attacks again with MachG which Elliott takes from the life. (4->3 vs 2)

Hildr is once again refreshed as Elliott lost a life.

Yep, throwing in BlackMachG would just be suicide.

I guess “Soccer Boy” devolved into “Sugar Boy”

This is our missing X-Rare we didn’t get to see from BS03, surprised we saw 2 BS04 X-Rares before we saw this but hey, stranger things have occurred.

This card’s quite the sheer pain in the ass, its a difficult card to keep at Lv3 due to its 8 core investment but when it does its nasty.

Its a Spirit that reinforces your board, your White Spirits get stronger when blocking, and at higher levels, they even become immune to effects. Red, Purple and Green are already quite nasty since that prevents most removal and even exhausting as an option, and then you bring it to Lv3 and it adds Blue and Yellow to the mix, meaning you can’t even use those effects to interact with it.

Making the only option to deal with it through effects, being White.

Its not seen nowadays, its fairly weak for its cost and effect, most Spirits of that cost need to have a higher BP output, but its universal armor is quite a nasty prospect, if you figure out a way to give it White Armor then the card becomes Invincible unless you fight it head on.

In Striker’s defense, he does come up with a good plan to block with his last Spirit and use Same Tired to force 2 more of Elliott’s spirits into an exhausted state.

The problem is… Mam-Morl is ALREADY Lv3, Non-White Effects no longer work.

As much of a villain as Elliott is, he always looks like he’s having fun, even when he’s getting his ass beat.

In this case though, he’s getting to showcase another of the effects that the game he created has (He is considered to be the game’s creator in this series which is kinda whack)

Well White effects but on his turn, basically yes.

Berserker-Magnum loses to BlackMachG, its still pretty bad though, Striker has no Blockers and Elliott has 3 Spirits that are invincibile to non-White Magic.

Valkyrie-Hildr attacks, taking a life from Striker.

Fenrircannon aims for game. You had a good run Striker-

WAHT!?

OKAY I WASN’T EXPECTING THAT, THAT WAS COOL, THE SAVAGEKNIGHT HERCULES CAME OUT OF NOWHERE AND BLOCKED!

That was lucky, but the more interesting part is the OTHER card he drew, White removal magic!

Fenrircannon is vaporized by Hercules’ Block.

Now this is cool, that was really cool, one of the few times this show has actually made me feel awesome.

MachG is also refreshed as The SavageKnight Hercules refreshes all Swift Spirits when it’s summoned.

This means with only Mam-Morl to attack with Elliott can’t win.

Oh, we get to hear more about this “Adults business” shtick, I’m actually invested to see where this is going.

Striker’s earned that with that last play he did, using The SavageKnight Hercules as a wall.

Striker concedes the idea that perhaps it WAS an adult situation and that Striker shouldn’t really be involved in it.

I’m not really sure what Striker’s point here is in terms of a moral with the show’s overall themeing.

I RECKON its that even if its an “Adult situation”, one shouldn’t remain ignorant when it involves their friends.

Striker bounces The IceBeast Mam-Morl to Elliott’s hand, now Striker just has to worry about Hildr.

Striker then deploys a Yellow card, The Spiral Tower. Making Elliott’s Spells cost 1 more to play.

Its not shown well onscreen but he levels it up to Lv2, which will prevent Elliott from using Magic unless all cost is paid from the reserve.

Striker then uses Poison Mist, that’s a new one.

A Purple Magic from BS03, Poison Mist lets one send any Cores from their Reserve to the Trash to move the same number from the opponent’s Reserve to the Trash.

This is good synergy with Striker’s Green Deck, as he gains a lot of Core, leaving him almost always in excess of core compared to his opponent, Elliott’s reserve is likely completely dried of Core, so Elliott can’t respond with Magic.

Good moral, a bit simplistic but its a good moral.

BlackMachG attacks, dropping Elliot to 2 lives (3->2 vs 1)

Hildr is refreshed.

I believe we’ve reviewed this card before, it lets one destroy a Spirit in order to gain cores in your Reserve equal to that Spirit’s cost, this card is Banned currently because it enables one to accrue more Core than they spent on it very easily.

Striker uses it to rid himself of BlackMachG, giving him 3 additional Core in his reserve.

He then uses that core to additionally follow up with Offensive Aura.

Kingtaurus only has 6000 BP at Level 2, it loses to Hildr’s Lv2 at 7000 BP, as such, the boost is necessary to overcome Hildr.

And since Hildr was defeated by Kingtaurus, Elliott loses one additional life (2->1 vs 1)

The SavageKnight Hercules attacks for Elliott’s last life, going full fucking Jedi.

And that’s a win for Striker.

The game was a bit tilted into Striker’s favour there by exploiting the draws but at the very least they broke the formula of “New X-Rare means that person wins”

Striker’s getting some pretty heavy praise from Elliott but you did promise him information if he was able to defeat you.

Striker didn’t forget either, good, that would have been really annoying.

Striker has a mini flash of images from his past interactions with Number Eight.

Elliott explains to Striker that, at least for this Tournament, Eight isn’t participating out of any ulterior motive and genuinely wants to help them.

Wow I guess the only tournament match we will actually be seeing is Shomen Toppa vs Numbers Elite.

Strangely enough BOTH Striker and Elliott sighed when they won, which is a bit strange considering Elliott should be considering them to be in his way.

Ah, I forgot that the Nazo-Otonas were aware that My Sunshine and Suiren were the same person, and as such Elliott wanted them to succeed otherwise My Sunshine likely would not have done a live in her state.

So Elliott’s a closet My Sunshien fan, because of course he is.

Huh, so for the Finals they changed up the rules, now only half the Team gets to play, and they will have three individual battles.

I guess this solves the problem of Jack Knight being held back by Kiano, and makes the “Perfect Tag” problem slightly irrelevant as the last match was never going to be Tags anyway.

And it also lets Bashin get proper revenge on Jack Knight as they lost in a 1v1 battle, winning only through a Tag wouldn’t be very meaningful.

Alright, I’m satisfied with this.

Geez, can a guy not have a battle with an overarching enemy who’s also the creator of Battle Spirits in peace?

What if he just really needed to use the bathroom?

Yeah you should think about fixing that problem, being My Sunshine is really causing you more issues than it solves.

But can’t knock someone for enjoying singing, I like singing too though I’m much less good at it.

Elliott suddenly announces that he’s withdrawing from the final round, this is fine given that he’s not actually required to play.

I guess Striker managed to get through to him in some way.

I really hate when there’s a Team setting and like one member of the team is like “I’m all that’s necessary”

It’s fucking PsyQualia Aichi all over again from Vanguard’s first season, its a 3v3 game, you need 2 wins!

At best you are 50% of what’s necessary! You need someone at LEAST your level!

I have no idea what this is meant to mean in the context of all Elliott has been doing until now. Next Era for what?

But of course we’ll get ZERO explanation because that’s the end of the episode!

We’re finally going to see Shomen Toppa vs Numbers Elite in the next one and if I’m honest I really cannot wait to see it!

This episode once again hits home the separation between “Adults” and “Children” and what Children should be doing and what Adults should be doing.

I believe there’s an indication, at least in this show, that for Adults there is a time to be a Child, and for a Child, there is a time to be an Adult, and what that actually means is something explored in this show.

I’d need a whole essay to completely go in depth but that’s the messaging I’m getting at least.

And of course our card of the day appears to be The IceBeast Mam-Morl.

Its definitely not a card used recently now, as I said earlier its power and cost are not worth it, and though its Armor abilities are quite useful, there are new card types that don’t fall under typical Armor that can blindside regular Armor. Allowing Mam-Morl to just get completely run over by those newer card types. It’s family, “Giant Beast” is also not a well supported Family in the recent game, and as such there isn’t a family-centric deck it can fit nicely into.

The card suffers from it’s High Investment, unsupported family and outdated effect, which is why its not used as a focal point for any reason in today’s Metagame.

That being said, all cards have a use, and Battle Spirits is the type of game where any card can see use and be useful, so don’t hestitate to play with cards like this if you like them.

With that, I’ll take my leave, see you next time for Episode 41!

Righto, so I broke the great laws of my time, to spare myself the pain of having to guess whether or not this episode was going to actually be relevant, I watched the episode preview.

I know, I have betrayed you all, its a real shame, but at the very least its given me some invigoration knowing that this episode.

IS ACTUALLY RELEVANT!

This is a bit of a lengthy title, and despite its sheer length, fails to actually tell me what the fuck is going on with this episode.

Oh that’s kind of cool, the Kyoto Isekai Dome is Red in colour, which contrasts from the original Silver Isekai Dome in wherever our cast normally goes.

And given J debuted his Red X-Rare in Kyoto its thematic of J’s change in X-Rare.

Apparently we have a new battle stage for this tournament, the Team Match Battle.

I wonder if they’ll explain the rules or if we’re just supposed to figure it out, though I suppose if its anything like the Exchange Match it will just be that.

Aww geez, don’t tell me the Team Match Battles are going to be predominantly Tag Battles.

Tag Battles are so far removed from the standard that it’s hard to analyze, and that’s on TOP of the fact that the show already ignores basic math after jumping a bunch of turns ahead.

I will say these promotional posters of Jack Knight are fucking awesome. If the whole show was animated the way he looks in the non-rose picture I’d be enjoying myself a ton more.

But this is like 2008-2009, I am asking a bit much.

With the exception of Striker, notably everyone is wearing variants of their design that don’t change much besides ensuring that the arms are less sleeved.

Smile arrives to taunt them, I guess he wouldn’t be able to help himself after he flat out TOLD them to not bother getting in their way, I suppose he’s trying to gauge what’s continuing to drive them and to see if he can sway them away from their goal.

Also look at Meganeko’s face, she looks about ready to throw Nanarin at him at a moment’s notice.

Or worse yet, drop Nanarin entirely and just beat the shit out of him.

Oh right, Smile makes some kind of comment like “This is what I’m stuck with every day” I think in reference to the fact that he’s part of their Batosupi Club, even though he’s entering with the Numbers.

And of course, Smile is proverbially tooting his own horn because he’s finally gotten what he wanted, the opportunity to team up with Jack Knight, which given he and Jack Knight are likely to be the strongest members of their team, is going to be a key problem for most teams to deal with.

Smile takes this opportunity to scare the pants off of Seven, knowing he’s the meekest of the group.

Team is only as strong as their weakest link, might as well damage what you can.

Granted, the Team re-assures Seven not to worry about Smile and they resolve to win the Tournament, as they do.

Its a lot of frames and a lot of nothing that isn’t already obvious in this scene, so I don’t feel the need to cover it.

It appears our villains are organizing where to build the next domes across Japan.

We still haven’t figured out what exactly these domes are for to be honest.

We’re in Episode 39 and we still don’t know what the grand plan is here, by the time they announce what it is it might already be too late for them.

At least we know that the Domes have a purpose other than the Tournaments they’re holding, and for each Dome to function properly, Battles have to occur.

In a rare moment of Uchuuchouten doing… well, fucking ANYTHING.

He actually states that the Cornerstone’s Light can hide in ordinary people, and that the Tournaments can be used to draw them out.

But don’t they know the holders of every Cornerstone at this moment in time? Besides maybe Card Sensei’s, is there a need to “Draw them out” when you know where they are?

In other news, this is the first Championship that has Blue available.

So not only do you need a way to deal with losing cards, that strategy also can’t rely on you losing lives.

If Mikafar Turbo wasn’t completely wrecking the actual game this would be an actual conversation people could have.

Meganeko says its a good thing they have Seven, before Seven seems to seemingly vanish.

Its evident this is because he’s changing into his Galaxy persona, he’s not confident otherwise.

Ah, Seven has gone all the way to Uchuuchouten’s place for some bizarre reason. Is he also turning in his resignation like Card Sensei?

God the guy really can’t keep a leash on his designated Blue people.

I see Eight has attended the event in her “Sexy Queen” outfit.

Oh shit, Seven left because he’s going to play on the side of the Numbers Elite?

Awww that’s not cool.

I should have expected this, given that HE IS Number Seven but to think he’d chicken out and be so needlessly obedient.

I guess Seven doesn’t want to betray those who are representing him and his club.

I can’t tell if he’s trying to use that as an excuse to not participate as part of the Numbers Elite, or if he’s having such strong self-esteem issues that he doesn’t feel like he shouldn’t be a member of Numbers Elite.

Could be both, he’d make an excellent replacement for Number Two, Michael Elliott may have a hand in Batosupi’s card pool but god is he straight awful at this game.

Eight appears to be encouraging him not to betray his teammates, which is strange for someone who is obediently following her orders.

It appears that is why it was so loosely mentioned so far before that they needed 6 members so ambiguously, you need 6 members because it will be best of 3 tags matches in the Quarter Final.

So if a member is missing, you’ll likely be disqualified if you lose even ONE match.

It seems they’re trying to discuss who gets paired up with who.

Striker and Bashin have fought together before, so they actually have experience taking part in Tag Matches, this makes them a good combination for the Tag match.

Pink makes the HILARIOUS suggestion that Purple gets paired with Blue.

Up until VERY VERY recently, Blue and Purple have had very VERY little synergy.

The things they aim to do don’t really coincide very well with each other, it’s not Purple’s fault however, it’s Blue’s.

Because Blue is the one-trick pony deck type, its designed to do very specific things well, such as Deck Destruction.

Because they are like that, they can’t mesh well with many other colours without specific mechanisms allowing them to do so.

Every other colour eventually received those mechanisms but Purple did not, up until very recently.

They really haven’t explained why the combination will be good, they just fucking did it

I don’t think Blue has a single card available at this moment that lets them support purple in any way, meanwhile they have cards like DragonSlayBlade Guy which combos with Red, and Construction which combos with Red AND Green.

Bashin has been looking really restless the entire meeting, I wonder if he has a specific preference for a tag partner-

Can I strangle him? Pretty please? Just for 5 minutes.

Bashin eventually gets to a stall and fucking makes WHATEVER THE HELL THIS IS.

JESUS.

Seven is apparently hiding in the bathroom for some… bizarre reason.

It appears we’ve missed a couple frames that I thought were useless, they made a huddle to raise everyone’s spirits and unfortunately Seven isn’t feeling any more courageous after it all, and he’s upset about it.

Self-Esteem issues: Maximum

Galaxy is a recurring character, unfortunately he’s only ever cool in this series because he actually battles.

Seven looks at his clothing before leaving Bashin a card.

I wonder what the card actually is, I can’t think of many other Blue cards that Bashin’s Red deck could get any mileage out of.

And he just fucking skedaddles.

Alright, kind of weird, what was the card-

Oh shit, he left him his X-RARE.

Well, while it isn’t something that will help Bashin’s strategy, its certainly capable of being placed in Bashin’s deck as is, and given that its freaking TITUS, it can probably deck out many players by itself.

We eventually cut back to Meganeko in TEARS because there’s a problem.

Ah, I see the problem. Because Seven has dropped out, they can’t form 3 Tags and therefore can’t participate.

I feel like I’m getting punched in the gut here.

That’s what Smile meant by that line, its weird because he only ever spooks the crap out of Nanao who’s easily spooked anyway.

I feel irritated that I missed that, they need the best luck possible because they need a 6th member in spite of Seven’s expected leave.

I really don’t like when people, in fits of rage, ask questions of which the answers are obvious.

Why the fuck would you detain someone to stop them doing something you had no idea they were trying to do?

And so everyone goes off to search for their missing Blue muppet.

Oh, yeah that makes sense, I completely forgot Numbers Elite are entirely comprised of 5 members up until now, they needed a 6th.

This is certainly a weird bunch, and not a Purple player in sight.

Instead they’ve arguably got 2 Blue players.

In Kyouka’s brief search, she comes across someone looking a little like J and approaches.

Unfortunately, its the return of this idiot, Pseudo-J.

OH BOY. THAT’S NOT GOOD.

Okay, so Kyouka is apparently attracted to Pseudo-J. A guy who serves no other purpose than to look and act exactly like J, her brother.

I DON’T BELIEVE I NEED TO EXPLAIN THE PROBLEMS WITH THIS.

And she got his autograph. Everything about this is weird.

NO.

NO YOU SHOULD NOT BE.

THANK GOD FOR RESCUING US FROM THIS FUCKERY, THIS SCENE COULD NOT HAVE BEEN HERE AND THIS SERIES WOULD BE PERFECTLY OKAY.

Our missing team member has been located, he’s fucked off to play for a completely different team.

And it wouldn’t be possible to call over the student council members to fill in, getting them to Kyoto on this short notice would be quite literally impossible.

Ah yes the ol’ “I punch wall because me mad” trope.

Its not as effective here because god the sound effect is so fucking CARTOONY.

Upon being pressed, Bashin reveals that Galaxy gave his ace card to him.

Aaaaand promptly has an epiphany.

I certainly hope they tell me what exactly it is that Bashin realized about the card that led him to where he’s going at this moment.

Oh, Bashin’s angry, time to kick up my feet and watch him completely smash something.

Was that what the card was meant to be? Bait?

Bashin ain’t chilling for nobody right now, time to watch this no-holds-barred beatdown of Galaxy.

And where else would we take it than the endless skies of Isekai?

On Galaxy’s field appears to be a Lv1 Soldier Gustav, and a card I have never seen before.

On checking the wiki, this card is Rabirabi. She just appears to be exhausted.

Both are vanillas, Rabirabi here is a very idol-like Spirit, but it was apparently TOO HOT for the western release of the game while it was there.

She’s given an undersuit to tone her sexiness down because of course this was at a time where we needed to conform to some standard when marketing card games to children.

God forbid a card looked attractive.

Bashin thankfully has cards we’ve seen before, a Lv2 Rhino-Ceros and a Lv2 Bun-Ffalo

5 Lives aside, its also Bashin’s turn.

Bashin goes for a Magic Hammer, he’s going full Blue strat today.

Galaxy loses 5 cards from his deck, at Turn 27 with a 30 card deck, Galaxy will have had 13 Draw Steps, putting his deck to 27.

a 5 card mill leaves Galaxy with 22 cards remaining.

Interestingly, 2 of the cards hit are cards we’ve yet to see before.

But I won’t review them unless used.

Bashin then full attacks, taking 2 lives from Galaxy (5->3 vs 5)

I find that extremely hard to believe but lets see.

A Blue Magic from BS03, Nexus Register.

Ah I remember this strategy, very well, let’s talk about it.

A Powerful draw card for multiple reasons, the issues are its costly and situational, you can toss out ANY nexuses present in your hand in order to draw a card for every one you threw out.

Galaxy is very fun to watch, I will say that right now. He throws out 3 nexuses to draw 3 new cards. I’ll review those nexuses if they come into play, but if I remember this scene correctly, it does.

Oh boy, he drew a pretty nasty card.

The effect is obscured, so I won’t review it until he plays it but its still gnarly.

He’s REALLY fun to watch, he’s a barrel of confidence, over declaring his plays and sounding cool.

And because he doesn’t actually have any powers he gets overly surprised when his “Galaxy Draw” actually DOES yield something.

Galaxy then plays Construction, a card we mentioned earlier, allowing him to play EVERY Red, Green and Blue Nexus currently inside his Trash.

He deploys the 3 Nexuses he just discarded for no Cost, and Levels them all up to Lv2.

Let’s talk about these.

Some nutty old Nexuses from BS03, and what a crazy collection of cards they are.

Rampart of Sapphire lets you cheaply make full use of Spirits with No Printed Effects, while making them easy to level up while making your nexuses invincible when you have them in abundance.

Collapse of the Battle Line is a Crazy Demolish Support card, not only increasing the number of cards lost through Demolish but making it easy to raise them to their maximum level as well through its Lv2.

And finally, H.Q. Filled with Fighting Spirits, a Card that lets you gain Core for destroying the opponent’s deck, while also letting you Demolish from a defensive position, and not just attacking.

Nexus combos be cray cray yo.

We’re being spoiled with cards to review today, aren’t we?

Golem Craft has a 2000 BP Battle boost, but as a main effect, it treats every Nexus with at least 1 Core on it as a Cost 1 2000 BP Artificial Soldier Spirit with no printed effects.

The exchange of course is that the effects of the Nexuses are lost for the turn that you use it, and also gives you the opportunity to destroy the nexuses in battle, unfortunately, Bashin full attacked earlier, leaving his Life open.

Interestingly, they’re represented in the game as Ghosts. Which is kind of cool, the Ghosts are very hard to see on the cards themselves, being Shadowish.

Bashin has to take all the Nexus attacks from the Life.

Galaxy attacks with Gustav but Bashin destroys it with Flame Cyclone.

After the Draw Step and Nexus register, a 40-card deck would have about 18 cards remaining, a Titus combo would be a very easy victory to claim from this position.

Bashin plays a card we’ve yet to see before, Its a BS04 Vanilla of the Fighting Beast Family, all other details are in this image so I won’t review it. Its got a hefty BP at Lv2 however. That thing could square off with a Lv2 Kingtaurus.

Bashin then levels up Rhino-Ceros to Lv3 and attacks.

Galaxy explains that Rhino-Ceros can destroy the deck by being destroyed, as such Galaxy tends towards not blocking it, taking it from the life. (3->2 vs 2)

I’m not sure why they explained the earlier Rhino-Ceros interaction when Rabirabi doesn’t have nearly enough BP to defeat it.

Bashin only has 2 Spirits left, he can’t take all of Galaxy’s lives from here.

It seems like Galaxy is being an idiot, but he might be trying to remind Bashin that Galaxy is the one who taught Bashin how to use Blue.

Galaxy cashes in his free Troll, summoning it for no cost.

Galaxy finally plays the Blue X-Rare hiding away in his hand, The MobileFortress Castle-Golem!

BS04’s Blue X-Rare, The MobileFortress Castle-Golem, a Card with very simple but devastating effects.

When Summoned, it destroys 5 cards in the opposing deck for every Nexus you control, for a Maximum of 15. And at Lv2 it destroys a card for every Blue Symbol you have.

This card sees play even today in strategies involving decks that produce a lot of Nexuses. A very interesting deck was a Purple strategy that involved core boosting large amounts of core through transferring it from a Purple Nexus to your spirits before playing Castle-Golem to deck the opponent out.

…Which is an interesting thing to remember right after I said that Purple and Blue had no synergy…

Life never allows me to be sure of anything.

And of the 15 cards Bashin is now losing from his deck only ONE of them is interesting, that being the Blue Magic, Blitz. Bashin doesn’t have many Demolish Spirits and yet runs Blitz which lets you gain core for Demolish Spirits attacking.

For some reason the English version of that card moved its Main effect to a Flash effect and removed its Battle boost effect.

The English release really fucked this game, honestly.

Galaxy levels up Castle-Golem to Lv2 and swings with it, taking a life from Bashin (2 vs 2->1)

Due to Castle-Golem’s effect, Bashin loses 6 cards off the top of his deck as Galaxy controls 6 symbols.

Galaxy notes that Bashin should have ran out of cards by now, but he’s running a slightly fatter deck than normal.

Again, please stop perpetuating this as a strategy, its not useful because you’re directly sacrificing consistency to avoid something you might not even face, something you do to counter blue should not hurt you against every other deck.

Bashin’s in a sticky situation, his deck and his lives are low, and Galaxy only needs to eliminate ONE of them to take the game.

Bashin barely got by since he had equal blockers to Galaxy’s attackers.

It certainly feels like he’s got to win now.

Its a sticky situation but it does look like an interesting one to be in for sure. I can see the fun in that

The best part about being presented with a puzzle in Battle Spirits is how you’re going to get around it, its a unique experience only Battle Spirits has.

In Yu-Gi-Oh, you either have an answer or you don’t. Its very rare that moments such as “How do I break this” ever come up, 9 times out of 10, you either can or you can’t.

In Vanguard, its similar, your choices are rather limited, sometimes the only thing you can do is nothing when presented with a difficult situation, plus there’s the Trigger luck factor that you have to rely on and you might not even be able to.

In Duel Masters its a game of momentum, if you’re falling behind its difficult to make a comeback in a single turn due to Summoning sickness. The same applies to MTG.

No, only Battle Spirits has the type of one-turn comebacks that feel meaningful in the grand scheme of things, and even if the fire of your final turn burns out its still real fun to be a part of.

Time to see how hot Bashin’s fire burns!

Bashin plays Double Draw!

When next turn is sure to be a loss, you don’t NEED to worry about how small your deck is!

Bashin draws Titus and Double Hearts. Galaxy is on 2 Life, Bashin can check him with this combo by forcing him into combat.

Bashin plays The GiantHero Titus.

Its effect when summoned takes out 10 cards from Galaxy’s Deck

A 40 card deck would have 7 cards left.

The GiantHero Titus is brought to Lv2. Now if it defeats a Spirit in battle, Galaxy will lose another 10 cards.

Bashin then follows up with Double Hearts, giving Titus a second Blue Symbol.

Now Galaxy has a choice, he can block and lose 10 cards, or take it from the life and lose 2 lives, and if I’ve calculated his deck’s count correctly, he doesn’t have enough of either.

Galaxy blocks with Rabirabi, but Bashin points out that might not be the best choice.

Titus destroys Rabirabi, and Galaxy loses 10 cards from his deck, running out of cards.

The Deck thins 1 at a time but there are 7 different frames before the last card vanishes, so he did only have 7 cards remaining.

Galaxy looks to see if there is a way to turn things around with his hand, the only opportunity to do so would be to play a card that can return a card to his deck, or otherwise take Bashin’s final life, but the battle has concluded so there’s no way he can do either.

And even if he could do something, his hand is The Illusionist Mirage, a Spirit that brings all your Spirits to the highest level on summon for the turn. And Lead Wall which is a Cost 2 counter that negates the unblockable effect for a turn.

Neither of which will work here.

With no cards in his deck by the time Galaxy’s start step comes, Bashin wins… via a Deck out.

It appears the lesson Seven wanted to teach Bashin with Titus was that while Blue is indeed a strong opponent, a simple answer to that can be to use a Blue Deck.

While its not a solution that promotes a healthy metagame, it is a solution, if nothing else, a deck will not have an easy time defeating itself.

Bashin tries to get answers out of Galaxy, asking why he’s choosing to put their position in the tournament in danger to play against them.

But Seven resolves to be himself, Number Seven of Numbers Elite.

Bashin can’t bring himself to hate Seven for his decision, if only because its something he wants to do.

Welp while that is nice Bashin it doesn’t solve the problem of the fact that, well, you need a 6th member!

Galaxy shakes Bashin’s hand as Bashin lets Galaxy go on a good note, but leaves a card in it, to lend to Bashin.

The First rule of Nazo-Otonas returns: Defeating a Nazo-Otona awards you an X-Rare.

Eight seems pleased that Seven is going through his duty as a Number.

But I think there is STILL THE PRESSING ISSUE OF A 6TH PLAYER.

Hoo boy, guess we’ll learn which teams got in the hard way.

Oh hey, Pseudo-J has his own team, can’t wait to see him not have any battles.

I’d love to see him actually throw down with a character just to see how good he is though.

The group catch up with Bashin, asking him on Seven’s status.

Bashin announces to them that he’s Number Seven, and therefore will continue to be participating as part of the Numbers Elite.

Strangely though, Team Shomen Toppa’s name is called out despite not having enough members.

it appears Eight was seeing what conclusion they came to, if Seven chose to be a member of Shomen Toppa its likely she’d have been called upon as a Numbers Elite, in this case however Seven chose to be Number Seven, so she’s joining Shomen Toppa to avoid them dropping out.

Its likely Smile was banking on Seven’s betrayal to get Shomen Toppa disqualified before they started, preventing them from having a chance to interact with Jack Knight again, which is pretty scummy all things considered.

The minute someone resorts to underhanded tactics that occur outside the game you know their moral integrity has been completely compromised.

I see the Nazo-Otonas are not happy about this, they’re seeing this as a betrayal, like Card Sensei did earlier.

If I was in her position I’d have done the same as Eight, if they want to prove their superiority they can’t be eliminating opponents they don’t want to battle before they do so. You can’t pick and choose your opponents on the way to number 1.

Smile is… drawn a tad strangely here but he’s got a point, even if they enter they still need to defeat the Numbers Elite. Tis an uphill battle.

I can’t help but feel that they’re missing the irony of using Bashin’s catchphrase.

Though… it could be foreshadowing.

Uchuuchouten gives his usual opening speech, but ends with this slightly altered line, indicating the Cornerstone’s Light.

It appears Jack Knight isn’t even being forced into using his DarkDragonEmperor, winning all of his games with his usual Thor.

Bashin’s Team is in the Best 8 however, so we’re skipping to Best 8 it seems?

Alright, here we go, to the Best 8!

Or not.

God dammit, I got wrapped up in the Episode’s pace.

So we didn’t see any tournament games like I was expecting to see, but we did see Bashin get 2 new X-Rares in the space of an episode, and both of which are Blue.

I wonder what Galaxy will play with then without a Castle-Golem or a Titus? Unless he’s got other copies, Nine did mention the Siegfried he gave to Bashin was not the only one he owned.

Plus they have Elliott, he could probably supply as many as necessary.

It also seems like Bashin’s counter for Blue is… well, Blue.

In this case he’s using an aggressive Red/Blue deck that splits the need to destroy the Life with the need to destroy the Deck, and well, Titus and Castle-Golem are ridiculously efficient at dealing with the Deck by themselves. Its hard to think of what else Bashin would need besides those to consider them as an alternative strategy.

And of course, Batosupi Lecture has a card of the day, The MobileFortress Castle-Golem.

A very powerful card, we see it even today used in certain decks, as such its one of those cards that hasn’t needed a Revival effect (a new version of itself that is functionally the same card but just has a better effect to adjust to recent decks)

Any Nexus strategy that generates tons of cores might have this lying around, and if you’re not expecting it, it will come from 13 years in the past to kick you in the Deck.

In any case, its nice that its on Bashin’s side as opposed to the Numbers Elite’s side, though the Numbers Elite have very few X-Rares that can be considered “theirs” now.

Smile’s ArcAngelia Mikafar, J’s Odin, Thor and Dark Siegfried.

The others have no defining X-Rares to their name. Other than Nine having an awfully similar deck to Bashin.

Guess we’ll see what they’re packing next time. See you then!