Battle Spirits: Shounen Toppa Bashin

Energetic and thrill-seeking sixth grader Toppa Bashin has his mind set on only one thing—the card game Battle Spirits. Bearing a ruby pendant inherited from his missing father, Bashin heads to school every day with excitement: not for academics, but for card battling, much to the chagrin of his peers.

One day, Bashin encounters J, the child prodigy champion of Battle Spirits, who bears a similar pendant. Star-struck, Bashin challenges J to a battle. However, the battle he gets is one he did not anticipate; the two are teleported to a mysterious arena in the sky—the Isekai World—where Spirits from the game become real.

Feeling that his dream is finally within arm's reach, Bashin dives headfirst into the Isekai World, encountering other card battlers with extraordinary pendants. While making his way to the top, he slowly realizes that there is more to Battle Spirits than he ever imagined.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Suiren Main

Takagaki, Ayahi Japanese

Sawaragi, Juli Main

Miyake, Kaya Japanese

Otonashi, Fumiko Main

Kanda, Akemi Japanese

Bashin, Toppa Main

Tamura, Mutsumi Japanese

Kawatou, Kyouji Main

Kitazawa, Riki Japanese

Nohara, Kakeru Main

Sakamaki, Ryosuke Japanese

Inogashira, Masako Supporting

Neya, Michiko Japanese

Elliott, Michael Supporting

Chafurin Japanese

Watanabe, Nanao Supporting

Kishio, Daisuke Japanese

Kujou, Kyuusaku Supporting

Kusunoki, Taiten Japanese

Hongou, Mitsuru Director

Fujino, Sadayoshi Sound Director

Kawamura, Tomoyuki Episode Director, Storyboard

Murayama, Kiyoshi Episode Director, Storyboard

Reviews

Jun 26, 2024

SevensDran

Recommended

Battle Spirits Shounen Toppa Bashin is a very cute show, I'd say it's card game Medabots. Like there's this very down to earth element among the sheer supernatural of it all. And also it's a very good looking show with the Miho Shimogasa designs. What a way to be a first entry to a kids anime franchise.

Watching Bashin and his friends grow in their school lives as they just try to become the top card battlers, it's such a great vibe on top of the supernatural element with the talking animals with pyroxenes and the weird people they have to battle to get X ... rares.

In some ways it does show its age though with the 3d models of the spirits specifically. I have no problem with the fact they don't explain the rules. It's very interesting to see how people read those elements as a negative when from the amount of shows that have done it, it certainly has its benefits, and by all means feels like they all try to grab what it was like to watch Yugioh.

Anyways great show, with a great cast. The twist and turns of this series echo into the franchises tropes for many entries to come.
Battle Spirits is cool. Go ahead!

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Aug 23, 2010

soaker87

Recommended

This series has no reviews, so I figured I might as well write one, as it's a favorite of mine.

Story:
Admittedly, not the strongest part of this anime. It's very much a slice-of-life series, and that's not one of my favorite genres. With a few exceptions, I have a hard time staying interested in a series with no overall objective. There is a little bit of plot, but the series probably would have been stronger if it jumped into it earlier on.

Art:
I love the art. Besides just being plain cute (expected from the same designer responsible for Powerpuff Girls Z) the designs are very unique. ... Some of the characters have crazy hair, such as Striker's scythe and Number Nine's fish head. The art generally flows well too. There are a few episodes where the quality is noticeably lower, but generally, there's nothing distracting at least.

The series also uses a lot of CG. Again, something I'm not particularly fond of, but the anime art makes up for it.

Sound:
The BGMs aren't particularly notable, but very rarely does a soundtrack stand out for me, so I wouldn't judge it too harshly for that. The OP song is pretty catchy, though it's unfortunately accompanied with a rather bland animation that feels pretty outdated by the end of the series. There's also another song on the OP single, which is played as an insert song a couple times, and is much catchier. Both EDs really stand out, however. They're very cute songs, and appropriate for the show, as they're supposedly performed by the idol character, My Sunshine. The second actually is sung by her seiyuu.

When it comes to voice acting, as a seiyuu lover, I was a bit disappointed to see a mostly new cast. However, I've come to like some of these voice actors. Mutsumi Tamura and Kaya Miyake (the seiyuu for Bashin and J) sound convincingly enough like 12-year-old boys. Sometimes I have an issue with cross-dressing voices, as the guys can just sound too feminine for their age. Riki Kitazawa (Card Sensei) had no major anime roles prior to Battle Spirits, but has shown a nice range of emotion (going from comic relief scenes to quite serious ones) and I really hope to hear more from him soon.

Character: Probably the strongest thing in this anime. The characters are amazingly fun. I have a hard time disliking any of them. They all have some interesting quirks, and are likable in their own way. Bashin, the protagonist, is typical of a shounen hero. He's very hot-blooded, persistent, and clueless. While this is a character archetype that tends to annoy me, I found him so absolutely braindead that it can be hilarious. While they're not my number one favorites, Bashin's rival J and childhood friend Meganeko are probably the two strongest characters. Both get a great deal of development throughout the series, in ways I didn't expect. Personally, I'm a huge fan of the villains, Thousand Spirits Group. They're quite unique (it's not every day the creator of a TCG is put in it's anime adaptation as an antagonist), and for a lot of them, "villain" is probably too harsh a word. Not to say they're all nice though. Smile in particular makes a great villain, as his appearance and obsession with J come off as quite creepy.

Enjoyment: The series gets better as it goes on, with the second half being much more interesting than the first. The first episode is perhaps the slowest in the series, unfortunately. The 3+ minute long arena building scene does not help. But as it went on, the atmosphere really drew me in. It can be kind of a relaxing show, the type where I like to just marathon it to kill time and laugh a bit.

Overall: Clearly, this isn't an anime for everyone. But I certainly wouldn't limit it to fans of the TCG only, as I had never played the game before I watched this, and still enjoyed it. If you like cute, funny anime (this series has made me laugh out loud countless times) you'd probably enjoy this. If you prefer your anime with a gritty look and a dark, serious plot, you'll probably hate this.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Sep 14, 2023

Shoelid

Mixed Feelings

I would not recommend this anime unless you're already familiar with the card game. They don't explain the rules of the game in this show so I expect it would be fairly confusing for a newcomer.

Going into this I had pretty low expectations but I was very surprised! The quality of writing, animation, pacing and music was pretty good, and I ended up really enjoying the show.

The characters are realistic - kids act like kids and adults act like adults. It's a nice breath of fresh air after years of typical, tropey middle schoolers being more mature than adults. And there's actual, real, character growth! ... I was so surprised.

There's one character that has the funniest japanglish I've ever heard. All the randomly mixed in english words and overpronounced "desu"s were super funny.

The overall plot is fairly childish, but the entire show is. It fits the vibe and aesthetic very comfortably. It does take itself seriously though. You can expect serious character moments and some actual tension in the show, but the plot is less serious than even OG YuGiOh is.

The animation itself surprised me with a strong art style using bold colors and CGI for the card monsters. I'm personally not a fan of CGI but it was done fairly well here - they embrace it rather than trying to hide it. The characters are very animated though, which really helps getting attached to them.

The pacing is phenomenal. Small bits of comedy episodes sprinkled between the more serious arcs. Fights always start and end in the same episode. Something new is always happening, but never too fast.

If you're familiar with the card game this show is super solid. If not, maybe start elsewhere.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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