Battle Spirits: Shounen Toppa Bashin

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 The OP song is pretty catchy, though it's unfortunately accompanied with a rather bland animation that feels pretty outdated by the end of the series.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.

Shounen Toppa Bashin is a card fighting genre anime series. In this Bashin is 6th grader, who is fond of playing Battle Spirits, which he learnt from his mother. He likes this game more than his studies. He motivates others to play it for pure enjoyment of battle spirits. So in this process he befriends J, Striker and Suiren. It picked my interest to see how a mouse ( aibou) is able to talk with Bashin using a gem Pyroxen. Each of these had an animal which can talk to them through Pyroxene. Story progress with series of tournaments.

Art: Very clean and good. ... Animation of the characters was drawn good i.e., from lines of their facial features etc is nice.

Music : Both Opening and Ending songs were good. Especially first half of the series had good ending song.

Characters: I saw this anime a weak ago while looking for an anime with more seasons and episodes. I found only one review and based on the opinion that characters are good, i started watching this anime. But characters were just stereotypical. I did not find anything that is new than the other cardgames. Here Bashin's mom Hayami-san is the only strong character. She raises her kid well with energy and understands him well. Another character is J. He is more stronger than our hero for first half of the series but his character was shown to stagnate afterwards.

What are the - of the show?

As i can not find any positive in this show i am enlisting the drawbacks of the story.
1. Even after completing the whole series you would not understand the concept of playing the cardgame. None of the episodes explained the rules.
2. Unnecessary spoiler episodes (there is no need to create beach episode where striker imagines about mysunshine and kyouko) and especially to play Battlespirits game for silly issues.
3. There is no villain or seriousness to the story.

Characters all seem to change good too quickly and no good reason for it is explained. I do not understand why Bashin is shown strong when the victory of the game lies with luck. His mother's character if shown well might have been an added advantage to it.

Overall: Not worth watching as there is no clarity in it. It is the one cardgame anime which did not clarify the game rules.

This is a card game (obviously) about young kids. The main characters are obvious at what they are going to become (proxyenes). Up to episode 24 is actually good, they introduce the characters and the question marks (supposed to give you card if you win) I liked. It introduces how they get a little team and the early battles to ep24 are good you can actually follow on with what they are doing. The rules and everything of the cards and effects aren't really explained though till last ep, but the first half is good though there really are no new cards released till a ... dude named smile gets introduced.
After he is introduced a lot of new cards are introduced, way more than first half, it gets a little bit more difficult to follow, but not that much. The story gets more interesting when smile gets introduced (ep 26 or something) that is when it starts going. There is little romance in story.The art is pretty good if you ask me. The cgi and when monster appears from bellow just fast forward in the beginning to ep 24 it takes a while to get to battle. This anime has some parts you can just skip forward in the ep in some parts not really needed for story some dialogue unnecessary just get into the story or ep. I knew where bashin dad went to if you know what I mean. In the last ep in anime was like the only ep I would give 8/10. op good and ending didn't really like. If you want to finish this anime fast skip intro 2 min and ending 2min, in first half can finish fast like the cgi and some boring parts, but most was good ( if you do what I did each episode went by fast 15 min or less). In second half there was a bit too much dialogue I skipped some parts. Mom could have been a great introduction in story in second half, but yeah get kept a secret. There is some problems in the anime , but it's your choice to watch.

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.