Talk:Episode 39: Kiri Strikes Back!/@comment-3493584-20141004013044

Hey look at that, someone doing a buddyfight summary 2 weeks in a row.

So last time on buddyfight we hand an episode that mainly revolved around crushing kiri’s hopes and dreams. Today we follow up on that.

We start with an Awesome shot of ice blade joker flying to Aibo to deliver a letter to gao from kiri. Turns out that a month has passed without any of our protagonists hearing anything from kiri. I do like that we get shown Gao, Baku and Kuguru being worried over not hearing anything from kiri, it really shows that despite kiri’s fears, he made some friends who really care about him.

Anyway’s, Kiri’s letter mentioned wanting to have a buddyfight with Gao, so he heads over to Kiri’s new school to accept the request (baku and kuguru have to use the bus doe the whole “not having buddy skills” thing). However when Gao shows up, he finds that mentioning Kiri’s name almost causes the students to wet themselves in fear. And then they get attacked by some ice. Which is coming from the same direction that Kiri’s now in. as the students gao was talking to run off, we get to see how Kiri has changed his look a bit, his now covers his right eye instead of his left, and he now where’s his jacket as a cape, not unlike yami/the pharaoh in the latter seasons of yugioh.

We soon find out that the ice, the change of look, and the “wet your pants in fear” reputation are all thanks to a dark core case. Gao is naturally shocked, but Kiri is more in the mood to fight than explain why he has the case. As the fight begins Kiri reveals his buddy monster, ice blade joker……who is not at all what I was expecting. While his looks and appearance at the beginning of the episode suggest a much more stoic and creepy monster…….he is actually more the over top wise cracker. Who uses ice puns. A lot. I will admit that when he first reveals his actual personality I was a bit put off, but I think a lot of that came from my own expectations over who he would be as a character. But after a little bit, he’s grown on me. He’s kind of like the joker, only not nearly as scary. Plus, his ice puns are better than schwarzenegger’s.

Gao, knowing how dangerous the dark cores are, vows to destroy Kiri’s, who then says that he knew Gao was just like everyone else, triggering a flashback. Turns out that Kiri fought those kids from earlier but kept losing, and one of them actually took Kiri’s SP Fenrir as a prize despite Kiri never betting any of his cards, continuing the theme of crushing Kiri’s soul. Hey, remember last week when I handed out the “SpartenX’s most hated character in this show” award? I think I found someone a lot more deserving.

The fight now begins, as we cut to Davide watching the match and flashing back to when he convinced Kiri to take the dark core case. I actually like the way the scene has been written. Davide acts like a friend that just wants to help Kiri out, taking advantage of his obvious insecurities regarding friendship. As the flashback ends Kiri sets the spell fimbulwinter, preparing for his decks main combo. He also plays a new monster that-

OH DEAR SWEET ODIN, WHAT IN THE WORLD IS THAT THING?!

Um, as I was saying Kiri plays a new monster that can’t be destroyed while he has another monster on the field, a pretty nice card for his deck.

Up with Davide those kids from earlier come by asking him to keep Kiri away from him, as we flash back to Kiri winning a game against them, before using disaster force to freeze them and take back his Fenrir card. Davide meanwhile comments that Kiri is simply growing stronger and will continue to do so.

Gao and drum decide that it’s time to go all out, using thunder formations pseudo-impact to bring kiri down to 1 life. Now Kiri brings out his decks strongest combo, using ragnarok to destroy everything on the field and discarding the cards in each player’s hands. Using this he can call out Fenrir and joker, brining Gao down to 1 life. Now the only possible way that Gao could win is if he topdecks into a card with double attack that has enough power to take out fenrir. It looks like Gao could actually lo-and of course he topdecks into it.

Look, I haven’t really cared before about Gao constantly winning (maybe because when people started to get annoyed by it, I was getting more annoyed by our protagonists over on Vanguard constantly losing) but this was just stupid. There was some potential character growth here if we had Gao lose, only to come back stronger than ever simply so he can try and get his friend back to normal. Instead Gao wins, and Kiri goes off with Davide, deciding that this proves he needs the dark core to become stronger than Gao.

So like I said, Kiri loses and despite Gao’s best effort Davide convinces him to stick with the dark core, and the two leave, Kiri declaring he will never go back to being a weakling again.

Next week, Genma and Kazane get have to face Shido and Davide using a world that was thought to be merely a myth, Darkness Dragon World (because a world with its very own trial deck is definitely something no one would think exists).