The second anime inspired by Bandai's Battle Spirits trading card game, following Battle Spirits: Shounen Toppa Bashin. The series recycled certain concepts and character types from the first series, but focuses on an entirely separate cast, and has a much more serious storyline.The protagonist, Dan Bashin, is a red-headed hero who uses the red attribute, just like Toppa of the first series. However, rather than going through a normal life, he's taken from Earth to the world of Grand Rolo, where he learns he's one of the chosen core soldiers. With the help of his friends and comrades, Zungurii, Magisa, Clackey, Mai and Suzuri, he battles to stop the evil Otherworld King.The series was followed up by another 50-episode series, Battle Spirits Brave (named after the newest type of card at the time), wherein Dan and some of his old allies travel to the future. Because it is a direct sequel with many of the same characters, tropes for Brave are included on this page.Also see Battle Spirits Heroes, for the 4th series in the franchise.This show provides examples of:
In Brave, she's been more of a Faux Action Girl. However, once she parted ways with Dan and the rest, returning to the mazoku capital with Barone, she regained full Action Girl status.
Brave does introduce Flora, at least.
Adaptation Dye Job: Galaxy, the one character to appear in both Toppa Bashin and Gekiha Dan (albeit an entirely different version of him) has blond hair in the first series, but it's white in this one.
Adorably Precocious Child: Kenzo. Especially in Brave, where he becomes one of the planet's most significant scientists (at the age of 11) and stops playing Battle Spirits to focus more on his work.
Art Shift: Regular anime-style to CG during battles.
Ascended Meme: It's been a bit of a joke on Japanese sites that Dan is near abusive of Bladra, due to regularly summoning it just to use it for cost reduction. Cue episode 13 of the unrelated Battle Spirits Heroes, which features a whack-a-mole machine with the "moles" being Bladras terrified of having their cores taken away.
Bittersweet Ending: To Gekiha Dan. Otherworld King is defeated, but the core soldiers have to return to the real world, leaving their comrades from Otherworld behind. Also, Kajitsu is unable to be saved.
During Brave, it's revealed that there were even more negative side effects. In particular, mazoku remaining in the real world and reshaping the Earth, which will eventually reset itself.
Then there's the actual Brave ending, which is even worse. The world is saved from being reset, but Dan may not have survived.
Body Double: Otherworld King used a Pantera body in place of himself to fight Yuuki and Kajitsu.
Brother-Sister Incest: Yuuki and Kajitsu. Somehow, this show airs on a Sunday morning kids block.
Butterfly of Death and Rebirth: Butterflies are extremely symbolic to Kajitsu. Of course, that's because she's a reincarnation, and she dies again and is reborn as Flora.
Conspicuous CG: Most of the spirits. The Great Angelia Sophia is a notable exception, which may or may not have something to do with the fact that Clackey is in love with her.
Color-Coded Characters: Apparently, all major characters must use the type of card their hair color indicates. Exceptions include Kazan, who’s blonde but uses purple (but he wears purple), and Yuuki, who has light blue hair but uses white. Still, his is close enough.
Not the case at all in Brave, as Youth uses red rather than blue, Plym uses white rather than red, etc.
Cool Airship: The Violet and The Beautiful Sophia, among others.
Distress Ball: Mai goes to take on Pantera by herself, in order to protect everyone else, with no one but Serge knowing. This leads her to getting captured and spending several episodes locked in a cage. She makes up for it as soon as possible.
Everything's Better with Princesses: Kajitsu is often referred to as a princess, though she isn't one. She's the reincarnation of the green world's princess, though
Evil Old Folks: The Otherworld King Until he has his youth restored.
Also, considering the way mazoku age, any of them might fit into this. Though, that's actually a case of Really 700 Years Old.
Expository Hairstyle Change: In Brave, Mai has long hair, and has also changed a lot since the last time Dan saw her. She changes her hairstyle again once she decides to fight for the mazoku, and then cuts it at the end of the series, after losing Dan.
Expy: Compared to the original series, Dan to Bashin, Yuuki to J, and Mai to Suiren. To a lesser extent, Kajitsu to Kyouka.
At times, Yuuki and Kajitsu’s relationship bears very striking similarities to Lelouch and Nunnally’s from Code Geass. Since they’re both Sunrise series released at around the same time period, it may not be a coincidence.
In the first episode of Brave, look-alikes of Jun and Maaya from the spin off manga, Batosupi! appear. Those two characters are already gender-bent expys of J and Bashin from the original series, respectively.
Speaking of Brave, Stella is one to Magisa, Gaspard is one to Serge, Barone has definite similarities to Yuuki, both Rugain and Youth could be expys to Suzuri (purely aesthetically), and Flora is a Kajitsu expy (which is quite justified.) Rugain's mother, Shima is probably one to J's mother, Miyako in the original series.
Eye Catch: A shot of one or two of the main characters. Dan has several. Clackey, Mai, Suzuri, Kenzo, Zungurii and Magisa have one, while Yuuki and Kajitsu share one. There’s also a group eyecatch. It changes based on who the episode’s main character is.
Brave is following the trend of unique character eyecatches, with Dan having the most.
Fanservice: Not much, but mostly courtesy of Magisa in Shounen Gekiha Dan, and Gilfam in Brave. And Barone provides a bit of fanserve for female viewers.
In Medias Res: A few times such as episodes 25 and 39 of Gekiha Dan.
Interspecies Romance: Clackey has a harem of cat girls from Grand Rolo when he first meets Dan. Well, at least they're more humanoid than some other inhabitants.
Jumped at the Call: Subverted. Although Dan jumped to protect Zungurii's village in the first episode, when told of his purpose in Grand Rolo, he wasn't interested at first.
Meaningful Name: Kajitsu’s name, probably, since it means “fruit.” She’s a green card battler, and one of her signature green cards is The Fruit of Wise Tree.
Dan’s last name is Bashin, most likely a tribute to Toppa Bashin of the original series, as the two characters are quite similar, both in appearance and personality.
Magisa.
Barone and Duc, to sound like baron and duke.
Plym Machina, because she's a mechanic of course.
Youth, probably, because he's young and immature compared to the returning characters.
En and Fant.
Flora
The 'Ray' in Clackey Ray is probably a reference to rays of light.
Mai's name is spelled with the kanji for demon, in reference to the type of cards she uses.
Kenzo's name is written with the kanji for blade, in reference to The BladeKingBeast Byak-Garo, his signature spirit.
Mood Whiplash: Some episodes in this show are about Suzuri being possessed by the ghost of an onmyouji, or a monster trying to marry Magisa. Others involve characters dying depressing deaths.
Red Oni, Blue Oni: Dan is the red. Yuuki and Barone take the role of blue in their respective series.
Reincarnation: Firstly, Yuuki and Kajitsu are reincarnated royals of Otherworld. Then, in the future timeline, they're reborn again as Zolder and Flora, respectively.
Kenzo’s character design is pretty much shota-bait.
The Smurfette Principle: Mai is the only female core soldier. Kajitsu isn't really the green soldier. She's a special case, actually bearing Mother Core, which the others have to protect.
Spell My Name with an S: While Clackey seems to be the official spelling, according to Sunrise's Brave website, Krakki, Kurakkii and Cracky have been seen on official sites and in the anime, and numerous other spellings of his name have popped up on assorted fansites. Fortunately, said website has released official spellings for most characters.
Also the first fansubs used Prim rather than Plym, and Duke rather than Duc. The later of each are used on the Sunrise site. While Prim makes more sense than Plym, Duc probably is the legitimate spelling, as it's French for duke.
Spoiler Opening: Both the OP and ED show that Suzuri will join the main group. He doesn’t until episode 36.
Additionally, the Italian dub includes the 2nd version of the OP theme from the start of the show, which reveals That Kenzo is the green soldier, and also shows Dan's 2nd battle form, and the identity of Otherworld King.
Too Soon: A short scene was cut from the TV version of episode 28 of brave (but included on the DVD release) which showed Barone and Zolder looking at the wild waters caused by the Earth's reset. This was likely due to the closeness in airing to the 9.0 Earthquake and tsunami in Japan. The broadcast of episode 26 was also pushed back a week, as was most other anime that were airing at the time.
Winged Humanoid: Kajitsu appears to be this, but the wings aren't real.
You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Yuuki, Serge and Suzuri have actual blue-hair (albeit three different shades of it.) Mai has purple, Magisa has pink, and Kajitsu and Kenzo have green.
Brave gives us Youth and Rugain with blue hair, plus Duc with green, Gilfam and Lucretia with purple, and Flora with pink.
You Killed My Father: Youth has a moment like this with Geraid, who led the attack that killed both his parents. Though, he can't actually bring himself to take revenge.
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