Bujinki Ahashima – Yu-Gi-Oh! Review

Crunch$G

Fusion, Synchro, now Xyz with Bujinki Ahashima.

Ahashima is a Link-2 LIGHT Beast-Warrior with 1500 ATK and arrows pointing Up and Bottom Right. Fine ATK still, LIGHT is good, Beast-Warrior is fine, and it has one good arrow while the Up arrow can kinda hurt. The summoning requirements are any 2 monsters with the same Level, which is no issue in anything Xyz-based, which is where you’re likely playing this. It cannot be used as Link Material, which is a restriction they’ve put on their later Link Monsters to balance them, though I don’t know how necessary it is here. It has two effects which you can only use one of once per turn. The first effect upon being Link Summoned lets you Special Summon 2 monsters with the same Level, one from hand and one from grave, to Special Summon with their effects negated and to immediately after perform an Xyz Summon using the summoned monsters as material. Seems weird to go into this instead of just immediately performing the Xyz Summon, though I guess you can put a monster you want in grave while getting a different monster for an Xyz Material, but there’s no restriction on the Level/Rank, meaning you could use this to summon Xyz Monsters of different Ranks from what you had access to at that time. The second effect is probably why you’d summon this as if a Xyz Monster this card points to activates its effect by detaching an Xyz Material, you can target and destroy an opponent’s Spell or Trap. Fine backrow removal that can be used on either turn if you have an Xyz with a Quick Effect. Helps give more versatility to different Xyz Decks. It’s a fairly good card overall, though sadly I don’t see how this helps Bujins that much. Anything Xyz-based I’m sure can find a use for this for Xyz plays of different Ranks.

Advanced Rating: 4/5

Art: 5/5 A very stunning monster overall, love the yellow here and the armor.

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   Here, we have a Link Monster that is meant to work with XYZ Monsters. It can be Link summoned with two Monsters with the same level, so if you are already XYZ Summoning, this card can be used in your deck.

   What makes this card shine? I found that I can get a lot of use from this card in any XYZ deck by using cards like Scapegoat or Black Garden, as Tokens are viable materials. How does this fair with the effects?

   When Link Summoned, you can special summon two matching level Monsters (1 from the GY and one from the hand while negating their effects). Then you immediately XYZ summon with them. This may seem fruitless, but I was able to use this to establish solid fields in many decks by using this card in the middle of my plays. I could XYZ Summon, use one of the Monster’s detach effects, Special Summon this card (ideally by using tokens or Monsters that need to hit the GY), and then XYZ summon again via its effect.

   My best utility probably came from Burning Abyss, but I got surprising plays in over a dozen decks. I like the second effect more than I thought I would. Who doesn’t like S/T destruction?

   The art is very nice, and it fits with the Bujinki aesthetics. Like the other humanoid Bujinki, she represents a character from GX (Sarena) and is based on Awashima. There is actually some humorous dialogue between her parents in the Japanese folklore before Awashima’s introduction, and I highly recommend a bit of research if you want a quick laugh.

Versatility – 5
Rogue Plays – 4
Art – 5
Balance – 5
Uniqueness – 5

I score this card a 5/5. It is a reliable card in any deck that XYZ summons heavily. You might as well give it a shot. Try to find plays that you like in old XYZ decks.