Mezase!! Card Master Story Synopsis

Dogasu's Backpack | Manga Guide | Aim to be a Card Master!!

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Released December 25th, 2000
ISBN: 4091495443

Notice: This synopsis is intended for those who have no access to the original Japanese manga. Should Viz or any other publishing company decide to translate this manga for sale in the U.S. or other English-speaking country, these synopses will be taken down.

Table of Contents

01) Battle 1: District Convention "Kenta, to the Open Sea"
02) Battle 2: Cross-Cultural Battle "The Golden-Haired Lady"
03) Battle 3: Brothers Face Off "Familiar Rivals"
04) Battle 4: The Spring World Challenge (Part One) "A New Formidable Rival!?"
05) Battle 5: The Spring World Challenge (Part Two) "The Girl Who's Too Calm"
06) Battle 6: The Spring World Challenge (Part Three) "The Secret Plan"
07) Battle 7: The Summer World Challenge (Part One) "The Prelude to the Decisive Battle"
08) Battle 8: The Summer World Challenge (Part Two) "Reunion at the Coliseum"
09) Battle 9: The Summer World Challenge (Part Three) "The Road to Being a Card Master"

Special thanks goes out to Water Pokémon Master and Porygon for helping me make this synopsis more accurate.

Battle One. District Contest: "To the Open Sea, Kenta"

"Lizardon! Fire Spin!"

With that attack, Minamii Kenta delivers a one-hit KO to his opponent's Lapras, giving him his 16^th consecutive victory. As Kenta celebrates, his other friends stare silently at the young boy. After noticing his friends' glares, Kenta slumps back and laments the fact that he's forced to face the same opponents over and over. One of his friends, a girl named Natsuki, speaks up and suggests going to the Pokemon Card Gym. The young victor, not knowing what that is, becomes interested.

Natsuki takes Kenta to the Pokemon Center in Tokyo. There, on the second floor, is the official Pokemon Card Gym. As Kenta is amazed at the number of people in attendance, he learns that people come from all over the country to participate in the gym's biweekly Free Battle Days to boast about their card decks. While looking around at the friendly card games, Kenta notices one kid standing by himself and decides to challenge him to a battle. Suddenly, everyone stops what they were doing and gazes at the two boys intently. The young boy accepts, saying he wants to try to battle against a new person's deck. Suddenly, everyone in the Card Gym gathers around the two players.

Minutes later, the young boy's Myuutwo wins against Kenta's Strike. Natsuki comments on how Kenta wasn't able to defeat even one of the young boy's benched pokemon! Just then, the young boy stands up and ends the game, saying it's not worth it to waste any more time playing against someone so weak. Kenta begins to demand a rematch, but the young boy simply ignores him and heads out the door.

Once the young boy leaves, Kenta and Natsuki are approached by a worker at the Pokemon Card Gym. She asks the two for their names and asks them if it's their first time there. She then explains that the young boy Kenta just faced is Okabe Shou, a trainer who's famous all over the country for his incredible strength. She explains that this year, Shou is determined to win the National Preliminary Tournament. She also tells our heroes that the winners in each district compete in the National Tournament and that Shou desires to reach the top. At that moment, Kenta decides to participate and beat Shou!

The young Card Gym employee explains that even though he has a deck full of strong pokemon, he needs to learn how to make the most of them. To demonstrate this, she asks Kenta how he would make the most out of a Lizardon card. He said he doesn't know, so she goes over the characteristics of the card. She tells him that having the pokemon evolve from Hitokage into Lizardon takes some time, so Kenta will need to have another pokemon fight in its place awhile he gathers enough energy cards. She also tells him that he'll need to have a plan for the moment after it evolves since all of its energy cards will have been used up to evolve it from a Lizard into a Lizardon.

She then tells Kenta that having a balanced deck is important, so the young player empties all of the cards from his bag and starts going through them. As the Card Gym employee looks at the sheer number of cards Kenta has, she is roped into helping him pick out the best cards to go into his deck.

Some time passes, and before long, the day of the National Preliminary Tournament arrives! Kenta is at the meeting hall with Natsuki and is all fired up and ready to beat Shou. He is also excited to see that the employee at the Card Gym is there, working as an employee for the tournament! As the employee explains how tired she is after helping Kenta build what she considers to be a strong deck, the young player spots his rival! Kenta points him out and exclaims that he'll win, but Shou merely stares blankly at him and asks him who he is. Kenta is insulted and begins to cry, but Shou says that he was only joking and says that he remembers him as "that guy who got his butt kicked at the Pokemon Card Gym." Shou asks if Kenta's come to watch the tournament, causing the young player to shout that he's actually participating in the tournament. Shou replies by saying that anyone can enter and asks him what block he's in. Kenta said he's in the A-Block; Shou replies by saying he's in the E-Block. Kenta's rival then explains that the way the tournament is set up, Kenta's first opportunity to play against him wouldn't come up unless he made it all the way to the final round. Kenta said that he'll definitely make it and will beat him once he makes it to that point. Shou wishes him good luck and reminds him that he'll have to have what it takes to be the champion of the National Regional Tournament to defeat him.

The time for the first round has arrived!

In the lobby, the Card Gym employee tells Natsuki that it looks like Kenta has easily won his (off-screen) first match. She then asks where he is, and Natsuki says that he's busy rubbing his victory in Shou's face. Shou looks at Kenta and asks why he immediately came to tell him of his victory, and he says that it's because he's one step closer to beating him. Shou tells Kenta that it would probably be better if he worried about himself more and points to his next opponent. Kenta tells Shou that no matter who his opponent is, he'll defeat him in order to get the chance to defeat his rival.

The tournament continues, and both Kenta and Shou are able to mow through their opponents. Before long, both players reach the final round! As the rivals await the start of their match, they tell each other that they definitely won’t lose.

Kenta wins the rock-paper-scissors to decide who goes first. His active pokemon is Hitokage and his bench pokemon is Strike. Shou, on the other hand, has drawn Dodo as his active pokemon and Ghos and Cayce as his bench pokemon. The match starts with Kenta’s Hitokage dealing 10 damage with its Scratch attack. Shou follows up with a Fury Attack; however, since he flipped tails both times, Hitokage doesn't take any damage. In Kenta's second turn, he evolves his Hitokage into Lizard and attaches a double colorless energy card before attacking with a Slash technique. In Shou's second turn, he retreats his Dodo back to the bench and places Ghos up as his active pokemon. He has the pokemon use Lick attack to try to paralyze Kenta's Lizard, but Shou loses the coin toss again. Kenta's turn is next, so he attaches a fire energy card to his Lizard and has it use a Flamethrower attack, knocking out Shou's first pokemon!

Everyone in the audience watches in amazement as the famous Shou loses his first round. Natsuki is excited until the Card Gym employee points out the determined look on Shou's face. He's waiting for a chance to counterattack…

Kenta selects his two prize cards as Shou plays his next card: Super Energy Removal! The card enables Shou to remove two energy cards from Lizard, leaving it unable to attack. Kenta is unable to make a move, so Shou continues by having his Myuutwo use Psychic to knock Lizard out with one blow! The crowd begins to cheer and starts talking about how strong Shou is as Kenta picks his next active pokemon. He draws Hitokage again, which is bad considering he's already used up four energy cards on his previous Hitokage!. Kenta doesn't give up, though, as he plays his next card – Pokémon Breeder! With this card, Kenta is able to make his Hitokage evolve directly into a Lizardon. Once that's finished, Kenta attaches a fire energy card and has his pokemon use Fire Spin, knocking out Myuutwo in one turn! Kenta smirks at Shou as his rival plays his next hand.

Shou's next turn comes up, and he draws a Myuu card! He instantly puts it into play and has it use its Neutral Shield Pokemon Power! Neutral Shield instantly nullifies any attacks performed by an evolved pokemon, meaning that Kenta's attack won't have any effect! Kenta's turn comes up, so he has his benched Fushigidane evolve into Fushigisou. After Shou attaches an energy card on his pokemon, Kenta has his Fushigisou evolve into Fushigibana. At this time, Shou reveals that he has a Dodrio, a Lucky, a Houdin, and another Lucky on his bench ready to fight! Kenta sees no chance of victory until he draws a Goop Gas Attack card, a card that enables him to do away with Myuu's Neutral Shield Pokemon Power! Kenta's next card is a PlusPower, and his third trainer card is Recall! With this card, he is able to use Hitokage's Ember attack which, when combined with his PlusPower card, causes 40 damage! Shou's Myuu is defeated!

As the battle continues, the players continue knocking each other's pokemon out. Shou's Lucky takes down Kenta's Lizardon with a Double Edge, but Kenta's Fushigibana is able to use Solar Beam to take Lucky out. With one side card each, the battle reaches its dramatic conclusion!

Shou's pokemon of choice is Houdin. He plays the pokemon's Confuse Ray technique, so a coin toss is initiated. Shou loses the coin toss, ending his turn. Next, Kenta has Fushigibana use a Solar Beam attack, dealing 60 damage to Houdin! Shou retaliates by using Houdin's Damage Swap Pokemon Power, removing the damage counters from Houdin (who has 80 HP) and transferring it over to his second Lucky (who has 120 HP). Shou then has his Houdin use Confuse Ray, but this time he actually wins the coin toss! Fushigibana takes 60 damage and is confused now, so Kenta draws his next card. He plays the Professor Oak card, enabling him to discard his hand and then draw seven new cards from his deck. After that, he sees that he still can't do anything, so he initiates a coin toss to see if his Fushigibana can flee from battle. He loses the coin toss, so Shou's turn comes up next. Houdin uses Confuse Ray again and deals 90 damage to Fushigibana! Natsuki sees that Kenta's pokemon only has one damage counter left and notices that if he doesn't do something quick, he'll lose the match!

In Kenta's next turn, he draws a Metamon card and places it on his bench. Then, he flips a coin to see if Fushigibana can run, and he wins! Kenta withdraws his Fushigibana and puts Metamon on the field. He has his Metamon transform into Houdin and orders it to use its Damage Swap technique to transfer 60 of Fushigibana's damage counters to Metamon! This move surprises everyone, and Shou wonders what Kenta could be thinking. Kenta then uses Fushigibana's Energy Trans Pokemon Power, giving Metamon two Grass Energy cards. Next, Kenta uses Gust of Wind. This card enables Kenta to change Shou's active pokemon with any of the pokemon in his bench, so he decides to swap Shou's Houdin out with Dodrio. Then, he has Metamon transform into Dodrio and has it use Rage! The Rage attack deals 10 damage for every damage counter the pokemon has, so the 60 damage that Metamon got from Fushigibana, in addition to the effects of PlusPower, brings the amount of damage Kenta can deal to Shou's Dodrio up to 70! Dodrio is defeated, so Kenta takes his sixth prize card.

Kenta has won the match! As Kenta celebrates, Shou wonders if Kenta drew the Gust of Wind card when he used the Professor Oak card. As both Kenta and Shou win their respective trophies, they are told that they are both eligible to continue in the National Tournament. At that time, Shou says that he will not lose again…

To be continued!

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