B-Daman Crossfire (known as Cross Fight B-Daman in Japan) is the sixth entry in the B-Daman franchise. It follows a boy named Riki Ryugasaki who gets ahold of a rare talking B-Daman, a blue dragon named Dracyan. This allows him to join an underground society of B-Shots and participate in their high level tournaments, as well as make a lot of friends in the process. However, some B-Shots are plotting to use their special B-Damans to rule the world, and only Riki and other B-Shots with dragon B-Damans can stop them.
The English version, which combined two quarter-hour episodes into one half-hour show, was first aired on The CW's Vortexx. It was the franchise's second chance in America since the other series that made it to the states did rather poorly there.
Was followed by B-Daman Fireblast (Cross Fight B-Daman eS in Japan), which premiered in North America in 2015 through the official app.
The show has the following tropes:
- The Ace: Samuru, Novu, Yuki, were introduced as some of the strongest B-Shots in the series. Yuki for being the best of East B-Shots and remaining a calm and friendly presence as a leader, Samuru being raised to be the best B-Shot and eventually defeat Dragold, and Novu being an overwhelming force and a founding prodigy amongst the staff of the WBMA. Overtime, Riki developed to be the leading and most respected B-Shot to his growth and potential to the point he's one of 4 B-Shots that can defeat the Big Bad.
- Alternative Foreign Theme Song: Both the opening and ending songs are changed for Western releases from TRUTH and Whereabouts of the Winged to Victory and Hope.
- Big Brother Mentor: While he appears to be in his early 20s, Akira Saiga tends to act as a mentor to most of the B-Shots. In Riki's case, Akira ends up teaching him about B-Daman and chaperoning him on his adventures and doesn't mind helping out the other East B-Shots in the city. He's even willing to help Kaito create new equipment for the Grand Prix tournaments.
- Big Eater: Yuki has a high level of metabolism. Cranked up to Eleven in Fireblast where he eats the entirety of Aona’s Restaurant. Grizz shows quite a bit of restraint on-screen.
- Birds of a Feather: Hugo and Derek find a common ground in their love for large felines.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Though he puts on a friendly facade and is highly respected towards the WBMA committee, Novu reveals himself to be a manipulative power seeker willing to play everyone for fools and using any of his allies as pawns. Even when he returns in the second half, he claims to try and restore Dracyan's memories while using the scenario to unleash Dragold's power to control the world.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Rudy ends up brainwashed by Dragold's influence, essentially turning his meek and loveable personality, and his desire to have a B-Animal, into a psychopath warped only by his partner's desire to rule over all the B-Damans. As the heroes find more and more ways to counter him, he ends up becoming more insane to the point he holds the tournament organizers as hostages and loses all empathy and sanity towards the final battle..
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Kaito is frequently tardy and is somewhat hyperactive, but he consistently ranks high at tournaments.
- Burning with Anger: The East Block members except for Riki and Rory literally emerge in flames ready to skin Novu alive once they heard about Novu's reputation from Takakura and her admiration towards him.
- Catchphrase:
- Riki's is "Mystery".
- Simon's is "Sha-Sha"
- Hugo’s is "King of A Hundred and Ten Beasts" before Yuki corrected him.
- Basara’s is Unleash the Darkness-Double Drazeros!
- Mitsuru’s is “Bzt-Bzt”
- Can't Catch Up: Reggie's scores and capabilites amongst the Western B-Shots falls shorter and shorter, going from the second best member of the group, to falling lower and lower as he has to compete with Samuru, Hugo and Derek. Then he finds out about Novu and Derek's plans, gets a Breaking Speech from Novu, and proceeds to have a Face–Heel Turn, disrespected until Yuki snaps him out of it with the Power of Friendship.
- Control Freak: "Control" is Novu's favourite word and his major goal. He follows all of his plans to the letter in order to control others and take legal control of the B-Daman organizations. However, his plans tend to falter, especially after Riki's Spanner in the Works starts driving him to the edge.
- Dark Is Evil: Basara and Double Drazeros. Drazeros was the only dragon not made by the World B-Daman Masters Organization to being unstable and enjoys wrecking havoc with its darkness element. Combined with Basara's love of dark twisted chaos and destruction, they become the Big Bad for the third quarter of the show, resorting to the worst legal tactics possible to torture their opponents.
- Dark Is Not Evil: Once the origins and Novu's manipulations are revealed and the two consider their darkness, Basara and Drazeros decide to turn good, performing Heel–Face Turn to help stop Dragold and preventing Rudy and Novu from sinking into the same darkness as the rest.
- Deadpan Snarker: Thunder Dracyan and Lightning Dravise ultimately means well, but snark at some of more annoying and traits of the others. Dravise frequently snarks at Samuru's loner traits while Dracyan tends to make light of most of Riki's friends antics.
- Defeat Means Friendship: Dragold ultimately decides the friendship between the B-Shots and their B-Animals were the ultimate factor in his defeat. To that, he leaves, giving all the non Dragon B-Shots their animals partners and creating new B-Daman for the next generation
- Defrosting Ice King: Non-romantic example. Samuru starts out as an ineffectual loner throughout the series. Thanks to Riki he starts opening up and being the only person he frequently goes to for help and requests his double partners, even trying to warn him of the Big Bad when he fears Riki is in a danger. He's also considerably nicer to the Western B-Shots and East B-Shots than dismissing them from the start.
- Delinquents: Derek enjoys causing trouble for the lulz and Basara has some anger issues due to not being able to wield a B-Daman without smashing it.
- Dub Name Change: Kakeru to Riki, Subaru Shirogane to Samuru Shigami, Gouichiro Tsukiwa to Grizz Sukino, Yukihide to Yuki, Shumon Katsumiya to Simon Sumiya, Reiji Maki to Reggie Mak, Ouga Raidou to Hugo Raidoh, Naoya Homura to Novu Moru, Daiki to Derek, Kurofuchi to Kurochi, Kamiougi to Kami, Gun to Gunner, Ruri to Rory.
- Dump Stat: Near the end of B-Daman Fireblast/season 2 of B-Daman Crossfire, Kamon and Riki receive Ultimate upgrades of Drive Garuburn and Rising Dracyan. While Kamon's Garuburn's stats and abilities make them a Master of All, Ultimate Rising Dracyan's specialty is attack, and only attack. This becomes a problem for Riki when he has to face Bakuga in the semi finals of the Phoenix Grand Prix.
- Dynamic Entry: Derek has a bad habit of dynamically introducing and entering himself within seconds to the tournaments by obsessively jumping in the air to do simultaneous backflips before falling Even his B-Daman style reflects this, opening the fights like a wild animal.
- Evolving Credits: The ending sequence in the Japanese version adds more characters as the show goes on. The American version simply uses the first variation.
- Fat Best Friend: Grizz is big, strong, and chubby sized, but is more of Yuki's best friend than Grizz, but he does open up to Riki quite nicely. Though while he is big boned, he's more Acrofatic thanks to speed and power in football and improving his rapid fire skills with Bearga. Unlike most big guys, he tends to be rather smart, even shocking the other stragiests with his own new techniques.
- Face–Heel Turn: After Reggie confronts Novu and Derek, Novu beats him and uses a Breaking Speech to convince him to join his side, which results in Reggie becoming stronger through The Power of Hate. Thankfully though, it doesn't last long.
- The Fighting Narcissist: Asuka Kami is a rich, arrogant, Smug Snake who can back up his mean spirited attacks against everyone he doesn't see as beautiful with intense precision and control. Though not as strong as the Big Bad or Rudy, he's defeated Samuru and Riki, two of Dragon B-Shots and The Ace of the top tier B-Shots, bested Basara and let him win on purpose to nearly get him arrested. and even beat a mid-tier level opponent like Kaito with little effort at all. Though his beauty is not without vain, he praises his opponents when their battling style far overwhelms or defeats him, hence his newfound friendship with Riki.
- Finishing Move: Every B-Shot and their B-Daman have a Super Shot, where the B-Daman's Animal Motif comes out for a super strong final attack, like a Special Move.
- Four Gods: An interesting use of the legend, in the sense that they are all presented as dragons, but still have the colors combined with the cardinal directions. Dracyan, the blue dragon, is in the East block; Dravise, the white dragon, hails from the West block; Dragren, the red dragon, comes from the South block; and Drazeros, the black dragon, chooses his master in the North block. Dragold, the golden dragon in the centre and technical leader of the other dragons is the main villain. This eventually continues in Fireblast with Garuburn, the Vermillion bird of the South; Raydra, the White Tiger of the West; Dracyan, the Blue dragon of the East; and Tankshell, the Black Turtle of the North.
- The Heart: Sumi is Riki's best friend and both the compassionate and mood maker of his friends, but doesn't officially join the Badass Crew until she learns of Crossfire and is in the loop.
- Hot-Blooded: Kaito is frantic, wild, and unpredictably crazy, jumping head first into battle with a fun flashy life style, and loses his cool when pressured. which is ironic since his B-Daman is Lightning Fin and is much more calm and ration than his partner. Though Hugo outclasses him times five.
- Hot Teacher: Riki and Sumi's teacher, Sensei Yamashiro is exceptionally pretty and Akira has a major crush on her. By the end of the series, they're dating.
- Large Ham: The moment Hugo Raidoh steps into any scene, he roars like a lion, chews the scenery and battles, emphasizing his love of B-Daman, food, Derek, and his insane potential to an extraordinary scale. Its only fitting that his B Daman is a Thunder Leo
- Larynx Dissonance: Samuru sounds more like a girl due to being voiced by Wendee Lee. Hugo mocks him for this but pays him no mind.
- The Lancer: After Riki joins the East block, Yuki acts as his second in the command. He's the experienced to Riki's newcomer status, is his Friendly Rival and the most skilled of the B-Shots, and counter's Riki's more out of character moments. Though his role is eventually overshadowed by Samuru, he's frequently Riki's Number Two, advisor and battles partner once Riki gains more prominence, and even advises him once Samuru steps up to handle the bigger threats.
- Light Is Not Good: Dragold is the golden dragon and the mightiest of the B-Animals and B-Dragons. However, he's responsible for the destruction and tyrant that the other B-Animals staged a rebellion. He returns in the series as the Big Bad 3/4ths of the though he reforms at the very end.
- Lightning Bruiser: In comparison to the other B-Damans, the dragon B-Damans are the strongest, versatile, and powerful of the rest.
- Dracyan is powerful and durable, but the Drive core increases the firepower and speed due to the recoil, able to power through shots most B-Daman would struggle to face and can tie with speed from Rapid fires.
- Dravise initially only has Rapid Fire and Power at the cost of defense but Samuru improves his physical abilities to ensure its rapid fire can form defensive shields and attack without sacrificing speed.
- Dragren overall has little weakness, with Novu harvesting his control to fast fire accurate shots without losing stamina and his special moves can burn through any opposition without any interference. Its status rise further once fused into Mighty Dragren with no difficulty.
- Drazeros lacks varity in its attacks but Basara's endless stamina and raw power with its twin rapid shots doubles power, rapid fire, and control without any weaknesses bar Dragold.
- Dragold was born without any weaknesses, and with power, rush, and sniper modes in its evolutions copied from the other dragons, the rest of the dragon types need to team up in order to even stand a chance against its speed, power, defense, and instability.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Sumi and Akira have no knowledge or existence about Crossfire until about half-way through the series, when she accidentally eavesdrops on Riki and Dracyan talking. In the beginning of the second half, the WBMA informs them and the rest of the world about the truth about the talking B-Damans. However, only the East and West B-Shots, Basara, the staff, and Novu know about the power contained within the B Crystal.
- Lovely Assistant: Rory is Grandfather Takamura's assistant. Kind, friendly, and positive, and essentially the secretary for Crossfire tournaments, even Riki has a small crush on her.
- Magic Skirt: One part of the first episode, Sumi's skirt briefly transformed larger than usual in her B-Daman outfit in comparison to her original professional dress as Amy Rose's dress.
- Meaningful Name: Oh so many.
- The 'ryu' in Riki's family name, Ryugasaki, means 'dragon'.
- The 'shiro' in Shirogane, Samuru's family name, means 'white'. Dravise is the white dragon.
- Novu's Japanese family name Homura means 'flame'. He wields the red dragon.
- Basara's family name Kurofuchi has 'kuro' which means 'black'. His dragon is the black one.
- Rudy Sumeragi's family name can be read as 'emperor'. He ends up wielding Dragold, the king of B-Damans.
- Mighty Glacier: Grizz' Bearga is a powerful B-Daman capable of toppling heavier targets, but can't use rapid shots.
- Naïve Newcomer: In the beginning of the Riki starts his introduction into B-Daman and Crossfire without any knowledge or experience about the sport. Sumi and the other characters spend the first half helping him understand the rules and mysteries behind B-Daman as he continues to grow into a powerful B-Shots. He grows out of it eventually, though he can still be a little naive at times.
- Plucky Girl: Sumi struggles being able to have a talking B-Daman, but outside of that, she's very energetic and optimistic. She's willing to help out Riki in any way she can, battles Hugo in non-Crossfire events, teaches and sets up blogs for younger viewers, and never gives up even in the final battle against Dragold.
- The Power of Friendship: In the final Crossfire event of season 1, Riki and Dracyan invoke the memories and experiences of the fun they've had thanks to all of their friends and rivals, when the power of the B-Cyrstal responds to their determination to beat Samuru and Dravise, using their friendship as a motivator to win and officially befriend Samuru as a rival B-Shot. By the finale Riki and Samuru's friendships and allies helps them reach through some of their former cold blooded antagonists to in the final battle, where they're able to unite the four dragons and defeat Dragold once again.
- The Protagonist:
- Riki and Thunder Dracyan are the main foci of the series. Though they start out lacking knowledge and memories about Dracyan's past and memories, the partnership leads them into Crossfire, where their develop more allies and rivalries on the search of the B-Daman and ancient B-Crystal that ties into Dracyan's path.
- This eventually continues with Kamon, the main protagonist in Fireblast. After an incident that caused his and Garuburn's amnesia, he decides to find answers to regain their lost memories.
- Quarter Hour Short: In Japan, there are a total of ~11 minute long 52 episodes. In the West, they were combined to become 26 half-hour episodes.
- Rich Bitch: Simon, said to come from a wealthy family, is a male version. Rude and condensing, he's a pessimist that wants to bully and make Riki suffer. The only reason why the rest put up with him is because they're too nice that even Simon would never turn against them despite his problems with Riki.
- The Rival: Though Riki and Samuru's rivalry extends beyond season 1, with the two having opposing views and battle to decide what B-Daman truly should be, they're more of a aloof mentor and naive friend rivalry, where Riki strives to prove to Samuru. Asuka eventually declares Riki to be his eternal Rival after spending episodes 15 to 17 antagonizing him for his lack of skill, even using that as a reason to help him and his friends out once Riki best him in Break Bomber.
- Serious Business: The fate of the world hinges on shooting marbles at colorful blocks.
- Ship Tease: Riki has a small crush on Rory while also maintaining a strong relationship with Sumi, who values him at all costs. Meanwhile Simon's gynophobia and emotion issues tend to contrast with his growing feelings towards Sumi that he refuses to accept.
- The Smart Guy: Yuki is viewed as one of the best B-Shots thanks to his skill and intelligence. While he falls behind in Riki's rising potential, his intellect and knowledge make him the strategist in the team. Kaito is a close second as his flashy nature hide how his mental strategies at playing his opponents in his straight forward attitude as a Ditzy Genius.
- Spanner in the Works: Riki and Simon end up derailing Novu's manipulations in more ways than one. Simon initially derailed his first plans to force the East and West blocks into a Civil War where Derek would defeat Riki by Riki's own lack of skill with rapid-fire and Simon's personal grudge. After using Sumi to get Simon eliminated from the tournament, he expected Riki to lose and have Derek get control on his proxy, only for Riki's own desire to master rapid-fire screw that over. [[spoiler: When Dracyan's memories are lost, he plans to use Riki to be possessed by Dragold, but Rudy's admiration of
- Speed Blitz: Simon, Kaito, Samuru, Alba, and Asuka all have rapid-fire type B-Damans, firing marbles at high level speeds to overwhelm their opponent and get quick scores in head to head battles and target battles. Each of them use it in different forms. Simon uses a straight forward rapid fire style to get quick hits and end the match quickly, Kaito uses his speed to perform area wide speed attacks to attack and defend the opponent at all areas, Samuru's special moves use rapid-fire as a head on power and defense attack without sacrificing speed, and Asuka's shots are lined on after another to create a wall of attack that conpensates for its lack of power.
- Stage Names: Colleen O'Shaughnessy is credited as Olivia Charles.
- Tournament Arc: Every Crossfire event is one tournament but three notable arcs stand out amongst the important arc in the series.
- Using Derek as a proxy, Novu steals Rory's B-Daman hostage, manipulating a hostage crisis to form the East vs. West Block Battle
- The final battle to crown the overall champion of Crossfire at the end of the first half of the series occurs in episodes 12 to 13. Though all four blocks are allowed to compete, Novu's meddling and lack of participation from those in the South and North blocks led the tournament to only be decided between the East and West B-Shots.
- After Basara attacks the B-Crsytal and more B-Daman begin having Dragold's genes and souls of other B-Daman, the WBMA create a five tournament Grand Prix: episodes 14 to 25: the East GP, West GP, North GP, and the South GP. Each one has a preliminary round where the players who earn the top eight points compete in the final rounds. The eight players with the best records amongst the four tournaments are allowed to go to the final round. Riki, Samuru, Novu, Basara, Rudy, Asuka, Gunner, and Yuki made it to the finals. However, Rudy and Dragold hunted down the finalists that weren't dragon B-Shots and hijacked the tournament.
- Unskilled, but Strong: Basara is so physically strong that every time he tried to use a B-Daman, it couldn't handle his strength. When he gets Double Drazeros, he has no understanding of the rules, so he gets schooled by Kaito and nearly loses for it too. Riki was also this in the beginning.
- Walking the Earth: A defeated Dragold leaves to go see the worlds Cross Fights.
- Weak, but Skilled: Rudy only has a W.B.M.A. Proto 1, but he’s able to perform amazing accurate shots and made it into 4th place at the East GP.
- White Hair, Black Heart: Novu seems like The Ace and a nice person at heart, but underneath that false smile is a white haired demon who wants nothing more than controlling, manipulative, and backstabbing anyone as his pawns.
- The Worf Effect: Kaito is first presented as a powerful-despite-appearances type of character. He goes on to lose to Hugo twice, and is easily beaten by Asuka Kami, though he does at least get the chance to school Basara.
- You Talk Too Much!: Samuru, being The Stoic and Aloof Ally says this to Lightning Dravise frequently due to his partner explaining everything Samuru attempts to keep hidden: Samuru's silence, befriending Riki, explaining the B-Daman mysteries, going into Samuru's personal problems. This a beneficial example since Dravise is trying to get Samuru to have the courage to open his heart more to others, even if he lacks Dracyan's Deadpan Snarker to pull it off. It doesn't help that as Riki and Samuru become closer as friends, Samuru keeps saying to Dravise whenever his partner fixes his own emotions.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Simon has gynophobia, so the very affectionate Sumi scares the crap out of him, though he may have a secret crush on her. In the second series, we get to know why. His sisters used to force him to dress up like a girl.
