Kerria japonica
Japanese rose (Kerria japonica) is a competitor shrub in Supplant — a native buffer and invasive attacker whose game role is set out below.
Japanese kerria is a thicket-forming ornamental shrub with yellow flowers. In battle it is a Shrub — a Competitor on the succession chart. Native across East Asia, it plays as a defensive buffer; where it has spread as an invasive into Europe, eastern North America, western North America and South Asia, it turns attacker.
Its starter attack, Bramble Lash, is available from Lv 1 for 2 Sun and deals about 33 damage as a native and 37 as an invasive. The free once-per-battle ability, Frugivore Pact, unlocks at Lv 25: Trades fruit for carriage: +3 ATK, and the foe's whole bench sickens. The advanced attack, Sucker Punch (Lv 40, 6 Sun), hits for about 33 native and 37 invasive.
Sucker Punch carries the initiative rider. In a wild encounter that move takes hard priority and lands before the opponent regardless of either tempo stat (if both sides bring a rider, they cancel and normal turn order decides). In the arena it works differently: a rider strike does not go first, but if it scores a kill — the struck plant actually drops — its user seizes the turn and acts again, and the chain continues as long as it keeps finishing plants.
From Lv 10 it carries Thorns, so any plant that lands a direct hit on it takes flat recoil damage from its armature. At Lv 68 a second always-on trait stacks on: Drupe Mast, which heals about 8% of maximum HP to each plant on its own bench when it is knocked out.
For field gear, a Calcium/Magnesium amendment suits it, adding flat DEF on top of its already-firm armour. Its growth habit is not recorded as a climber, so it is not Moss Pole–eligible.
Read at the snapshot level (Lv 40, where its whole kit is unlocked), it shows 103 HP and 19 ATK as a native, or 89 HP and 30 ATK as an invasive, with 11 DEF. As a native it adds a 15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects an HP overshield onto your active; as an invasive it trades that for the higher attack ceiling and pays Faustian self-damage to its own bench on every damaging attack, conceding 2 prizes when it is knocked out. On defence, its DEF sits in the firmer shrub band. Its opening tempo (turn 1) is 44 and its sustained tempo (turn 2 onward) 39 — making it a quick starter that is out-paced as the fight goes on. Retreating it costs 14 Sun. See Stats and Native Strength for the full picture.
By Lv 100 its HP swells toward 190 and its DEF firms to 22, with attack at 33. Retreat rises to 27 Sun, and its inverted tempo has fallen to a sliver — the speed edge it had young is gone. It ages into a durable mid-line plant rather than a true wall.
On the succession chart a Shrub is a Competitor. Competitor plants hit Ruderal categories hard (×1.5) and are resisted by Specialist categories (×0.667); against everything else the matchup is neutral. Weird categories are off the wheel entirely, so it trades neutrally with those.
A thorny support shrub: it recoils on any attacker, heals its bench when it dies, and has a genuine attack step where it has spread through Europe and North America. A solid defensive and support card. It has no resolved edible part, so fertilising it banks ×1.25 XP rather than coins — useful for levelling.
It fights as a fast skirmisher until about Lv 28 (a little later as an invasive, around Lv 30), after which its growing bulk and attack take over from its early speed edge.
Leveling trades speed for power. A plant’s tempo (SPD + INI, the turn-order edge) fades as it grows, while its power (HP + ATK + DEF, net of the rising Sun cost to retreat) climbs. The crossover is the level where power overtakes tempo: below it the plant is a fast skirmisher, above it a heavyweight. Shown for each stance this plant can actually hold — native adds a HP cushion, invasive an attack edge, neutral neither — with the card at its crossover and fully grown at Lv 100.