Duration: 24 Episodes
Watched: Crunchyroll
Published: Aniplex
Introduction
Ayato is a regular guy who gets in over his head far too easily. His first day he manages to earn the ire of one of the school's most powerful casters. Fortunately, he's a formidable warrior. He came to Asterisk to try and find out what has happened to his older sister, who turned up missing a few years before. It certainly will not be easy, though, as there seems to be a lot more going on behind the scenes than anyone would have believed.
The Asterisk War is your basic harem-style story; One boy, many girls. Despite this, it does not get sucked into romantic-comedy shenanigans. Instead, it focuses a great deal more on action. Which is great, since the action is really good. It's futuristic swords and sorcery with awesome effects and really bizarre names for attacks and cheesy nameplates to boot! The problem with things based around magic is that it can easily get out of hand but they manage to keep most of the ridiculousness under control. Nothing jumped out to me and screamed "you pulled that out of your ass"! Eh, maybe one thing but it wasn't too bad! There is also one discrepancy that I would like resolved but I'll live.
Through some misunderstandings we meet several a myriad of different characters: To start off, we meet Julis(mentioned in the intro) who is known as Witch of the Resplendent Flames who is a powerful fire user. She is quick to agitate but has a good mind for strategy. Next up we have Saya who is a crack-shot with many types of firearms. She gets lost easily and talks very softly. Then there is Kirin. Kirin is not a Strega but in close-combat she is an absolute monster. She lets her blade do the talking in battle, but outside that, she's very polite, shy, and reserved. Lastly, Claudia is a mystery. I have no idea what is happening with her but I get the impression it won't end well; Very mischievous. There's a plethora of side characters and enemies as well. Plenty of spice for everyone!
The plot does not relent at all, even up to the end. There is a ton of stuff going on and they pile on huge amounts for a follow-up to this. It certainly never gets dull. Their use of bright colors is also a welcome change to seeing the drab and dark color schemes that are so often used.
If I had to give a downside, it would be that Ayato himself is the least developed character. However, the way these sorts of themes usually play out is having a sort of plain guy that can be projected onto by the audience. A bit of a bummer, but not unexpected. Also, I would say that towards the end they were borderline jumping the shark. I was so engaged, though, that I didn't even care.
Conclusion
I very much enjoyed this. The opening animations were amazing and had some great music to get you pumped up for all the action. Tons of action that never overstayed its welcome and turned into DBZ; Very sensible and well paced. Fun characters whose specializations were no squandered or misplaced. Overall, a very decent work.
Recommendation
Hell yes, I recommend this. It ticked off most of the right boxes for me: Lots of action, fun characters, believable plot, awesome universe. If you like these kinds of things then check it out. I seriously hope we get more because they did not mess around at building a large-scale story.
P.S. What the hell is with the subtitles Crunchyroll? If more than 1 person was doing the translation, could they at least keep to some kind of consistency? I also think there were numerous errors referring to one character(who I believe was a male) as a female. This kind of crap really does hurt immersion. If you watch it on CR, expect to have a lot of things change halfway through it.
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