GAKUSEN TOSHI ASTERISK

DESCRIPTION

CAST

NOVEL ActionGakusen Toshi Asterisk
ANIME ActionGakusen Toshi Asterisk 2
MANGA ActionGakusen Toshi Asterisk
ONANaze Nani!? Asterisk

REVIEWS

• 

  CodeBlazeFate

  24/100
  The Asterisk War failed to meet even the basic requirements to function as a generic work of fiction.

  Towards the end of 2015, two light novel adaptations became notable for sharing startling similarities between them. Chivalry of a Failed Knight was considered somewhat refreshing, occasionally playing around with awful tropes and channeling the power of competent screenplays and exciting directing to turn a school battle LN adaptation into something worth watching. Conversely, The Asterisk War failed to meet even the basic requirements to function as a generic work of fiction. It's barely worth the effort it takes to write about it, let alone animate it.

  Before we start, I dare one of you to make a thread or a blog showcasing the exact amount of problems each episode has. Don't make a drinking game out of it, or you'll die of alcohol poisoning by episode 8. The show literally starts with the main puss ass lead walking into our Tsundere in the middle of undress, under the pretenses that she dropped something important to her. After she claims to owe him one, she tries to incinerate him out of nowhere, resenting him for the rest of the episode in the process. This sets a precedent as to how badly this show will execute and contradict everything, like being low enough to over-sexualize a 13-year-old who regularly gets slapped by her uncle and saved by Ayato, whilst simultaneously acting like her asking for a sparring match the main character she fought of her own volition before is in any way indicator of her strength as a person. Just to provide the illusion that broke as hell Ayato isn't obscenely powerful, they provide flimsy limiters that only work when he uses a specific weapon for too long, despite that he often goes past the time limit of the limiters with no problem until the match finishes. The show breaks its rules so often that its ravaged narrative arcs become that much worse. Even the interesting ideas this dreck presents aren't capitalized, let alone worth capitalizing on in the first place.

  The world-building is easily the most fractured part of this dumpster fire. The tournament arc has been hinted to be a tournament in which things can get deadly and bloody for competitors, but no one gets remotely injured or killed, aside from that one pointless and awkwardly done flashback scene at the very beginning., if students can summon hovering screens with their hands for no reason, then why do they need to hold them, and why is there actual paper involved? The world-building of this show is some of the worst I've ever seen, as if the narrative wasn't already cheap enough with its trite nonsense, missed opportunities, and romantic mood killers designed to preserve a terrible harem.

  Speaking of which, Ayato is as horribly characterized and intolerable as his harem, which is one of the worst in the mainstream anime hemisphere. Julis is a trash tier Tsundere who plays up that trope to obnoxious degrees, especially when she retardedly blows up her room in an attempt to scorch him alive for the crime of accidentally seeing her in her underwear. Saya is an obnoxiously possessive loli with all the intolerable tropes you'd expect. Kirin is an annoyingly squeaky pushover with a ridiculously lousy character arc As for Claudia, anything she has going for her can be boiled down to sass, sex appeal, and an insidious and mysterious nature that I guarantee this show won't capitalize on. The other characters are either stupid or wasted, with almost no middle ground beyond just being "there". Easily the most crushing case of the latter is Irene, who is a dangerous punk with a heart of gold and an interesting design. They go out of their way to do nothing interesting with her when it's time for her to fight our unbearable main lead in the finale, and the closest we ever get is how her younger sister keeps her in check, which has also been done a million times. When a character like her is the best character in the show, it speaks volumes of just how worthless this cast is.

  Visually speaking, this show isn't much better. The colors are certainly bright, and some of the character designs can actually be pretty neat and sexy but the artwork is pretty miserable. It's a low-budget SAO and Aldnoah.Zero style with even shittier and more incomprehensible choreography, and even more all-encompassing fugly CGI. Much like the show itself, the visuals are bad at even pulling off being generic and mediocre, barring a few relatively dazzling environments. Even the aesthetics are gaudy and nonsensical, and the cuts of actually good animation are few and far between. At least Andloah.Zero had some flourish to make up for generic style and cheap CGI.

  The OST is a mixed bag of vanilla background noise, awful dubstep, and ill-fitting emotional pieces. Even the OP is a milquetoast pop song, in spite of it being catchy. The ED titled "Waiting for the rain" by Maaya Sakamoto and Ramsus Faber is the only stellar bit of music in the show, as it's a pretty stellar emotional track to close out each episode with. Even the visuals are interesting, with the show swapping the positions of a bunch of color-coded silhouettes of each harem member, which are accompanied by some actually pleasant techno melodies and Maaya Sakamoto's warm, even uplifting voice. Still, if having one good track is all the audio needs to be unquestionably better than every other aspect of this show combined, then I really can't find a better way to call this show dogshit.

  People put themselves through hell slaving away at this, and no one did a remotely good job beyond the musicians. That's as sad as the show itself. This anime isn't even infuriating or laughable, just annoying and lifeless, which is one of the purest tells that this has no value I can assign to it, let alone any reason to be watched enough to garner a second season. It even fails to live up to its title in any way, shape or form. How this got popular is beyond me, and I'm glad it's dead.

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• 

  Rarity

  60/100
  I felt bad after writing two negative reviews so I wrote a positive review for an objectively bad show

  (This review assumes that you also watched the anime Rakudai Kishi no Eiyuutan because it's mostly a comparison of the two)

  I know what is expected of me. I should roast this anime because it was bad. However, we all know it was bad. There’s no reason for me to rehash how bad it was right? But if I don’t roast it what am I going to talk about? Well I intend to both mock and pity Asterisk War as it was a victim of poor circumstances in addition to its own shortcomings.

  An Inescapable Comparison

  We cannot ignore the elephant in the room. Asterisk’s War greatest fault is that in most ways it’s a worse Rakudai Kishi no Eiyuutan. But why is that? The characters, world and the plot lines are almost painfully similar, so what made Rakudai more palpable? I think there are two main differences that separate these shows:

  The fights in Rakudai were good, whereas the fights in Asterisk were bad. This is crazy subjective but please hear me out. The fights in Rakudai were a lot more polished and fun to watch than those in Asterisk. Honestly every fight in Asterisk felt rushed. In contrast, all the Rakudai fights were stunning and were easily my favorite part of the anime. I can safely say the fights were a low point of Asterisk. They even managed to ruin one of my favorite tropes in anime, shouting the name of your attack before launching them, by making the attack names shitty. I’m looking at you Livingstone Stone Daisy…

  Ikki and Stella formally started dating whereas Ayato and Julis were just bonded at the hip. This was a minor plot point, but it radically altered the show. Rakudai killed its being a harem aspect by establishing the canon pairing mid-show, whereas Asterisk kept the harem alive by having Ayato never hook up with Julis. Now while this was dumb as Ayato was clearly devoted to Julis, it makes sense when you learn that the anime was adapting Julis’s route from the videogame.
  I looked up the game Asterisk War for the PS Vita and for a game from 2016 it looked pretty good. The anime pretty much adapted Julis’s route completely, but that just leaves me wondering about Saya’s route. Thus, in its own shitty way Asterisk gave me a slight degree of interest in its source property, which I assume was the entire goal of the anime (also you can play as Lester and Saya in the game!!!)
  Furthermore, Asterisk while shitty wasn’t really that bad if not compared directly to Rakudai. It’s a travesty that both shows aired at the same time. Someone should’ve caught it, someone should’ve said something. No season needs two battle harem high school animes, much less ones that are this similar.

  Let’s do some more quick comparisons:

  Ikki was more tolerable than Ayato. The latter just let shit happen to him never trying to intervene or change anything. Once you realize that he’s just a video game protagonist I can start to understand his passive approach to everything, but I still think a bit of angst or brooding would’ve made his character “good”. I’m still questioning why he wasn’t trying to find/avenge his sister…

  Julis and Stella were basically the same character. Stella was a lot more tolerable, but also dumber. Still I wasn’t upset every time she was on screen whereas I just didn’t like Julis. Also, her being princess still irks me as it ruined her character motivation of making money to fund the orphanage. I just can’t believe that a princess doesn’t have ANY available money. I guess in 2016 there was some male fantasy of dating a sword-fighting princess that we all sort of missed? I don’t know, but this fetish ain’t for me that’s for sure.

  Might as well hammer out a few more. We could do this all day if we tried:

  The Festa and the Festival are the same thing.

  Annoying brown-haired news reporter is our friend, kind of (Yabuki&Kagumin)
  Protag is broken af, but has time-limited powers

  Main heroine is a red/pink haired princess from a tiny nation that wields fire magic, is a tsundere and wins canon ship with the protagonist in their anime

  Protagonist walks in on a girl changing clothes in ep 1. He is then forced to fight her. He defeats her, somehow leading to a everlasting friendship and romance.

  There is a girl from the protag’s past with romantic interest in him that is ignored by the Protag (Shizuku&Saya)

  We have a scene of two characters being almost naked while their clothes dry, during this scene they talk about serious issues

  The student council has too much power, the student council is arguably corrupt

  Protag meets, fights, tutors and sidelines a talented female swordswoman with daddy issues (Toudou&Ayatsuji)

  So, what did I like about this show?
  Some of the side characters were great and amused me consistently

  It was a harem anime, a crappy one, but a harem nonetheless

  What did I dislike?
  Anime was aired next to a similar show that it loses to in direct comparison. I honestly think Asterisk would just be meh as opposed to utter garbage if we didn’t have to compare it to Rakudai.

  The fights were awful. This is a pretty bad thing to screw up in your battle harem anime. I can safely say that watching the videogame sprites fight was preferable to the anime battles.

  Ayato and Julis. I’m very critical of protags in harem anime. I grade everyone against Yuuki Rito from To Loveru and usually they just need to be on par with him to get a passing grade. Ayato however was worse and I was legit annoyed with how bland he was all show. Julis as a main heroine wasn’t very compelling to me either. She was a poor tsundere and her only saving grace was not being as blatantly dumb as Stella.

  Anime adapted the route of my least favorite girl

  In conclusion, I hope to remember three things about this anime:
  Saya, as she was funny, quirky and while totally unreasonable made me laugh a lot

  

  Toudou, whose good chemistry with Saya caused her to go from zero to a 10 in my heart
  Lester, because being a male supporting character in harem anime is hard and the show brutalized this man unreasonably

  I would only recommend this show to someone wanting to compare it to Rakudai for kicks. Now that being said the game looks decent...

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