[SING FIRST LINE] Now this is a story all about Ayato got transferred to a new school, and he got caught spying on a naked girl, but it's all a misunderstanding yet he'll still get hit for it. Yeah, this is another one of those common tropes in anime that have been INCREDIBLY ABUSED TO DEATH! The Asterisk War suffers from a ton of commonly abused tropes that drive me up a wall, but I'm here to let you know why you should still check it out anyways. It's got romance, action, internal spying, politics between academies, and crazy fights. What's not to like?
The opening part of the show starts with an intense battle between a young girl, and an intimidating armor clad man. Each of them are launching attacks at each other and using large weapons called Ogre Lux that look very similar to lightsabers. It ends with the girl enduring a fatal blow and bleeding out on the ground. She whispers out "I'm sorry Ayato" and it ends. From there we get launched into an interesting sci fi world with a lot to catch up on.
Long story short, there are six academies that have a competition between their strongest students every year. The schools are all on a large island city called Asterisk. The competition is broadcast worldwide and the victors are promised fame, wealth, and their deepest wish granted. All of the students at the academies are from the "Starpulse Generation" and are gifted with special powers and abilities. These vary from strength, to magic, to super speed, to many more. We're then introduced to our heroes Ayato and Julis, two students at the Seidoukan Academy. The school's record in the competition hasn't been the best recently, and they're throwing everything they have into the ring this year.
Ayato has just transferred to the school to uncover the mystery surrounding his sister's disappearance five years prior. Her records have been deleted, and so has her attendance. The only information he has is the record of the ogre lux she checked out. With her lux in hand, and his impressive skills behind it, he's determined to discover what happened to her. He is fierce with a lux, and his abilities are far better than the average student. He's also kind, selfless, and will stop at nothing to protect the things he loves.
Our other hero, Julis, is a princess from a western European country. She's ranked 5th on the school's roster, and uses incredibly powerful fire based attacks. She is determined to win the competition and take home the prize money for all of the underfunded orphanages in her country to keep them open. She is very standoffish at first, but Ayato is the only one she seems to warm up to. Her skills are backed by immense passion and will to win, while she can be very delicate and girly at times too.
Like I said before, this show suffers from a ton of overdone anime cliches. The angry female lead, the bumbling hero who stares death in the face but can't look at boobs, the animated journalist, the sexual student body president, and many more. But that's not all it has to offer.
The art is fantastic and everything looks beautiful. Fight scenes are really engaging and have some unique moments that we haven't really seen before. Our characters, despite being tropes, are done well and you care about them.
All in all, The Asterisk War is a good time and you won't regret checking it out. As long as you can look past all the times you'll say "Seen it" throughout the first couple episodes, then it's truly a fun anime. Some of the best moments involve the mysteries and espionage between the multiple academies, and watching the characters try to figure out what's happening. Several moments had me on edge and left me scrambling to move to the next episode.
The show is only at its seventh episode, so you have plenty of time to catch up and be ready for the season finale!
Thanks for reading otakus! :D
