The Asterisk War

Episode 18

The last two tournament battles in The Asterisk War spanned a total of roughly one full episode each. Ayato and Julis's semifinal match against the Galahadworth duo doesn't even last a full seven minutes, and it's more like five if you limit the clock to the actual action parts. To be fair, they both put up somewhat of a fight, but the duelist of the pair found himself outmatched by Ayato's swordfighting skill even without Ser-Vesta and the knight's gamble on an all-or-nothing attack barely missing. As a result, it was one of the weaker battle scenes so far in the series. I guess these guys got as far as they did because of the knight's difficult-to-penetrate armor and experience, but even so, I have to think that they benefited from a weak quarter of the draw. Any of the robots, the twins, Kirin and Saya, or maybe even Irene could have also taken these guys down easily.

Fortunately, the episode was not relying entirely on that battle, as it's only one fraction of what is actually going on. The bigger picture is still the hunt for Flora, and now the gang has a new deadline: noon the next day, when the finals start. I wasn't surprised at all to see Irene pop up again once Ayato and Julis had a chance to get involved in the hunt. Who else would Ayato think to turn to when it comes to Le Wolf? And rather than turning into a solid lead about Flora's whereabouts, it brings Ayato into contact with a new, mysterious girl in a somewhat seedier part of town. Because of course all Ayato needs is to be cavorting around with another girl. Yeah, it's not like that can go wrong, even if the series does give Julis at least a little credit.

Since that part of the storyline seems to be spinning its wheels, the character development at play is more interesting. Kirin and Saya's scene on the rooftop was a nice touch. Letting Saya show her frustration at losing (even if only mildly) is both all too infrequent and a welcome expansion of her established emotional range. Surprisingly though, greater attention goes to the Arlequint girls in charge of the robots. We briefly get to see how Ernesta and Camilla met and learn a bit about Camilla's backstory (including that she's almost half artificial due to a nasty encounter with a grenade, even though she doesn't show it), but more importantly, we get great insight into their conflicting ideologies concerning what they want to accomplish. They may be working together, but they have very different goals. In a more ambitious story, those goals would be interesting to explore, but that's probably expecting too much of a series like this.

On a technical front, the horse animation looked a bit awkward but otherwise the battles scenes flowed pretty well. (I don't think you can fully chalk it up to being an artificial horse either.) The depiction of the Rotlicht District also had a warm, vibrant feel that sometimes gets lost in the more sterile school settings. Overall though, nothing really stood out much, hence the middling grade.

Rating: B-

The Asterisk War is currently streaming on Crunchyroll and Funimation.