Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: The Asterisk War
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James S.
Posts: 94 |
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You kill me. 
For me, with a biased opinion, Rakudai is winning. For me, with an unbiased opinion, Asterisk is winning. However, the only reason for that unbiased opinion is because the animators of Rakudai decided to replace a couple heartwarming and character developing scenes in Episode 2 with crappy violent tsundere slaps and unnecessary catfights, of which neither actually appeared in the novel. Other than that, it's a close match. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11340 |
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It is a close match. Rakudai gained quite a bit of ground this week with a good fight and minimal tsun. If li'l sis stays backed down, it could run away with the game.
But Asterisk also toned down the tsun (I think both these series handed off their tsundere quota to 35th Platoon this week, which collapsed under the weight) and upped the plot twists, so really, the bottom line is I still can't tell these series apart. They're all Asteraku in my mind. 
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Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 9835 Location: Virginia |
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But it is not a race. It just seems that way because coincidence placed two initially similar shows almost opposite each other.
If this was a race, both would be seen as in the middle of the pack with no chance for a break for the finish line. Both shows are moderately entertaining and well done. Neither shows any signs at this time of being a masterpiece or a dog. Even if one does pull ahead by the end of the season, I doubt either will cross the finish line first. It will be interesting to see how the weekly and end of season polls go. |
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zztop
Posts: 645 |
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Novel spoiler spoiler[This episode marks the end of Vol 1 of the Asterisk novel. Politics will be a prevalent part of the later story.]
One advantage Asterisk has over Rakudai is the production values. The animation's sleek and smooth, compared to Rakudai's rather rough quality. And, a classy ED song. [Edit]: added spoiler tags. Errinundra. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11340 |
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Except there's only 3 horses in the race I'm watching, and all of them look like they could break a leg and have to be put down at any moment. 
Btw, did Lester survive that pile-on or what? He wasn't just forgotten about for the moment, he completely vanished from the episode. I wouldn't miss him if he's gone, but it seems like pretty shabby treatment both by the characters and the writers. |
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 9835 Location: Virginia |
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@Gina Szanboti
I'll answer your second question first. I wondered about Lester too, but he is likely fine. They caught the bad guy's full attention a couple of floors up. Since they dropped the bad guy something like 20 stories without hurting him and Claudia stabbed him through the abdomen without killing him, Lester is likely fine. Given how tough the Genestella are, the sister may still be alive. However, I will say that they have an exaggerated idea of just how much blood can come out of one person. May I take it that the third horse is the Anti Magic people? My point was that it is not a race. Seen as a race, it is part of the season. I doubt any of the three will rate highly. So far all three seem entertaining, that is all I ask of a show. Even if we could anoint a winner it would have to be reevaluated along with other similar shows from the last several years. Even then, if a single show comes out on top, how often are you going to watch it? |
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HelloBucket
 Posts: 477 Location: Upstate New York |
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Well, the cavalry had arrived at that point. Then again, that would mean they're putting their trust in Claudia, which may be less than brilliant.
She might have been in his way if he'd set her down as well. Though, I'm kind of hoping that's not the case. It'd be nice to see Julis & Ayato's chemistry translate in to combat as well (beyond the little bit we saw in episode 4) and if Ayato's powers are such that he can't really work with an ally on the field that'll really put a damper on that. He's probably just being overprotective due to abandonment issues. It may be too much to hope that this comes up in the progression of the relationship in a well-handled fashion, but I will hope anyway. |
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chito895
 Posts: 512 Location: Lima, Peru |
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This anime is turning into something more entertaining. Although I still don't find the action scenes to be that well animated, the series really looks nice (I find Julis character design very pleasant to my eyes). Ayato x Julis are by far the best part of the series. Their relationship flow naturally, and I love how the direction tones down the tsundere moments at the right time.
I was disappointed to see Ayato being awesome and stuff during that short fight, though. I wanted to see some of Julis kicking some robotic asses, but it turned to be the "let's show how OP is our main character" scene.  That whole scene gave me some SAO/Mother Rosario vibes, which is not something good.
Regarding Lester, I doubt he's dead, but I wouldn't mind if he was, although it would've been rather pointless to show him for these 4 episodes. I'm pretty sure he was just knocked out (I think I saw his weapon being used by one of those robots) and will reappear later with some bandages saying that he was sorry or something like that. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11340 |
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@ Alan45: You make a good point about the Genestella toughness, which I'd forgotten about even though they did do the whole "Yeah, we can drop him a thousand feet on his head and he'll be fine." thing.
As for the rest, if I wasted anymore time on it, I'd just be whipping a dead horse. |
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 9835 Location: Virginia |
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@Gina Szanboti
Isn't beating a dead horse the primary activity here?
On that note, I offer this: "Riding a Dead Horse:" Wisdom, passed on from generation to generation, says that when you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount. Modern organizations (education, government, military, etc.) often employ a whole range of far more advanced strategies, such as * Buying a stronger whip. * Changing riders. * Threatening the horse with termination. * Appointing a committee to study the horse. * Arranging to visit other countries to see how others ride dead horses. * Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included. * Re-classifying the dead horse as "living, impaired". * Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse. * Harnessing several dead horses together to increase the speed. * Providing additional funding and/or training to increase the dead horse's performance. * Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse's performance. * Declaring that as the dead horse does not have to be fed, it is less costly, carries lower overhead, and therefore contributes substantially more to the bottom line of the economy than do some other horses. * Re-writing the expected performance requirements for all horses. * Promoting the dead horse to a management position. * Changing the name of the computer (oops, horse) |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18179 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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In what particular sense did you mean? I can only think of one scene in that arc which is even remotely comparable to episode 4 of this series, and the circumstances in that case were very different. |
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HaruhiToy
 Posts: 4118 |
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Good god I hope we don't turn this into an spoiler[SAO] thread. We have had quite enough of those.
To be fair, after that she was the one carrying him. Magical weapon battle anime are always full of physical impossibilites and this feature seems to be just one more. Carrying a girl that is 75%+ your own body weight with two hands is hard enough. (I've done my share) To do it one handed, stay on balance, run around, swing a big ol sword and slice humanoids in half is just kinda eye-rolling stuff. To pull it off without crushing her (and of course she didn't appear to be physically uncomfortable) he would have to have an arm of steel. But I am inclined to forgive all that for the sake of the post-battle chemistry. If this anime is going to be better than average that is where it is going to be found. These characters have some potential after all. |
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Hameyadea
 Posts: 3679 |
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Then you are more lenient on the subject than I am. I found the all initial part leading up to that sequence just screaming "they can't handle this. Bad-ass MC-kun will soon arrive to save them," and surely enough, he did. And then there's the fight itself, which if removed from the episode itself and presented as a standalone art piece, it might've been a fairly neat battle, but within the episode, it felt like a lame way to inform the audience "look. See that? That's awesome, right? Know what's even better? Our MC! He's more awesome, more than awesome, he's awesome-r!" As if the whole "the Ser Veresta-Lester MacPhail compatibility is so bad is went negative, and it promptly started attacking MC-kun" in episode #2 wasn't enough of an attempt to make that clear 
I'm trying to enjoy the show, but each episode thus far is so vehemently trying to run by the book, that it is just sad when the On the technical side, however, the show is quite impressive and vibrant. That cubical de-/materialization effect is neat. |
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chito895
Posts: 512 Location: Lima, Peru |
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(Sorry if for me this turns into a SAO thread) That particular scene in Asterisk made me remember two scenes in SAO: spoiler[When Kirito was being "attacked" by a group of dudes during the episode where Silica was introudced (let's show how OP is our MC), and then in Mother's Rosario, during that ambush were Yuki and Asuna were against hundreds of bad guys, they beat some of them, and then appears Kirito to show off how awesome he is (again) to take out most of the other guys.] In the last episode of Asterisk, that scene I mentioned annoyed me because we just got two minutes, maybe less, of Julis showing how strong and independent she can be. I compared it with that Mother's Rosario scene because, after 3 ARCS of showing nothing about Asuna, we only got two or three minutes of her kicking ass with Yuki, leaving us (or at least me) without the chance to remember what an amazing, strong main female character she was supposed to be. I just wanted to see an action scene were the female lead could solve, in an interesting way, her problems without the help of the OP main character. Sure, we are just at the beginning of Asterisk, but if "Ayato being awesome while getting more harem members" becomes a thread in the following episodes, then I'll be more annoyed and bored. I highly doubt it, but I hope Asterisk avoids many of the problems I had with SAO. Julis can be that strong female lead with real character development I wanted from SAO, and if she manages to become that, then Ayato might avoid being that Mr. Perfect Boyfriend who overshadows her girlfriend. |
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Aerodynamic41
Posts: 225 |
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Am I the only one who thinks Kirin's uncle looks like Master Asia?
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