Gakusen Toshi Asterisk

[Ryu]

Title: THE ASTERISK WAR: The Academy City on the Water
Japanese: 学戦都市アスタリスク
Airing date: 3/10/2015 (TV series 24 episodes)
Genres: Action, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Supernatural, Comedy, Romance, School, Ecchi, Harem
Original creator: Yū Miyazaki
Original character designers: Okiura (light novel) and Ningen (manga)
Directors: Manabu Ono (chief) and Kenji Seto
Music by: Rasmus Faber
Character designer and chief animation director: Tetsuya Kawakami
Art director: Yukihiro Watanabe
Sound director: Satoshi Motoyama
CG director: Nao Kudō
Directors of photography: Daiki Sugiyama and Kōsuke Nakanishi
Mechanical design by: Shinobu Nishioka
Art design by: Toshiharu Yukikata and Tsukasa Ohira
Action design by: Hirotaka Tokuda
Color design by: Aiko Matsuyama
Set design by: Kenichi Morioka
Prop design by: Hiroshi Mimata
Main animator: Takashi Torii
Animation producer: Kenshirō Yamada
Music producers: Makoto Nishibe and Masao Fukuda
Chief producers: Shinichirō Kashiwada and Sō Yurugi
Editing by: Masahiro Gōto
Studio: A-1 Pictures
Network: Animax, Tokyo MX, GTV, GYT, BS11, ABC, CBC
Opening theme: "Brand-new World" by Shiena Nishizawa
Ending theme: "Waiting for the rain" by Maaya Sakamoto

Main cast: Ayato Amagiri (天霧 綾斗) voiced by Atsushi Tamaru and Ayaka Suwa (young)
Julis-Alexia van Riessfeld (ユリス＝アレクシア・フォン・リースフェルト) voiced by Ai Kakuma
Seidoukan / Guiding Star Campus (星導館学園): Claudia Enfield (クローディア・エンフィールド) voiced by Nao Tōyama

Saya Sasamiya (沙々宮 紗夜) voiced by Shiori Izawa
Kirin Tōdō (刀藤 綺凛) voiced by Ari Ozawa
Eishirō Yabuki (夜吹 英士郎) voiced by Yūma Uchida



Kyōko Yatsuzaki (八津崎 匡子) voiced by Yūko Kaida
Silas Norman (サイラス・ノーマン) voiced by Yūichi Iguchi
Randy Hooke (ランディ・フック) voiced by Nobuyuki Kobushi
' '
Lester MacPhail (レスター・マクフェイル) voiced by Takanori Hoshino
Supporting cast: Haruka Amagiri (天霧 遙) voiced by Mai Nakahara
Allekant Academy (アルルカント・アカデミー): Ernesta Kuhne (エルネスタ・キューネ) voiced by Chinatsu Akasaki
Camilla Pareto (カミラ･パレート) voiced by Mutsumi Tamura
Shuma Sakon (左近洲馬) voiced by Nobuo Tobita
Le Wolfe Black School (レヴォルフ黒学院): Irene Urzaiz (イレーネ・ウルサイス) voiced by Yumi Uchiyama
Priscilla Urzaiz (プリシラ・ウルサイス) voiced by Juri Nagatsuma
Dirk Eberwein (ディルク・エーベルヴァイン) voiced by Tomokazu Sugita
St. Gallardworth Institute (聖ガラードワース学園): Ernest Fairclough (アーネスト・フェアクロフ) voiced by Takahiro Sakurai
Jie Long 7th College (界龍 / ジェロン 第七学院): Fan Xinglou (范星露 / ファンシンルー) voiced by Omi Minami
Queenvale All-Girls-school (クインヴェール女学園): Sylvia Lyneheim (シルヴィア・リューネハイム) voiced by Haruka Chisuga
Narration (ナレーション) by Kazuhiro Yamaji
English TV PVs: https://www.youtube.com/embed/oiLnJI7cTbk?r...l9Y3MVWaHGUeE-d
Official websites: http://asterisk-war.com/ and http://asteriskwar.com/ (english)

Synopsis: The Academy City on the water, Rikka (otherwise known as Asterisk) is the world's largest stage for the integrated battle entertainment, "Star Wars Festival." The young boys and girls of the "Starpulse Generation" belonging to the six academies made their wishes with Shining Armaments in their hands, vying for supremacy—Amagiri Ayato is one of them. Ayato arrived at Rikka at the invitation of the Student Council President of the Seidoukan Academy, Claudia, and right after that he incurred the wrath of the "Petalblaze Witch" Julis, and ended up having to duel her. The greatest academy battle entertainment, begins here!

QUOTE (Norren @ Oct 04 2015, 07:05 PM)Asterisk
- High water mark for the battle academy story rehash this season.
- Character designs and animation are up there.
- The reason they're fighting, for corporate sponsorships and commercials, is actually plausible. (As opposed to schools that are fighting to be kingthnx for the heads up ^^ I decided to keep watching, also 2 cours like Object

 

[Norren]

On week 2 of ALL TEH BATTLE ACADEMIEZ:

Asterisk:
Good second episode, solid animation. I think I'm actually going to follow this one through to the end of the season as long as they keep up the art quality. There's places where I'm not sure if they snuck in 3DCG cel shaded puppets or not, because it was done well enough that I'm not sure if it was hand animated, traced, or 3DCG. The next episode preview shot is totally a Miku Miku Dance model, tho'.

Rakunani:
I laughed so hard when the generic MC's little sister showed up. Her appearance is somewhere between OreGairu's Totsuka and HaGaNai's Yukimura. She has SHIBA Miyuki's personality and ice magic, without Miyuki's internal limiter. She's hardly on screen for the first few minutes before she kisses her brother so hard she gives him tongue, then freezing the landscape because someone got between her and oniisama. I usually enjoy being able to identify an author's inspiration sources, but in this case I just feel like I'm looking at shameless plagiarism. Dropped like the fist of an angry god.

 

[Ryu]

QUOTE (Norren @ Oct 10 2015, 05:43 PM)Rakunani:
I laughed so hard when the generic MC's little sister showed up. Her appearance is somewhere between OreGairu's Totsuka and HaGaNai's Yukimura. She has SHIBA Miyuki's personality and ice magic, without Miyuki's internal limiter. She's hardly on screen for the first few minutes before she kisses her brother so hard she gives him tongue, then freezing the landscape because someone got between her and oniisama. I usually enjoy being able to identify an author's inspiration sources, but in this case I just feel like I'm looking at shameless plagiarism. Dropped like the fist of an angry godlol so what BATTLE ACADEMIEZ you rank as worst this Fall: Cavalry, Tai-madou Gakuen 35 and Valkyrie drive? xD... back to topic after reading about Asterisk's upcoming 'Star Wars festival', the lightsaber sounds in ep'3 don't surprise me

 

[Norren]

I haven't even gotten to Tai-madou Gakuen 35 or Valkyrie Drive yet. There weren't episodes of those up when I started, I'll get to them eventually as their synopsis sound terrible.

Valkyrie drive in particular I expect to be a halfassed Elemental Gelade.

I still can't believe the shameless of Cavalry.

Looking forward to Asterisk Ep 4 tomorrow.

Edit:

Well, Ep 4 was interesting. Ayato's older sister did something really mean to him.

I'm pretty impressed with how this series blends 3DCG into everything. The Puppet Army was pretty good, I kind of wish they'd just gone with more mindless violence than trying to keep up the vocal sparring. The raw battle footage was really nice, but the bad guy was pretty clearly out of his depth.

Really, if Julis didn't have a mental hangup about fighting fair, she could have burned the guy until he stopped moving well before Musclebrains MacFailsauce went down.

 

[Ryu]

QUOTE (Norren @ Oct 23 2015, 11:57 PM)Musclebrains MacFailsauceMcFail indeed xD i wonder if its author likes Back to the Future, twisting Marty's surname McFly or Biff's 'bully' attitude... 'No matter how many wooden puppets you sic on me' uh, what about 128? so JulisxAyato in Phoenix festa's arc soon

 

[Ryu]

QUOTE (Norren @ Oct 23 2015, 10:57 PM)I'm pretty impressed with how this series blends 3DCG into everything. The Puppet Army was pretty good, I kind of wish they'd just gone with more mindless violence than trying to keep up the vocal sparring. The raw battle footage was really nice, but the bad guyits Allekant mecha animation too in Phoenix Festa's 2nd match, finally it started in ep'9 after a long arc about Kirin ;/... still was great that she ends defying her bossy but weak uncle, we'll see how far the loli duo goes though flat Saya fits

 

[Norren]

I'm still enjoying this one, this is pretty much the best variation on the battle academy minigenre. Solid animation, writing that steadily builds towards the overall story without getting mired down in the moment to moment harem cliches, but still manages to sneak a few of the classic tropes in. (Kirin's arc was probably the least well handled in this regard, but it still managed to stay classy.)

I have to admit I didn't really like Kirin's arc, but the results of it ended up being pretty nice and the Kirin and Saya duo are great foils for each other. Saya's shameless scene this week's episode just... spoke VOLUMES about her character and wouldn't have worked at all without Kirin getting caught up in it.

I like how they're handling the tournament in general. The pacing on the fights doesn't feel unnatural and isn't based on Shaman King style sudden "wait what how did he turn that fight around" moments. That's pretty rare in this sort of thing where usually it's determinators all the way down.

 

[Ryu]

QUOTE (Norren @ Dec 06 2015, 04:58 AM)I like how they're handling the tournament in general. The pacing on the fights doesn't feel unnaturalalso I want to see if Ayato teams up with Claudia next Festa, but i doubt he will after their 'quality time' spent in ep.11 :/... we'll have to wait for JulisxAyato vs Urzaiz sisters until next week, most likely cour finale (their dinner was nice)

 

[Ryu]

The Asterisk War Second Season, so now how many lolis will join Ayato's harem?

QUOTE (Norren @ Dec 06 2015, 04:58 AM)I'm still enjoying this one, this is pretty much the best variation on the battle academy minigenre. Solid animation, writing that steadily builds towards the overall story without getting mired down in the moment to moment harem cliches, but still manages to sneak a few of the classic tropes in. (Kirin's arc was probably the least well handled in this regard, but it still managed to stay classy.)also S2 just started as strong with the Jie Long students, looks like Li twins' next battle will get even better

 

[Ryu]

QUOTE (Norren @ Dec 06 2015, 04:58 AM)but the results of it ended up being pretty nice and the Kirin and Saya duo are great foils for each other.too bad they lost semifinals against AR-D and RM-C, anyway Both lolis wouldn't stand a chance fighting Ayato+Julis... with Sylvia's debut in ep.19 can't wait for Phoenix final tomorrow, lol also McFail goes to save Flora (worst voice so far)