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「解き放たれし者」 (Tokihanatareshimono)
“Unshackled”
While it’s tough not to draw comparisons, I think this is the point where two shows will finally break free from one another.
Lester MacPhail and Silas Norman
I don’t think anyone here can understand just how happy I was when the story finally confirmed that Lester wasn’t the perpetrator behind all the attacks. Literally, I think I leapt out of my chair and yelped in joy when he showed up and starting yelling at the sleezebag known as Silas Norman. I mean, besides avoiding the typical cliche that the rough muscle head is the bad guy or being used by the bad guy, I loved how he got an opportunity to truly prove his innocence. Fearlessly charging in against an army of puppets and never backing down even when faced with ridiculously bad odds, I really hope he managed to get out from under that giant pile of puppets.
The Chains of the Past
As much as I wanted to channel my inner Stilts and put something about Magical Jesus in the heading, I think that Ayato has enough of a weakness to prevent him from becoming too overpowered at this point in the story. With limiters (or I suppose magical seals) in-place to stop his true power from manifesting for too long, I want to believe that we’ll continue to see the quirky Ayato who solves his problems in a somewhat cautious manner and only get small doses of the ridiculously overpowered one we saw today. Because when you have some of two of the top students in the academy getting wrecked by puppets that can also withstand some of their most powerful attacks, it really makes you wonder just how much power those seals are well, sealing. Especially when you consider that he was also carrying Julis the whole damn time.
Luckily, it looks like Ayato can’t fly without the help of Julis, so I guess he’s somewhat grounded for now (LAUGH AT MY PUN PLEASE).
Dark Connections
As much as I loved the cute moment between Julis and Ayato, what really got my attention hadd to be Claudia’s dark side sneaking out. Looking quite scary as she knocked the crap out of Silas, who would have thought that she’d be working alongside a shadow organization that one of Ayato’s only male friends happened to be a member of? That and what the heck was the show thinking of revealing another shady looking group of people so quickly!? Are they just trying to confuse us?
Looking Ahead
With the story finally moving at full speed, it seems we’re about to really hit the meat of things. From shadow organizations running rampant to Ayato and Julis making some progress in the romance department, I love how things seem to be transitioning from happy-go-lucky to somewhat serious. In any case, I’ll catch you guys next week when Toudou Kirin hopefully makes her appearance since she’s supposedly really awesome. Ciao!
Takaii’s Notes:
- Julis was pretty lack luster this week :/. Her girl power was through the roof though.
- You could probably write an essay about the symbolism of those chains on Ayato.
- Evil Claudia is pretty hot too.
I should be ASHAMED ON NOT VOTING this series as a MUST-WATCH anime this season as I thought it was gonna be another “Absolute Duo” version where their ecchi scenes are very ridiculous.
In fact, this Asterisk episode doesn’t include any ridiculous ecchi scene at all.
And, I’m proud to say I might review this show after we come to its final episode.
Reason 1: Male protagonist isn’t annoying at all. In fact, he’s cool in his own way of handling girls’ conversation.
Especially he told Julis…”That’s not what a princess should say…”
Though he still may be oblivious to Julis and Saya’s infatuation for him, he’s a likable MP in my opinion. Another thing though…I’m stunned on how he’s able to fight the 1000-army robots with a girl in his arm? I she trying to outsmart Tatsuya Shiba [randomc.net/category/mahouka-koukou-no-rettousei/]?
Reason 2) Julis isn’t the annoying tsundere like any other harem shows. Don’t get me started on Infinite Startos, whose characters are REALLY x100 annoying. I mean it. [https://randomc.net/2011/01/06/is-infinite-stratos-01/]
In fact, she still has her “firing” power even without a single weapon with her. https://randomc.net/image/Gakusen%20Toshi%20Asterisk/Gakusen%20Toshi%20Asterisk%20-%2004%20-%2017.jpg
Reason 3) Twists that exposed student council president to be somewhat sinister…https://randomc.net/image/Gakusen%20Toshi%20Asterisk/Gakusen%20Toshi%20Asterisk%20-%2004%20-%2029.jpg
…and her assistant/sidekick(?) is the MP’s roommate? Of course I should doubt people who are really friendly with the MP. https://randomc.net/image/Gakusen%20Toshi%20Asterisk/Gakusen%20Toshi%20Asterisk%20-%2004%20-%2029.jpg
I mean, this guy is Claudia’s “helper”(?).
https://randomc.net/image/Gakusen%20Toshi%20Asterisk/Gakusen%20Toshi%20Asterisk%20-%2004%20-%2031.jpg
I guess I’m so afraid of her that I forgot to change the image. LOL
I see Claudia right now, some kind like Sinbad in Magi manga
or inside her body, are two Twin Souls
Ayato’s roommate works for the intelligence division of Seidoukan Academy, the Shadow Stars. A necessity, given the Show Spoiler ▼
the reason for the Chains…
I go with this along
The Chains is there to suppress his powers, for not destroying his Body.
The Chains is there to keep him sanity, until he can control the Dark mighty Power inside him, because the Weapon of him, is a Booster tool
the Chains inside him is like naruto’s mother. A protection for not the Dark power take over his body
the Chains inside him, is like Rosario + Vampire.
But he said, that this time the limit was expanded over the usually. So looks like love or the emotion to protect someone is a key..
and.. like in Bleach the Captains. Claudia and co, over watch him. If he stay with them or will fall against them…
So, with this points even Claudia can become very interesting. not only look smexy
While this isn’t groundbreaking for the season, this is pretty damn groundbreaking for the genres it represents. If it can at least keep up this level of entertainment, I can see this being the “dark horse” of the season.
It’s a shame that people will still sleep on this though just because of the genres. “Don’t judge a book by it’s cover.” It’s possible to take all the “generic genres” of the world and make a great, enjoyable series, and while the Light Novel obviously gets credit for that, A-1 pictures is doing a great job as well with the atmosphere of certain scenes. Good examples are the ending of the last 2 episodes. The colors, animation, mood, music, everything just speaks to you.
https://randomc.net/image/Gakusen%20Toshi%20Asterisk/Gakusen%20Toshi%20Asterisk%20-%2004%20-%20Large%2026.jpg
Ayato x Julis for now
https://randomc.net/image/Gakusen%20Toshi%20Asterisk/Gakusen%20Toshi%20Asterisk%20-%2004%20-%20Large%2029.jpg
Claudia in her S mode
Show Spoiler ▼
https://randomc.net/image/Gakusen%20Toshi%20Asterisk/Gakusen%20Toshi%20Asterisk%20-%2004%20-%2029.jpg
Ahem.
THAT ASIDE.
Really, the more I try to put the words together in my head, the more jumbled they seem to get. Needless to say, I was surprised, in a good way, at just where Asterisk is headed. At first I was like: “Ah, typical harem show, eh? Meh, something to watch on a lazy afternoon I guess”
That’s all gone now. Ayato is like Kirito done right. Yeah, he’s OP, but in a reasonable way, and he can actually make a move on a girl, like any actual, hot-blooded male would do and just let it happen. Are all you aspiring harem novelists in Japan watching this? It really can be just this easy.
And the rest? There’s so much going on here that I don’t even know where to start. Actually, scratch that. I know exactly where to start.
https://randomc.net/image/Gakusen%20Toshi%20Asterisk/Gakusen%20Toshi%20Asterisk%20-%2004%20-%2031.jpg
This guy, right here. If Ayato is like Kirito done right, this guy is like Shuu from Nisekoi done right (you paying attention, Komi-sensei?). Rather than just side-lined for the occasional comic relief, he actually DOES stuff and plays a larger plot role. Who woulda thought?
Really and truly, I was taken back when that was revealed. Wasn’t expecting that, at all.
All that said, fair is fair and a man admits when he’s wrong. If Asterisk follows through on what’s been shown thus far – which, to be sure, is where the rubber meets the road – I take back everything I ever implied about Asterisk not being worthy of two cours. It is, very much so, and I’m looking forward to next week. 🙂
So far, so good I think.
I feel like the show does dodge a lot of potential pitfalls while being really entertaining. I was happily surprised to see that Lester was actually innocent. The guy was being set up to be the fall guy. Using his temper and aggressive personality as the perfect guy to blame for the crimes. While he didn’t do much damage…hopefully he got out of that pile of dolls.
A nice episode for Ayato and Julis. Julis didn’t do a ton in the fight (though the fire dragon was awesome), but she did play a role. Ayato as well is nicely balanced having a lot of power but seals and limitations that makes it tough on him. Also got to love the way he talked down to his opponent once he got serious. Also just like how he and Julis interacted throughout. Both willing to hold their ground in conversations.
And damn…didn’t expect that ending. Claudia having a pretty good dark side there and Ayato’s friend being part of a shadow group within the school. So a male friend that isn’t just comic relief…I like it.
So far so good with this show. It is still funny how this and Cavalry both just had to come out on the same day in the same season, but both are finding their way and standing out.
Claudia is channeling Chiffon Fairchild of Freezing, a new “Smiling Monster”.
Watch Asterisk for story/harem and Rakudai for action/romance
That’s the conclusion I reached after the first four ep. of both show.
And the production values. Rakudai’s scenes can get rough-looking at times. Asterisk’s is smooth and polished.
about the Chains:
also about Claudia:
this is my reddit posting for this Episode. I am being lazy, and copy and pasted them. gome-ne
I’m not really too sure about the twin thing, but I recall she’s ranked second in Seidoukan.
The pair of swords is considered one “Ogre Lux” (Remember these things are supposed to be on loan, and there’s a one per person limit.)
I do appreciate the shift of focus to magic academy shenanigans. Having our protagonists as simple powerful pawns in a middle of academy political and maneuver orgy would be a pretty interesting direction for this show to take, especially since without them the plot/scripts does not has much tension in it.
Julis completed her transformation to be a pretty balanced fiery tsundere and I finally could remember Ayato’s name and laugh in some of their lines in the end of the episode, so in character front it finally become quite decent. I just hope they won’t put irritating harem elements in it later since current chemistry is already decent. I have no problem with harem itself as a genre, but boy some common antics in it are very annoying.
I love the fights, guessed correctly that Lester wasn’t the bad guy, and love to see Claudia when she’s “scheming”.
But still no Saya….now we getting a new girl, who I hope is just as awesome as Saya or Claudia.
Saya was supposed to be the reason Ayato found Julis (and be funny at the same time), but it didn’t make the cut even tho it was kinda necessary.
Once again thank you Takaii for blogging this series! Both this and Rakudai are very fun to watch! Although honestly I’m a bit sad that this show barely has any discussion anywhere compared to Rakudai. If using MAL as a data, they both have comparable scores, comparable reviews, and comparable amount of watchers. Yet the amount of discussion that Asterisk has is very little which is actually a bit interesting considering how they’re pretty much toe to toe in a lot of areas.
Anyway, while I really enjoyed this episode, I have to say that Rakudai’s battle looked a lot better than Asterisk’s battle. However I do understand the lackluster battle here since this was pretty much how it was explained in the novel. Still, I had hoped that they made it at least more interesting. Fortunately though this is the only battle that is done this way since all future battles are at a different level.
What’s nice about Ayato this week though is how he isn’t “weak”. The “beta” MC as some may call. Instead, when the situation calls for it, he clearly did not hesitate nor there was any sense of fear in him when he verbally shot down Silas. That was very nice to watch. A lot of people compared him to Ikki and how Ikki is “manlier” but this episode really changes all that. Ayato is just more of a laid back guy compared to Ikki. He’s more like Haku from Utawarerumono in some ways.
As of this episode, I can comfortably say that I’m enjoying this the most of this season’s light novel adaptations. It’s actually got convincing characters, each with their own quirks, strengths of character, and motivations that won’t always align with the main character’s – and the main character himself, despite his power, is obviously lost and without a goal, until this episode, which is actually kind of refreshing as a character trait. It’s got a depth of character and a potential depth of plot that I appreciate – an execution sufficiently well-written that I can forgive the predictability of some of its developments. (There was no way Mr. McFail was going to be the villain after Claudia pegged him as a suspect last episode, for one thing, although it was kind of nice for him to show up and justify his appearance in the OP.)
In some ways it is nice to just have the MC going around without a serious motivation until something finally clicks for him.
Some definite potential in the cast around Ayato so far. The comic relief best male friend….actually having a lot going on. I thought there might be a bit more to the guy than at first glance, but not necessarily this much. And even though Claudia talked about having a dark side, I didn’t think it’d be this serious. She definitely works for the school’s leader. Willing to do the dirty work to keep things going smoothly.
I really like that Ayato is just out in the open about being OP and that he pretty much just does what he wants to instead of “I have to do this because it’s right or I have the power to!”.