The Asterisk War

Episode 21

Well, at least the flaws in the series are relatively consistent. Sadly, the stronger points that had been balancing them out are not present here, which results in a decidedly underwhelming story arc climax.

The problems here are many, but I'm going to particularly pick on the artwork. Character models have been routinely shaky this season, and this episode may have been the worst yet. This is especially true when Ayato and Julis are focused on in their finale against AR-D, and the supporting animation for that fight looked none-too-smooth either. Add to that the series' irritating tendency for improbably lengthy asides during fights, and you have a battle which is both a mess and a disappointment. (Yes, I know you can argue that there was some justification this time because AR-D was having struggles of his own, but I don't buy that such a problem would stall him for as long as Ayato and Julis seemed to take in their trick about reshaping Ser=Vesta into a form where Ayato could more take advantage of his speed.) At least the shots where the camera quickly shifts between various people the duo has encountered and their reactions to their victory are satisfying.

This episode also marks the end of our reprieve from The Most Annoying Voice in Anime (aka Flora), although the worst of her babble was muted this time by her reserved and apologetic demeanor. Balancing that out some was the (expected) admission by Camilla that Saya's father's weaponry is good enough to warrant a rematch (she feels that the combining technique is equivalent to using an Ogre Lux, which means that it wasn't a true tech-vs-tech battle) and the revelation at the end that yes, Ayato's sister is still around and yes, the Festa's chairman does know everything about it. There's apparently a third puppet on Arlequint's side too, and cutting a deal with Dirk may be necessary to activate it. Oh yeah, and Eishiro is finally revealed to be some kind of undercover ninja.

So that's a lot of revelations to give the series future direction, but assuming that this season is also 12 episodes, is there enough time to actually do anything substantial with any of them? All of them seem like bait for long-term storylines rather than a three episode arc, which gives the feel of the series just tossing out hooks willy-nilly in the hopes that something sticks. There's no sense that they coherently go together to form a bigger picture, unless the whole point is that all of these parallel schemes are running amok in Asterisk City.

Either way, the aforementioned flaws join with banal dialog and uninspired musical choices to make for one of the series' lowest points. It's not awful, but it's definitely not good, either.

Rating: C

The Asterisk War is currently streaming on Crunchyroll and Funimation.