The Asterisk War

Episode 23

This is the series' penultimate episode, and yet it feels much more like a new story arc is just getting underway. So where does that leave The Asterisk War?

Whatever happens in the end, events still spin directly off of what happened last episode. It appears that I spoke too soon about being surprised that family members weren't meddling in Julis's relationship with Ayato; that just got delayed until this episode. Jolbert very definitely has plans for Ayato and Julis, but they aren't just simple matchmaking, and the way he explains his request makes it clear that he's anything but clueless about his situation (and his intentions are far from frivolous). He wants Ayato to marry Julis, precisely because he knows that her winning the Phoenix Festa has suddenly put Julis on the register of the Integrated Enterprise Foundation (hereafter IEF). He knows that her status has increased enough that the IEF is likely to try marrying her off to someone convenient for them, and he'd rather see her engaged to someone she might actually like first. Since Ayato is also a Phoenix Festa winner, that gives him further status that the IEF can't buck, so it's a perfect situation from Jolbert's viewpoint. Even the victory parade was partly done to expose the two of them to the public together. It's a remarkably carefully-thought-out plan on Jolbert's part, and Julis has to understand that, even if she can't accept it (yet).

Jolbert also wants to stop Julis from participating in the Gryps Festival, though for entirely different reasons than the suave old assassin we can now call Gustave Marlowe. He's concerned that winning that too might increase her status enough that the IEF might be inclined to depose him in favor of her (with likely unpleasant consequences). But beyond the selfish side of that, he's also concerned that Julis becoming the country's leader would only lead to her frustration, since she would be unable to help the poor like she wants while directly under the IEF's thumb. Now, how much of that is Jolbert being sincerely concerned about Julis and how much is just him using that as a cover to protect his own butt is hard to tell at this point. Still, it's the kind of material to build a long-term story on, not just one that's only going to last a couple of episodes.

So is some of the other scheming. Claudia is clearly up to something, and so is Dirk. At the heart of it is Ophelia, the girl from the orphanage who gave Julis her precious handkerchief but, as we learn in a flashback, she got hauled away from the orphanage by creepy-looking guys. Now we know why: she's somehow been manipulated into having a potent and scary-nasty power that neither Julis nor Ayato can individually stand against, and she has no qualms about killing either of them when Julis tries to get in her way. Only some interventions prevent that from happening, but the assassin Gustave also makes another attempt on weakened targets that Claudia drives off this time.

Overall, this ends up being one of the second half's most plot-intensive episodes, but why is something like this coming up so late in the series? It does deliver a pretty good mix of action and plot development and doesn't have Flora in it, resulting in a pretty decent episode overall. I just hope that the direction the series seems to be going means that more will be made, or else next episode is going to be a ragged ending.

Rating: B

The Asterisk War is currently streaming on Crunchyroll and Funimation.