Gakusen Toshi Asterisk

[Spoiler Warning]

I'm not mad. I have only myself to blame for this, really. I tend to be more selective with what I watch. Something will be recommended, I'll hear about something popular, or it's just on my mind a lot. I've never watched anything expecting it to be bad; usually I have no expectations at all, but often I at least think it'll be something that's enjoyable enough to pass the time and get a 5 or 6.

The Asterisk War is my first exception.

I didn't watch this because I knew it'd be good. I watched it because I heard it was almost identical to Rakudai ... Kishi no Cavalry, which I'd just finished, and all I wanted to do was see which is worse. Yes, WORSE. Not better. I mean, that's not to say it couldn’t have been surprisingly good, but of course that couldn't happen. Of course, this review won’t be spent comparing the two anime together, but I will give a verdict as to which is better at the end. Because that’s what everyone asked me to do!

Also, so the mods won’t be unhappy, I must inform you that I will spoil the first episode almost entirely, but spoilers will be toned down to a minor level beyond that episode.

Asterisk starts off extremely rocky; honestly just about everything in the first episode is horrible, whether it's immediately evident or not. The opening scene is a fight with awkward choreography and absolutely no context at all, even as the scene comes to a close. It sets the tone, I guess, but the reason why this fight was shown at all just seems unclear after watching the whole season, as way too little is revealed in this opening, and its potential context doesn't have much weight on the following episodes. But I'm sure it'll be explained later... in another season... that I won't watch...

Some exposition is given, which is fine I guess, but one very interesting thing stuck with me. "The people gradually began to alter their sense of morality." This is apparently due to some event called "Invertia", and you really have to give the writer(s) props for making a new term for "shitty writing". It's a shame they couldn't follow up on it, though. There might be some stupid actions, but nothing horrible enough to make you really think that these people are really fucked in the head; these things instead feel forced so that the "story" (read: too little) and fanservice (read: too much) can keep going.

The first example of characters being idiots instead of morally questionable comes quickly. Icky--oh, sorry, wrong review—Ayato (the main character) catches a falling handkerchief, sees and open window (and/or hears someone's voice from it), and sums up the obvious. He jumps into the window to return the handkerchief, only to see a female student only partially dressed. Here's everything wrong with this scene:

1. He acts apologetic, knowing that it was an accident, despite not considering that he would've been obviously invading someone's privacy by jumping through their FUCKING WINDOW, MULTIPLE STORIES HIGH. If some awareness to the obviously horrible idea were present, even if it results in the MC being a massive douchenozzle, it could at least be pinned to people having fucked up morals. Nope, instead he tries playing this off like it’s not just a prank, bro.

2. We get a glimpse of someone’s ass before knowing whose ass it even is. But don’t worry, it’s not that important, this is only the female fucking lead. Where are the Japanese tumblrvists when you need them? If the fanservice wasn’t so forced, this could’ve been an OK scene, but god forbid someone has to go three minutes without popping a boner over their new waifu. By the way, you can stop taking the show seriously at this point.

3. If your handkerchief is so important, why did you carelessly leave it sitting loosely near an open window? How the hell did the wind even suck a cloth out of a room, anyway? Why was Ayato surprised by seeing a girl in the room when he heard her talking? If he didn’t hear her talking, why did WE hear her talking?

This goes into a very laughable fight scene that only exists because Julis’s personality makes absolutely no sense, if she even has one. She thinks Ayato should die or something because he saw her naked (apparently wearing underwear = naked, k), despite being soooo grateful for getting a super-special piece of linen back. Maybe this could be some inverted moral bullshit like the story wants me to believe, but you’ll later see how much of a clusterfuck this character is as the show goes on. The fight itself is full of weird technology and magic we know nothing about, plot armor, and overall poor direction. (Why did Ayato jump through an explosion unharmed? And why did the soundtrack suddenly stop just when a character is thinking, only to go to some mysterious-sounding tune? It’s weird.) It ends with Ayato glomping Julis to avoid some assassination or something, and he later gropes her somehow because fanservice, or awkward comedy, or… I don’t know. Oh, did I say something about an assassination? Who cares? No one else does, so that’s obviously not important. Let’s move on.

I could pick apart every scene, but I’d just retrace the same points and conclusions the above have made, more or less: Characters are incredibly stupid, whether the writer made them do stupid things or the writer leaked his stupidity into the plot’s scenarios at various points, and not because of some global event. The art is pretty generic and obviously tries to compensate by being flashy, the music is mostly uninspiring, and just the overall direction seems to be mediocre. All of this is taken from the first ten minutes of the first episode. That’s all.

In short, the show quickly establishes how fuckin’ bad it is.

So, I’ve been mentioning this “Invertia” thing a few times. It IS pretty important, and you should really pay attention to that scene, because it’s the only time in the whole show that you’ll hear about it! …Wait… oh. Yeah, Invertia is mentioned once, or something. No one talks about it, and there’s no noticeable impact from it (as far as morals go). Why did they bother mentioning this part of it? And you know that fight in the beginning? That kinda hints at some other “major” plot element that gets totally forgotten about after it’s brought up. The first episode is basically spent teaching you things you will never need to know. It’s high school algebra all over again!

Beyond this façade of a setup, there’s some sort of plot, or at least there should be. Basically, Ayato comes to this school to kinda learn about his sister and mostly to find some path for himself, so he starts training for these fighting events, and wow I am REALLY bored right now. Along the way, he meets various girls who do all but tear out their reproductive organs and install them into exuberantly-colored fleshlights for his personal satisfaction. It’s honestly hilarious how frequent the fanservice is, and how few reasons the girls have to each fall in love with the MC. Asterisk’s girls come in different shapes so that everyone’s tastes are satisfied, and they’re exploited so commonly that I wonder if Asterisk is trying to trying to appeal to the hentai artists or if the creators are bragging that they have girls in their series. I’m sure you’re all very satisfied with yourselves.

If you need to be reminded again that the characters are bad, this is your lucky day! The characters are bad! So here’s my favorite part, the character roast section:

Ayato – Things worth saying/making fun of are as follows:

Julis – Independent black woman who don’t need no bodyguard. If you ignore the fact that she’s a figure of royalty, a high-ranking student, and that your IQ is lower than that of an earthworm, then it makes a lot of sense.

Claudia – You know what? This is the best character in the whole show, and all who disagree can fucking fight me. She’s the most direct with her affection for Ayato to the point where she flat-out says she wants to fuck. At least there’s no bullshit about it, other than her having no reason to like Ayato and Ayato being a scrubmaster about it. (Do I need to bring up Cavalry again? WHAT SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD KID IS GOING TO BE EMBARRASSED BY THIS? DON’T LET YOUR DREAMS BE DREAMS, ASSHOLE.) Also, please note that her ending scenes to preview the next episode literally do not exist. Nope.

Saya – Hi, I’m a deadpan loli with no real reason for being in this show other than to be the loli in this harem. If the point of her personality was to match the audience’s evident opinion of her, they nailed it on the fucking head.

Kirin – Kinda younger-looking girl with big tits. Apparently her dad’s in jail, so she and her big tits need to win these festival things or something, and follow the guidance of her uncle who’s abusive as hell for no reason. So, I guess at least this character and her big tits have some sort of conflict??? And then we can waste a couple episodes on her and her big tits?????? No need to thank A-1, I’m sure they do it because they care. And for the record, the anime tells you at every waking moment that this character has big tits because we can’t shove Claudia into every scene.

Lester – I’M A DOUCHEBAG WITH MUSCLES. DISLIKE ME!

Irene – Wincest.

Did I miss anyone? Probably. Do I care? Probably not.
Did I have too much fun with that? Probably. Do I care? Probably not.

Kinda going into my next point, what the fuck is with everyone’s hair in this thing? What sort of insane products are these people using that allow their hair to suspend in midair? Like holy hell, does their lack of personality somehow expel a gravitational field from their heads? It’s insane, dude. They also have that wonderful, classic “spot the major character” look; if their hair is the color of something not really found in nature, they’re important. If not, they might exist, but you won’t remember them. Everyone below this line is some overly-generic CG filler person or something.

Overall, the art might be dazzling to some, but I only see A-1 trying to compensate for their overall weak animation, and no amount of ass shots will redeem it. Even if you don’t agree that the first episode is bad, you can’t possibly tell me that, say, episode 4 looks good. Beyond the animation, the CG is the compensation part, as I couldn’t ever get behind the flashiness and vibrancy of the magic and weapons. I mean, they’re not bad… but they’re certainly nothing special, especially since fights are so reliant on them.

By the way, there’s a lot of this CG technology that’s omnipresent even outside of the fights, so it’s not just a bunch of magic and glowing plastic weapons making lightsaber noises. This might’ve been better to bring up in the setting/plot parts of this review, but whatever. Anyway, what the hell is all of this shit? All this technology and shit is literally omnipresent; everywhere you go, you see holograms of various functions. Where do these things even come from? How do they work? What can you do with this amazing technology besides open doors from across a room and use them as replacements for what we know as computers? Why am I asking questions that I know will NEVER be answered?

Last thing about the art; who the FUCK is responsible for the next episode previews? You know, that shit at the very end of each episode where Claudia looks like she’s in some visual novel but is animated like a 5-year-old edited it? Jesus Christ, I don’t think I’ve ever cringed so hard after watching something in an anime. I only watched one of these before deciding that I’d never do it again, so please watch at your own risk.

Now, the soundtrack is… actually good. Some of it. I believe just one person (Rasmus Faber) did the entire score (my apologies if this is incorrect), and if that’s the case, his electronic pieces are easily his strong point. (Which makes sense; I hear he’s a DJ or something.) The OP and ED are pretty good as well. But unfortunately, the rest is mediocre at best. The more orchestral pieces don’t quite stand out or are as memorable as the electronic pieces, but I don’t want to seem more negative than positive in this section. I’ll actually admit something was good in this anime.

But all those negatives aside, at least it wasn’t as bad as Rakudai Kishi no Cavalry.

…Or was it?

You know, it’s hard to decide on which is worse. I couldn’t take either anime seriously, but Cavalry still made some attempt at being serious at one point. At least there’s some sort of reason for the shit that’s happening. Asterisk has nothing going on at all! But even if Asterisk did nothing, playing it safe worked to its advantage, because Cavalry’s serious moments are heavily weighed down by the sheer awful, cringe-inducing scenes that infest it. I mean, Asterisk is bad, but it never made me uncomfortable. But Cavalry still did a couple things right, such as the art (mostly) and the romance (to a small extent). Asterisk has a few good songs, and that’s about it. So my overall verdict as to which is worse…

Surprising myself a bit, I’m giving that honor to The Asterisk War, mainly based on the fact that it did fuck all to help itself, while Cavalry at least made some legitimate attempt somewhere. And with that settled, I can walk away from this anime with a strange sense of satisfaction: that I was looking for a good match between two terrible anime, and I walked away with an unexpected, but satisfying result. Great job, Asterisk, you actually succeeded in something, by being the Worst One!

And that’s all. Full score is below, thanks for… oh god… I just realized something. Invertia didn’t change the morals of the characters, it changed the morals of the writers! And the producers! And whoever the hell else is responsible for this! Oh man, I think it’s gotten to me as well! I went out of my way to watch a bad anime and I was just thankful for it being so terrible! Holy hell, this show is actually genius!

Story – 1/10
Art – 4/10
Sound – 7/10
Characters – 1/10
Enjoyment – 1/10
Overall – 1/10
Favorite character – Claudia
Favorite episode – none
Recommended to – people who want to lower their MAL average score

Congratulations are in order, for this is my very first 1/10 score. It was originally a 2/10, but after considering things more for this review, I can’t think of any reason to give this anything higher. What did I like? The art was okay but pretty boring, and the soundtrack was pretty nice, but they’re beside me for the most part. If they were actually great and really memorable, like, say, Guilty Crown, then that’d probably let me raise it to a 2 or a 3. But even if GC is a pile of shit beyond the production, at least it made an honest attempt at writing a story and had some legitimately interesting moments. Asterisk has NOTHING that is interesting, whether it’s due to a lack of explanations or just sheer unoriginality. I mean… well, I already wrote the review, so I won’t go back. I guess all that needs to be said is that this anime is pretty ass.

terisk.

It's totally okay to watch a show with low expectations. Sometimes to balance a great anime, you gotta watch a bad one just to put you back in your place. It's a requirement to have watched poorly done shows so you know where your tastes are and also broaden your horizons. The Asterisk War serves as one of those shows that will give you appreciation of shows like High School of The Dead and other shows that have poorly written stories and brick wall characters. This is a must watch if you need to remember that there are really uninspiring anime.

Storywise, not much to say. ... Gary Stu comes to new school, all the ladies fall for him the end. Sounds like the typical harem anime because it IS a typical harem anime. The whole thing is a tease and shows snippets that relate to the protagonist indirectly, but fails to establish a basis for it. What I mean if that sounded pretentious, is the lack of an overarching conflict. We follow young Ayato, but for what? All we see is him turning red at every little female physical contact.
Deus Ex Machina phenomena is arguably always going to break a show. I think it works in this show's favor just because there weren't really any upsides to begin with. It gives a little more excitement in what was a lackluster show. Arguably it isn't phenomena but foreshadowed. Ayato's power makes zero sense considering the circumstances revolved around him and that the whole show seemed to have miss the point was just bad writing on many levels. But hey, what more to look forward to in a show then a guy's head in between breasts?

The chemistry between the characters is awful and blame the story telling for that. None of the characters mesh well and there isn't any positive to get out of observing their actions and motives. They all suck. If gary stu didn't fit the description of the main protagonist, then I don't know what to believe. This guy is the most uninteresting (for lack of a better word) fuckboy. Something that works against the show is that it was really trying to take Ayato's circumstances seriously. The tropes are quite abundant and make all the female characters seem like cut outs of cariactures placed in an anime. And to munch the very uninteresting main protagonist at that. The Asterisk War really is a tease when it comes to scenes of sexualizing the females. Cuz boobs and butts sell right? I'm losing brain cells trying to think of anything to write for this show.

VOICE ACTING IS VERY BAD. My ear was bleeding due too Saya and Kirin's voices oh my goodness. It is awful and to hear baby squeals and "jealous" grumbles is reason enough to AVOID this show. I say it's a must watch because this might set the bar low enough for anything to come after seem like a masterpiece. We're all masochists when it comes to anime though so it's okay. Sound is underwhelming but the EDM is a good twist in action scenes.
As for animation, it is the Irregular of magic high school esque. Flashy colors and CG stuff. Considering how little action there is, animation isn't really great. Lot more exposition than there is fighting and we know how that works out in a harem.

I came into this show knowing it was going to be bad so I didn't really think of it as anything I haven't seen before. It brings nothing new to the table, nothing inspiring, no noteworthy scenes. It's just a letdown in all aspects besides I guess teasing if that has any credibility. I'd surf the internet if I wanted to be uninspired but I guess the one thing the show has going for it is it's opening. Its pretty cool, not that cool but its okay. A typical harem that lacks a resolution is what can best describe The Asterisk War.

Towards the end of 2015, two light novel adaptations became notable for sharing startling similarities between them. Chivalry of a Failed Knight was considered somewhat refreshing, occasionally playing around with awful tropes and channeling the power of competent screenplays and exciting directing to turn a school battle LN adaptation into something worth watching. Conversely, The Asterisk War failed to meet even the basic requirements to function as a generic work of fiction. It's barely worth the effort it takes to write about it, let alone animate it.

Before we start, I dare one of you to make a thread or a blog showcasing the exact amount ... of problems each episode has. Don't make a drinking game out of it, or you'll die of alcohol poisoning by episode 8. The show literally starts with the main puss ass lead walking into our Tsundere in the middle of undress, under the pretenses that she dropped something important to her. After she claims to owe him one, she tries to incinerate him out of nowhere, resenting him for the rest of the episode in the process. This sets a precedent as to how badly this show will execute and contradict everything, like being low enough to over-sexualize a 13-year-old who regularly gets slapped by her uncle and saved by Ayato, whilst simultaneously acting like her asking for a sparring match the main character she fought of her own volition before is in any way indicator of her strength as a person. Just to provide the illusion that broke as hell Ayato isn't obscenely powerful, they provide flimsy limiters that only work when he uses a specific weapon for too long, despite that he often goes past the time limit of the limiters with no problem until the match finishes. The show breaks its rules so often that its ravaged narrative arcs become that much worse. Even the interesting ideas this dreck presents aren't capitalized, let alone worth capitalizing on in the first place.

The world-building is easily the most fractured part of this dumpster fire. The tournament arc has been hinted to be a tournament in which things can get deadly and bloody for competitors, but no one gets remotely injured or killed, aside from that one pointless and awkwardly done flashback scene at the very beginning., if students can summon hovering screens with their hands for no reason, then why do they need to hold them, and why is there actual paper involved? The world-building of this show is some of the worst I've ever seen, as if the narrative wasn't already cheap enough with its trite nonsense, missed opportunities, and romantic mood killers designed to preserve a terrible harem.

Speaking of which, Ayato is as horribly characterized and intolerable as his harem, which is one of the worst in the mainstream anime hemisphere. Julis is a trash tier Tsundere who plays up that trope to obnoxious degrees, especially when she retardedly blows up her room in an attempt to scorch him alive for the crime of accidentally seeing her in her underwear. Saya is an obnoxiously possessive loli with all the intolerable tropes you'd expect. Kirin is an annoyingly squeaky pushover with a ridiculously lousy character arc As for Claudia, anything she has going for her can be boiled down to sass, sex appeal, and an insidious and mysterious nature that I guarantee this show won't capitalize on. The other characters are either stupid or wasted, with almost no middle ground beyond just being "there". Easily the most crushing case of the latter is Irene, who is a dangerous punk with a heart of gold and an interesting design. They go out of their way to do nothing interesting with her when it's time for her to fight our unbearable main lead in the finale, and the closest we ever get is how her younger sister keeps her in check, which has also been done a million times. When a character like her is the best character in the show, it speaks volumes of just how worthless this cast is.

Visually speaking, this show isn't much better. The colors are certainly bright, and some of the character designs can actually be pretty neat and sexy but the artwork is pretty miserable. It's a low-budget SAO and Aldnoah.Zero style with even shittier and more incomprehensible choreography, and even more all-encompassing fugly CGI. Much like the show itself, the visuals are bad at even pulling off being generic and mediocre, barring a few relatively dazzling environments. Even the aesthetics are gaudy and nonsensical, and the cuts of actually good animation are few and far between. At least Andloah.Zero had some flourish to make up for generic style and cheap CGI.

The OST is a mixed bag of vanilla background noise, awful dubstep, and ill-fitting emotional pieces. Even the OP is a milquetoast pop song, in spite of it being catchy. The ED titled "Waiting for the rain" by Maaya Sakamoto and Ramsus Faber is the only stellar bit of music in the show, as it's a pretty stellar emotional track to close out each episode with. Even the visuals are interesting, with the show swapping the positions of a bunch of color-coded silhouettes of each harem member, which are accompanied by some actually pleasant techno melodies and Maaya Sakamoto's warm, even uplifting voice. Still, if having one good track is all the audio needs to be unquestionably better than every other aspect of this show combined, then I really can't find a better way to call this show dogshit.

People put themselves through hell slaving away at this, and no one did a remotely good job beyond the musicians. That's as sad as the show itself. This anime isn't even infuriating or laughable, just annoying and lifeless, which is one of the purest tells that this has no value I can assign to it, let alone any reason to be watched enough to garner a second season. It even fails to live up to its title in any way, shape or form. How this got popular is beyond me, and I'm glad it's dead.

One of the most generic and boring LN Harem adaptations I have ever seen.

Set in a vague, unexplained, and ultimatly uninteresting world filled with shallow, cliched characters, who lack even the most basic of decision making or logical ability.

The Main cast includes

1. Generic blank slate harem MC

2. Generic fiery Tsundere.

... 3. Childhood friend cliche & deadpan loli, wants MCs D.

4. Exposition character who I can not remember a single character trait of except that she wants the MC's D.

5. another loli introduced later

There is virtually no character development, the plot goes nowhere, MC is as generic as it gets.

There is no reason to watch this show, if you have seen any other generic Harem you have seen this.

I tried this just to see what a truly terrible anime is. I thought there might be some sort of sick enjoyment out of the complete shittiness.

And there is, but it's buried deep under an extremely thick layer of pure unabated rage.

I'll just say right now that I gave TAW exactly 4 minutes of my time. Because in 4 minutes everything was said. I watched Shinsekai Yori from the same studio, an anime I considered to have an excellent story and good characters but generally terrible production values and design. This is the same. Except the story and characters are shit too.

So why am I ... writing a "review" from 4 minutes of observation? Because it was, and I'm not being ironic, enough to be sure of a number of things:

-This anime is godawful stupid
-This anime is godawful lazy
-This anime is just godawful, but with a special taste for mixing pretentious hardcore with stupidly stupid(I would have said lighthearted but come on, it's more stupid than anything)

Story: A bunch of teenagers fight with swords because plot and the hero gets every girl on his penis. Think it's not enough? It's literally the entire plot of season 1. I checked. 1/10

Art: In less than 4 minutes I saw a bunch of random 3D models in a generic blurred background. More than that the art in general is generic and lazy, the characters look nothing fantastic, they have a pink-haired girl with long hair in there and they manage to make her look sort of ugly. Considering that long pink hair is pretty much my exact taste in anime girls, I don't even get how they managed that. 3/10

I was told the soundtrack is good and I want to believe it because less than 3 mins in I heard a super happy theme that was the most misfit and tone-shifting thing I heard in years. At 0:00 you're in a fight, at 0:05 the girl is crying in happiness and thankfulness, at 0:10 she's about to launch a fireball at the protagonist, and at 0:15 you're hearing the happiest theme there is. Was this even made by humans or computer generated by a first version AI attempting to appeal to us? So yeah it's a good soundtrack but if this is how they're going to use it, then 2/10 and holy god will anything about this not be completely lazy and sucky?

Characters: In 3 minutes I met:
-The teenager girl who is into a fight against a masked guy and says "sorry x" after she loses and dies
-The teenager guy who x was, who is the most generic here-to-help-all guy who's also crazy strong and is flustered everytime a boob is even hinted at
-Teenager tsundere girl with pink hair who manages to go from tsun to dere in less than 10 seconds then back to tsun then pulls a magic blast and destroys everything. And who could look a lot less shit.
-The teenager director(?) of the school who's as smily as her tits and sex drive are huge.
I would put 0/10 if possible, but I guess it'll be one. Pathetic is certainly a good definition, there is NO EFFORT at all. I won't even dignify this schlock with the word "characterisation", but at the very least, if your characters are shallow, make them fun. Here the production values are so low, the story is told in such a slingshot way, that even something as simple as a tsundere character comes off as false, and as not fun. I mean come on, could you get any lower for a professional studio? Actually don't answer that, I'm afraid of the answer.

Enjoyment: 10/10 without irony again. If I could swallow this inane schlock for more than a few minutes I would probably find an extremely powerful sick enjoyment out of hating this with every cell of my body. Unfortunately, or rather fortunately, I can't, and I have less terrible things to watch.

Overall: I didn't stop 3 minutes in because it was shit. If that was it, I'd have stood it to at least the end of the episode. No. My mind refused to carry along with this tremendous piece of lazy, barely shoved out crap, after two lines:
-After this event(the genostella children), the world was changed and a new order was made by [insert organisation whose name I can't even remember and who controls Asterisk Island]
-Due to the changes, a new morality was born in the world
-And now, panties

WHAT? ARE YOU ACTIVELY TRYING TO FUCK WITH MY REMAINING BRAIN CELLS?

You literally took 3 sentences to go from "a new world order" to "a new morality and set of social values" to "PANTIES"!

Do the people who put this mindless crap on the market even know that you can't throw stuff like "new world order/new morality" without actually showing how or what? That's like saying "and thus the greatest soldier ever was born". But then we don't see the soldier, we don't know how he fights, or even for whom.

I have never seen such a sharp, poorly done storytelling in my entire life. I literally dropped it right then and there, paused the video, tried some more but the damage was done. In less than 4 minutes I was convinced that this wasn't just generic and poor, it was also horribly told and had absolutely no idea of what it was talking about. And lots of shows are generic and mindless, but this one is lazy and veeeeery poorly made to boot.

If I ever want to hate anime, I'll be sure to come back to this.

This anime is terrible.
It's just another one of those SAO lookalikes that A1 is trying to pass as an original anime.
The story is nothing special: Super strong boy meets somewhat strong tsundere hot girl that after only TWO episodes falls completely in love with him. Oh yeah, there's also something about a magical school and a competition. The world in not very well presented.
The characters are simply walking, talking stereotypes. You probably won't even remember their names, only the character tropes. There's the very naive and powerful main character who doesn't get that ALL the girls are in love with him. There's the main ... female lead who's a tsundere (not even a good one at that), there is the loli dandere (she is also not very well made cause she looks and sounds like the supercritical dandere, but she's very active and not at all shy nor quiet), there's the big boob loli girl who is completely depended on the main character and etc.
The only reason why i'm not giving this the worst score is because the animation and the look isn't all that bad, even if the fight scenes are terrible. Ah yes, the fight scenes. The genre of this anime is ACTION! But the creators idea of action/fights is apparently flashing colourful lights really, really fast and hoping that you won't notice.
But I must give credit where credit is due: the music isn't all that bad. This actually makes me even more angry because I believe that it's wasted on this terrible anime.

Ah, harem. The genre that I mostly find myself gravitating towards is the one that has to do with lots of girls and only one guy. (Don't judge me. We all have our favorite genre.) So, with Fall 2015 coming to a close, we have Asterisk, a show that...really isn't much different from the rest of the harem shows out there to be honest.

Story: The age of Genestella came when meteors rained down and sent the world into near extinction, but surprisingly, not as many people as you think died. As a result of the fallout, a new society was ... formed, one where people now possessed magical powers and were able to wield weapons made from the stones in these meteors called 'Luxes'. And here, we follow the story of Amagiri Ayato, a boy who enters one of 6 schools (Seidoukan specifically) and enters the Phoenix Festa in order to find out what happened to his missing sister several years back. Then he comes across a girl named Julis who starts to snap at him because of no fault of his own and well, you get the idea.

Asterisk is generic. There's no way around that fact. The show focuses on Ayato as he progresses through his life at Seidoukan, entering the Festa, and coming across various characters along the way. Most notably, harem members. And really, that's about it. He meets someone new (or old, since Saya is childhood friend), helps them, moves on. Even during the fighting festival, he manages to help other girls in that. Because of this, there really isn't much to say about the show. The fact that it's generic makes it so that a lot of the plot points are very predictable, a lot of what happens doesn't really add much tension, and nothing really stands out as extraordinary or noteworthy to talk about. It's not really bad, but at the same time it's not really good. It's rather bland and I really can't express that any more.

Overview:
- Generic
- Nothing really noteworthy to say about this show
- This is just filler text. Because there's nothing interesting to really say about Asterisk's story, I thought just add in this little bit so I could have three things in this section of the review.

Characters: The characters in Asterisk reflect its story, by being as uninteresting as they can be. (Because we all love anime tropes, right?)

Amagiri Ayato is...well, what'd you expect in an anime like this. He's a harem protag who's entire purpose in this show is to seek vengeance (or something) and help out any female human he possibly can before converting them to the Ayato religion where they worship his holy D. (Sigh. We've seen this a million times.) As such, he doesn't really have anything unique about him to talk about. Maybe the fact that he's not as OP as other harem protags that fit this category, but I don't think that deserves mention.

Then the girls. Let me line them up for you.

Julis = Token Tsundere
Saya = Kuudere Osananajimi (childhood friend)
Kirin = Dandere Imouto
Claudia = Sexy Onee-san

I don't think I really need to elaborate more, do I? Ok. Moving on then.

As for other characters, well, they're not really all that important, according to the plot. Most of the characters really serve to be plot-based and move what is happening in this series behind the scenes. Others on the other hand are meant to be the main focus of the show, (aka, the harem girls), and as such are treated with a little bit more screentime. Don't expect a lot from these people. Most of them aren't really that interesting aside from a tiny handful.

Overview:
- Bland characters
- Most of the side cast is meant to move along the plot
- So, how's your day going? (I ran out of things to talk about again.)

Art: The art for Asterisk is something that I would say has more worth on it than its story and characters combined, and then some. While the artstyle isn't really all that fantastic in terms of originality since it all pretty much looks the same as a lot of anime these days, the fighting scenes and its effects look pretty, so I'll give it that much. Everything else, pretty standard.

Overview:
+ Nice fight scenes
+/- Pretty standard animation

Sound: The sound for Asterisk is also something that has a little bit more worth to the show as a whole. Its OP "Brave New World" has a very techno and fast-paced feel that actually sounds rather good and fits with the show.

The ED on the other hand is another track that is rather nice to listen to. It's quite somber and has a mellow tone to it that's relaxing and calm to listen to. It's a good set of tracks to a not so very good show.

Overview:
+ Good tracks

Personal Enjoyment: It's a harem; I tolerated it because of that, so there. I'm not going to do my usual stuff because there really isn't anything good or bad to say about this show. It's generic, and that enough should say enough about it. It's a rather bland experience that doesn't leave too much to think about, and as such, isn't really worth talking about. I don't hate it, I don't love it, I'm just indifferent to it. If you want to watch a generic harem...well, you can watch this one. A lot others are honestly crappier than this one.

WARNING: Review contains minor spoilers, as the show has almost no story and some one off events need to be discussed to get across the show's quality.

Asterisk Wars is a series which has been derided by many and lauded by few, although the most common consensus to this show is likely "average". In my opinion, though, the people who pointed out all of this show's flaws are pretty much perfectly on track: This show has an unlikeable and generic cast set in an ill-concieved setting with no plot to drive it and poor fights.

Lets take it from the top. Our show begins when Ayato Amagiri, ... your standard flatbread hero, arrives at one of the six elite fighting schools, Seidoukan Academy, so he can be a fighter, as he is a Genestella which is basically a superhuman. The first action we get to see is him returning a handkerchief to a girl...by leaping through her open window?! What rational person does this, even if they can superjump places? It is a total invasion of privacy and instead of just, say, getting to her door and knocking, or shouting to her, or hell going to the window and saying she dropped it or any number of things, he just leaps into the open window of a total stranger's house. Inside is our female lead, Julis, and naturally since this is a harem series, that means we need to walk in on her dressing. Don't ask why a beautiful princess would decide to undress with an open, undrawn window where anyone can see, take pictures or so on of her.

Unsurprisingly, Julis is upset about this! She is one of the top ranked fighters in the school and so you can guess her reply to this problem. The first few episodes are dedicated to showing off some of the main characters and exposition. Lots and lots of exposition, most of which isn't even true exposition, like Claudia telling the main character a bunch of terms and things about the city that the viewer will have no idea about. Right, on that note, the two other main girls introduced now are Claudia and Saya: Saya is one of Ayato's old friends and therefor has the hots for him, but we don't really get a lot of their history together, and she is your general emotionless girl or "Dandere" type. Claudia is the hot, very forwardly sexual student council president who flatout prepositions Ayato for sex multiple times (the first time, in episode 3, being a hilariously bad scene for Ayato's reply) and liking him for...really no well explained reason, she just kind of shows up to exposit at him and then wants to fuck him after giving him a strong weapon.

A big issue is that all of these characters are pretty generic and have very little chemistry with each other: In fact, they very rarely even interact with people unless Ayato is directly involved and the focus, making them feel like they're just gone from the show when not existing, and we get very little insight to anyone's private lives aside from Claudia. Ayato is your generically overpowered main character, whose power seems to mostly be hitting really hard and his sword cutting things really well, with a cardboard attitude of "I don't really care but I do". I should also note that most shows in this fight involve Ayato aaaaand are boring, with most of the first season's tournament arc ending dedicated to Ayato/Julis and the other MC teams casually curb stomping their opponents in under a minute.

This is NOT how you write an overpowered main character. Overpowered main characters can work fine: For an example of that, Josuke from Part 4 of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure would usually be considered pretty OP, with his stand Crazy Diamond being very physically powerful, pretty dang fast and having a potent ability to fix things. In fact, Josuke's stand for most of the Part 4, would be considered a lot stronger than the main antagonist's, but by giving the antagonist actual guile he becomes a menacing threat, and giving minor villains powers which can exploit Crazy Diamond through actual weaknesses, for example its short range, or having specialized abilities, ends up making some pretty great fights. Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is practically based around the idea of the heroes being overpowered and weaves it nicely into the plot, taking a weakness and turning it into a plot strength.

Ayato is just...generically overpowered. He can move faster than everyone and hit harder to everyone and generically power himself up with yells and special effects to be even strongerer and then he beats up his opponents! Not once does Ayato display any battlefield tactics, special skills (the special attacks he calls are almost all literally a sword slash that doesn't seem to be any different than normal) or abilities of note to make his fighting interesting. Its the worst way to write an overpowered MC, especially since naturally in a harem series this means things like beating up the highly ranked female harem members because they are generically not as strong as the AMAZING Ayato Amagiri and now they will fall for him or he will carry them in his arm because they totally couldn't do it themselves.

Julis is your generic Tsundere girl who will probably be the harem winner. She has very few motivations and is one of the most blush heavy Tsunderes I have ever seen, even when she is going through the heavy Tsun parts, and her power is to control fire, which is never used beyond "circle of fire trap", "shoot fire" or "fiery explosion", and most of the time she shoots fire at people and they just get owned. Saya is small girl with a huge gun, which is only used to fire generic laser blasts. Claudia actually has some neat powers, dual wielding triangle lightsaber blades with an ability to see the future, but she doesn't actually get any fight scenes so. Kirin's power is "has a sword" and gets paired with Saya for some quite boring fights.

Oh, right, Kirin. She's another main character introduced in a latter pair of episodes, which I hesitate to call a "mini-arc" given its anemic lack of plot or advancement, and is a 13 year old with large boobs which get way too much emphasis for her age and is also somewhat weird to have in Ayato's harem in the first place. She largely comes off as a superflous character who exists to give Saya a partner but since she is a female on this show she MUST also be added to Ayato's harem. Her voice also is very annoying even for the usual archetype and she has the spine of a jellyfish without actually acting abused enough to fit her supposed backstory. Also, she is somehow ranked #1 in the school when Claudia is #2. Kirin wields a normal, non-laser sword, one of the only people to do so in the show. Claudia dual wields lightsabers and can SEE THE FLIPPING FUTURE. The only possible explanation is Claudia does not give a shit.

I also want to talk about a character who you would think is minor but frankly feels like he recurs as much, if not more, than Saya and Kirin: Lester MacPhail, whose name is quite literally pronounced MacFail. MacFail here is one of the most anemic attempts at a "bully" character I have seen in quite some time, being established as a loser who has lost to Julis 3 times but is itching to fight her and lose again. He is never displayed as a competent threat and nearly gets killed by one of the laser swords getting upset at him and flying around trying to murder him in a...hilariously awkward scene. He loses every fight he gets into, although SOMEHOW he is the one who gets the "valiantly fights but loses" fight scene to Irene, which if anything makes Irene look weaker by having to expend any effort on this failure. Its also hilarious because this guy is supposed to be kinda badass, like having built up muscle when Genestella are supposed to have trouble doing so, but he is basically a total loser in the show and one of the most pathetic strong man/bully types I've ever watched. This makes him more endearing than most of the main cast!

Finally for characters, I will mention Irene, the only decent character on the entire show: Pretty generic, sure, but her and her younger sister Priscilla are basically the only characters with actual energy or personality to them which helps makes any scenes in the show feel alive. She wields a laser-scyche (basically every weapon but Kirin's in the show is lightsaber-esque) which can control gravity and turns its user into a vampire because it requires blood to function. Since Priscilla can regenerate herself rapidly, Irene can feast on her blood to power up without worry, while she tries to just stay out of trouble, a somewhat interesting team dynamic. Their backstories are pretty generic and their powers are ill explained, but they are unique enough and Irene is the only character in the show who uses her power in a variety of interesting ways, making her basically the only character to be remotely competently done in this show, although her boss and essentially loan shark Dirk is decently set up, which naturally means she basically is put on a bus to end the season.

Story-wise, there just isn't much to comment on. Ayato gets to the school, acclimates to the school a little, gets into some fights, meets Kirin and has some more random fights, then they go to the tournament and fight some jobbers until Irene shows up for a mini-arc to close the season. Ayato gets some very, very light setup for plot involving his sister, Julis and Saya get some weak motivations (help an orphanage she did stuff in as a kid, she wasn't an orphan she just hung there, and advertise her father's guns respectively) aaaaaaaand that's pretty much it. Backstory for the series is vague, with Apocalyptic Event causing super people to show up and a really terrible Megacorp to take the place of nations, which doesn't really factor into the show at all. The tournaments are supposed to be gladiatorial, blood filled spectacles to satiate the populace, but less people die in them than the infamous "Hallway of Running" from Hunter x Hunter so it reeeally doesn't show up.

Sound-wise, most effects are dull and forgettable, with literal stock lightsaber sounds being used at times, and most background music is entirely forgettable. Not really good sound effects on the powers, either. The OP is fairly bad and that counts for a lot of the sound design, while the ED is okay, although stylistically even slice of life shows like K-On and Miss Kobayashi's Maid Dragon have done this ED style better. Art-wise the show actually usually isn't that bad, but it does suffer from not really having a very discernable style and bad looking effects in fights. The reason it goes down to a 2 is actually because of the horrible, Fates end of support style CGIs that are in the post-credits scene (usually involving Claudia), which already looked awkward in that, but here is done with way worse animation and ends up looking laughable and disturbing. This was so bad it dragged the animation score from a 4-5~ to a 2. Enjoyment is a 2 because it is a good show to talk to friends about the issues with and Irene's part was ever vaguely entertaining, but is a definitive 1 if you're not going to have anyone to go with.

Overall, Asterisk Wars has quite little to get people involved and was a pretty miserable experience, if you want a good harem show there are far better options out there and if you want an action show there are far better options out there. However, it can be worth watching if you want to form your own opinion on it (it has ANYONE who likes it, after all) or because of all the analysis done on it, or simply if you like to ocassionally watch bad shows and see what happens. I'm still going to watch Season Two, after all: I gotta see things through to the end.

My Gakusen Toshi Asterisk review.

Story: Mediocre 5.
Art: Fair 6.
Sound: Fair 6.
Character: Good 7.
Enjoyment: Fair 6.
Overall: Decent 4.

Ok, so this anime has ended , so what can I say? Well, one can't make a review of this anime without compering to another anime namely "Rakudai Kishi no Cavalry" or at least on the story (up) side, since it both features the same plot where it involves the female MC who met the male MC in a very awkward situation and plot wise, both partners have to compete in a contest that would pit their skills against another opponent . I mean if one where watching ... both animes their is at 70% similarities, where I rather not discuss anymore details and both climaxes where focus on fighting the strongest female contender, which is why I gave this anime's category a 5. About this anime's art(up) thought there where some fanservice involve, it didn't focus much on it to sell, thought they did made Claudia and Violet's bikini fanservice a little bit bitchy, but the good thing was that it only appeared briefly, so that is why I gave it a 6 for this anime's art. Sound (up), actually I just have nothing much to comment on this anime's sound pertaiting to the VA who did the character's voices, but I don't have much love for both the opening and closing themes of this anime, so I just limit it to a 6. Charcter (up) ok, the relationship between Ayato and Julis maybe a bit in the ambiguous side given that Julis was just too pridish to admit that she like Ayato and Ayato was just this garden variety harem guy , it was still good enough to see the two being together and supporting one another so for that this category should be "GOOD enough. Unfortunately this anime has introduced too many support characters that they're not given enough aired time let alone that those from diffrent school weren't that much of climatic when it comes to the competition, but still, it's "Good." Enjoyment (up), since this is the season were I've been watching 3 animes with a harem genre, my enjoyment was just limited as to how it will end and that's as "FAIR as it can be, so overall (up)this anime was decent enough to such level that it didn't rely on the fanservice to sell, but it lacks it's own identity that it can be compared to "Rakudai Kishi no Cavalry" , so season 2??????? Why not?

Well...Gakusen Toshi Asterisk started off pretty good like any other harem-ecchi anime series but went the episode went by, it became garbage and it does have a common plot that can be found in other animes.

Story : 6
Actually I'm not too sure about the plot but I'm sure it revolves around some random Magical Fantasy Schools participating in a competition and the main character finding the truth about his older sister. The competition is about some Magical Fantasy Fighting Competition which up till now I still do not understand their powers and stuff relating to it. With the anime being completed, the ending ends off ... with a fight and some unnecessary fan-service. Which I think is a bad ending considering that I did not understand it

Art : 9
That art was pretty good as it shows the vibrant colours and the Art Directors must have spent large amount of time reviewing the art and improving it. And this is one of the good things and maybe its the ONLY GOOD THING about this show.

Sound : 8
The opening and ending was pretty good and the voice actors and actresses have played their roles perfectly.

Character : 3
Just like any other harem shows, there are unnecessary fan-service and annoying characters that always ruin the good moments of the show. It is very disturbing to find that it is also wasting screen-time. Although I'm a Fan of harem animes, the rating of 3 is mainly because of the annoying characters trying to act cute but got rejected by the main characters

Enjoyment : 4
This show was not enjoyable and I'm not even expecting myself to be watching Season 2 which would be airing next year

Overall : 4
Overall, The only good thing about this show is the Art and Sound but the rest is really terrible and horrible.
And Therefore I Warn Everyone Who Is Interested In This Show To Not Watch It.

WARNING THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SLIGHT SPOILERS. I TRIED TO REVEAL AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE, WHILE STILL COMMENTING ON CERTAIN PARTS OF THE SHOW

I don't write many reviews. When I finish a show I usually just give it a score and move on to the next one.

HOWEVER

Sometimes a show comes up that I just need to rant about, for good or bad reasons. I would consider the scores I give out very generous. I have seen complaints about "inflated" scores on MAL where people give out scores on a scale similar to a school grading system where a 5 or 6 is the lowest they ... will give a show, however I consider my scores generous because I rate them on the 1-10 scale but tend to give a lot of shows an extra point or two. I don't like giving out low scores and I try to find something good or something I liked in everything I watch. So naturally if give out a score of 1, it means I wasn't able to find anything I enjoyed in it. I rarely give out a score like this and I really just wanted rant about this show and why I gave it this score. Now after this really long introduction I present the meaningless opinion of a random anime fan on the internet about The Asterisk War.

Story : 1
This is probably one of the reasons I tend to be generous with scores. I usually don't notice any problems with the story of a show unless I find it confusing, boring, or has very obvious flaws. The Asterisk War was all three of these for me. I was confused, because I had no clue what the point of this show was. Ayato shows up at the school for no good reason and with no objective in mind. The show introduces a huge upcoming tournament between the other schools in Asterisk, so we are made to assume that the point is going to be to win this tournament BUT WHY. Ayato did not know about this tournament before coming to the school so he was not planning on participating in it at all, and also we don't know what winning this tournament will do for any of the characters or what the consequences of them losing are. There are also parts in the show where these "antagonists" say ambiguous things about needing to win the tournament (which it is still not clear what winning accomplishes) and about how Ayato needs to be eliminated. Why does Ayato (I will talk about what I think of his character later) have to be eliminated? He is shown to be completely overpowered, but he is also shown to know just as much about what is going on in this story as we do. How is Ayato going to get in their way if he has no goal he is trying to accomplish, and has no clue who you even are. We don't know why Ayoto is even here or why he does anything he does, we don't know what these "antagonists" are trying to accomplish, so basically THERE IS NO STORY. Over the course of an entire series we learn NOTHING about the goals of any of the characters, or what the point of story is. I also found this story very boring as well. I am a sucker for good action and you would think that one of the generic school battle light novel adaptations would at least have some good action, but many of the action scenes were boring and unmemorable. The only fight I really remember is the fight between Ayato and Harem Girl #4, because it was one of the only even fights in the entire show. Characters in this show are so overpowered a lot of fights tend to be completely one sided and will either end in a matter of seconds, or feature characters getting the shit beaten out of them for way too long. There are also a plethora of plot holes and contrivances that I noticed on my own, and noticed even more of after reading some other reviews of the show. I don' want to get into spoiler territory so I'll only mention the stupid moment from the first episode where Ayato saves Harem Girl #1 from being shot and HER ATTEMPTED MURDER IS COMPLETELY IGNORED. I wish I was joking, Harem Girl #1 was SHOT AT and after a cringeworthy boob grab the incident is never brought up again. The story (if you can even call it a story) is so bad I can't even think of a word that can describe how bad I think it is. There does not seem to be any point to this story, combined with the fact that it is just plain boring for 90% of the show, and all the blatant plot holes that are ever present I award the story with a score of 1. I honestly would give it a 0 if I could, because in my opinion a show needs to actually have a story to be given a score for one.

Art & Sound : 7
This show was done by A-1 Pictures, and A-1 Pictures shows tend to be 50-50 with me. Half of the things A-1 releases I will like and the other half I will despise, however one thing I always usually like about A-1 shows is the Art and Sound. I found the art in this show to be at their usual quality, the show was very colorful and had some decent animation. The only complaint I have is that there wasn't really anything that stood out to me, it was just the A-1 Pictures standard which isn't bad, but nothing worthy of praise. I feel the same way about the sound as well. The only track from the show that really stood out was the ending. (The ending song is one of my favorite endings of all time) Aside from the ending there wasn't really anything to praise about the sound. Even if I did find the Art and Sound to be okay it is not enough to save the show, and had very little impact on my overall score.

Characters : 1
I forgive bad characters in shows a lot, because some of the shows I enjoyed the most didn't have the best characters, but I have never come across a show where I hated EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER. Earlier I said I would talk about what I think of Ayato, but it is hard to talk about Ayatos character, as he has almost no character traits. Does he have likes, dislikes, goals, motivation, strengths, weaknesses, emotions, or anything that makes it seem like he has a fraction of a personality? NO! I thought I had seen the rock bottom of generic protagonists, because I didn't think it was possible to make a "character" without any character traits whatsoever. I would mention the rest of the main cast one by one, but I honestly don' think I can write more than a sentence about each of them. So the rest of the main cast or as I like to call them "Harem Girls 1-4" are nothing more than than the standard harem cast. They at least have some personality, unlike the protagonist, however only Harem Girl #1 and Harem Girl #2 seem like they are going to be important. Many of the characters just feel pointless, even members of the main cast. I just plain hated every character in the show and I don't know what else to say, because there isn't much character to talk about for the character section.

Enjoyment : 1
What can I say that I didn't already say? I found no entertainment in this show, I don't know I didn't drop this show. The only reason I decided to write this review is because this was the only anime I have ever felt contains no entertainment value at all.

Conclusion
Unless you are looking to watch something bad, I would not recommend this to anybody. Even if you are a fan of school battle light novels I wouldn't recommend this. This show is just plain bad, its not even the type of bad where its unintentionally funny, it has no redeeming qualities or anything that makes it worth watching. If you want to see just how bad a show can be then you can force yourself to suffer through this show, if you want entertainment then you are in the wrong place. To sum up my opinion of this show in one word "DON'T"

If I had to use one word to describe Gakusen Toshi Asterisk, it would be “boring.”

The story follows a generic harem MC named Ayato who just arrives at Seidoukan Academy. A school for people with magical powers. In order to help the students control their powers and to train them for a tournament, the school allows them to duel each other.

The setup is really nothing. It’s just a way to have the characters fight each other. The fight themselves aren’t really entertaining to watch. This is because Ayato is just overpowered. They use an excuse of why Ayato can’t fight at full power, his ... sister put a limiter on him, which only allows him to fight for five minutes, then he needs a day to rest. This doesn’t work because it just feels it’s there to create tension, which it completely fails at.

The characters in the story are just what you expect to be in a battle harem. Ayato, the overpowered lead who ends up gathering women around him. Julis, the tsundere love interest. Saya, the flat childhood friend. Claudia, the mysterious beauty. And Kirin, the oppai loli.

I feel the show thought it was being mysterious. It kept introducing characters, and new subplots. Every character who wasn’t the main group, were all working in the shadows, or doing shady things.

Everything else about the show - the art and sound were just average. They weren’t bad, but they were also not anything special.

I didn’t enjoy this anime at all. I felt it was below average, and not worth a watch. Even if you’re bored, there are way better battle harems that you can watch.

This is incredibly appalling to the point i had to write a review of how incredibly unpleasant this was.

The show lacks originality in that the protagonist is dense, kind , girls fall for him without reason and has some sort of special power that is sealed.

i have no problem watching these types of shows but still other similar shows have at least something i find enjoyable in them. what the author did here was just take a story template and slightly modify it.

the author lacks creativity and the animation company just looks for something that will make money.

There's one thing i don't get ... and that's why he wants to protect the heroine. its like meeting someone for the first time without knowing them you claim that you will protect them what kind of joke is this.

Art:

The art is a generic art style used in most anime. while its not bad its also not unique in any way. there are some art styles that are unique in that you can be able to tell in a single look which author drew the work. a good example is the author of highschool of the dead just by having one look at triage x i knew it was his work.

Sound:

while the sound isn't bad it lacks impact in that after the series is over i can't remember any sound that was played in the anime.

Enjoyment:

i didn't enjoy this in that it betrayed my expectations.

character:

the character development is poor and the characters are a rip off of what the anime industries consider to be popular.

overall:

drop the anime and cancel the manga or ln

I managed to watch this anime all the way through, regrettably, not dropping it halfway. Oh how I'm disappointed. This anime is clearly very stereotypical, in all it's choices. How you ask?

Let's begin with the characters. I think if they weren't plucked from each stereotypical character trope, and splashed with colourful hair, than I think the Gakusen Toshi Asterisk, would lose many of it's fans. (I persevered, due to my love for Saya.) First you have your plain, overpowered male protagonist, who attracts all the girls, and gets caught up in a lot of events, as progression for the plot. We have this ... in Ayato, who joins Seidokan Academy, the scene for most of the events in the anime. Then we have our tsunderes and lolis coming out. Before you know it, Ayato, and his friends (pretty much girls) are battling for victory in tournaments.

These tournaments, are what we are told about early on. This takes up a lot of the plot, besides, the problems, of our main characters. I feel that many there are many plot holes, and unanswered questions, that the viewer wants to learn about, during the anime, which saddened me. These story points, that I felt I'd learn about, I never did, so I'm at the very least pleased Season 2 is coming soon.

The art, is bright and attractive, but sometimes, it's lazy, outside of fight scenes. The music is half decent, but not memorable. In conclusion, I think Gakusen Toshi Asterisk is a shambles. I'd only recommend it, if you are desperate, for your deres, but if you haven't watched it, don't bother.

(This review has been adapted from my blog/reddit thread. Spoilers ahead!)

When I went to Disney World – that is the one in Florida (the good one) and not the one in California – for the first time, it was around my birthday. If you do not know, at Disney, they pamper you to no end. They make sure that every move you make and every event you experience fills you with nothing but happiness. It is pretty scary how good they are at keeping you smiling.

So there I was, at Disney World, the happiest place on Earth, and it was my birthday. True to Disney ... form, they made me happy by giving me a special, green badge to wear. Wearing it around the parks meant skipping the long lines, extra signatures from the characters, and the regular restaurant staff giving me kind words and free desserts. Needless to say, I was a supremely happy kid.

I speak of badges because Gakusen Toshi Asterisk gives badges to its characters, too. (Also, finding a tangentially relevant anecdote was pretty difficult for this one.) But Asterisk could learn a thing or two from Disney about how to make its audience happy.

STORY

One of the biggest issues with Asterisk is that the anime does not have an established plot to speak of.

This is a split-cour anime, meaning the second season is realistically the second half, the direct continuation as opposed to a whole new set of ideas. What this means is that a lot of the events revolve around just introducing characters and establishing setting instead of actually having worthwhile events.

For example, Julis gets the first couple of episodes which are shared somewhat with Saya and Claudia. Kirin gets a couple of episodes for herself, too. Then Kirin shares one episode with Saya, and then the last few episodes are (strangely) about two new characters that showed up at the end of the season.

Again, this is all character-oriented material. Nothing that occurs within these separate scenarios – like Julis confronting an evildoer who sent her a letter or Kirin fighting off some monsters with Ayato helping her – affect the larger, overarching narrative.

What is this narrative? A lot of it involves unnecessary sexual, harem-based content. It is almost certain that Julis is the one he will choose in the end, considering their partnership and main character statuses. Meaning, the other characters fawning over Ayato seems rather pointless. Furthermore, any and all advances are met with Ayato being too flustered to do anything or with Ayato too afraid to make a move, highlighting said pointlessness.

The biggest driving force for the narrative is the “Fenix Festa,” a tournament where the best students of the different academies duel one another. The issue here is that the tournament does not start until later on in the season. That is, for roughly three-quarters of the show, the most important driving force is ignored. Yes, the characters are constantly training for the tournament, but it is never a conflict that they have to directly deal with until much later.

Then, once the tournament starts, the anime spends an inordinate amount of time on those aforementioned side characters, Irene and Priscilla. Not only do these side characters come too late into the season but also they divert attention away from Ayato, Julis, and the other characters who are easily more important.

Worse still is the lack of world building. Very little information is given on the different factions throughout the city; only random snippets from conversations or quick rundowns let the audience understand how this society functions. Thus, the different fighters and weapons and groups have no basis and therefore no relevance.

Narrowing the scope, Asterisk still has problems. A number of subplots go unexplained, like the Cat guardians, the backstory about Ayato’s sister, and the behind-the-scenes dealings with Clauida to name a few. The idea is that these separate subplots will be resolved later on in the second half of the anime, but so little was given about them that they feel more like tacked-on inclusions rather than important pieces of the plot.

Even on a thematic level, the anime has trouble. Asterisk focuses on the theme of what it is that motivates people. Or as the characters phrase it, “what it is I’m supposed to do.” Protecting another, upholding tenets, and righting wrongs are all valid motivators, motivators that the different members of the cast hold fast.

However, the extra aspects – namely the comedy and the sex – of Asterisk make it difficult to take its serious thoughts seriously. For example, Ayato (and the audience) seeing Julis and Saya’s undergarments after getting splashed by a fountain is unnecessary. And when Irene sucks blood from Priscilla’s neck, the action can only be described as sensual and thus distracting.

But to be as fair as possible, there is a second half to Asterisk, a half that presumably will sort out all of these narrative conflicts and inherent problems. So even though the show looks rough now, there is still an entire season left to go.

ANIMATION

Asterisk’s art and animation is a mixture of both solid and subpar offerings.

The cinematography is often standard, except for rare perspectives such as a shot taken from Ayato’s point-of-view when Julis’s hands are covering his face or when bullets are shown hitting other bullets in slow motion. Lighting likewise remains relatively standard. And the same can be said for the art itself. Locations feel “the same”: an arena for fighting, a nice-looking room, and small parts of the city are as adventurous as the show gets. The lack of diversity can be attributed to the lack of world building – since the anime decided not to flesh out its world, the anime’s art suffers, too.

Asterisk also likes to use CG for many of its effects. The materialization of guns, the smaller particles, and the robots that Ernesta developed are a few examples where CG makes an appearance. The CG is not groundbreaking, but it is used in such a way that the scenes and effects are bolstered, not hampered, by its inclusion.

Bolstering occurs with the actual animation as well, remaining at an above average level throughout the season. Hair swaying and faces contorting are present as well as other nuanced effects such as sparkling eyes and moving limbs. The animation even keeps up during the numerous duels: swords swing, flames bloom, and characters run. Even Ayato’s abilities – which more often than not devolve into a quick cut of him flashing across the screen – have their moments, like when he grapples Kirin or when he uses a massive attack in the final battle.

As for the character designs, their inclusion of color symbolism is nice to see. Julis’s pink symbolizes hotness, Kirin’s lavender symbolizes sweetness, Saya’s blue symbolizes calmness, Claudia’s yellow symbolizes happiness, and Ayato’s purple symbolizes respectfulness.

But the colors are, unfortunately, all that distinguish them. Their hair is not gaudy and their eyes are pretty, yet they each wear more or less the same school outfit. And since they rarely switch out of their school outfits, they look less like their own characters and more like a specific color moving around on the screen.

CHARACTERS

Asterisk has a fair amount of problems with its cast, problems caused by the anime splitting itself up. Still, the cast partially holds its own.

On a thematic level, they represent the idea that everyone fights for someone. Ayato fights for Julis. Julis fights for the kids in the orphanage. And Kirin and Saya fight for their respective fathers. Claudia may be fighting for Ayato, but technically the audience does not know quite yet where her true thoughts lay. (Hopefully the second season will clear this confusion up.)

Regardless, it is this need to protect another that pushes the characters forward. They take action not for themselves but for the person (or people) they hold dear. This theme is not explored outright, but having this commonality exist between each member of the cast proves that they were given at least a modicum of attention.

Moving to an individual basis, perhaps it is best to start with the best. The strongest character of Asterisk is Kirin and rightly so – she was given three whole episodes to flesh out her character. She starts out in a rough spot: Her menacing uncle physically abuses her and, for some reason unbeknownst to the audience, she accepts said abuse. Ayato fights for her honor, but he surprisingly loses.

But that is not the end for Kirin. She speaks with Ayato afterwards, expressing how grateful she is to have Ayato even attempt to stick up for her. The two quickly become friends (Kirin seems to have a crush on the boy), and their morning practices become a ritual.

It is not until Kirin and Ayato are attacked by a bunch of regenerating dragons (and while half naked) that she recounts her reason for suffering under her uncle. She has been, for years now, fighting to prove the innocence of her father who was accused unjustly. Ayato hears her words, encouraging her to take her own path.

She agrees, confronting her uncle and getting (backhand) slapped in the process. But she does not waver. Instead, she decides to fight Ayato once more, losing but realizing that this new path – her path – is the one that she wants to follow. And when her uncle confronts her again, Kirin sees that just because she has taken a path of her own volition that does not mean that she will be left to fight by her lonesome.

This whole character arc for Kirin is technically small, but she goes from introducing her traits, to dealing with her conflict, and then finally wrapping up said conflict, developing her character as best as the show could with the time constraints and the size of the cast. The rest of the cast, however, is not as lucky as Kirin.

Julis is next on the totem pole. She pushes others away, believing that she can and should fight using only her own strength. When Ayato arrives, she comes to understand the value of camaraderie, placing her trust in the boy who vows to help her. She has a backstory with an orphanage that has yet to be used directly (hopefully in the second season), yet the biggest mistake is the part of her past relating to a girl named Elenshquigall Ophélia (what a name) shown for not even five seconds before it is brushed over. (Again, hopefully the second season addresses this tidbit.)

Next would be Saya. She is aimless to the point of getting lost while out and about, she is evidently in love with Ayato, and she is a fan of saying “Kaboom” nonchalantly. Her listlessness only drops whenever the subject of her father is brought up. He was ostracized by his peers for his unorthodox methods in gun creation. She is mostly there for comedic relief, but she does form a connection with Kirin. For now, as a main-but-really-a-side character, Saya does what she has to; her time will come later on.

At the bottom of the totem pole rests both Ayato and Claudia. Ayato suffers from being a self-insert character: he is incredibly powerful, he is surrounded by beautiful women, and he is just the nicest guy ever. To be fair, his power is more a curse than a blessing since it hurts him and saps his strength. As for why this is, it has yet to be explained (more next-season knowledge). And as such, Ayato’s character remains relatively static throughout the season.

Claudia is, surprisingly, the worst of the bunch. About halfway through the season, she, like Julis, very briefly mentions a trouble she is carrying: Her mother in the Integrated Enterprise Foundation is apparently someone who has no “irrational sense of self-interest” and has no “personal desires.” And, like Julis, this trouble is forgotten about entirely. It is not until the end of the season when she reveals her first important trait: Her weapon, Pan-Dora, forces her to view her “eventual death,” indicating her immense mental fortitude. The rest of the time, Claudia is relegated to sexual relief and not much more.

Collectively, and given that this is a split-cour anime, Asterisk did not create a strong group of characters, but it did not create a weak group of characters either.

SOUND

The ending track is undoubtedly the best part of the anime. It starts off slow and soft, lulling the listener into a peaceful mood. The piano and violins are gentle and beautiful, boosting the peacefulness further. But the track does not keep this tone for long; the halfway marker transitions the track into techno land. Here, the space-like effects fall more in-line with Asterisk’s futuristic motif. All the while, the vocalist uses nothing but English lyrics, giving the track a unique feel. Overall, the ED is a powerhouse that should not go unheard.

The opening track is nowhere near the strength of the ED, but it does deserve some credit. The OP sticks more to the techno and space-like effects that the ED adopted, and it is certainly more intense, contrasting well with the ED. The track itself is nothing special, however, since it is a lot of beats and instruments crammed together. At the minimum, the vocalist sings wonderfully in terms of range and emotion, keeping the OP from being completely forgettable.

The rest of the original soundtrack is akin to the OP in that many of the tracks are fine for what they are but not much more. Flutes and bongos fill the slice-of-life moments. Dubstep and fast tracks make up the action-heavy moments. And a melancholic and mysterious piano track accompanies the equally sad and ominous moments. This last track is the only one that particularly stands out.

As far as voice acting performances are concerned, they are about average in their execution. Ari Ozawa as Kirin gives the young girl quite the cute voice, but the voice is almost too high-pitched. Ai Kakuma as Julis gives the short-tempered girl a fiery disposition. And Nao Touyama as Claudia provides a mature, sexy voice that is nice on the ears. And a (negative) shout out to Yuuko Gotou for using an annoying voice as an announcer for Kirin and Saya’s duel, hurting their whole scene.

ENJOYMENT

Despite the problems I have with the anime, I still find it pretty fun at times.

Especially all of the romance asides. Kirin sidling closer to Ayato when she realizes she still has a shot. Saya calling Ernesta a “thieving cat” when Ernesta pecked Ayato’s cheek with a kiss. And Julis acting like the stereotypical tsundere on a consistent basis. Then there is Claudia whose sexually aggressive nature is always a treat.

I really do not care for the battles, though. Not too much is at stake and Ayato (inevitably) always wins. I would much rather the anime stick to the previous material: flirting, blushing, and romancing. Even then, there are certain moments – like Ayato and Julis’s first match where he falls on her and grabs her breast (way too overdone by now) and Kirin and Saya taking a shower after their match (not very tactful) – that I can do without.

Thinking on it more, I like all of the members of the cast besides Ayato. The girls are some combination of cute, sexy, and funny. Kirin is beyond adorable, Saya is hilarious in her unemotional responses, and Julis wanting to get her head rubbed because the other girls got the same treatment is amazing. Of course, Claudia in nothing but a bathrobe or a bathing suit is more than welcomed. Ayato, however, is just not interesting. Obviously that is the point, but I wish he had more of a personality besides “that super-nice dude.”

Gakusen Toshi Asterisk is a split-cour anime that stumbles from the get-go. The narrative has major issues, and while the characters, the visuals, and the music avoid similar mistakes, they are not without their own. Disney levels of happiness are impossible to reach, but hopefully the second half of the show can give its audience their very own green, happy-birthday badge.

SUMMARY

Story: Bad, lack of a driving force, improper world building, and thematic troubles each harm the narrative, but the knowledge that a second half is on the horizon helps to explain some of the misgivings

Animation: Fine, average art, cinematography, and lighting, with nice CG, above average actual animation, and okay character designs

Characters: Fine, besides Kirin, the rest of the cast is either just primed for the second half or just not focused on enough

Sound: Fine, okay OP, good ED, okay OST, about average VA performances

Enjoyment: Fine, Claudia, Kirin, Saya, and Julis are fun, but Ayato is lame and the battles are lamer

Final Score: 4/10

Wow. I have not seen anything like this before. Oh wait. Yes I have.

This is one of the WORST anime I've seen, worse than SAO. That's a big achievement.
Let's get right into this.

Story 2/10
Let me say, the plot is not the worst thing in existence, but how it was executed, was HORRIBLE. This plot has many, MANY plot holes, dumb coincidences, unneeded fanservice to the point where it was cringeworthy and even PREDICTABLE most of the time, and a very unstable pace of plot, usually sloooooooow. Oh, and also, it ends in the most unsensical place I've seen in an anime. The story is a ... huge mess.

Art and Sound 8/10
They were the only good points to this anime, and you know what? It's decent, both of them. But here's the thing. I DON'T GIVE A CRAP. The animation and sound, if it's good, good for the anime. I don't like a good anime with mediocre animation and sound as much as I do a good anime with good animation and sound. I think 100% of people will agree with me on that. But can it change the rating of a show? To me, no. So I don't give a crap, even though the art and sound is actually pretty good.

Characters 1/10
The Characters. Ah, the characters. What is this, a copy of SAO? SAO is a horrid anime. This anime copied SAO, and somehow made it even WORSE. Super op character? Check. Badass into Tsundere? Check. All the girls like the main, super op character? Double check. I don't get it. What's so good about Ayato? He's strong? He has purple hair? He looks EXACTLY like Kirito? All the characters are clićhe cardboard cutouts that have absolutely NOTHING interesting going for them.

Enjoyment 1/10
Why? WHY is this anime ranked higher and rated better than animes like Black★Rock Shooter? Why is it rated so goddamn HIGH? How does ANYONE see good in this anime, so much so that they give it a goddamn 10!? This anime had GLARING issues, and I wish I'd dropped it before I reached the end. Why did I think it was gonna get better during the Festa? (Minor spoiler, but it's revealed in the 1st ep I think.)

Overall 1/10
Worse than SAO. A job well done, A-1, you topped your worst anime(maybe)with another anime. I wonder if that was your goal. Either way, it's downright horrible. Asterisk War gets a grand total of 1/10. (Wasn't that obvious?)

Spoiler free review:

Oh, I wanna cry! :( The beginning of the anime was so amazing and it looked really promising. BUT, when you find yourself checking your phone and constantly get an overview of how many episodes it is left before the anime ends then there was just one solution.... I just had to drop it.

Now, I didn't really expect anything from this series. In a way, maybe that was a good thing. I think that the sad thing is that the main characters, Ayato and Julis both had good background stories for this anime to become something reaaaally good. Let's also look at ... the art style, I gave it a 10 because LOOK AT THE ART STYLE! :O Originally that was what made me watch this anime in the first place.

However the story progressed from outstanding in the 2 first episodes to just fading away. I watched 8 out of 12 episodes of this and I have to say I didn't really see where the whole series was going at this point. It's a shame it had to be in a harem setting because if there had been some more male characters and they had more duels the potential for this anime story line would have been endless.

I put the second season on my to watch list as well but now that i dropped the first one i really don't think I will enjoy the second one either.

If you are looking for a series you don't have to put your mind into that much and you DON'T have other animes that you have to watch then I would say you could give this anime a try. Otherwise, save yourself the hours of watching this anime and go watch an anime that is more interesting.

Having already written a review for this show some time ago that was taken down because I forgot to update my watch status to "dropped", I decided to write another one.

Gakusen Toshi Asterisk, or the Little Star Wars if you take the literal translation, is a generic harem romance magic high school shounen battle anime; quite a mouthful, I know, but it'll just get worse from here.

I will try to run through this review and justify my reasons for harboring a high content of sodium chloride in my bloodstream.

1) Story

The story is as cliched and uninspired as it gets.

Our main character Ayato arrives in ... Asterisk City (oh look another academy island) to look for clues to his sister... kind of.

From the first episode, we are told that most of the people in Asterisk City are teenagers with superpowers that attend individual academies, from which said academies will pit their best students against their fellow rivals in some sort of twisted deathmatch tournament for whatever reason.

So we have superpowered teens and a high school setting in a fantasy scifi setting. I wonder how many times had this premise been used...?

The story doesn't delve into any of the world building, instead focusing on the interactions of Ayato between his fellow schoolmates and acquaintances. I find that this is an incredibly lazy way to introduce the viewer to the world of Asterisk and in all honesty, it feels like the story is expressly trying to skirt the effort needed to establish a solid scifi/magic world, going even as far as to completely leave out the basic workings of magic and the "disaster" that had caused the aforementioned magic to manifest in some humans.

After watching through halfway of the show, there was still no sign of the world being established and the rules that supposedly binded the way everything worked were quickly broken seconds after being introduced.

2) Characters

The characters are walking tropes, I'm not kidding. That's how little they even stand to pass as generic characters. It's as if the author just pulled up the TV tropes page and started copying traits that they liked onto the character creation notes.

Ayato is the generic cool, strong and flat self-insert protagonist that has a conveniently tragic past that holds ties with the city he is currently inhabiting. He is literally brimming with shounen spirit, from his "hidden power" to the fact that his personality is as rich as a drab card of wet cardboard.

Since Ayato is a run-of-the-mill shounen lead, it is natural for him to be surrounded on all sides by hungry hungry women out to get his man meat. The girls that fawn over him are red haired tsundere, big tits blondie, deadpan loli and the shy girl that can never stop blushing and/or stuttering.

While Ayato does possess some form of flimsy evidence and motivation for his actions in the pursuit for his missing sister, most of the time his sister is never mentioned until the plot absolutely demands it. For the girls... their character motivations are hard to follow and most of the time they sit there waiting for Ayato to come save them.

3) Art

The art of the show feature a myriad of warm colors and solid animations. Just don't expect the show to live up to the hype it's getting.

4) Sound

The soundtrack for the show was decent, but nothing to write home about.

As for the VAs, they did their job well enough as a team.

5) Enjoyment

I did not manage to find enjoyment in watching this show. For me, it was a mess of cliches and ideas that were hastily stuck together with duct tape and superglue.

6) Overall

I wouldn't want to recommend this to anyone, as the show had very poor writing and had little to no useful information. I would suggest checking out the other shows under this category as they likely have more entertainment value compared to Gakusen. Hell, Gakusen can't even serve as a good time-killer.

But who am I to tell you what shows to watch? Take this review seriously or with a pinch of salt, I don't really care. Cheers.

Gakusen Toshi Asterisk is one of the shows you really hope would be good especially because how awesome the premise of the show was but after watching about six episodes, you will wonder if the show is ever going to get better, but then you realize the sad fact it’s not and you really question if you will ever get that free time you had back from watching this show.

The story 3/10
The story to Gakusen Toshi Asterisk is students in six different academies fighting each other in tournaments to see who’s the best in the district is, also the winners can acquire money and ... become famous if they get first place in these tournaments. This sounded awesome to me because I thought it was going to be a competitive show with some amazing fight scenes, but the show didn’t do that at all and went a completely different direction. What the show does focuses on is having the main character Ayato Amagiri save everyone time and time again to add more people to his harem which can get really repetitive and boring, this show also focuses on a lot on clichés and you will start to question if you are watching something you seen before in the past. When the show does progress through the story you will feel like at times it doesn’t really know where it wants to go so it tries to add new stuff without explaining where anything comes from, which can get really hard to follow and it sucks because I wanted to know what they were talking about. The show also feels like they rushed a lot of parts dealing with the main story, when they didn’t need to do that because they had two filler episodes that didn’t need to happen.

The characters 2/10
The characters are probably the worst part of the show because there generic, boring and not very relatable. The main character Ayato is probably the most generic character out of all them, he’s that character that’s way to strong and has nothing to him that makes him interesting as a character. For the other four main characters there’s not much to explain but hear it goes. For the main female lead Julis, she is just one of those characters that gets angry at everything the main character does for no reason. For the second leading female Saya, she is just the character that’s clueless most of the time and makes those repetitive jokes where she wants a bigger chest. The third leading female Kirin, she is the character that’s really shy and gets nervous pretty easily from pretty much anything and for the last female lead Claudia she is the character that’s just there for fan service, there is nothing to her that’s unique. They did offer little things about their past for each character on why they wanted to fight in the tournaments and why they needed the prize money but surprisingly gave us nothing about the characters that was all that interesting or helping the characters grow from that experience and they were also way too short and some characters didn’t have them at all, which was disappointing.

The art 5/10
The art design on the characters were okay but it felt like they were very generic. The backgrounds were decent, there wasn’t much to complain about. For the fight scenes though I felt like some were decent but then some focus way too much on these huge effects and made the fights feel poorly down which I felt they could have left out by not doing them or just doing them right.

Sound 5/10
The opening song really didn’t do it for me, it felt like every other opening song to any other show, which isn’t bad but isn’t good either but the ending song to me was really good and was the thing I was looking forward to for each episode. The voice actors to me weren’t the greatest and some of them could be very annoying sometimes well watching the show, but mainly for the supporting cast not the main characters.

Enjoyment 2/10
I didn’t enjoy this at all and it’s frustrating because the only thing I enjoyed was the ending song which to me isn’t a good thing, but I guess it could have been worse.

Overall 3/10
This show is terrible and it’s not because it’s a harem anime, it’s not good because of the story, the clichés and the terrible characters. Stay away from this show.

(Spoiler-free review I suppose?)

So usually every season as most people know we always have that one cliche harem anime about a magical high school and becoming strong and boobs and magic, oh joy. Now I'm not saying that all of these animes are bad. For example, Rakudai Kishi no Cavalry didn't seem special at first but it did a good job. Gakusen Toshi Asterisk is an example of the opposite. The plot could've been better, the storyline was ehhh, the development was crap, the... okay I'll just show everything I say in each category.

Story: 3/10
Since it's ultra cliche and nothing new, I don't have much ... to say. For a whole entire season of 12 episodes, it didn't really go anywhere much. Honestly I think it might get somewhere in the second season, with all those mysteries they've presented, but I still have my doubts.
Also, what I HATE is about how the harem practically takes over the anime and wipes out the point of the story. There should be a balanced ratio between the harem and the actual plot, but there wasn't here. :/

Art: 7/10
Art wouldn't really affect how much I like the anime. The art was good, no problems with it, so that's that. Doesn't suddenly make it a good anime, though, if you were thinking anything like that.

Sound: 5/10
The ED was nice, but I really didn't like the OP and the OST really wasn't all that memorable. There wasn't even one that left a mark on my brain as "great" or anything, so I wouldn't call their soundtracks that successful. They did establish the moods well enough during the scenes though, so it's not so bad.

Character: 1/10
Alright so, like I said before, it's a harem (which by the way was done wrong). The main character, Ayato, is a boy who is quite strong and is probably the most bland character I've ever seen in anime. You can totally predict his reactions to things, and he's just so NOT well-thought. Then there are the girls who are part of the harem itself: Julis, Saya, Claudia, & Kirin. Pretty much all of them want Ayato's D, but the annoying part is that right after they meet him, they're already part of the freaking harem. They don't even have any reasons for liking him. I like the kind of harems where the characters' love for the MC slowly develops for a certain reason. This one was just adding random characters for the sake of a harem and ecchi moments because Why not? Not to mention that they don't even give you a choice about who you should ship with the MC, they make it so obvious who's meant to be with him; they just add the other harem characters so we can have more tits in the show. Sometimes that's okay if the other characters are still important, but I wouldn't call the other characters THAT important.
The female lead, Julis, is also one of those cliche pink-haired tsundere girls that is just put with the role of the female lead and the role of being meant to be with Ayato just because she looked ideal. They really were running out of ideas, so they must've thought, "Well all these types of animes have the pink-haired tsundere female lead!"
Also, I barely saw any character development so all the characters were quite boring. The MC being an overpowered yet empty-headed ding-dong, and all the other girls just taking up random roles for the harem, and all the other side characters somehow contributing for the sake of the number of characters... I can't even say that the characters were horrible; this was the most pathetic crap I've seen in a while, it's like all the way down there. (Not literally *coughs*)

Enjoyment: 1/10
I tried to be patient with this anime, honestly. At first it didn't seem special, but there are a lot of good animes that are based off of light novels so I gave Asterisk several chances to the point I even finished the anime. But I got no satisfaction. Not even ONE part of the anime happened to impress me. There was never enough suspense. I kept waiting, waiting, waiting for it to seem like a good anime for once, but it never happened. I guess you could say the last episode was suspenseful, but it still didn't work enough on me. :/ And really? Making it seem suspenseful only on the last episode? That was way too long of a wait for me, and they didn't even impress me enough by THEN.

Overall: 3/10
So yeah, I wouldn't recommend this anime to you unless you have literally nothing to do with your life and have watched all of the good animes in the whole world. Or if you want to join us who don't like this thing. I REALLY hope it ends up being better in the second season (and oh yes, I'm giving the second season a chance, because I'm still trying to be a stubborn and patient anime watcher) but this season was crap whether the second turns out good or not.

Oh and also, a list of the cliches that I can think of:

-Overpowered bland male MC
-Harem for the sake of ecchi
-Magic school with magic weapons where you master magic
-Magic school has a competition
-Pink-haired tsundere female lead
-No reason for the girls to like MC... they just do
-loli female childhood friend (part of the harem obviously too)
-the assertive female! (part of the harem as well!)
-the high-pitched tiny cute female! (Oh look another harem character)