Gakusen Toshi Asterisk – 09
“You getting nervous, Ayato?”
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And the battles begin… |
Phoenix Festa Farce
“Dude, what just happened?” “I think we lost…”
So the Phoenix Festa begins, and this episode really doesn’t do anything but deal with that. And the big plot point is the allowance of the autonomous robots as stand-ins for competitors, at the behest of Allekant (and I’ll pick on the editors of at least CR’s translation: Why are they changing the spelling of school names now? Galahadworth? Arlequint? Come on, there are official names on the website, just stick with them, which you’ve already used. Stupid stuff like that just makes you look bad). What this really is is a big snooker that Allekant, specifically Ernesta, have pulled over on the entire rest of the field. I guess it’s up to the steering committee of the tournament to set the rules, although it sure looked like they were “suggested” by the heads of the 6 academies, but they’re probably going to find that they’ve made a huge mistake.
Actually, everyone came for the robot manzai routine
And the first battle with the robots makes this pretty clear. Sure, they’re fighting some rando guys from Le Wolfe, and on top of that, they look like they’re the old guard, not high school students, all the better to get embarrassed by the new menace. And embarrassed they are, with the robots taunting them with “I’m not even going to attack for a minute, do your worst”. Which means the fight lasts for about 1 minute and 5 seconds. It’s just not a contest, as we’d expect.
“Ho hum. Are you even trying?”
The other thing that’s not a contest is Ayato and Julis’ first match, which takes longer for Ayato to make a big show of breaking his shackles than for him to finish off the two patsies they put them up against. It’s all the way that Julis had planned, allowing them to not show any of their hand for coordination and teamwork, or even that Ayato’s full power has a time limit. Basically all goes according to plan, which is how they want it. We don’t really get any news about Kirin and Saya, except that Saya only knows how to make one kind of food, and now so does Kirin.
Hope you like onigiri
Did they make any mistakes with this episode? No, I can’t say that they did. But it certainly looks like they’re following the standard playbook for a battle tournament and, as usual, that’s disappointing to me. Tournaments are inherently boring. There needs to be something else that brings the interest, and while that can be in the form of all sorts of things (fighting things we haven’t seen, focusing elsewhere besides the tournament, etc), it needs to be there. The problem here is that A-1 is playing it completely straight, and I don’t really see that we’re going to get anything from here through the next few episodes besides a massive tournament, with the good guys and the bad guys.
In a contest for “least original bad guy introduction” this would have to be a favorite
And the primary bad guys aren’t particularly interesting to me at this point, either. They’re basically Fate‘s Gilgamesh in robot form: OP, have a counter for everything, and as such just crummy characters. And I get the feeling they’ll be dealt with in the same way: Somehow they have either a fluke weakness, or just all of a sudden they’re not that great against the protagonist. Basically, they take a dive for the writer, and that’s just bleh. We’ll see who the Le Wolfe ringer in the tournament is, I’m pegging her as the second tier enemy for Ayato and Julis, but at this point her whole introduction has been completely cliched, down to the full name introduction of Irene Urzaiz, so I’m not expecting anything particularly special.
About Highway
Proving that you don't have to be young to love anime, I enjoy all genres and styles of shows. If it's not hurting anyone else, you should never be ashamed of what you like!
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
Well, I liked the mousey, glasses girl at the beginning. Then there was the horrible mismatched VA for the tubby bad guy that drafted the jailed girl. After that: dogs, fleas, laying down, getting up.
I did get a giggle over Saya’s bento. That was bloody cliched but it fits…
POWUH: Meta Resident and LN Informant with 1529 comments
Then there was the horrible mismatched VA for the tubby bad guy that drafted the jailed girl.
His voice isn’t mismatched once you find out more about him. In the LNs, Dirk is a force to be reckoned with.
He’s not a Genestella and never competed in a Festa, but he is intelligent, ruthless, cunning, scheming and will do anything for victory*. These qualities allowed him to become Student President at Le Wolfe and control its rowdy gangs that only submit to the strongest (currently Dirk.).
*Similar to Claudia, but she’s prettier.
Actually, everyone came for the robot manzai routine.You know there’s double standards at play when the guy robot looks like a metal pile, and the girl robot looks like a cute girl. (Yes, that is how they look according to the LN.)
If there was equal opportunity, the guy robot would’ve looked like a handsome guy.