Rakudai Kishi No Eiyuutan

So I watched few episodes of Gakusen Toshi Asterisk.

And you know what? I like this better.

They may have started very similar, but 4 episodes in, there's nothing in Asterisk that I find particularly memorable. Compared to that, Cavalry has at least few scenes with impact every episode.

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

I feel the same way. I still don't know how I made it to 7 episodes on Asterisk before dropping it.

Now the only thing I remember about that series is that its first episode was very similar to Rakudai.

Then again, I did hear that it gets better in the second half. I always hated that kind of excuse, because I think all series should be good and attention grabbing from the first episode and on. Still, if it does get significantly better, I'm willing to pick it back up.

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

Having watched both series at the same time, I found Asterisk picked up a lot in the second half of the series, as the focus shifted to the tournament preparations and actual fights, while Rakudai Kishi went downhill as Stella got less of a role to play.

I liked both, but I enjoyed this one more for the better focus on the characters. Things got a bit stupid near the end, but it had a good ending that made me forgive it somewhat. And the fights were definitely better, whoooo boy were the fights better.

A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.

I couldn't find it in me to care about any of The Asterisk War characters. None of them got me to feel anything like the Failed Knight cast did. That's my main issue, although even if I did I overall found the whole show boring.

Asterisk War had a better ending theme (seriously, it's awesome). Other than that and the last bit (which I've mentioned before), I mostly liked this one more. Especially that character I pointed out in the very first episode. Well, overall the characters were good, with maybe one exception. No points for guessing who. Not counting characters only involved in the bit I'm choosing to ignore.

edited 12th Jan '16 10:18:45 AM by AnotherDuck

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It had better ED, yeah. The ED for Rakudai is very unremarkable, I felt. Well, there's fanservice, but that's more of a detracting factor for me.

Opening is so much better, though.

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

I liked both, but for different reasons since both of them have parts where they do better than one another. For example romance in Rakudai is more involved and has better progression, but Stella doesn't get to fight or do much besides supporting Ikki and serving as a motivation for him. Meanwhile in Asterisk the romance is much more obstructed by the harem antics and the charade of other girls having a chance, but Julis is more involved in the plot besides her relationship with Ayato and we do get to see her fight. Speaking of plot, Asterisk has much broader scope of it, with whole lot of different things going on in the background and conflicts involving more than just the protagonists, while Rakudai is very much Ikki's personal story.

So while I've seen those two shows described as last season's conjoined twins, I found enough differences between them that I had no problems watching both of them on the same day I didn't feel like I wasted my time by essentially watching the same thing twice in a row.

I feel that the broader scope was actually problematic because of lack of proper focus, personally. I suppose it was more as a set up for next season.

Yeeeaaaahhh, that's some very legitimate problem Rakudai is guilty of.

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

I liked how they did it, focusing on immediate problems, while setting up a framework of larger conflicts happening in the background.

I guess that's a fair assessment.

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

Its pretty hard to judge Asterisk considering its not even halfway done; the first cour doesn't even end under the assumption that there wouldn't be a second season, it just kind of...stops.

So really, I'm holding off my final judgement until the second cour ends.

A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.

Hehe.

And speaking of underused of Stella, I think that was the biggest problem the anime had. I know why it happened, but still it's nothing that couldn't be handled with a bit of tweaking. I'm still waiting for a series that does Battle Couple as well as Strike The Blood did. Well, this season newcomer gives me a slight hope.

Well, it's not like neither anime is covering entire light novels anyway, so technically you can't really judge Rakudai either.

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

True, but Rakudai's ending felt a lot more conclusive despite that.

I know sum spoilerz, but I'm too lazy to look up the rest.

A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.

Something tells me I wouldn't feel any differently about Asterisk than I already do if it ever did finish both cours.

Asterisk having a better scoped plot doesn't mean anything to me either, because I found the world-building nonsensical and what little difference there was in the background details poorly explained.

It's hard to judge after one episode but we'll see.

Well, that's just like your opinion man.

I don't think Asterisk is a "bad" series, its just...very archetypal and by the book, which there's nothing wrong with if you like the genre a lot.

A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.

I said the same thing in the Asterisk thread. Just because I found the show too boring to continue with doesn't mean it's actually bad.

I definitely agree with that. Even if a few of the episodes were way too easy to compare at a surprisingly detailed level. And most of the time I compared them on an episode-per-episode basis, this one won out.

I also agree that the Battle Couple thing is the main weakness of this one. A little too chuuni. Well, not that both of them aren't, but still.

"It's not bad; it's just not good enough to watch."

edited 12th Jan '16 11:54:53 AM by AnotherDuck

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Hopefully if Rakudai gets a second season Stella might see some action (heh). I mean vol 4 or something has some fights involving her right?

edited 12th Jan '16 12:02:49 PM by slimcoder

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."

speaking of ending themes...

Implying Chuuni is a bad thing :V

Yea, definitely would like more Stella focus if another season comes.

A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.

One of the comments in that vid said how s/he can't fap to this, while another post replied that "not with that attitude."

I don't know, it made me laugh.

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.