Starting a book series is a jump into the unknown

BOOK REVIEW

VERDICT

8/10 Gear points

• Author: Yū Miyazaki

• Illustratons by Okiura

• Publisher: Yen press (English)

• Genre: Action, Science Fantasy

• Book 1 in the series

• Age Range: Teens

Setting:

The Asterisk War takes place in a futuristic alternate history where, at the end of the 21st century, an impact event known as the Invertia happened, which resulted in most of Earth’s cities being destroyed, a new energy source called Mana being discovered from the meteorites and some of the next generation of humans being born with superpowers (these superpowered humans being known as Genestellar). After the Invertia, six megacorporations referred to as the Integrated Enterprise Foundations came to lead the world after the economic collapse left by the Invertia.

The primary setting of the story is a city on an artificial floating island officially called Rikka (though, it’s more commonly known as Asterisk due to its shape from a bird’s eye view). Asterisk was developed by the IEFs to house six schools, each backed by a different foundation, to help Genestellar develop their skills and abilities and eventually compete in combat tournaments called Festas where the winners can have any wish granted to them.

Synopsis:

Volume 1 follows the series’ protagonist, Ayato Amagiri during his first few days as a new transfer student at one of Asterisk’s schools, Seidoukan Academy. On his first day, he gets in an extremely awkward accident with one of the school’s highest-ranking fighters, Julis Riessfeld, and winds up being forced to duel her. The duel gets voided after Ayato saves Julis from an assassination attempt during the duel.

Ayato initially came to Asterisk to find his missing sister, whose last known location was within Asterisk. But he also gets a taste of what Asterisk is truly like as he ends up helping Julis investigate some foul play taking place at their school.

Review:

One of the things I look for in the first volume of a new series (particularly those that deal with fantasy and science fiction) is how it introduces themes and terminology that are important to the series overall. In that respect, I think that this volume does a good job with that idea. There are some series that introduce their themes and terms a little at a time, but The Asterisk War gives us a little, yet substantial taste of all of them in the first volume.

Some terms that are explained are the differences between the abilities of the different Genestellar. All Genestellar have enhanced physical capabilities that are fueled by an aura called Prana, but there is a minority that can demonstrate even more special abilities. Julis is given as an example, having the ability to generate and control explosive flames.

Within Asterisk, the standard weapons are called Luxes (singular. Lux) which start as handles, but upon activation, their full forms can materialise as swords, axes, guns, etc. There also exist special Luxes called Ogre Lux, that demonstrate their own extremely powerful abilities, but they are rare, have certain costs to using them and can only be used by those of particular compatibility. Ayato gains usage of an infamous Ogre Lux in this volume.

Some of the themes that are demonstrated in this volume help to set the tone for the general setting. Since the IEFs that essentially rule the world are megacorporations, their primary directive is gaining revenue, and this has led to certain problems around the world. This is touched upon more in later volumes, but Julis provides a point of view in this volume; she’s the princess of a tiny European country that’s essentially a puppet state, and her ultimate goal for the Festa is to regain its autonomy.

The six schools of Asterisk are rivals to each other (the same can be said for the IEFs that back them), so as well as the Festa, there are other attempts at subterfuge between schools which we get a glimpse of in this volume.

Something that’s fairly common in Japanese light novels and the like is that the main protagonist tends to be obscenely powerful in some way. I can’t say I’m a fan of it, but I enjoy it when those “overpowered protagonists” have certain weaknesses to balance them. In the case of The Asterisk War, Ayato’s Prana amount is insanely high and he obtains a powerful Ogre Lux, but his sister placed a series of seals on his Prana that limits how long he can use his power. Overall, Ayato is one of the better cases of an “overpowered protagonist” because his weaknesses are flexible enough for him to use his full power relatively freely, but he still has to be careful.