By Yuu Miyazaki and okiura. Released in Japan by Media Factory. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Melissa Tanaka.

I always enjoy each volume of Asterisk War I read, despite the fact that you can see every plot beat and character development coming from eight miles away. The good thing about it is, it’s the RIGHT kind of character development. This being a tournament arc, you would expect that the losers among our heroes get shuffled off to the side to watch from the stands, like… well, every other tournament arc in manga and anime. But no, Saya and Kirin (yes, it’s a spoiler that they lost, but not much of one if you have any idea about how narrative works) not only get to save the day in their B-plot, but Saya actually gets something of a resolution in the argument she had with Rimcy a couple books ago. And speaking of Ardy and Rimcy, their character arc is not winning the tournament, it’s showing that they are capable of growing and striving just as humans do, and it’s also carried off very well. The well-worn path this walks is comfortable, and has tea at the end.

The girl on the cover this time around is Sylvia, president of the all-girls institute that’s one of the six schools. She essentially shows up to give Ayato a hand in the kidnapping B-plot and to tease him – even the author admits he had planned to add her later. She’s cute, though, and I look forward to seeing how she differs from Claudia in the Ayato harem sweepstakes. As for the tournament part of it, there are two really good fights and one sort of mediocre one – we know that Ayato and Julis are going to reach the finals, and so the battle they face to get there feels perfunctory and short – which is better than perfunctory and long, I suppose. Saya and Kirin fare better – as I said above, they have to lose for plot reasons, but they do a damn good job, forcing Ardy and Rimcy to bring out their secret weapon earlier and generally showing that they are not just stoic/meek (delete where applicable) girls.

They also get to rescue the kidnapped girl, despite severe injuries from the tournament, injuries that are also handed to Ayato and Julis in the final. The final battle takes up the most space in the book, and is mostly worth it, though perhaps drags on a bit long – yes, even in books as short as The Asterisk War, scenes can go on too long. But Ardy is fun, and I liked the way that Ayato and Julis finally got together to take down the pair, which is clever, finds a way around Ayato’s big weakness, and is also quite shippy. That said, their pledge at the end of the book to keep allying in the other two competitions no matter what just seems to be inviting trouble, if you ask me.

So one tournament down, and apparently next time we get a slight break before jumping into Tournament Two. In the meantime, The Asterisk War continues to be, in my opinion, predictable cliches done right.

By Yuu Miyazaki and okiura. Released in Japan by Media Factory. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Melissa Tanaka.

Another volume of Asterisk War brings along with it more of the same, and honestly these books are so short I frequently wish that Yen had decided to omnibus them, especially since the plot to this volume is essentially “more tournament arc”. Nothing particularly surprising happens – even the cliffhanger ending is signposted from the moment we meet the sweet innocent girl who’s the victim of it. There is cool fighting by tactics. There is cool fighting by unlocking the next level of abilities. There are also Saya and Kirin, whose fights we don’t see until the final chapter. I have a sneaking suspicion how that will turn out, but it’s also part of the cliffhanger ending. So yes, nothing whatsoever new here, but as always the prose is readable, it’s not too offensive (though there are a few stereotypes), and fans of this sort of thing will eat it up like candy and then move on.

One thing I did like is Julis (who is reminding me more of Rin Tohsaka every volume) managing to get Ayato to have a reason to fight and win that isn’t just “well, I guess I’ll help her achieve her goal”. The drive to succeed, to surpass, to go beyond your limits requires something to strive for in these sorts of stories, and given that Ayato is, if I’m being nice, sot of bland it’s especially important for him to have this. He’s on a quest to find his sister, but there’s always been an undercurrent of “she must have had a good reason” that’s stopped him from really investigating. If the tournament ends next volume (which it looks like ti’s shaping up to do), I expect we’ll get more answers, though whether we get his sister is another matter.

Both major battles in this book are against students from Chinese Stereotype Academy, aka Jie Long Seventh Institute. We get both a noble fighting pair who are simply very good at what they do, and a team of twins who are very good at what they do but are also jerks. They don’t cheat per se, but they hammer on weaknesses and love to break their opponent. Dishonorable is a good word for them. Needless to say, Ayato and Julis fight against them near the end of the book, and the fight is probably the best part of the novel, even if, once again, the lack of surprising things happening is clear. If I were to tell you that the twins have a reaction that’s basically “This… this CANNOT BEEEEEE!” towards the end of the fight, I’m sure you would just sigh and nod.

Kirin and Saya are here as well, and Saya gets a flashback that shows off her childhood with Ayato, but honestly it’s harder to develop these two as their personalities are naturally passive – likely that’s why we didn’t see their fights till the very end. In any case, this volume of Asterisk War may not convince uncertain readers to keep going, but it also won’t make them decide to drop it once and for all. It’s still the equivalent of having a Peppermint Patty for dinner. Tasty, but you really want a lot more.

By Yuu Miyazaki and okiura. Released in Japan by Media Factory. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Melissa Tanaka.

The Asterisk War, quality of writing or no, has a tendency to be overly cliched. Sometimes, in fact, it’s so cliched it actually throws me off my game and surprises me. We’re introduced to a pair of sisters here, who end up fighting Ayato and Julis towards the end of the book. Given that we first meet the older sister literally chained up in a subbasement, I expected her to be the barely controllable psycho one gets chained up in subbasements. As it turns out, she loves to fight, but is far nicer than it would seem (though she was right to ditch the weapon trying to overpower her mind). As for the younger sister, I naturally expected her to show that the sweet girl act was a facade, and that she was really the evil one and the brains of the outfit. Hope. She’s just as sweet as she seems, and is there to cook and be rescued. You can second guess yourself on how cliched this book can be.

This is not to say I did not enjoy the book – I did. It’s as deep as a puddle, but that’s not what I’m looking for. Actually, the one time I think that the book really succeeded in creeping me out was when Claudia (who gets the cover art this time) explains the price she pays for the ability to use her weapons, and what it does to almost everyone who isn’t her. One wonders just how much of the flirty yet manipulative student council president is an act – though probably not much, I’ve already learned my lesson on second guessing myself. As for the rest of the harem, Julis is tsundere, though as always it’s a mild case; Saya is cool and seemingly stoic, and Kirin is shy, and they all still like Ayato a lot. I suspect we can also add Priscilla by the end of this book. Ayato is, of course, completely unnoticing, not getting at all why the girls want him to rub their head.

As you may have gathered, we’ve entered the tournament arc part of the story, and it appears it’s going to last more than one book. This allows us to see Ayato and Julis curbstomp a few opponents into the ground, as we know that they’re going to make it close to the finals as, well, they’re the heroes. In fact, given Julis’ wish, I suspect they pretty much have to win. Not so for Saya and Kirin, and I was pleased to see that they also live to fight another novel. Of the new characters, easily the most memorable – even more than the sisters who are the focus of the book – are the two AI robots, who seem deliberately written to be cartoon cliches. In fact, their interaction reminded me a lot of The Poet and Sickle from the later Baccano books, though thankfully Ardy does not speak nearly as floridly as the Poet. They to pummel their way through the contest, and I suspect we’ll get a confrontation between them and our heroes soon.

To sum up, this book is much like the last two books – hilariously unoriginal and yet fun to read in spite of that. It’s the perfect book to take on a vacation – just be aware the books are short, you’ll likely need to take something else as well.