Asura Cryin
Studio: XEBEC
Premiere Date: 4/2/09
Genre: Harem Action

Alright so it’s not great but…

The Story

While sick as a child, Tomo was visited by the spirit of his dead childhood best friend Misao. Ever since then, Misao has remained by his side as a constant companion that only he can see. Now starting his first year of high school, Tomo has moved into a new house on his own. Right away though he visited by a mysterious girl from his school who gives him a trunk that was owned by his older brother and his life changes completely. Now Tomo and Misao are caught in a literal battle between warriors of god, devils and a mysterious dark society who all want to control the power within the trunk.

Good and the Bad

‘Asura Cryin’ is not great. Let’s just get that out of the way right away. The characters that make up this series are what struck me as odd right away, Misao especially. So Misao is a ghost but she has to remain at least slightly moe’ so she gets to change clothes as often as she wishes and even sleeps in a thin shirt that looks borrowed from Tomo. What struck me as funnier however is how the staff seemed to predict this line of thinking from the audience with a well timed ‘Aren’t I more interesting in different outfits?’ line from Misao which seemed to just explain things away neatly.

Getting past the characters however, the writing in ‘Asura Cryin’ is where I think most fans are going to find their sticking point. The story within these first two episodes isn’t entirely bad and the characters are remaining mostly engaging. There are just way too many examples of plain dumb writing in places. In episode two for instance, Tomo and Misao are figuring things out together and Tomo remembers that his older brother got his scholarship from the ‘Royal Dark Society’. Alright time out… his older brother left the country to study with the Royal Dark Society and NO ONE thought to ask some questions at the time? And Tomo is just now remembering this? Even for a fantasy series that made me want to bang my head on the wall.

Music

The techno opening theme and ballad closing theme do well to get the audience in and out of each episode (‘Spiral‘ and ‘Link’ respectively, both sung by angela). Neither of them is particularly catchy but listening to them once a week or so wouldn’t become annoying either. The background music in ‘Asura Cryin’ has unfortunately also failed to make any real impression on the series. It does a great job of staying in the background but it’s so buried or lackluster that viewers are barely aware that it’s there.

Cast

In the role of Tomo, Miyu Irino comes across as much more natural and funny. So far it’s Haruka Tomatsu (Misao) who is providing the most laughs throughout the episodes and Ai Nonaka (Takatsuki) providing the cuteness factor for this series.

Overall

It’s not great but it’s entertaining. If I am bored I know that I would pick this series up to kill time with but I just don’t see myself actively following this one all the way through. I’ll certainly check out episode three just to see where the story is headed but I already feel confident in this one disappearing off my radar soon afterwards.

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