Tomoharu Natsume is your average high school student. If it hadn't been for Misao Minakami - the spirit of his best friend - haunting him. But this doesn't really bother Tomoharu and when he moves into his older brother's house, he expects to continue his life as it was.One day he is left with a mysterious briefcase, which leads his home to be invaded by different groups - all with the briefcase as their target. Not having any idea what the briefcase is, Tomoharu and Misao escapes with it. And from there on Tomoharu has to learn the secret about not only the briefcase...
Asura Cryin' is made of two seasons - Asura Cryin' and Asura Cryin' 2. I will cover both in this review as I think they shouldn't be separated at all to begin with. The reason? The first season give you questions, the second one answers them. But there are also answers in the first season to questions that would rise in the second season, if you skip the most confusing season out of the two.
Asura Cryin' has a very interesting and somewhat bizarre concept and many interesting characters. As I mentioned, the seasons are confusing by themselves, but together they make sense. However the execution of it isn't the best. I'm not sure if it's solely an issue with the animated adaptation of the show or the original comic is the original culprit. There are some important conversation with horrible timing, for instance.
Tomoharu Natsume is the main character and he lives alone, if you don't count his friend Misao. He's pretty average guy, and it also means he is a pretty boring character. The only thing that even caught my interest in this character to begin with, is the horrible hair design. He wishes to be strong to be able to protect people, but at the same time he doesn't want to hurt anyone.
Misao Minakami is the ghost of Tomoharu's best friend from their childhood. She died after a plane crash and became a "burial doll" - a spirit sacrifice to be used in Asura Machina. Misao is in love with Tomoharu. She's actually quite carefree, and doesn't find being dead too bad.
Kanade Takatsuki is a demon. Female demons, as herself, need love of the one they made a contract with to be able to use their powers and keep living. (Male demons uses their memory of their partner.) Kanade develops feelings for Tomoharu, but tries to keep them hidden.
These three are the main characters. We also have "Shuri" Kurosaki, whose twin sister died in the same incident as Misao, and a person who says he is Tomoharu's brother Naotaka.
This anime was, as I said, a bit confusing and has some flow and timing issues, and as much as I want to say the characters were deep, I can't be sure, as the anime as a whole is too short for you to learn enough about them.
I also mentioned the concept is interesting. Asura Machina is built in an alternate universe than the one Tomoharu live in, for instance. But there are many terms, like burial doll, Asura Machina, stabilizer, handler, Asura Cryin', daughters... It makes it a bit more confusing. As the show is quite short, I myself didn't grasp exactly everything the first time I watched it. I might watch it again, just to understand everything better.
Which means, this show is good enough to watch again. So, to make an end to this review, which must be somewhat confusing - because I'm really hungry and just wish to get a review up and therefore did this in a rush - I will name give three different ratings.
The first season by itself gets... 2 stars, mostly because it's really confusing. The second season gets 4 stars, as most people won't watch it before watching the first, which makes it less confusing and in overall it's not as flawed. The show all together gets 5 stars. If you can live with the flaws, it really is worth that.
This is not related to the review at all but... I sure don't like the new layout of blogger's user panel. I don't seem to find anything anymore. Oh well... I managed to get this up, didn't I?
