[Ended] Asura Cryin' 2: Complicated

The story of Asura Cryin' is massively complicated. You really have to pay attention to every single detail and remember every character's name (it's somewhat difficult when you're not native Japanese speaker) to be able to fully appreciate the story. I saw many people have given it bad rating because they got confuse due to the complexity of its plot. One of the biggest problem for most people, as I see, is the fact there are so many minor characters that did not get enough screen time but were constantly referenced by name that are critical to the plot. This anime is a test for you to see how well you can pay attention to minor details/characters of a story.

Lots of people didn't like this anime because there seems to be too many pointless episodes that are not related to the main plot. But after you finished the whole story, you'd realized those seemingly pointless filler episodes actually holds some very important key points or key personnel introductions.

Even though the ending is somewhat predictable, there were enough twists and turns early on in the second season to make this anime worth a while to watch. On top of that, I do like the fact this story emphasize on the concept of "equivalent exchange", meaning all happy endings come at a cost. Good guys don't just get good ending for no reason or without any loss. Even though there is the perfect plot device to create a perfect happy ending, the author chose not to do so. Instead, a slightly lesser version of the perfect happy ending is used.

As for its predictable ending, I wouldn't fault them for that because in my opinion, there isn't really no other way out because if that certain concept is introduced too late, it will feel too much like a Dues Ex Machina.

Final scoreboard:

Drama: 93 (Some parts are very dramatic)

Comedy: 80 (Not bad for what it had)

Action: 90 (Pretty good action scenes)

Art/Animation: 80 (Generic)

Sound/Music: 95 (Love the music and theme songs)

Character: 90 (Great depth, even for minor characters)

Plot: 94 (Quite complicated)

Ending: 91 (Slightly predictable, but it's ok)

Re-watch value: 80 (You might have to go through certain episodes again to really understand some part of the story)

Overall: 91 - Very well made

Recommendation: I believe there has already been several reader comments on this blog that expressed negative opinions towards Asura Cryin'. But if you can look beyond certain superficial elements of this story, you'll see the true brilliance of this story. Of course, if you don't like to use your brain to chase around super complicated plots, this is not for you. But for those who do appreciate a nice complicated well built story, Asura Cryin' would be one of my highly recommended animes from 2009.