While I was looking for some art books the other day, I came across the third volume of Date AST Like which I then picked up as I was mildly curious about the finer details of the Ashcroft project. There seems to be a general lack of information on the spinoff, which is not too surprising considering its focus. Since I had already touched on the story before, I figured I'd briefly run through the new volume and whatnot. Hopefully this will fix any mistake I may have made and clear things up a bit more than the last time.
Let's quickly recapitulate the major events so far. DEM develop five special CR-Units as part of a new project. Four of them are transported to the AST base in Tenguu city, while the first unit Alice is left in the care of Okamine Heavy Industries. Three former SSS members succeed in hijacking three of the Ashcroft units at the end of the first volume. The next volume begins with Mikie accidentally unlocking and equipping the fifth unit Cheshire Cat before the hijackers can get their hands on it. She later attends the demonstration of the Alice with Origami, Mana and Ryouko. The SSS trio attempt to steal the unit but Origami takes it after Mikie's father gives her the password. That about sums it up, I think. On a related note, I forgot to mention that while DEM build Realizers, the subsequent task of developing them into CR-Units are typically left to other companies.
I have said before that the Alice provides protection against other Wizards' Territory, but it actually does much more than just that. The CR-Unit specializes in the composition of Protect Territory. In practice, the unit was able to deploy a barrier so thick that neither the SSS trio nor the AST girls could break through. Furthermore, the barrier could be extended to create a boundary field. Ashley and Leo nevertheless managed to get away thanks to Origami's overconfidence, which allowed Cecil a chance for a sneak attack on Origami that weakened the barrier.
Inside her solitary confinement cell, Cecil tells Mikie about her group's "stolen lover" - one of the world's five best Wizards and the top ace of the SSS - Artemisia B Ashcroft. I kind of left out details about the SSS trio and their relationship with Artemisia the last time since I mostly wanted to talk about the Ashcroft units, so here goes. Cecil is a fairly amiable girl who lost her eyesight in a spacequake prior to joining the SSS; Ashley is short, brash and a bit of a lone wolf; Leo is tall and tough-looking but she is actually a crybaby. As for their relationship with Artemisia, she's an irreplaceable friend of theirs and the glue that held the group together - a role which has since been passed down to Cecil after Artemisia's departure. Artemisia eventually left the SSS for DEM as the latter wished to study the unique properties of her Territory. She thought they were going to put her powers to saving the world, but she couldn't have been more wrong.
Using Artemisia as the core, the five Ashcroft units are able to grant Wizards more power at the cost of Artemisia's consciousness. Cecil learned about this after infiltrating DEM and discovering secret documents on the Ashcroft project. After some soul-searching, Mikie lets Cecil escape before she can be extradited back to England under the condition that Cecil will fully disclose her motive and everything she knows about the project. Apparently Artemisia can be saved by feeding the information stored in the five units - Artemisia's memories - back into her. DEM can't have that happen obviously, and one of their enforcers has followed Ceil's group to Japan.
Let's quickly recapitulate the major events so far. DEM develop five special CR-Units as part of a new project. Four of them are transported to the AST base in Tenguu city, while the first unit Alice is left in the care of Okamine Heavy Industries. Three former SSS members succeed in hijacking three of the Ashcroft units at the end of the first volume. The next volume begins with Mikie accidentally unlocking and equipping the fifth unit Cheshire Cat before the hijackers can get their hands on it. She later attends the demonstration of the Alice with Origami, Mana and Ryouko. The SSS trio attempt to steal the unit but Origami takes it after Mikie's father gives her the password. That about sums it up, I think. On a related note, I forgot to mention that while DEM build Realizers, the subsequent task of developing them into CR-Units are typically left to other companies.
I have said before that the Alice provides protection against other Wizards' Territory, but it actually does much more than just that. The CR-Unit specializes in the composition of Protect Territory. In practice, the unit was able to deploy a barrier so thick that neither the SSS trio nor the AST girls could break through. Furthermore, the barrier could be extended to create a boundary field. Ashley and Leo nevertheless managed to get away thanks to Origami's overconfidence, which allowed Cecil a chance for a sneak attack on Origami that weakened the barrier.
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| Artemisia? More like teenage Vert amirite? |
Using Artemisia as the core, the five Ashcroft units are able to grant Wizards more power at the cost of Artemisia's consciousness. Cecil learned about this after infiltrating DEM and discovering secret documents on the Ashcroft project. After some soul-searching, Mikie lets Cecil escape before she can be extradited back to England under the condition that Cecil will fully disclose her motive and everything she knows about the project. Apparently Artemisia can be saved by feeding the information stored in the five units - Artemisia's memories - back into her. DEM can't have that happen obviously, and one of their enforcers has followed Ceil's group to Japan.
Introducing Minerva Liddell (named after Alice Liddell), a member of DEM's First Division of Enforcement and the former No.2 in the SSS. She resents Artemisia for being better than her, so much so she immediately turns murderous upon hearing Artemisia's name and becomes sexually aroused when she puts on the Jabberwock. Geez, where have I seen this type of character before I wonder?
Mikie gets locked up for helping Cecil break out of prison. Cecil and the girls plan to attack Minerva and get back the Jabberwock. Minerva, well she's too busy caressing the Ashcroft unit container on her bed. And before I forget, the last chapter also briefly brings up the head of the Ashcroft project, Edgar F Carroll (three guesses at his namesake) who hopes that his achievements with the project will help him take over Westcott's position. I guess that didn't work out too well for him.
Don't even ask.
... I kind of skimmed through the first three volumes of Date A Strike (no, please, don't sic the authors' romanization of choice on me...). While the story is pretty interesting, Mikie doesn't help much in improving my overall opinion of it.
ReplyDeleteDon't know why, but maybe three volumes of tankoubon is too early for me to think of anything special.
Also, since we've seen a certain visual regarding the next volume (8, "Natsumi Search" ), what are your first impressions of it?
Yeah the spin-off is just okay. They tried to throw a twist or two here and there, but it all seems like standard fare to me. I actually kind of forgot about it until one of the shops emailed me about the new volume.
DeleteAbout the next novel, my first impression was something like "well this character sure looks familiar". Other than that, I didn't think much of it. Neither the premise or the new Spirit really interested me.