Common Name: Asura Cryin'
Score: 7/10, 5/5
Length: 2 seasons, 26 episodes total
Genre: Action, Supernatural, Mech, Super-powered
Summary: Natsume Tomoharu is by most standards a normal high school boy, so long as you ignore the fact that he is being haunted by the ghost of his best friend Misao and that he's inherited a mysterious, locked suitcase. When a strange organization comes to claim the case, Tomoharu learns that he has inherited something far greater and more deadly than anyone could predict. With the power of the Asura Machina, Tomoharu will find the strength to protect his friends, destroy those who would harm them, and possibly bring salvation to a world that's running out of time.
Review: Though the concept of magi-tech has been brought up in a number of different animes, since blending the ideas mechs and magic is interesting in of itself, I've only seen a few that have grabbed and held my interest. This likely happened due to the show taking a lesson from some of anime's more popular and long running series--the concept of exponential escalation. Throughout the course of the show, Tomoharu is met with adversity and almost always finds a way to overcome it through some kind of personal discover or power-up or changes to his abilities altogether. All the while, the show meets this escalation with equally striking visuals during its more action-packed moments.
With characters that are at the very least likable for the traits that define them, action that is guaranteed to please a variety of interests, and a plot that progresses in the strangest ways possible, Asura Cryin' is an exciting show to say the least. It's a long shot from being anything great, but it never disappointed.