Asura's Wrath: The Animation

Asura's Wrath: The Animation (アスラズラース：アニメーション, Asurazurāsu: Animēshon) is an Japanese-American adult animation anime action-adventure television series by Takuma Hiroya, Aaron Ehasz, Junpei Mizusaki, Gray Haddock, Warren Ellis and Sunghoo Park. This Japanese-American action-adventure cartoon based on the Capcom and CyberConnect2 game Asura's Wrath. It ran for one season of twenty-fourth episodes. This project was biggest project to collaboration of anime-influenced between Japanese and American animation. It was aired on Adult Swim from USA in 2016 and later aired on MBS, Tokyo MX, BS Asahi, AT-X from Japan in 2018.

Synopsis
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Overview

Production
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Characters

 * Asura (アスラ, Asura) (Voiced by Liam O'Brien (English) and Hiroki Yasumoto (Japanese)) is the main protagonist and titular character of Asura's Wrath.

Supporting

 * Yasha (ヤシャ, Yasha) (Voiced by Robin Atkin Downes (English) and Junichi Suwabe (Japanese)) is the deuteragonist of Asura's Wrath.

Antagonists
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Story
The story takes place on Gaea, a world inhabited by human tribes, supernaturals, and gods. The game opens as the world is under attack by a demonic, destructive race known as the Gohma. Attempting to "purify" Gaea of their presence, the group of powerful and technologically advanced god-like cyborgs known as the Eight Guardian Generals, commanded by Emperor Strada of the nation of Shinkoku, lead an immense fleet of warships to fight the Gohma. The protagonist Asura is one of these generals along with his mentor Augus, his rival/brother-in-law Yasha, and his allies Olga, Sergei, Wyzen, Kalrow and Deus, the leader of the generals. As the generals engage in battle with the Gohma, Asura's daughter Mithra acts as the priestess of Shinkoku to empower him and the other generals through the power of Mantra, a cosmic energy collected with the prayers of their human worshipers and distilled through Mithra. The generals eventually confront the Gohma's source Vlitra, who literally tears open the planet when it reveals itself. While only subdued by Asura, the generals claim victory over Vlitra. Back on Gaea, Asura reunites with Mithra and his wife and Yasha's sister Durga before he is summoned by the Emperor only to find him dead upon arrival, the arriving guards accusing him of regicide and treason. A distraught Asura flees the palace after being forced to defend himself from Wyzen, returning to find Durga fatally wounded, revealing Mithra was kidnapped before she dies in his arms. Asura eventually locates Mithra, who is guarded by the other generals, but he is sent to his death by Deus, who reveals himself as the Emperor's murderer and claims he will use Mithra to "save the world".

Asura finds himself in the limbo of Naraka, where a mysterious Golden Spider goads him into regaining his memories and climbing back into the mortal world. When he returns, 12,000 years have passed and Gaea has become a barren wasteland, with the Gohma still causing destruction across the planet. He soon confronts Wyzen, who claims that the remaining generals have become the Seven Deities through the power of Mantra, which they collect with the souls of their worshipers. Filled with rage upon remembering his past, Asura channels Mantra on his own – a feat the Deities thought impossible – and destroys Wyzen in a long battle at the cost of his arms. However, Yasha arrives and easily kills Asura, sinking his body into molten lava.

Another 500 years pass and Asura's body has been excavated and worshiped by a small village, coming back to life as he encounters a young girl resembling Mithra. Not long after, Kalrow arrives and begins blatantly killing humans for Mantra. Asura manages to destroy Kalrow's fleet, learning from Kalrow that Deus intends to wipe out the Gohma for good, before crushing the pleading deity to death inside his own escape pod. Following this, Asura falls back to earth where he encounters Augus, who convinces him to drink and relax in a hot spring before they duel on the moon. Though Augus has the upper hand and impales Asura with his sword, Asura manages to break the sword, grabs the broken half with his teeth and uses it to gut Augus, who dies satisfied with the duel. Asura returns to the village with the girl from before, but it is bombarded by another fleet led by Olga. While Asura survives, he discovers the girl has been killed; overwhelmed with rage, Asura transforms into a demonic version of himself powerful enough to wipe out most of the armada. Olga then resorts to using the deities' planet sized super-weapon, the Brahmastra, but Yasha tries to stop the weapon from firing, believing that the thousands of souls used to power it would be wasted on Asura. He manages to stop the weapon in mid-fire, but Asura goes missing in the blast.

Following his actions, Deus orders Yasha, under the supervision of Sergei, to strike at the Gohma attacking a human city. Despite Yasha's best efforts to purify the Gohma and halt their advance, Sergei bombards both them and the city for more souls. As Yasha has commanded from space most of the time, he only now realizes the needless mass slaughter of humans for Mantra. Asura then reappears, still consumed by rage, and kills Sergei, but not before he reveals himself as Durga's murderer, something Yasha knew all along, yet still chose to side with Deus. Realizing Asura has become uncontrollable with rage, Yasha manages to subdue him and revert him back to his normal state as the two of them travel to Deus's ship. They confront Deus, where Yasha states that the deities' cause is worthless if trillions had to die in the process while also at the cost of Mithra's own suffering, shown to be drained of the Mantra she can collect and manipulate. Deus explains that he only betrayed the Emperor when he brushed off Deus's concerns over Vlitra's inevitable return. Both Asura and Yasha battle Deus and barely manage to defeat him. Before he dies, Deus claims with his last breath that only he could save Gaea, whereupon Vlitra returns once more, larger and more powerful than before. Asura and Yasha charge into battle against Vlitra despite being greatly outclassed, but Mithra aids them through Mantra empowerment, allowing them to break into Vlitra's center and destroy its core. While Asura does not know if it was truly defeated, he and Yasha return to Deus's ship and reunite with Mithra.

But then Olga reappears, unhinged by Deus's death, and attempts to kill Mithra in front of Asura and Yasha. However, the Golden Spider intervenes and kills Olga before taking residence in Mithra's body, sealing her away while revealing his true form – Chakravartin, the Lord of Creation. Chakravartin states that it was he who unleashed the Gohma upon Gaea in order to test Asura as a worthy inheritor of Gaea. Asura and Yasha attack Chakravartin only to find themselves outmatched and sent falling back to the planet, with Chakravartin proclaiming he will destroy the world and remake it once more. Settling things with Asura in a final duel, Yasha sacrifices himself to give his friend his Mantra Core and the Brahmastra's Mantra Reactor, allowing Asura to channel and control Mantra without destroying his body. Chakravartin fires a doomsday blast at Gaea but Asura deflects it after he flies into space and assumes a massive, near-godly form called Asura the Destructor. Asura engages Chakravartin in a battle that causes the very fabric of time and space to come apart with all of creation, eventually bringing down Chakravartin by sheer force of will. Before Asura can finish him, Mithra breaks free and urges him to stop, she warns him if Chakravartin is killed, all mantra and mantra-powered beings will cease to exist, including Asura himself. Asura chooses to destroy Chakravartin nonetheless, satisfied so long as Mithra can live free from danger. As the landscape around him collapses, Asura shares his final words with Mithra and vanishes, finally free of wrath. Mithra returns to Gaea, where she integrates with the surviving humans, spending many years recounting the tales of her father to the mortal children on Gaea.

Development
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Episodes
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Promos
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Tropes
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Variants

 * Production I.G: None
 * Polygon Studios: None
 * Studio 4°C: None
 * Marza Animation Planet: None
 * Polygon Studios: None
 * MAPPA: None
 * Capcom: None
 * Cartoon Network Studios: A scene from the second with Asura breaks out of Naraka and inhabits his body, freeing it after 12,000 years in a colossal explosion from beneath the surface.
 * Studio Sitrus: None
 * Titmouse Inc: None
 * Universal Television: None
 * Warner Bros Television: None
 * Williams Street: None

Reception
Asura's Wrath: The Animation received massive successful critical acclaim by critics and fans alike. The score on Rotten Tomatoes is currently "87%", with the critical consensus reading: Asura's Wrath: The Animation is one of a hell to adapt a good action packed adult animation cartoon but the anger, fury and rage will never dies. On Metacritic, the score is 95 to 100, indicating "Rage never dies".

(One of the reviewers calling it a spiritual successor to Samurai Jack, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Berserk (1997) Devilman Crybaby, and other action packed cartoons and anime.)

(Some reviewers liking Asura's Wrath: The Animation is better than Berserk (2016) and Monsuno.)

Critical reception
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Legacy
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Ratings
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Awards
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Controversy
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Home media
The complete first season has been released on November 17, 2018 on DVD, UltraViolet and Blu-Ray (included with 4K Ultra HD Blu-Ray) and later added on Crunchyroll and HBO Max in June 1, 2021 and also Peacock, Amazon Prime Video and Netflix in March 14, 2022.

Gallery
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Trivia
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