A Goddess worshiped under many names throughout the Mediterranean, she is a goddess associated with fertility, love, and war along with being the deification of Venus. In Greece she is known as Aphrodite and was worshiped as a Goddess of Love. In Egypt Astarte was a warrior goddess paired with Anat. In Phoenicia she is a sister of Asherah and Ba'alat Gebal who are married to their brother El by order of their father Epigeius.
In Abrahamic lore she is known as Ashtoreth and is seen by them as a Canaanite fertility goddess as well as a productive power of nature itself. Statues of her would be found throughout Israel with her symbol the crescent moon horns. She is sometimes mistaken for Asherah, but both Ashtoreth and Asherah are different deities even though the two do share the title of Queen of Heaven. She was eventually demonized into the demon Astaroth. She is a counterpart deity to Ishtar and the two are often associated with the other.
Astarte is Kanaru Morimoto's persona that awakens after she overcomes her addiction to Kagenuki. When it becomes clear that Kanaru has been a plant for Marebito, it's revealed that her persona while under their influence is Ashtoreth, which Shin Kanzato cuts from her with Abel's ability to separate a persona from its user. After Kanaru's death, Megumi Kayano and Takuro Sakakiba are able to summon Astarte in the final confrontation with Ayane Komatsubara's clone.
