Review of Black Rock Shooter

Black Rock shooter has in it all that an anime needs to take even the most veteran viewers on an amazing ride, but you must be ready to watch it. In the following lines, I'll do my best to explain why. The story follows Mato Kuroi, a shy middleschooler whose very design relies on a fantastically exaggerated sense of empathy. She starts with little meaning to life or problems of her own, but we follow her as she dives into the lives of those around her and takes their issues and angst as her own, almost as if she's reading a reallygood novel and getting invested in it. It's as if her sole purpose in life is to jump into these stories and solve all the issues of the small, but memorable cast in a way we as audience wish we could.
And that's just half the story. The other half is nothing but concentrated, heavily symbolic, marvelously animated CGI fights done by the mysterious armed girls that resemble the show's characters in a different universe. This artistically beautiful and enticing world is deeply connected to the real one, and paying close attention to detail is paramount if you wish to understand what's happening in each episode and in the story as a whole.
Overall, BRS's true objective is to bring reflection on emotions and all the different ways we deal with them, using a wide variety of storytelling techniques to shove loads of story into a tiny 8 episode frame. This is also its largest flaw: being such a dense anime, you will get confused if you try to watch it halfheartedly or expecting some dumb tale about a girl in a bikini shooting stuff.
Not that I blame you for thinking that; the cover does kinda look like that's what they were going for.
I believe that the main reason for the abysmal difference between my rating and the general score is due to too many people not investing enough time and attention in understanding the story. I can't blame them, since I've only realized everything I wrote here years later, as I watched it a second time.
Also the opening is Vocaloid, so be warned.