Review of Black Rock Shooter
To tell you frankly, I’m having mixed feelings about this one. Black Rock Shooter (which will now be known as BRS), being a short anime with only 8 episodes is not that easy to rate. On one hand, I really want to give it a high score but on the other hand, I see a lot of flaws in the story itself. Well, we won’t get anywhere by talking like this so let’s just get on to the review. Story: Actually, I think that BRS had one of the greatest potentials in any anime I have seen up to date. That’s why I find it sadthat the story didn’t develop properly because the series was too short. To provide you with a quick overview of the story, it starts off with a girl named Kuroi Mato, who has been having dreams about some girls who are constantly fighting in an alternate world. It turns these girls are actually their “souls”, the ones who carry the burden of all their sorrow. I won’t mention anything else from the plot but let me tell you, it could’ve been one of the most epic storyline out there if only it had been executed properly. You see, the problem with the plot is that it was way too short while being too fast paced. The story didn’t have time to develop. It was all happening too fast that the one watching would either not be able to enjoy it or would be left utterly confused because pace of the story. It also suffers from poor explanations. In the entire anime, there were very little explanations, leaving the viewers bewildered as to what is happening since no explanations were given. For example, although the latter half of the story is spent on the alternate world, we, the viewers have no idea as to what it is exactly. They also never explained as to why only girls have “soul” counterparts. Heck, they didn’t even mention as to why they even fight in the first place. To put it simply, it seems that the author took these things for granted, leaving us with an anime with a good plot, but done with poor execution. I will only give this a 7/10 for the reasons stated above.
Art and Sound: If there is one thing that made this anime truly awesome, it would be the animation. Although the real world looks normal, like your everyday generic anime, it is during the fight scenes that BRS truly shines. The animation was superb, with slick movements, great art and those weird yet epic angles. The special effects were also beautifully rendered, with blood being replaced by spurts of light of each character’s respective color motif. There are also those scenes where they have sword clashes, with sparks flying everywhere, scenes wherein they fight using guns, with shells raining down like no tomorrow and of course, some good hand to hand combat. Lastly, the background was also beautifully drawn, with each fight happening in a differently themed area, adding to the awesomeness of these scenes. These scenes were the one of the few redeeming qualities of BRS, and I’ll have to say, they really did a great job on this part. Now, with regard to the songs, they were pretty good, but they weren’t really my type of music (the OP was actually sung by Hatsune Miku). The background music though is something that I like a lot. It provides the ambience needed for each scene, and it’s one of the things I liked. I also found the voice acting good. The voices syncs properly with the characters mouths and it wasn’t overdone(A.K.A overacting).Overall, I give art a 9/10, because the anime only shines during the fights, and is pretty bland during the normal scenes while I give sound a 8/10, because I didn’t like the opening.
Characters: Now, if only this part was done right, it could’ve saved the entire anime, but unfortunately they didn’t. The characters had good concepts, but character development was going way too fast that it looked stupid, or at least unnatural. The main character, Kuroi is just a normal girl, who goes to school and basically enjoys life then suddenly she starts spouting nonsense philosophical lines about pain and stuff. Then there’s also Black Rock Shooter herself, who is pretty much an emotionless mute. Then there’s Kagari, a girl who is a bit sick in the head suddenly turns into a cutesy tsundere girl. And there’s Yomi, a girl who gets way too attached to people. There are other characters out there, but it would take too long to mention them all but the bottom line is, the characters are developing way too fast that they start to become boring. Overall, I would give it a 6/10 because the character development is poor, although this can also be blamed on the pacing of the story itself, which is way too fast.
Enjoyment: Did I enjoy it? Not really. I can’t say that it bored me but I also can’t say that I enjoyed it thoroughly. The Fight scenes were awesome and I enjoyed them, but the story itself was boring, and so are the characters, so they pretty much cancel out each other. All I can give it is a 7/10 since it wasn’t a “meh” anime nor is it an “Uber Awesome!” anime but more of an “OK” anime.
Overall: As I’ve said, I’m having mixed feelings about this anime. But since I’m more of a fan of story-driven animes, I’d be a bit biased and give this anime a 7/10.Now, if you’re the kind of person who likes action and stuff like that, I will suggest that you watch this cuz’ you will probably like this anime.
If you have any comments about my review, or have a different opinion about this anime, please do write a comment on my page, so I can see about what you think.