Black Bullet

Black Bullet refers to the Varanium bullets used by civil officers, the only bullets capable of bringing down the alien menace that has been plaguing humanity, especially in the Tokyo Area. The anime bears several similarities to the well-received Attack on Titan series, but ultimately fails to deliver with its absurd and forced plot twists, its lack of supporting character development and its failure to offer proper resolution to the main conflict that it proposes.

TL;DR
Story: 2/10
Art: 7/10
Sound: 6/10
Character: 5/10
Enjoyment: 6/10
Overall: 5/10 (rounded up from 4.875)

... Good points:
+ Exciting for some action scenes
+ Great fast-paced action music
+ Good art and animation
+ Lots of moe characters
+ Great OP theme

Bad points:
- Poor and messy plot lines
- Forced and unconvincing plot twists and lousy plot explanations
- Underdeveloped cast of characters
- Lack of proper pacing throughout anime, boring towards the middle
- Lack of satisfactory resolution
- Cliched and unoriginal main character
- Lack of antagonist development
- Insane amount of plot holes (17 in total)

Story: 2/10

Black Bullet is about humanity's defense against the Gastrea, an unknown alien lifeform that can infect humans and convert them into Gastrea, which threatens to destroy this particular Tokyo Area. Civil officers, also known as Promoters, are paired with Initiators, girls born with Gastrea Virus and have special powers, to fight against the Gastrea threat together. It is not known why Gastrea Virus only allows for the Cursed Children to be born only as females, but it sure helps the entire harem genre.

The plot of Black Bullet is divided into 3 distinct plot arcs, namely the Hiruko Kagetane arc, the Tina Sprout arc and the final Aldebaran arc. I will go through the merits and flaws of each arc chronologically.

In the first arc, our two inseparable protagonists, Satomi and Enju start off in the middle of a mission to locate and eliminate a Gastrea running rampant in the streets of Tokyo. The promoter-initiator team fail to catch it, but instead faces off with an infected human who turns into a Gastrea himself, and destroys him before he causes more havoc. Immediately we are given a grim reminder of how gory and bloody this anime can be, and of how much resemblance it bears to classic "zombie"-type shows where humans are at risk of turning into monsters themselves. (+1 for excitement)

Immediately afterward, the two are summoned by Seitenshi to a meeting of civil officers, where one of them, Hiruko Kagetane, starts killing off many of the civil officers there without proper reason and threatens to obtain a dangerous package, said to be able to summon a level 4 Gastrea, located within the Gastrea that was running rampant. At this point, explanation about the different classes and levels of Gastrea make them seem very similar to the Kaijus as depicted in Pacific Rim, where the higher level they are, the large and more powerful they become. As Satomi races to get the package ahead of Kagetane, he encounters them and gets defeated but somehow survives to have another go at them again. This time, he and Enju managed to beat them and retrieve the package that Seitenshi needed.

The contents of the package, as it turns out, happens to be a little bicycle rather than something dangerous that Satomi thought it would be, but after confronting Seitenshi about this, he isn't given any answers and for the rest of this anime, nothing further is said about the first Kanto war, or about the origins of the Gastrea in the first place, so that's a real bummer. The anime completely avoids any explanation on the entire point of the first arc, so it really suffers from plot depth entirely.

In the second arc, Seitenshi hires Satomi as a personal bodyguard, and in so doing introduces a very unnecessary, stupid and annoying "rivalry" between Satomi and Yasuwaki, who has a complex for Seitenshi-sama (though honestly, who wouldn't when she has that innocent kind of face?). This particular plot point sparks off an entire host of stupid "revenge" things that Yasuwaki does which end up as failed plot twists. We learn soon that Seitenshi is an assassination target by a girl called Tina Sprout, who so happens bumps into Satomi in the day, and has to face-off with him at night while he is guarding Seitenshi.

When Ayn Rand, Tina's boss, finds out Satomi's identity, he orders Tina Sprout to kill Kisara, Satomi's boss. At this point Tina doesn't know that Satomi is the bodyguard and she conveniently drops her phone after someone bumps into her so that she never gets the information that Satomi was actually her target. Kisara nearly dies in Tina's hands, but it was honestly Tina's fault that she failed to kill Kisara faster. Anyway, Satomi is there to save her and finally faces off against Tina in a battle where Satomi triumphs.

Yasuwaki then randomly appears and shoots Tina, and then immediately gets demoted by Seitenshi, who has somehow known that Tina was being controlled by Ayn Rand, and then promotes Satomi to be Yasuwaki's senior-in-rank. Again, at the end of the arc, we get no explanation about Ayn Rand and his connection to Sogen, the alleged perpetrator of the whole episode, and we also get no explanation as to why Tina wasn't charged with anything and how come she can suddenly join the Tendo Civil Security agency. This arc was honestly quite the mess.

The last and final arc was basically a huge war between the Gastrea and the civil officers, sparked by the collapse of Monolith 32 due to a varanium-corrosive liquid that a level 4 Gastrea, Aldebaran was emitting. It starts off with Satomi looking around for people to join his team, and managed to get Katagiri Tamaki, his older brother and Shouma Nagisawa, and old friend, to do so.

While preparations are being made to defend against the frontal Gastrea assault, there is a side-story arc about Satomi and Kisara teaching a group of Cursed Children kids and getting all familiar with them before they are brutally bombed by unknown people who are not mentioned in the anime, and increasing the drama and tension between normal people and cursed children, and advancing the plot in no particular way. This segment was completely useless because the children were only after they died, so the melodrama felt completely forced and lame.

Anyway, back to the war, the civil officers are down to 50% of the strength after they unexpectedly encounter the Pleiades, known as the Spear of Light that killed many of their forces in the first battle. Satomi then, under orders, sets off the kill the Pleiades once and for all so that they would have an upper hand in the subsequent fight. Satomi ends up encountering Kagetane, whom he thought he killed off in the first arc, who saved his life from a bunch of Gastrea wolves. The two end up cooperating to kill of Pleiades and they rush back to the remaining civil officers to regroup for a final stand against the remaining Gastrea.

After some absolutely mindless dictatorship act by Satomi, who claims that it's better for the civil officers to fear their leader than to fear the Gastrea, they come up with a plan, together with Miori, a weapons specialist, to insert an EP Bomb capable of destroying the supposedly-immortal Aldebaran from the inside. As the plan goes underway, Satomi managed to get the bomb in, but for reasons unknown and for plot convenience, the bomb's timer malfunctions and Shouma ends up having to use his shockwave punch to detonate it, killing both Aldebaran and Shouma in a massive giant explosion.

In the end, they are announced as victors of the 3rd Gastrea War. Kisara ends up killing Kazumitsu, her brother, who endangered everyone's lives by making Monolith 32 out of cheaper material. However, nothing conclusive is said about the entire discrimination against Cursed Children conflict and the perpetrators who bombed innocent schoolchildren were never found. Also, Kisara ends up being engulfed by some inner evil and leaves Satomi, putting an end to a relationship that the audience honestly wanted to have succeeded.

Most of the story was pretty much cliched and non-original. While there was some attempt at creating a deeper plot, by chunking elements of discrimination, revenge and corruption into it, none of these themes were thoroughly examined enough to give it credit. Also, none of the plot twists made any sense, as those that were surprising were incoherent and those that had potential were never explained. There was at least a main overarching conflict as in the war against Gastrea, but this conflict was never resolved (+1). As for coherence, I have a lot of plot holes to mention.

In Episode 2, the old man in the business suit tells all the civil security officers intend to decline the job to leave, despite him not informing them anything about the details of the job. He then goes on to say that the moment they are informed, they cannot decline. So basically nobody is allowed to make informed decisions? In the end, the job of retrieving the package turned out to be "first-come-first-serve" so none of what that man said held any water.

Also, in episode 2, when Hiruko Kagetane is officially introduced, he takes out a clean present that is later revealed to have contained a decapitated head. The anime then cuts into a horrifying "reveal" of a bloodied present to give the audience a scare. But this is all a farce because if there really was a bloody head inside, how the heck did Kagetane keep the present so clean all this while? Also, if Kagetane killed that man earlier, shouldn't all the blood in the head have dried up by now? None of this makes sense, the dramatic reveal was really forced.

In episode 3, there is a lot of talk about the Initiators being discriminated against even though they protect humanity. But if the Cursed Children are the only way to defeat Gastrea, then why are so many of them still left to live alone in the outskirts? Is the majority of humanity ignorant of this fact? Because that's not possible with so many civil servants around.

Also, why aren't these children being sent to government training facilities and made to hone their skills to fight against Gastrea? Why is it that so many of these children are left abandoned, left to die, and only a few are becoming Initiators? That's just a huge wastage of talent right there.

Also, when Satomi is defeated by Kagetane, he gets shot in the chest, then stabbed and sawed repeatedly by two swords, then shot again in the chest and falls off a cliff into a river. It's hard to believe at this point, that he could still possibly survive. Even if the blood loss doesn't kill him, he would drown. Also, he manages to recover without any major organ damage within one day and three hours. I don't know about you, but this guy must be Wolverine or something.

In Episode 6, highly skilled assassin Tina finds that the best way to identify her target is to simply ask the target herself and get vocal confirmation, instead of visual confirmation. This basically gives Kisara time to react and prevented Tina from succeeding her mission with one hit. Not very professional, if you ask me. If Tina's boss has given her all the required information to track down Kisara, there's no reason he wasn't able to give her an image to allow her to confirm her target.

In Episode 7, Yasuwaki goes to ambush Satomi and shoots Tina, then says that he wanted to see Satomi's desperate reaction to it. But how would Yasuwaki know anything about Satomi's relationship with Tina? In fact, how would Yasuwaki even know that Tina was still alive when she was barely even moving in Satomi's arms? Also, how the heck were the two others guards able to pin down Satomi by just holding each of his arms? Satomi is way stronger than that and would have easily escaped their grapple and stopped Yasuwaki.

At the end of the episode, Tina joins Kisara's agency but nothing is said of her interrogation or sentence. Does this mean Tina was acquitted? How and why? Perhaps because she was a minor?
I guess that means it's perfectly fine to assassinate people as long as you're a minor then. Also, even though the anime does mention that Ayn Rand would come to target her soon, this is never followed-up on in the anime, so it fails right there.

In Episode 10, the anime makes a futile attempt at introducing the names of the schoolchildren after they've all died. Unfortunately, they should have done this earlier and since all of the children were pretty much the same, they could all have just been one entity and it wouldn't have mattered. The entire emotional scene is a complete farce that doesn't do anything for the plot anyway. Who bombed the place? How did this person know that place amidst all the rubble even exists? None of this was explained in the anime, just left hanging for audiences to get confused.

In Episode 11, Tina says that her Shenfield scanners can only scan surroundings but cannot send images to her. This makes no sense because if she can control them remotely, and if Shenfield has a scanning ability, there's no reason why it can't send the wavelength information back to her. Also, how does she know that the mercury-shooting Gastrea was large if she didn't get any image from Shenfield? This is just a convenient way to introduce a new enemy while keeping it mysterious.

Also, if Tina noticed this dangerous Gastrea during the battle, why only bring it up so long AFTER the first battle ended? Did she not think that such information would be incredibly useful in making tactical decisions during the battle?

In Episode 12, we are so many years into the future but Miori is using stage lighting to locate the enemy? What ever happened to infrared radar, satellite tracking or even sonar? And if the Aldebaran is so huge anyway, isn't it pretty obvious where it's location is? It can be seen from like miles away, and that amount of destruction it leaves in it's wake is completely noticeable!

Furthermore, at the end of the episode, Yasuwaki decides that throwing away the batteries and potentially letting the whole of Tokyo Area and himself get destroyed is okay as long as he gets his revenge on Rentaro. Do I look like I have the time to put up with any more of this annoying and stupid character's nonsense? Seriously?

And finally, we have episode 13 which has like the most plot holes of the entire anime, attributing it to the incredibly horrible resolution.

First, the Tokyo citizens light up flying lanterns to represent their wishes, which inadvertently helps Satomi and the others to identify the enemy's position. If they needed those huge spotlights to spot the Aldebaran in the first place, there's no way those lanterns flying so high up in the sky would give enough light to light up the place anyway. The hot air would carry them too high up in the sky for their light to reach the ground below, even if there were millions of those lanterns.

Also, for the lanterns to give enough light throughout the entire battle, the citizens would have to be continually lighting up lanterns repeatedly throughout the battle, otherwise the lanterns would burn out within 15 minutes. But we clearly see the citizens doing nothing but watching after lighting up the first set of lanterns.

Second, at the most critical point of the anime, they throw another expected senseless twist.
The EP bomb has an "error" for no apparent reason other than plot convenience so that Satomi and Shouma can dramatically decide to sacrifice themselves in an attempt to destroy Aldabaran.

Third, Satomi punches Enju in the stomach to knock her out so that he can sacrifice himself, but this is the first time I've heard of the idea of someone getting knocked out by a blow to the stomach. In fact, Enju is more likely to have suffered severe organ damage before any loss of consciousness would have occured.

Fourth, Kisara has always been saying that Gastrea killed her parents, how did she suddenly know that Kazumitsu was to blame for her parents' death, just because of his involvement with Monolith 32? There seems to be a rather huge logic jump here. Even if her parents' death was suspicious, there was no reason to suspect her brother immediately.

Fifth, Kisara claims that the second strike of her secret sword style moves "faster than sound".
Unfortunately, when Kisara did that move, no sound was heard from the shockwaves that should have been created by the blade moving so quickly through the air.

Also, the sudden reveal that Kisara had already killed Kazumitsu made no sense whatsoever. Even if her slash was so quick that it was unnoticeable, it cannot explain why it took so long for Kazumitsu's head to split apart. Kazumitsu easily sat there talking with Kisara for 3 minutes before he "exploded" into blood and gore. This sudden twist was rather unnecessary and incredibly forced.

Altogether that's a total of 17 plot holes (for a 13-episode anime, that's pretty high, more than 1 plot fail per episode), and because of the incredibly high number, I'm afraid I have to go with zero points for coherence and logical sense of this plot, because there basically just isn't any. The plot does more to confuse us than to amaze us and spits at us when it wants to make twists. This is honestly the first time I've given a score for the plot for any anime so low.

Art: 7/10

The general artistic theme of the anime is pretty good, I thoroughly enjoyed the drawing and aesthetic of all the characters. They were pretty varied and creatively drawn. Even Seitenshi-sama who had quite the mono-colour scheme fit well with her "fixed" mindset and personality. The fighting scenes were pretty well animated, and was exciting when it was done well. Unfortunately, there were many instances where this anime got lazy with those scenes and made them end in mere seconds.

Opening sequence: 2/2
Ending sequence: 0/2
Animation: 2/3
Aesthetics: 3/3

Sound: 6/10

OP Theme: 2/2 - Absolutely fantastic, I always kept this running through every episode because it was so upbeat and exciting
ED Theme: 1/2 - Quite an okay theme, but nothing too amazing
Background Music: 3/4 - Most of it was actually really good, like during the action and fast-paced scenes, the music really kept the suspense up. But for the emotional scenes, they kept repeating the same not-very-melancholic tune over and over again that it really detracted from those scenes.
No additional themes: 0/2

Character: 5/10

The main character is Satomi Rentaro, a civil officer who is basically a fighter of justice (and oh I've heard this title far too often already). He has exceptional Tendo skills and his martial art fighting style is simple, yet powerful and effective. (+1 for great fighting skills) Unfortunately nothing much else stands out for him. His character is rather cliched, just the same hero trying to protect the people around him and is willing to risk his life in doing so. At one point, his character seems to change and he becomes a ruthless dictator to rally the troops together, but this is completely reversed when we know he is just putting on an act. He's your stereotypical male lead with little more than face value.

The other character that I was quite interested in at the beginning was Kisara. She clearly had a very dark past, even setting up her civil security agency out of "revenge" against the Gastrea. Although we don't see much character development apart from "having feelings for Satomi", she eventually goes crazy out of her desire for revenge that she murders her own brother and sells her soul to evil. This is pretty rare for animes out there, to have a main character becoming "corrupt" and never really resolving by the end of the anime, so I'll at least give a point for that. (+1 for unique growth). She also has pretty badass sword skills but they were so rarely shown in the anime, it's hard to love her for that. She is pretty moe though, and does get into a lot of awkward and funny interactions with Satomi, so I guess that's a plus (+1 for cuteness).

Enju Aihara, Satomi's partner, first strikes as a very lovable, cute character. She's playful, has an obsession for Rentaro, and is probably the most developed and grown character out of all the initiators out there. She starts off naive, ignorant of the real world, but once she is exposed to seeing the discrimination against Cursed Children, leading to death and destruction, we start to see a slight improvement in maturity, where she learns, through talks with Satomi, to decide for herself what she is fighting for (+1 for growth). Unfortunately, she doesn't get much action time and ultimately just sits back and does nothing for the plot while Satomi does all the plot-driving work.

Then we have the antagonist, or former antagonsit, Hiruko Kagetane, who starts off being portrayed as a bloodthirsty crazy killer who kills without reason, into having some actual reasons for him doing so (aka "ushering a new age"). But he has this weird interest in Satomi that convinces him not to kill Satomi off immediately, and even ends up teaming up with him and protecting him from bullets toward the end of the anime. We don't know much else about him, except that he's a rather complex and interesting character. (+1 for interest)

The last character that is worth mentioning is Tina Sprout, who converted from being an assassin who targets Seitenshi, to a fellow Initiator, and Kisara's partner. She starts off completely brainwashed, feeling purposeless if she doesn't listen to orders and kill people, and eventually managed to find hope in Satomi, whom she also falls for. Unfortunately, after that point she also lost all sense of being a character whatsoever. In fact, it's not just Tina, but all the other Cursed Children as well who all suddenly begin to converge into a single entity - this collective archetype of people who "fall in love with Satomi" and think of nothing but marrying him. All of a sudden, the character development falls off when it could have taken flight, so this was honestly very unfortunate.

The rest of the supporting cast does have a host of interesting characters. People like Sumire, Shouma and Kayou Senji, all look like they have been through a lot, and I would really have loved to hear their backstories, but we know basically none of it. We know a bit of their background, but nothing substantial enough to have a say on their character. Every other character is a complete waste of time and even less is known about them.

Enjoyment: 6/10

Altogether, this anime was quite the disappointment for me, but I wasn't expecting much from it either. There were some parts that I got really bored, and there were also some parts where I was quite interested to watch on.

On the humour side, the anime has performed okay. There were many funny parts between Satomi and Kisara and their supposed love line, and this happens throughout the anime. Enju's and Tina's reactions to Satomi are also funny at first, until it becomes a bit too repetitive until they weren't funny anymore. But there were also funny parts involving Sumire who constantly teased Satomi about his crush for Kisara. (+1)

In terms of excitement, I would say that the anime has done rather well. From the beginning it kicked off with great action that got more and more interesting as the story progressed from just fighting Gastrea to dealing with an assassination threat and finally to an all out war. I can't give full points for it though because the action and excitement during the final arc was very underwhelming, and I honestly expected to see much more "war" scenes than just the few that occurred. (+2)

In terms of emotion, the anime really and completely failed there. There are some valid attempts during the parts where Satomi and Enju are emotionally torn about what they are fighting for. But in especially the part where Satomi mourns for the dead schoolchildren, the emotion really felt so forced because we didn't even know their names before they died, and while the voice acting was realistic, the character development was not. (+1)

Pacing-wise, the anime definitely managed to grip the audience from the beginning, but it kind of faltered towards the middle and failed to sustain this interest throughout. There were many slow-paced scenes where I honestly felt bored with all the talking and there were scenes which I felt I could simply totally skip because they bore no significance to the plot or characters. Also, the resolution wasn't very satisfactory because the threat of Gastrea was still out there and there were many loose ends about the truth of Gastrea, the future of Kagetane, Kisara, and many things unexplained. (+1)

This anime receives 1 bonus point for having no filler episodes. (+1)

Overall: 4.875/10

Black Bullet is probably an anime you want to watch only if you have some time to kill and really no other shows to watch, or you just want to watch something without becoming too overly attached to it. It suffers from a great many plot holes and lousy plot developments, coupled with poor resolution and plot explanations. It also basically suffers from sub-par characters with little backstory and development to work with. The best part of this anime was the action music, no doubt about it.

This is an anime that has obviously been rushed, one of which has one of the best stories and background lore to its title adding many themes and ideas such as racism, what it means to be human as well as the meaning of life and the causalities in war. The makers have tried really hard to finish it as quick as they can and that can obviously be seen through the dullness in the characters and how really there aren't any tear jerking scenes AT all in a genre such as this. But mainly what I am trying to say is as far as ... this anime goes in its 13 episodes, it failed because they could HAVE done much better and much more. It mainly felt like 'oh, this person died, what do we do now, whatever, get over it, fight seen and back to trying to be emotional all in one episode'. My final verdict is a 5 at my sincere disappointment in how they screwed up one of the best stories that could have been made.

*This review is spoiler free*
Black Bullet is a story about a boy with his "cursed girl" defeating a monster called "Gastreas".

The reason why i watched this anime is because some of my friends recomended it. Surely, the dark theme fits me so much ,so i have a high hope for this anime. I watched this anime in a marathon style, but i was very dissapointed...

Story- 5
The story about gastreas itself is not that original but unique in its own ways. When we are biten/ infected by them we will become one of those monster that endanger humanity. But the problem lies in the ... story itself. If humanity, is really endangered by those species and living in fear, WTF is the people and the military is all the same.
First of all the people, will you still wander around at street when late night if those monster can appear out of nowhere? Think about it, the people still act like "there's nothing wrong with gastreas lying around, we are havin' fun"
Second, The military is so goddamn poor, why did they have so few ppl that are willing to fight gastreas? Or why dont the government force them to fight them if the army isnt sufficient enough.

"The Joker" should be a really interesting character but in this anime , AGAIN even one of the most interesting character got blown off in its plot, he left things unexplained until the end of the anime.

Sound- 8
I wont lie on this, the soundtrack is great, i even downloaded the opening and the ost is... well its not that good but its pretty fair imo

Animation- 6
For a shounen battle anime that have a dark theme, the art is bad imo because the background not moving, the building whatsoever is pretty bad

Character -4
Goddamnit i even forget the mc name is the first impression when i write this review. The MC is really forgettable. One of the main character Kisara san become so dark at the end. Loli being useless at the last battle etc, its damned frustating.

Enjoyment- 7
Despite all of that i still enjoy the anime. This is the kind of anime you should not get your hopes so high, because it surely will dissapoint you, and 1 more suggestion: Turn your brain off while watching this.

Overall -6
+Good OP and ED
+Unique writing
+Easy to understand

-Bad Characters writing
-Shit ending
-Really forgetable, both the anime or the characters

I'm gonna keep this short and to the point. I have mixed feelings about the show, especially due to the final episode. Throughout the show, I thoroughly enjoy the story and characters, but there are flaws.

The story doesn't seem to have a continuing conflict or arc, but many small arcs that last for a few episodes at a time and don't connect very well. A lot of the character's own stories are either untold or not expanded upon enough I found and that didn't help with the immersion, but it can tend to be overlooked at times.

The last episodes leave a lot to be ... desired and are a bit forced. The rapid change in the standpoints of good and bad in characters is too much for the time they're introduced. Many characters seemingly appear and disappear throughout, and the deaths of some characters don't make you feel all that bad about their loss because of this.

My final vice is a bit odd but not misplaced (SOMEWHAT OF A SPOILER, BUT NOT REALLY)


The fact that Rentaro breaks down in the final moments of the last episode because he feels desensitized to the deaths of his comrades feels misplaced and forced to the extreme. Very little explanation and reasoning behind this and the fact that Enju tells him they'll be "together forever" makes the scene feel so out of place that I was uncomfortable with it. That being said, I may have misread the scene or have missed some contributing factor that makes it more understandable (Please feel free to correct me via a message if this is the case).

In the end, while I enjoyed the majority of it, the pace of the show, misplacement of factors and underdevelopment of characters and plot points put this show at a 6 for me. Please watch it and put in your own viewpoints on it as everyone has different opinions on such things, and the comments of one reviewer have no effect on the overall greatness or shortcomings of any work, be it a show, book, play or others.

The world that Black Bullet takes place in a post-apocalyptic Japan where mysterious entities called Gastrea roam the Earth. The Gastrea have wiped out much of the human population putting those who remain threatened with extinction. The story follows Satomi Rentarou and he's initiator Enju Aihara who are civil officers with the task of defending the remnants of Tokyo from the Gastrea threat.

The first section seemed to be the best for the series. The characters were fresh and interesting but towards the end of the series many character became completely inconsistent with their beliefs and values. Character mood changed drastically between episodes and within ... episodes which only caused confusion about what the writers were trying to accomplish for the series.

Not to mention that during the series many plot devices and dialogs were put in never to be iterated upon ever again. This created a very hap-hazardous story line where there's actually too much trying to be done to keep a deep and meaningful storyline going.

To be honest the only reason I got interested in the show was because of the Characters Enju and Tina. I was hoping that they could have had more screen time but I understand that the series only had a short 13 episode season. Had it gotten 24 episodes I'm sure I would have far less to complain about.

To sum it all up Black Bullet had a nice beginning but failed to deliver on the final episodes. The characters all tried to become much more than the story could handle with caused many inconsistencies to occur.The story had far too many loose ends to make it a satisfying series.

Black Bullet was one of those anime that was hyped to the extreme, most likely because of the success of SNK/AOT, whose setting is very similar to Black Bullet's. However, compared to the thrilling experience i had with SNK, Black Bullet kind of disappointed me.
Let's start with the story: The premise for this anime is amazing by itself, a virus that turns humans into monsters, and the remnants of humanity being trapped within protected areas (recognize anything?). With the setting I have no problem. Then we get to the actual fights. Oh boy, here we go. A common pattern in Black Bullet is that a ... seemingly insurmountable threat or responsibility is placed in front of the protagonist to deal with, usually having a few episodes of build-up before the fight to show how much of a challenge the upcoming match will be. Then the confrontation with the great danger occurs, and the protagonist defeats the enemy in a few minutes, sometimes even a few seconds, with hardly any hassle at all; whether it was because there was something convenient lying around, or the protagonist had some hidden power that was unknown until now. See the problem? I think the main reason for this is because pace of the anime was extremely rushed, and BB could have used a full 25 or even 26 episode season instead of just a 12.
Alright, let's get to the characters. For the most part, the characters in Black Bullet are all lovable and each have their own quirks and gimmicks that make each of them memorable in their own special way. As for their designs, nothing particularly special, just what we would usually expect from any anime.
Overall, this is an okay anime; not very good, but then again, not very bad. For those who haven't seen this yet, I would suggest watching it just to watch it.

Black Bullet is an anime adaptation of a light novel with the same name. People often call this series as a rip-off of Attack on Titan, due to the similar premise.

Story - 5/10
The story takes place in a post-apocalypse Tokyo. Where giant bugs-robot-thingies called Gastraea. So our Protagonists must protect Tokyo from the Gastraea threat with the help of LOLIS!!!!

First off, for a "Post-Apocalypse" world, Tokyo doesn't feel post-apocalyptic enough. People are still happily living in a clean environment with a working economy. It could be better if it actually shows us the effect of the past Gastraea Wars.

Second off, the pacing. Overly rushed, ... is an understatement. It's poorly done. One minute we're having a fanservice moment, and the next minute a Genocide occurred. I know this is based on a Light Novel, but a fast pacing can be acceptable if done well.

Third off, the mood. They basically threw it out of the window. Black bullet tries too hard to be dark. But the loli moments and gritty moments basically cancel each other out. It switches from a comedic to dark in less then a minute. Therefore, it's a complete mess.

So overall, the story is mediocre at best.

Art - 7/10
The art is done well enough to keep you entertained. The Gastraea's 3D models are really well done. It fits to the scene nicely.

Although some battle scenes are really rushed, the art is one of this series' best aspects.

Sound - 7/10
The soundtrack is great. The songs fit into the scene's mood perfectly. Whether the mood is comedic or dark. But as I said before, since the mood was a complete throw-off, the songs aren't really memorable.

Character - 3/10
This is where it starts going down hill. Like, really down. Most of the characters felt bland and empty. But when there's an interesting character, they either don't get much development and screen time, or just killed instantly.

Rentaro, the main protagonist, is just a usual "I-want-to-protect-everybody"-kind of guy. Which, by the way, can be found in most shonen materials. Whether it's anime or manga. Nothing is really different about him.

But the rest of the crew is just bland. Enju is too annoying, and Kisara is a typical Tsundere (Even though she changed at the very last episode, it didn't do much for her character.) Tina is the most interesting one, but even then, she didn't get the character development she deserved.

But what really killed this for me is that this series has a bad, BAD, set of antagonists. You have the Kisara's grandpa person, which was revealed to be evil AT THE VERY LAST MINUTE. Then you have the Osaka-president guy, who is just your plain "Rule-the-world" bad guy. We have Kisara's older brother, which just appeared and was revealed to be evil AT THE VERY LAST GODDAMN MINUTE.

And the most annoying antagonist I've ever known, the Bodyguard guy. (Nobody remember his name anyway) His motivation to be evil and hate Rentaro is just... UGH!!!

Kagetane and his daughter, Kohina, is the only redeeming ones. But then again, as I said before, Didn't get enough development.

Overall - 6/10
This anime tried to mark itself as a Dark Action Seinen with a dash of Loliness. Which at the end failed to do. Miserably.
But if you can get past the weak setting, and bland characters, you might just enjoy this anime for what it is. A mess of Gritty and Loli-y moments slapped together.

Black Bullet is a decent anime especially if you've only just started watching anime and it can be a massivly fun thing to watch but sadly this is a anime that's beginning and middle are great but ending is just terrible this review will contain SPOILERS you have been warned.

Black bullet starts off back when Rentaro Satomi is just a little boy and an accident makes him lose a arm and a leg flash forward about 10 years and rentaro is a member of a agency whose job is to stop a virus which causes people to mutate into hideous monsters named Gastrea which is ... a pretty neat idea while the virus mainly causes people to turn into spider like creatures it seems a bit lazy that the spider type is the only type really seen in the series by the end Rentaro has met and Beaten rivalries stopped the fall of Tokyo...... for now and learned of a new threat but sadly the anime ends with so many questions like what happens to the newly found friend turned foe what will happen to the Gastrea what about Rentaro and his partner Enju what happens to them after a heart warming moment sadly we'll never know as Black bullet was a light novel and a 12 episode series so many things we'll never be explained

so that's why i have to give this a 6/10

What happens when a show introduces a villain who is more enjoyable than the main character ? What happens when the villain's actions make more sense than those of the main character ? What happens when the villain is literally the only reason you watch the show ?

You start rooting for the villain. And then you get disappointed as the main character, who you really don't care about has it his way while the villain doesn't.

Black Bullet is a prime example of having a main character that is so bland in comparison to the main villain that you wish the villain was the main character.

But ... first let's start with the story. You will probably have understood from the synopsis that this is a post-apocalyptic world where humanity has been reduced to a minimum due to the rise of giant insects, also known as Gastrea. Or rather, I say post-apocalyptic but everything seems fine as everybody is living their peaceful daily lives in town, protected by these black obelisks.

The setting is actually pretty confusing and raises multiple questions. It is also riddled with plot holes.

First we are explained that humanity barely survived the war against Gastrea. Then we are showed people living in peace. So it'd be normal to assume that the humans have won the war thus have no reason to live in fear. But no ! Gastrea are still around and some of them are even inside the "safe" town, thus why our main character, Satomi Rentarou, exists. His work as a "Promoter" is to kill the Gastrea that infest the town... wait. So if it is openly accepted that Gastrea are still roaming around, how come people live their daily lives as usual ? How come the policemen don't have black bullets, the only bullets that can injure Gastrea, just like the Promoters ?

But whatever. Within minutes after the beginning of the first episodes, we are introduced straight away to the main antagonist - or at least I like to think of him as the main antagonist - of the series: Hiruko Kagetane. A tall, cunning man wearing a magician outfit along with a white mask.
Our main character has his little encounter with him and fight from which we learn that Hiruko doesn't even need to pay attention to Rentarou to fight him: he literally beats him while being on the phone. Keep that in mind for this is an important point.

Later in the series there will be more encounters and fights between Rentarou and Hiruko.
One thing that needs to be stated is that not a single time does Rentarou train or upgrades his skills or whatever. From the first to the last episode, he is literally never seen powering up.
So this is where my other main issue with the fight scenes happens.

*SPOILER AHEAD*

During his "last" encounter with Hiruko, Rentarou manages to defeat him using his prosthetic limbs that he... was hiding during every other encounter ? This is another major plot hole, as we are told that he had them from the beginning so why did Rentarou get beaten up so often without ever using them ? It's not even like there's any drawback to use them, did he just forgot to pull out his trump card or something ?

*END OF SPOILER*

Anyway, in terms of motives and personality, that the main character is very easily forgettable. He is a "hero of justice" you could say and he fights for every single loli he meets (this anime is full of them). He fights for a better world for them, or at least that's what he thinks.

At this point I feel like it's important to state that in the current society, the red-eyed little girls Rentarou fights for are discriminated against due to having Gastrea blood in their veins.

Then we learn of Hiruko's motives. He wants to create a new war against Gastrea where the red-eyed lolis will be used to defeat them (because the red-eyed lolis have super strength on par with that of a Gastrea). This would accomplish two things: exterminate the Gastrea once and for all and allow society to see the red-eyed girls in a better light as they would be the heroes who defeated the Gastrea. From a logical point of view, it makes sense and this is where I started siding with Hiruko more than Rentarou.

Rentarou tries at all costs to stop Hiruko from starting a new war. He tries to protect the very same world that is unfair to the lolis he wants to protect... why ? That does not make any sense. Hiruko states that he and Rentarou are the same and he offers him to join him... but Rentarou has just about no real reason to refuse... yet he does.

The moment you understand that, Rentarou starts to look like a huge pushover who has no will of his own and just does things because that's what he is "meant to do".

As you have probably understood by now, the multiple plot-holes in the story (and there are a lot more, trust me) and the lack of identity of the main character are the two down sides of this show.

Something that adds to the fact that I rooted more for Hiruko than Rentarou is how Rikiya Koyama is voicing Kagetane. His voice is on point and it really makes the character feel slightly crazy while still gentleman-like.

I can't say the same about the main character but I'm not blaming the voice actor. There isn't much you can do when your character literally has no personality of his own anyway.

The animation was very good, I'll have to give the anime that much. The soundtrack wasn't exactly amazing but I have to say I found it pretty memorable with fitting OSTs and a beautiful OP from FripSide.

Now for the enjoyment... it was very varied. It's pretty much 50-50. You could say I was enjoying myself a lot whenever Hiruko Kagetane was on screen and I was bored the rest of the time.

In my opinion, this could have been a very unique and interesting anime if he was the main character of the show. But hey, at least loli lovers will be happy.

Well black bullet is in the books how was it? Lets jump right to it.

If there is one word i could use to describe black bullet it would be rushed. The sound and art were good. Dont get me wrong i enjoyed the ed song and art style all the way through the series. But the story and characters were where this series trips up. I loved the first arc loved it! But after ep. 5 or 6 this series just turns into a shallow harem with a dark tone. every episode after that the characters were just getting dullish. they built them up ... so well just to stop mid series. Also the supporting characters dont pull to mich weight either or progress in any way. i dont want to spoil the story or anything so ill stop there. Did i hate it? no would i recommend it? not highly.

At first I went in, not expecting much of it. Looking at the way it was presented along with its synopsis, I was prepared for some loli harem anime. First, you should know that I prefer watching light-hearted anime rather than dark ones so this review may be a little biased in some way.

However a few moments in I was pleasantly surprised.
Well, it was truly a mainstream shounen with action and sci-fi (although it's actually a seinen), and it certainly showed signs of being loli harem. But the main character's actions kinda discourage the loli harem aspect, with having another love interest being the ... same age and all. At first the balance between actual fights and mental anguish was nice since things like these are good from time to time. However overtime I find it to be excessively overused so much so my evaluations of it changed from 8+ to like, 5 or so.
I mean, people kept dying throughout the story (I hope this is not considered to be a spoiler and also there is actually quite a lot of blood in this series so that's kind of expected) and every time the main characters would just break down before reviving back to normal then someone dies and then they break and then they revive. And I just kept wondering where their continuous character development disappeared to when they keep being strong then being weak then being strong then weak. In other words, it was repetitive.

Moreover that was a most terrible way to end a series (for me). That anguish and shock (well, more like disappointment) I could feel from that sudden development at the end just totally threw me off. I mean, they just went pass the climax of the series and, normally, the tension should drop here. I mean, it's the end of a series dammit.
But no. It went up.
Then it just left.
I mean, I understand that they could've been trying to build some hype for a second season, but damn it left such a terrible taste behind. I was waiting for some ends for that last arc to be tied up as well. And I got absolutely nothing.

Lastly, I could feel the same vibe as Guilty Crown and Code Geass coming from this series. It's just how I feel, but it really feels like the MC's going to go broken sooner or later........ I mean, look at the last 15 minutes of the last episode. I'd say they're all already broken.

My score: 5/10.
Story: 6/10.
Art style & Animation: 6/10.
My reason for the score: I didn't enjoy much of the season, it was overall decent for me

My Opinion: The story execution was good to me rather than the story itself. The characters are really interesting and sometimes their personalities really influence a lot of the story. The action scenes were good, the songs were decent according to me. The world is also interesting and makes you hook on watching it, sad many of the questions were not answered. it could have turned more interesting if the series would ever get a season 2. There are a lot ... of dark scenes and war related stuff which really adds a lot to this series. I have mixed feelings in recommending this, some may like it and some may not.

I watched this show because I wanted to see little girls shooting guns and killing stuff, plain and simple. I actually enjoyed this a lot more than expected though.

Story:6
Contrary to some other reviews I've seen around, I found the story was pretty well done if a little dumb. While it did leave a lot of things up to guesswork or otherwise a mystery, there was never really a time where it would have been appropriate to bring the questions back up, nor any reason to do so. For what the characters worked through of the plot elements, it all seemed mostly appropriate, though I would ... fault it a bit toward the second-half of the series where it felt a bit rushed.

Art/Sound:7
For the art, the animations and details were excellent; clothing, hair, weapons, landscape, just everything was well done...except the gore. Any time something or someone was killed, all quality went out the widow in lieu of a gore explosion and almost no definable anatomy.
Sound was decent across the board, nothing spectacular, nothing particularly memorable.

Characters:5
The main character sucked. He was very typical to the 'I will do it for my friends, but I'll do it alone' anime standard, but he did vary a little bit in that he never learned from his stupidity. I'm not saying that love and the power of friendship should ever win the day, just that, if you get your ass kicked whilst alone enough times, you might consider backup. If it were just up to the two main characters, this category would be a 2.
However, we have a supporting cast that was amazing. Much out of standard from anime cliches, they really brought the world to life. The first bad guy could be en class with characters like the Joker for how well one could follow his motives. The main (non-loli) girl ended up actually surprising me; usually a character seeking revenge ends up a)feeling bad for the person they were after or b)giving them a slap on the wrist instead because their friend made them soften up. Those and several other characters pretty well displayed a diverse field of characters and views of people in crisis situations.

Enjoyment: 6 (personal enjoyment: 8)
While I enjoyed this quite a bit, I was looking for something this ridiculous to fill my time, so it was perfect for what I was going for. I think the average person could get a fair amount of enjoyment out of it as well, however. In my opinion this is just as good to watch as any well known action series, possibly better than most. The biggest turn off for me was the unnecessary child death and the loli love crap. The former lost any value it had after the third-ish time and the latter is just dumb.

Overall: 6
The show probably would have been better received if it had left off after the masked man. Instead, I guess, people felt slighted that they didn't get to know the greater world that was so alluded to but not explored in the anime.



I want to note specifically that they do fairly well address the little girls' origins, while some of it is guesswork based on life situations, it doesn't seem too out of place to me. Some spoilers after this point, but it also might make the story easier to understand because this seems to be a large issue with the community...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The story starts 10 years after the attacks that put the world into a state of near ruin. Infected women who were pregnant at the time would give birth to girls only, due to mutation set by the creature's virus. However, they developed along side the infection and basically inherited it in a reduced effect, but with beneficial properties to further alterations. Given that the attacks at the time were (as best I could find) the first attacks, there would have been little data on the infection and the infection has various speeds that it can affect someone based on how it was contracted. While they found out later that it could be spread through bodily fluids, it could easily have been contracted by people just kissing one another or possibly sneezing while infected. The low infection catalyst would have allowed the mother to continue as normal for an unknown time and when they finally had to kill her, it's not that unusual to try to save the child even if the mother is dead. Emergency standard is to save women and children, so having a couple thousand pregnant women being saved is hardly a stretch. Since the newborns exhibited no signs of succumbing to the infection, there would be no reason not to raise them. However, once the realization was made that anyone infected would turn into a monster, it's likely that the protocol became to simply execute them before they turned, which would explain why the girls affected all seem to be around 10 years old; any would-be generations after this would have simply been killed along with the parents when found out and, unable to support the continue influx of infants, they would simply die along with the parents
Then once the girls were older, the government started keeping them around as weapons since they had new knowledge on them and they ended up being tools to combat a greater evil, but as few people wanted them they were basically just tribes of children left in isolation from the normal world.

Review in brief:

⁢Black Bullet features solid action, emotional scenes, and a great soundtrack to boot. However, it suffers from its blistering pace causing it to miss out on character development and fall flat with its attempts at humor. Your enjoyment hinges on how well you can tolerate its flaws, and while I'd argue that this anime has more good than bad it does straddle the line quite hard.

Review in full:

Let's start with the good. Black Bullet's most frequent quality is its steady (but not overbearing) action scenes. The show does a good job of making action intense and brings out some admirable animation and music ... for these scenes. The fights felt varied from each other as a wide variety of battlegrounds, circumstances, and opponents (both human and Gastrea, the antagonist monsters of the show) prevented even repeating rematches from feeling repetitive. There are a few fights that feel like they were cut short to prevent important characters from dying though. Still, solid overall. The other strong point of Black Bullet are its emotional scenes, which are pulled off beautifully thanks to how the show uses its setting.

While others have criticized the setting because it doesn't convey a sense of imminent human extinction, I would argue that this was never meant to be the case. Humanity clearly suffered a heavy blow in years past, but the discovery and usage of the fictional metal "Varanium" is shown to have protected humanity and allowed it to get back on its feet. This is made bluntly clear by the fact that the "wall" protecting Tokyo is just an array of Varanium obelisks. Armed with the Gastreas' kryptonite, it's reasonable to believe that the remaining human enclaves (of which there are implied to be many in Japan alone) could exist as futuristic city states similar to Singapore in form and function (which in loose terms is what the setting is).

That said, humanity is still fighting the Gastrea, and it turns out that people who are infected with the Gastrea virus before birth (and survive) develop Gastrea-like abilities during their brief lives. This is the point that Black Bullet focuses much of its serious moments on; in a world where the main group fighting humanity's enemy are a bunch of child soldiers imbued with the genetic code of that same enemy, what happens when these children are inevitably distrusted & despised for their similarity to the enemy? When they are no longer seen as children but as weapons of war? How does this affect them and their worldview? Is it right, or fair? Black Bullet is just as much about a war between humans and alien-like monsters as it is about main characters Rentaro and Enju as they struggle to find meaningful answers to such questions. This turns what would have been merely a jadedly serious teenage action hero and an energetic young girl into surprisingly appreciable characters and solid main leads.

The reason I say "surprisingly" is because plot-wise Black Bullet took a lot of shots in rapid succession and not all of them hit (more on that in a bit). Black Bullet's touching moments are hits in this regard, and the serious scenes all hit hard. Expect many doses of emotion from this show. Everything is held together by the great soundtrack that feels right at home with the setting, plot, and whatever is currently happening on screen. It's even worth checking out on its own. The animation has both good and bad moments, but tends to be good on average. The CG is really hit or miss and is not infrequent.

 

Now for the not-so good. Black Bullet's main flaw is that its pacing is simply too fast. While this partially lends to the steady flow of its action it also pushes much of its humor flat on its face, stunts character development, and affects believability by skipping explanations. That's really it, but I'll go in depth for those wondering exactly what this affects.

Anyways, most of the jokes are centered around the loli characters and how Rentaro does a great job of (unintentionally) making a lot of them develop crushes on him. Not all of these jokes are inherently bad but the quick pacing means that these jokes often come shortly after serious scenes. I had to stop and take a breather at a few points when a touching scene was bulldozed by a poorly placed joke just to be forgotten by all characters involved. However, there isn't much fanservice outside of these jokes (and these jokes aren't frequent either) leaving things balanced to those who can get past them.

It does lead to another one of Black Bullet's flaws though; character development outside of the main duo is quite low and many backstories are explained in seconds. This isn't helped by how oblivious most of them are to the joke scenes. Instead of making you think "oh, so that scene wasn't serious" they'll often make you think "wow, that character is an idiot" thanks to this combination. Even worse is the fact that many characters have super-human abilities (a rather common thing in Black Bullet, even outside of the child soldiers) but don't so much as have their abilities discussed (with even less having their abilities explained well). It does come off as the sort of thing that is usually left to the viewers to fill in the blanks, but given how often these super-powers are relied on it does tug at the story's believability when so little of it is explained.

Lastly, the plot is rushed at points (especially during the last arc). Many crucial plot elements are given little to no explanation and there's a few lampshades to be had. Sadly, it all falls back to a lack of backstory for most of the characters, as most of these plot elements involve specific side characters that receive far less attention than their importance to the plot warrants. This affects the ending as well since it takes the time to set up for a continuation that seems quite unlikely at this point. At the very least the main plot points are resolved and the final scene is well done.

Verdict:

Black Bullet might have its problems, and many of them are glaring, but the things it does right are quite great. Its problems keep it from being easily recommendable though. It's the sort of show that you watch when you have nothing else planned at the moment, and only because you had a sudden urge to try it out. Then again, pacing is really its biggest issue, so if you can get past that you shouldn't have much trouble finding something worthwhile here.

NOTE: I wrote this review right after I finished the series, but am just now posting it for reasons that don't matter.

Now that everything's ended, It's time for Spoon to take the mic.
This week in my one-part series, I'll be reviewing Brack Burret, also known by its english title, Loli Bullet.

You know, out of all the garbage I watched this season, this one was the best. I'm gonna break this down into catagories, but I'm just gonna kinda make em up as I go.

Story:
Honestly this one's been done about a thousand times. The premise is that a bunch of bug aliens(?) named ... "Gastrea" (which sounds like a name for an intestinal disease) killed like everyone on earth except for areas surrounded by these fifty-billion-story monoliths made out of some material called Veranium that came out of nowhere when the gastrea attacked that just happens to be their weakness. How did they manage to build like fifty of these giant monoliths before they were all killed? Iunno. No really, they're taller than any skyscraper by a long shot.

Characters:
Maybe I should just become the main character of an anime, because LITERALLY 99% OF THE FEMALES IN THE SHOW WANT HIS DICK FOR NO. REASON. I mean it's insinuated that some of them have a backstory together, but it's never explained. After 10 episodes of girls hitting on him, and lolis wanting to marry him because ____, they finally show some progress between main guy and one of the two characters that like him that are actually his age, they pull some nisekoi tier bullshit and then everyone was mad, and it's never addressed again. The saving grace of the characters tho has gonna be Joker (he has an actual name, but it's long so I didn't care to remember). He's pretty cool, but his story is just as fleshed out as the rest of the cast.. so not at all.

Random:
Nothing seems to have any relevance in this show. They add new information and hint to future conflicts but nothing ever comes of them. OH AND DID I MENTION THAT HIS RIGHT ARM AND LEFT LEG ARE ROBOTIC? THAT SOUNDS FAMILIAR BUT I CAN'T QUITE PUT MY FINGER ON IT. HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.

Sound:
I skipped the opening every time because it was annoying. The soundtrack was unnoticeable. The sound FX were actually pretty good a lot of the time, but freaking horrible at others.

Random Cont:
This show is actually pretty good at giving a great sense of immersion and real emotion. The way the society operates is actually kinda realistic for the scenario. Sometimes the show would just get really freaking real really freaking fast tho.

Visuals:
The animation quality was actually really good. I liked the art, and the character designs were usually a good balance between attractive and realistic... most of the time.

Overall Impression:
Black Bullet tried really hard to be different, but it feels like they didn't really know how to do that, so they leaned back on the crutch of big tits and little girls to try to keep people interested.
It was okay, I give it a 5/10

Before I review Black Bullet I would like to state that this is my opinion you may disagree or agree with it as you wish.

Review:
Black Bullet I will say for me was a disappointment. When I first say the preview I thought this post apocalyptic world was going to be a great setting for an anime. The problem with the anime was it's pacing of the anime it was just awfully done. They throw so much info and story on you in just the couple episodes that you'll be thinking the show is only a 3 episode anime. Then comes the characters. The characters ... I thought were awful. You got the generic tsundere anime loli that is in love with the MC. The MC is one of those doesn't look that strong but in reality he is one of the strongest soldiers in the world. Story wise the show had a interesting plot but the problem was everything felt rushed and pushed on the watcher. The ending of the anime made zero sense to me and I tried to pay attention to the show but I still felt the ending was such a waste. I will say I would of enjoyed it a little bit more if it wasn't for the terrible ending. All in all Black Bullet was just another watch once and never talk about it again anime that I will probably won't watch again.

Black Bullet was a mistake. It starts with an interesting AoT-like apocalypse setting with sci-fi elements, and enjoys good soundtrack and decent production, but turns out to be a mediocre shounen loli-harem-doing-cute-things fan-servicing show that has zero plot progression and expands the range of world too far that not many foreshadowings are actually revealed within the anime.

The story starts with our beloved Kaji Yuki VA character that acts cool and cold-blooded. He works a loli partner, who is actually a demi-monster and risks her life in fighting those monsters. So as I was guessing the anime were gonna show the brutality of demi-monsters struggling in ... their personalities and not to become a complete monster, the anime introduced more and more high school girls and a female doctor who works in this anime solely to help prepare the materials that the author needed to progress the story. And then more lolis are introduced, who becomes our beloved MC's harem, and then boom! They fight the final boss and wins.
What an unpredictable ride.

Story: 2/10
The way the story progressed contains no sense at all. Why did that mask guy acts like he was the MC's enemy at first and then suddenly fights that big monster with MC? Why was Seitenshi always caring about MC and allows MC all the rights he wants? Why did Tendou Kisara change her personality? We got ZERO explanation to all those. Instead, we got more screentime for lolis and lolis and explosion scene.

Art: 7/10
The slice-of-life scenes are done pretty well, not just showing slideshows but has moving characters with detailed emotions. The fight scenes are mediocre though.

Sound: 7/10
This soundtrack is memorable: https://youtu.be/m9JCveBR-TI
Others are just fine.
The OP and ED are good.

Character: 3/10
I have been expecting deep characterization to Satomi Rentarou since episode 1, as he acts so sad like he has a sad past. But no, they decide to put more 2D lolis into this anime. We got an energetic loli, a silent loli, a smiling loli, and so on.
And it is like a joke that Satomi claimed that he likes Tendou, as he seldom shows liking in anyone, including Tendou. Which is annoying.

Enjoyment: 5/10
Not really enjoying, but since the art is fine, I still completed this series.

Overall: F
This anime fails to grab the setting and explores it well. Instead, it just becomes a mediocre loli-killing show that fulfils some's interest.

Whenever a show becomes hyped, I always feel a bit reluctant about watching it since hyped shows have a good deal of disappointment following them. Today, I show that I had high hopes for, Black Bullet. A show about lolis, infections, varanium, and confusion.

Story (5.02/10): In a post apocalyptic universe, humanity is put on the brink of extinction. A deadly virus known as the Gastrea virus has taken over the world, infecting the world's population, forcing what is left of humanity within these small areas surrounded by walls made of Varanium, a metal with the capability to repel and ... destroy these creatures. The only solution to save the world is through the use of cursed children, small female children that are born with the Gastrea virus inside of them. It is in this world where our main protagonist Satomi Rentaro, a civil officer, must try and defeat the Gastrea before it's too late.

Now...to me, the first thing I can think of when it comes to plot idea is Attack on Titan. Humanity on its last legs, civilizations surrounded by walls that keep the threat out, only one real way to kill their enemy, and the last hope being a combination of human and something else. Yeah, sounds like attack on titan to me. When watching this show, I found it to be a strange combination of both Attack on Titan, and Sword art Online.

The series in my opinion had a great opening episode. In the first episode, it explained everything in a timely and orderly manner, essentially giving a proper exposition for everything which I felt was a very good opening to it, as it explained not only characters, but practically every concept that the show has in it. The show also had a decent amount of comedy and fun moments to it, some of which are actually quite memorable. However, this alone wasn't enough to save the show from its many defective properties.

There are many flaws that I find about this series. For one thing, there seemed to be a lack of cohesion for the series. The story for the series had a very arc heavy set up where you could clearly see going from episode to episode if you were in one arc or another. It's not bad for any series to do an arc heavy story, but what made it feel awkward was the fact that the series sort of immediately switched to a new story with the next episode, leaving quite a few answers to be yet to be answered. It felt like SAO in a way, with the first three episodes being quite a well made story, and the rest being somewhat below average in terms of quality.

Another thing that felt weird was the fact that the series sort of made a lot of loose ends. A lot of loose ends. Every few episodes, there was something that was left unexplained. Be it an event that was unexplained, an object whose purpose was left untold, or the fate of a character, nothing really felt explained, and there were many gaping plot holes that persisted throughout the series.

But above all, one thing was bothering me the most in the entire series. And that is, where are the Gastrea? The Gastrea, the antagonists of the series, and the main reason why people are forced to live in these restricted areas, the only reason why the cursed children and civil officers exist, and the reason for basically everything in the series, only really show up as a threat a total of two times in the series. While the parts about the Gastrea I felt were well executed in terms of how well the story of that particular part was told, most of the series doesn't even concern them, and I even forgot about their existence while watching the show.

Overall, Black Bullet had a hard time of telling people what it was. It had both elements of character driven, and plot driven story, which for the most part, just does not work. Above all, with all of the massive plot holes, lack of a proper antagonist to act as the true enemy of the series, and focusing too much on areas of story that didn't feel like it should've gotten as much screen time as it should have, I felt as though black bullet was a complete mess regardless of how great I felt the opening episode was in terms of providing proper exposition.

Overview:
+ Fantastic opening episode
- Massive, massive plot holes
- Lack of antagonist's existence
- Lack of Story cohesion

Characters (5.89/10): For characters, well, we have a mixed bag. Some characters are quite good, while some are well...terrible.

Satomi Rentaro, our main protagonist. Rentaro has a hatred against the Gastrea. When he was a kid, his parents were killed in the great Gastrea war and ever since, he has sworn to kill all of the Gastrea. To me, this sounds like Eren Jaegar. (They even have the same voice actor) Rentaro is more or less your average main protagonist in an action anime. Not only is he obsessed with his goal, he also gets quite reckless and angry. Aside from having a moral side towards the cursed children, there's not really much to him. The series tries to make Rentaro more than what he is, and it works somewhat well, but for the most part, that's his character. Although, he does use a handgun as a weapon, which fires varanium bullets, aka, Black Bullets.

Aihara Enju, a cursed child and the main female protagonist in the series. Enju is pretty much what you would expect for a 10 year child character. She has a very endearing and adorable personality, being quite outgoing and happy most of the time. All the while, having affections towards Rentaro, to the point of self appointing her to be his bride. As a cursed child, she has immensely increased physical capacity, being a rabbit model initiator. Basically, that means that she has the ability to kick ass through the use of kicking things in the face.

And then, we have Tina Sprout, a cursed child that is an owl model initiator. Essentially, it means that she has the ability to see far and extremely clear at night. While she is considered to be a main character, she doesn't actually appear in the series until about halfway through the series, she doesn't really serve much plot importance, and more or less, is sort of just another character that impacts Rentaro in her own way.

Another character I want to mention is Tendo Kisara. Kisara is more or less the Misaka of the series, though not as perfect and not as badass or willing to give her life to the main protagonist. In the series, she has faced a situation similar to Rentaro, seeking revenge on the Gastrea that had killed her parents. For the most part, she's a decent character, until the last episode. In the last episode, she gained this...characteristic, which felt quite odd and sort of uneeded actually. It was a real dent in her character I felt, and personally, I felt like she shouldn't have gotten that one trait at the end.

Aside from the characters mentioned above, we have a ton of supporting characters, a great deal of them lacking of really any importance. What I feel is the biggest flaw in terms of characters is the fact that there are side characters that just show up out of nowhere. They sort of just insert them into the story and just assume that you're ok with it. Personally, I found this to be quite distracting, as many of the side characters felt more like a distraction or a means to just add in more unnecessary people.

Out of the characters, I felt that the actual antagonists of the series were muddled and unclear. Aside from the Gastrea, we have Kagetane, a character whom I thought was actually a good antagonist. While he was a decent antagonist, he didn't get as much screen time as I thought he would receive, so, as a result, he didn't become as detailed as I had hoped. Apart from these two, we have a bunch of "antagonists". I say that because of the fact that most of them seem quite pointless to see as bad guys, since more or less, they only show up for only one episode, and their evil plot seemed less than extraordinary. (One example is Yasuwaki Takuto, whom I felt was an absolutely useless character to even put in.)

Another thing the series did was wrong I felt, was character deaths. In this series, several characters perish, all of them supposedly to have significance on our main character. While I did feel sad about their disappearance from the series, for the most part, since all of them were of characters you barely even get to know or understand, I felt as though they had little to no significance in the overall plot.

Overview:
+ Decent main characters
- Lack of proper antagonist
- Too many pointless side characters

Art and Sound (7.77/10 and 8.33/10): While the story and characters were fairly disappointing, the art of the series was quite well made overall. While it did rely on a moe artstyle, a style that not everyone likes, it did do rather well. The backgrounds were fairly well detailed, and the characters were well designed.

The action scenes were quite well animated and quite well done overall. The animation was very fluid whenever the action scenes occurred and everything looked very good and helped with the overall show.

In terms of music, this show has some very great music. Black Bullet's Opening is addicting and fantastic. It has a very rock and mysterious feel to it that fits with the show. It is a very good opening and sounds incredibly well done. For the show's ED, the track is good as well, although, a bit generic feeling. Overall, the music for this show is fairly well done. It's both memorable and well executed.

Overview:
+ Good character design
+ Memorable music

Personal enjoyment (6.22/10): I had high hopes for the show, as did many people. It was an interesting enough plot that looked like it would create a good show. At first, I was dazzled, surprised to see how deep the show was by creating an antagonist that played a sort of mind game that made me rethink the entire show's setting and ideas that were already put into place as the story began. But, as time went on, I became more or less saddened by the lack of plot explanation.

Black bullet has its problems. It has a very large amount of plot problems as well as problems with adding in new characters. Regardless of the problems though, I found Black Bullet to have its perks. It has a good sense of freelance comedy that comes into play a good deal in the show as well as the fact that the show can be pretty good when it really wants to be. In the end though, I can't really forgive this show for its massive plot holes and its overall flaws. It wasn't a total mess, but Black Bullet did mess up on some things.

Overall Score: (6.18/10)

This decade, the number of animes based in light novels has increased. In the past decade, we got Spice and Wolf, Baccano, Full metal panic, Haruhi Suzumiya and Toradora. All this series may have some similarities, like most of them taking place at high school, but at the end, they have their own stories. This decade we got more anime based in light novels than manga, and they are all the same. Not all, ok, but most of them are, the same generic fantasy setting, harem story. The formula worked with Sword Art Online, and like eveything it proves to work, it didn't take too ... long to start to appear the rip-offs and knock-offs. Black bullet is one of them.
¿Male protagonist supposed to be a loser, but end up being a Marty Stu, because he always saves the day? Check.
¿Every female character in the show want to be with him, even if some of them are little girls? Check, and yeah, many people find it gross, that's why this show has so bad the reviews. It get more popular for what somepeople called loli fanservice, than the plot. That's not a lolicon, and thak god it doesn't has fanservice scenes with every episode showing little girls' panties, but anyway...japanese people may find cute a little girl who says she loves someone older, western people, not.
Just forget about what everybody else talks, and focus and something important tahat nobody said: this show try to made a social criticism, using superpowered kids as a metaphor of oppresion. Try, but it works? In the first episodes only, then the harem and Marty Stu takes over and people, obviously, get bored. The interest aspects about the setting doesn't have the attention it should get in the story.
Characters are other problem. Let's see:
-Rentaro, our protagonist, is the generic Marty Stu protagonist. It's supposed to be a loser, but he success in everything he does. All the girls in the show are there to be his love interest, even the ones who hasn't reach puberty. Even the villain admire him, and end up fighting by his side.
-The harem. Girls who want to be with him. Every girl in this show, even a class of girls Rentaro teach. Enough said. Just the scientist menage to not be there, and even her has her moments.
-Characters who are against Rentarou thinks is right that end up two ways: being pathetic villains and dying soon, or joining Rentarou's side, and admiting they were wrong and Rentarou is one of the best ones they've ever met. What a surprise.
Also, there are moments so out of character that came from nowhere that you can't believe, specially one in the last episode.

So, this is what we got. If it has a 6 instead 5 or 4 is because the music, the art, some exciting fight scenes, and some funny or warning moment in the first half.

I often wonder why, where, and what the hell did I just see? Sometimes using a portion of wasted neurons is useful when reviewing a series that absolutely has no idea what it’s suppose to be. Mind you a set protagonist that acts as much righteous as Rush Limbaugh role-playing as King Arthur with the one exception: Hiruko, who the whole franchise could’ve been about, but let’s be thankful of where we are.

If someone told me, “Hey do you like your Guilty Crown and other anime we totally aren’t ripping off, than how about this one. It’s a story ... about a male protagonist who has to fight stuff and you just fell asleep.” Being generic isn’t so much a bad thing if the writers boldly know how to both create an effective story and interesting characters behind such a ploy. But let’s go over it.

The story goes like this: Humanity is going to war with a terrible threat meaning humanity is also on the brink of extinction mind you, a hitherto enemy known as Gastrea. Two Wars with the Gastrea already happened off camera so where. Also the story takes place in Neo-Tokyo where the residents have walled themselves off with a material called Varanium and constructed Monoliths that ward off the Gastrea.

Main character is Satomi Rentaro who is generic teen male fighter and righteous hero of the PEOPLE! To be honest, most of the characters aren’t really interesting for the most part. They all take some token presence and bait for the audience to both feel secure and idyllic. The only character I can ever approve of is Hiruko the foil to Rentaro, who seems to be the only one who’s not brooding serious, or intense serious, or dumb-righteous seriousness (Rentaro what the f**k). Hiruko could have been the main character of the story because he’s cool without the tone of desperation to be such and such for shallow approval. And to enlighten on that desperation, I’m going to call it “Simplistic Obligatory Writing”. It’s when characters for no discernible reasoning become total cocks because they have to. Now in some cases this makes but in most it just doesn’t. Sure there’s build up but what to? What has the character learned from it and why is it in the story? It’s for the delusion of “Character growth” but in the end it makes no sense and makes the characters unlikable.

Now the story is offset at the end when you realize that the show doesn’t know what it’s suppose to be or it’s inconsistent tone. This is marred by multiple tones ranging from Slice of Life relaxation, to whimsical silliness, to brooding seriousness etc. etc.

The anime isn’t so bad that writing this review has taken a few bricks from my load, but that’s like saying the "Internship" wasn’t so bad that I got eat some popcorn with it. You can almost feel the general conflict of the anime, trying to be both fun and dark-seriousness, which is like having it's cake and eating it too, leading to being baked in mother's 'boiling' love oven.

In the end I’m very tired and feel very awful from this experience, but if you’re the kind that enjoys some nice action, Black Bullet has some of that as well. Especially me as I painfully cut its every smug, contemptuous limb with a hack saw.