Mar 11, 2012
Black Rock Shooter, the entire franchise, is very appealing and at the same time frustrating. The entire thing is very aesthetically pleasing, and the base concept is great, but the execution is worse than Dragon Ball Evolution.
After watching the original OVA I was left craving for more, wondering what the hell it was that I just watched. In my opinion, however, it is the "real" world side of things that causes the franchise to crash and burn. The "Forced Drama", if you will, makes no sense and has me wondering why the writers didn't just come up with some legitimate problems and issues for their
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characters to experience. The tension and suspense is there, but it's very watered down by the fact that the viewer has yet to have seen anything that would bring on such mental stress and fatigue.
My guess is that the writers wished to emphasize how much "pain" one feels from everyday exchanges and relationships. Perhaps they are trying to remind a society that has become numb through self-induced ignorance of how much their actions and voices effect one another. The BRS world gives us a visual interpretation of this, and looks badass doing it.
Some may say that the fight scenes had no "tension" in them due to the characters seeming to have the constitution of Chuck Norris. In my opinion this makes it even more tense, and amps up the action. In anime where a character can't take massive damage, they always dodge or block in the last second, escaping death by a hair, over and over again. However, in BRS' case, you never see anything coming. I can't remember how many times I went "pfff, she'll just dodge it. no biggie" just have myself go "Ohhhhhh, damn that had to hurt!". Not knowing when one of the characters is going to reach their breaking point makes the fights that much more gut wrenching. Not to mention the fact that they are insanely brutal.
But, in the end, the characters that represent the "real" side of things bring everything down. If only they were a bit more unique, and didn't always swing this way and that emotionally for no apparent reason, then the story itself wouldn't have suffered so much Yes, if we could get a revamp for the characters, I could give this anime the 8 or 9 it deserves.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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