Story: 7
I watched the trailer and admit that like others before me I expected tons of fight scenes, epic action sequences and a whole cargo container of gar to top it off.
The general expectation wasn't met. I think a lot of people are disappointed, and probably rightly so. Starting with an action sequence right off the bat without any form of conversation to give a good context isn't what I'd say gives a good impression. We the audience only know three things:
1. We're in a setting obviously not in Japan.
2. The symbolic Black Rock Shooter gal is duking it out with someone.
3. Said someone is winning.
Why is BRS in this struggle? Don't ask me, if you know please send me a PM because it's practically like watching and extended part of the trailer, then it moves on to what I presume is the main part of the story.
Throughout the rest of the OVA the two worlds will periodically interchange, some say it's alternate worlds and the events are occurring simultaneously. I'd like to be somewhat generous and will hence claim that it is a split time-line. If I tried to explain this the review would be too long, so let me try to illustrate it with a simple sentence.
"This is a sentence with the word plot". 8 words, let's split and mix it up:
15263748
"This with is the a word sentence plot". Doesn't make sense does it? I think it's kinda like that.
So we end up watching what's possibly the beginning of this BRS story as well as the events leading to the climax and end at the very same time. This makes it terribly confusing.
I gave the story 7 points because I'm biased for slow moving, going absolutely no where, fluff high school girl stories. That said the show lost points from me for not truly providing a satisfactory context.
Art: 9
I like the art, what more need I say? 'Tis my review and the beauty of art is it's up to the majority of opinions. I rate it how I feel, you can decide for yourself.
The animation however had a few flaws, but overall was clean enough to pass my standards.
Sound: 6
The eponymous song, Black Rock Shooter, never makes a true appearance. It makes an appearance near the end as a watered down piano only version.
Cute. Now if only the song wasn't really the only reason I was watching this OVA.
The rest of the music is generic BGM stuff. Passable but c'mon, we were mostly expecting epics here. I should note here though that ryo did all the music stuff here and the Ending Credits song is "Braveheart" written and arranged by ryo but performed by THE GOMBAND. The question as to why BRS couldn't have been played as the ending credits song I can only wonder.
Character: 6
Rather than just a female animated Rambo with much less muscle - in fact bordering not eatin' enough, kickin' heaps of arse, we have seemly two main protagonists; one resides in a standard suburb in Japan and the other in the trippy world we've all seen in the trailer and art. In fact it seems all the main characters have an alternate persona in the trippy world. The voice actors fit the characters to a T, and it seems Asumi Kana has landed yet another pint-sized character role.
Enjoyment: 5
Watch it and you'll probably see why I rated this so.
Overall: 7
I rounded up the average score which was 6.6 to give 7.
A startling lack of references to Vocaloid and the eponymous song makes this just like any other generic high school girl anime released, I still enjoyed it a little cause I'm a dude who likes watching relatively cute animated high school girls with funky, logic defying hair work out their friendship problems but I was left feeling that the OVA was more like someone had taken characters from an established setting and recycled it into a different, plainer narrative. It was alright, but honestly I was expecting better.
