I watched them both by sheer coincidence just months ago, and it’s safe to say that both of them were pretty horrendous. I think anyone who watched the music video would have just wanted a stylized Miku fight some baddies with her cool motorcycle and katana. Instead, you were subjected to the most mediocre and edgy melodrama, with intermittent scenes of actual fun action in between. It’s safe to say that the OVA and the anime series both were poorly written. Yet, despite that, both shows had a surprisingly good production quality. The anime actually used CGI, which honestly still is better than 99% of the garbage anime CGI out there today. So I came with very low expectations for the 2022 adaptation, especially with Disney collaborating on the show, considering that Netflix has created just about zero good shows so far. Well, safe to say, production value wise, Disney trumps Netflix by large margins.
This show too, uses CGI, and it’s also one of the very few anime whose CGI isn’t terrible. It’s not amazing, but the show uses a mix of hand animation and CGI on the models, like the hair and eyes, so this works out. I was pretty disappointed with the fight scenes. The main reason to use CGI is to have good fight scenes that would cost way too much to animate in 2D unless you’re Ufotable. The original Black Rock Shooter does show a good depth of space and fight scenes that highlights the CGI usage, but I just don’t see it here. The 2022 adaptation’s fights aren’t really impressive, and it’s actually the high detail CGI backgrounds that impress me the most. That’s when the show bothers to put on a background. 60% of the show’s backgrounds are desert, flat ground, or white space, so there’s that. However, fights are still passable. Production value of the show is still nice. It’s got a good budget, and certainly not the reason for me to hate the show
That brings me to the thing that kills this show of any joy: the story. Remember how I said that anyone who watched the original music video would have been satisfied with a stylized Miku fighting some baddies? At the very least, this show DOES get rid of the crappy melodrama plot from the previous adaptations, but instead, it brings in the most underdeveloped, “ambitious”, and trope filled sci-fi plot. I say “ambitious” since a lot of shounen/action media tend to fall under two categories: overly generic, or overly ambitious with all of the problems of the former, but with a plot that doesn’t make any sense at all.
This show starts off with Black Rock Shooter saying cringe stuff like “I gotta find lighthouse 8,” while also suffering amnesia. Later on, there’s also a “special drug” that the MC takes to gain super strength, but only for a brief moment of time. Any longer, and there will be permanent damage! Wow, that doesn’t ring any bells at all. Did I mention that Black Rock Shooter also is kind and wants to save humanity? Already off to a great start! But wait! It’s also “Sci-fi.” The sci-fi part is complete bullshit. The show introduces a bunch of sci-fi jargon that doesn’t matter because it never gets expanded upon. Worldbuilding is non-existent. Most of the humans that you see in the show get mowed down immediately like npcs because they’re part of an “evil organization,” because that’s exactly what they are: they do not matter to the story at all. Also, for an MC that grieves at any human dying, they really don’t care about saving humans when killing anyone that belongs to the evil “education institute” organization.
I could go on and on about why the sci-fi is horribly executed, but I’ll just mention one of the many plot holes. The show’s entire foundation and premise is that there’s an evil AI that went rogue. Ok, great, but if humanity is still functioning (which it is), why the hell hasn’t there been another AI created to counter it? There’s so many plot holes and poorly established worldbuilding principles, that the only purpose of this sci-fi is an excuse for the characters to have OP abilities, weapons, and their badass motorcycles. This is where I ask: why not just make the genre fantasy? If you’re not expanding on the sci-fi principles, the only reason you’re even introducing the stuff to begin with is to have people have OP superpowers, then just stick with magic. It’s just so much simpler. Instead, you got girls with sci-fi superpowers fighting alongside humans that still have fucking and use military vehicles that don’t look any more modern than what we have now. Apparently, only a select few people can have OP superpowers, while the rest of the humans are forced to stick with their centuries old weaponry. I kid you not, despite having the easy option of having an evil demon lord or something try to destroy the world, in episode 11, they decide to have the villain explain the “nuclear fusion reactor” that’s going to destroy humanity for 73 seconds straight. There’s 73 seconds of sci-fi bullshit being explained on how the planet is going to be destroyed. Lovely. The ending itself is pretty generic, the only noticeable thing about it is that they finally pay homage to Supercell’s Black Rock Shooter at the very end.
Characters are asinine. The Colonel and Monica are the only two remotely good characters, but even they are quite generic and boring. The characters with superpowers, especially the “good guys” are terribly made. There’s a gimmick to all of them. One of them is a yandere, the other has a split “gap” personality. The MC’s only personality trait is that she’s “kind and wants to save humanity.” There’s conflict between the MC’s group of friends. The yandere wants to kill her, and the girl with split personality also wants to. Not that it matters, since once the MC recruits them, they’re just there to add to the numbers. There’s a comically short amount of time dedicated to their character development in which they turn from foe to friend.
What is the time that should have been spent on character development? Yes, it’s the story. Yes, there really needed to be an entire episode dedicated to fixing Black Rock Shooter’s motorcycle. There also had to be like 6 episodes dedicated to destroying the “educational institute” for no reason at all. There was this one side story episode focused on Isana, which was one of the better episodes since Monica was the main focus. Yet, even then, Monica is also a comic relief character that says stuff like “let’s have sex” to Black Rock Shooter. Oh yes, peak comedy. Get it? It’s funny, since Black Rock Shooter doesn’t know what sex is, and Monica gives a misleading definition of it to her. Wow, I’m sure that won’t be brought up again!
This show could have been a generic fantasy show with focus on character development, and I probably would have liked it. Instead, it’s an overly complicated sci-fi filled with plot holes and irrelevant plot points. Rather than explaining anything, the show’s main focus is still just “kill the baddies.” Even towards the very end of the anime, there’s still exposition dumps everywhere to make sense of the crappy story.
