So, Black Rock Shooter has finally aired. It was a bit underwhelming, but still a pretty decent slice of life OVA about a middle schooler and a friend she makes at her first day of school. Not a lot of stuff happens throughout these fifty minutes, but it was pretty good at fleshing out its main character, and showing the progression of their relationship over a bit more than a year’s time. In the end, the drama gets a bit cheesy, but it works. It’s a pretty decent way to spend 50 minutes.
Oh yeah, and it has random girls who fight each other.
Now that’s the part I’m a bit iffy about, because it was supposed to be the selling point of this OVA. Instead, you get to watch some pretty neat animation, but the story itself just feels tacked on at best. Its purpose only gets revealed at the end of the OVA, and even then I feel like the creators should have put more effort into either combining these two, or just splitting them apart entirely. As you can see from the screenshots: it really looks awesome. It deserves much better than being some flimsy background for a story that doesn’t even need it and would actually be better off without it.
I guess that the creators originally intended the slice of life parts as a sort-of background support story for those “black rock shooter”-scenes and all, but they ended up spending so much time and effort on the high school part that it completely dwarfs out these action scenes. What I rather would have seen was just fifty minutes of those girls who fight each other, and see what they’re doing when they’re not fighting, where they came from, and what is up with the interesting locations in which they fight; that kind of stuff. They don’t need a bunch of middle school girls for that.
Pros: Neat fight scenes, good soundtrack. Pretty good slice of life.
Cons: High school part completely dwarfs the action part. Action part doesn’t really fit in.
OVA Episode Rating: 7,5/10
(Yes, I’m still experimenting with what kind of format works best when reviewing OVAs)
Uh Oh!! I’m so envyous!! I want to watch this OAV so bad. Tell me Psgels, does Hatsune Miku sing anything here?
BURAKKU ROKKU SHUUUTA! :/
Well, I have to say…. this feels pretty underwhelming after having watched a show like Noein, that also used the parallel universe scenario, but just did it so much better. I suppose you can’t compare a single OVA episode with a complete TV series, but whatever. It wasn’t really a bad way to spend 50 minutes, but the story wasn’t very intriguing.
@Solaris: Aren’t they streaming this for free in different languages? The entire OVA is meant to be free. The whole point of this OVA is to sell figures. And it worked…because I bought the BRS figmas and nendoroids. There’s no hope for me.
Overall, despite it being somewhat underwhelming, I think I really liked it overall. It was a general story of two people becoming friends and then falling out which segways into a supernatural/metaphysical explorative adventure.
The real problem is as you said:
“High school part completely dwarfs the action part. Action part doesn’t really fit in.”
Which I interpret as bad composition.
I want more of the action part too 😀
But overall . . . it was good. I had fun 😀
Kana Hanazawa really fits the role of Mato Kuroi, it gives her cute aura 😛
@Solaris Actually, No. Miku’s voice wasn’t in it.
I have to agree with the too much time on the school girl half wasn’t so great. But then again, there’s no way they have the budget to animate 50 min of fighting. There was no explanation of how the two worlds are connected at all. I don’t even understand the opening fight. It didn’t make sense at all, and it seems like it’s just promoting the Black Gold Saw Figures that are coming out.(1/8 Scale+Figma)
The good thing is the very nice quality animation and soundtrack like you said.
I was expecting so much from the yet when it ended i just felt disappointed! I think that if the amount of time spent on each segment (Real world/ BRS world) was swapped it would have been more enjoyable to watch. also if the BRS world characters spoke i may not have been so confused!
Hm… I enjoyed the school life stuff and didn’t care too much about the alternate world. But there was little enough that I felt it complimented the story.
I didn’t think there was any way BRS could work as an OVA due to lack of time to flesh anything out but basing it on something simpler and using the other world to add a bit of mystery and nice art worked IMO.
I’m really hoping Ordet end up making the Rewrite anime adaption.
Meh. I watched about twenty minutes and got bored. It did look fine, but so do a lot of shows.
There’s a new Black Rock Shooter anime to come out next year! The first trailer has streamed!
http://shinigamilist.com/2011/10/27/black-rock-shooter-anime-trailer-streamed/
I hope it is worth it