Monday, July 26, 2010

Review: Black ★Rock Shooter


Basically the most eye pleasing scene for me in the OVA

So, after all the wait... Was Black Rock Shooter worth it?
Warning: This review contains spoilers


So, the story starts with Black ★ Rock Shooter (BRS) fighting against another girl, Black ★ Gold Saw (BGS). Any viewer would be left clueless with this as to why they are fighting, and if you think this'll be revealed later on. Well, it's not! Making this scene the biggest wasted part of the OVA. The two fights each other intensely and soon enough BGS stabs BRS near the stomach, leaving her as the place begins to crumble and the title appears. So, as a piece of my mind, what was BGS's role in this? She was just there basically to mark those stitches found on BRS's body and poof, BGS is nowhere to be found in the rest of the show. Whatever this part is, it was clearly unexplained and will probably be shed light with if ever there is a sequel. Though as a piece of mind again, maybe this is just BRS's past.

And now the story begins. The main focus of the OVA was actually that of a girl named Mato Kuroi, as she wakes up and prepares for her first day in high school. While Mato's story is revealed in the 50 minute OVA, in between, the world shifts to BRS's world, and apparently these things happen simultaneously. As Mato arrives in school, she catches her eye on a certain girl who just got out of a car. The girl was later revealed to be Takanashi Yomi, a girl who lives in the same neighborhood as Mato's. Meanwhile, in BRS world, BRS is seen to be travelling accross places now with a gun on her arm, the Rock Cannon. Her black blade seemed to have been lost after losing to BGS in the beginning.

As Mato was really interested at Yomi, she starts to befriend her and this friendship was something that'll grow later on. Meanwhile, BRS finds this place which looks like a chapel and decides to head in. As the story moves on, Mato and Yomi really develops a sweet friendship making them the best of friends, doing things together most of the time even in their chosen club which is on the same room. Eventually while these things happen, BRS encounters Dead Master (DM), as she tries to reach out her hand on DM, DM begins to attack and the two begins to fight. Okay, so stop here for a while, so, just why the hell did they fight? Unknown! If BRS world was supposed to be a reflection of the human world, it's pretty much ridiculous as to why BRS and DM are fighting when Mato and Yomi are clearly becoming the best of friends. While those things above transpire, we get to see some shifts again, the important ones would be BRS finally showing her flame eye on DM while at the same time, Mato shows Yomi her favorite spot and gives her a cellphone strap and the appearance of another girl in BRS world, her name is to be Strength (coded STR from BRS Visual Works 2) and as she moved later on, a character appears in the human world when Mato gets an injury and this manager tends to her aid while Yomi was just watching jammed in her volleyball activity. Yomi later waits for Mato and she sees this manager accompanying her there. Though she appreciates Yomi doesn't look too happy based on her facial expression. And later on, the human story shifts to when they're in second year and this time, Mato and Yomi gets separated in class.

Things still turned out normally at the beginning but as they separated by room, Mato now is placed with the manager from before, Yuu, and as things developed in the human world, Mato and Yuu became really close; leaving Yomi behind with a growing jealousy over Yuu, she eventually wanted to talk to Mato but as she saw her having fun with Yuu, she standed at the door corner and decided to leave. Mato saw this as a dark shadow engulfs Yomi as she leaves. This shadow is actually Dead Master's, leaving me to believe that on this point on, Yomi and DM have become one, thus, a sudden shift to BRS world, seeing that Dead Master suddenly unleashes a powerful attack and the two continued to battle. As a piece of mind again, the sudden burst from the Dead Scythe suggests that Yomi have indeed fused with Dead Master by this point as the battle turns over to DM from this point on.

Going back to the human world, Yomi disappears, Mato started to look for her in school, mailing her from time to time with no response. Eventually, she discovers that Yomi has disappeared and starts worrying all over feeling heavily down thinking that it was her fault that she disappeared after doing nothing when she saw that Yomi was troubled earlier. Eventually, Mato receives a blank mail from Yomi, probably suggesting that she wants to see her. And so, Mato with a black jacket, rushed toward that place she showed Yomi earlier in the show. And things begins to piece up for the last moments of the show, as she arrived, she saw the charm she gave Yomi on that place. Mato grabs hold of the charm and as she was still in question of Yomi's whereabouts, the charm began to glow and a star appears in the sky, later on surrounding Mato in blue light. This obviously signifies that Mato and BRS are now about to fuse as well, making the biggest role of the BRS world in the story.

So we are now brought back to BRS world, where BRS is chained and DM is standing in front of her. So here now, we see, BRS have a change of facial expression, implying that she and Mato have become one and she sees DM, she sees Yomi and determined to bring her back, BRS breaks free form the chains and head towards DM. DM tried to attack BRS but to no avail forcing her to retreat while BRS reaches out her hand once more; carelessly stepping back DM was about to fall but BRS embraced her, giving a shock to the somewhat sleeping Yomi inside of Dead Master. Dead Master then tries to break free and eventually her shade was the one that disappeared, leaving Yomi safe in BRS's hands; that scene was lovely BTW, see the pic above :)). From here on, the place crumbles and BRS escapes with Yomi. And as the final moments of the show, we are thrown into a slight flashback to when Mato was transported.

In there she, meets BRS and BRS asks if she would like to save Yomi as they both care for each other. Mato answers it's not about saving Yomi, it's because she wants to be Yomi again and do the things that they normally do and that right at that moment, she wanted to see Yomi. As the blue light grew, BRS approached and Mato asked who she was, she never answered and when Mato closed her eyes, eventually she and BRS fused and said "I am Black Rock Shooter" which ended the OVA. I appreciated the ending actually, it didn't turn out as bad as Anomaro-P's story where DM died, it was a happy one to put at that.

So here are my full burst of thoughts; the somewhat empty BRS world is the hard part to understand, it's like totally weird until the final part of the show. So how did it really go? "Wish through the star that runs through the darkness", this was the line from the last seconds of the Pilot Edition trailer and also part of the lyrics of the song Black Rock Shooter. So, in my thoughts, the story goes that the entire song lyrics was thrown into Takanashi Yomi, I mean check the lyrics, it's basically the key to giving importance to BRS world IMO.

In a part, Yomi can be symbolized by that chapel while her heart is symbolized by Dead Master. As the song goes, someone in dark eventually finds hope because of something or someone (most likely what Black Rock Shooter in the lyrics was supposed to symbolize) This message of the lyrics, in turn, was passed on to Yomi being in the dark because of Jealousy and possibly other more things which weren't shown that well; as she was in darkness, it's like Yomi called out to BRS, leading her to DM, and wished for something that can give her the courage to break out (this part is also on the song lyrics) and thus, as a wish from the "star that runs through darkness", some twist of fate happened that Mato got the blank message and her finding the charm giving BRS the ability to bring her to Yomi, Yomi's source of courage that helped her break free from the darkness (which is Dead Master) and thus, leading to that ending.

So basically that's for my thoughts, maybe I'm just over analyzing the OVA but still those are the answers I have for some missing reasons on the story. If you'd look at the story carefully, it's pretty much a nice presentation of a slice of life genre, and even if they just inserted BRS and DM's battle only in the end, it would still work. It's pretty much a simple yet decent presentation of life as it is which present the beauty of the show. The great bgms also complimented the scenes to make one feel the mood of the scenes. Pretty much, the battles were inserted just for the sake of the "awesome" factor and in BRS world, the only things you really need to understand would be why BRS went to DM and what the heck was BGS's role in all this as well as STR, well, Yuu had a role in the human world but STR was just there for like 2 scenes and poof, gone as well.

So with that said, I rate the OVA a 4 out of 5 since I really liked how the story was, even though BRS looked cool and all that, a drama was an interesting way of portraying things. One more is that I see a part of myself on Yomi (jealousy), which added a plus on this slice of life anime. Anyway, before I end, after the credits roll, Mato and Yomi are seen together again while Yuu, at their back and her face doesn't show seems to be the one in darkness now and the focus turns on her and dyaran, cliffhanger. The question is was that related to STR? And would we be receiving a sequel? :D

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