Alright so the highly anticipated Black★Rock Shooter makes its debut as an anime. What is to be expected from the hype? We shall see…

The episode begins with some random fight between BRS with her black blade and some other chick with a sword that looks more heavier than the buster sword (lol), in a gigantic castle of some sort on some random remote island in the middle of an ocean. How random awesome is that? Disappointing BRS gets impaled and then the real show begins like any other typical shoujou school/slice of life anime would begin. A 7am alarm goes off interrupting our heroine’s slumber, signaling Mako (our heroine) to get to school early for her high school entrance ceremony. Upon her arrival, she meets a girl named Yomi and starts hanging out with her on the first day of school, better yet they found out they had lots in common and were even in the same class. The two bearing opposite characteristics soon after became best of friends. Between the shoujo school life of Mako – BRS starts travelling the world in search of something until she finds her match in a cathedral of some sort. Gray floating skulls, a mysterious girl with horns, a scythe and melancholic green eyes…

Coherently in the shoujo school world, Mako graduates and moves up to become a 2nd year senior along with her friend Yomi but to their dismay, they are no longer in the same class. They figured that they would still be able to meet up with each other during breaks and that their clubs will still be participating side by side in the gym just like old times. During their club activities Mako gets injured and Yomi notices but is unable to do anything but watch intently from across the court (their clubs share one gymnasium and is split half to basketball other half to volleyball)  - Mako’s club manager, Yuu tends to Mako’s wound, it wouldn’t be long until Mako and Yuu became good friends and Mako unknowingly start to grow apart from Yomi. As expected, Yomi started showing signs of detachment and predictably went “missing”. During that time, Yuu literally almost became Yomi’s replacement. Meanwhile, BRS engages in a fight with the mysterious girl which bears great resemblance to Yomi, she is non-other than Dead Master…BRS gets whipped around and eventually Dead Master makes a run for it, BRS obviously pursues her. They end up in a large circular room and the fight to the death continues. BRS seemingly gets the upper hand after she manages to destroy Dead Master’s scythe. The fight ends with Dead Master managing to constrain BRS in a barrage of chains…

Back in the shoujo school world…police found their way to Mako’s place and had questions to Yomi’s disappearance. On one evening Mako receives a blank email from Yomi on her cellphone and calls Yomi immediately but doesn’t connect. Mako had a gut feeling where Yomi might have been so she dashed out of her house to the hill top where they first became official best friends only to find out Yomi wasn’t there. Mako finds the phone strap she had given to Yomi. Mako depressed as she was couldn’t help but say: “Where are you, Yomi?” – Some shoujo mahou happened and just as Mako realized, a blue light engulfed her and then she vanished. (From the face of the planet, drr)

BRS comes to and realizes shes bound by wall and Dead Master staring intently at her from a reasonably safe distance (as if she knows BRS is going to go ninja upon waking up) – BRS manages to break the chains with her bare hands (because she is BRS obviously) and makes her way to Dead Master (about to unleash her fury on DM) and corners Dead Master at an edge on the highest level of the building overlooking the area where the fight previously ended. BRS makes her move – Dead Master slips and almost fell to her death while BRS manages to pull Dead Master up for a surprise hug (lol). Dead Master just wasn’t digging the Yuri crap and tries to push BRS away but ends up pushing her evil side seemingly out of Yomi’s body and ends up falling to her death (Dissolving into nothingness like a quarter way down). Leaving an unconscious Yomi in BRS’s arms. The cathedral mysteriously starts falling apart and BRS is forced to take Yomi as dead weight as she miraculously escapes from falling overhead concrete and rocks that weigh a crap ton and manages to jump out into a blue back drop world.

Mako opens her eyes and realizes shes in a blue back drop world and meets BRS whom questions Mako about wanting to save a girl. Mako interprets the girl she wants to save as Yomi but discredits BRS saying that she doesn’t just want to save Yomi but to walk and laugh with her once again and she wants to see Yomi right now *Garr!* – That forces BRS to descend down upon Mako to face level. Mako asks BRS who she is and BRS replies “I am…” and before she could finish saying it, she does a DBZ fusion on Mako at which she says “I am Black Rock Shooter” – Then the credits kick in. *Epic…*

What happened after that you ask? – Well we see Mako and Yomi walking out of the school gate like sugar and rainbows and then we notice somethings off with Yuu. The same feeling we got as we anticipated somethings up with Yomi before her disappearance. Mako and Yomi turn around and notices it. Will it be Yuu’s turn to disappear this time? Maybe, we did see Yuu in a getup like BRS wondering the BRS world in search of something.

My take

Alright so I had done some reading around on the net, turns out that Black★Rock Shooter really got some mixed vibes from viewers. I found it surprising on many fronts on some of the comments I saw. According to a user on Myanimelist – it appears that the Black★Rock Shooter anime had been originally slated with a 12 episode series in January to a 6 episode series in April and then released in July with only a single 50 minute OVA and thats it. “-That’s it?!!” – Yeah that’s it was the response for many users. Why it become a single release OVA, I have no idea but like many users insisted that the cliff hanger at the end was justifiable proof that there will be another episode. In my honest opinion I’d like to believe the same but as of current there are no news of such a release so until then I can only be sure that this is going to be the first and final episode. Aside from that, many users didn’t like the fact that the series raised more questions then it did to answer them. Especially how the promotional trailer was inaccurate to the released OVA. How true that is I won’t comment as I am too lazy to go confirm it myself at the moment although the trailer is only 1 folder away on my PC. One thing that did bother me was 2 things (love how that was so contradictory?) – First thing was the more shoujo school life and less BRS, although I won’t say I hated it, I really did enjoy it but I was looking forward to more BRS doing more a$$ whooping than being whipped around and 2ndly how there was one unidentified chick at the beginning whom BRS got pwned hard and had nothing to do with the rest of the episode. In more than one way I was those kind of users who ended up with more questions then answers. My verdict? “wtf?” – So hopefully they should put together the 2nd OVA to patch things up. Other than that, I really enjoyed the art, BRS still pwns although she got whipped around and Mako is my type *lawl*

I really would like to see more fights because for me I’m a sucker for epic death matches like as those seen in Sengoku Basara for example. It can’t be any random death match though, firstly the characters have to appeal to me and 2ndly I like to see some real effort put into the animation for the fights and see it well choreographed to be truly genuine. For those of you who are die-hard Black★Rock Shooter fans, people who love watching chicks who kills or for those who like something new to watch and talk about, get it. This series although great had some downsides but that doesn’t matter much to me. Seeing Black★Rock Shooter was enough for me IMO.

-Kai

Related posts:

1. Black★Rock Shooter The Animation
2. Black Rock Shooter: Black Blade Edition