02.06
Going in, I expected an awesome action extravaganza about Samuel L. Jackson running around Tokyo with an unrealistically large assortment of firearms and explosives blowing shit up with a soundtrack composed entirely by Motorhead. After all, what else could an hour-long OVA entitled Black Rock Shooter possibly be about? The friendship shared by two middle school girls, apparently.
This pretty much sums it up.
What we’ve got here is a slice of life school drama masquerading as a trippy fantasy action movie. It doesn’t help that the trailer is composed almost entirely of fight scenes or that there is pretty much no fan or official art depicting anything other than the characters’ alternate reality personas.
So…
The title is misleading.
The trailer is misleading.
The art pertaining to it is misleading.
But, disregarding all of that, is it any good? Well… yes and no.
The story begins with rejected Magical Touhou: Lucky K-On Witches’ Kindergarten – A’s character Mato Kuroi getting ready for her first day at a new school. Yes, this is yet another “moe” anime, though it actually makes sense in this context, since the characters are in Junior High and not college. This, unfortunately, does not stop the producers from throwing some (thankfully light) fanservice into the mix on occasion (really, guys?). It isn’t long before she meets Yomi Takanashi, and they become good friends very quickly.
The scenes involving Mato and Yomi being best buds would serve to make the rest of the OVA more effective if they didn’t feel so rushed. More than half of their friendly interactions are shoehorned into a montage, removing any and all relatability from these situations that could be emotionally charged under other circumstances.
Soon, the inseparable pair begins to drift apart. While this is extremely abrupt and there is almost nothing building up to it, these scenes are easily the best in the feature. Mato, though she is unaware of this, begins neglecting Yomi, and once the latter disappears from the picture, she becomes horribly confused and begins feeling isolated and regretful. The raw emotion compounded into these segments is conveyed very well and would have genuinely constituted a few wonderful moments had the establishment of their friendship earlier on not felt so amateurish. It’s also too bad that this topic was already covered this year (and to better effect) by Toy Story 3.
This is all supplemented by numerous, random, and very brief sequences of the main characters’ alternate world selves fighting over… something. The action scenes are all fairly lame with the exception of the last one, which is suitably over the top and fun to watch. It is unfortunate that these alternate world segments – for which the OVA is named – are all entirely inconsequential and have a total running time equivalent to that of the movie’s ending credits. One of these is literally a three second shot of a desert spliced in between two school scenes for absolutely no reason. Several of them feature a character whose alternate persona does nothing whatsoever aside from stare off into the distance for 15 seconds or so.
The ending and moral have both been done before… in Pokemon: The First Movie. Black Rock Shooter basically tells you that if you cry hard enough, your missing and/or dead friends will come back to you. This would be relatively easy to ignore if all the loose ends were tied up by the conclusion, but that is not so. There will likely be a sequel sometime in the near future (though nothing has been announced yet, as far as I know), and I can assure you that I will not be watching it unless it fixes all the problems from this episode.
The art is fine if you like the generic “moe” style. Nothing too spectacular, but nothing really awful, either. The animation varies greatly; some scenes are amazingly fluid while others are choppy and terrible. Ironically, it is usually the supposed “eye-candy” action scenes that get the short end of the stick.
The voice acting in Black Rock Shooter is pretty good. Mato’s actress especially does a great job of making her character’s emotions seem “real.” While the others’ voices aren’t quite as excellent, it’s all very professional-sounding and the performances are enjoyable. The music doesn’t fare as well, however. I only really noticed two songs in the entire OVA (outside of your standard ambient background soundtrack), neither of which I liked. The first, played during the friendship montage, is a teary-eyed, nostalgic piece and, as far as I can tell, is sung entirely in Engrish (and I hate teary-eyed, nostalgic pieces – especially when sung in Engrish). The second, played during the ending credits, sounds like it was recorded by a Japanese Green Day cover band (and I hate Green Day – especially when played by cover bands).
Overall, you could do a lot worse than Black Rock Shooter. There’s not much that’s actually wrong with it, even though all it really boils down to in the end is a great story told poorly.
TL;DR
Story: 6/10 (It had a chance to really connect with the audience on an emotional level, but instead felt like it was hastily slapped together at the last minute)
Characters: 5/10 (While we’re offered lots of interesting insight into Mato’s life, she’s the only character who really develops at all)
Art: 5/10 (Standard “moe” style)
Animation: 7/10 (Can change from awesome to awful in a matter of seconds)
Voice Acting (Japanese): 8/10 (The voice cast did a really good job with what they were given)
Music: 3/10 (Nothing really memorable)
Overall: 6/10 (Feel free to watch it if you’re bored; it’s nothing amazing but you might like parts of it)
–Foggle
Originally posted on Sunday, August 1, 2010.