Black Rock Shooter (OVA).

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[b]Black Rock Shooter (OVA)[/b]

Probably one of the most anticipated OVA anime series fans has been waiting especially since it got delayed last year. Let's not forget that rather gorgeously action-oriented animated trailer done to keep the salivating fans at bay. And now that Black Rock Shooter out. I have to say.........don't expect this to be an all-out action OVA series. This ended up being a romantic 2-girl friendship story between Matou and Yomi where they started out hitting off nicely, but then Matou started paying more attention to another girl named Yuu in her basketball team which made Yomi rather jealous. Meanwhile in the some other world, there's the mysterious Black Rock Shooter fighting off Death Master. Obviously this is where the animation budget went since it's very slick and dynamic.

While the school girl friendship story may be ho-hum for some peeps (unless you're a yuri fan who's savvy enough to slash those two indescribably ), the OVA really picked up near the end where
Yomi suddenly disappeared, and Black Rock Shooter came to Matou's world to meet her. Matou is willing to find Yomi and bring her back so Black Rock Shooter seemingly fused into her. This is where all those fight scenes that's been place rather haphazardly within the school girl scenes starts to make sense.

With all that mind, I would say the producers of the Black Rock Shooter OVA ended up making a premise rather similar to the likes of Ga-rei Zero (or for a more extreme lesbian example Kannazuki no Miko); two girls who really like each other who both ended up fighting to the death. That of course if you're able to infer that
Death Master fused with Yomi.

There's definitely room for more episodes; you can seriously make this into a solid one cour series. The very end of the OVA episode really hinted that
with Yuu going probably the same phase as Yomi.

Animation overall were rock solid with some really kickass fight choreography (Black Rock Shooter whipping out her cannon was cool) along with the music. The way they structured the story kind of made the fight scenes rather meaningless and lose their intensity until the end where they suddenly have a purpose. Take those out, and you got a pretty decent schoolgirl friendship story by itself. It's a pretty decent yet flashy OVA which I don't know if I can rewatch this unless there's confirmation more is coming.
 
Was this based off something or is it new?

I watched the episode and it was very very good, the animation style was very unique and looked epic. Lets hope they make this into a good series!
 
I kinda dug it. I loved the visuals of the Black Rock Shooter world. The "real world" stuff was very low-key and deliberately paced - I can imagine some people getting bored with it. But it seemed that every time I was on the verge of that, they'd go into the other world. I have to say, even though I watch primarly TV series as opposed to OVAs (or movies, for that matter), I do appreciate the bigger animation budgets (and therefore usually tastier visuals) of OVAs. I hope this isn't a one off.
 
djsjr said:
Was this based off something or is it new?
Click to expand...
It was based off of this PV: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLzOrik5YJ8

Anyway, just finished the OVA a few minutes ago.

Man, that was disappointing. I disliked the boring as hell slice-of-life scenes (with lol drama towards the end), and the badly-placed action scenes that screwed with the pacing... not to mention, the lack of BRS (the song) was a terrible decision.

The BRS OVA could've been awesome, but nay - it is no more than a pile of wasted potential.
 
gapgapgap said:
djsjr said:
Was this based off something or is it new?
Click to expand...
It was based off of this PV: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLzOrik5YJ8

Anyway, just finished the OVA a few minutes ago.

Man, that was disappointing. I disliked the boring as hell slice-of-life scenes (with lol drama towards the end), and the badly-placed action scenes that screwed with the pacing... not to mention, the lack of BRS (the song) was a terrible decision.

The BRS OVA could've been awesome, but nay - it is no more than a pile of wasted potential.
Click to expand...
I liked it a bunch, but I guess people have different opinions, thanks for linking me where it came from :P
 
I quite liked the animation and how it presented itself and found it to be a fairly enjoyable OVA. However if I have one major bone to pick - although it might just be me being slow here - it was that in terms of having an cohesive overall plot, it really lost me. Yes, telling two parts of a story concurrently can be a very effective way of presenting it, however I didn't really feel that it managed to tie itself together particularly neatly or barely at all. :?
 
Pretty good. Really liked the art, character design, and voice acting (and on these aspects it gets a 10/10 from me). The story connected well, and I don't really have much to complain about other than the running time (too short, and a few interesting things could have been presented).
Although I'd like to call it incomplete, I don't feel it that way. It rounded up quite nicely.
Some footage after the credits, don't miss it.
 
I'll just repost my "watching right now" comments, with a new paragraph about the fighting.

As a prequel to a longer and involved story it would be fine but as it, with no frame of reference for the alternate world, is it's just an exceedingly simple story. Two girls are friends, one gets jealous and withdrawn when the other makes a new friend. The whole alternate world where the girls fight can be only be seen as symbolic as we are given absolutely no other explanation. To finish it up,
they hug it out and are friends again
. Plus a post credits scene that shows that the new friend is now jealous- cue to possible sequel. But unless an actual mythology for the other world and why the girls are connected to it is created, it's all just pointless wankery. I guess you can also say it's a decent promo reel for a new animation studio.

As for the fight scenes. I guess you can say they were "cool. " In fact, that's all they were. A couple cool looking chick fighters, fighting with cool weapons, skulls and chains among a cool backdrop of cool gothic scenery and random crosses. no point to it other than to look cool so I guess it succeeded. Once again, no context for the world was given so it was rather pointless.

The other way to have made this more relevant would have been to really expand on the original source of the show the music video by Supercell. If it has been made into a long form video to showcase SUpercell's music that could have been interesting too. Choreograph scenes to music more thoroughly. There were some parts set to music but it seemed completely incidental mood music. Laidback montage music of the girls being friendly, some hard rock for the fights.

I'll rate it as So-so because there really isn't anything memorable about it as is.
 
what are the chances of this coming out on DVD in the U.S. I usually don't go fo Moe style shows, but the animation in this looks great, and I really don't mind shows with alot of boring scenes (as long as they have a decent fight or 2 in them.)

(heck, I'm watching Moribto right now, lol.)
 
Soundmonkey44 said:
what are the chances of this coming out on DVD in the U.S. I usually don't go fo Moe style shows, but the animation in this looks great, and I really don't mind shows with alot of boring scenes (as long as they have a decent fight or 2 in them.)

(heck, I'm watching Moribto right now, lol.)
Click to expand...

The Japanese DVDs that come free with magazines have English subtitles, as well as 6 other languages. There was an ANN article about this earlier. The September issue of Megami Magazine is sold out on a lot of places, unless you want to pay obscene shipping from Amazon.co.jp. But you can pick up the September issues of Animedia and Hobby Japan, the other magazines it comes with, more easily. I just ordered the Animedia issue from HobbySearch myself: http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10119559. I'm still waiting for that to arrive since I don't watch anime illegally.

Oh, and there's also an official English web page for it now: http://www.blackrockshooter.jp/en/index.html
 
Thats good to know I guess, sadly I have no means of Importing a product, so I would have to buy from a U.S. site (since I just shop with Visa giftcards on the net.)

I'm glad a subtitled version is avalible already..but would'nt mind somebody like Sentai picking this up..maybe releaseing it as a hybrid (sub/dub) DVD.
 
Eh, it's not that hard to pay for imports...HobbySearch and others even take PayPal now.

In terms of US sites, AkaDot stocks Megami magazine, though on somewhat belated schedule and you can't do preorders, so you're not assured of getting in that narrow window when it gets in stock and when it sells out.
 
egoist said:
Pretty good. Really liked the art, character design, and voice acting (and on these aspects it gets a 10/10 from me). The story connected well, and I don't really have much to complain about other than the running time (too short, and a few interesting things could have been presented).
Although I'd like to call it incomplete, I don't feel it that way. It rounded up quite nicely.
Some footage after the credits, don't miss it.
Click to expand...


I thought BRS was very exciting to watch sure the way they switched things up was a little weird but it was still very good graphics and music, by the way at the end does that mean their going to probably make more?
 
I heard a lot of bad things about this but decided to check it out regardless.

I'm glad I did because I really enjoyed it. I felt that the story of a blossoming friendship (I didn't pick up any yuri undertones here... girls can be friends too :wink:) was well handled considering the time constraints. I realise it was appealing to the moé service generation but I enjoy a bit of cute slice of life now and then.

I also enjoyed the actions scenes, they were suitably badass and really embodied what I EXPECTED the OVA to be like. The animation has a gorgeous aesthetic even if it wasn't exceptionally smooth.

However, I have to agree on the points regarding the disjointed story. You could pull apart the slice-of-life stuff from the BRS scenes and make two seperate episodes of two seperate shows. Other than the character designs there was seemingly no linking factors whatsoever
apart from the BRS fusion at the end... but that doesn't actually explain much or really link the two worlds together in a meaningful way.

So ultimately, I enjoyed it... but it felt like two seperate books with their pages interleaved. It comes down to this philosophy for me:

Do I like chocolate? Yes.
Do I like sausage? Yes.
Want to eat chocolate and sausage mashed together? Ehh... I guess? :?
 
The original poster and some replies apparently missed many spoiler tags
for many information they leaked (which they thought were not important,
but unfortunately it were their calls.)

On the other hand, the OP's put too much subjective feelings
and mere guesses (judged by the surface, esp. the last scene
after the ending song.) The show intends to give some rooms
of imaginations, so putting one's anticipations into the reviews
and threat them as facts......

These are certainly not nice.

(PS. I suspected that many of those who really hate the slow-paced scenes/
cold-blooded/dialog-less actions, were fans of more hot-blooded actions shows,
like Gundam 00 2nd - with a clearer plot and more main-stream actions
(and they obvious won't like 00 1st season for similar reasons.) So, I think
those who hated it have their ground....)

I am among the ones that enjoyed the show - in overall. Although the scenario
-spitting style is not well-done.

The visual presentations, with some technical flaws though, is very
well done, beating Miyazaki Hayao and could match Akira, GITS movies,
and Satoshi Kon's works (I watched many of them.) Japanese anime
seldom gives Disney-quality stuffs like Black Rock Shooter, so
every one should at least watch it once.

The story is quite well-written in the 53 minute, theater-size anime show.
I also like it being wrapped up very well as a standalone work, not being
seriously affected by those dangling leads and mysteries for potential
of continuity. Good work, folks.

One thing I specially like is the character gesturing. Some parts
of the show does not give dialogs (
e.g. in all Alternative World
scenes
), but the actions/gestures, beside fights, were appealing
all by themselves, better than dialogs. No many animes could do that.

Many people don't like the ED song, but I am otherwise. "Braveheart"
concluded the show really well, but it is the ED song only. I ain't very
fond of the background musics, though (the animators are certainly
bad at it.)
 
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