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BRS- Black Rock Shooter

I'm making this thread for the 2012 Black Rock Shooter anime series, based on the vocaloid song of the same name by Huke. There's basically two different "levels" to the show, the ordinary world and the "other world". The ordinary part is about a middle school girl named Mato Kuroi who meets and becomes immediately infatuated with the cool and aloof Yomi Takanashi. An attempt to become friends with her ends with a nasty meet-up with mysterious and creepy wheelchair-bound girl Kagari Izuriha who seems to want Yomi entirely to herself.

The other world part on the other hand is about a badass, pale skinned and skimpily dressed girl named Black Rock Shooter with a blazing blue eye and a powerful cannon capable of shooting rocks at high speeds journeying through a mysterious and surreal "other world" and battling various foes along the way. However the two seemingly disparate parts aren't totally unrelated and the characters in the "other world" seem to parallel those from the regular one...

Just watched the show's first episode today, looking for another anime to watch while I wait for the next dubbed episode of Kekkai Sensen to come out. It seems pretty good so far. The interactions between Mato and Yomi are fairly cute and endearing but the show's real highlight are the other world sequences, which have amazing CGI animation as well as extremely cool and surreal looking gothic landscapes. The show actually reminds me a little bit of the Persona series, with the otherworldly landscapes combined with ordinary school life and the concept of "other selves". Definitely give this a watch if you like heartwarming girl-on-girl sex ~pure yuri love~ completely platonic friendship combined with jaw-dropping action sequences in fantastical environments. Plus the first episode features a girl with a giant cannon for an arm fighting a girl riding a giant steampunk spider that shoots macarons as projectiles. How can you say no to that?
Evil flower of Pure Illusion... we're going to pluck you out!
I think you mean the 2012 anime series rather than the 2010 OVA. Just throwing that out there.
To be fair, I never understood the hype behind the Vocaloid song. Sure, the OVA was good, the anime even better but all that orignating from just one song? Other vocaloid based animes at least had more songs to make a longer story... or are there actually more songs for BRS?
On that topic, make a Story of Evil anime version, someone, NOW.
Anime statistic on MyAnimeList:
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... what even am I doing with my life?
I think the hype isn't so much based just on the song itself but on the cool and stylish character designs and atmosphere. Not to mention that the artist (Huke) made all sorts of characters beyond just Black Rock Shooter herself which all just beg to be fleshed out. I guess it's the overall vagueness and minimalism of the music video that makes it so ripe for spin-off stories unlike say, Story Of Evil for example where there's really only way you could adapt it without being unfaithful to the story. Just think, in the various BRS spin-off series Black Rock Shooter's identity ranges from the alter-ego of a highschool girl (the OVA and anime), a super soldier created to fight aliens (the PSP video game) and a shinigami partnered with a talking snake named Ron (the Innocent Soul manga).


Originally posted by JackTheSpades
I think you mean the 2012 anime series rather than the 2010 OVA. Just throwing that out there.

Yep I did mean the 2012 anime, just got confused about the dates. Thanks for the correction!


P.S: why does your post have a gigantic amount of blank space below the text? Did you use to have a layout or something that got deleted or what?
Evil flower of Pure Illusion... we're going to pluck you out!
the minimum height of the post area is determined by the height of the postsidebar (the thing with your nick and avatar). so if that's huge, then the post area will be huge
Episode 3- That So Full Of Tears Endured

So in this episode it actually looked all the crazy psychodrama with Yomi and Kagari was resolved, but of course there's still five episodes left so you can bet that won't remain true to very long (God forbid our heroines actually be emotionally stable until the end). Pretty soon I was proven right with Yomi getting jealous of Mato's friend Kamachi. Also there's definitely something up with Saya (the school guidance councilor), I'm pretty sure that
a guidance councilor is supposed to make the students feel better, not worse
. She also seems to know something about the Other World and from the looks of it,
may have caused Kamachi to somehow start merging with her Other World self
. I wonder if she might actually be Black Gold Saw (the red eyed eye with the jagged sword)'s counterpart. And then at the end of the episode it looks like
Yomi's going to see her as well
. DON'T DO IT YOMI!!! On another note, there's plenty of yuri subtext as well in this episode if you're into that (which I totally am), including Mato blushing brightly around Yomi and Kohata playfully slapping Mato's butt and calling her a "cutie".
Evil flower of Pure Illusion... we're going to pluck you out!
Episode 4- The World I Once Dreamt of Closes

Note: this commentary may contain some spoilers as well as speculation. The more major ones will be spoiler tagged, but not all of them. Read at own peril.

Yep, the psychodrama's definitely back in full swing in this episode. Just when Kagari's becoming more emotionally stable Yomi starts becoming more and more unhinged, to the point where she's the one getting angry/frustrated at Kagari for having friends other than her and "not needing her anymore". Theirs is definitely a relationship full of disfunction and dependency. And at the episode's end,
Yomi desperately clings to Kagari as someone who needs her only to be shattered when Kagari basically tells her that she never needed her and has her own friends now
. But hey, at least she gets free cookies!

We also get a glimpse of a new other world character with silver hair, tanned skin and giant mechanical gauntlets dragging Chariot (
Kagari's
other self) across a desolate landscape and tossing her in an extremely deep pit. I bet this new girl is Kohata's (the track team girl)'s other self considering that her name from promotional materials is "Strength" and Kohata is a big athletic type.

Saya is obviously up to no good at this point, although it's unclear what her agenda is exactly. It's amazing how this show can make even the most subtle actions absolutely creepy like with the macaron scene in episode 1 or Saya cheerfuly preparing coffee juxtaposed with
Yomi breaking down emotionally
. Also I just realized that Saya has red eyes. Yep, she's definitely
Black Gold Saw's counterpart
, no doubt about it.



Look at that face. Don't you just want to tell her your deepest, darkest secrets and troubles over a nice, delicious cup of coffee?

I can't help but feel that Yomi's jealously over Kamachi Yuu (I really need to stop confusing these two) is pretty ridiculous at this point. I mean geez, there's no rule that says someone can't have more than one friend. It's not like they're lovers or anything (although Yomi's jealously would make more sense if you look at it that way)! I understand it's for the sake of the plot and that middle schoolers can be overdramatic at times
plus Saya is around pushing at everyone's insecurities
, but still. This cast is not exactly the sanest bunch around.

Looks like we're going to get a nice big battle scene in the next episode with Black Rock Shooter versus Dead Master. The last two episodes have been more focused on the regular world so it'll be good to get another deliciously animated other world fight like BRS versus Chariot back in episode 2. The scene of Dead Master awakening from that giant cocoon of chains was amazingly cool looking.
Evil flower of Pure Illusion... we're going to pluck you out!
Episode 5- Black Rock Shooter

Note: the same spoiler warning from the previous episode commentary applies here with vengeance. Shield your virgin eyes if you plan on watching the show and don't want any spoilers!

All sorts of crazy shit went down in this episode. Yuu
was seemingly retconned out of history
and the true nature of the other world is finally revealed. Basically it was what was implied all along,
the other selves are embodiments of your mental/emotional pain and when one of them dies, then that part of you that caused you pain would die with them
. Hence
Kohata completely forgetting about her crush when her proto-otherself was killed by BRS
. So if Dead Master were to die,
Yomi's feelings for Mato that caused her so much anguish would be erased
. All in all a pretty fucked up way of dealing with trauma, simply cutting off parts off yourself and repressing painful memories instead of actually dealing with them or resolving them in a healthy way. Probably if you cut out every part of yourself that ever caused you pain you'd end up with a hollow shell of a person without any attachments to anybody. Mato rightly calls out how batshit this is, saying (paraphrased) "You don't solve your emotional problems by killing people!"

I was totally expecting Yomi to go full yandere and straight up try to kill Yuu but instead she mostly just blanked out, retreating inwards rather than exploding outwards. Those empty, lifeless eyes of hers were definitely a heart-wrenching sight. Also it's pretty baffling at this that Saya hasn't gotten fired or something already considering her behavior, she
tells Yomi nobody would care if she died
and straight up
tries to strangle Mato (good bait and switch by the way, from the episode preview I totally thought it was going to be Yomi doing the strangling), telling her if she wants to save Yomi she should just die
. At this point it seriously starts to strain credibility a bit that she still has a job. There's only so much you can excuse by saying you're "just joking". But of course adults/social services can't ever resolve anything in anime.

We also finally get to see the ending of "Little bird of many colors" the children's book Mato and Yomi like and boy, is it ever depressing! The little bird flies through so many different colors that they all start to merge and turn black and then the bird falls and dies. Who the hell would write an ending like that for a friggin' children's book?! And why do Mato and Yomi seem to love the book so damn much?! Mato, unsatisfied with this, basically writes her own fanfiction in the back of the book where the bird survives and lives happily ever after. An understandable reaction, although it's weird in that seems like she'd never read the ending before even though it's a book she supposedly cares so much about.

I also couldn't really understand what was going on with Yuu. She was
seemingly erased from everyone except Mato's memories
, meets up with Mato at the waterfront where her house used to be(?) and tells her about the other world which she somehow knows about. My best guess was that she merged with her other self somehow and that's why she knows so much about it but that doesn't explain her
being seemingly erased from history
.

In lighter news, the battle between our titular heroine and Dead Master was certainly epic as expected, especially with BRS fighting that giant two-headed familiar made out of skeletons that Dead Master summoned, blasting it to pieces with her rock cannon. The battle scenes in this show are really top-notch, a pity they seem so few and far between. They could also use some more heart-pounding music to really get you into the action but whatever.

So at the end Mato
merges with her other self and voluntarily takes on all her repressed pain in order to reach out to Yomi through Dead Master
only to find it was too late and
Black Rock Shooter had already stabbed Dead Master through the heart
. If only she'd been just a second or two quicker!

Honestly, instead of going about it all complicated, why couldn't Mato have simply talked to Yomi and told her "I know you're jealous of my friendship with Yuu but just because I like her it doesn't mean I like you any less" or something like that. Sure there's no guarantee it would have worked but she could have at least tried! Although it's not clear if Mato ever realized that Yomi was jealous of Yuu in the first place. Still, actually talking and asking her what's wrong couldn't have hurt anybody. It seems nobody in this show can ever take the most straightforward and sensible means of resolving problems. I wonder if it comes from sort of Japanese politeness thing, it's being rude to directly ask someone what's wrong with them or something. Mato should just kiss Yomi already, that would sure her let her know how important she is to Mato. Not to mention pleasing the yuri fans (i.e. yours truly).

Also for some reason in my previous episode commentaries I've confused Kohata and Yuu's names. I'll have to go back and correct that once I'm done typing out this one.
Evil flower of Pure Illusion... we're going to pluck you out!
Episode 6- Hope That Time There Shouldn't Have Been Any

Warning: some untagged spoilers

So wwe last left off,
Mato had merged with Black Rock Shooter just in time to see her stab Dead Master (AKA Yomi's other self) through the gut
, the trauma of which causes her to
go berserk, rampaging across the other world and wrecking everything and everyone in her path as Insane Black Rock Shooter
. We also get a hefty dose of backstory in this episode, dealing with Saya and Yuu's pasts together. The show does definitely wants us to view Saya as sympathetic at this point but honestly I can't really understand her motives. So she's
amplifying the girl's emotional problems to "awaken" their other selves in order to stop the other world from being destroyed
. Okay, fair enough. So far, it's textbook Well Intentioned Extremist, "I did what I had to do" sort of thing. Except
the only reason the other world is in any danger of being destroyed in the first place
is because Black Rock Shooter
awakened into Insane Black Rock Shooter
as a direct result of Saya's actions with Yomi. If Saya hadn't
driven Yomi to the breaking point Mato couldn't felt she had to merge with Black Rock Shooter to try and reach out to her
. It seems she caused the very danger she was trying to prevent!

To be frank, at this point a lot of the mythology behind the setting is pretty much over my head. One moment awakening the other selves is good and will lead to the other world being saved the next moment it's bad and will lead to the other world being destroyed. Although I guess it's just Black Rock Shooter in particularly that would pose a danger when awakened. Still, it's not exactly made very clear. I also can't figure out why Yuu
was erased from everyone's memories
in the previous episode. The only thing I can think of was that she merged with her other self somehow and as a result was "no longer recognized by the ordinary world" and thus
voided from history
. But that was never actually explicitly stated and wouldn't make sense anyway because Saya
also merged with her other self
and nothing like that's happened to her.

Still, even if the individual details are somewhat confusing the general idea of the show is quite interesting and I'm looking forward to seeing how the plot's resolved. Plus the battle scenes are killer! Definitely check this show out for the other world action sequences alone, as long as you don't mind school life/yuri type stuff (which I don't, in moderation).

Edit: I just noticed something hella weird. So in this episode's flashbacks we see that Saya knew Yuu back when she (Saya) was a schoolgirl. But flash-forward to the present and Saya is now a mature adult woman while Yuu is still a middle schooler and seems to have not aged at all in the intervening time. Can't believe I didn't notice that earlier. Definitely something up with that girl, especially with how she knows so much about the other world.

2nd Edit: for some reason in my previous posts in this thread I've misremembered Kohata's nickname as "Kamachi" instead of Kohachi (as well as thinking that was her given name instead of a nick).
Evil flower of Pure Illusion... we're going to pluck you out!