Being a fan of all things even remotely related to Hatsune Miku, I was originally under the mistaken impression that artist Huke's Black Rock Shooter was an alternate version of her. Not true, it seemed -- but considering the similarities in design, it's not too much of a stretch for me to have thought so.
Regardless, I became fascinated with the Black Rock Shooter artwork and soon added the figures of the character to my toy collection. Soon after, toy makers Good Smile Company announced an OVA was in the works, and I was quick to keep tabs on it, as I wanted to learn more about the Black Rock Shooter universe and its elusive characters.
Finally, the OVA is out after many months of waiting and teases of characters and screenshots, and I was quick to check it out to see what secrets it revealed. Hit the jump to find out what I thought of BRS and why it earned a Recommends stamp from the Japanator staff.
The screens we've seen of the Black Rock Shooter OVA so far have shown us what appears to be two alternate universes. From what I was able to glean from the OVA, this is exactly the case, although there's little information provided about the dark world that Black Rock Shooter and Dead Master inhabit and the everyday school world. The latter is occupied by a character named Mato, who looks mysteriously like BRS with shorter hair. We meet her just as she is going to a new school for the first time. On her first day, she sees Yomi, a student with a really cool haircut who just so happens to resemble Dead Master, the character from the other world who is always battling BRS. Hmm ... what is the parallel here?
As the story progresses, we watch Yomi and Naro become best friends. However, later in the story Mato also becomes friends with the captain of her basketball team, and its clear that Yomi begins to feel left out, having lost the closeness (and perhaps, the uniqueness) of her tie with Mato a little bit. As these events unfold in the real world, BRS and Dead Master continue their ongoing battle in the parallel world. However, everything comes to a halt in the real world as Yomi mysteriously vanishes without a trace and Mato desperately tries to seek out where she has gone to.
In the end, the two worlds come together as BRS emerges for the first time into the real world and makes contact with Mato. They eventually merge and the OVA ends on the dramatic note of BRS announcing her identity. However, Yomi's whereabouts are never addressed, which certainly left me dangling (but I assume this is the point and this series will be continuing).
I really liked the OVA. It had two things I feel most modern anime is lacking: a coherant, compelling story and a dark fantasy world. While I felt as if not enough information was imparted about the dark world and the origin of its characters or how they relate to their real world counterparts, I still found that I was deeply engaged and really interested to learn more. Music and animation are also very high quality, so its an hour of your time that will certainly not be wasted. I have a feeling the more deeply we explore Black Rock Shooter's world, the more interesting it may become!
live comments!
Pretty animation and art, though.