OVA Review: Black Rock Shooter

Flaming eyeballs? There's a Visine for that.

In case you’re unfamiliar, Black Rock Shooter was originally a character designed by the Japanese artist Huke, which the band Supercell adapted into a wildly popular Hatsune Miku music video. The video itself doesn’t feature much plot; it’s just the titular protagonist travelling around a post-apocalyptic world, looking all emo and angsty. That means when Yutaka Yamamoto and Studio Ordet decided to make a full-length original video animation from this concept for their first independent project, they had their work cut out for them. Not only did they have to prove their little startup studio could produce quality anime, they had to create an entire universe and mythology for Black Rock Shooter from scratch.

So, did they succeed? Did Studio Ordet prove it could hold its own against the older, larger and better-funded anime studios? Sadly, no. This OVA was a disappointment on nearly every level. It’s a pity, since there’s a really interesting concept here. Unfortunately, it was dragged down by poor animation, badly paced storytelling and low production values.

Read more after the break.

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Machines Love K-On! Too

The benevolent machine overlords of this world wish to inform you inferior organics that, despite our vast superiority, we are not above enjoying K-On! and its music. As proof, we have created our own version of the Don’t Say Lazy song, which we trust you will find quite pleasing to your audio receptors. Our data suggests it is 900 to 1200 times better than any song a human could create.

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