Black★Rock Shooter OVA

Title: Black★Rock Shooter Genre: Action, Drama, School, Slice of Life Rating: 7.0/10

Summary: Mato Kuroi just got into junior high school, and on the first day, someone catches her eye; her classmate Yomi Takanashi. The two meet. The innocent and naive Mato. The mature Yomi. Seemingly opposites, but the time they spend together only strengthens a growing friendship. But as they go into their second year at the school, they get placed in separate classes, and they begin to grow apart. But somewhere simultaneously in another world, a young girl, blue fire residing in her eyes, Black Rock Shooter faces another young girl; this one holding a jet-black scythe, Dead Master, and a battle to the death begins to unfold.

Review: First like to remind everyone that this is a simple (well maybe not simple) 52 minute OVA. However, the ending suggests that there may be more to it in coming months. One can only hope at least. I have heard a lot of hype about this OVA coming out for months. Cosplay, wallpapers, fan art, and even figurines have all be released for quite some time now. I couldn’t wait to see what was in store after watching the PV. Sadly it may  have all just been hype. The art style was pretty, and I enjoyed the short action scenes. But that was the problem, they were short. Of the 52 minutes I would say roughly 15 are of the actual alternate world and 10 of those 15 minutes are fighting. I would have enjoyed to watch more, or longer fight scenes. The choreographed fights were decent. There were no scenes that really stuck out in my mind were I thought, “cool” or “nice move!“. Visually pleasing but not a huge deal. Probably what made this such a hit is the soundtrack. I can’t wait for the OST releases and will probably grab them as soon as possible. The beats were phenomenal and I can see myself listening to each track on repeat. I actually may consider this the sole reason to pick this OVA up (yes it may just be that good). The storyline was so-so, but only so much anyone can do in 50 minutes of run time. They did try their best, but I didn’t like the way they switched between reality and the alternate world. It seemed quite random, and didn’t fit the way I thought it would. The story is quite obvious on how the two worlds tie together so no surprises.  The message conveyed though was corny… The characters were also rather poor. The main character I actually liked, but the two support characters fell short for me. I didn’t really like their attitudes. The after credit ending was leaning toward having more show time, but I don’t see it being much different than the first. My only hope is another great soundtrack.

Final statements: For the satisfaction I got compared to time spent I would considered it a low - preferred watch. The soundtrack was really that amazing for me, and the story isn’t TOO bad. If you happen to run across it, at least give it a shot.