Review
Black Bullet. A hyped show for hyped fans.
Before starting, be warned: unless you shut your brain off or take pleasure in watching and fantasising about ten year old lolis, you are in for a rough ride, and I mean a truly rough ride. In a few words, Black Bullet makes most shows in the recent season look like masterpieces of characterization and plot progression.
Anyway, the background here is appearantly quite heavy. In the near future, humanity is nearly decimated by colossal bugs known as Gastrea and forced to live in places protected by huge walls of varanium, some sort of metal capable of keeping these monsters at bay. Within this apocalyptic world, Rentaro, a young promoter, is tasked to hunt down a man who plans to destroy the Tokyo district, one of mankind's last bastions.
- Yes, Shingeki no Kyojin all over again
You read it right. Huge invincible monsters, walls, mankind's last stronghold, bla-bla-bla. It's Shingeki no Kyojin (SnK) set in Tokyo, but with cute lolis and an even more stupid protagonist. However, unlike SnK, in this setting we simply have no damn sense of any danger from the outside. People are more scared living in São Paulo or New York then in this Tokyo that is supposedly surrounded by colossal bugs capable of killing them in the blink of an eye. There is no darkness, fear, despair, or any kind of sensation given by the atmosphere of the show, only some gore followed by quirky comical scenes or...
Shingeki no Kyojin. Ah! With lolis!
...some naked ten-year old girl trying to have sex with the protagonist. Yup! So much for doom, apocalyptic setting and gore. We haves lolis! Who cares for the rest?
Nah. You see, in this setting, there are some girls infected with the virus that created the Gastrea. They can at any time become a terrible threat or so people believe, but they are also humanity's last hope. However, instead of just trying to get along with kids that could save them, adults prefer to treat them as trash, kick them from public places, and force the poor little girls to the outskirts, slums, or whatever.
And all lolis love the protagonist!
Because he is the protagonist, of course! Aside from the heroine, the initiatior Enju, who sincerely wants to bed with the protagonist (she is ten, that), there are tons of cutie cutie lolis, all of them forgotten by society but loved by the samaritan protagonist. As a result, obviously, they all have desires not fit for ten years-old. Anyway, it is kinda nice to see some sort of prejudice thrown in the show and the protagonist even does act like a good guy to deserve all the "love" he gets, but...
He is also a jerk, liar, and sends everyone to their deaths
Whoa! That's it. Behind the good guy who cares for cute lolis is a guy who just don't care. Right at the start he meets this masked villain who wishes, amongst other things, to destroy this society who banishes cute lolis, and for about half the show the protagonist keeps finding him, fighting him, and losing with tremendous ease. During these encounters, people die, a lot.
However, with some insane ass-pulling, the protagonist reveals he is a badass mercenary with mechanical body parts and former member of whatever and instantly beat the crap out of the masked villain. Seriously? After all the dead allies? NOW he decides to fight for real? What a fukn heartless bastard!
Ah, and he is a school student!
What? SCHOOL? God, once again... lolis and school setting, they go hand in hand, eh? Black Bullet throws in a school in this survival struggle with loli weapons because, dawn, why not? Giant bugs, lolis, overpowered dude, boobs, harem, big guns... this is Black Bullet.
A decent production, at least
If there is something to dig from all this mess, it is work from the animation guys and the sound direction. The former offers quite a deal of nice action scenes and makes up in of mindless fun for the lack of characterization the entire cast of lolis and the protagonist has. Even the character design feels a bit less generic then the norm, with a mix of your default anime cast with those dead eyes and bright coloring. It doesn't mix well with the dark setting, but is good nonetheless. The same could be said to the voice-acting, themes and sound effects in place, not giving us a masterpiece, but helping to make something salvageable
Comments
I thought I was done watching shows like this, but perhaps the 13-episode size kept me until the end so I could at least warn others about everything it has. Black Bullet is a disaster if you take anything of it seriously, but surprisingly can be a "decent" mindless shounen watch. The pace is fast, things progress quite a lot, everything that matters is plot-protected or thrown out of coincidences, even explanations are spit onscreen with no care whasoever, but the action scenes can be quite fun and are decently frequent.
Why the hell was this even slightly hyped? That is a tough question. If you desperatly want a shounen action or loli comedy and has absolutely nothing else of the kind to watch, then maybe Black Bullet may entertain you. However, if you are looking for any sort of depth, a drama, or even a mediocre comedy, better watch whatever else is on your list or waste your time on facebook or twitter.
