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「神を目指した者たち」 (Kami wo Mezashitashatachi)
“Those Who Aimed at God”
I would call Black Bullet my guilty pleasure show of the season. It doesn’t have anything in particular going for it and I’m sure that a lot of viewers out there would go as far as saying it’s actually pretty bad. But with a somewhat thrilling story that manages to hit its high points with flying colors and a fairly varied cast of characters that bring numerous views to the same problem — I think Black Bullet ended up being pretty good.
Final Impressions
Jumping straight into the Final Impressions, let’s use this last episode as the prime example of how this show managed to time and time again redeem itself from being relegated into the pile of shows I’d eventually finish later. I personally don’t find the idea of exposition dumping that appealing but in Black Bullet’s case I can see why it was needed. Plot holes and unexplained points aside, this show’s world really does have a lot of things going on! Like most post-apocalyptic civilizations, the rules change to fit society and without any explanation I’m sure we’d all be a lot more confused then we already were. Things like how Japan is more like a bunch of territories with their own leaders or just how entangled the Civil Officer system is in a broken justice system — it’s these types of things that just need to be explained in one way or another. But after boring us with an episode or three of just filler, we were always rewarded with a fantastic episode. Be it an epic battle or a huge shift in the plot, something was always built off of the blocks the previous episodes laid down. Sure some arcs had more success than others but if you average everything together I’m pretty sure you get a passed grade.
That said, I think everything in the Tina’s arc was done fabulously and I wish the show followed that style of storytelling more often. Instead of Rentaro just having an inner monologue for 20 minutes, I loved how side characters became the storytellers as we learned what was going on just as Rentaro did.
Pacing and story issues aside, I’ve come to find that a good chunk of people watching this show (including myself) have become emotionally invested in all the characters — something I think we need to thank the adapting studio for. Seeing how characters are usually coated in enough plot armor that even cardiac arrest won’t stop them, one of the biggest things that left an impression was probably just how many characters ended up dying! Now I’m not a fan of seeing characters die for no reason (or in general) but starting with Senju and every single person after her, the story made a strong point that life isn’t fair and bad things happen to good people. Something that prompted me to fear for the lives of the characters I really liked which inadvertently caused me to really care about them awfully quickly.
If I had one true complaint about the series it would probably be the lack of explanation for some of the smaller plot points that I thought would originally have a lot more impact. The biggest being how in the world Rentaro was going to deal with Enju’s ridiculously high corrosion rate. Because after you tell us, the viewers, that Enju is on the verge of turning into a Gastrea you can’t just leave it at that and expect us to be okay with it! Another thing — you would expect we’d get some sort of explanation behind just what a Gastrea is, right? Especially with how the show’s premise is basically built upon them and what not.
In the end though, I think Black Bullet succeeded in being an action packed show that brought out a lot more emotion from me than I ever thought it would. With its interesting premise and charming characters, the show reeled me in and kept me coming back for more by giving me just enough satisfaction before I gave up. Yes, this show does have its downsides but I think this show still warrants a watch for those who are interested in it!
Random Thoughts
- Kohina is actually pretty kawaii when she isn’t busy slicing people.
- There’s always some sort of malfunction with technology. Makes you wonder how they managed to win the first two wars >>
- Two episodes of people dying in a row 😐
- Enju is still best girl<3
Thanks for dropping by and keeping up with my posts! Love ya <3
Epilogue:
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Rentarou is weak , Kisara i know you are sad, but what you said is true , you can’t let these people alive . Rentarou, if you don’t step up your game and try harder , everyone around you will keep dying, Kisara too , she probably don’t have much time left(illness), Enju grastrea virus percentage, you need to choose side, or don’t choose at all(fight harder).
as long as kisara keep doing hemodialysis she wont die.
she will get kill by stupid rentarou , that dude always help the wrong guy according to the novel.
duh… let kisara die… just because her parents died because of that corrupt relative of hers, doesnt justify her reason of killing a person. just cut his leg, and leave him alone out of humiliation is more painful than death but no… what she did is just way OVER KILL.
but oh well… whatever i say, rentaro being the “hand of justice” would definitely save kisara someday on that dark hole she just entered… they are that “LOVE PAIR” after all.
its only a point of view matter. We have to remember were seeing this through rentaros view that means “justice, the good beats evil, innocent” = hero point of view. The anime makes clear that he struggle around, hero, anti-hero, villain thoughts. So kisara became anti-hero type (not evil)we only have 3 paths here, or she dies while doing her “justice”, she regrets and everything come back normal
or the one less likely rentaro becomes an anti-hero character making the story darker, kisara wont look so evil anymore, one step closer to become a villain (as Kagetane Hiruko said it), becoming enemy of the state (Seitenshi enemy)
It is true that KIsara had the right to kill him and he deserved that and a million more painful things but Kisara is still wrong in this. Sometimes a hero must make the choice of killing his enemy, the hard choice only can meke but if that becomes an habit he will become the very monster he hunts more sooner than later; poor Kisara is not doing this for justice, doing a favor to the world or avoid this monsters from hurting others, she´s killing them because she wants revenge and nothing more.
If evil truly was the only way to battle evil then this world woul have not lasted a century, let alone more than 10000 years of human civilization. Kisara is becoming the kind person that put her world in that hellish state with the discrimination against the Cursed Children and the inhumane esperiments with the Mechanized Soldiers like Rentaro and Kagetane.
The only people that can saves a hellish world like this one are Rentarou, Enjou and Seitenshi, they are idealistic but have taken more than a few from the twisted evil in the world and they still struggle to keep going and build something for the future; people like Kisara just know how to do one thing: destroy everething, they just gave up on the world.
It does tbh , you don’t need to be a good person , killing that dude doesn’t make you bad person either, if i am in that story , i would hug kirara and told her that everything is totally fine.
Killing bad guy isn’t wrong , since if you don’t they will kill you anyway. Have u every think that if that dude win , what would he do to kirara? They kill her parents so they can still make profit of that dying world , they lie to kirara and make her feel sick on the verge of dying for 10 years.
It depend on the country you were born too. In mine , revenge is bad , but we just can’t simply let them walk away , can we?
Not sure how I feel about Kisara killing that guy. I am more disappointed that there will not be any romance between her and our main hero Saitomo or whatever. That really was out of the blue. I suppose they wanted to give us a reason to watch another season.
high profile mass murderers get executed irl aswell (housein, binladen etc) its just that in black bullet they dont really have a proper government tbh, from the looks of it they jsut go with the flow.
in times of peace the public has an opinion about criminals aslong as its not near them or doesn’t effect their lives, in times of war their oppinions are mostly different specially when things hit close to “home”.
besides its an apocalypse its prolly best to take care of evil before it spreads or takes a foothold.
im with kisara on this.
of all that happen in this last episode, that scene about kisara goign insane hits me the most…
MY THOUGHTS ABOUT THE EPISODE:
1. looks like the last boss for the series is NOT a gastrea level 5 but someone closer to rentaro and kisara just raised her flag for that.
2. i have doubts on how rentaro can beat some sanity unto kisara… technically, kisara have some INSANE sword skills and INSANE speed.
3. if rentaro is not the one who will beat kisara, i think kagetane would love it.
4. good thing tina doesnt follow kisara (they are registered as a pair after all) and instead stayed with the doctor…
5. looks like kisara is officially a loner… and judging from the captioned photo, endo civil security is officially closed.
6. rentaro should better reconsider miori’s offer of joining her civil security.
7. agree… ENJU is still the best girl.
I always had doubts about Kagetane´s true power level, rentaro beat him but jus barely and I have the feeling that if they have rematch Kagetane will trash the floor with our hero. I think Kagetane is enjoying watching the life of Rentarou, he considers our hero an equal and part of him wants to see him fall just like he did but another wants Rentarou to become better than him, show him he had a choice apart from insanity and that´s why he keeps him alive, for the resolution of the story.
I’m impressed, rarely have I seen such a trainwreck. Bombs don’t work like that. Battles don’t work like that. Civilizations don’t work like that. People don’t work like that. The Rentaro that just last episode was willing to execute people for running from battle suddenly has an objection to Kisara executing the scumbag that caused the entire mess? Paper lanterns solving the lighting problem (as if you can’t see a giant bug)? Shouma sacrificing himself out of the blue? The whole series feels like someone tried to copy Attack on Titan in a modern setting while slapping on 10x more twists and loli-harem fanservice.
4 dead battle-lolis out of 10 awkward pedophilia jokes. Pretty visuals and a plot so bad it’s entertaining, but would not recommend and will not watch a second season.
Funny SnK should be brought up because it’s the running theory for why Black Bullet’s adaptation was made in the first place. Considering the similarities between the two someone probably looked at SnK’s success and thought “hey we might be able to piggyback off of this”.
Lol that’s actually the first thing that came to mind when i saw the premise for this. The description matches Attack on Titan WAY to much for it to be a coincidence. It’s just like how the “trapped in a game” type of stories have been popping up more since SAO’s success. You’ve gotten strike while the iron is hot.
Yeah, I’m not sure if the original material was inspired by SnK, but the adaption was probably influence by its success. Which isn’t inherently bad; most great works are derivative and imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. The problem is that the setting and plot aren’t nearly as well thought out and plausible as SnK’s which severely damages suspension of disbelief. And whoever wrote it wanted to have their cake and eat it too by trying to keep the grimdark atmosphere but with random loli/harem antics. Not the most miscible of combinations; it reminds me of the Muv-luv Alternative anime which was essentially the bastard child of SnK and Infinite Stratos. It did not work out well.
@^ Muv-Luv predates both SnK and IS by… a lot, so I don’t know where you going with that comparison.
Fun fact, Hajime Isayama apologized for plagiarizing Muv-Luv Alternative in the MLA manga adaptation. He and the other mangaka made a crossover illustration. And MLA was released in 2006.
source here: http://collectiondx.com/files/isayamamuvluv.jpg
@Shiden: The Muv-luv Alternative anime reference was simply another example of two different genres not going together well. It clearly wasn’t based on SnK or Infinite Stratos, but since I saw it after those two it felt like someone took the two shows and tried to stitch them together. Black Bullet’s problems simply reminded me of Muv-luv’s.
Rentarou wasn´t going to execute people like, he wanted to sacare the cowards and give them a reason to keep figthing. Rentarou is the kind of guy that can´t live with something like that and that´s why I like him so much in that world full of crazy bastards aith little to no moral at all.
Are you sure about that? Because the impression I got from that episode was that he was willing to carry out that threat. In the past he’s killed lolis and had no problem killing Kagetane (or at least trying to). Selling shoddy Varanium is nearly as big a threat to the city’s security as smily-mask’s plan, and the guy was getting away with it scott-free. Plus it’s not as if Kisara murdered him either; while of questionable legality they both had a fair shot at killing each other in their duel. The big problem is that he went from “ends justify the means” to goody two shoes within one episode, not to mention Kisara going full Yuno Gasai out of the blue.
meh the series overall was just meh for me…
i liked the “the second strike didnt just take his leg” scene … that moment when you see someone standing and suddenly you realize they were NEVER standing..is just that they were so deep under their hole they came out all the other side of the planet and they just LOOK LIKE they are standing!
it made me remember Mirai Nikki …. but while Yuno totally yandere, Kisara comes out more as yangire.
It irked me how that stupid officer got away with dumping all those batteries. I hope he’ll suffer a horrible dead later on in the series…
PS. Tina is the best girl!
Again they for some reason think it’s a good idea to place an info dump right after the big battle.
It’s just like the whole deal with Rentaro and the old man who saved him. We have no idea how Rentaro figured out the stuff he is spewing at the guy nor do we care who he is (not to mention he was completely dropped from the story).
Here this guy who was never properly built up for us to even care about comes in after the fight. Kisara spews all this knowledge about his actions that we didn’t even know about and we are suddenly expected to care. That ain’t going to fly I’m afraid.
Episode 13 and overall thoughts:
Decent enough ending I suppose though it was still VERY much rushed I’ve certainly seen worse this season. The final fight didn’t quite have the punch (no pun intended) that I thought it was going to have. Shouma’s sacrifice was noble but……….eh………..who was he again?Oh yeah that right. It’s that guy who never went through any character development/screentime that I don’t care about. Cool.
They managed to loosely tie in all the deaths near the end so they had SOME value i suppose but it was stupid how they brought it up. Rentaro has always been emotionally effected by death. It was totally out of character for him to say “Dang those people who got killed are going to make us late!!” just so we could see him cry about not being effected by death when that notion hasn’t been shown AT ALL during the series.
And of course there is the whole Kisara thing. Springing on us that she’ll likely be a villain now is pretty stupid but I actually don’t mind it to much. All the other villains have been so hilariously over the top and retarded that i can never take them seriously. Her development into a psycho should have been executed better but it makes a little more sense to me for why one of the good guys would turn bad given what they’ve went through. Rentaro surprisingly hasn’t changed all that much despite the fact he has more of a reason to end up dishing out justice on humans in a harsh fashion than her but I guess he’s just that mindlessly driven naive type.
My expectations were rather high for this one. Needless to say I’m very disappointed. The way the story paints all of humanity is frankly forced and the anime never changed my standing on that. Speaking of that WHERE was that crowd of people cheering for better treatment of the CC during the ENTIRE series? Did they just take a rain check or what?
That’s the kind of manipulative writing that just doesn’t sit well with me. It’s like the show is trying to be needlessly edgy or something by saying HEY GUYS LOOK! “WE’VE GOT CUTE LOLIS THAT GET MURDERED! It tries WAY to much to mix the cutesy loli moments only to have a tragic moment where they die or get abused soon after happen. The tone shift just doesn’t work and it comes off as pandering to the loli lovers while trying to tell a dark story which gets a meh response from me.
I was initially drawn to the show because i love end of the world situations played out in anime but i was left pretty disappointed. Granted that had a lot to do with the pacing issues which reared it’s ugly head the majority of the show (that first arc man was probably the worst). I can see why they tried to end it where they did but given how the plot suffered a bit because it was sporadically inconsistent that worked against the series. I can at least say it was entertaining most of the time in a dumb way but that’s pretty much all the good I can say about it (Tina was cool if they didn’t have to use tasteless pedo jokes on all the kids). Maybe if they spent more time on developing the story instead of loli shenanigans it would have been better. But obviously they didn’t have enough confidence in it for that so they had to pull out the loli pandering just to be safe which i find rather detestable.
In the end, Kisara steal the spotlight…
Forgot to say that she’s the embodiment of Yomi Isayama from Ga-rei Zero…
Well you’re not wrong about how Black Bullet can be considered pretty bad, Takaii, because it was pretty bad. Much like Brynhildr’s final, this episode simply tried to shove too much into too short a time frame, consistency and character development be damned. Many actions either made no sense (Shouma being the sacrifice, Kisara performing the execution) or needed better buildup for proper understanding (the whole battery thing, Rentaro’s response to Kisara).
These issues are the same that have plagued the show from the start: moving too fast, cutting too much, leaving no time to sit and focus on a particular scene or event. The problem is only made more profound from how close Black Bullet came to redeeming itself around the middle. The show actually slowed down, took a smaller bite out of its source material, and managed to give a large shock in the murder of the school children and its aftermath (probably the highlight of the show due to the significant buildup we had before it). If the rest of the show had decelerated to this pace and was better fleshed out then it would have been a pretty good overall.
Overall I’d give Black Bullet a 5.5/10 (average to above average), it had an interesting (if not unique) storyline unfortunately dragged down its insanely fast pacing, shallow character development, and missing explanations for certain actions. Producer choices without a doubt negatively impacted this adaptation.
Yeah, I felt like this show fell into the same trap Brynhildr fell into as well. Although, I have to say my reaction to this ending was more like “wtf?” and having a hard time believing what was going on, whereas Brynhildr just made me laugh at points with how ridiculous it was.
I… I honestly don’t know how to feel about this show. On one hand, it has some great elements. Kagetane was a nice character, the lolis were adorable, it had an interesting premise, the OP and ED were great, and some decent action scenes sometimes. But then half the time it’s executed awfully, like the rushed first arc and Pleiades fight, deaths that are kinda skimmed over like that one girl from the first arc and Fuse, deaths that felt needless and like they could have been avoided like Shouma, the insanity switch being flipped on Kisara with no buildup, dropped plotlines like the corrosion rate, and more. There were parts that were nice, but I just can’t bring myself to fully enjoy this show… I don’t know though, that’s just me.
I’ve had a few qualms with this last arc of the show. Somehow I knew the whole battery incident wouldn’t affect the final battle’s outcome. It was just some ruse to give a useless cliffhanger last episode. I guess you could say that less of the civil officers would have died in the battle, but they didn’t really make that loss seem significant.
Kisara’s whole deal and becoming dark felt really out of place as well. It might have been easier to buy if they sold her as a character bent on finding her parents’ killers, but they spent almost zero time developing her character as anything else but Rentaro’s love interest. Seriously? All of this in just the last few minutes of the last episode?
Then there’s Rentaro, who I just figure out what his character is trying to be. His emotional breakdown with Enju at the end didn’t seem in character to me for some reason. I guess I don’t see someone who is willing to sacrifice himself at any given moment (every arc) for the sake of completing his mission as someone who cries in the lap of a preteen because he realized he doesn’t even notice how many people have died. The same guy who was willing to injure/kill the other civil officers that wanted to ditch to make himself someone they fear instead of the gastraea.
Honestly, the only characters that seemed to be consistent were Tina and Enju.
Of course, pacing has MUCH to do with these flaws, but I feel like a lot of these shows just come out to make a quick buck and put less emphasis on good direction. It must be tough to have your work animated in such a saturated market.
Unfortunately this is another one of those shows that showed a lot of promise, but ultimately couldn’t finish strong. I’ll just pretend that the show stopped after the Tina Sprout arc.
Wow, and not in the good way. Rather than a bang, Black Bullet ends with a dud.
– Sooo… cheesy miscellaneous villain’s plan to sabotage the lights by throwing away the batteries (like a couple generators wouldn’t work better in the first place?) goes in vain due to floating candles in paper bags (or whatever that was). Okaaaay. O.o
– WTF with the sudden complete opposite turn around in the civilian/Cursed Child (CC) relationship? We had bombings, murder, abuse, CC with eyes burned out, misery, feels, and now they are all best friends? HUH!? “Just a tad” abrupt.
– I do NOT get the whole “last stand at the monument” when… Rentaro orders “charge” and they leave said monument. What was the point of waiting there (and the “all important lights”) in the first place? If you’re going to charge forth, why wait until the city is partially invaded/destroyed? Seemed entirely pointless other than for Enju to have a feels moment remembering her classmates (last EP).
– *sigh* the defective bomb timer. You’d think since it’s Tokyo’s last hope they would (a) test the arming device a bit and/or (b) have some sort of back up system – remote control detonation, manual fuse like grenade SOMETHING other than cheap, defective timer. And yeah, as Hochmeister points out, bombs don’t work like that.
– Shouma’s death felt very shounen by-the-book scripted.
– Gah, lost respect for Rentaro. I mean, Kisara’s brother’s scheme killed how many people, and just let him go? Yeah, that will turn out well. And now it’s “evil Kisara” vs. Rentaro (or so it seems). Sorry, not liking that plot line at all. Rather then “evil”, more like pragmatic and logical Kisara IMO. I like Rentaro, but the whole (naive) Saint Rentaro act is getting overdone IMO. Bleh.
– I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Enju’s corrosion rate troll. Mentioned once – 8? 9? episode ago and NOTHING! Thanks for that. Why the hell are you bringing that up if you are NOT going to advance that plot line?
Others may disagree, but this was arguably the worst episode of the series. Black Bullet started off poorly, started to get its footing mid-season, then suddenly fell flat on its face.
Takaii has a good point in that the show did manage to get viewers to connect on some level with some of the characters (mainly loli initiators). Personally, I really liked Enju as one example. Problem for me is that the show’s faults were too severe and pervasive for any positive aspects to overcome. There’s a solid story somewhere amongst the 907,234 loli deaths, cliche and/or nonsensical plot lines, staccato pacing, missing exposition, etc. Enough to keep me watching, but not enough to keep me from being disappointed – especially early and late season. In the end, I rate Black Bullet as yet one more show that failed to reach its potential.
For the Shouma bit, what made it worse was the fact that there is NO aftermath for his death. No one happily approaching Rentaro when he’s seen alive, then the tone getting somber as they ask where Shouma is and what happened and actually feeling sad. (You’d think Kisara would at least or something.)
He dies, then…nothing…they just move on as if he never existed to begin with, much less just partnered with a new loli just last episode.
And with Kisara, the whole thing with Kazumitsu felt a bit unwarranted. I mean, her grandfather INTENTIONALLY caused an incident that could’ve easily resulted in everyone’s deaths. Nothing. Kazumitsu, on the other hand, is just a douchebag businessman/politician who wanted to cut corners to pocket more money (and tried to destroy evidence once the Monolith started melting). Yes, he definitely deserved to be punished, but even with his attitude, unlike Kisara’s grandfather, I didn’t get the impression that he had any intention for the Gastrea to actually destroy everyone, so the whole over-the-top execution felt more like unneeded murder on top of Kisara’s character taking a total 180 with no build-up.
OK I’ve been running this whole Kisara thing through my head for awhile now, and I really think she is putting up a front. IMO I think what she did probably had to be done. As for the whole why I think she is putting up a front I saw two things: 1. Was the look she had on her face while she was hugging Rentarou, that one moment I think she realized she screwed up. And 2nd was with her crying during the whole “I’m evil” speech leads me to believe that she herself isn’t believing what she’s saying. And I think Rentorou will save her in the end cause the cat-girls final words to him kinda hinted towards that.
@HalfDemonInuyasha: Agree with you in terms of Shouma’s death. It was just there, and handled like some checklist. “OK, that’s done. Next…”
As for Kazumitsu, I think you give him too much credit. I agree that he’s probably not as bad as Kisara’s grandfather, Kikunojō, but I think it’s more than just wanting to pocket some extra Yen. Kazumitsu seemed pretty pleased with himself, and his primary, if not sole concern, was covering his tracks. In other words, he was upset at being caught, not the ramifications of his actions. He showed no remorse whatsoever (apart from being caught). You’ll note that he didn’t have any qualms about trying to kill Kisara. I highly doubt he would have let her live if he won the duel.
So while I agree that he probably didn’t intend for the gastrea to invade/kill everyone like Kikunojo, IMO at best he’s indifferent to the harm he caused. Made some Yen, stayed in power – who cares if others get hurt/die/suffer? Not the greatest defense. Also, JMO, but I have some serious doubt that he would “turn over a new leaf” in the future. Granddad wants to do some other stupid ploy to remain in power/make money – he’s in. Lastly, IIRC he did play some role in killing his and Kisara’s parents.
Frankly, what irritated me the most in that scene was the over-the-top “carry on a conversation for minutes after your head/body has been split in two” type trope. Pretty sure it doesn’t work that way IRL. >_>
AFA Rentarou goes, as Hochmeister pointed out he appeared perfectly willing to kill anyone who had decided not to fight. Now you can say it’s a bluff, but he stabbed someone to prove his point. Just a bit hypocritical IMO.
If Kisara was “evil” she wouldn’t have given Kazumitsu a fair fight. She would have executed him on the spot with an iai-justsu draw of her sword and taken his head. Which is what I was expecting. Also what he deserved.
enju x rentarou :’) so cute <3 ( enju best girl )
“Kohina is actually pretty kawaii when she isn’t busy slicing people.”
Of course she is – it’s Aochan.
I don’t think the novels have even covered the Gastrea mystery yet.
What other LN developments can we expect for Rentaro and others?
Expect a world of hurt coming to Rentarou and company, let me give you the number of losses of the Tokyo Area in this war: 90% of the military power is gone and the happy tittles for volume 5 and 6 are The Fugitive Satomi Rentarou and Wonderers of Purgatory, sounds lovely isn´t it.
it does where i can read the manga and light novels?
In Bt it has been translated all volume 1 and half of volume 2. sooner or later it will get mostly done.
Kisara missed the golden opportunity to “omae wa mou shindeiru”, lol.
Tendo Sword arts has a 200 year history, scum like [you] cannot possibly imitate it!
*sentou plays*
I think it speaks a lot for this series when after 13 episodes Kagetane is practically the best developed and least annoying of all the non-loli characters.
Well there’s a good base for another season. One that covers a good story of Rentarou and Kisara as they battle it out against each other because we all know that’d probably work! Also I find that I’m a Tina fan, sorry Enju, you’re adorable as hell but I’m a Tina fan 😀
A good base for another season?? Kisara went from #1 love interest to #1 Villain in like 5 mins. And, we see her have some epic fight against a stranger we just met out of the blue.
Okay coo, they passed the New Gastrea Law and the crowd seems to be cheering. Yay!! But wait- where the heck did these Cursed Children supporters come from?! For 12 episodes all we saw was loli’s getting beat up, shoot, blown up, and treated like trash.
Unfortunately this show was a train wreck through-and-through. Let’s face it. It was an enjoyable train wreck. I reckon the source material was probably pretty good but the studio tore it up to bits. Surely there was a little buildup to Kisara’s psycho reveal.
So many inconsistences. Anyway not picking on you I’m just lost how did they establish a good base. They just tossed a bunch of stuff in the last episode in hopes something would catch on. We got rushed past the final battle with the Gastrea boss and rushed into some setup for the next season
I enjoyed what I read of the manga, but that only spanned about 3 episodes of anime. All in all, this anime has been all over the place, pushing as many scenes in while rushing through episodes at a breakneck pace. I haven’t read the LN, but I would, just to see if the pacing is so absurd in the source material. My final impression is that the story doesn’t know how to find a balance between ‘all the right aspects’ that make Black Bullet what it is. Its willingness to rely on tropes (‘You will come to the dark side, Rentaro’) to fill the gaps is also a little off-putting and unnecessary at times.
And so ends Black Bullet
Pity that this show was marred by time constraints and budget wise, but my opinion wise, it was a good show, summarising LN volume 1 to 4
If they have gone the 24 episode route and remain very true to the actual LN source, it could have made the differences, explaining details about certain aspects that everyone is asking about, to the the scenes that should mostly make everyone feel the despair and wanting true justice to be delivered
But then again showing the lighter side of scenes that were suppose to be very dark and disturbing was more or less better for TV viewers (Yes I’m looking at the school bombing scene, here they took the lighter route, while the LN, it showed the darker and most disturbing route)
My suggestion for people who wish to know more about Black Bullet, read the manga as a reference guide for Episode 1 – 4, then go read the actual LN itself
What happened to the blind loli?
I second that
KISARA IS SO BADASS!
Also, Rentaro became the unholy love child of Edward Elric and Astroboy.
Interesting premise, decent action sequences. Very inconsistent writing though. A lot of things seemed contrived and nonsensical. Still, it was entertaining enough to stick with all season.
Also, all that tech and the bomb’s timer doesn’t work? Really? Shouma got screwed.
I wonder if the whole rentarou vs evil?kisara thing comes to pass in the light novels.. cause I really want to know how that would play out..
This anime is so full of wtf and lol moments, holes and plot devices it’s plain horribad. The only reason it turned out watchable is thaks to the characters, both the dead one and those who will shortly, LOL.
By the way, what about the origins of Gastrea and Enju’s fate? Were we trolled maybe or whatnot?
I am reading in forums something about enju having 450+ days or something that they say enju will die. I dont know if its the LN or not since I got the feeling that its just a troll of some sort. But I hope LN readers can confirm this
I hope she won’t die! It would be both heartbreaking and silly to dispose of such a cute char.
Damn I’m watching this… thing just for her sake!
I think the Time only ticks for her, when she need to Use her Gastrea Powers, or at some sort of strength. If she be a normal Girl, and take her Medicine, she have a normal Life
i suppose
Show Spoiler ▼
Good lord. It’s like they forgot this is the last episode. So let’s quickly wrap things up with Seitenshi-sama giving a hurried speech and panned out shots of Tokyo.
Final impressions:
1. I think it’s really funny that Rentaro finds completely normal to sacrifice himself for the others, but thinks otherwise when someone does the same for him.
2. Almost even funnier was the fact that Seitenshi-sama was looking at the battle at her mansion/diet building, with that unblemished white dress, surrounded by ragged little girls…shame on you.
3. Why do you need batteries anyway, those moe-moe-kyun power lamps can lit everyone’s fire
4. I don’t know if I’m being overconscious about this show, but those barefoot steps into the wooden floor sounded so…unnatural
5. Even more unnatural was that badass Kisara, anime tends to turn people into villains for plot’s sake. Though that felt weird, I liked it 😀
Ok, that’s it, kinda liked the show, but those 2 last episodes gave me a warning sign for a future 2nd season. I probably won’t watch it if there is a sequel.
I can’t really agree with your assessment of this show. Perhaps disagreement is what happens when a show becomes someone’s guilty pleasure.
If I were to describe this show, it would be a laundry list of non-sequiturs. The writer/scripting staff had an idea on how they wanted to close everything out, but it seemed like anything went in-between. It was striking to me, how in the OP there were several Initiator-Promoter pairings, yet most of them showed up for the final arc only. I felt like I was supposed to be invested in those characters, some of them I felt like I should know more about them, but I really wasn’t nor I didn’t. Their deaths meant nothing to me. And some characters might as well have been just a filler to make the plot work. That doctor who was Tina’s initial promoter? Who was he, really? I think he was some kind of villain… What exactly did he do again?
Rentaro was the most frustrating character, as it seemed like at the twilight of the story, he was a chameleon. He was changing colors left and right to try and evoke some kind of attachment. It just didn’t sit well. He was a weak MC.
And as for the story, I mean… Really, that whole revenge plot sums up my thoughts on the story. Anything went. A stupid revenge plot that probably gets the avenger killed if he’s successful? It goes. Family feud of the romantic lead? We’ll put it there, but barely gloss over it until the end of the show to create conflict. People hating the cursed children? Why exactly, again? They explained it, but it still makes little sense to me. It felt like it was just put there to create conflict (Like the blooms and weeds in Mahouka). That villain? We’ll make him come back and join the good guys… For some reason.
The mistakes in writing reminded me of the kind of things I did when I would do some story writing here and there several years back. There was no coherent connection to everything happening. They just kind of happened.
If it hadn’t been for the Tina Sprout arc, I would have dropped this show. It pulled me back and, and then the show started doing the same bad things it was doing. Pacing problems, character problems. Black Bullet had it all. If it wasn’t for the final 3 minutes of the show in the ED… I definitely would have rated it below average.
two things did this show “meh” for me:
ONE: lack of little boy characters
TWO: Enju; she had lots of potential and complexity but instead of treating her like one of the leads she in the end was just another stamp on Rentaro’s kid post that he could scratch every once in awhile.
I initially thought this show was pretty bad but was interested in what I thought was the main villain at the time (the masked guy in episode 1). Somehow the show has grown on me over time. It is far from my favorite but it was a worthy watch. Nothing stood out as particularly well done. The attempt at a romance fell flat at the end. I doubt I’d watch another series because I’d have no romance or anything to look forward to. Going to miss Enju and Tina though. Not sure how I feel about this show. But it did have its good moments and I did look forward to the episodes
Since Kisara’s debut and right before I watched this ep, I wanted a Kisara-Rentarou pair to say “Please be with me forever” to the other. But, wow, after seeing such… yandere-ness, I’ve quickly switched now to becoming an Enju fan.
Btw, awesome series. I don’t mind not having a Season 2, as long as I can read the rest in the manga or the LN.
The manga is over. It was a lot better than that abomination.
That thing ended up being dreadful on so many levels, the worst being the pathological need to rely solely on cliches and overused tropes for the writing. Just far too many things felt like a cheap self inserting fantasy exclusively dedicated to angry teenagers. Special mention to the lolis for making things tolerable, Kagetane for curing the rampant boredom whenever he was around and the awful Kisara for being the worst character of the season.
Enjoyed and loved this anime. Yandere Kisara is the best girl, obviously. Kagetane stayed alive is a bonus point.
https://randomc.net/image/Black%20Bullet/Black%20Bullet%20-%2013%20-%2041.jpg Like a boss
wouldn’t call her yandere… since her crazy is not caused by love… she is more of a yangire motivated by revenge.
and yeah “like a boss” cus i think shes gonna be the next or final boss… iguess in the LNs or something , dont think they gonna make a season 2.
kinda sad the only part of the episode i really liked was when Kisara went crazy xD … and im sure thats just cus i like crazy girls o.o
Many things are frustrating about this show. I guess I will just go back to the novels since it wasn’t butchered the way it was here or have things added that made no sense.
However, to be fair, this show does have parts where it’s enjoyable. And you always have to know that adaptations are ALWAYS something that is be considered more as a supplemental to the source rather than THE source. In this case, reading the novels won’t provide you the visual and the audio while the source can provide the little details that are often omitted.
And I fully agree though that Tina’s arc was the best. That’s when they actually slowed down, and THINK how all the details in the novel are relevant and slowly but carefully decides which detail can be safely omitted or what can be added to make the whole arc a lot more enjoyable.
Absolutely ridiculous. First, Rentaro does absolutely nothing about the Tendo Grandfather plotting to cause the extinction of the entire Tokyo area, just because the Grandfather saved his life. Where is the “justice” in this? It’s an equally “personal” reason as revenge and many times more grotesque. And then he accuses Kisara of being evil (and Kisara must call herself “evil” because the main character must always be fucking perfect).
Second, Tendo Grandfather wanted to bring hell upon Tokyo because he didn’t want the new Law to pass (because that’s logical LOL), and that was because he hates the Gastrea for killing his children. And then it turns out that HE was the one who plotted to kill his children! What?! So he was lying to Rentaro during their “confrontation”?
It is always shows like this that make me wish for a Lelouch vi Britannia who would come in and FUCK THINGS UP and SET THINGS STRAIGHT.
Man that came out of nowhere. I just ate lunch too when I saw that scene. Let’s just say that upped this show’s ranking a little bit.
can someone please tell me if there enough material in the novels to make a season 2 and if there isn’t and only if there isn’t please spoil what happens to Enju for me make sure to put a warning so you will not spoil it for others
Well theye what they get only the strong will ever get the job done and be able to punish those that pretty much try to cut corners. I see nothing wrong with what Kisara say in that world she’s right.
Rentaro Fist of Justice will NEVER be able to reach evil but evil could. Rentaro however could control said evil and bring it to heel like he did with Kagetane.
BUt in the mean time let evil take care of evil.
i think this episode was good but, the ending is just so flat anyway. i don’t really except the ending like that. i think that the secret or whatever that unrevealed in the previous episode would be revealed, like the tricycle. i really want to know why it must that. and most importantly, i think Enju was more mature in the last scene in the train, she is just too kawaii. there is so many things that does not revealed trough the episode.
I’m sorry for this bad english anyway. i’m not really good at english 🙂
Okay, tbh, I enjoyed the anime plenty. It is one of the animes that aren’t mainstream or have a huge fanbase of idiots. But, of course, on the outside, I enjoyed it a lot. There were deaths so the anime wasn’t a whole, “Dancing and nothing goes wrong,” and most of the deaths happened on characters that were okay-ly developed. I wanted a romance part of the anime, so it wouldn’t seem so dully action-packed and angry and discrimination stuff. I feel like it would’ve come out a lot better if Kisara did end up with Rentaro, but nope. The whole thing went flat when Kisara went bat-shit crazy all of a sudden about something as unplotlined as the death of her parents. But I do agree with her killing the scumbag of a dude. I bashed on Rentaro for suddenly becoming such a naive, ‘justice’ guy. Like, you were saying you’d slaughter anyone who tried to escape from the battle with the Gastrea, and all of a sudden, it’s wrong to kill the guy who caused all this shit in the first place? Ugh.
Second, what happened to the discrimination of the Cursed Children? They were abused, murdered, most of them were orphans, and then Seitenshi-sama made a tiny, weird speech about the law that people originally gave no fucks about or disagreed with, and all of a sudden, a crowd bursts out and cheers? Like, where WERE you guys when that girl stealing your cans was shot a couple hundred times in front of a wall, huh?
Anyway, just like any other anime out there, there were left out storylines and un-carried-out ideas, but I enjoyed it for some reason anyway. Guess I take a liking of some of the badass characters like Tina.
It is amazing it was Enju that ended up uplifting heartbroken Reantaro at the end.
Welcome to the Dark Side, Darth Kisara. Your
lightsaberkatana skills are truly impressive!And sadly, Kisara might be right. Some people just need to be killed.
I was surprised at how well they handled wrapping up the show. I sort of went into the last few episodes thinking it was going to be a rushjob trainwreck, but some of the scenes in the final episode were very redeeming for the show. Especially those last few.
Ghost_Zephyr, have you thought of differing the font size of the main body and your side panel? that’s one of the best practices if you want to make it work. Also, having 12px font in 2014 is kind of… i wonder how many of the readers have to use zoom to easily read that, as i do. The recent standard is 16px, and the bare minimum 14px.
LOL, sorry Takaii, wrong window. 😉
Guys so they wont continue?
How can a highschool student own and run a civil service company legally? Just How? Was the system so desperately in need of civil officers to do the gastrea killing that they bothered not to regulate it?
PS: I like rentaro’s suit tho.
sorry guyz but kisara will not become the final boss , because rentaro will do something about her case in volume five 😀 already saw some spoilers about that and I think they will be the couple in this LN , i guess