Verchan

Black Bullet is one of the many light novel adaptations that aired during Spring 2014. You might know the other ones as The Irregular at Magic High School, No Game No Life, and Chaika - The Coffin Princess. It started out okay, but got progressively weaker as it went on, before turning into an unentertaining show that turned out to be a rushed and half-baked adaptation. Shame, it had potential to be way better. If you've read the synopsis on the show's page on this site, it'll tell you that it takes place in a post-apocalyptic future where humanity is practically on the brink of extinction,having been driven into a corner by powerful monsters. You might think that this concept sounds familiar; kind of like 2013's popular Attack on Titan. With a premise like that, it drew in a lot of viewers who, one might say, could have been looking for a sci-fi version of Attack on Titan or something. However, the thing about this show is that it seems to have entirely forgotten that it was a post-apocalyptic show. You see plenty of tons of healthy-looking people on the rather clean streets, the towns look clean and well-tended, and the economy seems to be in such good condition that they're able to afford things like prosthetic limbs made of tissue resembling human flesh and whatnot. The art is standard fare, all things considered. The style isn't anything special; it's generic and nothing about it really seems to stick out. Characters and objects look polished enough, and the actual animation is fairly crisp when there's good action going on, though it's not enough to make the actual fights that appealing or interesting to watch. In the end though, it gets the job done, but ultimately doesn't stick out at all. The designs were fairly neat though, I'll give it that. I liked the designs of the Gastrea, all two times they appeared or whatever. I'm quite fond of Shiro Sagisu's work. He did an outstanding job with the music for the Evangelion franchise, along with a great job at the soundtrack for the Berserk: Golden Age Arc films. However, this must be easily his weakest work. Background music is generic and forgettable, except for probably two or so songs that play during battles, which can give a good feel of intensity. The opening, "black bullet," respectively named after the show and light novel, is fairly pleasant to listen to, but it isn't anything I'll remember in a month or so. Same goes for the main ending theme, "Tokohana," though I do really like when it starts playing near the end of an episode. The voice acting isn't anything to write home for either. You have Yuki Kaji as the main character, Rentaro Satomi, but he isn't all that interesting to listen to. He always seems depressed, angry, tired, bored, or sounds like he's crying. So in short, he practically sounds the same as when he voiced Eren Yeager in Attack on Titan. I suppose I should give an honorable mention to Yui Horie (Minori Kushieda, Toradora!) for trying her best with what she got, and to Rikiya Koyama (Kiritsugu Emiya, Fate/Zero) for still having that charming, nonchalantly badass voice, even if his role was fairly limited. The characters are bland and unmemorable. Rentaro practically has no notable personality traits other than typical "brave" and "determined" that can be found in literally a hundred other characters who are far better written. He reminds me of Kirito from Sword Art Online in a way, in that not only does he have no notable personality, he has a harem for practically no reason, at least one girl in each harem being a little girl under 13. The main difference though is that while Kirito is overpowered, Rentaro seems underpowered in contrast. Despite being equipped with skills like knowledge of martial arts, a fairly high level of agility, exceptional marksmanship, and practically superhuman strength and speed due to his prosthetic limbs, he never seems to win, and even when he does, it's not even memorable or anything. Now, there's nothing wrong with making the main character an underdog, but a well-written underdog has to be a well-written character. The main reason why Rocky Balboa is a good underdog is because he's a genuine nice person. When he's not boxing, he's a really sweet guy, like around his lover Adrian and her brother Paulie, and he stands up for those he cares for. There's time and dedication given into giving the audience a good idea of what Rocky is like, which ultimately makes us want him to win against all odds against more experienced and stronger boxers like Apollo Creed and Ivan Drago. However, in Black Bullet, since Rentaro is a bland and forgettable character, it makes the audience not care whether he wins or loses, and thus, destroys all tension in a fight. Every time something happens to him, he begins to doubt all he knows, building the foundation of character development, but he never visibly develops, though given that the source material is still ongoing, not all is lost yet, since all these events that happen to him could potentially act as catalysts to a giant, grand development. But I suppose we'll only know if there's a second season. The other characters aren't all that special either. Enju is the token "energetic loli," similar to how Tina is the token "lethargic loli" who's only active when the situation calls for it, kind of like Shiro from No Game No Life. There's also Kisara "Big Boobs" Tendo, the president of Civil Security that Rentaro works for, who happens to be a childhood friend of our main character, but ultimately, she lacks depth like the other character and hardly develops her own identity until the last five minutes or so. There are also more generic characters like the aloof old friend, the cocky guy, the girl with cat ears (which is supposed to be explained in plot but we never actually see any more of this), the hikkomori, etc. The character who steals the show is Kagetane Hiruko, who is the main villain of it all, or is supposed to be anyway. He's smooth, charismatic, nonchalant, mysterious, and reminds me of V from V for Vendetta in some ways. It's a shame he doesn't get a lot of screen-time either. The enjoyment levels seemed to fluctuate for me at first, before going down to consistently being a chore to watch. It has an inconsistent tone akin to that of Elfen Lied. By day, happy-go-lucky comedy featuring boob groping, other fanservice, and loli sweetness. By night, it becomes (or tries to be) macabre and dark, though it only comes off as unnecessarily edgy for the sake of being edgy. The humor might get a small chuckle or two out of you, but at the end of the day, boob groping and comical misunderstandings aren't anything to write home to in the humor department. In the end, Black Bullet could have been a good show, but ultimately fails miserably. To say that it was rushed would be a big understatement indeed, what with not providing adequate world-building or characterization. I'm sure the light novels are way better, but since the adaptation is poor, it's not exactly doing a good job at advertising the source material to me, and thus, fails as such.

Gulo

Although Black Bullet is tagged as being action, mystery, sci-fi, seinen, and probably post-apocalyptic, it should really be considered a loli-harem comedy first and foremost. The comedy is completely unintentional but it's what kept me watching week after week. Black Bullet is driven by manufactured drama and the characters are one dimensional cardboard cutouts with some dark backstories thrown in. Several important plot points are brought up and then never mentioned again, leaving the audience to wonder why we were even given this information in the first place. The story follows high school student and "Promoter" Satomi Rentaro and his loli partner Enju, who uses herkept-in-check gastrea powers to kill full blown gastrea. Rentaro starts off being pretty mediocre as far as Promoters go, but he quickly rises through the ranks because of his inherent superiority and a sudden powerup. Although the story tries to be serious and mature, it fails miserably. We start off with the usual generic villain who wants to let the gastrea kill everyone in Tokyo because apparently anyone who can't defend defend themselves from giant monsters ought to die and it doesn't really get much better. There's an evil scientist named Ayn Rand, loli assassins, bad guys who have an irrational hatred of Rentaro, and a guy who built one of the varanium monoliths on the cheap so he could pocket the extra money. Sorry if I'm making this sound good because really, it's not. Even when we get a big gastrea battle at the end the real action takes place off screen. All we get to see is the aftermath. The biggest problem with the show is that it has absolutely no idea how to have any kind of emotional impact on the audience. Minor characters are introduced only to die an episode or two later. Rentaro cries because he cared about them, but the viewer hardly knew them at all. Little girls in particular are subjected to brutal violence because what's worse than killing off an ordinary character? Killing off a child! This happens multiple times throughout the show and it serves no purpose other than to be "shocking" and briefly make Rentaro pause and wonder why he protects Tokyo. There's a death toward the end that annoyed me because of how it happened so nonchalently. When someone dies it should feel like they made a meaningful sacrifice. This felt like the character had such little regard for their own life that it wasn't really a sacrifice at all. Black Bullet has very little character growth. It may be that the show's rushed pacing gave Rentaro very little time for introspection, or that the story is basically one crisis after another. Either way, every character gets a dark backstory but that's pretty much it. Rentaro starts off as a mid-tier Promoter before he suddenly unlocks his potential and becomes ridiculously overpowered - except when he gets physically restrained by two guys right after a fight where he was demolishing concrete walls. He is always morally right and he demonstrates his superiority by triumphing over characters who hate him for very flimsy reasons. When a character unfairly persecuteshim, something conveniently happens that removes the obstacle and increases Rentaro's prestige. Everyone in a position of authority acts like a retard just so he can show how clever and perceptive he is. Kisara is Rentaro's tsundere friend. Her family is basically the Rothschilds of Japan except instead of banking, they teach their children absurdly overpowered martial arts and weapon techniques. You'll know this because the characters announce the name of the attack before they use it. The loli harem is there for comedy relief and pandering. The kind of "humor" here entails a gastrea-spider shoots sticky white web on Enju and constant flirting with Rentaro. If you like B-movies then boy, have I got the show for you. It tries to be deep but the pacing is so frenetic that all the characters come across as being extremely shallow. There's even a scene where a guy gets cut by a sword but doesn't realize it until his head EXPLODES a minute later. Varanium may be black, but Black Bullet is comedy gold.