pros
+ "friendship" theme and emotions are well established
+ good, although short fighting scenes
+ amazing animation and art style
cons
- had little to do with the actual black rock shooter
- cannot be viewed without having read the manga
- incomplete, thus can be confusing

conclusion: recommended for those who've had exposure to the series before. without that, however, this ova will probably be unexplainable and uneventful as it's incomplete. how can you fit one story into 50 minutes? it's impossible; and there doesn't seem to be a second episode coming. this ova mainly introduces mato, gives her a believable background, and follows her in daily situations with her close friends. emotions and the friendship theme are well-established, and the art and animation are simply stunning, but it's merely loosely based on the actual black rock shooter, and the preview promised something very different from this. can be very enjoyable if you know and like the franchise behind it (three mangas, an 8-ep anime, and at least two games by now.... and i really don't remember which was first), but this ova pretty much cannot stand alone.

peace. (show less)

This was something else...it really is "different". Can't find another word to describe it...
But anyway i like it...maybe because it was "diferent", or the fighting scenes, or the unexplainned story. I don't know why but i liked it :p
I just hope there's a continuation, cause the story ain't over! I've read in some sites, and it doesn't seem that there's gone be a continuation...but there's a lot more characters that don't appear in this 1st OVA. They also plan to launch an RPG of Black*Rock Shooter (don't know when). If you want more info about this anime, go to this site www.animesfoda.com (it's written in portuguese), they had recently launch a small article about this.

ja~ne~ (show less)

To be honest I feel like I didn't see enough of this anime to make a proper assessment of how good or bad it is, the reason I say this is that even as self contained as this ova more or less was, it was so open ended and left so much unanswered it begs the question: "So when's episode 2 coming out?" I mean really, it had very little to do with Black Rock Shooter, other then to introduce her human counterpart Mato, and give her a background origin... There was not nearly enough of the world of Black Rock Shooter brought to life in this... That said the OVA itself is quite a masterpiece in its own right, the dialogue is more or less irrelevant to the feelings you can see behind the eyes of the characters, this story seems to tell itself more through unspoken emotions then in exposition. Still this only feels like an intro and I'm sure we have an interesting and action filled series of battles in the future... at least we can hope so... (Cause come on! We saw what, four of the characters of BRS cannon in this OVA? And two of them didn't really do much :( I mean really...) (show less)

So after waiting very long for the release of Black Rock Shooter... we get an incredibly confusing and HUHWTFHOWWHEREWHENBBQSAUCE?! episode to start everything off with.

When you first start watching BRS... you're gunna be like, "A slice-of-life anime? -_-" , but NO WAIT there's more! RANDOM SCENES OF INTENSE WALKING/INTENSE POSES/INTENSE 30-SECOND FIGHTS! IN AN INTENSE OTHER WORLD!

No seriously, that happens, and the episode gives you NO clue as to how and what happened. To be honest though, I enjoyed the slice-of-life bit quite a bit... It was emotional, and did explain some things, but BRS has major plotholes. The reason I'm so criticizing in this review is because I heard that barely any episodes would be released if not ONLY 1... So it leaves me to ask... HUHWTF? According to MyAnimeList... it's done airing after the 1st episode. I was disappointed. The episode was an hour long, and I sorta expected it to be a 1-episode thing, but it just didn't deliver. Things just left you confused. If you're looking for a slice-of-life [a bit emotional] anime with random fight scenes somewhat dealing with the whole slice-of-life stuff, then watch this.

I only really watched all of this because I <3ed the anime style... otherwise it's bleh. (show less)