Black Bullet – 07

Ah well, the show was fun while it lasted…

 Just kidding! Major characters only get major boo-boos!

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Tina sees the fail whail….whale

Will You Never Rest?

Well, the show took it up a notch, and while it wasn’t as terrible as last episode, it did have it’s share of problems.  While the animation quality was a touch better than last, we are still far away from the quality of the first arc. It’s got it back, but not as much as it could or should have. As for the narrative? It didn’t take a shot to the heart, but it did rather blast itself in the foot.

Tina: You’re adopting me after this right? This is just some tough love?

It’s important to establish danger in this sort of story, but please, if it takes a main character out of action, then the fight is needed. Anything less is shortcutting us on the tension. As it played out, I felt nothing for the injured Enju. Ah, she’ll be out for a day or so, no big. This is even worse since they’ve put her out there as a side character this arc. There were several ways they could have played the reveal, the combat, and the tension while including the characters they had all along and introduced this arc.

Since they had Tina going into this as the Defeat Equal Adoption, why didn’t they have her that way at the beginning? She goes out at night as both Rentarou and Enju sleep. She’s still established as the night time assassin, still gets in contact with Mr. Ayn Rand (could this be a cover identity), still get’s to be revealed as more than she seemed to be, and can still get in up close fights with everyone. And they could have underscored how important a home was to her, since she had nothing going for her outside of her work.

You can repeat a motif. Just do better next time

So yeah, you wanna show how smart your character are when they come up with plans within plans? Great. You have my attention. Show the plans. Oh, you’re not going to show the plans, are you? Yeah, easier to tell then show.  As much as it killed the narrative to have Enju injured off screen, this sort of malarkey doesn’t do anything for anyone. It just tells me you were to lazy to come up with one plan much less two. As it stands, the “plan” wasn’t very well executed as it hinged on Tina only being able to control three remote sensors at one with her bionic brain! Really, you never expected her to pick up at least one more when the other three got shot down? Really?

Fine combat scenes are a dime a dozen these days, with the exceptional ones being the going currency. This one had neither. About the only thing I thought they pulled of right was some of the cause and effect of the remote weapons. But Rentarou’s and Tina’s fight was basically an extended battle for who could care less we had last episode. At least they had Seitenshi come in after Tina was taken out, so they didn’t blow that surprise visit.

Tina loves ketchup

Extra Bullets

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I hate to say it, but the Tina Sprout arc was total fail whale. While that is not the most common of beasts in the anime menagerie, it does take up space, doesn’t it? With just some proper pacing and a different type of “check the boxes off” approach to the story, they could have pulled off something better; not that my suggestions above deserve any sort of award. But this arc felt hollow. Ah well, I hope the next arc pulls this fat out of the fire. I don’t know if it will, cause it looks like Yuki Kaji be gettin’ another LOLi harem. What did you folks think?

Preview

No sleep for the wicked