Black Bullet (Anime + LN)

For discussion on the series, just to prevent clogging up the season thread.

In a nutshell: Attack on Titans, with lolis, and infected instead of actual titans. By that comparison alone, that should give people enough expectations already. Death! Suffering! Lolis!

Oh, and a healthy amount of disbelief suspension. I mean, how does Tokyo support itself anyway?

Thread staaaart!

edited 8th Apr '14 10:53:29 PM by MyssaRei

Edit: Oh wait, wrong thread.

edited 8th Apr '14 11:14:32 PM by dRoy

The special metal tower things are very reminiscent of Attack on Titan's walls. I was wondering what they reminded me of.

The show definitely requires a suspension of belief (like how all the Cursed Children are always female. Does dropping the Y chromosome somehow save one from the virus?), but all minor complaints aside, this looks like it'll be a fun romp for the Spring season.

Is the show supposed to be one-cour or two-cour though?

Supporting Tokyo doesn't seem to be a problem since the regenerating bug things are ....edible? WTF?

The hell. They are?

Saw the first episode, seems pretty cool. Will definitely stick around.

I liked the first episode, but are the super-powered lolis really necessary? It just seems like a cheap pandering to me.

Yeah but what can you do? It's what the demographic wants. It doesn't seem particularly offensive so far.

edited 9th Apr '14 2:38:28 AM by Scherzo09

I'm waiting for the despair to set in.

It's not that the first episode is bad; they seem to be cramming a ton of background information in there rather than letting it flow naturally, which degrades the quality of the episode overall. People have gotten Unbreakable Machine Doll vibes if myanimelist was to be believed, which is kinda a low for a first episode.

Though I'm hoping that getting all of the backstory out in the first episode means they can get to the main plot quicker than the manga.

x3. I didn't mind the loli's so far. MC's not into that, and it wouldn't surprise me if there was a reason for it.

MC being mega-generic was more annoying. I can see where people get the Ao T vibe. If it has that level of plot, I think it will work. I'm now picturing Enju as a loli-Mikasa.

It did feel like they were speeding up the exposition, so they could get to the real plot, so we'll see.

ed: I suck at names

edited 9th Apr '14 7:09:56 AM by kiukiuclk

Apparently Rentaro and Kisara are an Official Couple in the light novels, so most of the uncomfortableness is averted... most of it. I'm still really disturbed at why and how a twelve year old is saying the kinds of things Enju is...

What's even more disturbing is that Enju's about nine, not twelve.

... I know it's not impossible by any means (sadly), but how does a nine year old know that much about sex?

Presumably the internet would still exist.

What did a sucker do to draw the job of maintaining the Internet in a post-apocalyptic world? Hell, for that matter, is electricity being rationed? How about gas? There weren't any cars, from what I can remember. Maybe everyone is left to walking or biking everywhere.

Also is the state some sort of dictatorship? That seemed to be the implication when they showed the leader.

Well, if you got everyone cooped up in a city you need something to keep everyone entertained, right?

I actually created a TV Tropes page months earlier, feel free to add info and edit: Black Bullet. Some of the info may or may not be inaccurate, but some info I got are based from discussions about the light novel in a certain anime forum.

Anyways, I haven't watched the first episode since I don't have Crunchyroll premium subscription (and no, I'm not going abuse the two-week free trial thing). From what I've heard in the internet, the reaction is a bit polarizing due to the fact that loli, Enju Aihara, hits on the main character, Rentaro, a bit. Yeah, the author does a lot of Ship Teasing, but he later settles with Rentaro and Kisara as the official couple. A lot of people are comparing Black Bullet to Attack on Titans (which, yes the premise is very similar) and comparing the main leads to the ones in Hidan No Aria (the Aria and Enju comparison is very inaccurate as the later has a typical Little Sister Heroine Nice Girl personality).

Also, some people say it's a generic dark shonen anime. It's actually Seinen, as the light novel and manga ran under a seinen label. Also, anime based on seinen works are usually slower paced.

Thus being said, if you have read the original Light Novels and the manga, I'll have to tell you, despite the premise that seem to appear to be an otaku-pandering work (note, Black Bullet isn't something like that. In fact, the level of fanservice is very minimal), the series gets very sad and depressing quickly.

Yeah from what I heard about the second half of the first episode, the series tries to make to appear as it if it's an otaku-pandering anime, but in reality, it isn't. Probably poor execution from the producers. Also, don't be surprised that the anime will have a lot of exposition between the characters with a few action scenes.

By the way, Enju is 10 years old.

edited 9th Apr '14 6:46:28 PM by DarkPaladinX

Episode 1. In which there is splatter.

The premise seems... dunno. I don't want to say generic, but it just doesn't seem interesting.

I recogise that masked guy's voice. I'm pretty sure I know who it is, but I'm usually rather bad at recognising voices.

Kisara's voice, on the other hand, is rather obvious when she starts to rant. Very similar to Koko. Kisara also has her priorities straight. Why didn't he tell her about the sale too?

He actually seems interested in her. And she in him. Which probably would work a lot better than with the loli, who so far just seems annoying.

Tendo martial arts... And in the previous anime I watched there was this very stubborn girl called Akane...

And that food looks like something Akane Tendo would cook. But seems to taste better.

Pseudoscience with Resident Evil results. That's about as serious as I can take it.

This has been compared to Attack On Titan? I must be blind, because I never got that vibe. Well, aside from Eren being Rentaro.

Also, that masked man reminded me of Allen Gabriel, except he's not as unhinged.

Yeah, I actually thought the same thing watching it myself. About The Big O I mean.

Dammit why is this so amazing? I don't care about the naysayers who find something negative to say about everything; this is intense! And I really like everyone's hair!

Well, I have a predisposition to post-apocalyptic settings and no issue with lolis or "pandering," (I think you mean anime cliches done right) so I might be biased.

Also alien mutations > zombies.

What is 'Seitenshi' supposed to mean? CR leaves it untranslated and trying to brute force a translation through Google translate gives me 'Sex Angel', which I do not believe is correct.

Holy Emperor

So, the show itself. Weren't they supposed to be hunting a gastraea when they got interrupted by over-the-top discrimination?

edited 16th Apr '14 12:58:24 AM by Hylarn

Yeah that did feel a bit abrupt. Especially since this 10MinuteRetirement will probably be resolved by the end second act of the next episode.