Anime Review: Black Rock Shooter - 3
What kind of psychiatry school did you go to where they tell you that would be a good idea to say to someone who’s depressed?!
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Things start off surprisingly normal this time around. Kagari seems to have finally gotten ahold of herself and, at least as far as Yomi tells us, is a lot calmer and is trying to learn how to walk again. Yomi and Mato are becoming closer, and Mato scores an awesome spot on the school’s basketball team for their summer tournament. We see a lot more of Yuu this time around, and she spends a good portion of the episode teasing Mato about how lovey-dovey she and her “little bird” seem, which is so cute.
When this anime isn’t just doing backflips in to the insane, it’s really quite cute. I love the characters, especially Yuu who we didn’t see much of in the anime, and Kohachi who’s a new character for the anime. The dynamic is good, and a little bit of the strange is good, but just when I thought we were going to start getting in to the plot of the OVA (Yomi’s jealousy of Yuu) we take a sudden left turn.
I get the feeling that whatever is going to happen in the Yomi-Yuu-Mato love triangle is going to be the finale for the anime, so it’s just being set at a low simmer, always there but not at the forefront. Saya, the not so normal psychologist, is really at the center of this episode. I had a bad feelings about her from the moment she was introduced, and it seems that my suspicions regarding her identity were correct.
She targets Kohachi, recently the target of bullying due to a love letter she wrote, and purposefully drags her down in to a depression. Kohachi is a strong character and prefers to let bygones be bygones, but Saya corners her and really sinks her claws in. It appears that, in the dream world, she’s made Kohachi in to some sort of thrall, and it makes me wonder how much of the dream world Saya can control. We also see her targeting Yomi, finally getting her alone in her office at the end of the episode, which doesn’t bode well at all.
This episode wasn’t quite as in your face bizzarre as the first two were, and I get the feeling we’re never going to see Kagari again now that she’s served her purpose. The contrast between the normal, almost slice-of-life anime contrasting with the nasty feelings bubbling inside Yomi and the plots of Saya make this feel very Madoka-esque, but even though the contrast is better this time around, I still feel like it’s being overdone.
GO Rating: 3.5/5
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