Black Rock Shooter-6
In this episode, we get backgrounds for some of the characters and a few half-assed justifications as well. Mato is trapped in the other-world and her alter-ego, Black Rock Shooter, is on a berserk rampage. Mato is in despair over killing her friend's alter-ego, Dead Master. I'm not overly sure as to why she's in despair as the death of Dead Master has calmed Yomi the fuck out, but she's in despair.
You know she's sad because you can see tears.
The audience is treated with Mato floating naked somewhere, while she screams in pain due to damage from BRS's injuries. Yuu goes to Saya, the counselor, for help to drag Mato out of BRS and what does Saya do?
Oh? She can't kill Mato because Mato is too pure? Really? Really you cunt? So what did Yomi or Arata do to you? They had issues but that was resulting from problems beyond their control. So why were they so impure for you to mentally torture, to the point of one physically harming herself? Yuu offers to dive into the other-world or whatever but Saya goes instead to try and drag Mato back. Oops. Turns out Black Gold Saw starts getting her ass beat.
We're now treated to Yuu and Saya's backstory. Yuu's backstory was almost as fucked as I expected:
Of course she's bullied at school too, because why the fuck not.
All that was missing was the step-dad sexually assaulting her. Although to be fair, that still might have been happening as the tissue box could be alluding to that. This flashback leads up to Yuu's house catching on fire and Saya thinking Yuu did it. Yuu somehow takes it as an affront that Saya would think Yuu had finally snapped. I mean it's not like Yuu had more than ample reason to burn down her home but whatever.
You know it's a dramatic moment because someone was running and ultimately fell.
Anyway it looks like Yuu switched with her other-self, Strength, because I think Yuu felt it was unfair for Strength to have to carry all of Yuu's fucked up burdens. Strength asks Saya to protect Yuu, culminating in this series of misfortunate events. As to why Saya needs to mentally torture girls so as to strengthen their counterparts, it's not overly clear. I've read some theories about how Black Rock Shooter is the villain in that world and so Saya was trying to take out BRS. 'Real Yuu' bails out Black Gold Saw, leading to this exchange:
What the fuck. What has Saya done to even start to earn redemption? I was legit raging at this part. This is so unbelievably unearned that I can't begin to imagine what was going through the mind of Okada at this point. I can possibly understand Yuu forgiving Saya, although it feels unnecessary, but the other kids she toyed with? Go fuck yourself. I mean this was the woman who was pretty much slicking herself whenever a drama bomb appeared.
That's the smile of someone who hates their job.
The show trying to make this sadistic bitch sympathetic is grinding my gears. Either the director royally fucked up her portrayal in previous episodes or Okada is crazy. Now that I think about it, it's probably both. Well anyway next episode brings back Imaishi for the finale. This episode felt more like Amemiya on the action front than the previous episode. It was full of old-school cartoon effects for impact shots, similar to stuff like in
TTGL or
Panty and Stocking.
Again it's like a hallmark thing from many Kameda style-animators. It's just that it's weird to see in CGI because it's not really necessary or used at all, and so it's done solely for flair. Yes it's done in 2D animation for style as well, just it seems more of a sharp juxtaposition here. A similar example would be the short sketch lines in this shot:
It visually emphasizes the impact of BRS hitting the ground, due to BRS's weight. One thing the show has done in prior and this episode during the fight sequences is mess around with the framerate. I'm not overly fond of this at times, mainly when it slows down as it feels less like a slowing down of motion and more as if frames were just lost instead. Sort of like when my PC is running games under 60 FPS. Many CGI works use a variable framerate but it sort of bugs me occasionally, in regards to its implementation here.
