Black Bullet [END]
There are times where I disagree with the animeGAF consensis on shows. Sometimes a lot, sometimes a little. This might actually be one of those shows.
Constantly, when hearing this show referenced, its gave a similar vibe to something of a Magical Warfare or a 35th antimagic. Something so bad that it warranted hatred for. But, all things considered, I feel very hesitant calling this show bad. Mind you, I'm not calling this show great either. But to me, it was good enough.
For the most part, the art was okay, sometimes quite good. The animation also did a rather good job, though I should note that I felt that some scenes were animated too much (some calmer scenes) and some scenes not animated enough (some fight scenes). The story and scenarios aren't that bad either. There are a few that I really didn't like (specifically the last episode's duel and the viewer being in the dark over Tokyo's populous situation during the large scale fight), but there were times where I legitimately liked where the show was going. As for the characters, I liked them for the most part. Some are kinda weird or annoying, but I genuinely liked quite a few of these characters.
Hell, when you guys said that it shits the bed in the second half, I thought it'd just get super bad, and it never really did. with the exception of the
and the large scale fight, nothing in the second half was never really as dark or bad as some of the stuff as the first half.
However, I will admit one thing. The writing is not good at all. It kinda feels like they wrote it on the fly by someone who didn't have enough time to edit and rethink their drafts. The show is full of random moments and dumb cliches that really didn't have any place being in this show. And when those moments didn't happen, there would be dialogue heavy scenes of characters saying what amounted to cliche after cliche. I thought in the first half that the writing was marred by the exposition, but it may have been the other way around. Though, this show does have 1 or 2 moments where character dialogue is limited and has scenes that work well. They are too few and far between. That all being said, I liked the rest enough to be able to overlook the writing a bit.
In regards to the amount of loli in this show, I'll just put it this way: while it made sense in the context of the show, i do think the constant little girl characters did get in the way a bit. Not as much as I expected (as I expected Byrnhildr levels of edgelord that never really came) but enough to be something of note. Lets put it another way, the loli situation here is significantly better than in Dance on the Vampire Bund (though that may not be saying much)
I expected Green Green or Love_Love levels of shit but instead I got a show that felt more like a Aria the Scarlet Ammo levels of quality, but maybe slightly better. I'm not sure I would call this show bad at all. Contrived, sometimes dumb, maybe a bit meddling, but definitely not bad. Though I'm not sure "Good" is a good word either. Maybe "Redeem-ably flawed" I had a pretty okay time watching this. You could really do a lot worse than this show.
Honestly, I don't get why something like this gets hated on so much, but something like Yuki Yuna is a Hero gets a free pass quite a bit (mind you, I hated Yuki Yuna with a damn passion, so... yeah.)
