Black Rock Shooter – 8 (End)

That was surprising; not for the reasons one might think but still surprising.

Before watching the final episode of this anime series, I couldn’t help but think what type of ending was in store for us the viewers and I couldn’t think of one for the simple reason that the series has been so unpredictable that it could have ended in a multitude of ways.  The happy ending that was delivered to us was, at least to me, a little surprising.  Oh and my misconception that all the BRS characters were fighting in the same alternate world was cleared up.

Why?

Well the rest of the episodes were quite dark in comparison, mostly dealing with emotions such as rage, jealousy, fear and general insanity and because of this  anyone could have assumed that there would be at least a slightly sad/dark ending to the anime.  Instead, after watching this, I got the feeling that what I was expecting (even a little bit of what I was expecting) would have been not surprising but dark.

So was I angry? Disappointed with the ending?

Actually I wasn’t and the more I thought about it, the more the ending made sense.  The whole series was about a group of girls and their negative emotions, so a happy ending was definitely one way to go and the way it was executed was just fine.  They all go back to be being normal, they establish solid friendships and carry on happily with their lives.  At least there was some tragedy for the main character (the death of Strength), thus satisfying the condition for such a series not having a 100% happy ending where everyone gets to live happily ever after and since there was a lack of interdependence between the characters it was a good ending to resolve it.  I might also add that I did find it rather interesting that at the end of a story where women are the one causing each other pain, they all have to simply show love for each other to take away that pain.

I am annoyed that because of the intensity of first 7 episodes, giving the last episode a kind of “breather” feeling did mess up the ending to a certain extent.  If I were to consider an alternate ending to the series it would be one more full of drama and sorrow just like the other 7 episodes in the series have been, but again I could not say whether that ending would have been better or worse.  I might give it a few days to consider my feeling further but right now I am still confused.

Overall, I found the series to be a strange mix of horror, action, gore and mystery.  The fact that I didn’t fully comprehend the plot until episode 6, made me think that this was an attempt at Magical Realism and after episode 6, I thought that it was still a rather peculiar story.  The animation, especially the fight scenes, were beautifully done much like the designs of the characters (in the other world) and the scenery, topped off by an appropriate soundtrack the series was a rather good watch.

Congratulations to the studio, Ordet, for providing me with a rather different original anime to watch and of course congratulations to noitaminA for, in my opinion, choosing another good series.