#BRS ova

[squipedmew]

gay people can never confess normally they’re always doing shit like sending their alter egos to duke it out in another dimension as a representation of their emotional issues

[seases]

this is like really fucking old (like 2021? my brs phase) but i realized i never posted it and i still like the loose mspaint scrawl soul of it. pardon me for the old art

[coldgoldlazarus]

I feel like there is a fine line between Edginess (Affectionate) and Edginess (Derogatory) and that distinction is best exemplified in the differences between Black Rock Shooter (OVA & 2012) and Black Rock Shooter: Dawn Fall

[scootarooni]

lil BRS

[f3lldrag0n]

[yarakami-meiosei]

ALL STARS!

[calyroco]

If I think about black rock shooter long enough eventually I end up remembering the drastically different plots in the various stories she's starred in. The main constant is the title character. Everything else is subject to change.

[marinecorvid]

agony is being unable to find that one black rock shooter amv you used to listen to every day

[odysseys-blood]

forever upset sbt how they massacred brs with that new shit edgy anime im so sorry they did that to you black☆rock shooter

[polarisbibliotheque]

Hiiiii just wanted to say you're an amazing person and writer and I love your first with my whole heart, especially the nemesis one and jeshhsvejeyegehejwjj also I wanted to ask if the reader is based on being female or not? Any yea that's it love yyyaaaaaa xo

Aaaaaah thank you so much!!!! I'm always taken aback by so much love, thanks a LOT for taking the time to read my work and just be here, it's really special to me 🖤🖤 you are too kind!!

Me, whenever you guys decide to shower me with love

I always say the most precious thing we have in life is time - and the fact that you guys decide to spend that time here, reading and just enjoying ~the vibes~ holds a special place in my heart 🖤

Now, regarding reader's gender, that's a very good question!

My first language isn't English - I'm Brazilian, so BR Portuguese is my default and I've written A LOT in Portuguese. Interestingly enough, I think I spent so much time writing here, I'm currently writing better in English than in Portuguese *puts on fool hat*

In Portuguese, gender is a big deal, 'cause all our words are gendered. We don't have neutrals like "they" in English or "das" in German - so we kinda always have to pic a gender for characters.

I have some non-binary characters in other personal original stories and they are a PAIN to write in Portuguese, 'cause I don't have neutral pronouns/ways to call them T-T

When I used to write for PT-BR fanfic websites, my default has always been female reader character in 3d person - it's only when I moved to tumblr I started using "you", which was a VERY weird transition at the start, and I got hit with "oh my the person reading might not be female/identify as female".

I always used female as default because, not gonna lie, I used my name as default for 3d person, or friends names, and then I scripted/htmld the fic so in the website I posted people could change the characters names to their own names/own characters without the whole you/y/n thing.

The majority of people reading in this website I posted are women - and in my country, fanfiction has always been perceived like a female thing. So I never really thought much about that.

It's only when I moved here I found a more diverse set of readers. In English, gender isn't taken for granted, because you do have neutrals. And I kept thinking "what if people that identify with other genders want to read my work? What if they like it too?" and I decided to go as neutral as I can for the reader!

Granted, sometimes I slip up and you'll catch me referencing the reader as she/her - it's something I always have to keep an eye on because of my own language.

When I'm writing, I think more of a mature character rather than their gender, to be honest. It's a pet peeve of mine, but I'm always fuming that most female reader characters end up as damsels in distress or acting extremely childish, girly, cute or even bratty just because of their gender and I hate it.

I try to think more in a way that Dante and Vergil wouldn't be attracted to that - they're older, mature men and they want something else in a relationship. They want a partner and someone who can stand on their own, and power through hardships. Femininity is ok, but being a childish 12 y/o isn't really attractive to older men like them.

I'm turning 30 this year, hear the voice of wiseness HAHAHA

That made me have another sort of default when I'm writing. Now I'm much more focused on personality and what fits the characters rather than gender and all that - because I think sometimes we get too "blind" on what is expected from that gender rather than developing a good character.

A few examples I like:

(Below the cut, examples on female characters and my impressions, I got too excited and it turned into something huge, apologies xD)

Integra Hellsing, from the Hellsing manga and OVA, is an exceptional woman written without her gender being the first thing you get from her character. Appearance wise, she is very androginous, but her character per se, she is still a woman, feminine and all, but powerful as hell, strong-willed, with harsh decisions to make, imperfections and self-doubt, holding the most powerful vampire in the world on a leash. She has a ton of responsibilities and she doesn't have to be a sexy tomboy or a, again, sexy girlboss to pull that off. She is posh, regal and graceful even, but she smokes, swears and commands like a man... or like the woman she is. Which is brilliant. Love her absurdly.

Plus, she literally has te title of Sir Integra. Love this powerhouse of a woman.

Ellen Ripley, from Alien, was a character written primarily regardless her gender - and I think this is fabulous! They had the character done and said "ok, both a man and a woman can play this character" - when it came to casting, they decided Sigourney Weaver was the best choice. Ripley is smart, fast thinking and a survivor at heart, but she also shows fear and horror when she is put up against the alien. Her character was developed before her gender, and that makes her so amazing - by the second movie, Aliens, she is a powerhouse as well, hell-bent on saving people and not allowing anyone to get hurt by those dreadful creatures again. And we learn she had a daughter! That makes her grow attached to Newt, but not in that ~motherly overattached dependant~ way most people think women do, but in a protective "I'm gonna be your parent" way that all humans grow attached to children!

That's why the 3rd Alien movie is so awful to me. It's the only movie that puts her gender before her character: suddenly she is having sex with everyone and some guys try to rape her because suddenly she is seen as an object rather than a person.

I mean I always shipped her with Hicks and there isn't a SINGLE sexual thing between them rather than some looks of admiration from him and THAT hits harder than any of that cheap sexual thing from the 3rd movie in my ace opinion xD

Fun fact, we both share the fact we're INTPs xD

Now, another one I like, is Yennefer of Vengerberg - and she is written with everything of her gender taken into account. Why am I mentioning her, then?

I'm taking the books and games as reference here, but Yennefer is stunningly beautiful. She could be a perfect femme fatale, and she starts like that, but as you get into her character, there is a character there. And it goes so much further than just being a sexy woman who wants to girlboss and overpower men. Yen is traumatized and has traded so much of herself to become this powerhouse she is. No one likes to mess with her, and those who reduce her to being an woman-object suffer the consequences. She realized she wanted to have children when it was only too late and she is so freaking powerful she will go LENGTHS to make it happen.

It doesn't, but she gets Ciri in her life. Apart from that, Yen is a sorcerer and she does politics: when Geralt doesn't want that and they start disagreeing on their points of view/what kinds of life they want to lead, she is adamant on not leaving her freedom and being afraid on losing her independence to tie herself to someone else. So Yennefer remains as this mysterious, femme fatale of a woman, bewitching and breaking so many hearts because she will never abandon her freedom, her goals and her dreams for a relationship. And that, I think it's beautiful on a female character. Well done and something that ends up becoming a fatal flaw of hers - because, again, it isn't based on "I won't bow to patriarchy" it's based on "I can trust only in myself and I won't leave my fate in anyone's hands but my own", it has nothing to do with her being a woman. It has to do with her own will and who she wants to be.

She could be written as a man and it would work as well in my opinion mind you, you're welcome to disagree

HAHAHAHAHA so there you go. I'm so sorry I took your simple question and turned it into an essay about my own view on gender and female characters when I'm writing, but I saw the opportunity and I took it. I do hope you don't mind "^^

And thank you once again for the ask!! I hope to see you around more and I'm so grateful to have you here! 🖤

[aryshacore]

hey how do i get into black rock shooter (question mark bc for some reason tumblr doesnt let me type it in ask, broken ass website) i think she looks really cool and i want to know more about her and i thought youd be the best person to ask ^^

QUESTION MARK INTERROBANGBANG!!!!

first you watch the song, but as you're into vocaloid you surely already know it. youtube with subtitles & niconico for good quality (turn off the comments or dont if you want to witness chaos)

then go have a look at huke's pixiv, he's black rock shooter's papa (also chara designer of steins gate which is why you'll see plenty of this on his page). at the beginning BRS was just his original character, and with his works with other people he developed stories around her.

You can then watch the 2010 OVA which is 50 minutes long and looks like this

or the 2012 anime with 8 episodes. the order doesnt matter as each iteration of BRS is independent and not linked to the previous ones

these are the basics of BRS, there's more (games, a few mangas, another recent anime) but what people think of when they hear the name Black★Rock Shooter are the song and these two animes.

[thefrogwhobarks]

Damn, black Rock Shooter ova is such good yuri... I'm so glad I watched it 14 years later, when I finally picked up some media literacy. a lot of the story happens in the subtext: In their tones... the camera direction... i mean... watch this

Through clever blocking and camera work, we're now looking at this adorable girl through the lens of another girl who is very much in love with her. She looks so small because of the height difference on top of the girl having a hunched down position. And this kind of attention to detail and amazing storyboarding can be seen in several parts of the film. It's not the kind of flashy spectacle clip that would go viral on twitter or youtube, but it's beautiful animation that elevates the text. I've got all that to say for a 6 second clip. Imagine what I have to say for the remaining 900-ish seconds.

This is the kind of movie that makes me wish I had a film degree.

The narrative structure follows the structure of the song it was based on. That's some... *looks up the fancy word* intertextuality right there.

The conversations are so incredibly real too... to the point where I would forget that this is anime. The way they talked is so... grounded... in a way that makes me realise how characters in so many other media talk in larger-than-life way that I've subconsciously just learned to think nothing of. I'm not saying the quirky anime-talk is sucks, but to make characters talk so naturally is very skilful and artful of the creators.

anyways, that's all (for now?)!! I hope my rambling has gotten you interested in BRS ova, or if you've watched it and have felt a similar love for this film, I hope I have made you feel seen!!

I found my copy from open archive!! i think the studio themselves uploaded it ? From what i heard, the ova was disseminated for free during its release as well, so that kinda tracks!!

it's worth watching twice but if you're not up to it...

just keep in mind that the interspersed wasteland fight scenes are happening in the future

[magicalgirlgrimoire]

A Eulogy to Black Rock Shooter

AKA My Wild and Unsubstantiated Black Rock Shooter Conspiracy Theory

A long time ago, I saw a friend posting about a thing called “black rock shooter” on their deviantart journal and I asked them what it was. It must have been circa 2009/10, since it was about the OVA that was soon to release. I’d gotten into Vocaloid pretty bad around that time, right at the fandoms infancy, and I was immediately intrigued by BRS’s creation. I could and would talk more about it ; it’s an interesting case of various creatives building off each other to make a collaborative media property, and one of the earliest instances of this coming from the vocaloid community.

But that’s not why we’re here; we’re here for my hit piece on Black Rock Shooter 2012.

But let’s roll back a bit, to the OVA first. Now, for the purposes of this blog, I’m only going to be touching on the OVA and 2012 anime. I know there’s a few games, manga and a new anime that came out this year, but I’m interested in BRS mostly as a magical girl property, so I’m ignoring media that doesn’t involve the duality of a normal girl / magical girl in the plot. Speaking of, BRS’s OVA is a simple story; Mato and Yomi are two girls who meet each other as they join a new school and immediately hit it off. However Mato is more outgoing, and soon Yomi finds herself sidelined in Mato’s flourishing school life. In another world, a seemingly twisted version of Yomi is gaining power as Dead Master, and it’s up to Mato’s other self, Black Rock Shooter to defeat and subsequently rescue Yomi from her own darker emotions.

There’s something incredibly relatable to me about the short narrative presented to us in this OVA. The quick way Mato and Yomi befriend each other and reach that level of intimacy within their friendship reflects my own experience as a young teenaged afab; often your most intense relationships at that age are with friends you made, in retrospect, for the convenience. Not that Mato and Yomi don’t have a genuine connection; but more that it’s clear during the OVA that they have differing interests and levels of openness, leading to their friendship straining over the course of the story. There’s also a distinctive saphic edge to their relationship too; the disappointment and abandonment Yomi feels, which instigates her downward spiral, also mirrors the feelings of many young queer women, who find themselves in incredibly emotional and weighty relationships with their best friends, who often don’t have the language to explain why they want to spend so much time with them, why they feel such jelousy when that friend is away, or why that friend in particular is so important. This makes it all the more sweet when the conclusion of the OVA is Mato gaining her powers as BRS in order to save Yomi, proving she also sees Yomi as important. The final scene where BRS breaks out of her chains and defeats Dead Master with not her iconic sword or gun, but with a hug, dispelling Yomi’s anger and sadness, always gets me. Despite the somewhat edgy pckaging, the Black Rock Shooter OVA presents a sweet story about a friendship between two girls, and about girls rescuing and caring for each other.

Cute. Nice.

The Black Rock Shooter Anime throws all that out the window.

The anime starts out close enough to the OVA, though with a notably expanded main cast and some adjustments to the characters relationships. In this version, Mato has a pre-existing friendship with Yu, a character who does appear in the OVA but who I glossed over, and Yomi is friends with a new character who I despise. Black Gold Saw is also here.

The first few episodes are normal enough as we follow both the every day storyline and a parallel narrative with BRS, giving us more insight into the connection between the other world and our world. While I have my own petty gripes about the expanded cast taking focus away from Mato/ BRS and Yomi/Deadmaster, I concede giving them other girls to bounce off is a good shout. However the characterisation of all the cast goes right into yandere mode; unlike in the OVA where Yomi’s withdrawel into depression feels gradual and foreboding, the overblown drama of the anime removes any sense of realism from the scenes. What could have been an intimate look at the interpersonal relationships between a group of girls becomes a melodrama interlaced with cgi fight scenes.

The plots between the two worlds feel more disconnected than ever; despite all the new backstory provided, there’s no compelling through line between the real world and other world plots. The worst slap in the face is episode 5, which is a complete inversion of the OVA’s ending; Mato goes into the other world willingly to save Yomi, only to find she’s murdered Dead Master. Expectedly, she flies into a blind rage as a result of this. To add insult to injury, the plot wraps up so neatly after this, to the point where one of the final scenes is all the girls giggling together, it feels completely bizarre. The conclusion is unearned and the core conflict of the girl’s tumultuous attachments to each other, though resolved on paper, feels like it wasn’t ever truly addressed.

I don’t really expect all magical girl media to be uplifting, especially since this particular franchise is definitely not aimed towards the same middle school girls it depicts, but the radical shift from a somewhat eerie but ultimately good natured narrative focused on friendships to outright torture porn felt inexplicable on the first watch. I couldn’t understand how a story that was ultimately so wholesome and clear cut could lose its way so severely, and in such a short time. Afterall, there was only a 2 year gap between the OVA’s release in July 2010 to the anime’s in February 2012, and the OVA was clearly meant as a proof of concept for a longer show. What could have possibly lead to this change in direction?

It was MADOKA.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica came out squarely inbetween BRS’s OVA and Anime in January 2011. I don’t think anyone foresaw how wildly popular the show would be; and anyone who was there at the time knows that one of the key components that made Madoka the success it is was the shocking nature of the plot and how it juxtaposes the cute aesthetic of magical girl media with the tragedy and violence experienced by the main characters.

This is where my speculation comes in.

The facts as I see them are as follows;

Black Rock Shooter OVA comes out with modest popularity backed by the vocaloid communities that supported the project in it’s early days

BRS is never intended as a widely syndicated show, and is very independent in it’s release. It isn’t intended for a mainstream shoujo demographic.

Madoka comes out; it’s a seinen pairing cutesy magical girl designs with surreal aesthetics and focuses on the psychological turmoil of its young female cast and a massive hit

BRS anime comes out a year later with a bigger focus on its character’s suffering and an overall edgier vibe

My conjecture is I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility that the production on BRS’s anime saw how well Madoka did and wanted a slice of the pie. It is only after Madoka’s airing that we see this hard shift. BRS 2012 was trying to capitalise on the zeitgeist’s interest in watching girls suffer, and it sucks for it. The voyeuristic framing of the girl’s mental breakdowns, the focus on body horror and maiming and the way we hardly see any real positive real world interactions with the girls towards the latter half of the story ( until the weird ending ) feels like proof enough to this theory. There is a preoccupation with creating a marketable property to serve male fans emanating from the series; there is no care given to try and depict the real friendships of girls. Instead, the relationships are needlessly twisted and again, come to no meaningful conclusion aside from murder. While I have my reservations about Madoka, even it had the decency to ground our characters more extreme behaviours in understandable motivations. Black Rock Shooter 2012 is a sloppy repackage and disappointment on almost all fronts-

At least the opening still slaps.

[thehoodedneku]

Consider Shigadabi x Black Rock Shooter AU, Shiggy and Dabi would be the other selves of Tenko and Touya annnnnnd it would work so well! Because the concept of BRS is that you have an other self that fights through your pain and Shigadabi fans should watch the first BRS, then the OVA please (not Dawnfall, that was SO BAD DO NOT WATCH). I might try to draw this sometime. But also just watch BRS it’s about lesbians :) anyway, so your other self basically also fights other people, while your real self is trying to form friendships and navigate them. So Shiggy and Dabi would be fighting, while Tenko and Touya are trying not to let the other in, putting up walls, yet at the same time wanting to let the other in annnnnd I hope I’m coherent.

[f3lldrag0n]