#28.8.18

And it was interesting.

It surpasses the OVA in many ways, mainly your technical stuff like voice acting, animation (they use lots of CG but it actually looks shockingly good), actual art quality (backgrounds especially got a major boost), soundtrack (they actually use the Black Rock Shooter song by Miku and the other guy!) etc.

However, there’s one place in particular where it really surpasses the OVA - and that’s in having a plot. There are more characters and they’re all important rather than being relegated to what can effectively be described as a cameo, for one thing, and they also actually explain what Black Rock Shooter and the rest of the gang actually are! In other words, the half of the story not set in the real world finally has context and meaning! Admittedly, all that’s only introduced in episode 5 of this 8 episode series so it’s still a bit weird, but whatevs.

All that praise aside though, the TV anime isn’t all good. For one thing, all that additional plot stuff is pretty hecking convoluted and poorly explained, making it very difficult to tell what’s going on in the later episodes and more importantly how it’s going on, as well as things occasionally having weird side effects of memory loss for no reason that are later ignored anyway. There’s also Saya who just isn’t very well written in general and could probably be removed without too much impact, even though the show tries to frame her as super important. Pacing’s also kind of off, especially early on, and many moments feel largely superfluous.

However, a lot of those are fairly nitpicky (okay contrived plot isn’t a nitpick), but the worst is yet to come. Remember how I complained about the jealousy arc for Yomi in the OVA? Well, she does this again in the anime, but it’s way, way worse. See, in the OVA, Yomi and Mato had been best friends for more than an entire year and it feels like a genuine budding relationship, but when Mato starts hanging around with Yuu more often, Yomi gets jealous. In the anime however, Mato and Yuu have been best friends for most of their lives, while Yomi’s been stuck with Kagari for a bit. Barely a few days after Mato and Yomi become friends though, the jealousy arc starts as Yomi sees Mato and Yuu being buds. Just how jealous she gets in that little time makes her seem entitled and impossible to sympathise with, something that the OVA did honestly make me manage to do even if I’m sick of jealousy arcs. Yomi’s arc in general just feels incredibly reliant on the narrative forcing emotions on her that she probably shouldn’t have in that moment and making the world be as irrationally dickish to her as possible. Not just that, but Yomi’s barely even in the anime in the last few episodes. Mato’s supposed to be trying to save her but then we get a random plot twist out of nowhere that Yuu’s actually swapped places with her counterpart, Strength, which only really happens to stretch out the narrative in the final sprint. It sucks. 

This review’s kinda crappy but I’m ending it here because I wanna go to sleep. Do I consider Black Rock Shooter the anime to be better than Black Rock Shooter the OVA? Probably. Each one has strengths over the other, though I’ve gotta give the anime props for managing to actually have both halves of its plots be relevant, even if the real world half wasn’t quite as strong as that of the OVA while the other world stuff wasn’t written consistently well. Pretty fun watch though.

28 minutes at bedtime

Last night my mind was ebbing instead of flowing. While receding from the surface of all activity, the mind is far more supportive of a concentrated effort at meditation. In its flowing phases, the mind will bring all kinds of thoughts to your attention. As if the conscious with all its rationality isn’t enough, the mind will then throw absurdly colourful subconscious images at you.

Keep going. The attention you need for meditation is only one moving breath at a time. One doesn’t have to strain at all, in order to pay attention. One has to watch calmly. The mind with all its distractions can entertain only so much. One can recall memories from the day only so many times. One can watch stranger things from the subconscious for only so many hours of a meditation practice. Beyond which, you will find it easy to keep going. Keep watching that breath.

Of course, I haven’t got so far from my mind that I can claim to have no white noise. The images are right there waiting to grab my attention. I allow those images to wait while I watch my moving breath. These images get their break when I pause between breaths. Images disappear and become quiet when I give attention to my moving breath.

Ive never felt this way before. It’s almost like one day cannot pass without my heart being heavy and weighing me down. I really thought I was happy, and I want (wanted?) to be. But everything that’s happened has made me more miserable every time.

This is not even on anyone else but me. My mental and emotional health have suffered so much throughout the years and I have been mindless enough to not tend to it. So everything has built up, from the first time I wa made to feel like I was not enough to the daily reminders I receive today of the same thoughts.