Saturday, February 25, 2012

Black Rock Shooter TV Episode 4--The Many Faces of Yomi

Black Rock Shooter TV Episode 4 Screenshot 1

If you thought that Kagari was going to be the only brat in this show, Yomi has a surprise for you.

Black Rock Shooter TV Episode 4 Screenshot 2
Black Rock Shooter TV Episode 4 Screenshot 3
Black Rock Shooter TV Episode 4 Screenshot 4

Last time I talked about how the plotline involving Yomi's jealousy from the OVA was back and I didn't like it. This week makes it even worse by turning Yomi into a giant hypocrite. She and Kagari almost completely trade places from where they both were in their "friendship" (if you could call it that) at the beginning of the series, and Yomi should've known better since she was a victim of the kind of the emotional abuse she's trying to inflict. Where is the logic in Yomi-land? She's allowed to make friends and hang out with who she wants to, but whenever anyone wants to be with someone who's not her, suddenly her life sucks? The show tries to play it off as Yomi wanting to feel "needed" but it's honestly not that different from how Kagari was behaving only a few episodes ago (minus carving hearts into people's chests). Am I supposed to feel sorry for Yomi? I don't; it's frustrating to watch, whereas this same storyline in the OVA was just mildly annoying and didn't make much sense. And every time she made one of those crazy faces in this episode I couldn't help but giggle a bit at how over-the-top everything was. The counselor was also ridiculously transparent in this episode too, giving obviously horrible advice and sitting in dramatically lit areas with her cup of EVIL coffee. The "real world" segments of BRS TV are dipping dangerously close to "I enjoy it ironically" territory.

Black Rock Shooter TV Episode 4 Screenshot 5
Black Rock Shooter TV Episode 4 Screenshot 6
Black Rock Shooter TV Episode 4 Screenshot 7

But not everything in this episode was bad and I still do have some faith in the show. Kagari's line about wanting Yomi to "let her go" was a nice parallel to episode two, so I'm hoping that Yomi's hypocrisy is a deliberate setup to make her the next "villain" before the final boss fight against Black Gold Saw/Evil Counselor. If I'm honestly supposed to sympathizing with her...well, I already ranted, so I'll let it go for now. Also interesting were the depictions of the repercussions of getting decapitated in BRS world (or maybe just dying in general, I'm not sure). At first it seemed like amnesia, especially with the basketball girl's statements to her former crush, but Kagari's speech to Yomi cleared that up. They haven't forget anything and they remember their feelings but they can't understand them anymore. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that they don't understand love, because if they can't feel anything then I don't think that they would be able to maintain their social lives in the way that they were shown doing in this episode (unless we're in No Longer Human territory, but I really doubt this). In any case, at least it was clarified that the other world is not just a metaphor but that they're actually connected through their emotions, as silly as that sounds. I'm okay with this since all I really wanted going into this show was to know what the deal is with that world. In the meantime, I'll just keep laughing at Yomi's unintentionally hilarious expressions.

Images from Nico Nico Douga.

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