Black Bullet, Ep 10: Oh so many poor lolis

I bet if given enough time, all of these lolis would be swooning for Rentarou sooner or later.

At first I was confused from seeing Rentarou and Kisara teaching their classroom of lolis instead of preparing for the impending collapse of Monolith 32, but then we learn that they still have another three days before its collapse …Except no, that still doesn’t make much sense, since wouldn’t the JASDF want all civil officers to be near in case the monolith collapses before the approximated time? Which it in fact ends up doing at the end of this episode. But then I remembered that all of the civil officers are on standby, so perhaps they’re given more leniency to wander around. That still wouldn’t make much sense either, but it’s at least a possibility. But then I just wondered why these civil officers are even on standby in the first place when they’re the ones that specialize in slaying Gastrea. This pretty much describes my thought process for a lot things about Black Bullet.

That aside, this episode serves two purposes: to give us a more light-hearted episode to give us a breather before the monolith falls and everything gets all serious and grimdark, and then to smash that lighthearted fluff to pieces to get us pumped up for the grimdark shit that’s going to go down next week. Did it succeed at this, you ask? Haha, what a cute question, of course it didn’t succeed you silly rascal.

To understand the depth of this episode, try to think of what would make you feel like the happiest and most beloved guy in the world. Such as say, having dozens of little loli girls swarm you and letting you know what a cool onii-chan you are to them, which is precisely what happens to Rentarou after he and Kisara takes their class out on a field trip.  And what’s the next step up for the sort of affection these lolis could have for Rentarou-oniisan? Love of course! As in addition to Enju and Tina, we get another three lolis proposing to marry Rentarou, and thus Rentarou finally gets a full-fledged harem of little girls. So now that Rentarou has reached every lolicon’s dream, what’s the worst that could happen? Google “dead children” if you need a hint.

So this is the bulk of what happens this episode: Rentarou and Enju spend time with their class, a bomb kills all these precious lolis, much angst and tears are had, and then the monolith collapses. As s I said in regards to episode 3’s handling of discrimination, a problem with Black Bullet is that it tries too hard to be dark and edgy to seem mature. It shoves tragedy in your face with some sad music in a measly attempt to make you feel sorry for the characters. But it does so in a way that’s just not really genuine or convincing, and thus is trying so hard to present tragedy they try too hard, and in doing so makes it funny rather than heart-breaking. That’s why I broke out laughing a couple weeks ago when it presented the Cursed Child who poured acid into her eyes, and why I laughed this week as Rentarou looked at the dozens of dead bodies of his former students.

And yeah, all the lolicon pandering continues to irk me. I don’t actually have anything against the lolicon genre or anything—after all, you don’t see me complaining about it in any of my No Game No Life posts. The reason it annoys me in Black Bullet is because it’s a dramatic show that takes itself seriously, and so I judge it differently than I would for some wacky harem comedy. Since with a comedy I might find it funny to see a little girl swoon over an older guy, but in a show like Black Bullet that takes itself seriously (and fails,) it just feels like Enju and Tina aren’t being properly educated about such things. Of course, you’re reading this from the same person who loves the lolicon humor in Monogatari Series, so “lolicon doesn’t belong in drama” isn’t exactly a set in stone rule for me either. I just don’t like it in the case of Black Bullet.

The blast radius of the bomb that killed the kids is awfully specific, as it only barely covered the whole classroom. With such a relatively narrow blast radius, I figure that at least a few of the kids would have survived, particularly since they’re teacher wasn’t even there yet. They’re kids, so they would run around or something instead of patiently waiting in their desks, right? Plus I would assume that the old guy was with them, and he didn’t die.

The blind loli also makes a couple appearances, but she really doesn’t serve any purpose in the story except for us to feel sorry about her. I also don’t like how when the monolith falls, its a bunch of perfect blocks falling everywhere. Yeah, that makes sense that it would be constructed of blocks, but if it were to break it’d just be a bunch of chunks of rubble, since the cement holding together the blocks would still keep them together. When a brick building collapses, you don’t see all the bricks falling apart so neatly. It’s the blocks themselves that break.

If there’s anything I have to give Black Bullet praise for that I haven’t mentioned before though, it’s the soundtrack. A few weeks I told someone that it was just a generic anime soundtrack, but don’t pay any heed to that since I clearly wasn’t paying attention to the good soundtrack that Black Bullet actually has. Like at the end of the episode, when I wasn’t bothered by the perfectly shaped blocks, I was marveling at the nice juxtaposition made between the soft, choral music and the destruction of the monolith. I don’t know much when it comes to writing about music though, so I don’t have much else to say about the soundtrack.