So when I looked up the various BlackRock Shooter manga and anime here. Which stemmed from me first watching the 2012 anime. Which stemmed from Ace telling me about it in a local Walmart. Describing her as edgy Hatsune Miku with guns I liked the idea mainly due to me thinking how campy it could be. What I got was a very introspective and deep anime. Albeit so confusing I promised myself to rewatch the show and write an analysis which will come someday. Now the only other two things I knew about Black Rock Shooter was Dawn Fall the 2022 anime and the opening theme which if I recall correctly is sung by the Hatsune Miku Vocaloid. Which cemented Black Rock Miku as a Miku variant in my heart. And then I found a sleuth of various manga which lead me to this. BlackRock Shooter The Game which has not just a very confusing naming convention but also a very confusing plot. I liked the aspects of the plot for what I couldve gathered until I didnt. Which would be around... 20 of the manga. The plot is very different from the 2012 anime Ive seen. The plot: Its a grim dark setting where aliens came down and wiped out nearly all of humanity. Humanity awakens a human weapon little girl with a sexualized design I was somewhat questioned by in the anime but outright uncomfortable as shes stated to be a little girl in this manga who can fight back against the aliens some of the aliens who serve a queen rebel and everyone gets wiped. Including the blonde guy Rothicol I think? who had a romantic interest in the titular BlackRock Shooter herself. Also known as Gray who is also known as Stella. Totally not confusing. The only survivor being three of the final aliens and Stella who is taken back by someone known as Nana Gray. Let me repeat that a character known as Gray is taken under the care of another character of Nana Gray This is on the same level as Kingdom hearts naming conventions. Nana Gray puts BlackRock Shooter / Stella / Gray in a device that allows her to reveal her forgotten memories. And we learn that Stella and Nana Gray are a part of a race of artificial weapons known as Grays. And how they were basically heroes. Think Warhammer 40K Space Marines and the Imperium of Man. Now get that thought out of your head as it turns out Nana Gray had to fight Stella who was just killing people and she reveals nah but like actually youre clones youre basically bargaining chips for the aliens for something called Nebladeing Something we heard countless times and are only explained basically all of the other Grays including Nana Gray were the failed creations of one scientist and Stella is the only REAL success. You got all that? Oh by the way that little info dump is in like three pages. Now Nana Gray reflecting after having given Stella her memories back vows vengeance. She also reveals that vat wont give Stella her memories instead shes be and I quote completely white. Youll be Sing Love. Next chapter we see BlackRock Shooter / Stella / Gray / Sing Love along with the other aliens and more humans?. Stella is now in a position of political power? And Dr. Gibson said that when I first met you. I thought you were a devil here to destroy us so is she now the ruler of the aliens? Also why do the aliens look so human? If theyre not the humans then what is this dude talking about? Dr. Gibson shows her the clones compares himself as the father and her the mother. Stella says I want to eat them Then shes like spare all of the humans Dr. Gibson stops her from eating the clones? Which I guess implied she was gonna feed off of the clones instead? But for some reason this might just be a memory wipe or maybe not?? And some dude is fucking up the process is called that black bitch if I didnt know better that sounds kind of racist and says Im here to avenge Mefe you know that one off villain who just died due to being a cocky bitch? Turns out she was just implanting Sing Songs memories into Stella and said you were only loved by Papa but we saw Stella as one of the clones of Sing Song so that cant be true. But it turns out Papa loved them all. Which lines up with the memory of wanting to protect all of the clones and stopping Sing Loves Anakin Youngling slaughter enactment. But how would Nana Gray not realize that was the case if she A: had access to a pod that could implant Sing Loves memories B: implant Sing Loves memories into subjects and have access to that memory and presumably her memory in general. If she saw the memory beforehand why wouldnt she question Dr. Gibson protecting all of the clones? Did she just assume he did it just to protect ONE of them? And if she didnt see the memory what bad do she think she could do by implanting Sing Loves memories into Stella. She mentioned removing the combat capabilities but she was basically gambling and hoping that Sing Love was a docile and helpless person which wasnt the case as she proved to be a threat against the clones. Okay so after Nana Gray denies the truth and does a from my perspective the Jedi are evil and then suddenly that fuckass dude from earlier barges in says hes Llwo say he was Mefes fiance told off for treason declare hes going to take revenge and kill Nana Gray for the hell of it. We cut back to the real Sing Love who says aw screw wipe all life off the planet which wasnt their intentions before? I mean they already had been feeding off the majority why didnt they just say to hell with it we assimilated enough humans. Back to the fight after Stella got thrown into a wall after being clothes beamed from a Dragon Ball character offscreen Llwo says fight back and Stella has a depressive episode and I get tired of this steaming pile of melodrama. She says sorry and Llwo just uses the r slur for some reason. Llwo takes Nana Gray as hostage Stella says something about the Mefi inside her and Llwo just gives up. That is until everyone witnesses a big ass space ship using the power of the fucking moon is preparing to snipe the goddamn earth. Then using a natural 20 in persuasion Stella convince alien robot girl to goes up to the elevator leading up the to the moon laser thing. Then alien robot girl betrays Stella and Nana Gray for reasons. Then they fight and after beating up Xnfe which Elon Musk happens to call his kitchen utensils and Stella rolls another natural 20 in persuasion and gets Xnfe to help again. Then Nana Gray sacrifices herself to save Stella by throwing her into an escape pod. Which is utterly pointless as she either goes back to Earth and if Nana Gray fails Stella still dies. Or Stella is just stuck in bast open field of space. Anyways now Sing Love / White looks like Stella but with white clothes and hair. Somehow Stella makes it back up to fight White. And the two fight in a fight scene that I actually happen to like. And the ending was confusing I couldnt get a good read other than White lost and some other alien said Yo Stella you won. Thoughts: The pacing is a bit too quick for my tastes without the reader being able to properly grasp the world or information before the next thing happens. I dont like the Rothicol and Stella romantic stuff in Acts 1 and 2. It feels gross that even the translated version of the manga I read gave him the nickname Lolicol. Even the translator didnt like it. Another thing I disliked was this one character whose name I forgot as he just dies. And it is not clear who killed him. But it wasnt the Stella so I can only assume his teammates got tired of his shit. And he would make constant references to books and musicians? And call himself a director and had very muddled motifs to the point where he was gonna do his special move called Big Snipe but apparently because he was monologing so long about his director fantasy he just fails? And dies? Im sure I would get more context and out of this manga if I emulate the actual BlackRock Shooter The Game itself. But it is a fact that you shouldnt have to look to external media to explain your story. If I watch a movie I should be able to understand the plot without needing to having read a book beforehand. Also for some reason theres this plot point which is even more gross. So you know how Stella is a little girl right? Well shes called a BREEDER for some reason and how theres emphasis on how low the population of the world is they need more women to boost the population and make it a plot point. I know its not exactly saying that this little girl is required to you know... but Im still weirded out on how it was mentioned. Conclusion: So I think the pacing could be a bit better. Things could be a bit less confusing. Less of that gross pedophilic crap. I do not want a story where a character gets the nickname Lolicol or to hear weird breeding implications with a little girl. No thank you. The art is good. It wasnt as edgy as I assumed but still much so. It had aspects of the stuff I liked about the anime but the execution wasnt the best. Id give this show a 3.2/10.