Light Novel Adaptation by Kinema Citrus
Simulcast on Crunchyroll

Premise

In the future, a parasitic virus that turns humans into monsters has wiped out the bulk of humanity. The survivors live in cities walled off by a metal effective against the monsters, also used to create bullets. Some girls are born with the virus and can utilize it for superpowers, making them humanity’s last hope to fight against their enemy.

Iro’s Verdict: Missed the Target

Black Bullet was almost good, but consistently messed up the things that I liked about it. The female lead is utterly insufferable in all the worst ways, and they manage to squander an entire episode’s worth of decent worldbuilding in the last few minutes by simply narrating everything that was made clear by the episode itself. The basic story ideas have some potential, but if this show keeps suffering from the issues that plague this first episode then I have no interest in continuing.

Lifesong’s Verdict: Right on Target

I loved this first episode. Cool villains, parasitical monsters, zombie like infections, guns and magical lolis! What’s not to like right? I could do without the loli antics, but the character herself didn’t bother me nearly as much as I thought she would. I guess it’s a norm for a Dengeki Bunko protagonist to need his very own loli at this point and I’ve become immune. I blame Index. I actually liked her character, but groaned a sigh when the giant spider monster jizzed her in place. Sometimes I wonder if this stuff is trying to make me sigh? Do light novel authors collaborate on ways to keep up their reputation of being creepy with children? Like some sort of shock value hook to make people talk about it on the internet and draw attention to their work… How dare they “attempt” to manipulate us like that!

Normally I would shy away from an unfinished survival horror story, but this first episode was compelling enough that I find myself conflicted. This first episode hooked me and I want to see more. There is a darkness here that seems brutal. I’m told this series kills characters, but even if I hadn’t heard that the sinister vibes would be hard to miss. Watching someone make stew out of one of the monsters was enough to make me gag. The real kicker is that survival of mankind relies on the children of infected women. They are of course infected themselves and I wonder just how wrong that fact might go. Our first story arc has our protagonist tracking a monster no one can find. I wonder if it isn’t one of the infected little girls… And why are they all so young? Does something awful happen to them after a certain age? Maybe they turn into masked assholes who kill people for fun? Yup, no way I can drop this yet. I need to know!

Marlin’s Verdict: Firing Blanks

There’s some good ideas in this show. Its just a shame that its good parts get drowned out by a lot of bad characters. The main character seems compelling enough initially, but as each new support comes into the fray he just looks more and more incompetent. The loli is an absolute travesty of character writing. Annoying, childish, hyperactive and one of those annoying obsessed girls that always make sex jokes. Mind you this girl is 11 years old. It’s telling that after just one scene with her I was already disliking the show. The doctor just seemed to be there to spoon feed exposition into our faces, and the boss friend spent her entire scene explaining just how incompetent the main character was! It’s like this show doesn’t even want us to like them. Did you notice that when the concept of sexually assaulting the boss friend came up, the protag didn’t dismiss the idea, only remarked on its impossibility. Our hero, ladies and gentlemen.

That said, the actual plot itself could be enjoyable if you could somehow drown them all out. The concept of a fight against giant mutants always has the potential for some good action. Still, even that part was just over-explained to the point where it was boring. Give us some mystery, show, let us wonder what’s up with this virus before throwing out every single detail all at once.