What’s this?
The year is 2062, two decades after the failure of a massive workforce automation project. However, Artemis, the artificial intelligence at the center of that project, had decided to attack humanity and the resulting war raged across Earth. A lonely girl, Empress, wakes up in an underground laboratory in a base. She is one of the three surviving guardians of humanity. However, she has no memories of what she came before. All she knows is what a colonel from the peacebuilding force tells her. Artemis is building a space elevator to link the Moon and Earth, and Empress is ordered to destroy the space elevator before it is finished. If the elevator is completed, the hordes of gigantic mechanized forces that are being mass-produced on the Moon will descend on Earth.
Black Rock Shooter: Breaking Dawn is the last entry in the black Rock Shooter franchise and flows in Disney+ in Japan on Sundays.
Note: The series is not yet available for streaming worldwide. Richard Eisenbeis lives in Japan and was able to watch the first episode there, albeit without subtitles.
How was the first episode?
Richard Eisenbeis
Classification:
black Rock Shooter it is one of those intellectual properties whose name I know but little else. Fortunately, from dawn fall it’s a reboot set in a whole new universe, that doesn’t seem to matter. The scenario is one we have all seen before: there has been some kind of robot apocalypse and now humanity is on its last legs. However, there are some AIs that continue to fight for the human race, including our titular hero, Black Rock Shooter.
This anime begins with the classic device to create a POV character for the audience: amnesia. Not only does it allow Black Rock Shooter to ask all the dumb questions that anyone living in the fictional world would already know the answers to, but it also allows her to become super powerful without any explanation. Of course, the big drawback here is that without memories, Black Rock Shooter has very little personality. All she knows is that she has to get to the “lighthouse no. 8” and that she is not willing to abandon those in her care no matter the tactical situation. She’s a pretty solid starting point, but at the moment she doesn’t have much of a character.
Unfortunately, neither are the other three main characters in this episode. We have the stereotypical protective duo of big brother/sick little sister and a tough military commander. There’s honestly nothing more to them than that, which leaves the action to carry the show.
More than anything, this first episode is a series of fight scenes. All of them are decently choreographed and feature the above-average CG animation used in the show, further bolstered by a surprisingly rockin’ soundtrack. However, the black, brown, and gray color palette can make it hard to see what’s going on at times, especially during fights that happen at night.
All in all, I’m not sure what to think dawn fall. So far, it’s little more than a bunch of clichés, both in setting and character. Maybe it will become something special in the future, but this premiere is unimpressive.