Every now and then you come across something so average that its almost impressive. Wow you tell yourself. How did this manage to be so okay at everything without managing to cross into good? Black Bullet is one of these rare gems of mediocrity: the foundation is solid and everything built upon it holds up but its not quite wellcrafted enough to truly be considered stable. Black Bullet is the story of Rentaro Satomi a young man working for the Japanese government as a promotor to fight against monsters created by the Gastrea Virus. Aiding him is the tenyearold initiator Enju Aihara. Initiators are known as the cursed children due to their superhuman abilities. Also theyre all underage girls. Dont ask why they have to be underage girls. They just do. Shut up and let them do their blatant pandering to lolicons. Rentaro and Enju begin by combating Gastrea but later a masked man called Kagetane Hiruko and an impending collapse of a monolith defending Tokyo both threaten to destroy the city. If you think this sounds like an interesting concept youd probably be right. Conceptually this is a very strong series. The animalthemed initiators make for an interesting magic system and the plot is solid enough. However the show overall feels a bit lackluster probably due to the low amount of character development. There are plenty of scenes that should be tearjerking or emotionally powerful. The cursed children in particular get a raw deal and if the series had managed to follow through on what it was trying to do it would have been filled with heartbreaking moments showcasing just how thoroughly these young girls lives had been destroyed just because they were different. Unfortunately when terrible things happened they usually happened to characters with little to no character development or plot importance and its hard to take the whole cursed children tragedy seriously when theyre used more for cutesy fanservicey scenes than for a serious mature story. Yes there were plenty of times times that I said that sure is terrible but I said it when I should have been moved to tears. Ultimately Black Bullet just doesnt do enough. Its like someone drank a can of Darker than Blackweiser and said you know this is really good but its a little too strong for me and then went on to make Black Bullight and while it does still kind of taste like Blackweiser its watered down and has this sort of skunky loli taste to it but its still enough to get you buzzed and once youve had a few you dont really notice the loli taste that much anyway. And frankly if I wanted to see that Id just rewatch Darker than Black: Gemini of the Meteor oh snaaaap but no seriously thats basically what Black Bullet is. If youre really into action anime particularly ones with scifi or urban fantasy elements youll probably like Black Bullet. But it falls short of better shows in its genre and it doesnt bring much to the table. Its definitely not a bad show. It has solid writing a great magic system a few interesting characters among the sea of uninteresting ones and a bit of humor along the way. Its just brought down by a few unfortunate pitfalls and an overall unwillingness to capitalize upon its full potential. If you like this type of show go ahead and watch it. But if its not your usual thing give it a pass. Its not that its a waste of your time. Its that there are shows your time is better spent on. Three stars.