Black Rock Shooter

Black Rock Shooter:  A

I've gotta admit I'm really surprised to be giving a series which began as a song on NicoNicoDouga which I didn't care for much an A rank.  Indeed, the very concept of the show doesn't sound particularly amazing: there is a secret, parallel and possibly imaginary world where avatars of girls from the real world do battle in order to relieve the suffering of their real-world counterparts.

And yet, the series (8 episodes) manages to take this concept and quite thoroughly explore the morality of this (Is it right to give your suffering to someone else?  Is it right to suffer in place of someone else?  What are the consequences of doing this for both the one whose suffering is taken away and the one who suffers instead?) and apply it both to relationships in the real world and the overall situation the series creates.  Due to the focus on pain and its cyclical nature (it's kind of Buddhist like that) it's a very emotional story, but it manages to do this without being totally depressing by having uplifting moments regularly.

If you're interested in a series that combines elegantly written school drama with stunningly dynamic duels between girls with superpowers on bizarre symbolic landscapes, your eyes will melt with joy at Black Rock Shooter.  If you need male characters in your series in order to appreciate them, or can't handle severe emotional damage being inflicted on characters who don't deserve it, you probably won't enjoy BRS.

As a final note, Black Rock Shooter was an OVA (hour-long) before it was an 8-episode anime.  I saw that first, and it wasn't bad, but only rated about a C+, maybe a B.  It establishes two of the central characters of the later series and tells a simpler version of the story surrounding them.