A manga of Black★Rock Shooter has been released, titled Black★Rock Shooter ~Innocent Soul~. The story follows a girl in Hazama (Threshold), a world between Heaven and Earth. "Impure souls" — those that could not ascend to Heaven with the burden of their own weight — have drifted to this world of constant warfare.
There is also a separate published 4koma series. Titled Black★Rock-chan, it's really just an Affectionate Parody of the characters and setting; it stars a Pint-Sized Kid version of B★RS with a full-sized Dead Master acting like her mom.
The PSP video game also received a manga adaptation after its release. But for all intents and purposes, tropes applying to the game in general go to the Video Game subpage.
Not to be confused with Black★Rock Shooter – Innocent Souls: a fanmade play-by-post roleplay set in the universe of the manga.
Tropes found in this manga:
- Cruel and Unusual Death: The Black Shooters that were sent to destroy Dead's Stagnant Soul end up crushed by her wing-arms into a giant ball of flesh and gore.
- Downer Beginning: The first chapter alone has a little girl brutally impaled by the grotesquely mutated soul of a legendary serial killer.
- Inconsistent Spelling: The name of the organization Rock, Dead, and others work for. In the original Japanese, it is written as "ブラックスター". A logical translation would be "Black Star", as evidenced by a panel from Chapter 9, yet some translation groups, and consequently other sources, use "Black Shooter".
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: In the final chapter, Rock uses the power of Stagnant Souls to turn Ron into a massive wall of ★rock Cannons in order to finish off Ram. When she pulls the trigger, they shoot lasers. It makes War Machine on the trope image look downright tame.
- Woobie of the Week: For every chapter, there is a stagnant soul whom Rock and Ron must assist in order to release them from their trapped state. And it is inevitable for the duo to learn about their hidden troubles and past lives. Lastly, most of their stories get resolved in the same chapter they're introduced in.
