The next show that I will be reviewing is called Darker than Black, and boy is this one gonna be good. Made by Bones in 2007 and instead of being adapted from a manga series, the show actually came out first, then the manga was made a released. At the time it was also awarded Best Original Anime of the Year by the magazine GoGoPlex. There is also a second season called Darker than Black: Ryusei no Gemini (Gemini of the Meteor), but I will be covering that as well as the four episode OVA's of the show at another time. The series has 25 episodes in it and had two openings, the first was one of my favorites, "Howling" by Abington Boys School, and the second was "Kakusei Heroism" (The Hero Without a Name) by An Cafe. So, lets get into one of my favorite shows, Darker than Black.
The anime takes place in modern times in Japan, however some things are a bit different. Many years ago something called Hell's Gate appeared in Japan and everyone inside was wiped out. Another location in South America appeared as well called Heaven's Gate. The sky on earth was also covered up and no longer could people look up at the stars at night. After these places showed up, people started to appear with strange powers, calling themselves contractors, they were instantly rejected by the normal humans who were scared of the power that they had. It even was covered up that contractors existed from the general public. In the new sky there were stars that appeared on it that were found to be representative of each contractor that had powers and if they were active or not. If the contractor was killed then their star fell from the sky. Others called dolls appeared as well, people who seemingly lost all emotion but were able to send out spirits to spy on others. The contractors had to pay for their power though. Through the contract that they made with to get the power they also had to pay for their price somehow, usually by just performing some sort of task like drinking, smoking, or something more odd like taking a book and dog-ear folding all of the corners of every page. It was also a common consensus that contractors have no emotions, however through the series that is proven wrong in many cases. The main characters here are Hei, who is a contractor with the power to produce electricity, and the people that he works with in an agency that deals with contractor related issues, however they are not affiliated with the government so they constantly get into fights with them and Hei was especially known and chased because of his constant involvement as known by the government as contractor BK-001. Others with him is a doll called Yin who can send her spirits through water, Huang who is a normal human, and Mao who is a black cat who used to be a human that could take over other people's bodies, but eventually his real body was destroyed and he stayed in the body of a cat after that. Apart from these people the series also focuses on a police woman named Kirihara who is in charge of most of the police forces that deal with contractors on a regular basis. She is constantly on the lookout for Hei, and she even meets him face to face but never knows it because when Hei is fighting he wears a mask to hide his face. She even becomes friends with Hei, who is hiding as a Chinese exchange student called Li, and their relationship grows slightly through the series.
The series starts out with Hei doing various missions while also learning about people who want to bring contractors out into the public eye. We learn that Hei was a part of a team that worked in South America a few years ago and after that happened, the Heaven's gate disappeared along with the area it included as well as a significantly large area around it, leaving a giant hole in the south american continent. One thing that is very interesting about this show is that up until the last few episodes, they made it almost in a series of "mini-arcs" with each story lasting exactly two episodes and then moving on to the next. It worked well because it kept the pace going throughout the series and made it go by pretty quickly and you never get bored. Part of the reason is that there are characters that show up in the beginning in some parts and then show up suddenly a few episodes later. They worked the series together really well and with the kind of story lines that they use through the episodes, it made for quite the exciting series. Putting it all together, the plot is really freaking good, having all of these sub-plots kind of roll all into one by the end and almost nothing went untouched again as you went farther into it.
On the level of animation, wow, just wow. The effects in this show are awesome, and while most of the scenes especially the fight scenes are at night, the tones and the shadows of the colors are put together just so well. Also the fighting itself was awesome, the choreography was fluid and smooth and with all of the different powers that were used by the different contractors, they made some pretty intense scenes.
The character development was amazing in this show. Mainly focused on Kirihara and Hei individually these two different characters learn so much through the series about themselves and about the world and what the impact is on the world that the contractors are in existence. In the case of Hei even more because while he is a contractor, it is considered fact by many that contractors have no feelings, yet Hei seems to start having emotions as he goes through the series and he wonders what it is that makes him different.
The plot of this show was really freaking good, along with the premise. Having people run around with super powers with the government chasing them at every turn. Just awesome. And while there are a few plot twists in the story, which in my opinion made the story even better, the whole show ran so smoothly that it almost took no time at all to go through the series.
Overall, this series has to be one of my favorites. The action was good the animation was good the plot and premise were amazing. I would recommend this series to anyone that I know because it is just that good. I cant wait to dive into the second season of the show and I look forward to seeing if it is just as good.
That is my review of Darker than Black. I hope you will go out and watch the show and comment below. Thanks for reading!
Final Rating: 9.5
Premise: 10
Animation: 9.5
Character Dev: 9
Total Episodes: 25
RVF: Japanese Dub
MRS: www.nwanime.com
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