Anime Analyze: Darker than Black: Ryuusei no Gemini (Gemini of the Meteor) (Anime)

So the next one I will be reviewing is another one that I really enjoyed.  This is Darker than Black: Ryuusei no Gemini (Gemini of the Meteor), the continuation of the anime Darker than Black.  Made and released in 2009 two years later than the original season, it is a little shorter than the first season having only 12 episodes in it instead of the regular 24.  There has been since a series of OVAs called Darker than Black: Gaiden, which explains what happens in the two year gap between seasons and I may have to check those out sometime.  The opening theme is "Tsukiakari no Michishirube" by Stereopony.  So lets take a look at the continuation of an awesome series, Darker than Black: Ryuusei no Gemini. 

So we start out two years after the incidents in the first season.  We see a red-haired girl named Suo Pavlachenko who is the daughter of a scientist in Russia. She also has  a twin brother named Shion who is in a wheelchair and, in an accident where a meteor crashed into the ground, turned into a contractor and gained abilities that are unknown to us at the beginning of the series. Suo goes to school like a normal person and has a normal life, however, this is until one of her best friends turns into a contractor and begins to attack her family, working for the Russian government.  As of this point, contractors have been made known to the world and so everyone knows about them and contractors are also made every once and a while at random.  Hei, after escaping the syndicate with Yin, has since separated from Yin and is searching for more answers as to her whereabouts and is working currently under the CIA.  As Suo's house gets attacked we see that April from the first series has been playing as Suo's caretaker and she reveals herself as her house is attacked.  Hei shows up and searches for Suo's father and kills her (or so we think).  After escaping the house Suo is then found by Hei and while trying to defend her, April gets killed by Hei, leaving July, the doll from the first series to be left alone with no one to work with anymore.  As Hei realizes that Suo is not her brother, he grabs her and July, as well as Mao from the first series who has moved his personality from the cat into Suo's pet flying squirrel, and runs away.  As they go, they learn about what each other wants and they both decide that they need to go to Tokyo, Suo wants to because her mother and brother are there and Hei wants to find her brother for an unknown purpose.  As they go they are confronted by other contractors as well as Kirihara from the first series who have Yin and are trying to stop Hei from getting at her at all costs, as well as trying to find Shion Pavlachenko.  They do reach Tokyo and as they search for Shion, Suo's mother, and Yin they meet some new people and learn more about what Kirihara's group is trying to do as well as the secrets of Shion's power as well as the power that Suo has mysteriously gained and what Yin really is in the whole scheme of things.

Compared to the story of the first series, this one did not appeal to me as much, this is not to say that it wasn't good.  Far from it in fact.  It's just that it seemed like the main character had totally switched from Hei to Suo and Hei was not really as big of a part as he used to be, which is more of a personal disappointment than anything else.  However, the story about this girl having her life turned around in such a way is definitely a good story especially since it is in the same world as the first series (duh).  The premise is pretty interesting and it keeps your attention as they throw more twists into the story throughout, keeping you hooked on it right until the very end.  The plot moves along spectacularly, never stopping once to throw something weird into it, even if there are crossdressing fathers of teenagers who fall in love with small children.   Yes that actually is in the show but they have a connection to the plot so they can be deemed as "necessary".  Other than that crazyness, they do have many awesome characters including more contractors with some cool powers and other weird payments that they have to make and this allows for some fun and interesting fights to come out of that.

The animation in this series is pretty much the same as the last one, having many darker themes at times although it seemed to me like they had more daytime fights in this one than they did in the first series, which at times made the fights more interesting considering they were occurring in broad daylight which probably has to do in part with the fact that the regular people in the world know about the contractors now so they don't have to completely hide the fact that they have powers, which is probably quite handy when you think about it.  Other than that, the animation of the fights themselves were very well put together, even though none of them are very long scenes and with this series, that is ok because it doesn't really need it.

The character development really only focuses on two characters, Hei and Suo.  With Hei it is about how he works through that he is separated from Yin and how he turned to alcohol after this happened and how he is going to get her back.  With Suo, it is how she is going to get to Tokyo to get her brother back and how she copes with her friend being turned into a contractor and dealing with the new powers that she herself has obtained.  With everyone else there is not much to be seen, even Kirihara didn't have nearly as much development that she had in the first series and that I didn't really like.

This series, being shorter than the first one, did do well considering the time that they had to do it.  This show did what they needed to do well and they did it in only 12 episodes, and this is probably why they didn't have as much character development as they could have had if the season was longer.  So considering shortness and everything else involved with the series, I am gonna give this one a 8.5/10 so it may not be the best series out there, especially compared to the first season, but it is enjoyable if you liked the first one.  So I would say to give it a watch at least once and I myself may give it a few more run throughs, and that pretty much is it.  There is the review for you and I will see you guys next time.

Final Rating: 8.5/10
                  Plot:                   8.5/10
                  Premise:             9.0/10
                  Animation:         8.5/10
                  Character Dev.:    8.0/10
Episodes: 12
RWF: Japanese Dub
MRS: www.nwanime.com (Can't actually confirm that, because I watched it with my DVDs that I own so, just kinda look yourselves and you can find it out there for free)