Anime Review – Darker than Black: Death Note meets Bleach
My beloved bride found another treasure of an anime series when she was perusing through the pages of Netflix. Darker than Black is an anime television series created by Bones and Tensai Okamura that was later adapted into a manga series. It was originally aired in Japan in 2007, with a follow up season that came out in 2009. GoGoplex voted the series Best Original Anime of the Year as well. Pretty cool.
The series is about an alternate Tokyo where something called Hell’s Gate opened right in the middle of the city. When it did, the real stars and sky disappeared and only false stars remained. After the appearance of the Gate, there were a group of individuals called Contractors that began developing amazing powers and each was represented by one of the false stars now visible at night. Government agencies and terrorist groups quickly snatched the contractors up to act as spies and assassins. Every contractor has a “price” to pay for his or her abilities, hence the name contractor. Their payment can take the form of something mundane like smoking a cigarette after using their power, or eating a certain type of food; to the ridiculous like arranging shoes a particular way or passing out; to the macabre like cutting oneself or eating tobacco and vomiting it back up. Most often the payment is somehow attached to a trait or tendency from normal life that the contractor once lived.
Another type of person that came into existence after the Hell’s Gate appeared in Tokyo is Dolls. Dolls are mediums that have a special affinity for some element, such as water with one of our protagonists called Yin. Dolls are essentially believed to be emotionless automatons, though there is occasionally evidence to the contrary. They are able to act as long-range surveillance specialists by sending out “specters” through the element the doll has an affinity for.
So the story of the first season consists of your basic supernatural counter espionage story between a mysterious group called the Syndicate and various military and terrorist cells. The Syndicate employs our protagonist Hei and his team Yin the Doll, Huang the human ex-law enforcement, and Mao the body-switching contractor stuck in a cat’s body. The group is hired out to kill various threats as well as gather information about a number of different topics.
Overall the series is very appealing if you like a more detective\supernatural modern combative show. I liken the series’ dramatic engagement and interweaving of conflicts to the series Death Note and the feel of the supernatural, but not the topic or expression of the characters powers, to Bleach. The series has a very compressed feel due to the contractor’s lack of emotions combined with the interactions of Hei with people as he tries to lead a “normal” life.
The action is great with some blood, but nothing over the top. In general that’s one thing I really enjoy about this anime, it’s not over done. A lot of times anime tends to be very “out there” in its content or they obligatory blood sprays and T&A are required to make a series good. However it’s always great when you find a series or movie that doesn’t depend on those methods.
The art in the series is very good though some of the characters later in season 1 can start to look a little similar, specifically the blonde haired females. There are moments I’m reminded of the Batman: The Animated Series from the 90’s when Hei uses grot wires attached to knifes to loop around objects and swing from them. Very cool. Likewise our protagonist wears a mask similar to Ichigo in Bleach, though this mask is simply for protection of his identity. There are some really cool angles used occasionally by the director as well as the use of slow motion movement that’s so popular in today’s movies.
Overall the story is great and I’m really looking forward to season 2 of the series. The first season is broken up into 6 volumes and can be found on Netflix to stream. I’m a big fan of this kind of anime, what are your favorite genres of anime?
