Darker Than Black Anime Review

Overall Score

4

Entertainment

Value

Sometimes, sick and malevolent people send us requests for stupid shows we know are horrendous, we watch them anyways in spite of knowing the fate that awaits us. This request was not one of that category, I thank you, random internet browser, for your request; darker than black was truly amazing and quite possibly the best anime I have seen in a while. If you have the slightest interest in a show that doesn’t spoon-feed you its story, character design or background, and still manages to be reasonably understandable, darker than black is not only a great show for you, it’s a show you will remember for a while.

Darker than black takes place in a near future, where humanity prevails, but a new ‘’type’’ of people exist: contractors, beings able to perform supernatural feats at some cost. I will not say more than this concerning the story since this anime takes a very episodic form, yet it still accomplishes to build a coherent setting and story. Something I loved in darker than black was the fact the show was intended for an older public, if not , it felt as if the writers had a respect for their viewer’s intellectual capabilities since they do not feel the need to painfully explain everything like some less recommendable anime. This show is also astonishingly well written, the dialog and the story arcs (most of the time 2 episodes long) are always very interesting and well developed; even the less serious arcs tend to be ridiculously enjoyable, but they have a tendency to break the general ambiance and flow of the anime. If you want to really enjoy this anime, I suggest you do as I have done and take it in small doses, watching it all in one go (or 2-3) could be damaging to the experience since you don’t let the show sink in and amaze. Darker than black had various very touching and even dramatic moments, espectially when it comes to character exploration and development, they really managed to take moments that could seem simply bland and gave them significance, the serious atmosphere and ‘’dark’’ moments in this show is what brings this anime to its maximum. All in all, this serene, dark and surprisingly emotionally stimulating anime is amazing; its story and characters give this genre an unprecedented charm and officially makes this a classic, worthwhile anime.

The characters in Darker than black were quite surprising; at first I was under the impression I was going to dislike them but they managed to captivate me quite quickly. The character development they all get is impressive and they manage to include it into all the episodes, and not necessarily burst it all down into one dedicated episode per character. Although the main cast and side cast were almost all perfect, there were some very pointless characters, such as the detective duo that only seemed to break the general ambiance of the show, I can understand some people might like them, but I felt they should have been excluded since they only seemed to eat up screen time aimlessly.  The only other thing was sad about concerning the characters was the fact we didn’t nearly see enough of the police officers (the duo and the female chief of police) a bit more time with them could have been beneficial to the overall value of the show since there seemed to be a lot of information and plot development we could have got from them. All in all, amazing characters.

The art was very neat, we could easily follow the action in generally and we still got great visuals in calmer and relaxed shots, visual character design for the character was also very visually nice. The music was still the best thing in the art department; not only did it pass down the ambiance very nicely; it was also extremely enjoyable to listen to. Good job music department, I commend you for your good work.

In conclusion, if you haven’t seen this already, you need to: its great and all supernatural lovers who take pride in that title should watch this. Heck even if you’re not a big fan of supernatural you should watch this since it’s so rich in everything else. Thank you whoever requested this, it was worth it.