Cinnamon Ass

OP - HOWLING (abingdon boys school) - yay for posh British women! The OP animation itself leaves quite a lot to be desired - too much CG cityscape, not enough animation - but it does, I suppose, and given this is an Aniplex-sponsored show there’ll be a new OP halfway through that they might bother animating a bit more.

ED - Shikiakari (Rie Fu) - it’s much like other Rie Fu songs; it just kinda plods along nicely. CG flowers ahoy - actually, there’s a LOT of CG in this show compared to Bones’ usual work, which surprised me a little. It doesn’t look too awful or anything, but there’s more than usual.

After the appearance of a mysterious region known only as “Hell’s Gate” in Tokyo, along with superpowered beings known as Contractors who pay a price for their powers, the Contractors become tools of various international organisations as agents. The mysterious Organisation employs Hei, the “Cursed Contractor” (whose true power has yet to be revealed although he uses wires a lot), to do a lot of their work - this opening episode features him getting involved in the case of a brilliant student, Chiaki, whose research into Hell’s Gate appears to be the target of some French Contractors. Hei, posing as mild-mannered exchange student Lee, somehow always manages to be in the right place at the right time to help her out; however, with the policewoman Misaki and her cohorts on Chiaki’s tale alongside a superpowered Frenchman who can phase through walls, is she really safe?

The double-episode plot format adopted for Darker and Black means that this episode ends without a huge amount having happened. Nevertheless, it’s comforting to know that as long as the writing’s good Bones can turn out an excellent show; rest assured, this is no Ayakashi Ayashi based on the first episode.

However, neither is it a Code Geass, which most people seem to be comparing it to as it’s occupying the same time slot, and I personally think it’s a superior show already. Code Geass is, well, a Sunrise show - all flash and madness from the word go. Darker Than Black’s general atmosphere, perhaps unsurprisingly, reminds me of Wolf’s Rain, a show I loved to bits; I think it’s the way the characters have been drawn thus far, to be honest. I already find every single “main” character in DtB interesting despite the fact that I either can’t remember their names or they’ve been on screen for about five seconds in total, and I particularly like how “low key” the show feels even though it’s about superpowered spies. Things like the scene towards the beginning of the episode where Misaki and co are briefed on the case that follows would normally be boring in most anime, but somehow the dialogue and characterisation came across very well here; this could just be me pulling things out of my ass to sound intelligent, but generally DtB does come across as such from this episode.

Aside from the usual shallow things - great, consistent animation (all those shots of Chiaki running!), great Kanno music (so what if it doesn’t leap out and grab you? It fits the show perfectly!), good voice acting (hurray for Nana Mizuki, one of the few all-singing all-dancing seiyuu who can really, really act) - I guess I mostly just like Darker than Black because it’s a pretty cool kind of show. I like spy stories, I like superpowers, and I like the way they’re presented here. Let’s hope the conclusion of this first story continues this trend!

This entry was posted on Monday, April 9th, 2007 at 11:40 pm and is filed under Darker Than Black. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.