Title: Darker Than Black
Length: Complete Season 1 (1-25), Ongoing Season 2, Ongoing Manga
Short Summary: Chinese electric batman
Long Summary:

In a bizarre post-apocalyptic world where humans can become 'contractors' by interacting with supernatural areas, governments wage secret wars. Contractors have specific or unusual powers that come at the cost of something every time they use them (usually a strange ritual is required afterwards, such as burning wax or eating a cigar).

Hei (mandarin for black), or whatever his real name is, moves to Japan under the command of a global crime syndicate. Hei is wanted by many global intelligence agencies for screwing them over and being generally dangerous, so naturally Japan becomes the epicenter of global conflict.

My biggest gripe with the show is that the plot is not very well constructed – individual episodes have great stories, but looking at the story as a whole is difficult as it lacks cohesion.

What I like about this show is that it follows a formula similar to Cowboy Bebop with characters being introduced gradually and small story arcs being spanned over several episodes. The action is decent and all of the major characters are plausible and likable.

The manga and second season cover different events and I'm not sure how to judge the quality of those yet, the first season is worth watching though, or at worst, the first few episodes are rather entertaining. There are maybe 1-2 'filler' episodes that can be skipped but the quality as a whole is good.

 

One of the best series from the last few years. The second season is shaping up well although there are still a lot of questions that I want answered.

It's probably in my all time Top 10 when it comes to anime.

edit: watching the first few episodes alone won't do you any good though considering that most of the plot isn't revealed until the second half of the first season. If one starts watching it, I'd highly recommend them to finish it.

 

True, the second half of the season deals with the larger story, but I really like the first eight episodes, especially the first two. They really demonstrate Hei's conflicted feelings as an empathetic killer and possess a special kind of subtlety to them. You get accustomed to Hei's abilities (which are underplayed at first) and his motives in such an efficient time span.

Hei resembles Spike, which is why I like to compare the series to Bebop.

 

The new series is coming along nicely with the reintroduction of

Spoiler

Yin (and previews of an OVA, in the new year, hinting at her becoming more then a Doll which may tie into the current series.

And while Hei's badassitude has remained constant how much ass he's been kicking

Spoiler

has significantly gone down ever since he lost his powers.

I can kind of understand their reasoning, with them he'd kill everyone that needed killing within five minutes, his fights are just not as.. fulfilling as before.

 

i heard about this Darker Than Black to my friend and did not pay attention...

but this post and overview makes me feel interested...
i guess i will check this one and have a review...^_^

 

I don't want to say WORST ending ever but.. Wow.

 

It left me wanting.

---------- Post automerged at 09:03 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:01 PM ----------

It takes place in Russia only for the first few episodes. After that it's back to Japan.

On a whole, DTB 2 wasn't as good as the original series, but it was still pretty damn good. It was one of the only series I was following every single week without fail.

 

This (with the exception of the ending). You also get to see Hei being more badass then ever, which is arguably the point of the series. :awesome

 

That.

Yeah, the ending was bad - but the twelve episodes together are still better than most series.

Also: Like the first season the second ended with Kirihara retelling what happened next, in a way as if she is announcing another sequel.

 

Well there was..

Spoiler

Hei and Yin's all powerful offspring thing.

Pretty clear threequel bait right there.

 

God I hope not.

 

I liked this series. Not my usual fare, but liked it nonetheless. Mostly thanks to Hie, main characters like him are such sweet succor nowadays.

The beginning of the second season was crap, but even it kinda grew on me. I'm still following the series, so it must be doing something right.

 

The end of the second season is rage inducing. It's like they just wrote it on the seat of their pants and combined as many story ending cliches as they could to justify another season.

I don't know if I'll keep following this series. It's shaken my interest. There's only so much bullshit you can swallow before your ability to suspend disbelief is compromised.

 

Damn, it sort of sucks to go through a thread on a good anime only to find out the ending is poorly done (even if I don't know what it is, so really can't pass judgment myself).

I'm on the fourth disk of Darker Than Black (didn't know there even was a second), and I'm quite intrigued by what's been happening. Maybe I'll just finish the first Darker Than Black, and only watch the second if absolutely forced.

BTW, I'm saddened by the fact that I never got to see what happens at the end of Cowboy Bebop. Damn you, Adult Swim!

 

^
Oh wow, you never finished Bebop? You need to fix that immediatly, you're missing out if you haven't seen /that/ ending.

 

The end was effing bizarre, not the strangest I've ever seen by any measure, but still little resolution. It is not so much an ending as it's a beginning for the next series. So looking at that way I am excited there will be more. I had started really liking Suou so I do want to see more of her.