Last year Fireryda did a blog post here about his top 5 female anime characters with Kino from Kino no Tabi heading the list which stunned me at the time because I had never heard of her and could not imagine Fireryda rating someone so boring looking over the other 4.

However…it wasn’t until I started watching it that I realised that Kino is by far one of the most interesting anime characters I have ever seen. Also, there are spoilers within.

As far as the story goes Kino no Tabi follows the journey of Kino, a traveller who moves between countries and stays no longer than 3 days at any given place. The world Kino lives in is a strange parallel world to our own that wavers between futuristic sci-fi and medieval life and includes all sorts of weird things like Kino’s companion Hermes – The talking British Motorcyle. The story itself is so incredibly profound and beautiful even though it can be horribly morbid at times and coming from watching Zero no Tsukaima (something I wont bother blogging about at all) the story was fantastically written.

It seems throughout the journey Kino finds places that have issues mimicking our own here on Earth like religious wars, countries promoting slaughter of others to save being slaughtered themselves etc. Kino herself, as Fireryda put it, is able to completely disconnect herself morally from the places she visits and observes almost apathetically how they act. She remains on the road to experience places and learn about people and cultures but she never stays long enough to settle down.

One of the best things about the series was the final episode which featured the only episode where you see emotion registered on Kino’s face:

What made this particular episode so powerful is that every single episode before it took place after the events in the finale! This emotional episode served to show the hardships Kino faced throughout her travels and how they came to affect her and it was brilliant.

Other than that, the other episode that was great for me was the android one…where Kino stumbles upon a group of people alone in a forest where an entire country should be and she soon discovers that everything is not as it seems. The whole episode was horribly morbid but it was amazing because of it and because of Kino’s apathy to the whole story that unfolds.

I’ll talk about the art and music in a minute but let me quickly talk about Kino.

The entire story revolves around Kino and special emphasis on how she reacts to certain situations and how her past experiences influence her actions. Throughout her Journeys, Kino is faced with dangerous and life threatening situations but no matter what she never panics…she simply assesses the situation and acts accordingly meaning even when she doesn’t have her trademark guns she can still fight back using her wits. In more than one case she is able to overcome enemies vastly outnumbering her with a single shot.

She likes meeting new people but at the same time dislikes it because she fears becoming attached to people and places which is also why she never stays more than 3 days at any given place as she doesn’t want to settle down. She also got her passion for travelling as well as her name (her real name is never given but we can guess it to be “Sakura” based on 2 episodes that reference each other) from a traveller who met her in her home town which was a morbid place that believes after the age of 12 you must have your brain modified to remove many emotions so you can become more of an “adult”. The traveller (the original Kino) rebuilds Hermes and prepares to leave the town where upon he throws his own life away to save the young girl Kino…she jumps on Hermes and escapes into the open where she meets an old lady called “Master” who trains her in shooting and grants her “Cannon”, the first of two guns.

The art in this anime is brilliant in its simplicity, the designers found a style and stuck to it. The style echoes throughout the entire series without changing and is a predominant feature throughout. The animation is simple and there are many long scenes that simply don’t have any words so that you can stop and get a feel of the world Kino is in. The character design can be a little bit sloppy sometimes in that many people end up looking the same as well as sounding the same.

Kino herself is wonderfully cast as she always seems to have an air of melancholy about her as she speaks. Hermes is great as well in that he never changes.

I don’t know how much more I can talk about Kino no Tabi so I think I’ll just cut it short here. Basically its an amazingly powerful anime that is well written and planned out. Easily a 10/10 from me and a must see if you want to watch something well written for a change.

Next up is Eden of the East once I finish catching up on the other series I have.

Also I apologise for the screenshots I will post below, I only had a low quality 4:3 sub seeing as its a few years old now.

The first thing that struck me about DearS was how similar it was to Chobits…some might disagree there but the first episode just screamed it. So I was rather surprised to find out that DearS actually came out first…but only by a month. Which means two separate anime with similar(ish) stories were in production at the same time….awesome.

DearS is an anime about an alien slave race known as … DearS. Pronounced how you would say: “Dears”. These aliens are given to other people to form a master-slave bond with them which manages to make use of the word “goshujinsama” which makes every single Anime nerd word wide get a woody. A small contingent of these DearS have crash landed in Japan and are now stuck on Earth as they try and pretend they are not a slave race as to not come across as completely useless aliens.

The DearS have an innate ability to understand languages and can learn them in a single day to perfection…however that level of skill doesn’t continue through other academic subjects…but who cares, they can fly and have magic powers and stuff.

We follow the life of Ikuhara Takeya as he comes to grips with living with a DearS which proves to be a great source of entertainment. Ren (Takeya’s DearS) is a defective DearS in that most DearS are assigned masters where she simply chooses one, this of course fulfils some weird prophecy about being the “Gift” or something.

Takeya is chosen by Ren against his will and he struggles to come to terms with the fact right up until the last episode. Along the way he is befriended by another two DearS which causes huge upset among the community and among his friends, eventually he is pitted against the DearS community who are after Ren…all in all its a pretty cliche story but the emphasis is all on the characters. So lets talk about them.

Takeya himself (pictured in the above two screenshots) is a high school student who comes from a torn family and has decided to leave them behind and go study alone. Takeya has a hatred of aliens and constantly thinks they are conspiring against him and thus he struggles to form a bond with Ren.

He also has a loli imouto who made me rage every second she was on the screen…she isn’t related to him by blood but the two have a relationship stronger than most siblings:

All she does is complain and moan about how Takeya isn’t giving her enough time and that Ren should move out away from Takeya…ANNOYING!

Ren herself is an odd sort as you would expect from a defective alien slave. All she wants to do is please Takeya in any way she can, however she does not understand humans correctly and constantly makes elementary oversights while in public which drives Takeya mad. She will often point out things like his porn collection to his friends thinking that it is a perfectly natural thing to talk about…hilarity ensues.

Just to add to Takeya’s mounting frustration surrounding the DearS, Miu comes along. Miu is an educated DearS who is attempting to learn about humanity by enacting a home-stay with a Japanese family while she studies in school. Miu eventually befriends Ren and Takeya and struggles to come to terms with her responsiblities as a DearS versus her love for her new friends and family. She also has ridiculously long pink hair.

The school teacher is worth noting as well…pretty much every time you see her, she is half naked talking about sex, even in the classroom. Although all she does is advance plots and provide comic relief:

The last person I’ll make note of is Neneko who is a childhood friend of Takeya and is madly in love with him but she simply cant admit it to either herself or others. She goes out of her way to help Takeya no matter what but her struggle is with Ren being so close to Takeya…while she dreams of bathing with Takeya, Ren simply hops in the bath with him.

There is little in the way of actual story apart from it being Takeya’s daily life with his friends but there is also the conflict among the DearS community which rears its ugly face towards the end of the series. But of course it isn’t expected to be a highly in depth story as its a light anime which is fun to watch casually and will make you laugh no matter what. Aside from that, it has an awesome ED:

The art isn’t fantastic either seeing as time is against it however the style is awesome with lots of emphasis on stupid looking faces. The animation is smooth enough even if the backgrounds are rather dull and lifeless in just about every scene…but again, we’re watching this for the characters…so balls to the art.

I gotta admit I kinda liked this anime…I didn’t expect too. It seemed too simple and didn’t have the level of comedy that the series I am currently watching but I liked the characters a lot and they all seemed to compliment each other. I especially liked how the characters base personality didn’t change at all through the series, that is to say Takeya stays defiant of the DearS and chooses not to be Ren’s master no matter what happens…this of course drives all the women around him barking mad and confuses the shit out of Ren. But yea…the characters were well casted and likeable (save for Takeya’s little sister).

I know there is a hell of a lot more to say about this anime but I simply can’t be assed…I give it an 7.5/10 because I’m not sure if I simply liked it or really liked it…I’ll figure it out later.

Now I’m off to watch Zero no Tsukaima and think about whether I should bore you lot with an impressions blog of Working!! (which is definitely worth watching btw).

Ciao!

This is where I usually sum up my overall thoughts on the anime I have watched…but I struggle to think just what I could write about Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. To me it hit all the right notes but didn’t go out of its way to be something truly amazing, it just sorta got half way and said: “Bullocks to everything, this is pretty good, lets go home and have a beer”.

It had a deep enough story planted through it but a lot of the time it skimmed over the plot purposely to keep you guessing as to exactly what relates to what, unfortunately it came across as thin, instead of being full of suspense. Of course this didn’t apply to the entire anime, simply certain parts however it was still there enough to get me more than a little annoyed.

Also I have to say one thing cool…what I usually do with these reviews is go back to the first episode and skim through each and every episode to not only get the baseline of what happened but also various screenshots to throw into these blog posts. What I accidentally found though was brilliant: In the first episode, the Major calls out to Batou and he flies up on a chopper hanging off the side. I didn’t pay a lot of attention too it, however in the final episode the exact same thing happens but with a lot more meaning so you remember it. It just made me flashback and was just plain awesome to do…someone clearly thought something through there to please returning viewers.

I shall now continue with my now familiar type of blog writing by talking about: The story, the characters, the art, the voice acting and the over all attraction.

Without further adieu:

The Story:

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex is a sci-fi, cyberpunk anime set 20 years in the future in 2030 and follows a special police force known as Public Security Section 9. They specialise in dealing with cyber-terrorism as well as those that employ androids and cyborgs to fight for them however the underlying story follows the life of these people as they attempt to uncover the “Laughing Man”. The Laughing Man is a supreme hacker who has intercepted details about a medical scandal and is desperately trying to show the public the truth of the matter however in doing so, he becomes a cyber-terrorist and attracts the attention of Section 9.

Of course in any anime there will be filler episodes that have no relevance to the underlying story…but in this anime those episodes aren’t just plain annoying like many others. You even come to enjoy them especially if two or three of them relate to each other in some way.

The story almost comes across as a thriller as you constantly try to place what is going to happen next and more often than not you simply can’t hit the nail on the head due to (as I said earlier) the fact that it can be a little thin. I’m going to quote my mate ChatterboxZombie again as I did in my B Gata H Kei Impressions post: “Those who pay attention will be rewarded with an intelligent and engaging scifi experience, but for many its just too much”…while I can’t fully agree with his words for reasons I just explained, they’re close enough.

The Characters:

Usually, as no doubt I have explained before, I get attached to certain characters in an anime. Once the attachment forms strongly I will usually come to love the anime but it was such a struggle with this anime, hence I’m so lost as to think what was good/bad about it.

The main characters of Section 9: The Chief, the Major, Batou, Togusa, Ichikawa, Boma, Pazu and Saitou are all…really…really…boring.

Sure the Major is about as bad-ass as you will find in any anime but she lacks so much personality and it isn’t until the last 2 episodes that you can start to understand her feelings in any way.

Sure Batou is a huge angry cyborg and has a morbidly chipper attitude, but apart from having a crush on the major and having a military past…we really know nothing about him.

Sure the Chief is a tactical genius but you really learn nothing about him and barely get told about his past and family.

The rest aren’t even worth mentioning…save for Togusa. Togusa is the family-man of the lot and is also the least cybernetically modified yet spends most of his screen time in fire fights and espionage.

But…oddly enough I didn’t become attached to these characters at all. I came to love the Tachikoma robots…sure its pathetic but their hilarious antics just appealed to my crap sense of humour…they are just awesome:

The Art:

Unfortunately since I have only recently been watching new anime released within the last few years I have become somewhat of a quality whore. If the anime isn’t in 720p or in widescreen I struggle to adjust and come to terms with the low quality picture…but I have to say that I wasn’t at all bothered with Stand Alone Complex. Considering it was made in 2002 it has an amazing style to it, it doesn’t even try to do the pathetically futuristic flying car crap…it just sticks to future robotics and cybernetic implants.

The drawing style was smooth and simple, no over the top outfits or vehicles or anything and it was punctuated well by smooth animation although I can’t say I was a fan of the 3D scenes with cars and whatnot.

Speaking of cars…why is it that whenever someone wants to go anywhere in this anime they take off with wheel spins and smoke…that’s just unnecessary.

The Voice Acting:

There wasn’t anything overly special about the voice acting but it fit very well to all the characters but again, every single one of them lacked emotion. Perhaps that was the point? I’m not really sure.

Where I initially came to love the Tachikoma’s was over their hilarious voice…here is a little scene:

Also as far as I understand it, the English voice actors portray their characters very similar to the Japanese but as usual I prefer to watch Subs over Dubs so I cant comment on the English version.

I guess there isn’t a hell of a lot more to say about voices so lets talk about…

The Attraction:

What makes me want to go back to this anime? Well simply put it is as I said earlier: Each episode is great, even the fillers and you can appreciate even the plots that don’t have relevance to the main story as they expand on the characters.

The cyberpunk sci-fi style comes across wonderfully and I love that they didn’t go over the top with futurism as many anime/movies/games seem to do. It stuck to a core story around the integration of humans and machines and everything revolved around it instead of simply incorporating it into the story.

The story itself can seem light at times but has very heavy undertones if you listen closely and that, if you don’t watch anime to have pretty pictures on your screen, makes for a fine watch.

Batou and the Major are worth watching it for too, they might seem a little bland but they kick ass like no other.

In the end then I have to give this an 8/10. It could be better but I’m sure that it would simply lose what it has if it tried so it is content and so am I.

Some time ago I wrote my impressions about Sora no Woto based on the first episode and as of last night I have finished the series…below is a somewhat spoileriffic review because chances are that if you’re reading this, you’ve either watched it or wont watch it at all. Also…I shall tell you the entire story using only screenshots.

Starting after episode 1, our heroes find an owl...The owl is also the symbol of the Platoon they are in...so they keep it.

The team is trying to repair an ancient tank using the amazing technical skills of Kannagi Noel who is a genius scientist.

Grievous injuries occur.

Felicia talks to some dead bloke.

Further injuries occur...this time far more serious...

Kanata wears some stupid fucking outfit.

Theres ALWAYS a bathing scene.

Klaus gets raped by a loli.

Some senile old bitch appears and is killed off in the same episode and Rio is all like: "Shit woman, you're like my mum!"

Rio has a brain...and buggers off leaving only a trumpet behind.

They find a Roman scout...who speaks German...

Some insane prick appears and tries to trigger a war because he wants the economy to flow...

Yui-Ahh...I mean Kanata stops a war by playing Amazing Grace on Rio's trumpet.

Rio turns up all regal and shit and is like: "Cut this shit out!" and the war ends...yea...so to end wars you need to play a trumpet and wear a dress.

Anyway that was the premise…as far as the anime goes here is a quick list of things:

• Style:

Basically it follows the same art style as K-ON for most purposes. The art itself is very focused on clean character faces with detailed backgrounds and by all means it looks wonderful and I can’t really fault it there.

• Plot/Story:

This is where things go awry…the story is about a girl who signs up to the military because she wants to learn music. She is taught the bugle and it is used for signalling…oddly enough even the most advanced spider-like war tanks simply don’t have a comms system. Anyway her squad is completely female who sport a variety of skills and attitudes, the weirdest being Felicia…the captain. She just is too nice to be a captain…then again Rio takes role of the hardcore lieutenant but I don’t think that counts for much. Pretty much the entire series is a filler…the last 3 episodes are war related and its all over too suddenly, which is annoying.

• Voice Acting:

You know what, I cant fault the voice acting either. Each characters voice portrayed their specific character perfectly even if I didn’t like those characters.

• Theme:

What I got from this anime is that it was trying to say (quite blatantly) that all humans are the same and that war is totally unnecessary. The theme was upheld throughout the anime using the song Amazing Grace as both armies knew the song regardless of culture and background.

• Final Rating: 6/10. Great VA and Art work but the story leaves far too much to be desired and the themes were portrayed weakly.

Let me say now that I will try and keep this brief because I know you dickheads either cant be assed reading or simply dont reply so I have no idea who actually cares about this shit.
Background:

Misaka Mikoto of Tokiwadai is a level 5 ability user (the highest known level) and is affectionately known as the Ace of Tokiwadai: Railgun. She has the ability to create and control electrical fields and that alone is an extremely useful skill but she takes it one step further by taking a common coin and forcing it to accelerate at horrendous speeds using her electrical field mastery…thus she is Railgun.

Misaka was introduced in To Aru Majutsu no Index…an anime I didn’t particularly enjoy but it had its charm I suppose. She was a sub character throughout the anime and I guess someone just thought: “Man people like this chick…lets make an entire anime out of it!” and you can almost guess that it would have notorious filler eps…which it does.

Anyway, Misaka lives in the Tokiwadai school dorms with Shirai Kuroko…a level 4 teleport user who is also crazily in love with Misaka and on many attempts she tries to make advances on her. Shirai is also a member of “Judgement” who are essentially the Police of Academy City (the city they live in). The story follows Misaka as she helps Shirai and judgement using her ability and they throw in Uiharu and Saten from another school nearby and you get a crazy team of young girls who are apparently the only ones that can save the city from total destruction.

The anime itself is pretty boring to be fair…I can’t honestly recommend it to anyone other than Index/Misaka fans. Here is my reasoning:

• Its just fanservice…Misaka and Shirai psuedo-lesbianism throughout the series with overly cliche characters everywhere.
• The story is thin…honestly the first bad boss helps defeat the last boss even though they tried to destroy the city.
• Cliche characters…seriously…as soon as the intro stops you should have been able to predict every single character.
• Uiharu has the worst power ever…its actually so bad its laughable…and no one explains the head-flowers.
• It sounds as if it was written on the fly…after episode 12 the whole series just falls apart and fillers hit from eps 13-19 and then suddenly they introduce and kill off a major bad guy in the last 4-5 eps.
• The ending sucks…After wasting 23 episodes watching crap, they finish it off with crap. Ugh.

I think I’ll leave this short ass review there, basically watch this anime if you are horribly bored and liked Index…other than that it simply isnt worth it.

Misaka is fucking cool though.

Rating: 7/10. Barely hits a 5 but gets 2 extra points for the fight scene in ep 12.

In unrelated news, I took a photo of my desk for a mate…and I might as well share it…check it out here

Duarararaarararara comes across as a semi-slice of life anime following this bloke Mikado Ryugamine (what a mouthful) who is sort of…well…weird. He spent most of his life indoors and has never left his local town…so naturally he thinks it will be a wonderful idea to go park up at Tokyo and study there.

Because y’know…that makes a hell of a lot of sense.

He meets up with his childhood friend Masaomi Kida and for the first episode, he follows him around and meets Kida’s friends and learns about the local populace.

In this world, there is a headless Biker with neko-mimi slapped on the helmet…inorite? Headless with a helmet? Yea…I don’t get it either, but that’s the point. People relate this anime very kindly to Baccano! Which was amazingly entertaining however Durarara!! does not quite promise as much as Baccano did, but then again I am basing this on the first episode.

So far our hero has met a guy who throws vending machines at people, a giant black Russian sushi chef, an assortment of Kida’s odd friends and watched an overly moe girl get dragged off to be raped…or tickled…or who knows, only for the girl to be saved by our headless mystery hero…who has a giant scythe that cuts through people…but doesn’t.

Yea, that’s about as much as we are allowed to know after the first episode…however it was entertaining enough an episode for me to at least try out the series and see how it pans out, however it is a 24 episode series which leads me to believe at some point there’s going to be some horrid fillers, however in saying that I realise that they have introduced a LOT of interesting and unique characters that might allow the series to flow well.

So yea, I’m going to give this a go as a comedy/almost slice-of-life anime and as with Sora no Woto…I’ll let you know if I ditch it/love it.

So, episode 1 of Sora no woto.

Firstly, let me say I’m a little hesitant to either recommend this anime or to tell you to spend time elsewhere…It hasn’t really given me a large buzz, but nor has it completely turned me off…So I’ll just write my thoughts.

Thought #1: What the fuck, it looks like K-ON!
I am not shitting you in any way or form…firstly there’s using a style but then there’s blatantly cloning it. Sure it may be from the same studio (at least I think/hope it is) but seriously! ITS FUCKING K-ON!

Thought #2: I don’t get where they are…
It looks German, it definitely has festivities that are European, it has French soundtracks and it has references to “Helvetia” which to my knowledge is Swiss…WTF! Admittedly though, it does look kinda good. Using the simplistic character design of K-ON barraged on top of large still environmental shots works well and they do manage to portray a very World War 2-esque feel.

Thought #3: Army people are stupid but these guys go beyond the call of arms.
Ok sure I’m just nitpicking here…but why the hell are all the army guys so nice to this girl that’s clearly a dunce…YOU’RE THE ARMY (well…an army…) KICK HER FUCKING ARSE UNTIL SHE STARTS PERFORMING!…Also a sergeant gives her a gift of “expensive” caramel before he even asks her name or why she is there. That to me is a waste of a way to introduce someone….

Thought #4: Cool folklore bro.
A LOOOOOOOT of emphasis is put into the “lore” of the land she is in (which btw is called “Seize” … I’ve never heard of such a place but I am not geographically inclined). The people of Seize believe in a series of events that shaped their town based on demons being wrestled by maidens and doused in water. But, they wholeheartedly believe it…or seem to. I understand folklore is there out of tradition…but they seem to think its all very real! And then you see a giant dragon winged thing which kinda makes you “wtf”. So I’m confused…is this meant to be real-ish? or a complete farse…Time will tell.

Thought #5: Arty…yay for art!
The opening scenes are pretty out there with crazy contrasting colours and heavy use of panning still frames…but unfortunately it seems to only be an eye catcher to keep you interested as the style doesn’t appear again…which I sadfaced at.

Thought #6: Srsly man, the villagers are batshit insane.
At dawn break, our main character Sorami Kanata blasts out a horrific noise that is meant to resemble music through her trusty Bugle…and the villagers laugh! LAUGH! If you played that shit outside my house that early, I would ram that thing so far up your ass that you would be able to taste it!
In other notes, I used to play a bugle…so I kinda feel for her cause that shit is hard but I much preferred it over a trumpet…which is kinda cheating really.

Final thought:
Honestly I don’t expect much out of this K-ON! clone…but I do expect that the writers are not daft enough to simply carry on exactly the same way that K-ON! did which is why they might be focusing heavily on the folk lore which may well be real. The first episode was, to me, not a riveting tale by any means but as I said it wasn’t exactly bad either. From memory K-ON! did the same and sucked from episode 7 onwards…here’s hoping we don’t get a repeat.

Random Screenshots:

The Mio clone (named Rio) who’s more of a bitch but still Tsundere. I dislike her quite a lot…but she has large hangy-outy breasts:

Bath scene first episode with our Yui clone (exactly the same airhead) that goes by the name of Kanata:

And a Kanata bum shot for good measure:

You’ll notice I haven’t covered much in the way of characters and their likeliness, that’s because I would rather get to know them better first.
Anyway, see you tomorrow with Durarara impressions.

This should’ve been written a long time ago but better late than never. With the release of the Unlimited Blade Works movie right around the corner (As far as I know, it comes out on the same day the Nanoha movie does), there have been lots of trailers being released for it such as this one. While I’m not too interested in the franchise and I’m not really much of a fan of Type-Moon’s works apart from Melty Blood, I can’t think of anything else to say other than “Damn, This shit is going to be awesome.”

What the TV series (which was based on the Fate route) lacked was anything that made it stand out from a generic anime. In a way, this was what caused me to not enjoy it much and not give Fate/Stay Night a fair go. While the show itself wasn’t too bad, it felt like it wasn’t doing the plot enough justice with a lot of holes that were left unfilled. While they’re based off the same VN, Unlimited Blade Works is vastly different. Instead of focusing on Shirou (who’s wussiness kind of ruined the show for me) it has more focus on Archer (who is rediciously awesome especially with “that” scene). So far the trailer looks like the movie is going to be made out of pure awesome. There seems to be quite amount of plot and a hefty amount of action in awesome detail. Shirou seems to have manned up enough that it’ll be at the very least bareable but considering he’s fighting with Archer, It might reshape my views on the show. Either way this is definately something I’d keep an eye on and if you have the chance to go watch it, do it. Considering it’s Type-Moon there really isn’t any reason not to. It’s a definate watch over Nanoha, being a remake doesn’t help it much though. If you hated Fate/Stay Night the series then at least give this one a chance. It is in no way a recap but does have a few ties to the Fate route. This has rekindled my interest in Fate/Stay Night and hopefully I can finally get through the VN. Considering it’s Type-Moon, thats enough of a reason to watch this and no there is no Tsukihime anime.

~/end

Considering the series ended about a week ago this is probably way overdue. Either way, as a follow up to a highly successful series it had alot of hype going for it. Sadly this sequel doesn’t live up to its expectations falling short due to its incoherent, random story, unexplained plot points and several ignored characters. Whether it serves as a lead-up to a proper sequel is debatable but it brings up so many unexplained plot holes that its entirely possible. Even so, it’s hard to ignore how much this falls short of its predecessor.

What the original Darker Than Black had going for it was being a generic anime that somehow compounded together to become something fantastic. With a simple concept of people who sell their souls to become mindless killing machines with superpowers it manages to turn it into an engaging drama filled with conspiracies between power-hungry organisations. It didn’t help that it had an attractive set of characters that are given quite a lot of backstory.

In comparison, the second season is set quite a long time after the first. (2 years if I’m correct.) This leaves a large amount of story cut out which are supposebly going to be explained when the DvD/BD releases roll out. The story starts out quite simple, there’s a girl called Suou who lives in Russia having a normal life. It turns out that her twin brother is wanted by the military because he posesses a meteor fragment which is special for reasons not explained other than it has to do with experimental research. Her life turns into hell when one of her friends becomes a contractor and begins to shun contact, leaving her to go home and find that everybody is dead or missing and so begins her escape until she meets Hei, the protagonist from the first season, who’s also looking for her. While this doesn’t sound too different from the other plots in Darker Than Black, this is the tipping point. Everything that happens after starts to ride an exponential scale of rediculous leaving a sour taste feeling like it’s a story made up in the producer’s spare time which, considering BONES’ other work, they could’ve done so much better

For almost the whole show we see that Hei and Suou are being chased by multiple governments because they want this so-called meteor fragment. Naturally, this would prove to be a plot point on why they would want to chase such a thing. Perhaps it had special qualities allowing it to be used in some kind of special weapon. In the end, it’s never explained why they want it so much and its only purpose is a major character development for a character but its use is so insignificant that one would have to question why they would bother to chase after it. By the end of the show the MI-6 and CIA get involved for no purpose other than to prove that it’s a huge issue. There’s almost no reason at all why they would be present and for the most part, their presence is limited to only a few minutes of screentime at best. The story would be almost exactly the same if they had been removed. What I really didn’t like was the return of one of the major characters in the last season. Her presence in the story seems only to fulfill the wishes of fans to see her return. She does almost nothing in the show and anything she does do can be replaced with another character to full effect. It would’ve been better if they replaced her with another character as it vastly contrasts her personality from the first series. (To those who’ve seen the show, you know what I’m talking about. To those who haven’t, you can probably guess who.)

If you can ignore the absurd storyline and plot points then you could probably get by watching it as long as you don’t think too hard but there’s the case of the cast. For the most part the cast is quite likeable with the return of some notable characters, sadly the new cast doesn’t even remotely compare. (Except Burger-kun.) In the first series the contractors were presented as not being killing machines, which this season makes them out to be, but rather emotionless, logical people (Or like to switch between the two.). While this is slightly hand-waved by Hei halfway through the show, it still doesn’t stop it from detracting from the mood. Then there’s the case of many new character’s backstory especially Suou, which you might as well just ignore because, even by the standards of the anime, its so absurd that you can’t help to feel that it was chucked in as an ill-planned plot twist. What also hit me deep down in the sensitive spot which can almost decide whether I watch an anime or not is the personalities of a character. I hate the determinator types that have no basis for the actions. Not being able to lose for fear of the world being destroyed is a good enough reason for me but trying to confess your love to a girl then seeing her horrible mangle your friends infront of your eyes and continuing in trying to win her affection? Please. There’s no reason why anybody would even want to do this. A girl which was love at first who ends up almost killing your friend? It’s a bit like the situation with me and Sadako (The Ring). While she may serve as fetish fuel for me, there’s no way in hell I’m going to go near her. What stops this determinator is seeing a long lost relative get killed infront of said girl. And then there are the chessmasters. The people who are orchestrating the incident. They serve almost no point apart from saying, “I’m doing this for ___ reason.” That might be not a problem if they delved into some backstory involving but they have absolutely no reason for being there (especially since this was told in the last 5 minutes of the show). Not all of the new cast was unlikeable though. Some of the new contractors shown aren’t too bad characters (Only two of them and you know who.)

Luckily there is an upside to what as been mostly a negative review and that is the animation and soundtrack. The animation is absolutely fantastic (or average considering BONES’ track record). Every character is done in such detail that they are quite unique and the animation is fluid. The battle scenes are well choreographed and are a blast to watch. The only downpoint is that those scenes don’t last very long. The OP and ED are quite good but not up to par with the previous season’s in my opinion. I don’t like them but I don’t hate them either. (And why does From Dusk Till Dawn have only 1 song on the single? Not even an instrumental.) The sound-track is fantastic though it’s easier to just hear it for yourself than explaining it.

In the end, for all the negative things I said about the show, I still enjoyed it. While a good work in its own right, it doesn’t live up to its predecessor, ending up feeling like some sort of filler arc. If only they sat down and thought things out more it could’ve turned out to be a much better a show than it is. Luckily it’s looking highly likely there will be a sequel sometime down the track, hopefully arriving after this sour taste disappears. Those who were fans of the original series will enjoy it. If you had mixed feelings, it’s better to stay away and being a sequel. No this is not a good place to start the series. A good series that’s far better than most things last season but doesn’t live up to the high standards.

While in no way a great anime, it does enough things that it doesn’t overstay its welcome. There is no deap meaning to this show and any character development is extremely shallow. While this does seem like a bad thing at first, this leaves more focus for the comedy which is what this job does well. There’s a large characters which, although they place themselves into character stereotypes, they prove fresh enough that they don’t become boring. While being a harem anime, it’s evident by the end of the first episode that he’s going to end up with his oblivious crush. Most of the comedy plays with this with the other love interests such as the childhood friend, the love interest’s best friend and a pair of twins he meets. The rest plays off the situations he gets into because of his curse and being able to talk with cats. Generally they both go hand-in-hand which should prove stale by the end but each situation is just different enough that it still feels fresh.

While there might not be much development for the characters, none of them prove to be stale. The only problem seems to be the tsundere childhood friend as she overlaps character traits from other characters and feels like un-needed wait. When compared to the rest of the cast this is quite evident such as the tsundere half of the mahou shoujo twins. With the other twin being a stalker with an obsession it further brings out her tsundere personality which, even though she doesn’t have any interests in the hero, does it better than the childhood friend. Infact many scenes can have her written out and there wouldn’t be too much impact on whats going on in the show. On the other hand, the cast of cats are quite over-the-top with many of the good deeds performed for them played with a spice of comedy.

In the end, nothing in this show can be taken quite seriously which isn’t a bad point in itself. It’s a good show for those who enjoy shows where the lead has a large amount of characters going for his affection but he’s too braindead to notice and (considering the absurd number of them) it does it quite well. It’s short and you’ll most likely forget about in 5 minutes after but its enjoyable until them. Personally compared to something like Love Hina, which is debatable whether it’s even similar at all, this is leagues ahead of it. There’s just something appealing about a main character who isn’t a brain dead geek. Maybe because it’s trying to appeal a crowd other than loser otaku (more on that another time.)