Darker Than Black: Kuro no keiyakusha

I'm honestly quite conflicted about Darker Than Black. While the overall premise is interesting and fairly unique, I found the first half of Season One utterly unremarkable. I did not manage to connect to the characters (partially because most of them are 'Contractors' who don't have any emotions are thus as vivacious as wet cardboard) and found the plot mildly entertaining at best. Funnily enough, while the series was mediocre, it was at least consistently so: I rated every episode a 7/10; none were particularly outstanding, neither in a positive nor in a negative way.

Thankfully, the second half of the first season finally turned into a consistent story, and the final quarter is truly outstanding. Why the rest of the season wasn't written in the same way, I'll never understand.

Season Two is a complete change of pace. The protagonist switches from a cold-hearted mercenary in his twenties to a preteen girl, yet becomes much darker in the process. Funnily enough, I found it much easier to emotionally connect to that preteen girl (perhaps because she had actual emotions), and the entire season features a consistent plot that advances with every episode. While not every episode is consistently fantastic, the second season of Darker Than Black is at least consistently entertaining.

Then there is the final "movie", a four-part OVA. That one is solid gold. Set between the two seasons, it finally explains how the drastic shift in tone and characters of Season Two came to place.

In my opinion, the production value mirrors the quality of the storytelling. I was not particularly impressed by the animation, dialogues, or even soundtrack (despite being written by Yoko Kanno) in the first half of Season One, but I felt like it became much better later on. Season Two and the OVAs are great in every regard. I watched the English dub, which is good throughout the entire series.

All in all, I'd recommend Darker Than Black if you don't mind sticking through the first twelve or so episodes. If you're looking for instant gratification, perhaps you should look somewhere else.

Some titles are misleading, as such is 'Darker than Black'; though the series is graphic throughout, the story is considerably less 'dark' than many other of anime. I cannot really 'genre' it either; there are elements of the supernatural which are used so for 'Darker than Black' to feel very much like a super-hero story (I can't really stress that though). It's another sort of anti-hero tale which I can suppose one may even compare with 'Death Note'; again, it's a little less 'dark' than most other anime ('Death Note' included), and of the anti-hero concept used, the show uses it without abusing it. The show also has such stereotypical characters, but I can say that these characters do the subject matter justice (the character of Hei dose not seem totally without reason to be angsty). The subject matter in question is thoughtful and it fuels very interesting conflicts.

This is a decent series and I suggest that any fan of anime (or of the TV show 'Heroes') should give this overlooked series an attempt.

7/10

This anime is amazing.

Darker than black is a neo-noir esque, action-packed thriller about a world where super beings exist, known as "contractors," and the many organizations they belong too, some notably being the CIA, MI6 and Japanese government.

The first few episodes don't immediately draw you in, however the tension and plot builds up slowly to introduce the setting. Sometimes it can get confusing, and I had to pause to google terminology due to the fact that not everything is explained fully. However, the animation is clean & simple and the soundtrack is jazzy.

What I enjoyed the most about this series is how interesting the main character is. Hei is a powerful contractor working for a secret organization. His daytime identity is Li Shengshun, a Chinese exchange student. What's interesting about him is that although he is extremely bad-ass, he is also has an emotional side unlike most contractors and can make mistakes. He's not super-powered like some anime protagonists.

This anime is not completely centered on Hei, but more on the different organizations and groups and how they interact. Which also gives him an air of mystery, as we do not know what he is doing.

Overall, the anime is great, dark in tone and has a great plot. It's set of characters are very three dimensional (it's nice to have female characters that have actual personalities for once). The story doesn't focus on romance nor sexuality, but more on awesome fighting scenes and its mysterious plot.

10/10

I got into Darker Than Black because of its creators- Tensai Okamura has made some real nice works before, notably Wolf's Rain. In that series, he also worked with Yoko Kanno, the composer of some of the best soundtracks I have heard in my life, most importantly Cowboy Bebop. However, this series isn't as good as those mentioned earlier, but it is still good.

The problem with DTB is that it starts bad. It's just confusing, we don't know what's going on and we don't know the characters, so it's hard to care about them. Not only that- what I expected that would save the series, the music (I believe that music is as fundamental as anything else) wasn't that great either. Kanno's music just didn't stand out, and even the opening and closing themes weren't hers.

However, if you have patience, there's a point where we get to know the characters. Some story arcs get really interesting and when a episode ends, you will want to see the other to know what is going to happen. And it gets fun and turns out to be a nice experience. However, I would only recommend it to anime fans- not the general public. There's still a lot more series in the same vein of DTB that are much better and you should see them before this one.

I'm going to have to agree with the majority of viewers; this is a great anime with a unique story...though it might not be for everyone.

I noticed that one of the reviewers had the most inane childish review, mentioning nothing about the actual anime and just saying it was "crap". Really? In fact, that reviewer said it was "just a typical anime filled with nudity---no male nudity either!---and filed with satanic themes". There is absolutely no nudity whatsoever--save for a 'nipple' (in silhouette only) in the first opening and one single episode near the end (which has no private areas displayed)--and I have no idea why that reviewer believed it was about satanism.

I'm sure it was a useless trolling attempt on their part, but some people might actually believe that garbage the reviewer said if they weren't sure themselves.

As for the show itself, the animation was well-done; the music was unique (especially the first ending theme and Kurosawa's theme), rife with deep mini-plots, light humor, dark humor, and genuinely likable (and hateable) characters.

I do agree that maybe at one specific point I felt I might be losing interest, but I honestly don't believe that was the anime's fault. And sure enough, something occurred within the story immediately after that definitely fixed that.

As a show with little focus on sexuality , and instead on the deep and painful cycles of life, death, relationship and happiness...I know many will enjoy it.