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Having just finished this series, coupled with my inability to fall asleep… here’s a quick review.

Darker Than Black follows the story of Hei, a contractor. A contractor is essntially a mutant. Humanlike in appearance, but with abilities. Abilities that range from gravity manipulation, to being able to make blood explode with a click of your fingers. Obscure, I know. Anyway, I won’t provide a detailed synopsis, as that can easily be done by a quick Google search.

However, to give an understanding of what the series is about and whether you’d like it… I’ll sum it up like this: Think the blockbuster sci-fi Inception… Now, think ... X-MEN. If these two series got together, in a hotel room… with some Barry White and scented candles in the background… the outcome, 9 months later, would be Darker Than Black.

I have watched the first series; which is 25 episodes long. The second series is now also out. And it is good, no doubt. There are many things it does superbly. The animation is crisp, high quality and vivid. The music is powerful and compliments the scenes perfectly, whether it is adrenaline fuelled fight scenes, or the more emotional ones. The characters too, are for the most part original and interesting. T

However, and this is a big however, DTB falls down on the key areas for me. The story is at times too slow paced and you feel like saying “Okay, stop talking for 15 minutes and actually do stuff!” Aside from that, the information is at times too hard to follow. I found myself confused in several parts as to what was going on, who certain characters were, and why they were doing what they were doing. In the end, I found myself watching the last couple of episodes just to finish the series rather than becaus I really wanted to see what happened next.

Overall, a solid sci-fi anime. If you like X-Men and Inception, you’ll probably like this. It is also quite a grown up anime, there are comedy and silly parts in it on occasion, but it is quite a mature series.

All in all, from me, Darker Than Black gets a 7/10.