Darker than BLACK: Ryūsei no Gemini

Title: Darker than BLACK: Ryūsei no Gemini Genre: Action, Drama, Sci-Fi, Supernatural Rating: 8.5/10

Summary: In the sequel, Hei and Yin are now on the run after betraying the Syndicate in the previous season. After leaving Japan, Hei encounters Suou Pavlichenko, a 13 year old Eurasian girl who becomes embroiled in the war and politics of the various factions and Contractors vying for power. Meanwhile, Hell's Gate remains standing in Tokyo, after Hei's efforts to stop the Saturn Ring anti-Gate particle weapon from activating. Although Contractors are safe from the danger of having their existences erased, this does not prevent new and old Contractors from abusing their powers. Misaki Kirihara resigns her position in Foreign Affairs to pursue her own investigations into Hei and the contractors.

Review: The sequel to Darker than BLACK was a bit of a let down for me. I still give it such a high score because it brought over all the things I loved from the first season. However, story wise this one was definitely lacking. The first problem I had was the length of the season. Only 12 episodes for such a mind boggling anime doesn’t do it justice. The storyline didn’t feel like it picked up until the final two episodes or so, which brought the anime quickly to a close. The suspense wasn’t built up as it was in the first season, and any new characters that were introduced seemed to quickly vanish. The side characters that did manage to make it till the end of the season were poorly explained, and almost no background information was given. I began to notice this happening when Hei was still training his new disciple 7 episodes in. Over half the anime was spent watching her hone her skills as a contractor. I was pleased with how the characters developed which was expected from the creators of Darker than BLACK. However, I didn’t get the same pleasure as I did from the first season. The soundtrack also changed from hardcore rock to more J-pop or soft rock. I still enjoyed the opening thoroughly as well as the ending, so no problems there. It was just something I had noticed about the second season.

Final statements: Although still a well done season, I wasn’t too happy with it. Thankfully they will explain the situation between Hei and Yin further in Darker than BLACK: Kuro no Keiyakusha Gaiden (currently watching). Since the storyline was a little less appealing I dropped the score, but everything else felt like the same old Darker than BLACK. If you were a fan of season one than this is a preferred watch by all means.