What the F@#$ Did I Just Watch?! DARKER THAN BLACK Episode #1

I made a challenge to you, oh taste-making Anime Vice community, in my last column to name the next show I should watch. Metalsnakezero gets the No-Prize, the swell of pride, because he was the first user to rise to that challenge and recommend I check out DARKER THAN BLACK.  I said I’d watch whatever anybody suggested and, true to my word, I viewed the first episode on Hulu.

My first comment is that it was a welcome surprise to hear some metal in the show’s opening theme. Among other things, I’m a metal head (why, this very night, I’m going to go see Sevendust and Drowning Pool in concert) and I’ve always heard stories about bands like Mudvayne being “big in Japan.” That is, having even bigger followings there than here. Yet, this was the first time I’d actually seen that potential popularity reflected in anime. I should comment, as well, that I’m always amused by the bi-polar nature of anime show theme songs. I know that there’s a more concentrated effort to appeal to men and women but, sheesh… when you have an aggressive intro - - with lyrics like “He’s a gang bang son of a gun” - - and then a reflective, romantic J-pop outro, it’s kind of like swallowing a hot coal and cold icecube at the same time.

Anyway, on to the plot. Truth be told, I was a little concerned about the story for the first third. There was amazing fights and animation (by Studio Bones, I believe, whom I know of now because they did that crazy Heroman for Stan Lee) - - but I was bracing myself for the same kind of “lost in translation” I encountered with Blassreiter. I’m sure suspension of disbelief is a two-way street when it comes to cultural idioms, but I was having a hard time taking a doll-faced “medium” with a painted-on curl of blue emo hair that seriously as a threatening assassin. Plus, the expository, pseudo-hard-boiled narration of the chick in the bureau handling the Contractors was in danger of running too long and obvious.
 
That being said, once the electronic store employee (and electricity-powered Contractor, I presume) was introduced and his fate started entwining with the call girl, I was really starting to dig it. Maybe it was just the choice of angles or general storytelling, but I was able to get into this a lot better than Blassreiter. Normally, I question any cartoon that spends a lot of time trying to duplicate brick-and-mortar reality too closely, but it worked here. I really forgot I was watching animation and just followed it like a good thriller. I almost got the feel that this was like a movie adaption of a more-wild source material, like the first couple X-MEN movies. I can see this being a low-key, more down-to-Earth of a more fantastical manga about the super-powered contractors and the killer-doll-faced mediums.  

I’m curious to see more of this, but keep the suggestions coming, everybody! I CHALLENGE you!

-- Tom Pinchuk is the writer of UNIMAGINABLE for Arcana Comics and HYBRID BASTARDS! for Archaia Comics.   Watch out for the HYBRID BASTARDS! hardcover collection this March - - available for pre-order now on Amazon.com.