Movies: Darker Than Black Vol. 2

It’s been said that TV’s matured to the point where long-form dramatic shows (The Sopranos, The Shield, The Wire) provide the kind of depth of character and scope of story that we’d normally get from a novel. In a novel you can stretch out and explore at your leisure; you can create a whole world, populate it, examine each corner of it in turn, and allow the reader all the time he needs to do the same thing. We’re getting to that point now with episodic TV, too — thanks to DVD sets, video-on-demand, and round-the-week reruns, a good TV show can be savored just as thoroughly as a book you re-read and get that much more out of each time.

There’s been few anime that reach the same heights. The few that do are as good as anything else on TV, live-action or animated: Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex; Berserk; and a select handful of others. Darker Than Black is slightly shy of that category — but only slightly. Even before its first volume was released Stateside, I’d seen a few fansubbed episodes and been enthralled, and when FUNimation snapped it up for a domestic release I stuck my neck out for it and was not disappointed. It’s not just the intriguing concept or the broad roster of characters, but the consistently intelligent writing and storytelling. The premise, convoluted and complex as it is, has been subordinated to the needs of the characters. Usually it’s the other way around.

Article originally written for AMN. Click here to read full text.