Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		4.0

Darker than Black: Complete Season 1 Blu-ray Movie Review

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Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 30, 2015

Darker Than Black is filled to the brim with various conspiracies and extraordinarily powered individuals called Contractors, all jumbled together in a kind of dystopian future (is there any other kind in anime?) where espionage or other circumspect activity is the order of the day. With an at times overly dense storyline and (as so often seems to be the case) series specific terminology that needs to be siphoned through in order to extract an “everyday” meaning, one might assume that would be enough to hook audiences and keep them intrigued. Maybe some superpowered Contractor whose special skill is time traveling decided to up the ante by throwing potential audiences for a bit of a loop, however, for in one of those weird strategies that sometimes unfolds in the wild and wooly world of American releases of Japanese animated offerings, Darker than Black: Season 2 + OVAs appeared almost four years ago (!) on Blu-ray, while the first season is only now being released by FUNimation. Even more bizarre, as was detailed in one of the commentaries on that first season release, there was evidently some kind of hangup at FUNimation years ago which prevented the English language version from being recorded all in one fell swoop, with quite a gap between sessions for the first and second seasons. Are these signs of some vast conspiracy at work behind the scenes? Had FUNimation better check their staff roll call to see if there are any strangely named folks (like "Hei," for example) who might be machinating to keep certain top secret situations under wraps?

For those who didn’t partake of the release of the second season and who may be unfamiliar with the general outlines of the show, a brief recap from our Darker than Black: Season 2 + OVAs Blu-ray review might be helpful:

The basic plot of Darker Than Black deals with the sudden appearance of a phenomenon known as Hell’s Gate, a bizarre occurrence that devastated Tokyo while replacing the real night sky with a false one, one evidently tied to the sudden appearance of the mutants known as Contractors. The series is largely focused on one of these Contractors, Hei, a young man who appears to normal humans to simply be a typical Chinese exchange student, but who possesses the power to conduct electricity. Hei is unusual in the world of Contractors in that he actually seems to still possess a modicum of human emotions and a conscience, making some of the things he ends up doing in his guise as a Contractor problematic for himself. Hei is aided by a sort of zombie-like automaton spirit known as Yin, a blind “Doll” (as her kind is referred to in the series) who is able to perceive entities through water.

As confusing as joining the show with the second season may have been, there’s still a certain sense of befuddlement in the early going of the first season, and indeed even the premiere episode, of Darker Than Black, as it plops the viewer down in media res, with some repeated voiceover by policewoman Misaki Kirihara helping to bridge some of the narrative gaps. A bug eyed guy is evidently being chased by the authorities, but it soon becomes evident that he is one of the Contractors, one whose special power is an ability to defy gravity. Not only does he levitate one of the cops trying to take him down (literally), he himself flies off in a kind of display of “super parkour” powers. In the world of Darker Than Black, each Contractor has to “pay the piper” (so to speak) each time they use their special powers, and evidently this guy’s contract involves him breaking his fingers after each flight. That pain soon pales when the guy, who thinks he’s escaped, is suddenly confronted by a masked guy, evidently another Contractor, who pretty much beats the first guy to a bloody pulp in order to get the gravity defier to spill the beans about where some mysterious package is being hidden.

A bit later, the series seems to take not one but two radical turns in its depiction of both a mild mannered Chinese exchange student named Li Shenshun arriving at his new boarding house, as well as the portrayal of a young woman who lodges in the room next to Li's. Li is a bit puzzled by the almost catatonic behavior of this neighbor, a raven haired girl named Chiaki. Chiaki turns out to be a central if transitory character in the early going, being the caretaker of that aforementioned package and also a woman who is wanted by various Contractors. Twice in the first episode Li comes to perhaps (perhaps) unwitting rescue of the panicked woman, and ultimately (to no one’s surprise, especially since the second season appeared first) is revealed to be a Contractor himself, in fact the very masked agent who was rather ruthless with the gravity defier earlier in the season.

Somewhat interestingly, Darker Than Black waits for a while to dole out what will be its chief female character, the so-called Doll named Yin. Instead, the first several episodes of the first season have some smaller arcs devoted to various other female characters, including Chiaki and, later, a younger girl named Mai. There’s a certain repetitiveness to these opening arcs, with various bad guys on the hunt for that episode’s “damsel in distress.” Along the way, however, there are salient plot points provided that help to contextualize Li’s alter ego Hei and his Contractor duties, as well as the phenomenon of Hell’s Gate.

Things become a bit less vignette driven in the second half of the first season (probably not so coincidentally about the same time Yin wanders into the story), with a kind of X-Men-esque series of developments that offers an aggregation of Contractors (read: Mutants) attempting to work together to thwart plans by a nefarious government. It’s one of Darker Than Black’s neatest achievements that this group of “outcasts,” nicknamed Evening Primrose, may not be the force for good that the X-Men are in the Marvel universe. In fact, not to put too fine a point on it, but Darker Than Black often traffics in shades of gray, as evidenced by Li/Hei himself, a Contractor with (at least the remnants of) a conscience.

As Memento like as watching this series unfold “backwards” has been, overall I personally liked the first season a bit more than the second. While it takes a while to fully establish the many plot strands that are being woven together, but the midpoint of the season there are a number of fascinating developments, all unfolding in a labyrinthine way that may remind some of the convoluted ambience of outings like Ghost in the Shell.

Darker than Black: Complete Season 1 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Darker Than Black: Complete Season 1 is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of FUNimation Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This second volume (albeit first season) of the show retains much of the excellence of Darker than Black: Season 2 + OVAs, though is perhaps just slightly softer looking at times. That relatively minor difference aside, this first season offers generally very crisp and solid line detail, as well as the same array of gorgeously saturated colors that typified the second season at least intermittently (the first season is probably a bit more colorful overall than the second). Unlike some anime, Darker Than Black doesn't skimp on detail even when characters are in the background, and this anime will, for example, offer full facial features even when characters are fairly deep within the frame.

Darker than Black: Complete Season 1 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Darker Than Black: Complete Season 1 features the original Japanese language track delivered via Dolby TrueHD 2.0, and an English dub available in Dolby TrueHD 5.1. As has been the case recently with FUNimation releases, it's only possible to select audio tracks, with subtitles appearing automatically with the Japanese language track instead of being a separately accessible item (I personally prefer having the ability to turn on subs even when listening to the English language track.) The 5.1 track certainly opens up the soundfield in the series' battle sequences, where effects like Hei's ability to "charge" his adversaries provide a bit of sonic oomph. There's excellent immersion in these moments, while other sequences, like Hei's life at the boarding house, tend to be somewhat more reserved in surround activity. Dialogue is very cleanly presented and well prioritized. The series' enjoyable score is also nicely spread through the surround channels.

Darker than Black: Complete Season 1 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Disc One:

• Episode 2 Commentary features Colleen Clinkenbeard and Jason Liebrecht.


• Episode 9 Commentary features Christopher Sabat and Kate Oxley.

Disc Two:

• Episode 13 Commentary features Zach Bolton, Brina Palencia and John Swasey.


• Episode 16 Commentary features Laura Bailey and Troy Baker.

Disc Three:

• Episode 22 Commentary features Zach Bolton, John Burgmeier and Spencer Prokop.


• Episode 26 Commentary features Zach Bolton, Peter Hawkinson and Kent Williams.


• Cast Auditions are basically audio supplements playing out under character stills:

  Hei - Jason Liebrecht (1080p; 00:55)

  Kirihara - Kate Oxley (1080p; 00:44)

  Mao - Kent Williams (1080p; 00:26)

  Yin - Brina Palencia (1080p; 00:45)

  Huang - John Swasey (1080p; 00:28)

  Chiaki - Colleen Clinkenbeard (1080p; 00:51)

  Mai - Cherami Leigh (1080p; 00:43)

  Tahara - Mike Stoddard (1080p; 00:27)

  Havoc - Luci Christian (1080p; 1:17)

  November 11 - Troy Baker (1080p; 00:52)

  Misuzu - Julie Mayfield (1080p; 00:18)

• Production Artwork - Characters (1080p) offers twelve screens that offer both artwork and biographies.


• Production Artwork - Settings (1080p) offers 25 screens of various locales with brief descriptions.


• U.S. Trailer (1080p; 1:02)


• Textless Songs:

  Opening "HOWLING" (1080p; 1:32)

  Opening "Kakusei Heroism" (1080p; 1:32)

  Closing "Tsukiakari" (1080p; 1:32)

  Closing "Dreams" (1080p; 1:32)

Note: This review is being done off of screener discs (i.e., no retail packaging), but FUNimation's site indicates this Premium Edition also includes additional swag.

Darker than Black: Complete Season 1 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Stylistically interesting from the get go, Darker Than Black takes a few episodes to really hit its stride (despite jumping feet first into the action from the premiere). While some elements of this series are fairly derivative, the characters are uniformly interesting and the overall mythology of the show quite intriguing, especially once certain baseline elements have been put into place. Technical merits are very strong, and Darker Than Black comes Recommended.