Kurokami: The Animation Volume 2 Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		2.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		2.5

Kurokami: The Animation Volume 2 Blu-ray Movie Review

Building on the framework of the first four episodes, volume two delves further into the world of Tera Guardians and their human counterparts.

Reviewed by Dustin Somner September 16, 2010

Kurokami: The Animation is an anime adaptation of the "Black God" Japanese manga series published by Square Enix. Interestingly enough, the series was written and illustrated by an all-Korean team, reflecting a growing trend in Japanese manga production. The resulting 23-episode anime series was licensed and produced by Sunrise animation studio, and directed by Tsuneo Kobayashi (The Twelve Kingdoms). Initially released throughout Japan and North American during the first half of 2009, the series has been chosen by Bandai as their first anime television production to be released on the Blu-ray format within North America. This second release contains episode five through eight, with subsequent volumes expected every two months or so.

The animation style is simple yet effective.

Keita Ibuki is a troubled high school boy who can't shake intense memories of his mother's untimely death. Night after night, he recollects the image of her body making contact with a truck, while he helplessly witnessed from the adjacent sidewalk. Now that he's grown older, he shares an apartment with his childhood friend Akane, who assists him in looking beyond the circumstances surrounding his mother's death. This becomes increasingly difficult when two additional girls in Keita's life fall prey to "accidental" deaths immediately following an interaction with a carbon copy of themselves. What's most troubling in all of this is Keita's belief that his mother's death had something to do with a similar interaction the day before her death, as if she'd been marked by the glimpse of an unknown twin. Everything becomes clearer when Keita happens upon a mysterious young girl at a restaurant one night, claiming to be a Tera Guardian. According to this girl, each human is born with two Doppeliners that share the same fate and split varying levels of luck between them. There's always a root and two subs within the relationship, so the death of a sub equates to an increase in luck bestowed on the root. Tera is a spiritual life force that each human possesses in varying amounts, creating a need for Tera Guardians (or beings from someplace beyond Earth), who maintain the delicate balance between Doppeliners and the Tera they possess. Keita soon plays an important role in this balancing act, since he discovers there's someone within the city who's manipulating the existence of subs for personal gain, creating a rift in the equilibrium the Tera Guardians swore to protect.

The second volume of Kurokami continues to build on the interesting concepts introduced in the first four episodes by digging deeper into the relationships between Tera Guardians and the contractee they form a relationship with. In the primary story arch, those two individuals are Kuro (Tera Guardian) and Keita (contractee), who both harbor a family history that looks to define the future of the series. During this four episode run, we’re introduced to Kuro’s brother Yakumo and shown events that led to her departure from Reishin. Yakumo’s history isn’t fully explained by the end of this release, but the tragic tale of a recent massacre indicates he’ll emerge as one of the primary villains in the series. Additionally, the story of Keita’s mother takes center stage in the latter two episodes of this volume, as a photograph guides our protagonists to Okinawa in search of answers. These two extensions to the plotline form the building blocks that hold this second installment together, and provide enough revelations to hold our attention into the final minutes of the eighth episode.

In addition to the strengths in the continuing mystery unfolding in the second wave of the series, the writers go to great lengths in developing the primary characters from the first four episodes, while still introducing plenty of new faces along the way. Fresh villains are tossed into the equation, additional allies emerge, and characters such as Steiner and Excel (Nobel Ones) are explored in greater detail--clarifying their role in the investigation regarding the assembly of Master Roots under the Kaionji Group.

If asked to mention one complaint about the second volume in the 26 episode series, it would be the slow development of the overall story arch, which remains interesting enough to hold our attention, but never registers at a level I’d call engrossing. This shouldn’t be a huge surprise when you consider anime series often take time to build a strong foundation before actually hitting their stride, so I’m holding out hope that Kurokami follows the same path.

Kurokami: The Animation Volume 2 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in 1080p utilizing the AVC codec (at an average bitrate of 22Mbps), Kurokami: The Animation looks impressive on Blu-ray despite the inherent budgetary limitations of the production. It's easy to become spoiled by the precision of theatrical anime productions dominating the Bandai release slate, but it's great to see more anime studios turning toward their television catalog for Blu-ray options. When you remove the aspects attributable to the source material, this is a fine transfer with little room for complaint. Hand-drawn lines remain crisp, avoiding stair-stepping, aliasing, or blurring, and background art reveals adequate texture/shading, bringing a nice sense of balance to the environmental designs of the artists. Regarding the color palette of the series, this is fairly standard material, with naturalistic tones emerging from the real-world setting, and hues that never strive for an overly saturated spectrum. Black levels avoid ascensions into dark-gray territory (certainly a good thing), and contrast provides a nice balance between the lighter and darker elements within the image. All in all, this is a strong visual presentation that mirrors the opening chapter of the series, demonstrating a level of consistency I'd expect to continue through the rest of the series.

Kurokami: The Animation Volume 2 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

This is the one area that may stand as a deal breaker to some anime fans. If your taste is similar to mine, you prefer the native language track on most anime series. As such, I was notably disappointed to learn Bandai would be releasing Kurokami with nothing more than a dubbed English version available. Given the nature of licensing rights in various international territories and varying pricing structures within "Region 1" countries, I'm left to assume this is one of those situations where Bandai had little choice. However, I still recognize the potential disappointment arising in some of the more hardcore anime fans. For those of you who are still with me at this point, I'll assume you're at least willing to hear an assessment of the English dub, and give it the benefit of the doubt.

First and foremost, Bandai assembled a talented pool of English voice actors to play the various roles in Kurokam, and the result is quite remarkable. Despite preferring the native language, I've listened to plenty of dubs over the years, and Kurokami definitely ranks within the top 10%. Each actor nails the tone of the character they portray, and the timing of the vocal delivery matches up nicely with the facial movements within the animation. Stepping away from the dialogue delivery within the show and moving toward an assessment of the actual audio presentation, I can't say I'm nearly as delighted. As commendable as it is to receive a lossless audio presentation, the fact that the show only encompasses a 2-channel track is somewhat of a let-down. Not all television series are produced with a surround sound focus, but considering Kurokami was released in 2009, I'd have expected more than simply a stereo mix. As such, we end up with an audio experience that's well-balanced and crisp, with solid fundamental framework, but merely adequate in comparison with other productions currently on the market.

Kurokami: The Animation Volume 2 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The supplements included in volume two include clean opening/closing songs, and three trailers for other Bandai releases (Freedom, Gurren Lagann, and Sword of the Stranger).

Kurokami: The Animation Volume 2 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Considering we're only 8 episodes into the 26 episode run, it's difficult to offer much of a recommendation on how well this stacks up to other television anime productions on the market. There's plenty of potential to be found in the second installment, but until we hold a better grasp on how the various character interactions play into the big picture, we can only speculate on the success of the final puzzle. At this point I'd still recommend a rental, though I could see this emerging as one of the better series of the year.