Review: Darker Than Black – Gemini of the Meteor

Years ago two anomalies suddenly appeared, one in Brazil and one in Japan. Known as Heaven’s Gate and Hell’s Gate respectively, they cause all manner of bizarre effects in their vicinity and their appearance also replaced the sky. The moon is gone and the stars above are now replaced with new ones linked to the lives of a new breed of humanity, Contractors, whose empathy is replaced with cold logic and are bestowed with awesome abilities, but for which they must pay a price. At the end of Darker Than Black (you can read our review here) Hei chose for both humanity and Contractors to continue to exist and is now on the run from the Syndicate.

If you were hoping for more of the same from the first series, then you’ll be somewhat disappointed, at least initially. This should really have been titled Darker Than Black: And Now For Something Completely Different, as they seem to have decided to stray largely from the first series style for most of the first half. This DVD presentation provides both Gemini of the Meteor and also the 4 episode OVA series, which was produced afterwards but actually explains the important things that happened between the two seasons. This review will first deal with the main series.

Whilst still following Hei who is now searching for Yin, apparently now wishing to kill her, the series focuses largely on Suo, a young Russian girl, whose brother is a Contractor and father a famous scientist. After an attack on her family home, Suo soon finds herself tied up with Hei, who she witnessed murdering her father and having to come to terms with suddenly becoming a Contractor herself.

A number of the characters from the original series do make appearances that gather in number as the action moves out of Russia, some of them fairly solidly such as Kirihara and a certain Contractor thought lost at the end of the first series and others as little more than cameos.

Most of the new characters never feel very developed and just seem to exist to move the plot along rather than following the originals series excellent handling of character development even for second string and peripheral characters. Even by series end, many of the characters who appear in almost every episode just feel hollow, you won’t understand why they were doing what they were doing and due to the poorly paced plot exposition you may have no idea what they were doing at all.

In fairness, Suo’s character is developed nicely and there’s quite a surprising amount of evolution of the character of July, who ends up tagging along with them, essentially replacing Yin as the Doll for the new group, with Hei at times leaning in the direction of Huang’s handler status from the first series.

With this series, it really feels like they wanted to get in a number of styles and themes that simply wouldn’t have worked in the first series, making things broadly lighter and softer, they even manage to get in an incongruous ‘magical girl transformation’ style scene for when Suo’s Contractor ability activates. It’s arguable whether or not these new styles and themes work in this series, but they certainly make it feel different. The series does however seem to acknowledge the change in an amusing scene towards the end of the series with a cameo of the anime obsessed Kiko from the first series’ Kurosawa Detective Agency, commenting on  how, in universe, her favourite anime had been ruined by suddenly making it all more kid friendly.

After the first few episodes, the pacing felt sluggish, but as the action moved back to Japan things started to pick up and the plot itself, which had been somewhat difficult to understand up to this point finally gets some elucidation, though still not enough. In the end though, the series remains quite difficult to understand, Hei’s motivations and just what happened to Yin are referenced as if it should make perfect sense to the audience, which it doesn’t at all, unless you’ve watched the OVA’s. The odd thing is, the OVA’s were originally released after Gemini of the Meteor, perhaps they were made simply because they actually cover the entire reason for the events of Gemini of the Meteor, thus allowing the series to make more sense (though not really any more satisfying).

Moving onto the OVA’s, they are a different beast entirely. They are, in a word, excellent. As stated above, they largely fill the gap between the two series. They begin with Hei and Yin running away together from a fractured Syndicate who are appropriately upset with them after the events of the first series.

Continuing a theme that ran as an undercurrent in the first series, that of the behaviour of Doll’s changing, we are treated to seeing Yin as she develops. Her surveillance spectre has now taken on an almost human appearance (as seen briefly in the final episode of the first series) and seems to be acting almost of its own volition and Yin herself is opening up and showing more independent actions, which surprise Hei dramatically.

It is this evolution of her character that attracts attention from a number of groups as she’s no longer a run of the mill Doll, but something new, displaying abilities never seen in a Doll before. She also appears to be linked to a prophecy about two individuals who if they meet, will cause strife on earth to be unending. The series follows Hei’s attempts to save Yin from the many people after her and his trying to understand what is happening to her and what it really means.

The pace of the story is just right and displays some very heartfelt and tender moments in between the usual action sequences, the first episode has some particularly well done scenes of Hei and Yin’s interactions now that she is changing.

If you want to have a better understanding of the second series, then I’d have to suggest watching the OVA’s first. There are a few things it explains that it’s fair to say are worthwhile mysteries in the series until they are later dealt with, but if you want to actually understand the driving force behind what’s happening in the series and why, as I found myself wanting, then it’s probably better to watch these first as the way the series tries to explain what is going on is obtuse at best.

The animation for both the series and the OVA are the same high quality as the original series and the dub retains the voice actors from the original, who bring back their great voicework. The music is once again great, though quite different with a more electro-poppy vibe to it. The extras are rather thin on the ground here, numbering only two episode commentaries along with the standard textless opening and closing.

In the end, Gemini of the Meteor is something rather different to Darker Than Black, but it is something fresh and does continue the story, retaining enough of its hallmarks to still be worth viewing and the OVA’s alone make the DVD worth owning.

Ratings
Story
Falling on the side of a bit confusing and lacking in development of the new characters. The OVA however is a solid story, explaining much of the preceding series.
Animation
The same slick animation from the first season.
Audio
A great dub and enjoyable music.
Extras
A couple of commentaries and textless opening/closing.
Overall
A series suffering from some poor pacing and plot exposition, but saved by a very strong set of OVAs.