Mono no aware

If there’s one thing I love about Darker than Black it’s the ‘rewatchability’: the sense that it’s more rewarding the second time around. The fact that the dramatic and comedic moments still hit the spot are proof of its quality but when there’s so much to think about that you can’t catch it all on the first sitting, you have to admit that it’s damn well-written.

Because it’s Caturday

I can’t help but attribute this mostly to the director Tensai Okamura. The show benefits greatly from an art department who whipped up such a cool film noir atmosphere and the nuances in the dialogue suggest that there were some gifted script- and screenplay writers on board too; nevertheless the sensibilities and devices that have made previous works of his so enjoyable are very much in evidence here.

What with Darker than Black: Ryuusei no Gemini, my rewatch of Kuro no Keiyakusha is a primer of sorts for getting back into the the story so I can hopefully breeze effortlessly(!) through. One of DtB’s defining features was the way it held back on explanations for what appeared to be quite significant plot points to make it occasionally frustrating but undeniably compelling. I must admit that even on the second attempt I still can’t say for sure I understand everything but oddly this doesn’t really bother me as much as I expected.

And yes, Shinjuku really does look as awesome as this IRL…

I don’t feel I have to understand the full background to the characters and their situations to understand them because enough of the important things are already made clear, which I hope was the intention of the writers. As is often the case I instead try to immerse myself in the worldview to let the answers reveal themselves in a passive fashion: something I find particularly easy for a show that takes the approach that this one does.

Just when we thought we’d seen the last of him (I knew better than that, truth be told) Owen rallies the troops and reminds us that Darker than Black aired almost two years ago this week, and drags us along for the ride. I actually put it on hold around ep #8 way back when (‘way back’ meaning the old days of my old blog when I could still be arsed to blog episodically) because it got licenced but hey, if it’s an excuse to see the thing through to the end before my retail DVD copy arrives in August, why argue?

The plan is to watch two episodes (==one story arc) each day through to completion; I’ll add the relevant links to everyone else’s impressions as time goes on but in all honesty I don’t have the time or energy to make a full post of every arc on my own so I’ll set out a short piece for each on my MAL blog and link back from here. It’s pretty well-timed actually, because I stumbled on an excellent AMV (a rare occurence in itself) that married the footage from the show with the song Remembrance Day by God is an Astronaut (Youtube vid after the Moar jump).