Darker Than Black, a futuristic supernatural romp in a world shrouded in mystery. It doesn’t sound too original, but this 2007 anime from studio Bones is a cut above the rest.

Ten years before our story begins a powerful disaster wreaks havoc upon the world, altering the sky and the landscape. Not long after this event people start emerging with special abilities. These people are dubbed contractors and are known to be ruthless cold-blooded killers.

Fast forwarding to the beginning of Darker Than Black, our protagonist, a Chinese student named Hei, is an elite contractor who hunts down bloodthirsty contractors for an organisation with unknown ambitions. In fact Hei is so good at his job that other contractors have nicknamed The Black Reaper. As you would expect the long arm of the law are also hot on the tail of these nasty contractor folk. The Section-Chief of the Foreign Affairs Division 4, Misaki Kirihara speeds around town in her Porsche investigating reports of contractor thuggery. All this results in Hei and Division 4 facing off even though their goals are roughly the same.

The neo-noir setting and mystery shrouding past events are tantalising enough to keep things moving along. The most interesting part is that the main character, Hei is actually likable. His night and day personality prove to be a nice juxtaposition. By day he’s a likable and helpful student and by night he’s cleaning up the town of supernatural contractor scum. Other characters are hardly given the time of day on the first DVD. Maybe the lowest point of this anime is the fact that it all looks a bit dreary. Brighter colours are used sparingly, which is a shame because it makes the production feel flat overall. It’s not a huge detractor because the story and characterisation are strong enough to get it over the line. DVD extras are fair with a small array of commentary and cast auditions, not to mention the now obligatory art gallery and textless opening.

If you’re a committed this anime will reward but it takes time to draw you in. Once you’re down the rabbit-hole you’ll find it surprisingly enjoyable.

Overall: Buy

Starts slow but ends quick. Don’t blink!

Two things stand out from this series:
1. Japanese Hip-hop music is a good way to make ancient spirit battling contemporary
2. You really don’t want to have anything to do with the spirit world in Japan – there’s no casper the friendly ghost in the world of Japanese grotesqueries.

To read from the promotional material:

Bleach follows the lives of Ichigo Kurosaki, who is a high school student with the ability to see ghosts, and a shinigami (Soul Reaper or, literally, “death god”) named Rukia Kuchiki, who crosses paths with Ichigo while hunting an evil spirit known as a hollow. Rukia is wounded during the ensuing confrontation with the spirit and is left with no choice but to transfer her powers into Ichigo. Thus the adventures of Ichigo and Rukia begin. Together they search for hollows and perform soul burials on wayward souls, cleansing the spirits and sending them to Soul Society. The early parts of the story focus mainly on the characters and their pasts, rather than the actual occupation of the shinigami. As events unfold, the story begins to delve deeper into the world of these gods of death on the “other side” called Soul Society.

Bleach is a welcome addition to the gener of supernatural action, the evil spirits – Hollows – are suitably menacing and mysterious, seemingly driven by an overwhelming need to consume all lost soles and spiritual energy around them. Maybe we could read into the hollows desire for perpetual, meaningless consumption a subtle critique of consumer society or addiction – certainly there are destructive extremes to these problems.

The series has a typical infusion of that distinctive anime aesthetics where stylised action and violence sits alongside cute girls, a scene of tradgedy cuts to humour and high-school hijinks. Is Kusaki gong to date Rukia (the Soul Reaper instructing him)? Will Ichigo be able to battle the Hollows? The chain the links recently departed to their corpses.

An interesting aside was the main character Ichigo Kurosaki actually referring to his orange hair – yes, it turns out this was not a simple stylistic choice of the animators to designate him a fiery tempered youthful character, but he was born that way and suffered much bullying as a kid. So there you go – even in the world of anime there are occasions where different coloured hair is not a stylistic convention but a freakish twist of nature that makes you stand out.

Respect. It’s important for both Samurai and Hip Hop artists. And Afro Samurai shows respect from Japan towards HipHop and blaxploitation cinema and from the US towards anime and chambara cinema. This is not wrongheaded appropriation of the Last Samurai. While we could complain about what they get wrong (eg: a failure to show the internal divisions and contradictions within samurai communities), it’s better to see what they deem essential to get right.

In Afro we can see no chivalrous Samurai representations – only murderous or duty bound. Likewise, the HipHop is not about race politics but does speek to oppression through the drive for revenge. This is not simply Japanese or American. It’s hybrid with two parents: Chambara and hiphop.

Chambara:
There are a number of themes that occur in Samurai film plots. Afro deals with the roaming masterless samurai, and tales of clan loyalty and conflict. As with most chambara films, the main character is struggling with a conflict between giri (sense of duty) and ninjo (human feelings). Afro is trained in bushido (way of the warrior) but is haunted by moments of sympathy and loss (which comes in the form of his memories of childhood and love of a woman). And according to the conventions of a good chambara film, it ends with bloodshed and a duel between our anti-hero and an equal opponent. The chambara conventions are given a new twist through the use of technological gadgets (mobile phones) and the hi-tech cyborg opponents Afro faces, pushing this towards a techno-chambara fantasy. One that is furthered by the use of hip-hop and celebrity.

Hip-hop and African-American culture:
The American influences upon Afro, such as the use of hiphop and the branding of it around Samuel L Jackson ground this as an experiment showing us the intersecting forces that produce global anime.

Results:
The mixed heritage of this anime can offer a deepening appreciation of global anime and techno-chambara (with an American hip-hop beat). In a sign of things to come, the balance Afro tries to strike between chambara (Japan) and hip-hop (US) shows that US and Japanese pop culture will not replace or consume each other, but that both may grow in popularity together.

Type: Film
Length: 170
Rating: M

World War II is not an easy subject to tackle. Especially when you are presented with a tragic story like Barefoot Gen. But the topic of who was right or wrong when it came to the bombing of Hiroshima is not the core issue here. Despite the graphic depictions of suffering Barefoot Gen is drama about a young boy’s struggle of survival against insurmountable odds during the aftermath.

Barefoot Gen started its life out as a manga by Keiji Nakazawa in 1973. Soon after it was adapted into a little known live action movie in 1976 and in 1983 Madhouse brought us the first animated version of Barefoot Gen. The story focuses on the six year old boy Gen and his family in 1945 war torn Hiroshima. Gen’s family are considered unpatriotic and traitors because his father believes that Japan has lost the war and that the upper class are just being greedy by continuing to fight. Things are not looking so good for Gen’s family with another baby on the way and no food on the table. Finally the main event comes with America’s B-29 bombers flying in on August 6 to drop their nuclear bomb on Hiroshima while Gen walks to school. From then on Gen struggles against the odds to survive the aftermath.

As tragic and heart wrenching as the story sounds there is still a bit fun to be had. Gen is a very hyper young boy who is up to mischief much of the time with his younger brother Shinji. Even after the bomb is dropped he remains as cheeky as ever. The style and animation is quite good for an anime of its time. Madhouse clearly had high standards for the film. Anime purists will be pleased to hear that there is no English dub for both the Gen films. Do not be put off by this; the subtitles are top notch along with the original Japanese sound tracks.

I mentioned that there are two Barefoot Gen films. You get the original Barefoot Gen from 1983 and the sequel, predictably named Barefoot Gen 2. The second movie is set three years after the bombing and focuses on the continuing struggle of Gen and his family as Hiroshima recovers. There are no special features with these films but you do get both of them on one disc! As much as I think they are important films there is only so much post war Japan I could take before feeling a little odd inside. But that aside Barefoot Gen is a classic anime that should be seen. Three out of Five.

Here we are once again, traveling the road of darkness, fighting the very hell spawn we all know and love as vampires. The Hellsing story sure is getting the red carpet treatment of late. Those of you who are familiar with the original anime series will know that it is all blood and guts with a killer story to boot. But of course the anime series unpredictably split from the manga’s story line to end up in a totally different place. Thankfully someone has righted this travesty by pouring the contents of their wallet into the Hellsing Ultimate OVA collection, which follows the manga’s graphic story line much more closely. The result is an MA 15+ rated bloodlust romp into the very bowls of hell (South America).

OVA III concentrates on the aftermath of Hellsing’s headquarter invasion by the Valentine bothers. It seems the Vatican, Hellsing’s nemesis, knows more about what is happening in their little vampire world than their letting on. Of course we all know that good stories always manage to work in a crazy blonde haired, blue-eyed Nazi bad guy somewhere, and Hellsing is no different. Turns out the Vatican helped a Nazi group called Millennium escape to South America during World War 2 and now they are bit ashamed. Subsequently Alucard and Seras are sent to South America on a search and destroy mission to wipe the remaining remnants of Millennium, and let me tell you this is no fishing trip! Through all the blood and gore, they encounter a well-dressed man called The Dandy Man who has a certain fetish for playing 52 pickup.

Once again we have an example of what can be done when production values match the impact of the content. All the characters exude on screen personality and there’s one disturbing scene where Integra shows her real bloodthirsty colours when ordering Alucard to cut down all those who oppose Hellsing. I like to use the Hellsing OVA series, as a prime example of what English dubs should be like. The regular cast does a wonderful job even though most are clearly putting on fake accents. Both the Japanese and English tracks are in Dolby 5.1 and we are even given an English DTS 5.1 track to boot. The music is symphonic and perfectly matches to mood in every scene, no complaints there. Clearly there has been some time and money invested here. Even the glossy DVD packaging is something that will wow people who are easily distracted by bright colours. There’s the normal array of special features to be had. Voice cast interviews, art gallery and more interestingly a voice director commentary track for some more insight. If you live for blood and guts then you’ll love Hellsing OVA III. 4.5 buckets of blood soaked offal from me.