by Samantha Hii, staff writer, Inside AX- Anime Expo

Picking up where the first season left off , Darker Than Black: Gemini of the Meteor takes place two years after Hei and Yin’s escape. In Russia, Hei runs into a seemingly normal girl named Suo Pavlinchenko, mistakenly identifying her as Shion, Suo’s twin brother. Suo is unknowingly pulled into the ongoing power struggle between the Contractors and Section 3 as she struggles to find her now missing brother and why they are after him.

FUNimation announced they acquired the license for Darker Than Black: Gemini of the Meteor during Anime Expo 2011 and sent us a review copy for it this month. This particular boxset is currently up for pre-order at the moment, with a street release date for November 8,2011. Darker Than Black: Gemini of the Meteor ships in a limited edition chipboard art box containing episodes 1-12 and the four OVAs of Kuro no Keiyakusha: Gaiden. Kudos to FUNimation for including the OVAs and a few more special features than usual (Episode 04 Commentary, OVA Part 1 Commentary, Textless Songs, Trailer). The staff for this season is the same as the first, with animation studio Bones (Full Metal Alchemist, Wolf’s Rain) and composer Yasushi Ishii (Hellsing) teaming up once again.

Having seen the first season of Darker Than Black, I was looking forward to reviewing this season. First off, obviously if you haven’t seen the first season, you need to watch it first, or else you’ll be hopelessly lost.  The series doesn’t take the time to provide you with a lot of background information, so you will need to know what happened previously. I definitely suggest re-watching the first season if you haven’t in awhile, you’ll need it. At first glance, Suo seems to be the main character, as Hei doesn’t appear for a while. The first few episodes follow her life, which is not unwelcome considering the previous season’s tendencies to have a melancholy, serious  mood. Thankfully, it doesn’t take long to get into the plot as we are really thrown into it from the first episode. Pacing for this series was rather good.

In terms of character development, we get to see Suo’s transformation into a Contractor and how Hei has changed after losing Yin.  Suo is probably the one with the most development though, as questions are still left unanswered for Hei. For those of you who are wondering, characters from the first season do show up but do not really have as an important role this time.  We really do see Suo as the main character this time around, with Hei being pushed slightly to the sidelines.  While this may put off viewers, I wasn’t too bothered by it thanks to the way the plot twists were presented. Like the first season, Darker Thank Black: Gemini of the Meteor starts throwing plot conflicts towards the end of the series, mostly involving Suo and Shion.  However, what was disappointing was the lack of attention really paid to Yin and Hei.

The ending for Darker Than Black: Gemini of the Meteor was disappointing as it was both confusing and rushed. While we do receive some sort of resolution for Suo’s conflict, it wasn’t the best.  We end up with just as many questions as we started with. Twelve episodes wasn’t hardly enough to resolve everything, especially in the way that the writers wanted to.  I was really disappointed with the open-ended ending and how Yin was just….there. Maybe a third season would help answer some questions?

Overall, I found the series rather good at first, with the action coming and plot going straight from the start. However, the disappointing end was a rather big letdown for a series that has had such a good following from the first season. With so many questions unanswered, we can only hope we have a possible resolution in the future.

Pros:

• more special features+OVAs
• Music
• Pretty good pacing
• Jumps right into the plot
• Rather good action scenes

Cons:

• Rushed/confusing ending
• lack of resolution
• too short (?)
• Need to re-watch the first season in order to make sure you have all the finer details down

Tags: Bones, Darker Than Black: Gemini of the Meteor, Funimation, review