Darker than BLACK: Ryuusei no Gemini [YuS] (2009)

Polski opis

Darker than BLACK: Ryuusei no Gemini
Darker than Black: Gemini of the Meteor

DARKER THAN BLACK 流星の双子

[ Opis ] Gdzieś w głębi Rosji, na Syberii żyje sobie spokojnie dziewczyna. Reemigrantka z Japonii. Ojciec przywiózł ją i jej brata po otwarciu Hells Gate w Tokio. Nieszczęśliwy zbieg okoliczności podczas polowania przekształcił chłopaka w Contractor’a. Dla niej los był łaskawszy. Suou nadal jest zwykłym człowiekiem. Od czasu upadku meteorytu - czyli przez dwa lata - Shion, Suou i ich ojciec wiodą spokojny żywot w małej syberyjskiej mieścinie. Sielanka ma jednak swój kres. Tajne służby kilku państw chcą się dobrać do Shion’a określanego przez nich jako Izanagi. To on podczas spotkania z Izanami (Yin z części pierwszej) ma doprowadzić do apokalipsy. Końca znanego nam świata. Nie dziwi zatem, że wszystkie mocarstwa pragną mieć atut w postaci chłopca w swych „brudnych łapskach”.
Nadchodzi nieuchronny atak na rezydencję rodziny Pavlichenko. Pojawiają się ciemne typy z Rosji, USA, Zjednoczonej Europy i Japonii. Tych ostatnich reprezentuje nie kto inny jak BK-201, czyli Hei, albo jak kto woli Black Reaper (ze swym nieodłącznym towarzyszem Mao). To on zajmie się opuszczoną Suou. Będzie ją uczył trudnej sztuki przetrwania, chronił w momentach zagrożenia i przemyci do Japonii, by tam mogła się ponownie spotkać ze swym zaginionym podczas ataku bratem. Podróż nie będzie miała w sobie nic z wycieczki. Grupę czeka ciężka przeprawa i nawet pomimo tego, iż dołączy do nich July (Doll widzący dzięki „duchom” na duże odległości), nie unikną wielu zagrożeń.

A czy Suou spotka Shion’a, czy nadejdzie koniec świata i czy nasza ulubiona policjantka Misaki Kirihara dogoni wreszcie swego ukochanego Hei’a – to musicie sprawdzić sami.

-EDIT-

Dołączone zostały sumy kontrolne odcinków specjalnych ukazujących się na zasadzie pełnoprawnych OAV. Nawiasem mówiąc: te speciale wyglądają lepiej niż sama seria zarówno pod względem fabularnym, jak i wizualnym.

[ Informacje szczegółowe ]

Kategoria :	TV
Gatunki :	Action, Drama, Sci-Fi
Rok produkcji :	2009
Ilość epizodów :	12 x 24 min
Od lat :	15+

Grupa :	Yuurisan Subs
Sub :	Softsub-Fansub - english
Źródło :	HDTV

Produkcja :	TBS, MBS, SONY Music, Aniplex, Square Enix
Reżyseria :	Tensai Okamura
Scenariusz :	Hiroyuki Yoshino, Mari Okada, Shinsuke Onishi, Shôtarô Suga, Tensai Okamura
Projekt postaci :	Takahiro Komori
Muzyka :	Kouji Ishii
Dyrektor Animacji :	Takahiro Komori
Dyrektor Artystyczny :	Takashi Aoi

English description

Darker than BLACK: Ryuusei no Gemini
Darker than Black: Gemini of the Meteor

DARKER THAN BLACK 流星の双子

[ Description ] Darker Than Black: Gemini of the Meteor -- Everything old isn't reused again.

**Warning: This review may contain mild spoilers and was slightly adjusted by a half-grade four hours post-publishing due to some first-draft edits. Yes, I'm a freaking sellout, now keep reading.**

So, after two years of waiting in silence and then half a year following the announcement, fans of the somewhat sleeper hit sci-fi/action series Darker Than Black (known from hereon in as DtB), made in 2007 by studio BONES, were finally vindicated. Me being one of those fans, I was expecting much the same from this season as the latter: More action goodness from Hei in a world following the (slightly confusing) ending of the original DtB, in which superpowered humans called 'contractors' share the world with regular humans that are now beginning to realize their existence.

Instead, the second season chose somewhat to take a departure from the setting of the original, forsaking the former protagonist, the former setting (Tokyo) and the former story structure of two-episode arcs for the benefit of a whole-season storyline focused on new character Suou Pavlichenko, the daughter of a Russian scientist, who somehow finds herself mixed into a contractor-based conspiracy focused on her brother Shion.

In abandoning the confines of episodic arcs, Gemini of the Meteor is both allowed to expand into a much greater and continious story... But it also runs into a snag: Namely that studio BONES still has some real problems in developing and especially in wrapping up epic stories, usually through cramming more story elements into the story than it has room for.

Animation and Visuals: 7/10 -- High-level visuals, as expected of the series.

DtB was always a good-goer in the graphics department, and the second season fills in just fine: It's basically identical to the first season for good or ill. While the detail work on backgrounds and showcasing of background animation doesn't quite match up to BONES' other graphics feast of 2009, Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, it's well-competent enough, and the character models are workable, though many of the characters again resemble each other a bit too much at times. The fights are decently animated and the occasional shiny special effect doesn't hurt. For its genre, Gemini of the Meteor does just fine, even though in my opinion I've seen better this year from production I.G.'s Sengoku Basara and from BONES themselves last year with Soul Eater.

Sound: 7/10 -- Seems to be doing fine even without Yoko Kanno.

Gemini of the Meteor's sound, unlike with its animation, does actually carry a departure from the first season, in that the composer has been changed from the well-known Yoko Kanno to Yasushi Ishii, who has chosen to take the music in a bit of a new direction. The end result is something I'd refer to as 'distinctive' in many ways -- the music is noticeably different from the first season's, and also more noticeable period, sticking out more during scenes in comparison to Kanno's more subtle jazz soundtrack. While this also helps underline the change in direction and the music isn't half bad at all -- rather the opposite -- I do occasionally wonder if subtlety is, perhaps, better called for. Either way, DtB was never one of Kanno's best and Ishii certainly doesn't feel like a grave disappointment in comparison. The OP is entirely decent as well, though in tune with its new principal cast it's certainly different from the first season's and not really competitive with first season's "Howling".

As for the voice actors, half the cast consists of old-timers from the first series, who seems to be doing fine (although it seems to me like half of the words coming out of Kirihara's mouth is 'BK201', which rankles a bit...) and the new additions do ok as well, although many of them get criminally few lines.

Story: 4/10 -- So much confusion for so little gain.

The story of Gemini of the Meteor takes place in a world two years after the events of DtB's season finale, following Suou through her trials and tribulations in dealing with a brand new and mostly unrelated storyline to any of the events from the first season. The events of Gemini of the Meteor are, in all honesty, more like a story put in the same universe as the one containing the events of the first season, only with some characters and random elements from the first one thrown in to placate the fans of the first season.

The new story elements tend to be rather confusing as well, running through a gamut of bi-plots like Kirihara's reassignment to a mysterious section of japanese security, CIA involvement and some strange prophecy about the end of the world (which I partly keep obscured here in the interest of spoilers and partly due to the fact that I think I must have missed a plot point or eight about it all since none of it made any damn sense whatsoever), which combine into a strange mishmash of story elements that manage to form the bare-bones of a functional story that basically only serves to further obfuscate and confuse the leftover story threads from season 1 (like what the frak the Syndicate is) while adding further confusion from its own plot.

The original DtB's dependence on story arcs also had elements of this, but it usually managed by through a combination of solving plot threads by the arc, saving them for the overhanging plot about Evening Primrose and the nature of Hell's Gate and just plain playing to a sense of mystery: Gemini of the Meteor by contrast crosses the line into straight-up confusion, just throwing plot thread and plot twist in after each other and doing far too little to tangle them up. Adding to this is the fact that the middle episodes seem to be mostly a big diversion from the main story without pretty much any relevance whatsoever, and the quite frankly horrible ending that neither solved nor explained anything apart from dusting a lot of story elements under the carpet, as it were. It all brings up the thought that this thing was basically a big waste of time seemingly existing only to tease the audience for further sequels.

Ok, the show isn't *completely* hopeless: There are some elements in it that still work from time to time and the pacing in the middle is somewhat decent -- pointless, but decent. Overall, though, the whole thing kind of reminds me of BONES' earlier RahXephon (and Xamd: Lost Memories. Or just BONES, period), although less well-done since the point of RahXephon, unlike Gemini of the Meteor, was in many ways to highlight the psychology of the story's protagonists. I've seen worse but this is a far cry from being actually 'good' in overall shape or form, despite its occasionally well-made single elements that could probably have done better in an arc-based show like the prequel.

Character: 5/10 -- Ok... So who are all these new people again, and why should we care about them? Come to think of it, why should I care about the old people since they're basically just here to highlight the new people?

In making its new story, Gemini of the Meteor made a score of new characters to fill its new plot while sticking a few of the oldtimers into sidekick roles in order to underline that it's still DtB we're watching here. As the plot churns and drives its various confused story elements together, you cannot help but feel that the characters are simply dragged along for the ride, like astronauts caught in the gravity well of a black hole and about to be stretched like taffy as they plummet towards the Event Horizon (what an odd metaphor...), merely filling roles in the play without getting any time to be developed as characters. The notable exception to this is, of course, Suou, who is the main character and does in fact get something akin to character development and sufficient time to showcase her as a character. Ok, she's not terribly interesting as a main character and seems more like she belongs in a magical girl series than DtB (which does make it a bit entertaining in a sadistic way when the 'dark' bent of the DtB universe ends up killing her friends and family and erasing her existence from the survivors' memory), but at least she works.

Most of the rest of the new cast don't work as well, though; most of them seem to be ultimately about as important and well-characterized as the 'contractors of the week' from last season, only with a bit more screentime before they're killed off or rendered unimportant. To be honest, quite a lot of the time I ended up wondering just why the heck this character was added at all: I realize that giving everyone in the story a backstory or a fully written character is a waste, but in many ways the scope of the character's influence in the story should be somewhat tied to the amount of characterization: Gemini of the Meteor gives way too much story importance and linchpin-ness to characters who are severely lacking in this regard, which is not a Good Thing.

To add to this are some of the principle characters from season one, most notably Hei and Kirihara, who both play somewhat prominent though ultimately supporting roles in two of the storylines, and a third character who has essentially become a MacGuffin for this season. For the most part, what has happened to the characters between the two seasons is mostly unrevealed and any explanation behind said MacGuffin sure as heck wasn't forthcoming, which annoyed me. The old characters still work, but there's very little left to reveal or develop where they are concerned, and as I said their role appears to be mostly supporting anyhow. It kind of reminds me of how main characters in japanese RPGs get treated when the games get sequels with all-new main characters: Supporting cast that are never entirely allowed to live up to what they did in the last game since they're no longer main characters, however more powerful they may be. Some of the cooler characters like season 1, like Huang and November, obviously don't return, and we don't get good enough replacements for them either.

Value: 6/10 -- Fanservice for people who liked the first season, only without so much 'service' and more 'metaphorical punch to the face'.

Gemini of the Meteor, despite its new storyline and characters, is still very much a continuation of DtB's first season: Seeing it without having seen the first season will probably end up making the show feel even stranger and hackneyed than it did for someone who has seen the first season. It seems to be on this odd balance point between depending on the old show for its mythos and background, and at the same time partially trying to break free from its story, characters and progression. While DtBs 'mature' tone is somewhat carried over to this season, I'd still say that this season is less mature than the last one, mainly due to the kid hero main character; another departure that I don't like much -- although it was no Stand Alone Complex, the first season was a lot closer. Then again, even aspiring to maturity in the anime world nowadays is rare enough; I suppose some kudos are due for that. I certainly can't say it was all archetypes or cliches, so it's possibly still a bit above average.

In the end, was the show worth it? Well, I don't really feel like recommending it, and unlike the first season I neither really want to buy nor re-watch it. In the grand scheme of animes it is just another second season that bit over more than it could chew and fell flat. A curio for people who enjoyed the first season, but not much more.

Enjoyment: 7/10 -- Can still be appreciated for its mature tone and occasional cool content... At least somewhat.

Ok, so the story is hackneyed, the ending atrocious, the characters get criminally too little characterization and the recommendation level and historical value of this show are considerably lower than the first season, even with its now-continual storyline. But it is still fun?

Well, in a word, yes. Kind of. The 'Darker Than Black' feeling is still there, the fight-scenes are still well-animated and cool, and Hei is still around to live up to his memetic nickname of 'Chinese Electric Batman' even if his storyline role feels a bit hollow. There are still moments that feel at least somewhat emotionally engaging amidst much of the confusion, and the fact that it still doesn't have to take to grips with panty shots, moe characters, emotional overreactions and talks about power levels to offer a decent action show with public appeal makes me somewhat hopeful for the continued presence of maturity and capability of original material in anime (though perhaps not to the level that, say Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 or Eden of the East did). So, yeah, it's still kind of fun, though it pays heavily on the enjoyment front for the rather telling character and story flaws.

Total: 6/10 -- Another BONES story, for good or ill. Feels a bit too much like a waste of time for comfort.

So, how to summarize this? Gemini of the Meteor is tolerable. It can stand on its merits as a show, even though it's a bit of a wobbling standing of the kind induced by having one too many heavy objects dropped on one's head and the standee is now more shambing through life babbling about its brain-damage-induced hallucinations while occasionally striking a cool kung-fu pose (another odd metaphor... They must be on sale today).

Gemini of the Meteor does, in some ways, remind me sort of my 2009 favourite, Eden of the East, in that it feels kind of like an incomplete anime with a mystery-based story. Thinking about it, though, Eden of the East built its story entirely from scratch and whole cloth and has, in my eyes, the advantage that the mysteries behind the story are more intriguing, added to a much greater deal of charm. By comparison, Gemini of the Meteor has built its convoluted story on top of an already fairly convoluted setting carried over from DtB's first season, and its mysteries feels not so much a as puzzle to be solved by a later installment as someone who's tried to stack too tall a tower, with the bricks made out of variously and vaguely interlocking parts that don't pile directly on top of each other and instead intertwine all over the place, resulting in the whole thing partially collapsing without the developers noticing. Ultimately, Gemini of the Meteor is far more Code Geass R2 than Eden of the East -- taking elements from the first season and tossing them into a brand-new storyline before turning several of them up to eleven, in the process overcomplicating and partially strangling the appeal of the first season under the sheer weight of the new confusion.

...But I'll still be (grudgingly) watching for whatever third season or continuation will inevitably be made from this though. Darn you and your odd appeal BONES, darn you all to heck.

grudgeal

[ Details ]

Category :	TV
Genre :	Action, Drama, Sci-Fi
Year :	2009
Episodes :	12 x 24 min
Age rating :	15+

Group :	Yuurisan Subs
Sub :	Softsub-Fansub - english
Source :	HDTV

Production :	TBS, MBS, SONY Music, Aniplex, Square Enix
Director :	Tensai Okamura
Script :	Hiroyuki Yoshino, Mari Okada, Shinsuke Onishi, Shôtarô Suga, Tensai Okamura
Character design :	Takahiro Komori
Music :	Kouji Ishii
Animation director :	Takahiro Komori
Art director :	Takashi Aoi