Darker Than Black

    Darker than Black  is a science fiction (leaning on the side of fiction) animated tv series about several people who live in a world where the paranormal is commonplace. The first season is mostly set in Tokyo where an anomaly known as Hell's Gate has appeared, and has caused many strange things to happen. Firstly: it has replaced the stars with false ones, and has cause a good deal of destruction to the landscape. Secondly: people with mysterious abilities, and peculiar behaviors have surfaced. These people are known as contractors. Their abilities range from teleportation to fire manipulation, but come at a cost. After their power is used they must complete some act - this can range from dog-earing an entire book to causing themselves physical pain (kind of reminiscent of extreme OCD's). These abilities come at a bigger price though, the contractor loses what we commonly refer to as "humanity". Contractors have qualities of cynicism, and extreme rationalization. These qualities make them extremely effective spies and assassins. There are also dolls: supposedly emotionless "mediums" which mimic the forms of humans. Dolls are mostly used as reconnaissance because of their ability to observe remotely through creatures that appear to be made of energy.
    Now thats out of the way lets talk about the first season. The first season centers around a contractor named Hei who, with a team, carries out jobs for the Syndicate. The first half of the first season mostly is about Hei just doing jobs, and the detective who pursues him. The second half is about the conspiracy to destroy Hell's Gate. The second season centers mostly around Suō, a eurasian girl, and Hei who is more of a secondary character until near the end where the story starts to center more on him again.
    Overall I would say that the animation is pretty average. There is a little attention to detail of the environment, but is generally average. There is an interesting animating of the characters though. Some characters are drawn without pupils. In fact the main character is drawn without them. This is probably like this because of a story-wise reason, rather than an art style reason because of the few choice characters who are drawn this way. I fail to see the importance of it though.
    Overall I would say that this series was pretty good. Even though it didn't have much of a distinct animation style, it still had a good story. They did a good job of making a noir-like storyline in a science fiction setting. I think anyone who likes action, science fiction/fantasy, and a different perspective on what being human is will like this one.

Hei (contractor): Foreground, Yin (doll): left of Hei, Huang (human): far left,

Mao (contractor): cat far right