D.Gray-Man Series 1 - Part 2   Starring (voice): Sanae Kobayashi, Ai Shimizu, Hiroki Touchi and Hiroshi Yanaka Manga Entertainment RRP: £22.99 MANG3051 Certificate: 15 Available 12 April 2010

Allen Walker isn’t your average fifteen year old boy, for a start he has a piece of Innocence material embedded in his left arm. This allows his arm to be transformed into a monstrous claw, a claw he uses to destroy the Akuma. His power makes him a natural exorcist and a worthy addition to the Black Order, a group of exorcists dedicated to stopping the evil Earl and his army of Akumas...

D.Gray-Man (2006-2008) is a gothic horror anime series based on the manga written by Katsura Hoshino. The first season, consisting of fifty-one episodes went under the umbrella title of 1st Stage and was directed by Osamu Nabeshima, produced by Dentsu. D. Gray-Man: Series 1 - Part 2 is presented as a two disc DVD set. Although given the number of episodes, which represents good value for money, the discs come with very few extras. Disc one has an audio commentary, featuring Christopher R. Sabat (line producer) and Rawley Pickens (recording engineer) for episode eighteen and disc two hold the textless opening and closing sequence.

The animation is crisp with little evidence of any problems, the audio track is either an English 5.1 or the original Japanese 2.0, the show is presented in a nice1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen print.

Having laid down the background of the fight between the Millennium Earl and the exorcists over possession of the powerful Innocence material, the show settles into producing multi-part stories about their rivalry. These are interspersed with the odd comic show. Although generally well written and animated the format hit a rhythm which produced far too much repetition and not enough narrative or character development. Some individual stories stood up well on their own but apart from the design, which remained faithful to the original Hoshino manga, the show seemed to loose some of its focus.

The first tale is a two parter, episodes 14 & 15 - The Leaf of Revival / Beyond the Snowstorm. Here Allen, Lavi and Kanda are set to a town which is experiencing some very erratic weather. For all subsequent stories we can assume that this invariably ends up with the exorcists confronting some Akuma.

In episodes 16 & 17 - Millennium Swordsmen / Pride of the Swordsmen - Allen find himself in Rome confronting an ageless warrior, who cannot die. Eventually they discover that it was love which made him this way, but how to get rid of a spectre you cannot hurt?

Episode 18 and we have the inevitable comedic interlude with Lenalee’s Love. When Komui sees Lenalee and Russell together he flips and chases them with his robot, the Komurin mark 2.

Back to the multipart stories with episode 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 & 24 - Vampire of the Solitary Castle, Go for it, Exorcists, Krory Attacks, The Truth About Eliade, The Vampire Whom I Loved and Krory’s New Beginning - this is a protracted tale with Allen off to look for General Cross when they are accosted by villagers about a castle full of vampires. This story introduces a new reoccurring character in the form of Krory, who eventually joins the other exorcists.

The disc closes with a new and tragic story in episodes 25 & 26 - The Generals Chains / The Beginning of the End - which opens up some of the background of Innocence, though for some watchers this may be a case of too little too late as most of the previous fare had reduced the show into little more than fight of the week fare.

The disc ends the story on a sad but high note. Individually the stories work well, even though I did get a bit bored with the repetitious fights. The designs work well and lets face it the show was never designed to be watched in such large chunks.

7

Charles Packer