Darker than Black Gemini of the Meteor   Starring: Hidenobu Kiuchi, Ikuya Sawaki, Kana Hanazawa and Kiyomi Asai Manga Entertainment RRP: £24.99 MANG3088 Certificate: 15 Available 26 December 2011

Having helped the world narrowly avert disaster Hei is now a drunkard, hiding out in Russia and taking on odd jobs for the CIA. During one of his sojourns he encounters Suou Pavlichenko, a complicated young lady, whose brother has been a contractor since his birth. Hei takes the young Suou under his tutelage. Hoping to teach her to control her powers, Hei and Suou travel to Japan to learn the truth of her birth, but hard on their heels are numerous factions out to catch or kill them...

Darker Than Black: Gemini of the Meteor (2009) is a twelve episode, science fiction, anime, which stands as a sequel to the original show. The anime was directed and written by the show’s creator Tensai Okamura.

The tenor of the show mirrors the first, in that it sustains a filmic quality in its scope and the narrative structure of a novel. As such this is a show best watched in large chunks. If you’re like me and your attention wanders, then you’re likely to get a little lost watching an episode a week.

The show contains some of the most popular characters from the first series, plus a few new ones. The overall background might be a bit daunting for a first time viewer, so I suggest you check out the first series before embarking on the new one.

Sensibly, the publishers have decided to release a box set of the whole series rather than string the whole thing out over several months. The series is spread across three discs, which sport a very sharp 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen picture, which looks pretty good on the screen.

The discs come with a very reasonable DD 5.1 English dub, as well as the DD 2.0 original Japanese vocal acting and English subtitles.

As befits a higher quality show, there are a couple of good extras, including a full length commentary for episodes four - on the first disc - textless opening and closing sequences on disc two and a commentary for the OVA, included with the series, which takes up the whole of the third disc.

If you looking for an non-stop action adventure, rather than a slow burner science fiction thriller then this is probably not a show for you. That is not to say that the show does not contain a reasonable amount of what is known today as ‘mild peril’ as Hei and Yin try to stay one step in front of the syndicate who wants them very dead.

It’s a more than reasonable package, in these cash strapped times, twelve episodes, plus the four episode OVA and a couple of extras thrown in, add in the quality of the writing and animation and you’re looking at a particularly good package.

8

Charles Packer