When introspect made that observation about Darker than Black being the spiritual successor to Cowboy Bebop, he knew what he was talking about. Come on, I can hear the purists say, there’s no way you can match that. I clearly beg to differ. Tensai Okamura, original creator and director of DtB, had quite a hand in CB, being involved in both the TV series and movie. There’s the composer for both, Yoko Kanno. Most of all, DtB and CB share a potent sense of pathos.

DtB overtakes this by a mile, and then some. It’s never really quite clear why or how it makes me feel the way I do, but it’s something that can’t be described through mere words alone — a common understanding is all I can hope to achieve. Whether it’s the harsh green of the cityscape, lights gleaming coldly in the distance, or the sense of immeasurable pain that Hei’s holding back, or the little revelations that made me gasp in silence before biting my lip, it’s all there, and it’s been a gut-wrenching affair.

As some of you might now know (if you didn’t already), I’m a Darker than Black fanboy. It’s all about Hei and the extent of adoration that heterosexual males like myself can profess without veering into dangerous territory, which means that I think that posts like these are lame. I prefer rational discussions rather than brilliant diatribes myself, though (for an example of the latter, check out Randall’s posts here and here regarding the fiasco surrounding Kodomo no Jikan), so here’s my case on why I vehemently disagree.

By the way, TJ Han showed me something he wrote almost a year ago that’s similar in subject and invited me to link to and laugh at it, but the only thing I found hilarious were the mismatched pictures, and I wish he could write like that more often, because it was awesome surreal humour that’s so unlike the more reserved tone he’s been taking on recently, and would also resemble Kyoya acting like Tamaki all of a sudden.

This has been a week of surprises. Claymore 03 was great, and I guess I shouldn’t have compared Clare to good ol’ Abel Nightroad back then, but hindsight is 20/20. So Abel was an all-or-nothing guy who wasn’t in any real danger throughout because he was only using 40% of his power whenever he got his ass kicked, and when he wasn’t kicking ass with 80% nanomachines he was getting killed.

I kinda wish every anime blogger out there did this, and not the usual “oh, the pilot sucked, that must mean the whole series must automatically suck, too! opinions! words! el oh el!” that accompanies the beginning of every season*. Snap judgements — I don’t know why we even bother with them, really. The whole point of first impressions would be to get a general feel of the show, not the next 12 or 25 episodes that are going to air, but that’s why lolikit’s contemplating doing a Shinji right now by running away on us. Bastard.

Claymore’s apparently scheduled for 50 episodes, and I’m torn on whether to follow something that doesn’t suck in theory, but doesn’t really do anything for me either, in practice. I’ve heard that it gets better as the manga goes on, but fifty? With a chance that it might get better because they didn’t want to get you into the plot at the very beginning? It’s a pity, but I guess it can’t be helped given the number of volumes they’ve got to adapt.

An issue I have with Claymore is that it reeks of a certain vampire anime some time ago, that had a major failure of an ending due to the writer of the light novels dying, God bless his soul — the medieval setting only makes it worse because while the amalgam of steampunk and post-apocalypse tech in Trinity Blood was at least made refreshing since there was a power balance, medieval just cries out SHOUNEN DYNAMICS due to the sole dependence on physical power, which means a lot of fighting, losing, training, and then winning before losing again to a new challenger. Rinse, repeat.

…your latest gift to mankind, and we thank you. The episode’s moment came for me when Hei confronted Rui on the rooftop during the opening sequence — post-rock, in my anime soundtracks? You’ve come so far since your early days, and while Solid State Society was only last year, oh boy. Have we missed you.

I’ve always been a fanboy. Always, and almost all of it — The Vision of Escaflowne’s majestic classical compositions; Cowboy Bebop’s flightly jazz; GITS:SAC’s dystopian electronica; Wolf Rain’s melancholy acoustics. It was like the music drove the series to excellence, not merely supported it. Or maybe she’s been approached by more discerning studios who knows just what it is that their anime needs (definitely not Yuki “My-Compositions-All-Sound-Alike” Kajiura). I’d like to think she has a waiting list and that she can actually pick and choose, because I can’t picture her doing harem or slice of life.