Review: Descendants of Darkness (Anime)
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Synopsis:
Descendants of Darkness that follows four shinigamis (Angels of Death), two in particular (Tsuzuki & Hisoka). During the 13 episode run there are four story arcs that play out of a few episodes each and a consistent villian makes an appearance or has influence in each. The angels of death are the dead who roam the earth guiding lost souls. The pair must deal with vampires, demonic posession and more. |
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Review:
Let me say that I thoroughly enjoyed Descendants of Darkness and I would highly recommend it to any anime fan that enjoys shonen-ai or boys love romances and a mix of the supernatural. Personally, I am not a huge fan of paranormal storylines but it in no way hindered my enjoyment of the show. The setup of four story with a tie-in villian set up over 13 episodes was interesting and made the show easier to watch in pieces (if you wish) because you see the beginning and ending to a particular situation within 3-4 episodes. However, this anime did have a few problems that are worth mentioning. First is one that many short animes have issues with and that is leaving a cliffhanger ending, or delving into important story elements too quickly with the viewer wondering where something came from. Most of these types of series are pulled from longer running manga and they want to take an event or battle that occurs late in the manga and use it to end their anime. Though I do not know if the events at the end of The Descendants of Darkness anime occur in the manga, it certainly feels like that is what they attempted to do. The first three stories show the main villian playing in the background of what happens. By the fourth battle he has changed drastically and presents a significantly more menancing and intense threat. The battle resolves way too quickly and introduces new characters that are there and gone in a flash. The other issue is a pretty strange decision on the part of the writers/producers over what they wished to portray in this anime. The love between Tsuzuki and Hisoka is mostly hidden and only hinted at obscurely. However, there is a flowery and disturbing scene in which Hisoka was raped by the main villian. The anime dances around the issue of two men being interested in each other but then depicts a violent rape. What were they trying to accomplish with this? Despite these problems this is a quick and interesting anime for beginner yaoi fans and for fans of shonen-ai anime. Descendants of Darkness is a story that hints at a romance between the two main, and male, shinigamis. This is an anime for fans of the supernatural and yaoi style friendship turned romance like FAKE. |