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Reviewed by Charles Webb I'm not completely sure how to react to something like Darker Than Black. Is it like a trailer for the anime or maybe even just for animation studio Bones itself? I certainly didn't react to it as a piece of fiction with characters and a plot that I was supposed to, you know, care about in any way. It's one of those titles that has all the components of big ideas without the benefit of any actual human characters knocking around in its goofy plot. About that plot: well, I'm at a loss, to be honest. There's something called "Hell's Gate" in the middle of Tokyo, and it does something, I'm not entirely sure what. Then there are various factions of "Contractors" - people given super powers in exchange for their emotions - who fight for control of "Hell's Gate," I think. In the midst of all of this is a high school girl named Kana, who becomes part of the bloody story when she spots her presumed-dead father on the street. The book suffers from what I like to call "Equilibrium Syndrome" (ES) which involves a high concept sci-fi piece about people with no emotion acting in wildly emotive ways in the service of a fairly shaky script and unconvincing world. So far, ES has afflicted only two works of which I'm aware, but I'm sure there are more. The emotional component (or lack therof) makes Darker Than Black a tricky read. We're supposed to contrast the normal Kana with Contractor protector Hei, but this just shows how flat Hei is as a character. The lack of emotion is intended to be shown through a lack of expression in the artwork. This too, is problematic in that it makes the Contractor characters very stiff "actors" for the script, relegating them to props in the action scenes. On the plus side, the book is packaged really nicely in one clean, compact volume that contains a little under 400 pages of story. It's slightly oversized when compared to your typical manga volume but this has the benefit of allowing the art on the pages room to breathe. It actually gives the action scenes (one area where the script excels) a widescreen feel, making them feel larger in scope. This serves the artwork of Nokiya well, emphasizing the use of space around the typically spare lines used in the story, giving the action a thematically-appropriate austerity that fits with the clandestine nighttime world of the script. Still, it's unfortunate that there's not a story between these pages that deserves the stellar production values. A review copy of this book was provided by the publisher, Yen Press. You can read more of Charles' work at his blog, Monster In Your Veins. Interested in writing for MangaLife? We're always looking for talented reviewers and columnists, so drop us a line!
Charles Webb
Editor-in-Chief, MangaLife.com
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20 July 2010 19 July 2010
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