Anime Review Roundup

It's a genuine review roundup this week, although it's not because news doesn't exist out there. I just haven't had the time to read any. But I will make up for it with a bumper selection of reviews, beginning with the big one of the week, Darker Than Black: Volumes 1 & 2. This piece of cyberpunk action is the second of Manga Entertainment's barrels of anime genre fun, following the release of Claymore. Darker Than Black offers a novel twist on the superhero genre, set in an unspecified future where a bizarre event has occurred, sealing off a section of Tokyo behind a gargantuan wall, erasing the night sky and replacing it with unreal stars, and introducing Contractors to the world. Contractors are people who pay a bizarre price for their super-powered abilities, and a super-powered Cold War has erupted in the world, with Contractors from various countries vying for power and position. Darker Than Black concentrates on one such Contractor team, and the first DVD set tells five diverse two-part stories. Read more in my review.











'Once you start down the dark path, forever will it control your destiny, consume you it will' Yeah, but have you seen the dark path? It has attractions like Kekko Kamen on it. This is a whole different breed of superhero. It's set in a school where correction is abusive, degrading, humiliating, and usually involves stripping a student naked and whipping her until her exam grades improve. Now that's what I call a curriculum! But there is one person standing up for student rights, one person who battles the vicious faculty and their GCSEs in S&M, it's Kekko Kamen, super-heroine, who fights in a red mask, red boots, and nothing else. She's a naked avenger who makes certain that the bad guys meet their dooms with smiles on their faces. If you want to learn more about this guilty pleasure, click on the review, just make sure you're not at work when you do.













How deep is your Kyo? It's a question that I have been asking ever since I started reviewing this series, and if I'm brutally honest, it's about as interesting as I found the first volume. Stranger things have happened with second volumes though, and Samurai Deeper Kyo: Volume 2 does take us to the halfway point. Regardless of how it turns out, it's like coasting downhill from here. Stuff happens, and the people with the thing go to the thing and then… take my word for it, it's gripping stuff. Really. No, really. Click my review if you don't believe me.
















That's it for the anime, now for the live action. I told you last week that Ichi was coming out on Blu-ray. It turns out that our very own Si Wooldridge has a shiny hi-tech, wave of the future device that allows him to sample such delights, and he has cast his discerning eye over the Blu-ray disc of Ichi. See if he took to the blind swordsman genre as easily as I did, but make sure to up your screen resolution beforehand. That way you'll be able to read his review in hi-def as well.

















Finally, I wiped the sweat from my brow and posted my review for Dororo. It's the live action adaptation of a forty-year-old Osamu Tezuka manga, and it was even an anime series back when television was black and white. This 2007 live-action feature film updates the story for modern audiences, and adds a smidgen of CGI. A power hungry warlord made a deal with demons for ultimate power, in exchange for his unborn son's body parts. That child was abandoned after birth, but found by a shaman, who created artificial limbs and organs for him to use, and named him Hyakkimaru. Now he's grown up, and hunting the demons to get his original body back. But things get interesting when he meets a thief named Dororo, and they forge an unlikely friendship. Read more by clicking the link.














Manga Entertainment release Darker Than Black: Volumes 1 & 2 on the 31st of August, while Ichi's Blu-ray incarnation comes out today. MVM release both Dororo and Samurai Deeper Kyo on the 7th of September. ADV's Kekko Kamen was released a couple of years ago, and is available from the deepest darkest hell, or a bargain bucket near you.