D-Gray Man

Quick & Dirty
Language: Japanese
Initial Interest: High
Favorite Character: Allen?
Opinion: Good
Likely to Finish: Yes


Synopsis
Allen Walker, a young man with a cursed eye, lives to destroy a weapon known as Akuma. These weapons created by the Milleneum Earl are sent out by his command to purge the world from humans. Allen Walker uses an anti-akuma weapon, Innocence, to counter the Earl's attempts at destroying humanity. He travels to the Black Order by his mentor's directions. There he meets with others who also fight against the Milleneum Earl's plans. But more questions start to appear as Allen and his friends move further along to reach their goal. And these questions that seem to connect to Allen's past. (Source: Anime News Network)


Pre-Viewing Thoughts
I started reading the D-Gray Man manga at some point because I seemed to be hearing the name thrown around a lot for a while and one of my friends really seemed to like it so I was curious. I was mildly interested but didn’t get terribly far and now have no idea where I was. All the same I think I’d rather the anime. In general I prefer anime to manga because it has color and moves. There are exceptions of course – I’d rather read Fruits Basket than watch it (because it’s finished mostly) and DNAngel is mostly better in manga form… But overall the color and movement that manga lacks adds something very important. For some series this is doubly so. Any series with lots of action really needs to be animated because it is easier to grasp the flow of the action. This is where I think D-Gray Man falls. I don’t remember a whole lot about the series from the little bit of manga I read. I remember he fought demons (it says “Akuma” in the description up there, which is a Japanese word for demon). I do remember at least one sequence where someone was wounded and possibly killed by a demon, that I didn’t even realize was targeting them. Another thing the anime can add to this particular series is that it’ll pin down Allen’s age a little more solidly. I don’t remember if they said how old he was in the manga, but I remember he struck me as seeming really young to be a powerful demon-slayer journeying on his own, and that bothered me.
I picked D-Gray Man now because while I had previously forgotten about it, some cosplayers I ran into recently reminded me that it existed. I liked their costumes and they seemed like fun people so I became curious about this series they were so enamored with. My friend says it’s good but it doesn’t really pick up till around episode 13 so that’ll be incentive to finish it if I like it at all.
Overall, I’m extremely curious about the series.


Favorite Character
I put Allen down as my favorite character above…but that’s really a default answer. I don’t feel like I’ve had enough time, in 5 episodes of this series, to get to know anybody enough to really like any of them. For the most part the only characters we get any kind of feel for in the first 5 are Allen and Kanda, and Kanda was a complete jerk for most of his screen time. Thus Allen wins by default. I imagine I could grow to really like Allen, or perhaps another character, with more episodes and exposure.


Overall Opinion
Based on the first 5 episodes this series strikes me as somewhat amazing. I can see why it became popular for a time. I really want to watch the rest of this series, even if it is over 100 episodes long. And I get why it’s so long too, as I said, I didn’t get much feel for any of the characters in the first 5 episodes. That’s sort of rare really, usually in 5 episodes you have a pretty good grasp of who some of the characters are. Maybe it’s just me, who knows. I like the plot, it seems to strive for a lot of emotion and I think it will be able to achieve it. There are many things I want to learn in the future, like what happened to curse Allen and why Kanda is such a jerk, because I can tell there’s a reason beyond ‘he just is’.
I said above that I thought the anime would help D-Gray Man a lot for me and I was right. Allen still seems young, but not as young as I remember him seeming in the manga. The action was easy to follow. And the thing I think really makes the anime necessary here is the mood. Almost the entirety of these 5 episodes took place at night, which makes sense in a story about soul enslaving demon monsters bent on destroying the world. But in a manga everything is white and that just doesn’t set the same mood.
I really recommend giving this one a try if you haven’t already. It has an interesting premise and characters that promise something in the future.


Next Official Review: Up for suggestion. Please someone suggest something.
Gunslinger Girl if not otherwise suggested.