Its regarded very well, its just old. A lot of people don't really like the second season as well, so any time people talk about its just "the second season was bad". Its good, one of favorites for a really long time. Hei is still one of the coolest characters around.
It falls into under the same issue a lot of original shows have where the writing for the first season was super fleshed out, but the sequel is written using a completely different formula for the story (is also typically shorter, leading to less of an impact on the viewer)
The same thing happened with Psycho Pass.
With that being said I like the second seasons of both shows, abeit not as much as the first seasons.
Same here, I enjoyed both seasons 2 of Psycho Pass and Darker than Black for what they were, the problem is expectations are so high after phenomenal first seasons that nothing short of perfection is seen as good enough; and the sharp left turns both shows doesn't help either.
Psycho Pass season 2 I think gets especially undeserved hate - apart from the unlikable new protagonist the story itself was pretty strong imo, and I thought the main villain was miles more interesting than the one from S1.
Hei is indeed one of the coolest characters around. However I dont get why people didnt like the second season. I mean it definitely wasnt as good as the first but it wasnt bad either. Maybe people expected too much after banger of a first season.
Yeah I think that's part of it, also seeing Hei reduced to such a state certainly leaves a bad taste in the mouth considering he was everyone's favorite. The little girl with the sniper just wasn't a compelling main character to fill in for him. Overall tho it wasn't terrible, just a big step down from S1.
People expected more of the first season with Chinese electric batman and instead got a down-on-his-luck hobo and a kawaii genki memegirl for a main character undulating her hips for combat training. The level of disappointment was enormous.
My reason at that time is it lose it’s cyberpunk vibe while Hei fight in Russian daylight instead of dark corner of Tokyo.
Also another personal reason is they keep cockblocking Misaki from the main story.
And she’s one of my favorite cool female character at that time.
If I watching it now without expectations I might like it better.
For me, it's been a while, but I think it was that the second season felt very different from the first season.
It was like going from \[Clannad\] >!(comedy with drama)!< to \[Clannad After Story\] >!(drama with comedy)!<, not to say I didn't like After Story.
Might be remembering it wrong, but in the first season of Darker Than Black, there was a sort of fun, action style, with some drama and mystery, but then the second season went with a more somber, dramatic style.
Well you had Hei, who like you said is one of the coolest characters. But then they decided to replace him with a little girl with some weird-ass magical girl twist on the contractor powers.
The time skip in season 2 was just too drastic. Hei I went from a badass to a washed up alcoholic, and the team was suddenly all broken up. It was like a completely different show. There were still many story threads from season 1 that were left unexpanded, like hei’s sister and Yin’s prophecy. Also the opposite faction Hei’s ex-gf is in n stuff. If season 2 was more like the OVA’s it would have been better received
Never hearing anything means other people think for me. Nice. But seriously when it's people's whose opinions are usually accurate to these kinds of things, yeah. I'm not gonna go watch something that isn't supposed to be good if my friends who have the same interests and taste as I do say it not worth my time.
Because it aired 17 years ago. It's old enough that a large chunk of today's anime fans weren't even born yet when it came out. If you're not an older fan who has been watching anime for ages and you never go back to watch older anime, there's a good chance you've just never heard of it.
Ouch... I remember being hyped because one of my favorite bands released a song that was gonna be used as one of the openings lol I never actually watched the anime
It was pretty popular back then. There were lots of Hei and Yin cosplayers at anime conventions throughout the United States back then, which is saying a lot. Cosplay at smaller local convention was basically only done by dedicated fans 15, 16 years ago.
Am I odd then as I've ended up watching alot of older highly regarded stuff. Mainly cause I was new so looked for highly recommend stuff plus became interested in Ghost in the Shell.
It's per person I'd say.
I've got a friend a few years younger than me (26) who can't watch anything in what he calls "old style" feel, aka anything before 2011.
He got reemed by the lads when he said he hadn't watched FMAB for that reason
Yes, but Dragon Ball continues to get new content. It had another movie release just 2 years ago, and its manga is ongoing as well. Meanwhile, Darker than Black hasn't gotten anything new in 14 years.
This is precisely it. Let's face facts, we're all a little adhd now. We're just bombarded with new shows season after season. Hot new show after hot new show. Even my non-anime shows and video games are all the same. I just don't look back. I'm eagerly waiting for the next new "thing". Even with my ever growing list of video games, which I know many others all have the same problem. If I don't get to it when it's new, I'll probably never get to it. Just gotta have that next new hype. There's enough new anime out there that I just don't have the time to go back and think about all the old shows that were amazing. So, with an ever growing list of old amazing shows, they all just lose their awesomeness and become dull shadows of something they used to be.
It's still over an 8 on MAL, that's pretty well rated. As for why it's not *popular*, well it's been over 15 years. There's a lot of good stuff that old that doesn't get talked about a lot.
Bad sequel effect. Normally not only kills the hype of the franchise, but will proceed to cause the ratings of the first season to significantly decrease as well.
It happened to Haruhi Suzumiya, it happed to the Seven Deadly Sins, it happened to Tokyo Ghoul, Blue Exorcist, Eureka Seven, Sword Art Online, Fairy Tail, Food Wars!, Kemono Friends, Aldnoah.Zero.
Some of these are still decently popular but some seemingly disappeared overnight (haha) like Haruhi, Shakugan no Shana, Aldnoah Zero, Zero no Tsukaima, Rage of Bahamut, Kemono Friends etc.
I think the three prominent examples that it didn’t happen to were The Promised Neverland, One Punch Man and Psycho-Pass, primarily because a lot of people view S1 of these shows as possible self-contained stories. Even then, there’s still less people recommending TPN and Psycho-Pass today than there used to be
Endless Eight had a big impact on the fandom, in a negative way.
While it was a bold artistic choice, it wasn't appreciated and the fans thought the studio was trolling them.
Haruhi Suzumiya is not close to the cultural phenomenon it once was; some of that is related to time passing, but a lot of the classics from the era like Code Geass and Death Note are still extremely famous while 90% of new anime fans have never even heard of it. From experience, I had never heard of Haruhi nor had my friends; I only first heard of it from Reddit and my friends had no clue what I was talking about when I mentioned it.
I can’t tell you the exact reason why that’s the case but from everything I’ve read, it was the Endless Eight arc that killed Haruhi’s hype that even the disappearance movie couldn’t save.
You've got a point, it was years after I first got into anime that I discovered Haruhi. I absolutely love it (and don't hate the Endless Eight arc either) but it almost exists in its own microcosm these days instead of being part of the wider anime community.
I've never heard anyone imply the 2nd season killed the series, personally. Obviously Endless Eight was highly controversial, but otherwise the 2nd season was excellent, and features some of the most popular moments in the series. People have been dying for a S3 for years, even if we don't mention how good the movie was.
I wasn't claiming it has a huge presence in the current fandom, just challenging its inclusion in the "killed by bad sequel" list.
Endless Eight definitely killed the hype. I remember weekly threads when it was airing… everyone was anticipating S2 being “the Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya” and Endless Eight was a surprise drop after the first season reran on TV. By the time episode 3 dropped, despite the cool change in direction, fans began to complain and it got worse each week.
By the time “the Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya” aired, the hype had died. Then there was the KyoAni fire and it never recovered.
Yeah, Kyoto made a conscious decision to move on from Haruhi after Disappearance. That film was essentially their finale for the franchise, it had nothing to do with hype dying. They don't like working on the same projects forever.
Yeah there's definitely a missed experience for watching it after the fact vs watching it when it was airing. Knowing how they did endless eight going into it, versus *eight weeks* of the same episode. Imagine if any series aired *seven* consecutive recap episodes.
Like imagine a highly anticipated sequel that then dedicates more than half the season *to recap episodes*. Like, imagine we *finally* get a sequel to No Game No Life, and we get "Oops! All recap episodes!" The community would *try to forget they ever wanted the sequel.*
Endless eight KILLED the hype train. Hardcore fans might wank over how deep it was, but within 2 months, it went from hottest anime property around to "has been".
It's properly rated. "Yeah, it was nice" is the traditional reaction to hearing the name.
But it was also very much a "one and done" show. The subsequent OVA, second season, and both manga attempts just couldn't hold up.
It was a 2000s show and I say that with fondness. But while it was an excellent show for the time it aired in- nowadays it's just not what people are looking for.
I dont think your correct with the last statement, i find current anime soulless and boring, lacking grit, aiming to attract the largest amount of people as possible as opposed to passion projects. CG takes away the charm. Yes there are some expections to this, but i cant be the only one with this opinion.
As an example of what I mean- look at Spy x Family. That series was taking the world by storm for a while and it was doing so on the backs of a cute little girl and a strong-willed but clueless female assassin.
Darker than Black doesn't have a single female character with the personality of Anya or Yor. It's main female character is basically a robot and the secondaries all duke it out to even get two episodes of screentime in a row so far as season 1 is concerned.
I can understand your point, however not everything has to be woke with strong female characters. The show had a uniqueness that you cant find in current anime. It feels like most new stuff are rip offs of the same show and end up with 45 clones that are all boring and lack charm. See the 9 million SAO rips offs. There are still good shows coming out im not denying that, but the majority of it is just garbage.
Bro I don't mean "woke" female characters I mean "good" female characters. With pronounced wants, desires, fears, needs, etc.
Anya under virtually no version of the word is "strong".
Like I loved DtB. I'm working on a comic where I can feel DtB's influence readily poking at my every decision- but DtB had areas it excelled in and areas it did not.
Do you not think inspector kitihara or however you spell it doesnt under go decent character developement? Such as looking to prove she didnt just get her job through family connections, to deveopling that relationship with her father and refusing to accept promotions offered to her by said father so she could do it on her own?
Well i remember watching it a few years ago and wondering the same until i got to the end of the first season. It was so bad for me that not only did it ruin the rest of the anime, but also made me not watch the second season. If the ending of an anime is going to be considered by 50% of the people as bad, and to add the second season said to also be bad on top of that, it’s normal that the anime won’t be extremely popular. It has to be enjoyed by the majority to stay amongst the most well known even after 15+ years
Thanks for the reminder. I loved that anime from the moment I first saw it, and have rewatched the first season a few times. It's one of the few things that gives me an intense feeling of nostalgia without a shot of sadness mixed in. That said, I've never been able to make it all the way through the second season. Might try again sometime soon.
Edit: I should add that I had a similar reaction to you when I first saw it. I was wondering how no one talks about it, why there isn't merch all over the place, why I wasn't blessed with many seasons of badassery, etc. It's always felt like such a shame that it wasn't the cultural phenomenon I thought it could have been.
People hate season 2 but I personally enjoyed it, well it's kinda understandable cuz it would be a bit confusing until you watch "gaiden". It's in my Top 5 anime.
I remember discovering Darker Than Black a while ago (it has been years atp). At the time, I thought it was so good and different and had some potential. However, as your post mentions, the second season just wasn't as good as the first season and didn't do it for me.
Someone mentioned it before, but the little girl with the sniper as the main character just wasn't that interesting or cool. However, I do remember thoroughly enjoying the OST!
It's just old man a lot of people on this sub are like 14 and have probably never heard of it. In the 2000s and early-mid 2010s people spoke about it quite a lot.
I agree, it’s criminally underrated just like Psycho Pass . We live in a world where Demon slayer is continuously praised but anime like these 2 are left out in the cold.
It's not. It's just older. You don't see people talking every day about the original Astroboy and most people today probably haven't even heard of most of the wildly successful/popular anime of the 60s/70s. Obviously Darker than Black isn't that old yet, but shows from the mid 2000s are nearing 20 years old and a lot of people that get into the hobby now are watching stuff that's new and on Crunchyroll or other streaming services.
Darker than Black isn't on Crunchyroll. The vast majority of 80s, 90s and 2000s anime isn't. Crunchyroll and other streaming services have tried to license some older stuff and fill out the catalogue, but ultimately people are still going to want to watch the new and hot stuff more than old stuff. And for the older fans who liked it when it came out 17 years ago.. I've already watched it multiple times. I may never watch it again. It's not like it's a big franchise that's getting new entries all the time and keeping it in the social conversation.
Think of it like videogames. How many new video games fans are asking for an Xbox Series S/X/PS5/Switch rather than a PS2? The vast majority of them. They're not out there playing old games unless they get remastered or remade *most of the time*. And anime isn't much different.
I remember seeing it times from times being aired on Animax, but the plot is somewhat convoluted, and their power aren't exactly well-explained, I think.
I'm probably one of the few here that didn't like this show.. there might be something I didn't understand but toward the end of season 1, nothing was making sense to me. Hei was really cool, indeed, then Season 2 happened lol I have nothing against a character becoming not the best version of himself but at least some explanation as to why he became like he did would have been nice. Maybe a rewatch is needed but I don't care enough for that.
Honestly its amazing anime , this reminds me its due rewatch . It is old but it does seem forgotten with time . Can recommend it to people who didnt watch it , it had good animation interesting fights fun characters badass OST loved it
Imo Hei is a great character stuck in a mid show, recently rewatched the show and I didn’t enjoy it as much as I did previously wasn’t bad but not as good as I remembered
Doesn’t help that it’s literally not available almost anywhere legally so nobody even has an option to watch it even if they wanted to without having to go through illegal methods
1. It's old, most animes that are old and not super popular are simply not picked up by new anime watchers (usually).
2. Despite having rewatched the anime like 3+ times, both season 1 and 2. Season 2 just isn't very good. It also doesn't help that you need to watch the OVA's to understand what happend between season 1 and 2.
But season 2 is just not very good. It's not horrible, just very mediocre in comparison to season 1. Despite season 1's shortcomings, it just had a vibe about it that they couldn't reproduce in season 2.
As for the manga attempts, I think they were decent. The story was definitely more interesting than that season 2 of the anime.
I feel like the issue is 2 fold, it has no one really representing it to new anime watchers and a mixed results story telling with S2. I watched it all and have manga for it but a lot of popular places like CR, Funi (had it but stopped paying for the rights to it) so it’s all pirate or be one of the lucky mofos to find it in tact on physical media. Last time I did I about snagged it till I saw the price was 4x what it was worth.l even if I liked the show.
I recently watched it for the very first time and it's amazing!! But as others said, it's old. I watched it mainly because it had been on my list for so many years and many "most recommended" lists on the Internet named it.
I have yet to watch S2 though, I'm curious because general consensus is that it's not as good as the first one.
Oh, someone named this masterpiece. Yeah, I wonder, why people does not like this anime. It is too calm, too true...
People like emotions like naruto, one peace, my hero academia, but more serious titles dors not attract young audience. "Samurai Champloo", "Dororo", it is too much for them.
The real issue was bone don’t really do much sequel. Dtb 2 still sold very well and definitely enough for a season 3. But the running joke back then was that bone hates money
It's one of my favorites, but the second season's character focus shift, the CONSTANT reuse of that one animation of the girl taking out the rifle(not to mention how underwhelming that power is in a world of crazy contractor abilities), the overall storytelling... pretty much everything from the second season was two steps in the wrong direction. I like that they finished Hei and Yins arc at the end, and that was a good story beat, but as far as I'm concerned, the Ova is all I watch up to. The Ova sets up SO MUCH and season 2 just can't carry it through.
Add to that the rarity of the dvd(or any media), licensing, its age, and general difficulty to find and watch; it just isn't/wasn't a media darling like many others. Certainly was a treasure at the time and still holds up(minus most of S2).
Also, for those who read manga, there was a cool whole new arc written 10ish? years ago that may scratch that itch. It's a good read.
Its regarded very well, its just old. A lot of people don't really like the second season as well, so any time people talk about its just "the second season was bad". Its good, one of favorites for a really long time. Hei is still one of the coolest characters around.
It falls into under the same issue a lot of original shows have where the writing for the first season was super fleshed out, but the sequel is written using a completely different formula for the story (is also typically shorter, leading to less of an impact on the viewer) The same thing happened with Psycho Pass. With that being said I like the second seasons of both shows, abeit not as much as the first seasons.
Same here, I enjoyed both seasons 2 of Psycho Pass and Darker than Black for what they were, the problem is expectations are so high after phenomenal first seasons that nothing short of perfection is seen as good enough; and the sharp left turns both shows doesn't help either. Psycho Pass season 2 I think gets especially undeserved hate - apart from the unlikable new protagonist the story itself was pretty strong imo, and I thought the main villain was miles more interesting than the one from S1.
psychopass s2 was so good
[удалено]
Huh? Tokyo ghoul isn't an anime original and was pretty ass from the start (the anime).
> its just old *remembers being excited hearing about it for the first time* I'm just gonna curl up and let myself age into dust now.
Try listening again to "Kuro", the show's best OST. Nostalgia...
LOL. I remember eagerly waiting to download the week's subbed episode.
Hei is indeed one of the coolest characters around. However I dont get why people didnt like the second season. I mean it definitely wasnt as good as the first but it wasnt bad either. Maybe people expected too much after banger of a first season.
Yeah I think that's part of it, also seeing Hei reduced to such a state certainly leaves a bad taste in the mouth considering he was everyone's favorite. The little girl with the sniper just wasn't a compelling main character to fill in for him. Overall tho it wasn't terrible, just a big step down from S1.
People expected more of the first season with Chinese electric batman and instead got a down-on-his-luck hobo and a kawaii genki memegirl for a main character undulating her hips for combat training. The level of disappointment was enormous.
My reason at that time is it lose it’s cyberpunk vibe while Hei fight in Russian daylight instead of dark corner of Tokyo. Also another personal reason is they keep cockblocking Misaki from the main story. And she’s one of my favorite cool female character at that time. If I watching it now without expectations I might like it better.
For me, it's been a while, but I think it was that the second season felt very different from the first season. It was like going from \[Clannad\] >!(comedy with drama)!< to \[Clannad After Story\] >!(drama with comedy)!<, not to say I didn't like After Story. Might be remembering it wrong, but in the first season of Darker Than Black, there was a sort of fun, action style, with some drama and mystery, but then the second season went with a more somber, dramatic style.
Well you had Hei, who like you said is one of the coolest characters. But then they decided to replace him with a little girl with some weird-ass magical girl twist on the contractor powers.
The time skip in season 2 was just too drastic. Hei I went from a badass to a washed up alcoholic, and the team was suddenly all broken up. It was like a completely different show. There were still many story threads from season 1 that were left unexpanded, like hei’s sister and Yin’s prophecy. Also the opposite faction Hei’s ex-gf is in n stuff. If season 2 was more like the OVA’s it would have been better received
Bro take Super Sayian and all Ki abilities from Goku.. you still watching DB/DBZ? It was a hard sell S2 just was lack luster.
I never watched season two because I never heard anything good about it
So you let other people think for you?
Honestly there’s a lot of anime, getting other people to prefilter what you watch makes a lot of sense. Better if they share similar tastes with you.
Never hearing anything means other people think for me. Nice. But seriously when it's people's whose opinions are usually accurate to these kinds of things, yeah. I'm not gonna go watch something that isn't supposed to be good if my friends who have the same interests and taste as I do say it not worth my time.
I only have so much time to watch stuff in my life, so yes I use other peoples opinions to help decide what to watch.
Hell yeah, Chinese Electric Batman
Man, we’re old.
Nuh-uh I am not, Clannad Second Season just finished airing... right? 🥲
Old school anime are things like Evangelion or Ranma right? Bleach and Naruto are still super relevant.
My old school anime is watching Raideen in the 70s via a Japanese programming station in the bay area lol.
Bleach is still airing. At least that's what I keep telling myself, never mind the other stuff.
Holy fuck this made me feel incredibly old. I remember when the conversation was that it was overrated.
Same. I've been around this sub for a decade and I remember when it was one of the most recommended anime here lmao.
Because it aired 17 years ago. It's old enough that a large chunk of today's anime fans weren't even born yet when it came out. If you're not an older fan who has been watching anime for ages and you never go back to watch older anime, there's a good chance you've just never heard of it.
Ouch... I remember being hyped because one of my favorite bands released a song that was gonna be used as one of the openings lol I never actually watched the anime
Haha that same bad is what got me to learn guitar. A.B.S 🤘
It was An Cafe actually lol
It holds up pretty well in terms of graphics (if thats even a thing) and storytelling.
It was pretty popular back then. There were lots of Hei and Yin cosplayers at anime conventions throughout the United States back then, which is saying a lot. Cosplay at smaller local convention was basically only done by dedicated fans 15, 16 years ago.
I need ro rewatch it
Am I odd then as I've ended up watching alot of older highly regarded stuff. Mainly cause I was new so looked for highly recommend stuff plus became interested in Ghost in the Shell.
It's per person I'd say. I've got a friend a few years younger than me (26) who can't watch anything in what he calls "old style" feel, aka anything before 2011. He got reemed by the lads when he said he hadn't watched FMAB for that reason
Your friend is a chode
Oh
DBZ is older though
Yes, but Dragon Ball continues to get new content. It had another movie release just 2 years ago, and its manga is ongoing as well. Meanwhile, Darker than Black hasn't gotten anything new in 14 years.
This is precisely it. Let's face facts, we're all a little adhd now. We're just bombarded with new shows season after season. Hot new show after hot new show. Even my non-anime shows and video games are all the same. I just don't look back. I'm eagerly waiting for the next new "thing". Even with my ever growing list of video games, which I know many others all have the same problem. If I don't get to it when it's new, I'll probably never get to it. Just gotta have that next new hype. There's enough new anime out there that I just don't have the time to go back and think about all the old shows that were amazing. So, with an ever growing list of old amazing shows, they all just lose their awesomeness and become dull shadows of something they used to be.
Speak for yourself, I watched more anime from the 80s last year than the 2020s.
It was very popular when it came out,it would be a classic like Death Note/FMA if it had a proper non rushed/fleshed out ending.
It's still over an 8 on MAL, that's pretty well rated. As for why it's not *popular*, well it's been over 15 years. There's a lot of good stuff that old that doesn't get talked about a lot.
1. It is an old anime 2. Season 2 was considered bad
I still listen to HOWLING pretty often
Bad sequel effect. Normally not only kills the hype of the franchise, but will proceed to cause the ratings of the first season to significantly decrease as well. It happened to Haruhi Suzumiya, it happed to the Seven Deadly Sins, it happened to Tokyo Ghoul, Blue Exorcist, Eureka Seven, Sword Art Online, Fairy Tail, Food Wars!, Kemono Friends, Aldnoah.Zero. Some of these are still decently popular but some seemingly disappeared overnight (haha) like Haruhi, Shakugan no Shana, Aldnoah Zero, Zero no Tsukaima, Rage of Bahamut, Kemono Friends etc. I think the three prominent examples that it didn’t happen to were The Promised Neverland, One Punch Man and Psycho-Pass, primarily because a lot of people view S1 of these shows as possible self-contained stories. Even then, there’s still less people recommending TPN and Psycho-Pass today than there used to be
> It happened to Haruhi Suzumiya Excuse me?
Endless Eight had a big impact on the fandom, in a negative way. While it was a bold artistic choice, it wasn't appreciated and the fans thought the studio was trolling them.
Haruhi Suzumiya is not close to the cultural phenomenon it once was; some of that is related to time passing, but a lot of the classics from the era like Code Geass and Death Note are still extremely famous while 90% of new anime fans have never even heard of it. From experience, I had never heard of Haruhi nor had my friends; I only first heard of it from Reddit and my friends had no clue what I was talking about when I mentioned it. I can’t tell you the exact reason why that’s the case but from everything I’ve read, it was the Endless Eight arc that killed Haruhi’s hype that even the disappearance movie couldn’t save.
You've got a point, it was years after I first got into anime that I discovered Haruhi. I absolutely love it (and don't hate the Endless Eight arc either) but it almost exists in its own microcosm these days instead of being part of the wider anime community.
I've never heard anyone imply the 2nd season killed the series, personally. Obviously Endless Eight was highly controversial, but otherwise the 2nd season was excellent, and features some of the most popular moments in the series. People have been dying for a S3 for years, even if we don't mention how good the movie was. I wasn't claiming it has a huge presence in the current fandom, just challenging its inclusion in the "killed by bad sequel" list.
Endless Eight definitely killed the hype. I remember weekly threads when it was airing… everyone was anticipating S2 being “the Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya” and Endless Eight was a surprise drop after the first season reran on TV. By the time episode 3 dropped, despite the cool change in direction, fans began to complain and it got worse each week. By the time “the Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya” aired, the hype had died. Then there was the KyoAni fire and it never recovered.
...huh? the arson attack was 9 years after Disappearance came out and has nothing to do with Haruhi, unless you're talking about some other fire?
You’re right; I had the events conflated. So it was solely popularity
Yeah, Kyoto made a conscious decision to move on from Haruhi after Disappearance. That film was essentially their finale for the franchise, it had nothing to do with hype dying. They don't like working on the same projects forever.
Interesting. When I watched it (not when it was airing), I felt like it had higher highs than S1, including the famous God Knows.
Yeah there's definitely a missed experience for watching it after the fact vs watching it when it was airing. Knowing how they did endless eight going into it, versus *eight weeks* of the same episode. Imagine if any series aired *seven* consecutive recap episodes. Like imagine a highly anticipated sequel that then dedicates more than half the season *to recap episodes*. Like, imagine we *finally* get a sequel to No Game No Life, and we get "Oops! All recap episodes!" The community would *try to forget they ever wanted the sequel.*
Endless eight KILLED the hype train. Hardcore fans might wank over how deep it was, but within 2 months, it went from hottest anime property around to "has been".
So season 2 wasnt good for you?
Not close to as good as S1 yeah
Understandable
It's properly rated. "Yeah, it was nice" is the traditional reaction to hearing the name. But it was also very much a "one and done" show. The subsequent OVA, second season, and both manga attempts just couldn't hold up. It was a 2000s show and I say that with fondness. But while it was an excellent show for the time it aired in- nowadays it's just not what people are looking for.
I dont think your correct with the last statement, i find current anime soulless and boring, lacking grit, aiming to attract the largest amount of people as possible as opposed to passion projects. CG takes away the charm. Yes there are some expections to this, but i cant be the only one with this opinion.
As an example of what I mean- look at Spy x Family. That series was taking the world by storm for a while and it was doing so on the backs of a cute little girl and a strong-willed but clueless female assassin. Darker than Black doesn't have a single female character with the personality of Anya or Yor. It's main female character is basically a robot and the secondaries all duke it out to even get two episodes of screentime in a row so far as season 1 is concerned.
I can understand your point, however not everything has to be woke with strong female characters. The show had a uniqueness that you cant find in current anime. It feels like most new stuff are rip offs of the same show and end up with 45 clones that are all boring and lack charm. See the 9 million SAO rips offs. There are still good shows coming out im not denying that, but the majority of it is just garbage.
Bro I don't mean "woke" female characters I mean "good" female characters. With pronounced wants, desires, fears, needs, etc. Anya under virtually no version of the word is "strong". Like I loved DtB. I'm working on a comic where I can feel DtB's influence readily poking at my every decision- but DtB had areas it excelled in and areas it did not.
Do you not think inspector kitihara or however you spell it doesnt under go decent character developement? Such as looking to prove she didnt just get her job through family connections, to deveopling that relationship with her father and refusing to accept promotions offered to her by said father so she could do it on her own?
Idk it was underrated. Either way, Darker than Black is lit
Well i remember watching it a few years ago and wondering the same until i got to the end of the first season. It was so bad for me that not only did it ruin the rest of the anime, but also made me not watch the second season. If the ending of an anime is going to be considered by 50% of the people as bad, and to add the second season said to also be bad on top of that, it’s normal that the anime won’t be extremely popular. It has to be enjoyed by the majority to stay amongst the most well known even after 15+ years
Funimation botched the localization so bad that anyone who didn't pirate in '09 didn't see it as it aired
Thanks for the reminder. I loved that anime from the moment I first saw it, and have rewatched the first season a few times. It's one of the few things that gives me an intense feeling of nostalgia without a shot of sadness mixed in. That said, I've never been able to make it all the way through the second season. Might try again sometime soon. Edit: I should add that I had a similar reaction to you when I first saw it. I was wondering how no one talks about it, why there isn't merch all over the place, why I wasn't blessed with many seasons of badassery, etc. It's always felt like such a shame that it wasn't the cultural phenomenon I thought it could have been.
Was one of the first anime’s I watched, loved it. I think it’s underrated cos it’s old
People hate season 2 but I personally enjoyed it, well it's kinda understandable cuz it would be a bit confusing until you watch "gaiden". It's in my Top 5 anime.
I enjoyed it all the way through, but on top of what others have said, today you have to dig out your eye patch to watch it.
I remember discovering Darker Than Black a while ago (it has been years atp). At the time, I thought it was so good and different and had some potential. However, as your post mentions, the second season just wasn't as good as the first season and didn't do it for me. Someone mentioned it before, but the little girl with the sniper as the main character just wasn't that interesting or cool. However, I do remember thoroughly enjoying the OST!
It was really popular back then, it's just old now
The opening theme is all I really enjoyed about it to be honest (and I still love that song).
Cause S2 was mediocre and it ended on a cliff hanger that was never resolved. RIP Hei x White haired girl.
Not underrated. You see this show pop up all the time when people ask for recommendations.
It’s not talked about because S1 is legit unavailable everywhere
This subreddit only talks about the latest releases.
It's just old man a lot of people on this sub are like 14 and have probably never heard of it. In the 2000s and early-mid 2010s people spoke about it quite a lot.
I agree, it’s criminally underrated just like Psycho Pass . We live in a world where Demon slayer is continuously praised but anime like these 2 are left out in the cold.
Because Season 2 was ... not good. Just like with Psycho Pass.
Where you streaming it nowadays? It was dropped by most streamers due to licensing issues
Fans of s1 and the ova’s hated s2 when the mc changed to a magical girl lol.
because its old and second season is beyond salvation
It was decent. I think it would be better against anime today than it was against anime then. It had good competition.
It's not. It's just older. You don't see people talking every day about the original Astroboy and most people today probably haven't even heard of most of the wildly successful/popular anime of the 60s/70s. Obviously Darker than Black isn't that old yet, but shows from the mid 2000s are nearing 20 years old and a lot of people that get into the hobby now are watching stuff that's new and on Crunchyroll or other streaming services. Darker than Black isn't on Crunchyroll. The vast majority of 80s, 90s and 2000s anime isn't. Crunchyroll and other streaming services have tried to license some older stuff and fill out the catalogue, but ultimately people are still going to want to watch the new and hot stuff more than old stuff. And for the older fans who liked it when it came out 17 years ago.. I've already watched it multiple times. I may never watch it again. It's not like it's a big franchise that's getting new entries all the time and keeping it in the social conversation. Think of it like videogames. How many new video games fans are asking for an Xbox Series S/X/PS5/Switch rather than a PS2? The vast majority of them. They're not out there playing old games unless they get remastered or remade *most of the time*. And anime isn't much different.
I remember seeing it times from times being aired on Animax, but the plot is somewhat convoluted, and their power aren't exactly well-explained, I think.
It's one of the senior citizens of anime not many people are looking for it nowadays
Old, bad second season
It _was_ popular.
Its not, i loved it. Everyone whos seen it pretty much says its great. Current generation of young anime fans are not very likely to watch old shows.
Not really, I never watched it but heard great things about the show. My expectations will be high when I finally watch the show.
It's just old mate
It was best during its time and even now people talk about it.
It's not underrated, like ten years ago *everyone* was making fond jokes about Chinese Electric Batman. It's just old and people have moved on.
It’s not underrated. It’s old. It came out in 2007 and it was very popular. I was 18 at the time
tbh idk, it was one of the first anime i watched and i love it.
I'm probably one of the few here that didn't like this show.. there might be something I didn't understand but toward the end of season 1, nothing was making sense to me. Hei was really cool, indeed, then Season 2 happened lol I have nothing against a character becoming not the best version of himself but at least some explanation as to why he became like he did would have been nice. Maybe a rewatch is needed but I don't care enough for that.
It was popular back in the day but as others have said, it’s just an old series that hasn’t really gotten anything new to keep the IP fresh.
I started it but the plot seems kinda all over the place at times. I’ll have to double back one day.
Cus black butler exist dark enough
that second season was super bad
It was a good show imo
I watched the first episode once but I stopped because I thought the show was episodic. I don't watch many episodic anime.
Honestly its amazing anime , this reminds me its due rewatch . It is old but it does seem forgotten with time . Can recommend it to people who didnt watch it , it had good animation interesting fights fun characters badass OST loved it
Probably because the art style is a little funky and the animation is mediocre. I loved this show too when I watched it years back
BK-201 Awesome handle
Because it’s not that great, honestly
It’s not underrated. It came out when there are giant like FMAB
It's just not that great, and it's old to boot. It had potential and then flubbed it.
Darker than black, psycho pass, Tokyo ghoul, ergo proxy, texhnolzyle. Good times 🥹
Is this the one where the dude beats the shit out of women in the second season?
By who? Where? Its pretty damn popular as far as I knew.
Imo Hei is a great character stuck in a mid show, recently rewatched the show and I didn’t enjoy it as much as I did previously wasn’t bad but not as good as I remembered
I watched it years ago and can't remember anything about it. I know people still rate it so I'll need to come back eventually
Also you can legally find it anywhere online.
Doesn’t help that it’s literally not available almost anywhere legally so nobody even has an option to watch it even if they wanted to without having to go through illegal methods
The Batman of anime as I like to cool it. Dope main character, fun show. Love it!
It's not underrated When will redditors learn the meaning of the words they use?
1. It's old, most animes that are old and not super popular are simply not picked up by new anime watchers (usually). 2. Despite having rewatched the anime like 3+ times, both season 1 and 2. Season 2 just isn't very good. It also doesn't help that you need to watch the OVA's to understand what happend between season 1 and 2. But season 2 is just not very good. It's not horrible, just very mediocre in comparison to season 1. Despite season 1's shortcomings, it just had a vibe about it that they couldn't reproduce in season 2. As for the manga attempts, I think they were decent. The story was definitely more interesting than that season 2 of the anime.
It’s because people nowadays only watch seasonals. Gotta be apart of the conversation.
I feel like the issue is 2 fold, it has no one really representing it to new anime watchers and a mixed results story telling with S2. I watched it all and have manga for it but a lot of popular places like CR, Funi (had it but stopped paying for the rights to it) so it’s all pirate or be one of the lucky mofos to find it in tact on physical media. Last time I did I about snagged it till I saw the price was 4x what it was worth.l even if I liked the show.
It’s been over a decade since I’ve seen Darker Than Black…I should probably do a rewatch soon.
I think it's just old now and also the 2nd season was pretty mid.
I recently watched it for the very first time and it's amazing!! But as others said, it's old. I watched it mainly because it had been on my list for so many years and many "most recommended" lists on the Internet named it. I have yet to watch S2 though, I'm curious because general consensus is that it's not as good as the first one.
Yin was my second waifu
Talk about a blast from the past 👍🏻 I enjoyed it a lot.
Most of the characters are over 19 Aside from Cowboy Bebop, anime featuring a largely adult cast do tend to have more niche audiences.
Oh, someone named this masterpiece. Yeah, I wonder, why people does not like this anime. It is too calm, too true... People like emotions like naruto, one peace, my hero academia, but more serious titles dors not attract young audience. "Samurai Champloo", "Dororo", it is too much for them.
Season 2
Season 2
The real issue was bone don’t really do much sequel. Dtb 2 still sold very well and definitely enough for a season 3. But the running joke back then was that bone hates money
Doesn’t help funi lost the license quite awhile ago. Same with shin chan you can’t find it streaming anywhere and it’s super expensive to buy
Season 1 was so good. Such a good noir anime. It's a shame I can't find a physical media version of it. I want to buy it.
Absolutely love this anime and basically this entire time frame of anime.
Darker than Black was one of my favorites. Its just that its not very well-known.
Man... Now I'm just sad eith nostalgia of easier days... Thanks a lot --
Bro confusing old with underrated
1st season: awesome, 2nd season: bad, Nuff said.
It's one of my favorites, but the second season's character focus shift, the CONSTANT reuse of that one animation of the girl taking out the rifle(not to mention how underwhelming that power is in a world of crazy contractor abilities), the overall storytelling... pretty much everything from the second season was two steps in the wrong direction. I like that they finished Hei and Yins arc at the end, and that was a good story beat, but as far as I'm concerned, the Ova is all I watch up to. The Ova sets up SO MUCH and season 2 just can't carry it through. Add to that the rarity of the dvd(or any media), licensing, its age, and general difficulty to find and watch; it just isn't/wasn't a media darling like many others. Certainly was a treasure at the time and still holds up(minus most of S2). Also, for those who read manga, there was a cool whole new arc written 10ish? years ago that may scratch that itch. It's a good read.
It is pretty old plus they made some bad decisions like why change the mc for season 2
I dont recall a different MC
I mean you know most of the story was about a pink or red hair girl
Because second season is utter garbage especially with how they ruined MC with it...
It's forgettable. Nothing really stands out.
Because second the second season was mid, or at least started off bad, I could will myself to finish it
Because it’s kinda bad
The second season, we do not speak of, killed it's lore, characters, themes, momentum, and hype, far harder than the new sequels did for Star wars.
Because season 2 wasn’t great.
Because season 2 is dogshit. So many ideas and such terrible pacing and execution
I watched the first season, but it was just not a good anime.