review

Now here’s an entry to the Profiling section of your brain: White men in white collared shirts wearing suspenders and speaking in Irish brogue. I suggest placing it a bit higher over "Bearded Brown Men in robes."

Of course the people most critical of the English-accented Ishtar would sound like Irishmen. Of course.

It's the big 1-0-0 here on Otaku Evolution, and I wanted to celebrate by reviewing one of my favorite anime movies... that's been talked about to death by everyone else already! Don't be too concerned, though, I'm certain there's some insight in my observations and reactions, and if not, you can at least be entertained by the bookend material! I spent a couple of weeks on that, so give it a shot.

Here's to 100 more! (Hopefully people will actually contribute to my Patreon before that.)

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It seems popular foreign television doesn’t make its way to Ishtar much these days, for Des seems to have only heard OF Get Smart, but has never watched it. Cute cultural gags which are funny in and of itself without one knowing the existence of Get Smart, goes a long way.

So this week is where Noelle gets to hang out with Jack and Rowe again after the events of Episode 7. To the show’s credit, it does not waste any time with having to set up the situation where Noelle escapes her bodyguard’s watch. Right off the opening, Claire has already replaced Noelle, who is supposed to be at Ishtar’s first baseball game. So what wacky adventures do those three have now that the princess-in-waiting’s on the prowl?

It's time to finish the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure OVAs with the one made before the first part of the story! Y-yeah, that's a thing. 1993's OVA picks up where 2000's left off, so I guess they wanted to get to the more interesting portion of the story first when they made this. I dunno, folks, I'd say the giant orangutan whose Stand power was a whole ship and the guy who hopped into reflections was pretty damn interesting already. But this part has Dargy... I mean, Dooley. No, that isn't it. What's his name again? Doggie? Well, it does have A doggie, at least.

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They’re still having that staring contest since the week before last. Man alive…

In a moment of serendipity, it seems that two week gap between this article and the last coincides with the time passed in the show. L/R’s been doing their thing, and Noelle’s been doing her own thing. The thing is, they haven’t doing a thing involving each other since Angel Island. The former has been keeping a guarded distance from her due to the Angel matter, which is unfortunate for the latter who wants to see both of them. You can tell Noelle’s trying her best given the circumstances, but it is also prevalent how she feels like a caged bird given her new status. Interesting, given her more than affable acceptance in the last episode. Maybe she didn’t anticipate it’d be this difficult?

You know, two weeks later, I cannot even remember the why's and how's of the opening sequence I made with the casino. You'd think I'd be building up to some big thing for my 100th episode, but believe me when I say, I have no damn idea what I'm doing for that one. Even so, Darker than Black is a pretty good show, and I enjoyed rewatching it for the same reason I enjoy rewatching stuff like Deadman Wonderland and Tokyo ESP: dumb fun with super powers. It's not some sweeping epic like FMA where the specialty ability folks get some big character arcs and there's a carefully crafted vision, but it's a pleasure to watch nevertheless, even if it isn't as enriching.

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Man, Jack and Rowe must be having a most intense staring contest with one another in that shot.

Jumping into the thick of things, it is up to L/R to continue their mission to find and detain the elusive Angel, who was not Jack’s old flame after all. After some detective work, given the use of old Ivory Island songs, they decide to well… go to Ivory Island. This means we not only see Noelle again, but also get a ground-level view of her island. I guess Ivory Island is supposed to be a takeoff on the hinterlands of the UK, given Ishtar’s propensity to appropriate Anglo-Saxon culture? It makes me wish I knew where Ishtar was on a map since it has already ran the gamut of various geographic locales from mountain ranges, deserts, and now temperate island zones. This all seems very ill-defined and as a result is off-putting, at least to me anyway. Ishtar is such an isolated microcosm.

Talk about your super serial episode here, folks. I think we might be picking things up given the goings on here. Ivory Island is back in the show again, with major terrorist attacks on a mining facility and a major official of the corporation who owns it. Now it’s up to L/R to figure out who this bomb maker is and put a stop to him/her before they destroy their next target.