For instance, Nov 11, who was one of my favorite characters - after learning of his death you will notice him very quiet and resolved in the background of many scenes throughout that episode. Whereas in a less mature series they would prolly have you dive into his head turn the background black and have like a 10 minute dialog on how sad he is. Yet instead, if you can pay attention well enough to everything going on, you will catch a number of things.

I also believe you can’t judge a character in DtB until you have seen their entire role in the series from start to finish. Nov 11 didn’t start as one of my favorites, but when he died he became one right at his exit from the series. The same goes for Yin, Huang, Mao, Hei, Pai, Amber, etc. Consequently, DtB has a load of rewatch value just so you can catch, or experience each individual character’s development in the series.

Usually an anime will focus on different characters by giving a long back story on them or devoting an entire arc to them. However, at the end of their backstory or arc they have little to no character development until the end of the series or their death, or the third option in many never ending anime…they never have development again cause the anime never ends. What I found most beautiful about DtB was that even in each character’s back story/arc other characters developed alongside them and continued their development if you paid attention.

“And I don’t know why people are complaining, Kaiji is the sexiest moe character since Madarame in Genshiken.”

LOL! See, this is why comments are important people (zaitcev); commenters are funny.

@ :l

This whole thing is basically just a bunch of random crap awards that we made up - with one serious one stuck onto the end of each post.

@ Kurogane

OK, here ya go - Day 5.5: DORAMA

And yeah, Kaiji’s no Akagi; that’s for sure. It’s still plenty of fun, though.

School Days, to an extent has been the show in 2007 with the most impact, for those who have watched it, and it really did change on how I view romance/harem shows now. I guess it did start with Kaede going psycho in Shuffle, but SD had totally brought it up to a new level.

Kaiji is also a good show, but it does lack impact compared to Akagi.

Baccano!… still halfway through it. It’s not too much my taste actually.

As for DtB…. I could never really connect properly to it, despite many people labeling it as good. Perhaps it’s because I prefer to focus on fewer characters, so DtB’s 2-episodic formula didn’t give me enough time to get attached to many of the side ones. That being said, I still love Yin’s character, but perhaps it’s because I actually wanted to see more of her and some of the other “main” characters is why I really couldn’t get attached to this show.

and… hurray for COOL and SPICY! XD

Interesting, it’s not often that I’ve found myself in disagreement with your opinion.

Again, I think many people get sidetracked (or maybe it’s that they don’t get sidetracked enough) in getting caught up in the so-called “main plot”, which is very loosely held together and not developed very well, thus missing the underlying thematic stories that Darker than Black is trying to tell throughout each of the 2-episode arcs. That’s the real narrative, but it’s one that’s easy to miss exactly because DtB doesn’t forcefeed you everything.

It’s like playing a RPG in order to do all the sidequests and discover all the secret stories and areas rather than focusing on the primary plot.

@ blue

I think part of the reason more people are into Baccano is because the narrative structure can be kind of hard to follow, with all the different story threads.

@ Sylon Beta

Ahh, you’re probably thinking of this boat from episode two where the yakuza are taking Hayate away.

@ A Transfer

School Days is rather overrated, in my opinion. It’s mainly notable only for the Nice Boat thing and the bloody final episode. Baccano, on the other hand, is an excellent choice for a new anime to check out.

@ CCY

Ahhh yes, GARmbling, I love that term.

As for what Shugo Chara is doing in the “Drama” section, it’s partly because we needed more random awards to fill space in this post, and partly because the so-called “categories” are pretty loose, mainly pertaining only to the final award in the post.

@ /lol/

Oh, what’s this? I’ve just been handed an envelope for a previously unannounced award. Uhhh, let’s see… oh, it says, uh, “Best Snakes on Train Award goes to Baccano”? Well, there you have it.

@ Jayme

Well, like everything we say here, it’s just our opinion and nothing more. Darker than Black perhaps requires a certain type of personality to really enjoy, because it’s very philosophical and tries to deal with lots of delicate thematic ideas. You have to have a certain appreciation for that kind of stuff, and be willing to think a little bit and engage with the dialogue the series develops.

In that sense it’s a difficult series because it’s not one that you can just sit back and enjoy mindlessly, like many other shows. Of course those are important too, but it’s also nice to see something like DtB that gets you thinking.