Anime Review: D.Gray-Man

Just like most anime, D.Gray-Man started out as a manga which was featured in Shonen Jump back in 2004, the series is still ongoing and is up to about 157 chapters. With that many chapters, you could compare it to anime such as Bleach and Naturo. Two years after the series was first published as a manga, it was made into an anime series which is still on the air today.

At first glances its somewhat hard to tell, but the story is based on a fictional Earth, near the end of the 19th century. In fact, in the first episode you will notice police officers in 19th century clothing, it reminded me of how Full Metal Alchemist handled its setting. D.Gray-Man pretty much follows the adventures of a boy named Allen Walker, who is part of a secret group called The Black Order.

The Black Order, whose mission is to stop a creature with the potential power to cleanse the Earth of all humans, named The Millennium Earl. The group is also known to be a group of exorcists with special abilities that involve using fragments of a weapon that was created to fight Earl. Around 109 fragments of this weapon was scattered around the world, and a select few have been chosen to use this divine substance.

Your probably wondering whats so hardcore about Earl, and what his powers are right? Well, to be honest he tricks people that have lost a loved one into giving him that persons soul, and that "Akuma" has to do as he tells them. This includes killing their loved ones and so on, as you will see in the first episode of the anime.

Akuma's must use a persons body to blend in with human society, and they use their body parts to create projectiles. If hit with one of these projectiles the person or persons turn to dust pretty much, due to the Akuma's blood.

So as you can see the storyline to D.Gray-Man is very interesting, and very Sci-Fi in nature. I would like to also add that this storyline is very original in many ways, but at first glance some of the evil characters look just a bit silly or cartoonish. For those of you that already know of this anime, just consider this a review, but for those of you that are new to it, just consider it a sneak-peek.

I would imagine that pretty soon D.Gray-Man could come to the United States and be aired on Adult Swim, thats just a guess though. The animation is just great in every way, and the voice actors did a very good job in the Japanese version. One thing that I have to mention is that the first opening song to D.Gray-Man is very good and fits the storyline well, I found myself watching it over and over again.

However, the ending theme wasn't so great but I'll let that slide. If your a fan of Sci-Fi themed anime and love a good story, D.Gray-Man might be the right one for you, I give it two thumbs up!