[Review copy provided by Central Park Media.]
Detective Asato Tsuzuki is handsome, has an insatiable sweet tooth and consistently exhibits a freewheeling attitude that drives his coworkers nuts.
He’s also deceased.
Tsuzuki is a shinigami — a guardian of death — and, in addition to ushering lost human souls to their judgment, he also investigates crimes committed among the living when it becomes apparent supernatural elements are involved.
Descendants of Darkness is a 13-episode, anime adaptation of Yoko Matsushita‘s Yami no Matsuei manga, which is currently running, as of this writing, in the Japanese, girls’ (shoujo) anthology Hana to Yumi.
The self-contained, three-episode story arc on Vampire’s Lure, the first volume of this U.S. Manga Corps/Central Park Media release, centers on a series of unexplained deaths in Nagasaki that may be of a vampiric nature.
Tsuzuki’s employer, the Ministry of Hades, mandates that field officers work in pairs, but despite the fact that he is capable enough at his job, no one wants to be his partner. Instead of breaking protocol and sending him alone, a 16-year-old, new recruit with heightened empathic abilities is assigned to assist him with this particular investigation.
Hisoka Kurosaki and Tsuzuki’s working relationship gets off to a shaky start — something not helped by the fact that their first meeting takes place at opposite ends of a gun — and is further complicated by the newbie’s tragic past and present unwillingness to work as part of a team.
Going into this DVD, I was a little unsure of what I would be seeing. It turns out Descendants of Darkness has healthy doses of mystery and angst that are unexpectedly balanced by comedy, usually at the lead character’s expense.
Despite — or perhaps, because of — the serious, sometimes gritty nature of their work, the employees at the Ministry of Hades act as if they could be working at any ordinary kind of office. This lends an air of plausibility and grounds the story in a very pleasant and necessary way… especially when you consider the production’s supernatural content and some of its characters — like the Ministry’s twin, birdlike librarians.
Descendants of Darkness wears its shoujo origins proudly, from its pretty boys — whose actions and attitudes, at this point, can be read into as little or as much as viewers desire — to its equal emphasis on plot and character development.
In addition to focusing on present-day, on-screen interactions, the author and screenwriter have invested each of the main characters, thus far, with a sense of history. Hisoka’s past is an obvious example, as it is casts a somber shadow over the opening episodes, but questions remain unanswered about the protagonist and the arch villain: Is Tsuzuki’s likable, happy-go-lucky attitude genuine, or does it mask something greater? This is a man, who also, apparently, died at a young age. And why is Dr. Muraki so obsessed (and not in a good sense) with Tsuzuki?
The mysteries in Descendants of Darkness can be found not only in the cases, but in the characters themselves.
More Info:
DESCENDANTS OF DARKNESS © 2001 Yoko Matsushita HAKUSENSHA/Yami no Matsuei Project. All rights reserved.
Available on bilingual DVD. Distributed in North America by U.S. Manga Corps/Central Park Media.
DESCENDANTS OF DARKNESS: VAMPIRE’S LURE Episodes 1-3 of 13 episodes. Vol. 2: Devil’s Song, Vol. 3: Tarot Curse and Vol. 4: Demon’s Reckoning also available.