Descendants of Darkness Vol. #1: Vampire's Lure

By Chris Beveridge     January 31, 2003
Release Date: January 14, 2003



What They Say
A vampire is on the loose, and it’s up to dashing supernatural detective Tsuzuki to stop her! The Ministry has sent him a new partner, a volatile young man with a mysterious past. Together, they’re on the most dangerous mission of their afterlives!

The Review!
Central Park Media goes for the pretty boy horror show with Descendants of Darkness as well as providing each volume as a complete mini arc from this short series.

Audio:
For our primary viewing session, we listened to this show in its original language of Japanese. The series features a good stereo mix with some nice sounding instances of directionality, but for the most part it’s a full stereo mix that simply fills up both channels with the same sounds. Dialogue is nice and clear and we noted no dropouts or distortions on either track.

Video:
Originally airing during the first half of 2001, the series features some very nice looking late night animation. There’s a few slight instances of cross coloration along some characters during the first episode, but it seems to disappear as the episodes progressed. Some slight chroma noise manifests during some of the Japanese text logo screens with the red against black, but it’s very minimal. Unfortunately, CPM has foregone a second subtitle track, so there are a few instances of hard subtitles here on the print which also suffer from minor cross coloration.

Packaging:
Utilizing part of the first Japanese DVD release, we get the nice sharp artwork of the two lead characters set against the much softer image of a pentagram and a screenshot of one of the villains of the show. The contrast between the two seems to work at first, but after looking more closely at the cover, the meshing of the two really feels uneven. The back cover features a faded facial shot of another of the villains, almost as if set against blinds, next to a summary of the show and a listing of the discs features and technical specs. The reverse side of the cover features some nice close-up artwork of the two leads and one of the villains, filling an entire page, while the other side lists the chapter stops and bilingual voice acting credits and production credits.

Menu:
A rather nice menu, though slightly difficult to navigate, you have the visual of a flaring pentagram with each point being a selection point. With it being angled, sometimes you’re not quite sure which way to go to get to where you want to be, but since it’s much different than most standard CPM menus and doesn’t have much in the way of the show playing in the menu, it stands out nicely against their other menus. Access times are nice and fast and we had no issues moving about.

Extras:
For the opening volume, the extras are fairly weak. There’s a quick section of character profiles and a brief video gallery of artwork that runs under a minute or so. The only other extras are a couple of trailers for the show. With as gorgeous of an ending sequence as this show has with the original manga artwork in color, I really hope we get a textless version of that before the series is finished.

Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
When this show was announced as licensed, a fair number of people that I know were all excited about it. With it’s flair of pretty boys and supernatural powers, it was a real hit with them with the manga and apparently a fairly faithful anime adaptation, though the manga continues to run past the completion of the anime.

Descendants of Darkness opens with a fair amount of information for the viewer to take in, setting up the premise nicely within the first ninety seconds. Within a special building is the Ministry of Hades, a place where they deal with those who have died and passed on. Within the Ministry is the Summons group, often known more casually as the Guardians of Death. These are the folks who investigate people who die by means other than natural. When they die, it can take upwards of two months before their names appear on the Register that keeps track of such things. Often, the delay in time means something far more sinister is going on.

Those working in the Summons group are a serious bunch for the most part, which is contrasted by their best Guardian, a young looking (dead) man named Tsuzuki. Just over seventy years old, Tsuzuki is considered the young man of the bunch but he’s also one of the best operatives they have. Even though he seems flighty and not all that interested in doing much beyond eating sweets and other delectables he comes across. It’s this way of his that has kept him from having a partner for some time.

After a bit of playful chastising by his coworkers, he’s assigned to deal with a case in Nagasaki where they think some sort of vampire is killing people and that he’ll actually get a new partner to help him. The playful banter between the group works well and gives the secondary characters a good feel for what they’re lives are like even though they work in what could potentially be a really dark depressing place. Though the subject matter is grim, it’s treated much like an office job.

In Nagasaki, we follow Tsuzuki as he tries to pinpoint what’s going on, only to come across the vampire much quicker than I would have anticipated. But she’s not the only thing that’s causing trouble there and some careful manipulations allows her to escape but lets the darker power behind the scene to evaluate Tsuzuki. It also lets Tsuzuki’s sixteen-year old (also dead) partner come onto the stage as he tries to finger Tsuzuki as the vampire. A typical way of starting off a new partnership.

The three episodes then progress to move into a familiar anime-detective mode as the two untrusting partners work together to discover what’s going on. Tsuzuki tends to have more faith in Hisoka than the reverse is true, but Tsuzuki’s also had a lot longer time doing this and has a different mind set about it. There’s also the question of that thing that killed Hisoka and allowed him to move into the department, a mystery which thankfully is not spread across the entire series but eerily and disturbingly portrayed here early on. The relationship between these two men is what the opening episodes focus on, in addition to the mystery in Nagasaki.

I didn’t find anything really exceptional about the show, though it was an enjoyable way to pass a late night hour or so. Like most recent shows, the animation is quite good, particularly with the very sharp and vibrant character designs. The show opens with a fair amount of computer generated imagery but also some of the better meshed with animation pieces that I’ve seen in some time, as they masterfully move the camera around to introduce the Ministry of Hades. Visually, this is definitely a nice looking show and the pretty boy factor is not to be overlooked. Those more into that than I will likely get more out of it though.

While style is in the forefront here, there’s definitely substance to it as well. The mystery side of things are played out in a slightly easy fashion, but some of that can be attributed to things such as the Guardian’s being attuned to what they’re searching for and drawing them out to each other, or any number of similar ideas. The mysteries are a part of the show, but not the main draw. The main draw is the relationship between the partners, and it gets a solid test here.

Features
Japanese Language,English Language,English Subtitles,About the Comic,Character Profiles,Art & Sketch Gallery

Review Equipment
Toshiba TW40X81 40" HDTV, Panasonic RP-82 Progressive Scan codefree DVD player, Sony STR-DE835 DD/DTS receiver, Monster component cable and Sony speakers.