D.Gray-Man Hallow is a thirteen episode anime based upon the manga of the same name. Instead of a reboot, Hallow is a continuation of the original anime, adapting the next volumes of the manga, being Vol. 17 to around midway through Vol. 23. In saying that, the voice actors have changed for the characters but they don't seem too out of place or weird. They suit the characters well. The plot revolves around the war between the Millennium Earl and the Noahs, aided by their army of Akuma, against the Black Order who has Exorcists forming the offence. Akuma are demons created by the Millennium Earl using the souls of humans and the only substance that can destroy them is called Innocence.
The same goes for the Noah who can only be hurt by Innocence. They are beings who are reincarnated in each generation, retaining their memories. Despite this, only certain people are able to wield the power of Innocence, which makes it a one-sided battle at times. Hallow starts off strong with a high level recap of the last events in the original anime where the headquarters was destroyed. Allen obtained possession of the Ark, a type of space-warping travel ability, and the Fourteenth Noah appearing from within Allen and threatening to take possession of him forever. The general direction of the plot is that the Millennium Earl seeks to transform Allen fully into the Fourteenth and join his side.
At times, Hallow can get into a messy plot which first involves Yu Kanda's past and his best friend Alma Karma. Despite this, it reveals a lot about Kanda, how he came to be and his unique powers. The reason behind why Kanda and Alma are determined to kill each other is difficult to understand and rationalize for most of the episodes and even when it was finally revealed in full, it can still be vague. The Black Order is portrayed within a grey area, they are revealed to not be totally pure in their crusade against the Noah and Akuma. The Order has their dark side as well with human experimentation and plenty of unlikable characters.
The other characters going against Allen and not understanding what he is doing is frustrating. They continually impede Allen's efforts without understanding the full picture. The last few episodes were fantastic with the plot moving forward much faster. Characters redeem themselves such as Link, as well as more focus on the Noahs Tyki and Road. Since so many new Noahs were introduced in the early episodes, there was little chance for the viewers to see much of the original Noahs from the first season, who are still the more interesting characters and have more of an intriguing relationship with Allen. Hallow had a good ending, opening up new plot points along with some impactful scenes between Allen and Innocence.
The ending throws in a spanner in the works towards your understanding of Innocence and questions whether they are truly as just as you originally thought. With the new season, there were a few things that had changed. The first is that the aesthetics are slightly different, with characters being rounder than the original. There is noticeably more gore with blood spurting out of Akuma whenever they are sliced. Characters are frequently hurt with plenty of blood but even when Allen has all these wounds, he seems to heal really quickly with no reason at all. Hallow reuses some of the music from the first two seasons which is nice as it helps keep the same atmosphere.
Hallow also retains the humor for the less serious scenes and high drama for the emotional scenes. The power levels of standard Akuma enemies are creeping up though such that even Level 4 Akuma is not a problem. It's somewhat annoying given that the Level 4 Akuma at the end of the first season was such a huge deal and gave the characters so much trouble. Despite the uneven pacing at times, which to be fair, is only faithful to the manga, D.Gray-Man Hallow doesn't disappoint. There were plenty of highs throughout the anime and the last scenes were encouraging. It really is such a shame that with the manga's progress being so slow, it will be a while before we get another season of D.Gray-Man.
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