D.Gray-Man is an anime based on the manga series. The first season, also known as the 1st Stage, is comprised of 51 episodes. The anime is set in alternate 19th century, with a heavy English / Victorian influence on the infrastructure. A huge chunk of the anime actually takes place across Europe. We’re introduced to Allen Walker, who has a curious ability.
The first episode pretty much just explains the concept of the anime. There are demons roaming around, also known as akuma. They are formed when someone who has experienced with great loss and is currently despairing when they are approached by the Millennium Earl. He offers to bring back their loved one and if they accept, their loved one’s soul is bought back… only to be placed into a machine that then kills the one who called to them and use their body as a disguise.
The akuma’s goal is to kill as many people as they can, in order to evolve and gain additional powers. Their designs are unique and suitably evil and creepy. The only thing that can harm an akuma is Innocence, which is described as pieces of artifacts that was scattered all over the world due to Noah’s flood. The anime has heavy religious influences where it twists the events, from Noah to god to apostles.
Allen finds himself joining the Black Order, a secret organization that seeks out Innocence and uses it to destroy the akuma. Innocence is fashioned into weapons, and only certain people can wield Innocence. As a result, these are known as Accommodators, and are more widely known as Exorcists. Allen himself has a few additional abilities as not only is his Innocence weapon embedded within his left arm, but his left eye is able to see through the disguise of an akuma and into the soul that powers them. Allen’s arm can transform and is quite versatile.
The first season is a very slow pace as Allen takes on the duty as an Exorcist. He gets used to life in the Black Order, including its collection of odd characters. However, he also creates several long-lasting friendships including Lenalee, Lavi and Kanda. Many episodes are dedicated to having Allen being sent around the world in order to investigate unusual occurrences. These weird happenings may indicate that Innocence is the cause. What usually happens is that Allen will face off against akuma, which means that we get to see a lot of varied abilities, both from the akuma and from the Exorcists who partner up with Allen.
Despite having a solid start, the pacing completely stalls around two-fifths of the way in where it ends up being filled with tons of filler. We get too many repetitive moments of the characters fighting akuma and obtaining Innocence, despite other characters telling us at the same time how rare Innocence is. All this ends up making several episodes feel inconsequential. There is filler that clashes with the tone of the anime as well. Considering how the beginning of the season started off being as quite dark and depressing, there are some episodes where it is too positive and makes the akuma’s nature contradictory to everything that we were told of. There are a lot of scenes where it feels as if it is trying to drag it out for much longer than necessary in order to stretch out another episode.
However, rather than a simple good versus evil story, it tries to spice it up by providing backstories to the situation behind a lot of the akumas’ appearances. It even tries to get you to sympathize with their plight, even if they are destined to be destroyed by the main characters. The anime can touch on heavier themes, such as how Allen has it easy being able to see the akuma hiding in plain other. Although he then experiences how others feel, having to live in constant alert for fear of everyone around them being akuma in disguise, giving it a whole other feeling. Pretty much all the main characters have tragic backstories, although the amount of world building and lore is fairly deep and interesting.
The Millennium Earl is the main antagonist and the one pulling all the strings in the background. While he has a simplistic chubby design and is always smiling, he is the villain for a reason. He’s the one taking advantage of those grieving in order to create more akuma to do his bidding and quite simply, he is pure evil incarnate. On close up shots, where more details comes out, he can look very menacing. The Clan of Noah will soon become an important part of the story. They are allied with the Millennium Earl and their plans seem to be the destruction of humankind. The Noah’s usually have some of the best design and powers, and adds even more allure to their mystique.
The anime has a mix of humor and seriousness. When it gets serious, it goes deep with its foreshadowing and crazy developments. However, there are a lot of times where it goes hard on the humor. Thankfully, the humor is pretty good although there are some cheesiness and melodramatic drama such as calling out attacks, or cliched comebacks. Granted, the world is big but considering how many akuma are appearing in every episode, how they appear in broad daylight and are not scared to show themselves, it is surprising that they have managed to avoid mass recognition.
The season ends with the group making their first headway into something that they had started midway through the season. It was a slog to even get to this point with the same types of events repeatedly happening. It’s really annoying when the characters spend the whole season using their Innocence weapon in one specific way, and then magically at the end, it has a “Level 2 Release” to power it up as if they always had the ability. No explanation is given and that makes their first usage really weak, leaving you wondering why they didn’t just use it earlier.
Overall, D.Gray-Man has a good concept; the first season is just completely butchered and inundated with the sheer amount of filler material. It is no exaggeration to consider that the overwhelming majority, as in 80%, of the episodes are filler and has no meaningful impact to the progression of the protagonists’ goals. For this reason, it is hard to recommend the first season, and the anime in general, which is a shame considering the second season is much better.
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