Looking for a Blu-ray full of unique characters, great story with an animation and design style any animation fan, not just anime, will love? Get ready for D.Gray-Man, Season 1, Part 1 Blu-ray from FUNimation. The PlayStation 3 is more than a gaming machine. For many owners it’s their one and only Blu-ray player as well as a full online enabled machine with Netflix, Facebook and more. FUNimation has fully embraced this with a large lineup of Blu-ray titles as well as plenty of downloads in the PlayStation Store. It’s with these thoughts in mind that we bring you a look at some of the top level titles to hit Blu-ray from FUNimation and why gamers should take note, so legs get to it.
The Story – Allen Walker is an Exorcist, a human blessed/cursed with the power to control and use innocence. As a member of the Black Order its Allen’s and other exorcist job to hunt down and destroy Akuma, creatures created by the Millennium Earl, who prey on human pain. Those suffering as sought out and their pain is corrupted as they are turned into monsters to serve the Earl as he searches for the limited number of innocence in the world. To what ends the Earl hunts for these fragments is unknown but Allen is determined to stop him.
The Design & Animation – The characters are unique and very well designed, a design established in the manga and carried over to the anime. The settings are altered European and both dark and moody. The animation is fast paced and only slows to get into key story points. For those new to anime the quality of the characters and design is unique and not cookie-cutter. This is also the case for the animation style and quality. D.Gray-Man is a longer running series, over 30 episodes, yet it carries a quality of much shorter series where production cost is not as high.
Why Gamers Should Care – The story is deeper than explained above and laced with humor and a cast of characters well beyond just Allen. The cast is worthy of an RPG and gamers can just feel how perfect an RPG or fighting game these folks would make … even an adventure game. The design and animation is very unique even in the anime world and carries a dark moody style that gamers should just dig.
Overall, both anime and gaming fans will find a Blu-ray that delivers top quality animation, design and characters wrapped in a full body, deep, story that keeps the action coming. The voice work is also solid with some anime vets on board that gamers will recognize also. Fans of the manga need not worry, you will enjoy the series and with so many Blu-ray now to choose from D.Gray-Man is one series worth picking up in a very crowded field.
