Name(s): D.Gray-man / D. Gray-man / D. Grey-man / ディー・グレイマン
Format: TV series (103 episodes)
Release Date(s): October 3, 2006 – September 30, 2008
Studio(s): TMS Entertainment
Related: D.Gray-man Hallow (2016)

A huge waste of potential, both in regards to original story concepts and TMS Entertainment’s adaptation, but D.Gray-man isn’t without its charms. The initial balancing of occult science, fantasy, adventure, and humor reminded me a ton of the original Fullmetal Alchemist (FMA) anime. It’s not nearly as good as FMA in any of those aspects, but the mixture is balanced in a similar way.

Though this has misfires in its storyline, the biggest issue is actually its presentation. This is a really shoddy animation job. Far from the worst I’ve seen, but considering just how bad anime can get that’s not exactly a compliment. Having a lot of action scenes makes D.Gray-man‘s choppy choreography much more harmful.

To begin with, a long flaw of this series is the premise of the fights to begin with. Characters go far too long without any antagonists that are actually part of the overall storyline, basically killing mobs of identical monsters. That’s bad enough on its own for not drumming up interest in the conflict and being repetitive, but what’s worse is that most of these monsters can only fight using energy blasts. So instead of seeing action scenes where two characters transfer energy between their bodies as they move and connect with their limbs, you often see a monster shoot a laser that misses, then the good guys use some huge attack that just slices through a bunch of them at once and makes them explode. It’s incredibly uninteresting to watch because it’s such an impersonal exchange.

Even working with that limited material, the anime always takes easy ways out such as cutting right at the moment of impact in order to not have to animate their body reacting to the energy of the attack. Another constant technique is the overuse of zoomed-in frames in order to not have to draw more detailed scenes. Going back to the base material, even when the fights start to have proper set-up with real characters and stakes, there’s still the problem of these battles almost always being exchange of energy blasts with little ingenuity in how the fights progress. Given that the action scenes only have movement to rely on, then, TMS Entertainment’s lousy job of conveying that movement ensures that none of these action scenes ever take off emotionally.

The animation problems aren’t exclusive to the action either, of course. One hilariously bad issue that kept popping up was inappropriate scale between the backgrounds and foregrounded characters. There’s literally a scene (and many like it) where Allen is shown sleeping on the floor of a cottage and the table behind him is fit for a fucking giant, towering over him.

Many characters are used poorly or have unclear arcs. A particularly bothersome part to me was Lavi and Bookman, who are supposed to have some sort of conflict as they’re meant to be outside observers to record history but Lavi keeps getting personally invested in fighting the Akuma. This is brought up completely arbitrarily even though they’re inherently on the side of The Order, always, and Bookman commits the exact same actions he accuses Lavi of. It makes zero sense in its inconsistency, and it’s not a very sensible concept either. Why the hell would Lavi and Bookman, or anyone, want to hold onto some ideals of being a neutral party in the war that threatens to exterminate their entire fucking race? It’s stupid, and every attempt at drama with this is irritating.

Allen’s training arc after the halfway point of the series is way, way too long and the Crown Clown design is incredibly awkward and unwieldy. This also does a classic shonen trope I don’t like of demonstrating threats with raw numbers. Every Akuma is assigned a number rank, and instead of just showing us their power in battle they first just have to flaunt that they have a higher number than other Akuma and are therefore something to be feared, which is pointless and lazy hype-building. The power creep is pretty lousy too, with characters being completely bodied by Akuma that they’re destroying by the hundreds later for no adequate reason.

Kaoru Wada‘s score is one of the better parts of the show, dramatic orchestration that suits the Gothic fantasy vibe of the series. Initially, that is. When the series moves on into darker, more violent territory that undertone of whimsy in the music that reminded that this was still a kid-friendly shonen anime despite the dark overtone the music starts to sound out of place. There’s also the predictable issue of there not being enough tracks to sustain 103 episodes. You’ll be hearing the same cues a lot.

In regards to plot, D.Gray-man has a lot of potential with its dedicated religious themes and some unsuccessful attempts at ambiguous good and evil, but it never really does anything impressive with either. A lot of the religious iconography is arbitrarily chosen and doesn’t comment on its inspirational source in any way. The series also has a huge problem with setting countless things up that it either never pays off or pays off far too late. Mysteries are piled upon mysteries but without enough context where they’d make any sense in order to inspire intrigue in the viewer. New terms and references to past relationships are dropped constantly but never elaborated on enough.

The world of D.Gray-man and its cast grows far too rapidly instead of taking the time to explore each new element. A particularly horrible part of the show is teasing a major character’s appearance as coming soon for over 50 fucking episodes. Waiting for something major to happen in the plot can be brutal considering how many hints are dropped only for nothing to happen, and then when it does that moment also becomes obsessed with getting past itself as quick as possible and setting up more things that won’t ever be addressed thoroughly or in due time.

The D.Gray-man manga might sustain itself despite its flaws through the impeccable artwork and implied tone, but as those things are mishandled in this adaptation it just becomes a mediocre, easy-to-watch action/adventure show with some ideas to like about it but never any to be drawn in by. I didn’t hate this series. In fact, it almost felt quaint to be watching this, as if it were a show I’d have liked in my childhood, but regardless it’s borderline comfort food for me at its best.

I can’t recommend this to anyone, including shonen fans. There’s too many better anime out there, TMS Entertainment didn’t do a good enough job for anything here to deserve to be seen animated, and you can get anything promising out of the show by reading the manga which also has a far superior presentation. Don’t spend your time watching 103 episodes, just read the fucking manga. This gets almost nothing out of its animated format.