Zlae
...Aurora Dream...
Hmm, if you want more Heaven's Gate flashbacks, there is something that kind of works for that... not sure how "canon" you can consider it though, but it feels pretty close to real anyways. One of the artists who worked on the anime did a manga that is set one year after the first season of the anime (one year before the second season of the anime), and there are flashbacks in it to the Heaven's Gate war. Of course, the character designs are great, and even their personalities feel really close to the anime, plus some characters from the second season of the anime appear in the extras. It's called
Darker Than Black: Shikkoku no Hana (it's the second manga to be based on the series; the first one was done by someone else and is a shoujo manga with a female main character that ends up getting involved with Hei and contractors and seems like an AU of the first season of the anime).
Heheh, DGM (manga) is awesome! You should catch up! ^_^
(but the first 50 episodes of the anime are mostly filler... that really don't do justice to the characters... like, Allen doesn't realize until later that he actually cares about humans in the manga, but the anime would have you believe he's the typical teamwork-and-my-friends-are-everything main character type... in fact, it's right after the arc that the anime ends at that Allen becomes aware that he's not being as formal and distant in his speech from those he interacts with most, and that this shows he's become closer to them, becoming actual friends with them).
I've read the shoujo one with Kana. It was pretty damn disappointing.
So you recommend the manga more than the anime, then? I've heard that the anime is full of fillers. (But truthfully I don't mind fillers so long as they're funny.)
Darker Than Black: Shikkoku no Hana is complete (4 volumes). It started publishing before the second season of the anime came out, and finished after it came out. It hasn't gotten an English license yet though. And yeah, the first manga was pretty disappointing. So weird to have a shoujo manga based on a seinen series really.
Yes, I definitely recommend the DGM manga over the anime. The only filler in the entire anime that I enjoyed was an episode that centered around the minor character Daisya Barry, since it showed his background which never really came out in the manga and was pretty cool. I dunno, I mean, if the animation quality was better would I have liked it more? Eh, but they really went overboard on the fillers...
The manga really gives the sense that there's a war on, while balancing very dark and serious moments with hilarious humourous ones. I feel like the anime doesn't do that justice at all, taking more of a lighthearted approach to it overall. Plus it leaves the ending open... I guess so they could potentially do more seasons in the future. Ah well, anyways, I'm still trying to catch up on owning all the volumes of the manga in my collection... I'm up to 16 volumes, and there are 21 out in English so far (23 in Japanese).
Edit: Haha, it makes you wonder why I said I'd want more DGM anime in the first place! Well, the second half of the series followed the manga more, and it is always awesome to see a series animated, so if the next season were as good as the last bit of the anime so far, then perhaps it would make up for all the out-of-character fillers of the first 50 episodes.
You know which series has been doing fillers well? Fairy Tail. I've actually been looking forward to filler episodes in that series, 'cause they are fun and in character and something new involving those characters! But then again, Fairy Tail does lend itself very easily to fillers... there's space between arcs which allows fillers to be inserted, and even within arcs themselves... plus the characters have very stereotypical personalities on the surface (with lots of depth underneath), so it's easier to portray them without going out of character.
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