Related Titles: Yami no Matsuei (manga)

Alternate Title: Descendant of the Dark | Descendants of Darkness
Genre: Supernatural | Comedy | Drama | Horror | Occult | Shounen-Ai (hints) | Yaoi (hints) | Fantasy
Companies: ???
American Licensing Company: Central Park Media
Format: 13 episodes (25 minutes each)
Dates: 10/02/2000 to 06/24/2001
Original Creator: Yoko Matsushita
Age Rating: Not suitable for young children; 15-18 and up

Synopsis: Even after death, life is full of paperwork and criminals. Tsuzuki Asato is a 26 year old, happy-go-lucky, laid back, and dorky shinigami (god of death) that makes sure that those who are dead remain dead and are where they are supposed to be. Even though he's been doing this job for over 70 years, he has the worst division and pay. He has a knack for not keeping partners, but now he seems to have a more stubborn one, the smart mouthed, very serious, and defensive 16 year old Kurosaki Hisoka. With each case the two solve, they come closer to the conspiracies of the serial killer Dr. Muraki Kazutaka. Muraki commits crimes just to torment gentle Tsuzuki. Tsuzuki is becoming closer with his fellow comrades, especially with Hisoka. But there is a dark past to how Tsuzuki died... and it is the key to why he works as a shinigami.

SCORE: 94%

I love this series! It slowly (but surely), became my favorite! It's my baby! ^_^

Plot: This anime is pretty interesting, in the way how there are always 3 episode story arcs (except the last, which is 4). It's an awesome blend of shounen-ai angst, horror and supernatural powers. If you don't like shounen-ai, at last give the series a little chance. It's a powerful story which is very character driven, regardless of if it is a shounen-ai or not.

Tsuzuki is the greatest of dorks as always (He still reminds me of Trigun's Vash! ^_^), and Hisoka is still his great grumpy self. And, Muraki is as creepy as ever. All the other characters are great, but I was disappointed to see some hilarious characters get cut from the anime version of this story. I miss the hilarious Yuma and Saya!

I was a little disappointed to not see more of the humor this series originally had in the manga, but with only 13 episodes, what else could be done? Thankfully, the writers wrote excellent character driven arcs that were powerfully entertaining. This series should have been longer (and it's noticeable how things got chopped in arcs, especially in the first arc, with drastic scene changes), and I'd love to see a sequel of any sort!

Even with all these problems, the series was very good! This anime stands on its own, seperate from the manga, but not so different that the story had been drastically changed or the characters shown to act differently. I liked the ending, but it left possiblities I wish I could see resolved! Especially when it comes to just what kind of relationship Tsuzuki and Hisoka have with each other!

Visual: The animation was excellent! A bit of the CGI however, did not blend well, but I liked it anyway! The character designs were faithful to the manga, but had a nice look of their own, that was also different from the manga. Gore was great! Tragic, horribly disturbing and graphic scences were beautifully, hauntingly rendered. The entire show had a wonderful dark atmosphere to it, but also a nice unearthly, hauntingly beautiful feel when the characters were in Meifuu (Afterlife World). The colors weren't overbearing, but bright and vibrant, which is interesting for a horror themed anime like this. ^_^

Some of the most interesting animation and color schemes I've ever seen have come from the anime. I mean afterall...blue blood...*grins*.

Some recapping was done, usually for filling in the viewers about the previous episode, but there was also a bit more than that. However, it didn't run rampant over the series, and overdone, so I can't complain.

Sound: Noises were pretty common and not extraordinary.

The music is either to love or to hate. It takes awhile to get use to the opening and closing themes, which are performed by some kind of J-Rock band that...has a leader singer...who sings...uh...very interesting. I don't despise the themes, but they took some getting use to, to become an acquired taste. The soundtrack itself tends to be a little overbearing sometimes (not annoying, just overpowering the dialogue of characters), but the violin music for the Devil's Thrill Arc was excellent and most of the soundtrack was good. Some very beautiful music was almost hidden in this soundtrack that should be listened to. Alot of them are Engrish, but are really pretty and haunting, nontheless.

The voice acting was excellent! I haven't heard such anguished, beautiful voice acting for quite some time. Tsuzuki and Hisoka were so powerfully performed! You could just feel their emotions, and especially their pain. Beautiful!

The Dub: I received my Yami no Matsuei boxset, on July 12, 2003! I watched all the dub in one day. LOL, it was like the music of the series; half good, half bad. Some acting was genuinely awesome, while the other half wanted to make me hurl. The performances of Tsuzuki and Hisoka were good, and became better as the series went. I was impressed with Hisoka's voice actor; he started out making Hisoka almost unemotional and monotone, but by the time the story was really becoming emotional strung (especially at the end), he was really good! And he screams well! So, the voice actors on a whole improved; either that, or I got use to them. ^_^ But, I don't think so. I'll say one thing though; after hearing Hisoka's English voice (which I found to be too old sounding at first), when I went back to the Japanese, I realized just how feminie Hisoka's orignal voice was! I always knew his voice was done by a woman, (but I never thought he sounded like one) but I never thought he sounded girly. It really stuck out to me.

Muraki's voice sounded like a nasal half-nerd; but I did find I liked it better as I watched. It was a strange fit, but somehow worked for the most part, and the voice actor was...hee hee, right into the creepiness and inneudos. Nice voice acting in bringing out a genuine creep.

Man...I was looking for Barry White behind the tv when I heard the first Guoshounin! That voice actor had a deep voice that sounded a lot like Barry. (Aww, sadly Barry White died this past July 4th. Gonna miss that man).

Tatsumi's voice was really good, but I thought it would have been more...well, more mature sounding than Tsuzuki's. Their voices sounded like about the same maturity level. Same for Oriya. Oriya sounded like an average guy, even a teenager. And his acting kinda sucked too. It really sounded like he didn't know shit about the character he was voicing (which was probably the case).

Watari's voice was unforgivable. Even if the actor was going for making a fake accent to make an "English Kansai" accent (since Watari grew up in Osaka), it sounded really bad. His voice came across to me as more of a stereotype gay man's voice...which was really weird. And not in a good way.

As for the dvd extras, most were mediocre, but the fun facts on the 3rd disc were hilarious! They had a whole episode with facts popping up. Sometimes the facts were completely out of context, and they liked making fun and noting all the double entendres in the episode (...and phallic references...O.o ohmygod, I had no idea, that was so bad!)! I laughed my ass off hysterically! I couldn't believe an American licensing company would embrace the genre of a shounen-ai title so enthuastically. I don't like most of Central Park Media's dubbing, but I have new respect for the company now when it comes to some of the extra content their dvds contain. That took guts!

For the most part however, the dubbing really, really sucked.

Dub Letter Grade: D

Extra Rants and Bitching: I love (some of) the music! I want a sequel! I miss seeing new adventures of Tsuzki and Hisoka! *sigh* better stick to the manga. I do miss a lot of the whacky humor from the manga, but it won't kill me to see it not in the series ^_^. This anime series is great anyway!

YnM is an awesome blend of shounen-ai angst, horror and supernatural powers. It is a powerful story which is very character driven. Whether this series is TRULY shounen-ai or not is so debatable; it should be, but so much can be attributed to being eye candy for us fans, and who even knows about Muraki? The man may just be a creep to distract people. There is no doubt that yaoi and shounen-ai are...hinted, and the original manga even a few supporting characters are gay couples in some stories (and does address yaoi and shounen-ai), but whether the main character themselves are or are not gay/bi...we don't know. That's up to your interpetation!

Score Comments: The score is a little low (and lower than the manga) because of some almost brutal and damaging cutting in some of the early episodes that will almost take a person on a spin to figure out how one scene led to the next. That's about the only reason why, since it made the series a little confusing (not because of the recapping, since it was usually necessary). I wish I did know a bit more to Muraki's motives, but what I learned I suppose with suffice.

Well, that's it! This series is AWESOME! Don't pass up seeing it!

Websites:
The Sweetest Way to Die
My own YnM site, that is fanworks strong, but has a growing collection of images and information.

Have a website about this series, or do you know of a good one? Want me to link to it on this review? Well, the feel free to email the sucker to me! Just make sure to put "Review Link" in the subject.