D.Gray-man Hallow

This is the first time I'm writing a review, but I thought I'd have to for one of my favourite animes that I've watched. I'm not going to rush this review, but I'd like to keep it shorter than some of the other extremely long ones that I'm tired of reading.

Story: 8
The story is pretty good, as it accurately reflects part of the manga that make it such a masterpiece. But, I'm sad to say that the animation studio for Hallow has cut out some of the best parts of the manga that make it the beautiful and moving story it is. I would have ... given it a 7/10 for it's mediocre job of imitating the manga, but I just couldn't underneath respect for the manga.

Art: 8
The art is definitely a step much higher from the original D.Gray Man anime, as they have changed the art style to match the one in the manga. I think this was a really good choice, as my mind was blown to see Hallow with such a nice change of art styles. But they do make it inconsistent at some spots, which I understand as the studio couldn't have had much funds for Hallow. Still, I'd give it a 8 for the delightful change of art styles, even though the inconsistencies kind of threw me off at times.

Sound: 9
Pretty good- much better than the sound track used in the original anime. In all reality, I loved it the original's sound track, but it was used quite a lot of times- so the newer refresh of sound tracks was quite nice I also think the sound was moving and really helped set the tone of the anime to reach a place that was as far as it could to the manga. The OP was very good and refreshing too.

Character: 10
Hallow just didn't have the same quiet sadness and internal remorse that we feel for the manga, but every character's subtle yet definite development set this score extremely high. The characters, particularly Allen and Kanda, slowly unraveled themselves and made you really feel for them. Especially the Alma Karma arc, where his art was stunning and made my heart throb in ache.

Enjoyment: 9
The inconsistent art ruined it at times for me, but besides that I enjoyed it immensely- seeing the anime version of the masterpiece of the manga.

Overall: 9
Very good anime! Definitely should watch it!

This is a burden lifted on fans of the anime and a joy to watch for both the manga and anime fans. This does follow the manga closely and have an interesting story to follow. However, the pacing of the story is rushed in the middle portion of the season. You may need a few minutes to pause and sort out what happened so far in the plot.

In my opinion the opening of the season was pretty good. The song was upbeat and helped prepare you for the fights in the season. But the look and sound did feel like your "typical" shonen anime ... opening: upbeat rock sound, flashing through all the characters and that clash with the lead protagonist and antagonist at the end of the opening.

Unfortunately, D. Gray-man Hallow fails to live up to the expectations of an established fanbase from its previous series as a looked up to sequel.

I've been with D. Gray-man for years and was thrilled when I found the mangaka was healthy enough to continue the series (after 4 years of hiatus!) and find that it was getting a sequel anime adaption. And that's how this was for many of the fanbase. Therefore, if you are probably not as dedicated then this might not seem as bad, although you will still need to either read the manga or watch the previous series to comprehend what happens ... in this one.

STORY: 8
The anime continues off where it left previously and follows the manga pretty faithfully throughout. Although it is a little regretful that some chapters were skipped which included adapting to their new headquarters setting and were most definitely fun and entertaining chapters (possible spoileers? think zombies lol).

ART: 8
Most might find the redesigned characters to be a little off putting but the mangaka herself has redrawn them quite beautifully in the manga, sadly this translates a little off in the anime. My biggest peeve is with Miranda, who now looks like some minor background character without any of her unusual charms. That being said the animation overall is consistent visually although there are definitely notable drops at times.

SOUND: 6
The biggest issue with this series, a completely new cast of Seiyuus. I did try my best to accept and adjust to this change but for the most part I was thoroughly disappointed with these choices and direction. My biggest problem was with Lenalee, who now sounds so jarringly high pitched (and completely ruins her previous image) and now becomes an excessively sweet generic girl that just seems so forced and fake. That, and in the casting of Ayumu Murase for Allen. As he plays Hinata in Haikyuu!, the vocal tone sounds so similar that Ayumu struggles to create a clear distinction from this character.

Of worthy note, the bgm definitely is D Gray-man thankfully.

CHARACTER: 7
Kind of hard to rate because of the Seiyuus mostly, they really have a hard time selling and embracing their characters as they were established previously. Though this arc definitely moves in to focus around and develop Kanda particularly, although I'm not sure the presentation was the absolute best. Ugh.

*SPOILER* I was also really pissed that they showed their fully designed past appearances in the memories because that chick really just looks like Saber, wtf. Loses all of the dreamy romantic nuances and atmosphere. *END SPOILER*

ENJOYMENT: 6
Harshly put, I had to struggle to enjoy this and am still contemplating on finishing the last bits. For such a dedicated fanbase that's supported the series for years, even in the dark, it's extremely disappointing.

OVERALL: 7
Without the huge bias of my personal enjoyment, this anime was rather decent in fulfilling its basic requirements as an anime adaption. Fulfilling the expectations of nostalgia is another thing.

Having been in the D.Gray-Man fandom for almost a decade, I was so excited for the release of D.Gray-Man Hallow. I couldn't wait to see my favourite characters Allen Walker, Kanda Yu and all their other exorcist pals donning their cool black suits and fighting Akuma again. D.gray-man was my "gateway anime", in other words the anime that introduced me to the wonderful world of anime and Jpop. Hence, I must say I had very high expectations for the sequel.

Story: 6 At 13 episodes, Hallow is a very short anime, compared to it's predecessor's whopping 103 episodes. It covers several arcs in the manga, ... namely the Timothy/Phantom Thief G arc, Alma Karma arc and also the Seed of Destruction arc. Trying to squeeze so much content into so little episodes was fatal to the pacing of the show. Watching D.gray-Man Hallow as a long-time fan, I could understand what was happening, but I feel that newcomers to the show may struggle to do so. I was also disappointed by the execution of the Alma Karma arc. Kanda's dark past as being one of the experiments in the second exorcist Project deals with very dark and mature themes like ethics of scientific experimentation, torture, loss and grief etc, and it is during this arc where we see how broken Kanda is. Having to dice up your best friend and witness the bloody massacre of an entire crew of scientists is horrifying but I could not feel the full emotional impact. This was because the entire flashback was crammed into 1-2 episodes, making it hard for the scriptwriters to flesh it out properly.

Art: 5 I am actually okay with the new character designs/art style since it was probably meant to follow that of the manga's current style. In fact, some characters look even better. I like how Kanda and Lavi look 10x more manlier than before. However, the color scheme was too BRIGHT. Hallow should have followed the darker color scheme of the original anime. This bright, shiny color scheme made Hallow lose some of the gritty, gothic-y atmosphere and more like a typical shounen anime. The biggest holdup for Hallow was it's animation. Gosh, there were some moments in Hallow where I cringed from seeing the poor animation. Some action scenes looked really bad (esp when the Noah invaded the Order). And in other scenes, background characters looked like balls smushed together. And ALL THAT PINK. LIKE WHYYYY

Sound: 7. I adore the Openings of original DGM and this new opening did not cut it for me. It felt like any Opening from Naruto or maybe Black Clover idk. Ending was okay. Background music was good. Playing Lala's lullaby during Kanda and Almas last moments in the place where Lala died brought me to tears. Voice acting was great. All the voice actors did a commendable job at bringing their characters to life. I looooved Ayumu Murase as Allen and Takuya Sato as Kanda (maybe even more than their previous VAs?) But Road's VA was a little too high pitched for me.

All in all, I give DGM Hallow a 7/10. Despite all it's flaws, I found myself enjoying the show. I found myself chugging through all 13 episodes in no time. Perhaps if TMS Entertainment had funnelled more money into this show, changed the color scheme and increased the no of episodes, it would be a better show.

I kinda like this season, but there's also some reason not to like it.

The story picks up where season 1 left off, and it starts off with a fight right away and it's hype. In the beginning, it kinda took its time to set the season, but then it started falling off halfway because the pacing got really fast and then things started happening for the sake of moving the plot, then more characters got introduced and there are a lot more people involved now, the stakes are high which is pretty lit. One thing that is still here that made me annoy the fuck ... out of me during season one was the comedy, again it's okay if you do it when it's just the characters bantering and shit, but it annoys me when you do it during serious scenes, if else, then i can't take the story seriously. Then we had some plot twists happening which i really liked, that kinda got me interested in the story.

I really like the animation for this season, by like, i mean a lot, because there's a big step up in the animation, i mean this is years after season 1 was made and the technology for animating became a lot better, so wouldn't be weird if the animation was still the same as season 1? There's a slight difference in the character designs as well, i almost couldn't recognize lenalee because her design looks so much different than season 1. We got new types of monsters too.

In the beginning, i didn't really notice it until Bookman spoke and i was like "Wait... that's not your VA, that's jiraiya's VA" and then it suddenly unveiled the curtain for other characters and i started hearing the differences in their voices and i was like "Oh wait! New voice actors!?!?" but props to some of them because they kinda sound similar, so it wasn't really off putting that much.

Overall, this season was okay for me, because it's a full pack of action and twists and turns, but with just a bad pacing. I'm just happy because this is the tone and vibe that I was looking for in season 1.

And here I thought that the second season would be better. Nope, dead wrong.

This second season is just a pain to watch. The pacing is too rushed, and oh boy this is one of the worst pacing that I have ever known in my life of watching anime. Character development? who cares about that, let's just throw all of the plot from the manga to let people know more about it and let it end absurdly.

to summarize what this season is, they basically squeeze a bunch of plot from the manga (although I don't read it) into a 13 episode long anime. There's just so ... much happening in an episode that I had to close it and watch the previous episode to see if I missed anything, and that happened in almost every episode.

I give it a 6 just because they stay true to the manga and I know that they probably are trying to promote it, but I guess it backfired due to the poorly executed anime which leads us to a no more anime sequel of this series.