It's gonna make you think.
Darker Than Black is the original anime series that was released in 2007, and from time to time you can see users on Twitter or on Reddit asking others why no one is talking about this show.
There are two main reasons. The first one: it's old. In the modern online space, anything that's a few years old becomes obsolete if it doesn't have a continuation, and the first season was released in 2007. Pretty sure that by 2030 most of us will forget about Attack on Titan, for example.
It's an original show, which means that it doesn't have a manga or a light novel as a source that would go on after the show ends. Despite being a commercial success at its time and gathering a sufficient fanbase, the series didn't expand into a huge franchise and the hype has faded.
The second season that followed in 2009 was met with mixed reactions, changing the focus from the beloved main character, a 20-something man named Hei, to a teenage girl Suo, keeping Hei close by. The problem was, however, not in the MC but in the production: the authors planned to make the second season 26 episodes long, like the first one, but had to shorten it to 12 episodes, which made the storytelling feel rushed and the new characters seem less fleshed out, which didn't help the show gain popularity.
The second reason is that the plot is quite unorthodox. Darker Than Black is a sci-fi action thriller set in a modern world that resembles our own, but has been struck by a mysterious disaster. Tokyo now has an anomaly zone from which it protects itself with the huge walls. And not just Tokyo: similar events happened in different parts of the world. These events gave birth to a type of people called contractors, who gained certain supernatural powers — but paid a very serious price for that.
The way that the plot is fed to the viewer is uncommon. There's no exposition, no over-explanation: the viewers have to figure out a lot of things by themselves, work through the context, and try to fill in the gaps. At first, the show seems to be episodic, but its story-driven nature surfaces sometime later. Yet the viewer still has enough time to get used to the main characters and the supporting cast, appreciate them, or start doubting their morals and decisions as the story goes by.
The show is stylish and atmospheric, filled with this thriller-ish vibe that makes you suspicious of everything that happens; it has amazing action and a great soundtrack; the interesting plot developments make the viewer think about the lore. And the modern urban setting mixed with sci-fi grounds the show in reality a little bit.
But the main reason for its unpopularity is very simple: it's not available on streaming services. But it's still worth your attention.