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Darker than Black (episode 1):-

Sometime in the future, weird things are happening in Tokyo. Now there's a novel idea. Some background to the events is given by Misaki Kirihara, who works in the public security division. She has average-sized breasts, wears glasses and dresses in a power suit, so you know that this is a brainy chick who you don't muck with.

According to Misaki, it's been ten years since it happened, the incident. We aren't told what that was, but according once more to Misaki, "the greatest minds studied it - their solution: build a wall." Sure enough, there's a totally humungous wall which seems to surround the city, called Hell's Gate. I want to find out what led the greatest minds in the world to solve a problem by building a wall. Didn't seem to work well for the Americans, Israelis or Germans, but apparently the Einsteins of the future decide to give it another go.

The incident which led to this isn't explained in this first episode, but it promises to be a complicated story. Shortly after the wall was built, stars started falling in the city, which coincided with the arrival of human-looking beings called contractors and dolls. Contractors seem to have special abilities, like defying gravity, and seem to have to pay prices on their contracts (like breaking their own fingers). Members of the public who come into contact with contractors have their memories erased. Yes, it's all rather confusing...

The first episode is set mainly at night, so the colour palette used is rather subdued. The character animation is pretty rough, but I suspect the main attraction for the series will be the storyline, which promises to be both a political thriller and sci-fi adventure yarn. I would be prepared to watch another few episodes to see how this develops.