D.Gray-man 20th Anniversary Rewatch - Post-series discussion

**F.Irst-Timer, subbed**

I’ve definitely had a *really* good time with this series so far, and I’m looking forward to starting Hallow! If I had any complaints with this show, it was how Lenalee was treated after the fight with the first Level 3; I get she couldn’t do much until the ending when her Innocence fully evolved, but *man* is it still frustrating to see her constantly get grabbed/locked up by multiple Noahs during the battle in the Ark. [](#angryheadgrab) Also the recap padding was a bit much sometimes.

As for the filler, though… I was fine with it for the most part? I started reading the manga part of the way through the rewatch specifically so I could read the chapters that get completely skipped between the end of this and the start of Hallow without just skipping straight to them, and I found that the *only* oddity the anime introduced compared to the manga that still bothers me is the whole “Tyki’s attack on Suman was inexplicably moved to *after* the battle in Barcelona” thing I’ve already complained about earlier in the rewatch.

But yeah, pretty fun stuff so far. [9/10 for this season.](#ginapproves) Not sure how I rank the EDs so far, but I’ve got Doubt & Trust > INNOCENT SORROW > Brightdown > Gekidou for my ranking on the OPs down at least.

Note: After this in the manga there's a mini-arc of 5 chapters (like the Komlin stuff) that neither anime adapt; I'm going to summarize the highlights. But if it sounds interesting, check out chapters 159-64. I already recommend you check out 156-8 for missing content as well.


**Highlights:**

* Krory wakes up but he's chained to his bed and no one is around. The last thing he remembers is fighting Jasdevi.
* There is an incident with Allen (and Tim) getting splashed with a hair growth tonic the Science Section made for Bak's bday; his hair grows down to his back. Meanwhile Lavi and Yu got turned into kids, and Bookman grew rabbit ears (all due to potions the Science Section made).
* This arc has everyone preparing for the move to new HQ near London.
* Komui talks to Allen, saying he heard about the 'song' which anyone can use to operate the Ark if they know it; he asks him to share it with them. They're planning on using the Ark for missions and at the new HQ.
* Allen worries over the score/lyrics; he wants to talk to Cross and have him say it's OK to trust in Mana. He remembers Mana's last words and thinks that if he can just be told he can believe in Mana, he can get through anything that comes his way.
* Then there's an incident where Lenalee and Bookman are hit with something that makes them start meowing. Allen and the others wonder if they've seen the end of it, but Johnny says what Komui made is worse than any of the previous ones.
* The lights go out, and the Head Nurse shows up ... only for her to bite Allen. Thus begins a zombie epidemic miniarc! I'm not going to summarize the whole thing, since it's several chapters worth. But a highlight is Marie blushing when Miranda bites him.
* The zombie outbreak spreads throughout HQ. There's a subplot where they try to find the original source of the epidemic (Komui created it, but who's patient zero?) in order to make a vaccine, and stuff with a humanoid Komlin EX robot, as well as a vengeful Ghost behind it all.
* V16 ends with a Teletubbie-outfit-wearing super sentai Exorcists omake that segues into a story about Hoshino's childhood, and the JPN vol then has 6 pages of reader fanart.
* V17 JPN edition has an insert cover of Link with a first edition sweets cookbook authored by Lvellie, that cost 2800 yen.
* In a tight spot, Allen seduces Komlin EX into opening an obvious trap of a door. A Ghost possesses Reever and takes him hostage, demanding that Komui cancel the move to new HQ. It turns out the Ghost is the spirit of an accommodator's relative who was experimented on and died a long time ago; she can't leave even though they all are, and she doesn't even remember her own name.
* Komui ends up placating her by listing the around 100 names of non-Lvellie experiment subjects over the years, from memory. So even if they're moving, he'll still remember their sacrifice. I won't spoil how the zombie virus plot is resolved though.

Rewatcher

Sub

Okay...so this is one of the risks in rewatching:Realizing you misjudged a work. The fuel to air ratio here is a lot worse than I recalled. Worse, I've been primed since first watch to spot a lot of the issues here. Sad to say, Symphogear of all things made me start looking at tech vs magic.

But the show's biggest sin, by far, is that despite having tons of empty space to fill they fail to detail the characters. Lenalee has the most story and she spent 40% of the show impotent. Lavi, Bookman, Noise Marie and the Generals all needed more detailing.

And yeah, now on to Hallow where apparently the problem evolves.

QotD: 1 Too long to rehash

2 Lenalee

3 I'd have tried to sell the rights like six months later so at least the writers had an idea where I was going

4 I legitimately do not know

Overall,

Series still holds up for me in terms of characters, my favourite being Miranda for her backstory, character, VA and everything else with her.

I like the anime filling in gaps like with Suman's backstory, fleshing him out more, Yeegar, Barry, and some of the Mei Ling stuff.

The Voice Acting is fantastic and they cast pretty much everyone spot on.

They nailed Miranda's backstory, the Noah with Road especially delightful to watch, the Earl with Jupei brought the Earl to life.

Yeegar's death still haunts me, the songs still fantastic.

The pacing, some of the fillers, the animation was what holds the series back, christ watching this series once a day really highlighted how dragged out the series is with doing 100 episodes.

I get the anime studio thought they had a Naruto length series on their hands, a lot for them to fill in. But it came at the expense of the manga content in the first half, second half padding things out that meant Lenalee’s arc went on for 40 episodes of her not having her innocence.

Would have made the anime adaptation shorter, the fillers more focused less on the sort of things they did, and more on the characters, on fleshing them out, characterization and the animation more flowing, more detailed etc.

With Hallows, second time watching it, of more relaxed on how they adapt the arcs it does, that the VA's for it are decent enough despite the fact I think they simply were never going to match the original cast. Better animation as a whole, as I remember it looking more colourful overall.

**Rewatcher, Sub**


I mentioned being rather fond of this show when I started and that hasn't really changed, but this is a series that while having great moments, is also a very flawed series.


First part is definitely on the weaker side. The Canon storylines are good but the frequent filler did make the plot and characterization go all over the place before the second part hit. The second half of the series is definitely stronger and remains generally consistent with some caveats for the most part and puts the series on a better track.


If I had a major criticism (besides the first half's filler) it's the tonal inconsistency that frequently happens. Kind of a standard shonen trope and unfortunately here it just doesn't give the serious moments the treatment they deserve, context wise. Animation wise it's not bad though nothing to write home about either but the designs are great (they look even better in the manga). The religious symbolism, while mostly of the Evangelion variety in terms of aesthetic, does add a certain feel to the atmosphere when it can.


I do mention that funny enough Allen Walker is one of my favorite protagonists (though it's not until later arcs that he becomes my favorite). It takes a bit for him to get going but he's definitely my favorite character of the series, others include Lenalee, Lavi, Krory and Tyki. The Earl is an appropriate enough villain, though here his actions still on the vague side 103 episodes in (a bit of a slow burn with this guy).


Anyway, overall a generally positive experience though falls with the same problems a lot of shonen shows had at the time. I'd probably give like a 7.8/10. Hallow is going to be an interesting one for me now because I'll be a first Timer for that one so we'll see what comes next (series wise not Manga wise)

[removed]

I wasn't watching the show with you guys but I had just finished it like a month before you guys started the rewatch. Was kind of interesting popping in just to see where you guys were at.

> What did you like and dislike about this show?

The show has awful production values for the first half. Everything looks so bad and the constant explosions from the Akuma became a meme to me at some point when I was watching. This show would be so much of an easier recommendation if the first half looked better.

The filler wasn't even all that bad most of the time except for that awful awful arc with the cat Noah that I swear takes like 10 episodes to conclude. I also really hate the power scaling too. They make levels 3 so intimidating and scary early on and then they just mostly become fodder. It just ends up making the cool designs of the level 3's kind of worthless as they end up taking the place of all the lower level Akuma. I think introducing a cool enemy and then after an arc or two making them just background filler is incredibly lame.

But once the show really started going I was absolutely enthralled and binged it hard. I think the writing especially with the themes and ideas introduced around the end are really cool and engaging. I also like the character interactions and I don't really know any other way to describe it other than it has that female shounen mangaka charm to it. I also really like all the aura farming that happens later on with Crown Clown.

I've been contemplating reading the manga since I really like how the story develops through Hallow as well but haven't gotten around to it. I'm also kind of scared since D Gray Man is pretty known for being in slow release/hiatus hell.

I was pleasantly surprised about Hallow. Modern new seasons of old shounen tend to feel pretty soulless IMO but Hallow is one of the better ones. The only thing I can really say is that the new VA's and the character design changes were really lame IMO.

**Re.Gray-man**

I think the anime is a mixed bag, I don't mind the early filler necessarily in concept, pacing aside, the series benefits from episodic adventures that let the characters bond before shit goes down. But if you're gonna spent half the series on it, the quality of the filler could've been better... I seriously don't know how the weekly viewers reached the second half.

The main plot has its issues too (hi Lenalee), in part because Hoshino generally tends to keep most of the payoff/secrets for later (so we get stuff like Kanda "dying" without even knowing what drives him), but it works well for the most part.

That said, this rewatch has been a lot more than the sum of its parts. I don't know if I would've finished the anime on my own, but looking forward to the discussion made the process itself fun to go through. So I know it's not over yet, but I need to thank you guys all already.

>2) Who were your favorite characters?

Lavi > Tyki > Cross > Lenalee > Allen

>3) If you were writing this, what would you change?

* Filler with more character focus in the early parts
* I'd put Lenalee's arc at the same time as Allen's Asia branch arc (and let her actually confront her trauma/Lvellie), so they can go from there and kick some Noah ass in the Noah Ark finale.

###First Timer

Ultimately the anime was fine. The adaptation and the source really are feeding on each other weaknesses to produce something just good enough to keep you watching.

The baffling amount and placement of the filler destroys any momentum the series had but last 50 episodes of canon weren't that great either.



The world isn't particularly interesting and lacks depth. Akuma are boring enemies and that's why we have the Noah but for some reason we keep getting new more powerful levels of Akuma each more boring than the previous one.

All that talk about the Akuma souls but when was the last time the show did anything interesting with that? Mimi? And if we don't count filler then back with Eliade.

> Who were your favorite characters?

Not much movement or progress here in the last 40 episodes...

1. Road Kamelot
2. Miranda Lotto
3. Tyki Mikk

Most despicable villains

1. Marian Cross
2. Hitler
3. Fucking Johnny

Gonna be away for the next few days. If I don't return by the end of next series consider me another victim of the war against Akuma and **Keep Walking**.

[](#salute)

**Series dicussion (first timer)**

I bowed out of the rewatch in episode 57, but I kind of read along the daily comments and /u/lC3 [was nice enough to summarize the plot for me.](https://old.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/1paw85a/dgrayman_20th_anniversary_rewatch_episode_57/nueu83t/)

Turns out, DGM reaffirmed my distaste for battle shonen without many surprises. The plot is insanely stretched and reading here that, 103 episodes in, we are still not at the payoff stage makes me laugh a bit. In a sad way. So many things about the series are mediocre, but if I could name one thing that annoyed me most, it would be the wasted time *not* developing the characters, when the series had endless filler episodes to spare. Because the characters generally had a good setup to work with that could have been fun to explore, except they did not.

> What did you like and dislike about this show?

I think the character designs were a high point. I also mostly liked the steam-punk-ish world setting, with mostly 19th century technology, but also some magic. The animation was adequate, but never great. Biggest downfall was the writing. Both the character writing and the world building. For having a great world setting and decent character templates, the series did far too little with them and what it did was mostly boiler plate and not innovative.

> Who were your favorite characters?

Miranda takes top spot.

> If you were writing this, what would you change?

Apart from shrinking the series down to about 1/3 of its length, I would completely change the antagonist side: The akuma need to be “independent monster” type, not directly connected to the Earl. The Noah need to come in *much* earlier and get a lot more development, or be completely removed.