Darling in the Franxx has gotten some very mixed reviews since its release during the winter of 2017. Some praise it for its relatable characters and beautiful animation whilst others condemn it as a confusing tale with no real pay-off. As someone who has only discovered the show in the autumn of this current year, I’m unable to make comment on what it was like to follow the series episode by
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Darling in the Franxx has gotten some very mixed reviews since its release during the winter of 2017. Some praise it for its relatable characters and beautiful animation whilst others condemn it as a confusing tale with no real pay-off. As someone who has only discovered the show in the autumn of this current year, I’m unable to make comment on what it was like to follow the series episode by episode and the reactions it elicited in me in response. What I can tell you though is how it was for me to see the series in its entirety without breaks and how that affected my enjoyment of it overall.
So, let’s cut to the chase: I love Darling in the Franxx.
To date I will have watched the entire series of Darling three times, twice in Japanese with English subs and once in the English dub. It’s unusual for me to feel so attached to a show but the mad thing is I’m not getting tired of it. Each viewing reveals a new facet of the story I hadn’t noticed before and where as some critics have commented on its careless execution, I actually feel I’ve been able to see a great deal of attention paid to its minutiae and narrative direction. That’s not to say that there aren’t things wrong with Darling’s story, but I think a more pertinent question is ‘what makes Darling in the Franxx so special?’
Darling is a series born from the combined efforts of A-1 Pictures (Occult Academy, Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day) and Studio Trigger (Gurren Lagann, Kiznaiver). The series is a completely original piece, only receiving manga serialisation after the anime’s release. This isn’t an unusual decision just one that is uncommon in the Japanese media world, most series have to prove how successful they are via manga before they can even be considered as candidates for an anime. Studio Trigger in particular has done this before with Gurren Lagann, which garnered a huge cult following before producing waves of additional media. Darling seems to be very much the same in this sense, as even a year on it has a manga that is still ongoing and merchandise that is just getting started in its roll out.
A flash-in-the-pan anime completes its serialisation and releases all of its additional material almost immediately afterwards, on a production level it ties the entire creative project up quite neatly. It seems to me that there’s a greater plan in the works for Darling, something that is indicative of its continued lifespan.
The team up of A-1 and Trigger also seems to be something special in of itself, from my perspective the two are like polar opposites. A-1 who are known for their smooth visuals and overall light stories and Trigger who are known for their ink-like ‘rough around the edges’ art and off the wall plot concepts are a bit like night and day and not a duo I would have ever imagined pairing up. The result is something that is incredibly impressive visually, Darling really is a feast for the eyes and looks gorgeous essentially all of the time. Scene framing and camera angles are great and its unique use of a shifting aspect ratio distinctly marks a lot of the story’s key moments.
Where the team up perhaps falls short is in its writing and let’s be honest, neither A-1 or Trigger were particularly strong in that area to begin with (e.g. Occult Academy/Kiznaiver).
Darling spans 24 episodes and I would argue that the first 19 are essentially flawless. The pacing of the story is just right, there’s significant character development, backstory and world building; it’s great. From episode 20 onwards however, things begin to feel a bit rushed and it seems as if the show falls victim to that age-old issue of not having enough wrap up time. Whether that’s the fault of management or differences between the teams remains unclear, but I can say with certainty that Darling would have benefitted greatly from having a couple more episodes under its belt.
Ultimately the thing that sets Darling apart is its characters and the world they inhabit.
There’s a lot of anime out there that tackles innocence/naivety and the transition from childhood to adulthood (Makoto Shinkai’s works are exceptional for this) and Darling is at its core another one of these. It sets about the task in a typical way by endearing you to the characters first and then throwing a romantic spanner into the works. What it does differently however is place the characters in a world from which they have no reference point to draw from. The young men and women in Darling have never been introduced to the concept of love or the deeper emotional world that exists beyond being squad mates. The ‘children’ (as they’re known) are raised for the sole purpose of being disposable tools in warfare, so have never been allowed to develop properly beyond very basic social interactions. Enter squad 13, who are the only group of children who are considered to be an exception to the rule. Under the pretence of gathering experimental data they are permitted to grow and behave more naturally and as such they all undergo puberty. Suddenly the partners and teammates who were friends or in some cases like brothers and sisters, start to become a little bit more than that. How do you explain love to someone who has never had it shown to them?
This is where the real beauty of Darling in the Franxx resides. The show essentially explores love from a completely fresh perspective, one that is uninhibited by modern viewpoints. The feelings of the characters are allowed to flourish in the most natural sense, meaning that the whole process is completely untainted. These new feelings are confusing, irrational, but also sweet and pure and I think that’s what resonates most with the viewership. If you put all the sci-fi and mecha to one side Darling is actually a fantastic show that explores what love is, how it develops and why it matters.
Not every anime is perfect and Darling in the Franxx is chief among these, but in my humble opinion what it lacks in one area it makes up for in another. If you can look past some of its obvious flaws and see it through to the end, you’ll find yourself enjoying a wonderful tale about two star crossed lovers and the captivating beauty of their brief lives together.
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