The Series (3.5/5)

    When I saw Elfen Lied about a decade ago, I was impressed by the way it mixed conspiracy thriller, sci-fi, family drama, action, and strong heapings of ultra violence into something that was suspenseful, interesting, and emotionally satisfying. I had not really followed the creator (Lynn Okamoto) of that manga’s career, and thus not realized until Brynhildr in the Darkness arrived at my door that another adaptation of his work had been completed, and I was quite interested in seeing how it had turned out.

    Brynhildr in the Darkness follows Murakami. As a child he spent much of his time viewing the stars with his friend Kuroneko, one day Kuroneko observes some aliens. After she retrieves Murakami, and takes him back to see them, she dies in an accident, Murakami survives.  After this Murakami dedicates his life to the pursuit of extraterrestrials, and proving their existance. One day while in class a young girl who resembles Kuroneko enters his  class, they become friends, and it turns out that she is a witch.

    It turns out however, that witches are actually part of a government program, and if they are discovered are executed. Kuroha, the girl he met in class is part of a small faction of runaway witches trying to escape government control.  He partners with them in an attempt to help them.

The anime is a pretty solid sci-fi action anime with some nice horror overtones. The animation wasn't as solid as Elfen Lied, but it was quite good for the most part. The series offered some pretty decent action and violence littered throughout, and like Elfen Lied offered moments of tragedy and drama that helped deepen the tension of the overall scenario.

Audio/Video (4/5)

    Sentai Filmworks presents Brynhildr in the Darkness in a solid 1080p 1:78:1 AVC encoded transfer. The transfer looks quite reasonable which should be expected for such a recent show. The transfer offers quite decent detail, solid colors, and deep blacks.

    The audio is presented in a DTS-HD MA 2.0 track in Japanese, the dialogue and score come through nicely, and I did not notice any issues such as pops, cracks, or hissing on the track.

Extras (1/5)

    Clean opening and closing animation.

Overall

    Adapted from Lynn Okamoto's (Elfen Lied) manga series of the same name. When taken on it's own Brynhildr in the Darkness is quite a decent anime series, though admittedly it's first half has more to offer than it's conclusion. The Blu-ray looks and sounds quite nice, though it does lack extra features, but that is expected. RECOMMENDED.