Like in almost all shounen animes the first episodes seem to be interesting. This is because you don't know anything about the world in which the events are going to take place or about the protagonists of this story. So meet Allen Walker, a 15 year old boy who has the power to see Akumas (means demons, mechanical killing machines is the term aplied in this anime ) and haves an anti-Akuma weapon to free the souls that hold them. This weapon works powered by "Innocence", a misterious susbstance that haves a cubic form, it was supposedly created by God. Only those compatible with it can use it, can become "Exorcists" and join the Black Order to fight the Millenary Count, who is destined to destroy the world.
The plot develops in a 19th century, mostly, european demography. Of course you get to see some regions of Asia as well, but the settings are usually european. Past the first 10-15 episodes probably most people who aren't used to watch shounen-type animes will easily get bored. D.Gray-man haves a "Inuyasha-10000+Pearl fragments" feeling, but it does not develop that slowly. There are 140+ Innocence pieces to be found... well actually no. Some of them are already in posession of the Black Order and the events focuss troughout the first 40-45 episodes on only this objective, but then it drastically changes.
From episode 50 the ambience changes will be totally obvious: the objetives will change, the battles will get more ferocious and the story will truly advance. D.Gray-man is as average anime up to espisode 50, then it touches the realm of a masterpiece.
Artistically speaking I would define D.Gray-man as varied. You'll see lots of characters: enemies and companions. If I take the Akumas as an example the artistic design is poor on episodes 1-20, these are level 1 Akumas. Then the Akumas evolve into levels, now here you can see what I'm talking about: variety and creativity. As the anime develops you'll witness more crazy and unthinkable tranformations and evolutions. The protagonists are very well designed, the weapons of each one of them somehow reflects their own and unique personality. The fighting scenaries are beautiful and the "bosses" are more than fearsome, in a funny way.
UVERworld, Abingdon Boys School and Sowelu are just some of the artists you'll come across on the opening and ending scenes. This translates into a amazing sound experience that will glue you to the anime fron the opening to ending sequences. The BGM's are well executed in the anime an add more suspense, spice up the action and ultimately transform good fights into epic confrontations. Definitely one of the strongest points D.Gray-man achieves.
The characters are typical shounen-based. You have the strong-willed never-surrender-even-if-I'm-almost-dead Allen Walker (main lead). His female companion and most probable romantic parther Lenalee. The "rival" character: Kanda Yui. And other companions that will be added to the "party" as the storyline progresses. One thing I didn't like was the lack of airtime that some of the most interesting characters have (generals). You get glances of them at some point in the anime but they do not appear as part of the plot until later on and for such a short amount of time that it really feels like a waste once you get to finally see them on action. Also you don't get almost any character development troughout the first half of the anime; here episode 50+ becomes again a turning point in which characters develop at a very good speed in a 40-50 episode range.
To be honest I was about to drop the anime at episode 20. My friend told me "to keep on going, you won't regret it once you get to episode 50". Surely I didn't. The twists in the story started here, continued until the end and made D.Gray-man really worth my time. Anyone should watch this, it isn't your average shounen anime, you'll understand why once you dig into it.
The end is actually inconclusive so I guess the studio might be making another anime (second season?) to continuate this one, due to the great popularity this and the manga have. I really hope so because there are still many things that need to be explained and I just can't wait for that moment.
