Ah, a new dark Anime. Spooky opening for "Shikabane Hime Kuro" but lovely theme songs, "Beautiful Fighter" and "Beginning"! Too bad I missed the first season. Maybe I should work backwards and see what happened since Funimation's been making it freely accessible on Youtube.

There is a girl named Makina Hoshimura whose family was murdered by a group of Shikabane, living corpses that attack humans driven by their desires. Unable to forget her loved ones, she chooses to come back as the living dead by making an agreement with a priest named Keisei Kagami to take revenge. There are other girls like her and for them to rest in peace to go to Heaven, they must fight and defeat around 108 Shikabane. However, she is now cursed because she felt she couldn't protect Keisei and the "Rune" energy that keeps her alive as a Shikabane Hime from him is rotting away. She will need to accept new Rune but until then she is sealed away.

Kensei's younger adopted brother Ouri Kagami had found out about the whole world of Shikabanes by chance and has been undergoing training to become her new partner and continue the contract his older brother had passed on to him. Eventually he manages to see the "bond" that ties them together - the loss of Kensei, which convinces Hoshimura to accept the Rune energy from him, revitalising her.

The dark presentation's good and pretty much has Gainax written all over it. A bit too much detail cramped into the first episode but, I like it so far.