Darker Than Black: Volumes 3 & 4 (Review)
Friday, 30th October 2009, 16:02

Page 1 Page 2

Introduction
There’s nothing so infuriating as a delay. I exaggerate of course, as there are plenty of things more infuriating, injustice, losing a bet, noisy neighbours. But when it’s Darker Than Black’s second instalment, pushed back from September all the way to November, then perhaps a little hyperbole is justified. Volumes 1 & 2 almost, but didn’t quite click with me, and I was hoping for a hasty fix of the next two volumes for another crack at it. In fact, I’ve had the review discs for quite a while now, but there’s no point reviewing them months before release. It will just make the wait for the final instalment even more infuriating. In the meantime, Japan has started broadcasting the next series Darker Than Black: Gemini of the Meteor, and the wish that the world spin a lot faster on its axis becomes a fervent one.

Ten years previously, the stars vanished from the sky, to be replaced with false stars. A massive wall appeared in Tokyo, enclosing an area soon to be known as Hell’s Gate, and suddenly, there were Contractors in the world. Contractors are people with special abilities, superpowers, and they are somehow connected to the false stars. They are called Contractors as there is a price to be paid for their abilities, a contract that must be fulfilled, and it’s different for each one. It may be a physical need, it may be a psychological compulsion, it may be benign or it may be debilitating, but it must be paid. At the same time Dolls appeared, soulless beings, linked to ambulatory spirits, through which they observe the world. It was decided that the world didn’t need to know about this, despite the false stars and Hell’s Gate, so it’s useful that Hell’s Gate yielded ME technology, which allows the erasure of memories, ensuring that the general populace know nothing about Contractors other than wild rumours. In the background of this world, a new super-powered arms race rages, a cold war fought by countries using Contractors. There are security forces ostensibly to keep an eye on Contractor activity in the city, special police such as Foreign Affairs Department 4 – Public Safety Division, although they usually have a hard time keeping up. A new star appears when a new Contract is made, and whenever a Contractor dies, a star falls from the heavens.

Darker Than Black tells the story of a Contractor team working for a mysterious syndicate. The two Contractors in the team are Hei, a masked figure who wears black, and is known as The Black Reaper. His ability is to use and control electricity. The other is Mao, whose ability is to jump between bodies, but since his original body was destroyed, he has been trapped in the form of a black cat. Yin is the Doll, the observer in the team who uses the medium of water for surveillance. Their human handler is a gruff sardonic man named Huang.

Manga Entertainment release the next eight episodes of Darker Than Black across two discs, along with some extra features to appreciate.

11. When One Takes Back What Was Lost Within The Wall (Part 1)
12. When One Takes Back What Was Lost Within The Wall (Part 2)
The Syndicate has a new mission for Hei. He is to go inside Hell’s Gate, and recover a meteor fragment. It’s like walking into the lion’s den for a Contractor, but the Syndicate supply a means of masking his abilities, and assure him that there are assets inside that he can make use of. On the way in, he meets an excitable young girl named Corrina, but following the security checks and indoctrination, he’s surprised to see her personality change completely. That’s the thing about Hell’s Gate, reality just isn’t stable inside, and truth depends on a person’s own perspective. The legend is that a person can regain that which he has lost, as long as he is willing to pay an equal price. Hei finds help from an Indian researcher named Meena Kandaswamy, but is troubled by Meena’s eagerness to play spy, especially when Corrina winds up murdered. More troubling is that the killer is a Contractor with the exact same abilities as Hei. But then Hei meets a kindred spirit, a researcher named Mike, who has a passion for astronomy. He offers to show Hei the stars, the real stars that were in the sky before the false stars took their place. It’s when the research team send another drone into the Gate to search for the meteor fragment, that Hei’s world is really shaken up. He’s called as an observer, to offer another subjective reality for the researchers to factor into their data. For while the machines detect a meteor fragment, he sees his sister, Pai.

13. A Heart Unswaying On The Water’s Surface (Part 1)
14. A Heart Unswaying On The Water’s Surface (Part 2)
Hei’s group has problems. There’s a rival group in town that is after them, whether for information or to take them out is unclear, but one member of the syndicate has already died, so they have to be on their guard. They have big problems though, as one member of the rival group has the ability to find and capture observer spirits, and can also sift through dolls’ minds for information, and early on his attention falls on Yin. When her observer spirit is taken, she begins behaving oddly, and loses touch with Hei and the others. At the same time, a man named Eelis Kastinen arrives in Japan, looking for a girl named Kirsi. He needs a private detective to help him look, and he turns to Gai Kurosawa. Years before, Kirsi was a precocious young girl who lived with her parents, and possessed a talent for the piano. Eelis was her piano teacher, and now that he’s tracked her as far as Japan, he wants to take her home. Things are getting precarious for Hei, as with Yin missing, and a Contractor who can read Doll spirits on the loose, Huang bluntly states that Yin is now a liability. He orders Hei to find Yin and to kill her. Meanwhile, Yin is beginning to remember her past life. You’ve guessed it, Yin is Kirsi.

15. Memories of Betrayal in an Amber Smile (Part 1)
16. Memories of Betrayal in an Amber Smile (Part 2)
The MI6 operatives in Japan are taking it easy, relaxing after a hard day’s work. April is out on the town, drinking a gaggle of hosts under the table at a Host Club, then moving on, unimpressed with their weak constitutions. Stepping outside however, she sees a familiar face, one she isn’t expecting. She calls November 11, and hops into a taxi with a ‘Follow that car’ cliché on her lips. Except the taxi explodes. February, a.k.a. Amber, a double agent who worked for MI6 and the Syndicate is in town and that doesn’t bode well. Soon all sorts of Contractor groups and spy rings are being attacked, it looks as if someone is trying to engineer a war between the CIA and MI6, and under cover of the mayhem, the Meteor Fragment is stolen. Hei is ordered to retrieve it, and as it happened while April was being detonated, the Syndicate suspects that MI6 stole it. MI6 have ordered November 11 to find and punish Amber, and seeing as she last worked for the Syndicate, he goes after Hei. It’s one hell of a collision course. The fact is that Amber is now working for herself, has a new collection of Contractors at her side, and she has ominous plans for the city. It’s portentous timing, as the sun is entering a Great Blackout Cycle, when a mass eruption of sunspots occurs. It’s only been visible since the stars disappeared, and the last time it happened, Heaven’s Gate, and a significant chunk of South America disappeared. It was also the last time that the Stargazer spoke; only now at the observatory, she’s speaking again, with the same prophecy as last time.

17. A Love Song Sung From a Trash Heap (Part 1)
18. A Love Song Sung From a Trash Heap (Part 2)
Amber’s group left the city, and they left an ominous message for Misaki Kirihara as well, and once again Misaki’s focus lands on BK201, who always seems to be in the same area as Li Shengshun when weird stuff starts happening. Li a.k.a. Hei is on another mission though, keeping an eye on one of the Syndicate’s smuggling pipelines through a restaurant owned by the Nakazawa Yakuza group. Hei’s got a job there as a waiter, and when he clumsily dodges the attack of an obnoxious diner, he impresses small time gangster Kenji Sakurai. Kenji wants to learn some of Hei’s kung fu, and he befriends him. However, Hei’s more interested in Kenji’s boss, Hitotsubashi, and Huang warns him not to get distracted. Distraction is inevitable, as Hitotsubashi has plans for his organisation, which includes assassinating his boss, and appropriating a certain piece of merchandise. He needs a gullible idiot to look after that merchandise without asking any questions, and he calls on Kenji to step up. That merchandise just happens to be a Doll. The unexpected happens, Kenji falls in love with the Doll, and he takes her and goes on the run. The only place he has to hide though is Hei’s apartment.

Picture
Once again, Manga Entertainment bring us a pretty attractive anime transfer. The 1.78:1 anamorphic image is clear and colourful throughout, with minimal NTSC-PAL conversion issues. The only real lack of smoothness is in the opening sequence, when the giant neon letters of the title scroll in every which direction, otherwise this is up with Claymore in terms of transfer quality. The animation comes via Studio BONES, the people behind Full Metal Alchemist and Wolf’s Rain, so you won’t be surprised at the quality here. Darker Than Black looks astoundingly well accomplished, solid, and with impressive characters, a well thought out and realised world design, and fluid, vivid action sequences that are just one step below theatrical quality.

If I do have an issue with the show, it’s a minor, and probably personal one. I’m not too fond of the colour palette, which looks at odds with the emotional tone of the show. This is a mostly serious and for want of a better word, dark story, it explores some occasionally morbid themes, and the name is well deserved. However, the colour palette is bright, shiny and clean. There are plenty of primary colours, and the vivid clarity here wouldn’t be amiss in a romantic comedy, or something a little more family friendly. With a title like Darker than Black, you’d be forgiven for expecting something, well dark. On the other hand, you don’t miss any of the action because it’s hard to make out or obscured.

Sound
You have a choice between DD 5.1 English and DD 2.0 Japanese, along with optional translated subtitles and a signs only track. The dub is pleasant enough, up to Funimation’s usual standards when it comes to drama, and the surround sound is most appreciated for the action scenes. But guess what… It was the Japanese soundtrack for me again, and the stereo was nice enough alongside the original language. The big draw for me with this title is the Yoko Kanno soundtrack. The thing is, I didn’t notice it at all. I was fixated on the story and the action, and the music just drifted by. A major reason for this is that in shows like Cowboy Bebop and Ghost In The Shell, Yoko Kanno used a lot of songs, and lots of ‘big’ music to emphasise action set pieces. In Darker Than Black, there are fewer vocal songs most certainly, but in terms of the music, it’s a more traditional piece, with mostly instrumental music that supports or counterpoints what is happening on screen, but never stands above it, or appears overtly to be driving the emotional content. I had to go back and watch an episode again, this time ignoring the content and listening specifically for the music, and it is excellent, varied, imaginative, and sublime, just as you would expect from Yoko Kanno. It is another soundtrack CD to put on the list. From episode 15, there are new credits sequences for the show.

Next Page