[Categories: Anime Reviews]
Darker than Black 2
This ep wraps up the events of the first one but in doing so delivers a nice twist in its second half. Hei (a.k.a. Li) is trying to help his new lady friend Chiaki escape Jean and the other Contractors but they are proving impossible to shake off.
I can’t say Hei’s true nature was that much of a surprise - when a man falls off a bridge into the path of a moving train and survives, you can’t help but wonder whether there’s something unusual about him. 
Still, Chiaki’s identity took me completely by surprise - I was expecting her to be a central character all the way through. Anyway, it looks like Hei and the police officers are going to take centre stage from here on in, perhaps with a nice cat-and-mouse investigation that ought to be interesting - for a Contractor, Hei seems to show a suspicously large amount of human compassion.
I’m quite fascinated by the other Contractors too - the mechanisms that give them their abilities are chock full of technobabble that must be a real headache for the translators and each of them seems to have some quirk that relates to the ‘cost’ of his ability (lining up pebbles or eating dandelions? WTF?). The show seems to be intent on confusing me still, which may or may not be related to my recent lack of sleep in favour of finishing off coursework assignments. At any rate it continues to intrigue and the visuals and music are excellent. Maybe it was just me but the diner scene took a slight nosedive in animation quality though, but it seemed to pick back up when the action kicked in.
There’s still a lot yet to be explained of course but the next episode seems to be the first in an arc of at least one other (I haven’t checked the ANN episode listing yet, before you ask), which leads me to speculate that Darker than Black may take on a pattern of several two or three-part mini-stories before the ultimate revelations concerning the Contractors, Dolls and Hell’s Gate are revealed. Whether or not this will be the case I don’t know but whichever way I look at it, this is still my favourite show of the season so far.
As an aside, I thought a talking cat was odd. Cool, but odd. This cat isn’t darker than black however, it’s just black. And black cats rock.
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