When I started watching this series, I wasn't sure I was going to like it. The first episode greeted me with a guy being forced to break his own fingers for a reason I totally didn't understand, and the next thing I know our protagonist shows up in a mask a serial killer might wear and offs him with little more than some "gotcha!" type lines to announce his arrival. Naturally, I was getting worried that this would be another feast of horrific violence such as when I recently reviewed Claymore. I love being pleasantly surprised. This anime may not have a lot of definitive answers, but it's got plenty of cloak and dagger elements thanks to the characters' intimate connections with the criminal underworld, and a plot that will keep you biting your nails. So get out your trench coats and prime your psychic powers. This week, we're looking at Darker than Black.
Like Ghost Hound, Darker than Black is an anime that was conceptualized directly for the small screen rather than seeing print in manga format first. It was created by Tensai Okamura, to be produced by the animation studios Bones and Aniplex, and enjoyed a run of an average 25 episodes during the spring and summer of 2007. A 26th episode was included on the DVD that had nothing to do with the overall plot but was equally entertaining just the same. As with many of the properties that have come across the Pacific, Funimation holds the licensing rights in the USA, and the series is also currently enjoying a run on their satellite and cable channel, the Funimation Network.
The anime follows the exploits of Hei, a contractor who is working for a shadowy organization known simply as "The Syndicate." And no, if you're thinking of some guy that builds houses for a living, or a freelancer doing work by contract for a major company, that's not what the term means here. Here, it means a person who has entered into this agreement where he or she has access to special abilities, but has to pay a price each time he or she uses them. It can be anything, from having to place stones in a certain pattern, to smoking, to eating a certain kind of food, to aging rapidly, or even growing younger. But they have to pay it soon after using their power, otherwise, it will be bad. I don't know how bad, as you never find out what happens if they don't, but it's bad enough to make a guy willing to break his fingers to avoid it, so it's gotta be pretty bad. It's never expressly said with whom such a contract is made. The important thing to know at the moment is that Hei is such a being with the ability to manipulate electricity, and that he and his team of other contractors and their normal human handler are primarily focused on completing missions for their patron, The Syndicate. He is joined in the main cast by Mao, a contractor whose ability to possess animals has robbed him of his original body and trapped him in the form of a cat, and girl named Yin who is a special kind of contractor called a doll. Most dolls on their own are virtually helpless, and often act like a person who has gone into a catatonic state, but they possess the ability to observe things in spirit form through a variety of mediums, such as water which make them very useful for certain organizations both legal and clandestine. Somewhat ironically, and in a very otaku-esque fashion, it is a sad state of affairs that these contractors are very vulnerable to being taken advantage of and abused because of this permanent condition, but paired off with other contractors they can be infinitely useful. Finally, the group is completed by their human handler, Huang, a bitter older man who is their main contact with the syndicate.
Their adventures take place in a dystopian future in Tokyo where contractors are state secrets, kept that way by the Men in Black... ahem... I mean public security, who are apparently authorized to mind wipe people, and the greatest fear of the world is that something is going to happen with this mysterious walled in part of Tokyo that is off limits. Beyond that is this mysterious thing called Hell's Gate, which is being researched at a closed facility managed by the United Nations, which ever so slowly continues to extend it's creepers into the world's governments like an ever spreading infestation of international kudzu. The Syndicate is also vying for power within the overall structure, and is most definitely not a neutral party, as its spies are everywhere. Every time I turn around, Hei's been instructed to back up some spy or sleeper agent somewhere. Most average citizens are kept in the dark about all of these internal power struggles, and are mostly seen as a populous to be controlled. What's even more perplexing, to my mind at least, is what happened to the night sky. Apparently around the time that contractors started appearing, the sky suddenly went through this mind-boggling change. The old stars were all blotted out and replaced by new ones, each one representing one of the contractors. When they died, the stars fell, and when new ones replaced them, new stars would appear. It's a phenomenon that isn't limited to Tokyo either. The stars all over the globe have been replaced. Further, apparently space travel is no longer possible because all the rockets just disappear after they reach a certain height, almost like they've passed beyond some celestial curtain, and communicating with them becomes impossible. Unfortunately, no one ever properly explains why this is, but it sure makes your average observatory a handy tool for the government to keep track of what contractors are still alive and at large, and whether or not they're up to mischief.
The plot seems very remote when you first encounter the group. Their primary objective is little more than completing the current mission, and in Hei's case, finishing as many bowls of ramen as he can consume while masquerading as a Chinese exchange student. In this, it's not unlike a warped alternate reality version of Cowboy Bebop, which isn't terribly surprising since the creator and director was also on Bebop's storyboarding team. But the plot takes a much greater precedence here. While in Cowboy Bebop, the exploits of Spike and his friends technically are the story, chronicling mostly standalone adventures as the crew of the Bebop travels in search of bounties and money, here, the missions are more of a springboard from which we can gain understanding of the overall mystery as to what the hell is going on. There's a lot more emphasis on stealth plot development here too. Early in the series, there were elements being developed for the finale that I didn't even realized were being utilized for that purpose. Like in episode 3 and 4 we are introduced to a young high school girl in the throws of becoming a contractor whose powers involve controlling fire. However, I had no idea that you would later see her under the wing of the syndicate acting as one of their soldiers. As we dig deeper into the series, it becomes less and less clear who you want to root for. We knew coming into this that Hei's organization were the official criminals, but the government officials aren't exactly the good guys either, nor are the folks at Pandora, the UN research facility. The closest we have to good guys are the antagonists with the contractor resistance group that eventually shows up called Evening Primrose, and even they aren't necessarily the biggest humanitarians. Contractors have a reputation for being cold and calculating anyway, but they're plotting to preserve their own overall existence by shutting down Hell's Gate which would result in a cataclysmic event that would destroy most of Japan. Now how's that for an interesting twist? I would never condone the actions these guys are taking, but I understand the logic behind it. The reason they would want to do it is because Pandora, ergo the government, ergo the syndicate (it eventually comes out that most governments in the world are syndicate puppets in this continuity) have been researching a way to kill off all the contractors because they fear them. Should their plan work, every single contractor on the globe will be wiped out, as opposed to the population of most of Japan, which seems like it's starting to be depleted by this point. But it's a risk they only took because they wanted to continue existing.
This overarching plot is underscored by the personal plots that are going on among the characters many of which, on their own are rather deep. There's the sub plot having to do with Yin developing something of a personality (a novelty among dolls because as I said before most of them are in an almost completely sedentary catatonic state, so naturally this causes some questions to be asked about what it means to be a doll). There's a subplot having to do with Huang and why he dislikes most contractors. There are also the subplots and relationships going on with the supporting cast. Among them, police detective Misaki Kirihara works tirelessly to protect the public along with her subordinates. Their secondary story often plays alongside Hei's exploits as Kirihara is constantly working to catch Hei, whom she knows as BK201, the designation for his star in the sky. While she's never successful at this, it provides an interesting counterpoint to Hei's story, especially since she eventually befriends his civilian alias, Li Shengshun. There's the subplot involving three contractors from the British organization MI6, having to do with how human a contractor can be. Another interesting couple of characters are a private detective who calls himself Gai Kurasawa, and his otaku secretary, Kiko. These two run into the main caste at intervals throughout the show, and while the first time they showed up I was kind of unprepared for their more colorful choices of wardrobe compared to the other characters, every time they appeared afterward, they had me in laughing. Kurasawa may be good at his job, but his fear of cats and his other eccentricities, make him a pretty fleshed out character for being in a minor role. Kiko is also of note because of her cosplaying, doujin novel reading, and figurine collecting activities as well as her bubbly personality. Paired together, these two are hilarious to watch. I could just imagine them in a comedy show all by themselves. Ultimately, it is Hei's subplot that carries the main plot, as he finds himself searching for answers about his sister, Pai, who was also a contractor and her connections to the gate explosion that took place in South America. It becomes important to know how it relates to Evening Primrose's actions as well as those of it's leader, Amber, a former love interest and also a fellow contractor. This leads him to having to make a difficult choice about the forces that are operating around him as the resistance group needs him to pull of their plot. I'm not going to ruin the choice he has to make, but its interesting how he comes to it, and what he learns about his sister and himself along the way.
The missions themselves are also pretty interesting, though I have to admit I did get a little worried after the first eight episodes or so because a lot of the stories were plot arcs in which a woman, often charmed by Hei's alter ego Li, ended up getting the axe in various horrible ways. By the time we got to the episode where Li actually meets up with Detective Kirihara while she's investigating another Chinese syndicate called a Tang, I was a little concerned she might be next, but I was wrong (the trend did continue though because the Tang boss's daughter got killed instead.) That being said, there are some things about this show that are rather goofy. For instance, some of the prices that the contractors have to pay range from being horribly prohibitive, say like aging more than one normally would, or having to forcibly choke on a foreign object, to being virtually painless, like having to set down rocks in a certain pattern. There doesn't seem to be any logical consistency in how this works at all. Further, some of the contractors look even goofier than their contracts. Like this one guy who first shows up as the Tang Boss's daughter's evil body guard in episode 9, and has a grudge against Hei for the remainder of the series. I mean, if Elrond's daughter Arwen from Lord of the Rings had decided to marry Count Dracula instead of Aragorn and they subsequently moved to China, their son might have looked like this. Ironically, from that perspective, his contract involves slitting his wrist and slinging the resulting flow of blood onto to things to make them explode. Yikes.
Most of the jokes in the early part of the series are funny, but at the same time, slightly off kilter from the rest of the tone of the show before a certain point. It's like you're talking to someone whom you're used to sounding totally serious and they spontaneously come out with a deadpan one-liner without giving you that hint of a grin people use to tell you they're joking, so it takes you a second to get that it's supposed to be funny. The show becomes more savvy with its sense of humor later in the series, but early on, it's like the writers haven't quite gotten used to the dry wit of their material. It's understandable but slightly distracting. That being said, some of the one liners down the road are leg slappingly hilarious once you get accustomed to the cadence. One aspect that just begs to be made fun of is the blatant product placement, mainly represented by the fact that in this universe, there appears to be a Pizza Hut on every corner and Camel cigarettes in every detective agency. The Pizza Huts are so prevalent you almost see them more than you see Hei's favorite ramen shop. The last issue is a common one in anime it seems, and that is a lack of important information. Mostly this relates to how in the hell Hell's gate came into existence, or why it blotted out all the stars, or where Hell's gate is exactly a gate to. Using the term 'gate' suggests that it goes somewhere, so where does it go guys? Is it some alternate dimension that's opened up where everything's all foggy? If it's just a walled in area where something weird's happening, that's not a gate, that's a quarantined area. I can kind of understand that most of the characters don't know what this is either, and in the case of the stars, I can kind of understand their confusion when their rockets disappear and they lose contact once they get to a certain height above the Earth's surface, but it opens up a lot of questions to speculate about. Is there like some giant cosmic view-screen with a fake sky on it surrounding the Earth now? What's up with that? I'd even take a supernatural explanation as long as it dealt with the question of how that sky worked the way it did.
The imagery in this anime is mostly dark and gritty as we spend a lot of time in Tokyo's more shadowy recesses. (After all, there's a reason it's called Darker than Black.) Even the brighter scenes in the show seem suspiciously surreal. It even has a bit of a noir quality to it, as you have much of the romanticized elements that come from that genre along but that's great, because this sort of environment fits the story like a glove. The music has a tendency to fade in the background until you need it, supplementing the action and drama in a masterful way as would be expected of the legendary composer Yoko Kanno. The intro and ending credit songs, all provided by other Japanese musicians are also pretty good, although I especially liked the ending from the first half of the season ("Tsukiakara" from the artist Rie Fu) as it's sweet tones are just the thing to soothe the savage anime fan. The opening to the second half of the anime ("The Hero Without a Name" by An Cafe) fits the situation perfectly for it provides audio cues and visual imagery suggesting that Hei is racing towards some end destination that even he doesn't know, and the series culminates in a largely open-ended but still very satisfying conclusion that I am not going to ruin here. There's also a 26th episode that was released as an OVA which is intended as more of a joke to mess with everyone's heads relationship-wise, which is very funny, but you don't have to watch it to understand the series. Overall, this is an anime I would definitely recommend, as long as you can stand the violence. If you like suspense, action, and uncertainty, then this one is for you, and that's the tiger's two cents.
The anime follows the exploits of Hei, a contractor who is working for a shadowy organization known simply as "The Syndicate." And no, if you're thinking of some guy that builds houses for a living, or a freelancer doing work by contract for a major company, that's not what the term means here. Here, it means a person who has entered into this agreement where he or she has access to special abilities, but has to pay a price each time he or she uses them. It can be anything, from having to place stones in a certain pattern, to smoking, to eating a certain kind of food, to aging rapidly, or even growing younger. But they have to pay it soon after using their power, otherwise, it will be bad. I don't know how bad, as you never find out what happens if they don't, but it's bad enough to make a guy willing to break his fingers to avoid it, so it's gotta be pretty bad. It's never expressly said with whom such a contract is made. The important thing to know at the moment is that Hei is such a being with the ability to manipulate electricity, and that he and his team of other contractors and their normal human handler are primarily focused on completing missions for their patron, The Syndicate. He is joined in the main cast by Mao, a contractor whose ability to possess animals has robbed him of his original body and trapped him in the form of a cat, and girl named Yin who is a special kind of contractor called a doll. Most dolls on their own are virtually helpless, and often act like a person who has gone into a catatonic state, but they possess the ability to observe things in spirit form through a variety of mediums, such as water which make them very useful for certain organizations both legal and clandestine. Somewhat ironically, and in a very otaku-esque fashion, it is a sad state of affairs that these contractors are very vulnerable to being taken advantage of and abused because of this permanent condition, but paired off with other contractors they can be infinitely useful. Finally, the group is completed by their human handler, Huang, a bitter older man who is their main contact with the syndicate.
This overarching plot is underscored by the personal plots that are going on among the characters many of which, on their own are rather deep. There's the sub plot having to do with Yin developing something of a personality (a novelty among dolls because as I said before most of them are in an almost completely sedentary catatonic state, so naturally this causes some questions to be asked about what it means to be a doll). There's a subplot having to do with Huang and why he dislikes most contractors. There are also the subplots and relationships going on with the supporting cast. Among them, police detective Misaki Kirihara works tirelessly to protect the public along with her subordinates. Their secondary story often plays alongside Hei's exploits as Kirihara is constantly working to catch Hei, whom she knows as BK201, the designation for his star in the sky. While she's never successful at this, it provides an interesting counterpoint to Hei's story, especially since she eventually befriends his civilian alias, Li Shengshun. There's the subplot involving three contractors from the British organization MI6, having to do with how human a contractor can be. Another interesting couple of characters are a private detective who calls himself Gai Kurasawa, and his otaku secretary, Kiko. These two run into the main caste at intervals throughout the show, and while the first time they showed up I was kind of unprepared for their more colorful choices of wardrobe compared to the other characters, every time they appeared afterward, they had me in laughing. Kurasawa may be good at his job, but his fear of cats and his other eccentricities, make him a pretty fleshed out character for being in a minor role. Kiko is also of note because of her cosplaying, doujin novel reading, and figurine collecting activities as well as her bubbly personality. Paired together, these two are hilarious to watch. I could just imagine them in a comedy show all by themselves. Ultimately, it is Hei's subplot that carries the main plot, as he finds himself searching for answers about his sister, Pai, who was also a contractor and her connections to the gate explosion that took place in South America. It becomes important to know how it relates to Evening Primrose's actions as well as those of it's leader, Amber, a former love interest and also a fellow contractor. This leads him to having to make a difficult choice about the forces that are operating around him as the resistance group needs him to pull of their plot. I'm not going to ruin the choice he has to make, but its interesting how he comes to it, and what he learns about his sister and himself along the way.
