Dangerous Characters: Hei

Here's a character that may not necessarily seem an obvious choice. On the outside he's just Lee Shengshun, this mild mannered Chinese foreign exchange student who really doesn't have much to do with anything and only really cares about slurping down as many bowls of ramen as he can possibly get his hands on and cooking as much tasty food in his apartment as he can while occasionally getting a part time job here and there. But you know, it's generally the nice ones that are more dangerous. If you pay more attention you'll eventually realize a few things. For one, he has a secret identity, and for another, he works for a shadowy organization called the Syndicate. Also known by the code BK-201 for the star that represents the status of his powers, Hei comes from the series Darker than Black and is not one to be trifled with. He's notorious for throwing people off with his nice demeanor, but when it gets down to it, his harmless appearance is just that, an appearance.

When it comes to his true nature, Hei is actually pretty cold and calculating. He puts on the front of being so jovial a lot of the time in order to lower defenses and get him in where he otherwise wouldn't. While he is capable of feeling some amount of emotion he can be quite ruthless, and it's a characteristic you need in the environment in which he works. In the cloak and dagger world of criminal syndicates, not having such traits can get people killed. His wits aren't his only weapons though. He also sports a cable he can shoot electric currents through as he swings it around, not to mention he's definitely in excellent physical shape (that slasher mask of his doesn't hurt either when it comes to intimidating opponents). All of these are necessary for the missions he runs for the syndicate along with Yin, Mao, and Huang, his associates and he uses them to great effect, however, his missions often tend to result in fatalities and collateral damage for the police to clean up, also making him a prime candidate for induction into our fraternity of Dangerous Characters.

Image taken from Darker than Black.

Share this post