Darker than BLACK: Ryuusei no Gemini - 07 November 21
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Summary:
Since they’ve got a lot of enemies, Hei and company find it hard to get out of Hokkaido in order to get to Tokyo. Hei decides to hire someone to smuggle them through the checkpoints, and this lady ends up disguising July as a corpse and Hei and Suou as the grieving family. Shortly after arriving in Aomori though, the car that Hei and Suou are in gets a flat tire, and the hearse with the lady and July doesn’t stop. Hei and Mao figure out that this was intentional and that the lady’s goal was to steal July and sell him, but Hei also thinks that it’s a waste of time to go after him. Suou disagrees, and after seeing July’s observer spirit on a departing truck’s window, she hops into the back of the truck with Mao in tow and leaves Hei behind. She’s convinced that July is feeling lonely and helpless, and she believes that Contractors and Dolls retain some fragment of their emotions.
Through July’s observer spirit’s guidance, Suou and Mao find him being held in a warehouse. Remembering the lessons Hei taught her, Suou makes use of some broken glass and throws severals shards at the woman who betrayed them until Mao finally stops her. While Suou is getting July though, a Contractor known as Ilya Sokolov who had been tracking them suddenly shows up. He kills off the woman with his Contractor ability to induce drugged states in people’s brains, and he easily captures Suou, July, and Mao. Fortunately, while he’s transporting them on the highway, their car is attacked by Hei. Despite hanging off the side of a moving car, Hei is able to use his wire as a garrote to strangle Sokolov to death and save everyone. He attributes some of his success though to July who had used an observer spirit to distract Sokolov, and in the aftermath, July notes his pain when Suou touches the bump on his head. The group then makes their way to Sendai and boards a train there, unaware that Repnin and Tanya are aboard the same train after having come to Japan because of a recent photograph showing Suou’s father alive in Tokyo.
Preview
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This was a decent episode that moves the story along, but at a slightly slower pace than I would have expected from a 12-episode series (I didn’t think they’d make anything of the trip to Tokyo). It was nice to see July finally get some more character development, though it’s probably just as important that Suou got a bunch of her own development with the focus on her ruthless Contractor side contrasted with her care for July. That scene where she was repeated chucking glass shards at that woman certainly made the former point.
I do wish though that they wouldn’t keep introducing Contractors with cool powers (and in this case, a creepy remuneration) and then killing them off so quickly because it makes those characters seem like cheap roadblocks, like monsters-of-the-week. On the other hand, they are developing the mystery around the overarching story nicely with the Misaki/Genma scene, the Mr. Golgo 13 scene, and with the reappearance of Shion and Dr. Pavlichenko, so I can’t complain too much. It seems that it all has something to do with the ME network stuff, and maybe Repnin will explain it a bit more next episode when he meets with Hei.
X at 2:40 am on November 21st, 2009
Kinda like a filler episode, this episode could have been used to move on the story, I mean there are still so much questions that needs answers.
arlulez at 3:03 am on November 21st, 2009
july in coffin >__< hillarious
OhLawdy at 3:06 am on November 21st, 2009
I think its a good thing that Hei lost his powers cause if he had them he might make the series shorter lol
rofl at 3:08 am on November 21st, 2009
the reaction of the two girls was priceless. also good to see Hei killing contractor(s) again aside from that pointless though
TehJawknee at 3:12 am on November 21st, 2009
I actually disagree. This makes sense because it shows Suou as a cold, rational contractor. She also expresses her “need” for July because he helps her with her power. Yes, it slowed down the story a bit, but it foreshadows, too. I mean, why show Tanya when Suou talks about contractors and dolls keeping part of their emotions? I believe this will be used against Tanya in the future.
Also, I loved how Mao keeps thinking of himself as a cat even though he’s in a squirrel’s body now. One thing that’s bothering me, though… in episode 8 of season 1, Mao connects to the Syndicate’s server via the bell on his neckband because “a server compensates for the shortfalls of a cat’s brain” Does this mean that the squirrel brain is bigger than a cat’s? Or does Mao have a way to log into the server with a different device now?
It’s just something I noticed which may simply get the Lucy Lawless explanation of “Wizard did it.”
sean at 3:26 am on November 21st, 2009
i loved darker than black and season 2 is doing ok but for some reason im just completely lost now. They keep introducing characters with no backstory and come from unkown factions. The episodes are uncoordinated and they never really explain things. it mite just b me tho, anyone else feel this way?
divine at 3:29 am on November 21st, 2009
TehJawknee:
I just assumed the current organization Mao and Hei are with is supplying that server to compensate for his lack of brain capacity. But then again, I haven’t seen him access it once, so maybe a flying squirrel’s brain is bigger than a cat’s?
m at 3:40 am on November 21st, 2009
I don’t think the contractors-as-rational-sociopaths has ever been anything but a strawman in the Darker than Black universe that the writers knock over on a case-by-case basis when not relying on it to explain why they battle each other to the death. Though Hei and Suou are probably even more unusual in that they borrow their powers (Hei from Pai, and maybe Suou from Pai via the fragment) and just play the role. It was easier for Hei in the original, because he’d already chosen to be an assassin to be with Pai, whereas Suou is a lot worse at playing contractor. I think she throws those shards of glass into the woman more out of hatred than anything.
I actually liked this episode more than the others. That annoying character Norio is never seen, Suou hilariously throws broken glass into that woman, the serial killer showing those girls his notebook was funny, and Suou never successfully wastes a bunch of our time transforming. The only really disappointing aspect is how much difficulty the group was having escaping Hokkaido, which seemed more like a lame pretense for the July abduction than a legitimate problem.
madzo at 3:46 am on November 21st, 2009
LOL suou sticking her tongue out at hei was EPIC i laughed soooooooo hard XD XD and i loved the way he came and saved them. Suou was pretty cool in this episode, bordering on fearless plus the way she seems to care about July and yet enjoy throwing those shards - awesome. Also, the way she remembers Hei’s training, quite commendable.
The drawing-book-contractor guy was just freaky o.O
GP at 3:53 am on November 21st, 2009
This is all well and good, and Hei is still pretty badass, but seriously, can we do some reverse hax with that shard Suon has and give him his powers back please? The show brings up the bit about not having her use her powers and to kill, but as long as she has them she’ll never be free.
I think the fact the shard was in the field bit in ep2 when Hei lost his powers hints that maybe/probably, he’ll get them back later on.
I sure hope so because if he doesn’t, though he’s still badass, he’s not important really, no agency will care to actually work with him after this point. Though he’s a great assassin etc, all they care about are contractors and dolls.
It doesn’t bode well for a future 3rd series and so on if Hei is left powerless at the end.
TehJawknee at 4:04 am on November 21st, 2009
Divine:
I know anyone would assume Mao still has the connection to the server, but if he IS accessing the server with his squirrel brain… HOW is he accessing it? I doubt he took the bell from his cat body after April shot him. Maybe he did.
Chimasternmay at 4:17 am on November 21st, 2009
what happened to the shave?
http://randomc.maximum7.net/image/Darker%20than%20BLACK/Darker%20than%20BLACK%202%20-%2007%20-%20Large%2009.jpg
anyway was good episode not the best of them, the preview didn’t give me much to guess on, but should be better
dtbfan at 4:23 am on November 21st, 2009
gosh another appear-once-only-to-die contrator appeared.
How many one-offs are they gonna kill before the end of the show i wonder.
dtbfan at 4:24 am on November 21st, 2009
hmm looking at the preview, i’m predicting that another contractor will get killed by Yin’s water powers.
divine at 4:56 am on November 21st, 2009
TehJawknee:
I always thought it was some sort of direct link to his brain and that the bell was just a wireless radio he used to communicate with Hei. Remember back in episode 7-8 where Kurasawa Gai (the private detective) captured Mao for a while from that dead woman’s house? Mao dropped his bell there and lost communication with Hei, but I don’t think he was fretting about losing his human consciousness from being offline.
GP at 6:08 am on November 21st, 2009
@dtbfan
Who cares about the one-off contractor cannon fodder? All you have to do is take one look at the night sky in the show to see they have a crap load of them, since every star is one. The fact the show even gives them some bit of depth should be enough. We don’t have the time, and they’re not important enough, to stick around.
The ones that were, like back in season 1, played an important part in the plot, others just show up and die, that’s how it is in any show.
treble89 at 7:48 am on November 21st, 2009
the Contractor’s drawing feel more terrifying than his power…..only 12 episode??!!then have to wait for 3rd season, sigh…..
Torint at 8:40 am on November 21st, 2009
http://randomc.maximum7.net/image/Darker%20than%20BLACK/Darker%20than%20BLACK%202%20-%2007%20-%2005.jpg
How could you not trust that face?
SomethingLeft at 10:19 am on November 21st, 2009
Woah what’s with the body in the pool in the preview?
Tekioro at 10:30 am on November 21st, 2009
The glass scene was great, I always liked Suou but she was a bit of a crybaby before, this shows she has a ruthless side. And I like it.