Darker than BLACK / First Impressions

Summary:

As he drives the group towards the drop off spot, Huang talks about how he’s thinking about going to the countryside to fish. He thinks that watching a flowing river will make him forget about the time, and he compares their lives to leaves floating in a river. When they arrive at their destination inside a tunnel, Huang pulls out a cigarette, but Hei makes it explode with a jolt of electricity and advises Huang to stop smoking. Huang responds by telling Hei not to eat too much, and to his surprise, Yin then hugs him. As Huang drives off and is being pursued by the Organization, the Stargazer meanwhile starts talking again about the beginning of the end. At the same time, Misaki is trying to get into Pandora to see Schroeder, and she’s thoroughly searched before being allowed to meet with him. Eric Nishijima is with the professor when Misaki arrives at the meeting room and offers to explain things since they’re pressed for time. With a diagram of the Heaven’s Gate on a nearby screen, Nishijima quickly goes through how humans lost access to Heaven’s Gate five years ago. Misaki knows that it was BK-201 who caused this, but she questions why he would cause this tragedy.

Hearing Misaki refer to BK-201 as a male, Schroeder corrects her because that Messier Code belonged to a female back then. Nishijima then reveals that EPR is trying to cause the same South American phenomenon here in Tokyo, causing Misaki to ask how he knows. He answers her that they’ve been fighting EPR for a long time, and then goes on to talk about something he calls the Tokyo Explosion where Japan is swallowed up by a physically impenetrable area and all existence in there vanishes into thin air. However, he reassures Misaki that they won’t allow this to happen, and according to Schroeder, this can be prevented if they destroy the Hell’s Gate. The wall around the Hell’s Gate isn’t there just to prevent intruders – it’s also a fortification to protect a certain something. Nishijima then has Misaki look at a computer screen showing something he calls the Saturn System, and Schroeder launches into an explanation about how the Great Dark Spot reaches its maximum size 45 days after it appears. This final stage will last 30 minutes, and in that time, they plan to shoot an accelerated anti-gate particle into the core of the Hell’s Gate with the Saturn Ring, destroying the Gate.

That being said, BK-201 is also restricted to this final stage time period to cause the Tokyo Explosion, and Schroeder finds it very intriguing that mankind and the Contractors’ battle will unfold over these 30 minutes. Looking at his watch, he eagerly anticipates the five hours and twenty-seven minutes until what he thinks will be the moment of the century. Nishijima then gets a call from a subordinate informing him of the beginning of hostilities in the city, and he presses a button to reveal a large command room on the other side of the wall. On the screens of this command room are the same computer readouts that the Astronomy Department is getting, and they show a ton of Contractors active across the city. By this time, Wei, Hei, Yin, and Mao have reached a hidden tunnel under the city that Mao realizes is a subway that officially doesn’t exist. Wei explains that information about this place was lost in the confusion from the appearance of the Gate, and he plans to walk through the subway system to get to the Gate since the police’s Surveillance Spectres can’t come in here.

Though her Contractors and the military forces are engaging in battle throughout the city, Amber is actually in a quiet apartment with Amagiri who is boiling some eggs. When she gets ready to head out, Amagiri stops her as if he has something to say, and he ends up asking if they need eggs, so she has him give her one. Meanwhile, Hei and company have reached the section of the subway directly below the Gate wall, but it extends all the way down into the tunnel, preventing them from continuing. To everyone’s surprise, Wei pulls out a knife, cuts himself, and attacks Hei. Wei’s deal with Amber had been to lead Hei here, after which he was free to do what he wanted. He had cooperated with her so that he could fight with Hei again because he feels that it is a humiliation to lose to anyone after obtaining this power. The two then run parallel to each other using the pillars as cover, and after Hei grapples up towards the ceiling, Wei splashes his blood onto the pillar he last saw Hei move towards. Unfortunately for Wei, Hei is already swinging towards him and finishes the fight.

Back at Pandora, Schroeder is explaining to Misaki how the Hell’s Gate and the Heaven’s Gate are two sides of the same coin where closing up one side causes the other to disappear. When Misaki asks him what will become of the Contractors, he says that they’ll all disappear like the sugar in his coffee. She’s outraged to hear this because she believes that Contractors are still human and that they’re not all criminals, but Nishijima wonders if she’s willing to sacrifice several hundred million people for several thousand Contractors. It is at this point that Hourai enters the room and says that while it’s easy to talk about humanism, overlooking reality and exposing people to danger isn’t something permissible as a police officer. He apologizes to Nishijima for his subordinate, and Nishijima uses the chance to leave with Schroeder to take care of some things. Once they are gone, Hourai tells Misaki that using the Saturn Ring was a difficult decision for them, and she now realizes that he’s on the other side.

Misaki feels that Pandora doesn’t have the authority to carry out an operation where hundreds of millions of lives are at stake since it is only a research laboratory under United Nations’ management. It’s clear to her that what’s happening here is an unauthorized act, and she goes as far as to call it a crime. She figures out that November 11 must have been chasing after the Organization that had this enormous power, but Hourai shocks her by saying that she’s incorporated as part of this Organization. Every country’s intelligence agency, government, and powerful people are influenced by the Organization for the sake of protecting the order of the world. This causes Misaki to realize that it includes BK-201 too, so Hourai confirms that Hei is the most elusive guy in the Organization right now. Misaki then wonders why he’s telling her the truth now since she could do the same thing November 11 did. Hourai answers this by saying that it’s easy to kill her, but they always want talented people like her.

Back underground, Wei is lying against the wall with his blood splattered all over it after having been stabbed in the chest by Hei’s blade. In his final breaths, Wei laughs because he knew he was going to lose from the beginning, but he couldn’t help but fight. Though he blames Hei for this, he urges Hei to go and blows himself up to make a hole in the wall that was blocking their way. Above ground, Huang is still being chased by the Organization and finally gets trapped. Men with guns surround the van, but a badly bleeding Huang activates the bomb that’s strapped to the dashboard, blowing himself and everyone else up. Over at Pandora, Brita and Amagiri teleport in behind some soldiers, and Amagiri blows them all away with his power. After Brita kisses him as part of her price, Amagiri picks up a fallen soldier’s uniform and puts it on. The two quickly make their way to the particle accelerator, but before Amagiri can do anything to it, he notices a female Contractor – Mai – standing on a walkway above. Mai uses her own power to engulf both Brita and Amagiri in deadly flames, but a moment later, Amagiri suddenly finds himself transported back to a minute ago when he and Brita had first entered the room. Pulling out the egg in his pocket, he realizes that this was Amber’s doing.

This time around, Amagiri anticipates Mai’s appearance and hits her with a blast wave before she can burn him. He then immediately gets to work destroying the Saturn Ring, but shortly after he finishes, he’s again engulfed in flame because Mai hadn’t gotten knocked completely out. However, this does allow Brita enough time to react and teleport away before getting killed herself. She arrives at in the back of the truck where her allies are housing some of the Dolls they need for their operation and reports on the destruction of the Saturn Ring. One of the other Contractors tells her that their attacking forces have been virtually eradicated, and the survivors are beginning to retreat. Unfortunately, they soon detect a new anti-gate particle coming from inside the wall, and Brita figures out that they weren’t the only ones with a counterplot. As it turns out, Nishijima had been using the Saturn Ring as a decoy because he had another one in reserve: the Jupiter Ring. Meanwhile, Hei, Mao, and Yin emerge from the subway and find themselves inside the Gate. When a Surveillance Spectre appears nearby, Yin says that it’s calling to them and disappears through a portal beside it.

The group emerges on the other end walking sideways along the side of a building and head towards the next Surveillance Spectre along their path. Unbeknownst to them, the Astronomy Department is detecting a lot of interference noise coming from a system that’s using Surveillance Spectres. With Yin holding him now, Mao suddenly experiences a painful jolt and explains that he was in Pandora’s servers looking for an old research paper before getting cut off. What he found out was that it’s quite painful to make a Surveillance Spectre penetrate the interior of the Gate, but it’s possible to do so if you link a large number of them together and create a system that amplifies their ability using the meteor fragment. What he doesn’t realize is that Nishijima and Schroeder have already recognized that the attack on the Saturn Ring was a diversion and that BK-201 is already in the Gate. Schroeder is able to trace the sources of the interference noise, and they send men to take care of it. Back inside the Gate, Mao suddenly declares in a serious voice that he likes food that’s not crunchy. Having gotten Hei’s attention, Mao admits that it was interesting being with them, and, speaking like he’s losing his breath, he says that a cat similar to him will visit them someday. With that, Mao reverts back to being just a cat, bites Yin’s finger, and scampers off somewhere.

Yin and Hei continue onwards and soon cross over a bridge, but the Surveillance Spectre in front of them suddenly disappears. The reason is due to the Pandora soldiers having destroyed all the trucks containing Dolls, which Schroeder knows will lead to the loss of guides inside the Gate for Hei and Yin. As he watches all this occurring, Hourai tells Misaki that humans are living beings that make mistakes and that there is no justice for everyone. He feels that in order to choose the path with few mistakes, sacrifices are needed, and he’s willing to get his hands dirty for that. In the end, he tells her to grow up. At the Astronomy Department, the Stargazer meanwhile laments being left behind by the falling stars and starts laughing after talking about a large hole. With the sun rising now above the Gate wall, Yin climbs over the side of the bridge she’s on and stands on the surface of the water, eventually pointing in a direction for them to go. Hei joins her in walking across the water, and standing on a pier on the far side of the water is a smiling Amber who has turned younger yet again.

Preview

Let’s see, Huang is dead, Wei is dead, Amagiri is dead, the human behind Mao is probably dead, and countless Contractors are dead. None of those deaths were particularly moving or seemed really important though since they were all supporting characters, and none of them got a long farewell. Even Huang’s death didn’t affect me much, though I did like the cigarette and hug scene in the beginning. The Mao part was the most confusing because they didn’t provide an explicit reason for the cat taking over the body, though maybe it had something to do with pain he got when he got cut off from the Pandora server.
I did really like this episode though, especially the Amagiri time-jump scene which I wasn’t expecting at all. The main question I have now is how can possibly end well if the Organization is everywhere and wants to get rid of Contractors. They’re trying to commit genocide, and whether they succeed or fail, elements of the Organization will still be around. Plus, I have my doubts that Hei will survive the final episode, and there are still all those issues with his sister and Amber to be resolved, so I’m really curious to see how this ends. The one thing I’m fairly certain about is that Misaki will survive, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she voices over whatever epilogue we get. For now though, I need to get that creepy image of Amber out of my head…

72 Comments

  9. Hei & Huang departure lines.

    Hei: *blows up Huang’s cig* “Don’t smoke anymore.”
    Huang: “Heh, you too, don’t overeat anymore, eh?”

    XD (It make what happened later even sadder ;.;)

    FortMan
    Reply

  14. Omg only Yin and Hei survived. Mai is so powerful that makes Amber use her Time Ability.
    Only two more episodes left. It seems Hei will fight Mai (ironically he help her out during one of his missions before).

    arigatou
    Reply

  17. OmGOSH…this show kills off alot of people…xDD More then most shows I watched, I mean Code GEass killed off what? 3 people? And only 1 was like a main character….-.-….xD

    Omgosh…I feel sooo sad for Huang, he seemed all I hate contractor like, but he was cool, he helped out Hei many times…-.-…..And WOW, like I said, this show kills off MANY characters….-.-…which is alright…to a limit I guess….

    Kan-Chan
    Reply

  18. Oh yes, I forgot to ask, even though when Amber uses her powers she gets younger, but during the time from her use of power to the next, does she age? Like a normal person? Just alot younger?

    Kan-Chan
    Reply

  22. Does anyone else think that there is a major connection between the old star lady and Amber? I’ve only seen the raw and have no idea what she was laughing about but some of the things she said and the way she laughed made me think of Amber. Prolly way off, but just wanted to throw it out there. Its a shame we only have one episode left.

    LostCause
    Reply

  28. hmm, ashiguru, maybe Amber knows the future because she’s the old lady, and the young amber is a time swapped version of her. Naw, but it does make you think, if she’d only wait years between her contract. I dunno, the scene at the end of Ep 16 where the old lady is talking (i assume to/about amber, hell maybe she’s even talking about Hei)just seems to jump out at me as the big hint.

    LostCause
    Reply

  32. I really hope Hei and Yin won’t die and that Misaki would get to do something in all the commotion.

    I think Mao “died” since he tapped into Pandora and used too much of his powers or something. I think I remember from a previous episode where he says he needs to get into a wireless network to “update” once in a while (or something like that) or else the cat’s animal instincts would take over.

    It’s a bit sad that there’s only 1 ep left, but I’m still looking forward to see how it all ends! 🙂

    hazy
    Reply

  35. i wonder if amber can rewind õ.o, like, when she uses her powers she gets younger, then if she just stop using her powers, she could still age as a normal person? because after all.. she stops time… then the time for her to age as a normal person might just not be normal (i guess -.-)

    god
    Reply

  42. LoL~! I agree with everyone who says that this show kills people off quickly…a bit too quickly…-.-…but yeah, I’m wondering that also. So, willl Amber be able to age on like normal? I mean that would be cool, but seeing how making her younger jumps by alot of years. She went from like 15 to 7 for one use…-.-

    Kan-Chan
    Reply

  43. “they didn’t provide an explicit reason for the cat taking over the body, though maybe it had something to do with pain he got when he got cut off from the Pandora server.”

    actually they did in one of the episode mao said something about connecting to the server to cover for the cat’s brain or somethign and needs to connect to the server or else he becomes the animal. he got disconnected from the server in this episode so that’s probably the reason

    someone
    Reply

  45. Ahhh all that’s left is for Hei and Amber to make up and Hei to meet Pai I hope hei dies with his mask on and misaki is the one to iunmake him xD she’d be like
    FUCK and I really want amber to live if that’s somehow possible

    Geneva
    Reply

  50. back in ep. 16, Amber and Amagiri met with 3 people, Wei and the teleporting chick (i’m pretty sure), so who would the third be? Will she be the ace-in-the-whole to give Hei+Amber more time; or did they just forget about her…

    Everybody dying makes me sad Q_Q

    Yggdrasil
    Reply

  55. omg brita’s remuneration is to kiss ppl!

    that’s fun!

    oh, and i don’t think mao died. he prob got disconnected, cos he can’t go near the centre of the gate.. probly gate interference or something. so the cat’s mind took over momentarily. he’ll take over the cat’s body once he go further away from the centre. [he did say he’ll come back…!]

    and for the timejump scene, i figured it’s the naked guy remembering amber’s warning (ie that previous scene was a flashback sequence). fits in with amber predicting the future rather than reversing the past. anyhow, amber’s in the centre of the gate, so it’s hard to figure how she can help the nekkied ppl from all the way over there.

    brita rocks
    Reply

  56. Mao got disconnected from his support server, without it (as he has said in an earlier episode), the Cat’s brain is not complex enough to support human intellect.

    Basically, he’s still in there, but unless they find a way to connect him or switch his body he’s for all purposes a cat.

    Bob
    Reply

  58. This show really grew from pretty good to being my favourite this season 😮
    It was interesting to see how bits of the organization background were revealed each episode and how many details are hidden you can only discover if you’re actually paying attention to the show.

    On the one hand I can’t wait for the last ep, on the other it’s sad to see another great show coming to it’s end. The good things don’t last forever. Just hope Hei doesn’t have to date a killer loli / babbling grenmah if he survives.

    Neara
    Reply

  64. This show has really started to come together in the end. It took a long time to establish the story and the characters, but I must say it was nicely done.

    It’s sad to see so many characters die. I do feel for all of them, even though some did not get much development. Huang really came a long way from the heartless and uncaring bastard in the beginning of the show to the brave compassionate person he became. His line about Hei stopping to eat so much makes me feel this isn’t his renumeration after all. He probably just likes to eat. Mao did not get much development, but it was still sad to see him go. We don’t know almost anything about Amagiri, but he seemed like a reasonable person. Even Wei somehow became a sympathetic character before he died. His decision to fight Hei even though he knew he was going to lose goes to show that contractors are human too and they can make their own choices governed by their emotions rather than cold logic.

    In the last episode, I hope we finally learn what happened in South America five years ago and the truth about Hells/Heaven’s gate – what it really is. I also hope to see Hei reunited with his sister, though there is a chance that both of them are going to dies in the end along with Amber(she looks like four years old now). I also hope Misaki finds out Hei’s real identity and gets to interact with him before the end. This might be a little too much to hope for one episode, but even if part of it comes true, I will be satisfied.

    Darklord
    Reply

  67. Apparently, the basketball guy throws a basketball, and it’s like one of those gravity bombs, where everything in a certain radius gets sucked in into a small ball.

    I really love this anime’s graphics. Everythings extremely detailed and as realistic as an anime can be

    Mark
    Reply

  68. i just remembered that theres a manga version with a different storyline. so if everythin isnt answered in the next episode, maybe the manga does answer those questions the anime might leave

    Damian
    Reply

  69. Great episode….. BUT gah wtf is the stuff with the 2 cops – just unecessary chaff, same goes for most of the old mediums prophecies. Cut them out and give us more of the story coz we just got 1 episode left to tie up the pieces. 20 min episode, you ain’t got time for chaff when ur almost at tthe end.

    grrr
    Reply

  70. @ Grrr, if the detective seens weren’t in there, the whole episode would seem very rushed to me. They seperate events nicely IMO, and the old woman thing is VERY necessary, if you don’t know that by now.. Pay more attention 😛

    Also does anyone notice that she seems to be getting older as Amber gets younger?

    I think Mao isn’t dead, he is just a cat now. He said earlier that his connection to The Organisation kind of ‘reminded’ him that he was human and not a cat. With that connection gone he has nothing left to remind him, and he could not have a human mind inside a cat’s brain without outside help because of the mass difference.

    Explanations
    Reply

  72. Btw, Omni said in the very end of the episode summary that “[Amber] has turned younger yet again.” When was the first time it happened? Can someone refresh my memory?

    Tissu3.Tim3
    Reply

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