Darker than BLACK / First Impressions

Summary:

Many years ago, a silver-haired girl named Kirsi had been playing the piano under the watch of her teacher, but she lashed out when he tried to give her a pointer. He told her that she needed to put feeling into it and work on her form first, causing Kirsi to start to say that she knew the difference between form and feeling, but he had put his finger on her mouth and explained that she had to first control her form so that her feelings could arise from there. Even when she is sad, if she smiles, then her sadness will lessen. Kirsi had claimed not to understand this, but she’s also not happy when her mother implies that she’s not grown up enough to get it. She had then changed the subject to the full moon on that night and revealed that she liked this light – even if she couldn’t see it, she could feel the silver color. Kirsi is none other than Yin, who is currently standing alone in an alley thinking about an airplane accident that had her mother grieving. Hei and Mao are at that moment talking with Huang about a group that is coming after them – information that they have been provided with from above.

At the Astronomy Division, Kanami is inspecting the capsule-encased mediums and explaining to her colleague about how the mediums are delicate. When the other girl notices that one of them moved its mouth like it’s talking in its sleep, Kanami jokes that the medium is dreaming. Even though it has been confirmed that the mediums don’t have dreams, Kanami still thinks that they can see peaceful dreams. Kanami then gets an urgent message about a change in the movement of their patrolling surveillance spectres and heads to the control room to learn that they are being attracted towards some particular coordinates. At that moment, an overweight woman is standing by the riverside when a man pulls up in a car. The woman motions to a lifeless body nearby and suggests that it’s someone higher up than the people they’re after, so the man reminds her that their job is to gather information about their targets – not to kill. However, the two then notice the surveillance spectres moving along the nearby power lines, so the man activates his Contractor power to suck them towards him.

This causes numerous alarms to start going off at the Astronomy Division, and Kanami tries to get them back, but it’s too late. On their star chart, CY-463 has started to show movement, and Kanami realizes that means that a Contractor has caught the surveillance spectres. The Contractor by the river doesn’t actually enjoy this feeling since it connects him momentarily with the Dolls that sent out those surveillance spectres, though he then notices another surveillance spectre – one belonging to Yin – out on the water and tries to suck it up too. His action causes Yin to suddenly fall down in the dark alley where she’s standing, and the Contractor is quick to realize that he linked with one of his targets. Meanwhile, over at Kurosawa Gai’s detective agency the next day, Kirsi’s piano teacher – whose name is Aries Kastinen – points out a picture of Yin from a guidebook that happens to feature her cigarette shop. Kastinen, who is a famed pianist from Northern Europe, is looking for Yin and wants Gai’s help.

In a hotel room somewhere, the Contractor whose name is Itzhak tells the fat woman Berta that the Doll he shocked last night is adrift somewhere as if sleepwalking. Berta then asks him for some cigarettes, which causes him to wonder if it’s okay for her to smoke them since she’s a singer, but she reminds him that it’s her Contractor price. When she takes the cigarettes from him, she also gets the small notebook that he’s been writing in and reads about a girl in a white night facing a lake. Berta laughs at this, but Itzhak reveals that it’s his price and that it’s not poetry. Elsewhere in the city, Huang is telling Hei over the phone that he hasn’t been able to contact Yin since last night. Huang doesn’t think that she ran away since Dolls can’t think for themselves – Yin has only a minimal program that keeps her alive. However, one of the Organization has been killed, and they think the culprits might have abducted Yin too. Yin is at that moment wandering the streets alone, unsure of where she’s at. Mao visits the cigarette shop and sees that she hasn’t come back, but he also notices Gai and Kiko coming. After seeing that Yin isn’t there, Kiko leaves Gai to go out with a friend, and Mao passes along the news to Hei that those two are looking for Yin.

Still alone, Yin manages to make her way to a park where there is a girl practicing the piano in an amphitheater. It reminds her of her own piano practices when she was young, especially of one night when both Kastinen and her mother had applauded her. At the time, Kastinen had dropped his penlight, so Kirsi’s mother had gone to turn on the light, but Kirsi had stopped her because she liked the moonlight so much. Her mother had helped Kastinen look for the penlight, and they found it at the same time, causing their hands to touch for a brief instant. Kirsi’s mother had looked away from him after a moment, so Kastinen had gone back to instructing Kirsi. Yin now remembers how she had played that night, and by chance, she’s spotted by Kiko in the park. Taking Yin to a family restaurant, Kiko tries to make her smile, and Kiko’s friend thinks that Yin looks cute smiling. When Kiko leaves to take a phone call, Yin pushes up the corners of her own mouth to form a smile, but she suddenly senses something.

Kiko is telling Gai over the phone about where the restaurant is when Yin walks out. Although she wants to give chase, Kiko is kept back by her friend who doesn’t want her skipping out on her half of the check. Yin meanwhile heads to an empty lot beside a construction site where Itzhak is waiting for her. He reveals that he can read the conscious minds of Dolls and tries to get her to come towards him, but Yin turns to run instead. When Itzhak tries to catch her, Mao jumps down from above and scratches the Contractor so that Yin can get away. Hei then arrives and is about to electrocute Itzhak, but he suddenly notices that Berta is standing to the side gathering her voice. Her Contractor power lets her sing out a shockwave that causes the half constructed building next to them to start to fall apart. Hei sees that Yin is going to be crushed by the debris, so he dives forward and manages to save her. Before running off, Hei tells her to get as far away as she can, but Yin then gets found by Kastinen and Gai. In their getaway car, Itzhak questions if Berta was trying to kill him too, though he then notices that she’s stuffing cigarettes into her mouth. Berta tells him that she’s okay because she’s not swallowing them, but this is her Contractor price.

During the taxi ride home, Kastinen reminds Yin of who he is, and once they’re back at the detective agency, he convinces Gai to shelter them until they can leave the country. Kiko thinks that there’s a stalker after Yin because of what happened, and she suggests that they hide out in a hot springs. Meanwhile, Huang is furious with Hei for letting their enemies and also Yin get away. Mao tries to calm him down by saying that the enemy wants them to fall apart here, but Huang actually replies that he doesn’t want to work with them. Hei reassures him that he doesn’t want to work together and that Contractors don’t have such shameful feelings. This only gets Huang angrier because he feels that they don’t understand anything about the horror of the Organization. In any case, Huang is ready to personally kill Yin if Hei won’t. The following day, Gai, Kiko, Kastinen, and Yin board a train to go to some hot springs. During the trip, Kastinen suggests to Yin that they go home once things settle down, but she surprises everyone by saying that she won’t go back.

Preview

I can’t decide if I like Yin or Mao more after this episode. We finally get some insight into Yin’s past and she gets some cute scenes (like when she tries to make herself smile), but Mao had so many funny expressions, and I couldn’t help but laugh at this part. Actually, this episode revealed less about Yin’s past than I thought it would. From what they show, it seems that Yin’s mother lost someone dear to her in a plane crash, though Yin herself didn’t look all that emotional during the quick flashback. They don’t say what happened to Yin’s mother since then or how Yin became a Doll, but I assume at least some of that will be explained in the second half of this mini-arc next week, especially since the preview shows the shot of the plane crash again.
In addition to the Yin stuff and the animation quality being better than normal, I liked how they’re continuing to develop the idea that there are other, perhaps bigger forces at play and people coming after our heroes. Their immediate enemies this week proved to be interesting through their contract powers (Itzhak being able to capture surveillance spectres and Berta’s face that scares children vocal abilities) and prices. It would seem that Itzhak’s price is that he has to write down what he sees when he links with Dolls’ consciousnesses, meaning that what Berta read from his notebook is probably something he saw from linking with Yin. Berta meanwhile has the disgusting price of scarfing down cigarettes. Huang also had some interesting lines this week, and I look forward to seeing the arc that focuses on his background (I assume he’ll get one).
On more note: the new OP (Kakusei Heroism ~The Hero Without A Name~ by Antic Cafe) and new ED (Dreams by HIGH and MIGHTY COLOR) should either be premiering next week or the week after. Something more to look forward to. 🙂

41 Comments

  3. what was the Contractor power ? i didn’t quite understood what he does with the dolls .
    all i got what that they couldn’t come back .
    expect Yin that somehow got away …:S

    kurotsuki
    Reply

  12. I’m not at all surprised to see that they did this episode in such great animation. It’s been well-known since lat week’s preview of this episode that it would it would have a lot of Yin focus, and Bones knows that that will draw in viewers. 😀

    Shinji103
    Reply

  21. Yay for a Yin episode!! I was wondering about her.. since Dolls are not supposed to have emotions, yet Yin like the Doll in the first episode, had shown traces or having emotions. I cant wait for episode 14!!!
    Thanks for the screencaps… I bet Mao was hurt pretty bad in that one shot…

    Gem
    Reply

  23. i don’t get it. i thought yin was a contractor “with that water power thingy” but yall say shes a doll? is she like a fake human zombie, like the chick who gets murked in th first ep.. cuz i thought she was gonna have some kinda payment for contract and all that,but if shes like a zombie. . .

    BROOKLYN otaku
    Reply

  25. she is a doll, not a contractor. just like that young boy that follows around the 2 Mi6 contractors. if huang tried to kill yin, i bet hei would kill him first to stop him. there is something goin on between those two.

    poop drinker
    Reply

  30. I really what’s up with Hei and Yin. In the episode with Havoc dying, it looked like Yin was trying to comfort him by holding his sleeve but Hei roughly shook her off. Then he thanked her in the last episode – presumably for alerting him to people coming after the “rocket/light show.”

    This all makes me wonder if Yin will turn out like Chiaki in the first two episodes. Chiaki seemed to act against her Contractor’s will and save Hei. At the end of episode 2 Hei claims Chiaki was alive, is it the same for Yin?

    Also is Kirsi blind?

    And is it just me or did Kastinen rub anyone else the wrong way? Something seems a little wrong about him, my first instinct was he was a loli-pedophile but that lasted for 1 second.

    From the second to last scene in the raw’s preview, right before the snapshot of Mao on the hood of the car… hahaha… it seems like Yin returned to her stand/store.

    Where the hell is Amber? After she showed up in the end of episode 12 we haven’t seen her. I know just one episode since but I’m getting antsy. We’re like halfway through the series already, presuming its 24-26 episodes.

    White Star
    Reply

  32. “And is it just me or did Kastinen rub anyone else the wrong way?”
    Yes Kastinen rubs me the wrong way also… I think he wants something from Yin that’s how it usually works with people.

    I have a bad feeling about this Yin story arc, the fact that she gets the solo shot picture
    in the ending song and they will be dropping/changing the closing after the YIN arc and Hei
    does not have a great track record in protecting women, try as hei may. Also, the fact that there are no leaks/info about the post Yin story arc episodes.

    “hooray for yin!!” – I agree!

    reservbed
    Reply

  33. Kirsi/Yin are indeed blind. It’s been stated in Yin’s profile on the Web that she can’t see except through her water spectres (her other senses must be pretty sharp if she can get around the city without too much of a problem as she did). I actually didn’t mind the two detectives; they bring humor to the otherwise serious tone the series tries to maintain. Besides, it was cute whenever Kiko tried to cheer Yin up (cat ears, hehe).

    I have a bad feeling too about Yin. I’m hoping that they don’t just off her character, and as been stated before, Hei’s record of saving women is pretty shabby (only Mai’s survived so far, I think, out of all the female contractors/dolls he’s met, and the Inspector lady in the last arc doesn’t really count). I also have the feeling that it was Kirsi who died in that plane crash, and Yin the doll was born out of her death some how.

    It’d be too cruel to finally showcase Yin’s past just to kill her at the end of it. Then again, it’d be a good excuse to bring Amber into Huang’s group. I wonder if he really means to kill Yin rather than let her be lost or fall into enemy hands. Is protecting the organization’s dirty little secrets worth killing Yin over? If Huang succeeds and/or if Yin dies in some other way, I wonder how Hei will take her death. Maybe it’ll force Hei to break away from the organization for good.

    Kastinen definitely wants something from Kirsi though not realizing it’s Yin he’s found, not Kirsi, even if Yin does have her memories. Is Kirsi’s mother still alive somewhere, I wonder, too. Too many questions, too few answers. Looking forward to the next ep, and crossing my fingers that Yin survives.

    KaminaLives
    Reply

  35. thats impossible havoc already died, right? Oh and thx 4 the blog, i saw the ep and was rly confused but now that u guyz explained,i think i pretty much get whats goin on lol. Oh and is it just me, or does Amber look lyk C.C fromCode Geass? and is her name rly Amber? How do u Know?

    P.S. im glad those detectives r bak ^//^ lol! XD

    pearlz
    Reply

  41. Did anyone else notice the Death Note reference by Kiko? xD Her and her friend were talking about some anime character saying “I can’t believe they changed her character so much! Grr, I’m so angry, I’m so writing the director’s name in my book!” And then she pulls out a black notebook and scribbles his name in. xD

    Tori
    Reply

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