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Two months later and we have the third of four episodes of the Darker than BLACK side story, which is turning out to be more interesting than the actual Ryuusei no Gemini sequel. Naturally, that’s because the story here is focusing on Yin leading up to the events revolving around her Izanami awakening. Picking up from last time, the men barging in to help Hei turned out to be Amber’s former Evening Prim Rose (EPR) members led by Amagiri, whom those with remarkable memory should recall from long ago when he still had his hair. Upon talking to Hei about how books from over fifty years ago predicted the appearance of a girl with the power to change the world and wondering if Amber foresaw all this, Amagiri posed the question I’ve always been wanting to ask Hei myself — what exactly does he think of Yin?
I can’t say I’m too surprised that he fumbled around with the idea and was unable to give an answer, but hearing him suggest to Yin that they part ways because a voice is telling her to stay away from him kind of made that un-contractor-like hesitation moot. Granted, he only did so because he felt he was making Yin suffer — further reinforcing the notion that he sees her as much more than a mere doll — but I was hoping he’d show a few more emotion-driven decisions in that situation. Watching Yin tear up at the sound of that and hearing how she wouldn’t be able to forget about him made me hope he’d do something to comfort her. I figured that was a perfect opportunity for a little Hei x Yin moment, even if it was nothing more than him putting an arm around her.
In any case, it was kind of eye-opening to see how a lot the contractors that had nowhere to go following the collapse of the Syndicate gathered here and started leading very human-like lives again. If there’s one thing that I really enjoyed in Ryuusei no Gemini it’s the internal struggle between human emotions and contractor rationale shown in Suou, so it’s nice to see that aspect getting some focus here not only with regards to Hei and Yin, but other contractors as well. All of that was kind of put into perspective when Claude’s stray dog contractor pointed out that Madame Oreille said that contractors are nothing more than defective dolls. That possibility never really occurred to me before, but it does explain why they’re still somewhat influenced by their human emotions and sentimental attachments. Dolls are generally shown to only have observation-type abilities, but it seems more than probable for them to be created with ones seen in contractors.
While I’m curious as to whether doing so increases the likelihood the doll will become a “failure” contractor with a remuneration, it doesn’t look like the story plans to dwell on that thought much longer. Instead, the appearance of Claude and kidnapping of Yin to satisfy his own curiosity on what will happen if she awakens more or less marks the moment she was separated from Hei. Seeing as he was searching for her the entire time in Ryuusei no Gemini, I’d say it’s pretty much guaranteed he won’t be reunited with her by the end of the fourth and final episode; however, I’m still curious as to how they eventually parted ways. On the other hand, watching some of the ex-EPR members act without the real Amagiri’s consent (misguided by Claude’s illusion) and try to kill Hei for “killing” Amber was pretty cool to see, simply because Hei still has his powers right now. It still sucked to learn that Claude went and killed everyone after, including the mother of a newborn baby, just when it was looking like contractors weren’t fated to die fighting one another for other people’s causes.
The sight of that and the words of the dog contractor who Claude sold out — asking him to kill Yin before she awakens — was good build-up for why Hei seemed inclined to do so later on though. If Hei felt uneasy at all about a handful of contractor corpses, then I can sort of imagine the thought of every contractor dying worldwide with Yin’s awakening not sitting well with him. Of course, he’s still clearly conflicted on what to do about Yin, hence why we had that “awesome” ending in the sequel. For now though, I’m curious as to where this gaiden chapter will leave off, but we’ll all have to wait another two months to find out as episode four isn’t slated to be released until July 21st.
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Didn’t think this was a particularly strong episode, and honestly, I don’t think these Gaiden eps are nearly as strong as even the second season :\ No real character development, aside from the random dude from the last ep.
honestly, I really wish they just start to build a third season now (considering the ending in season 2)…
I do feel, however, these episodes are good in the sense that they explained a lot of things…
and of course, thanks for the review here, Divine 🙂
The time-gap between releases for these OVA’s is too far apart to hold my interest to be honest, I barely remember the last episode. so I’ll probably put off watching this one until Nr.4 is out and then re-watch the whole thing again.
I still maintain that the entirety of season 2 was filler / waste of time, and had the show been similar to these Gaiden releases it would have been much more entertaining to watch. Once the Gaiden series is over, and with the eventual yet very far off release of a season 3 it would be perfectly coherent to just skip season 2.
Oh well… I’m still annoyed at the utter disappointment season 2 was, and I find it quite ironic how they display that fact by showing us what they can do with a proper story as they have in Gaiden.
The soundtrack is awesome..esp the last song in this ep. Its not Yoko Kanno is it?
Nope. Every song involved with the second series was composed by Yasushi Ishii. You’ll probably know him better as the composer for the Hellsing soundtrack. The name of the song that played at the end of the episode is called Gekko Bosatsu no Namida and just so happens to be one of the tracks on the Ryusei no Gemini soundtrack they released.
thank you for this info! I have watched the ep 3 times just for the soundtrack.
yins outfit was freaking cute
BEST thing to come out of SEASON 2 was a Hentai Doujin i just read…FREAKING HILARIOUS!!!!!!!! lets just say that Hei had a weird DREAM and leave it at that.
Yin wearing hotpants.
Hnnnggghhhhhh
lol, I thought the exact same thing when I first saw it. I figured slipping that into my post would’ve taken my train of thought off track, so I left it out. :\
Hahaha, it’s okay Divine. I am sure a lot of us thought the exact same thing. Yin is definitely moe imho. I find it sad when I actually think the 2 of them could have been living happy together. It’s a broken and twisted fairy tale.
Wow, I never knew C.C. was in Darker than Black.
strangely enough, Amber does resemble C.C a lot… especially in her adult form (see season 1 and you will know what I mean)
“However, watching some of the ex-EPR members act on their own without Amagiri’s consent and try to kill Hei for “killing” Amber was pretty cool to see,”
The show didn’t make it %100 clear, but I think Claude pretended to be Amagiri so as to trick everyone to distract Hei and try to kill him.
Looking back on the episode, I’d say you’re definitely on the right track about this not being the real Amagiri. I actually didn’t notice when I watched the episode, but it makes sense in hindsight with Amagiri being surprised that everyone thought he asked them to kill Hei.
“I’d say it’s pretty much guaranteed he won’t be reunited with her in the fourth and final episode.”
They will meet up again, we’ve seen the moment they actually part in Hei’s flashbacks in S2.
I guess I should’ve been more clear and said “by the end” of the episode, but you’re right. They will cross paths again at least one more time.
What RedWing said. It seemed pretty obvious that the Amagiri talking to Hei about he Japanese agency was actually Claude in disguise, who sent Hei on his “mission” and then told the other EPR members to kill him.
It’s like you can see Hei crumbling mentally after the end of S1…
What RedWing said, is exactly what happened,
not that DtB has ever bothered to make anything 100% clear
[partly why it excels as a series, though also very irritating at the same time]…
Why is Amagiri standing in the rain for a moment? Did he die standing? Or maybe it was Claude pretending to be Amagiri so that he won’t be attacked by Hei. lol
Given the expression on his face, I’m fairly sure it’s the real Amagiri in complete shock that everyone’s been killed. Claude sounds like he’s already left with Yin, considering what the dog contractor told Hei.
I’ve been a big fan of this Gaiden series; especially more-so after the code trainwreck wannabe Ryuusei no Gemini. Gemini had its good points sure, the action and the production values were some of the best I have seen, but towards the finale there was a rush to tie up all the lose ends in a way similar to Metal Gear Solid 4; that there was an explanation for everything regardless of plausibility. I think my main gripe with Gemini, and one of the reasons I prefer the first season and Gaiden, is Hei. It is almost like in season 2 they wanted to humanise him by nerfing his abilities somewhat. However there are plenty of moments where Hei has his BK201 powers while still displaying human emotion and sensibilities. This episode proves that, and while it was not the best episode of the Darker than Black franchise, it is still one of my favourites thus far.
Oh and top notch review Divine, keep it up ;D
Thanks for the feedback.
For me, I’m kind of in the same boat about Ryuusei no Gemini. The sequel had everything going for it — visuals, audios, characters, action sequences, conspiracies, etc. — but the one thing that left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth was the abrupt ending. There was simply too much left up to interpretation than I would’ve liked, so it didn’t come off very well planned out. It’s almost as if they needed a few more episodes with the pace they were going at to properly wrap things up in some way.
Completely agree. I think their aspirations for the follow up story to kuro no keiyakusha, with greater depth and plot twists, were greater than a 13 episode season would allow. I am hoping that a 3rd season, if you could call it that, would be commissioned and produced with a full 26 episode run. However that seems like it would be a while away, if ever.
Interesting episode, I’m just annoyed that Gaiden is coming out after Ryuusei no Gemini. It would have helped a lot to have background before going into the second season…
Thanks for the review, Divine!
What a tragedy… so many people dead… hopefully that Claude guy will have some gruesome death, he deserves one. Hmm… seems that Hei is beginning to give up on taking care of himself and growing some facial hair in the preview(you need to watch it unfortunately there’s no screen-shot of that)He’s definitely getting depressed without Yin… but then again if I were him I’d probably be as well… anyone going through what Hei’s going through would probably end up depressed.
for some reason I was under the impression that those contractors were killed by Yin who went berserk, not killed by Claude. I might be wrong though.
I was inclined to think the same thing you did.
When you first find out about the place being a weird gathering of contractors, I had a flash of memory of those ‘flasbacks’ shown in Gemini of Hei looking on at Yin/Izanami surrounded by bodies and it made me think of that and then when we see them all dead at the end….
And didn’t the Dog contractor say that Yin had awaken(-ed -ing), but not fully? At the very least, it doesn’t… not.. make sense to think she was the one that killed them. :p
I got the same impression after watching it, that’s why I wondered when I read divine’s interpretation. How would Claude be able to kill all those Contractors with their powers when he only got Shape-shifting as his own power?
Claude made Yin unstable (by injecting her something), partially awakening her which let’s her go berserk (+ points for Claude if he told Yin that the Contractors are trying to kill Hei, further funneling her rage).
She killed all Contractors nearby (the Baby survived because it was no Contractor, as stated before by Claude) but stopped her total awakening forcefully, leaving her in the “I’m-so-weak-I-can’t-move”-state, ready to be dragged off by Claude.
Also Claude wasn’t killed by Yin because the “awakened ghost Yin” knows that he wants to help her awaken (as seen during the conversation between Claude and the dog).
The dog Contractor went to get Hei but got caught by either Claude (I guess he can handle a dog :P) or the dumbfounded Contractors (assuming Hei didn’t fry them all before turning back to HQ).
However there’s a doll following Yin and Claude, the boy at the end – so off you go Hei!
I totally forgot who the boy was (even though he looked so familiar!)… so he’s a doll!
I think he must have appeared in the other two OVAs and I just totally forgot =S
Oh the boy at end is a doll.
I think I saw him at end of OVA eps 1?
This season seems to be less interesting than others,let’s see how the story will be developped
So….OVA 4 is out (raw).
so much to think and say! poor hei. we see what led him to drink (and look like a hobo lol).
as to some of the above points, it becomes clear that it was the partially awakened izanami that killed all the contractors at amagiri’s compound (we see her do it in OVA 4 in the same manner) but yin was able to stop it in time (at least briefly) here. though i’m not proficient in japanese, we definitely get an “i love you” said in OVA 4.
can’t wait to read your review, divine. they have been very interesting and insightful.
Without knowing the complete details of OVA 4 due to translations (or lack thereof), here is my take on the end of the anime season 2 (some facts, some speculation to ease my heart.
HUGE SPOILERS AHEAD FOR SEASON 2!!!:
1.) Yin’s alter/supra ego is Izanami
2.) Shion’s alter/supra ego is Izanagi
3.) Izanami, mythologically speaking, is like the god/being of destruction. As we have seen, all Izanami pretty much does is kill or cause chaos (many bodies in her wake)
4.) Izanagi, mythologically speaking, is like the god/being of creation. As we have seen, Shion is able to create copies of people as well as a new earth (!!!)
5.) The two must meld together and become one again (for some greater purpose/fulfillment of prophesy. Maybe they were whole at one point in time and the appearance of The Gate was a result of the sundering of the two halves (this has been a huge theme in literature and film i.e. The Dark Crystal).
6.) Hei has always said, regardless of the prophesy and other some such, that his goal was to kill Izanami or “her” (in quotes)…he never said he was going to kill Yin. He wants to destroy that which separated him from Yin, whatever entity that changed her.
7.) As Izanami draws Izanagi’s and July’s souls to her, Yin extends herself as a last ditch effort and appears and appeals to Hei to kill her because it’s not too late. Though she was not able to keep the awakening from happening like she did initially, she manages to send herself out one last time to Hei
8.) Misaki sees Hei’s star shine exponentially brighter in the night sky than ever before. This signifies Hei’s powers and that of his sister have returned in full force (and then some) and he has taken the meteor core (either still in pieces from when Izanami broke Shuou’s pendant or it formed into a whole piece again after the fact like it did in season one when amber had broken it into pieces but it went back to being whole) to destroy Izunami via Yin’s last ditch attempt to save this crazy world.
9.) Hei changes Izanami on a molecular level via Yin’s projection thus preventing the Iza/Iza binding.
10.) Soon after, we hear that another Gate has appeared (the twins call it out) because the actual completion of Izanami and Izanagi was prevented by Hei and Yin.
11.) Thus resulting in the boy we see in the fields. He looks like a boy version of Yin. He is now the new yet incomplete Izanami incarnate signified by the arrival of a new Gate as Yin proper has split from that entity completely and there is no consciousness to hold anything back now. So this kid wakes up and just starts consuming as soon as his eyes open.
12.) During the molecular change, as noted above, Yin and Izanami disconnected as beings totally. Yin was never a shell that remained in that box though that’s what everyone thought. Izanami had just seemingly taken over her wholesale and their entities were tightly intertwined but Yin boldly asserted herself at the last moment to Hei. Once the disconnect occurred, the remnants of Yin returned to her body.
13.) Hei is seen carrying Yin’s naked body off. This is clearly the Yin from the box in the room, not Yin that showed herself to Hei moments before. Hei went back to the bldg after the change, disconnected Yin from the tubes and carried her off with him, at last alone together. At some point later, Yin regains consciousness and though it takes a long time, she slowly but surely returns to herself.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!!!!! They live and are happy together eventually!!!!! Waaaaah!!!