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Summary:
Madame Oreille seems to know about what happened in Vladivostok, but what Misaki is still mainly interested in is why BK-201’s star disappeared. The answer is that an anti-Contractor weapon was used, and Madame Oreille knows that Misaki saw a similar prototype two years ago. She then directs Misaki to something called the Mitaka documents and reveals that the keyword is Izanami. When Misaki tries to question her further, Madame Oreille suggests that she wish to the small red star to see BK-201. Meanwhile, Suou continues practicing with marksmanship and reveals to Mao that, although she still has to clean and maintain the gun, she automatically gets ammunition every time it appears. For food, she and July go to Norio’s father Lebanon’s place again, and he can tell that she’s a Contractor because his wife had been one too. His wife had left suddenly though when Norio was three years old. Regardless, Lebanon cooks them a meal and also gives Suou a portable cooking stove and a pot to take home.
At around this same time, Hei is on the phone with his employer and learns that his employer wants Suou on a mission. When he returns to the hotel, he hears and sees part of the wall being blown away, and so he rushes upstairs. It turns out that there had been a cockroach in the pot, and Suou’s reaction to it was to use her gun against it. Hei doesn’t slap her for it like she’s expecting though, and Mao later suggests that Suou’s hatred for insects is because of Tanya’s ability and what happened with Nika. Back at her office, having returned from her meeting with Madame Oreille, Misaki learns that her group is getting assigned to help transport some important materials from Sapporo. What gets her attention is that the codename is Izanami, and what’s more, BK-201 has been spotted in Sapporo with children. Later that night, at the hotel, July wakes Hei to tell them that they have visitors, one of whom is a Contractor. Hei decides to use himself as bait so that Suou and July can escape, and he has a brief battle with the female Contractor whose power is to control water before he himself escapes.
Misaki arrives to survey the hotel room and scene of the battle the next day, and she learns that BK-201 is with a girl. Downstairs, just as Misaki and the female Contractor are leaving, Norio shows up and recognizes the female Contractor as his mother. She ignores him though, and their car drives off. Norio goes home to tell his father about it, and while they’re in the middle of this discussion, his mother suddenly shows up and asks to use their oven. By now, Hei has met back up with Suou and decides to have her practice shooting a crane again. With no other choice, Suou goes through with it and finds herself crying afterward. For dinner that night, she collects some weeds, cooks them, and offers the food to Hei as sort of an apology for shooting the hotel wall. It tastes quite bad, but Hei still asks for more. He also tells Suou about their mission, and Suou agrees only after he pays her. It turns out that the goods they are after are the ones being transported by Misaki’s group, and Hei’s plan is to send himself to destroy the convoy before it reaches the harbor. If he isn’t able to, then Suou’s job is to shoot the goods while they’re being transferred.
Things go according to plan at first, and Hei is able to ambush the convoy and board the correct truck. However, that truck then starts moving again while Hei is still in it. Over at the harbor, Suou is keeping watch and remembers a time when her parents took her and Shion to the aquarium. Right as she’s thinking about whales again, a submarines surfaces.
Preview
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Unlike last episode which seemed more comedy oriented and the episodes before that which were more action oriented, this episode felt like it was mostly about character development and set-up. Madame Oreille is still a bit of a mysterious character, but we finally learned why Hei’s powers and star disappeared (though as he’s proven numerous times, including in this episode, he’s still quite adept at fighting), and now there are more questions surrounding Izanami and what Misaki saw when she looked into the container. Misaki is getting ever closer to seeing Hei again too, and I imagine it’ll probably happen next episode.
The most exciting part of the episode thus probably ended up being Hei battling Norio’s mother, and that brings me to a related point. I was actually a little surprised to see that Norio and Lebanon are sticking around as characters with their own subplot because I thought they were more throwaway characters. Along those same lines, it’s interesting to see how the story is developed when it doesn’t have to adhere to a two episode mini-arc format that the first series had. Given the rate at which characters have been killed off in this series though, and given what the preview for next week shows, I get the feeling that Norio and/or his mother won’t be around for too much longer.
First; this episode is interesting! *-*
persona 4 reference much? lols
IMO Norio is only in this story to bring the emotions out of his mother. Other than that his cross-dressing dad is more useful than him.
so Misaki’s now jealous coz Hei was with some shoujo? Why does she even care? I don’t recall any romantic moment between her and Hei in S1.
btw guys i need help in identifying a song in season 1 of darker than black
anyone, ANYONE know what music is playing in episode 1 at 2:55 where the guy say it must be a doll? after watching the second season i was reminded of this.
Did they borrow Natsuki from Mai-Hime, here?
https://randomc.net/2009/11/06/darker-than-black-ryuusei-no-gemini-05/
@Koeix
“total eclipse”
izanami is probably yin
also norio’s mom is very good looking
Awesome episode like always. Interesting how Suou seems to be a lot more human again now. Mao’s possible explaination for it is interesting, too. Looking forward to more! 😀
She blasted the cockroach to hell. Now I know why Hei is interested her, hell I’d be too 😛
I suspect the explanation is rather different than what Mao thinks though. Much like Hei did not lose his humanity when he got contractor powers from his sister, Suou probably got her powers from Hei. She probably isn’t a normal contractor. This theory doesn’t explain why she needs to do origami as remuneration when Hei didn’t need to however.
I would bet that Inazami will turn out to be Yin.
WHAT’S IN THE GOODS? LOL 🙁
I wonder why Norio’s mother came back home afterall this years i hope she doesn’t die but then again this series has an habit of killing characters I think when Misaka sees Hei again its going to be a bittersweet reunion and yea Suou is beginning to tolerate Hei who knows as series goes along she would probably go from hate to like or u know the rest.
Good for this -“I get the feeling that Norio and/or his mother won’t be around for too much longer.” I don’t want that kid around much and might as well take his mother out of the picture along with him so they can be happy together out of my sight.
and so Hei lost his power to the current reason: anti-Contractor weapon, it sucks and yea so far he is still skilled. just needs a better outfit and u know what else lol.
Hope Misaki meets Hei soon, better yet joins him, eh that’s a long shot, but sees each other i guess. and need more clues on Yin.
as for Suou , hmm not much to talk about her.
# Koeix at 7:34 pm on November 6th, 2009
persona 4 reference much? lols
——–
Nop, mythologic reference overall. Izanagi and Izanami, the orpheus-eurydice-like leyend in Japan.
@Koeix – Persona 4 didn’t invent Shinto mythology.
The girl in the box is so Yin. Next episode Hei accidentally opens the box and DRAMATIC REUNION. They cannot finish their mission! Suddenly the woman they work for is after them, too!
Does the red and blue star has anything to do with Hei and Suou? Since Madame Oreille said look to the red star for Hei then does the blue star next to it represent Suou?
I thought the red and blue star represented the twin girls. I don’t know.
I’m just glad Hei is finally… FINALLY shown eating!! His appetite is still there. Phew…. Now, all we need to do is make the booze disappear..
Looking forward to a future Misaki x Hei meet-up and team up.
Yin in the box? Curious… If she is indeed in there, maybe she’s the cure to wake Hei up from his hobo lifestyle. As for Mr. Cross-dresser, yeah…. I really like the guy. >D He makes a nice parent trying to be both a “mom” and “dad”.
chances are the red and ble stars represent Suou and her brother Shion
i think red is Suou (her theme is red… from clothes etc)
so the Madame was telling Misaki that finding Suou would get to the bottom of things
prediction: Madame is a contractor who can mindread
Don’t think Izanagi is Yin; more like maybe i dunno, something from beyond the Hell’s gate… like the crystal flowers in season 1.
Hei is becoming less Hobo!! He is eating again yeah!!
and did anyone else find the telephone in the outpost weird? it was surrounded by… nothing. Who’d use a phone in the middle of a field? gosh…
@ pierce: Episode 23 Misaki and Hei had a spur-of-the-moment date.
hmm it was good but weird at the same time seeing hei eat again, poor guy the 1st time in a long time and he’s eating something that almost makes him puke.
The story is in my opinion more interesting then season 1 because its not all just a bunch of mini arch’s but all bundled together (not that it was interesting originally) sticking to a main story i think helps any anime. I wouldn’t be surprised if yin was in that container and if not im really curious to see where she is in the story after hei’s comment a few episodes saying he would kill her.
Also im still upset they haven’t tried going to hells gate like in the original with havoc to try and have hei retrieve his powers or something but i am really starting to understand why he was called the black reaper even before he got his powers considering how well he handles himself in a fight, can’t wait to see the next part of this mission in the next episode. But also one last thing, at this point im hoping considering how interested in this that they do not rap the show up at the end of this season and leave room for a season 3 + considering 12 episodes more isn’t enough for this show and i wouldn’t mind waiting another year or 2 it would be worth the wait.
Two things are really starting to bother me now, one is the focus (too much focus to be exact) on the little girl instead of Hei as the main character and the other is Hei’s powers not being shown due to whatever reason. The characters are boring, dull and simply not amusing at all. They are getting annoying in some ways actually.
I don’t think the second season can live up to the first one in any aspects. I LOVED the first one but this is just “meh” so far. Why did they change everything when most of us were happy with the first season? I’m still giving it more time but to understand why I say, watch the first 5 episodes on DTB season one and then watch the 5 episodes in this season; feels like you are watching a totally different anime, doesn’t it? One that is way, waaaay inferior to the original :/
@ Pierce tyvm finally found it lols thanx to u
@ The people that owned me
ur all tight lols
hehehe, “Yin in the box”
It seems Hei and Yin were playing hide and seek for all this years, and Hei couldnt find Yin because she fucking hided in a box, so he’s pissed at her and saying “I’ll kill that woman!”
i just want to say Mao looks so cute as a squirrel
I’m still quite bothered that Hei is not developed as much as I would have expected. Instead, Suou seems to have become the main character here with Hei as a less conspicuous character. I seriously want to know what happened with Yin but that’s save for the final arc, to be expected.
That’s our chinese electric batman. Still fucking up shit even without his powers. Doesn’t need no half-baked contractor sniping brat to cover his back.
I going to guess that Norio’s mother visiting her family has something to do with her remuneration. Either way, I agree that Norio’s days are numbered.
Also it’s nice to see Hei eating again, its one of the old aspects of him that I miss. I kinda think Hei is much more awesome without powers but that’s just me.
wait… when did hei say that he was going to kill yin? which episode?
Norio’s mom, quite the milf, ehehe. I look forward to seeing more of her and the reasons why she left her family behind (though looking at the father, it’s hard not to see why, as much as I enjoy his character, ha). That said, I couldn’t figure out what Norio’s role in all this was until her introduction. Suddenly his character doesn’t seem so useless and arbitrary to the plot anymore.
Seeing Hei eat brought a smile to my face. And Suou’s development as a character is coming along nicely from her days as an annoying screaming kid.
Yin in the box would be a cool but unsurprising twist.
I don’t think Misaki is jealous at all of hearing BK-201 palling around with a kid/girl; more like she hates being left out of the loop of critical information all the time regarding Hei’s whereabouts/activities. Hers is an obsession, probably not in the romantic sense, but in the sense of Ahab and his white whale. Some cops take their jobs waaaaay seriously and I think that’s the case with her. It’s just Hazuki projecting the romantic/ecchi feelings onto Misaki and Hei (probably because Hazuki’s a ragin’ closet lesbian and likes playing mind games).
looks like tentacles in the last two pics D:
I think Izanami is actually Yin!
@Raika
Ha~, I don’t think she’s in the closet at all. (Hazuki)
Norio’s mom looks like Re-l Mayer from Ergo Proxy. And she’s pretty lucky Hei lost his powers.
@TOP2NE1
“probably because Hazuki’s a ragin’
closetlesbian and likes playing mind games”Fixed.
Now that you mention it, she does resemble Re-l somewhat, at least with the hair and fashion sense. (And I love Re-l too, heh, shotgun toting goth chicks are hawt.) Agreed that had Hei retained his abilities, she’d be a goner. Water and electricity sure don’t mix.
I think Norio’s mother returned home because she recognize the stove in the hotel belongs to thier family, so she went back for investigation.
The twin’s star represent suou and her brother, gemini of the meteor
omg the wait for the next episode is the worst time of my life.
I hope yin makes an apearance soon.
I think the Izanami is probably a miniature Saturn Ring, or a device capable of generating something similar to the Saturn Ring. Remember how Madame Oreille mentioned that the reason why BK-201’s star disappear is because if the Anti-Contractor weapon which draws from the principles of which the Saturn Ring functions.
And I think Hei accepting Suou’s terribad weed soup and asking for seconds proves that he is finally accepting her as his comrade, just like how he thinks of Mao, Yin and Huang as comrades back in season 1. And it’s good to see Suou cry after shooting a crane. It proves that she still has her humanity, or whatever resembling it, with her.
I suspect that Hei’s current employer might be whatever’s left of Evening Primrose.
I bet you I bet you anything that Yin is in that Izanami
@Mincemaker
“I think the Izanami is probably a miniature Saturn Ring, or a device capable of generating something similar to the Saturn Ring. Remember how Madame Oreille mentioned that the reason why BK-201’s star disappear is because if the Anti-Contractor weapon which draws from the principles of which the Saturn Ring functions.”
I kind of agree with this. I don’t think Yin could be the thing in that box. (I really wish that was the case.) I wonder if that means Pai is dead/disappeared though? If that’s the case, I’m not sure if getting near the gate as suggested by others will be cure. I really hope though that he gets his power back soon and his mask along with a haircut. I’m also one of those who really liked the scene where he ate again. It was cute to see Suou cooking him.
@Mincemaker
“And I think Hei accepting Suou’s terribad weed soup and asking for seconds proves that he is finally accepting her as his comrade, just like how he thinks of Mao, Yin and Huang as comrades back in season 1.”
Yeah, they are turning out to be a good team. I’m also starting to like July, he goes great with Suou and the Yin-like smile they were doing in the last episode was really cute. Also, Mao looks great as a squirrel too.
@Hikki
“The girl in the box is so Yin. Next episode Hei accidentally opens the box and DRAMATIC REUNION. They cannot finish their mission! Suddenly the woman they work for is after them, too!”
That would turned out to be interesting, lol. I got the impression that Hei was trapped in the truck though.
@fragbet
“I going to guess that Norio’s mother visiting her family has something to do with her remuneration. Either way, I agree that Norio’s days are numbered.”
I thought the same at first but it seems like it has been a long time since she visited her home. I think visiting had something to do with Norio running after the car his mother was driving. I guess the oven has something to do with her renumeration.
@fragbet
“I kinda think Hei is much more awesome without powers but that’s just me.”
He’s nice, but still it lacks a lot of action I think without his powers. I would love to see him having them back.
@dtbfan
“prediction: Madame is a contractor who can mindread”
I rather think her knowledge comes from the twins, possibly they are dolls.
I hope Hei runs into Kirihara Misaki again. Depressed dude needs some loving, I know I’d love it if I got some from her.
I’m not sure if you’ve mentioned it, but it’s crazy how Hei cannot use his sister’s contractor powers now.
BLEGH SUOUxHEI
I was personally anticipating YinxHei or AmberxHei like TehJawknee. As for the episode itself, I was really intrigued by Yin’s supposed new powers. It looks like she can do a lot more than the average Doll now; definitely looking forward to her next appearance.
The DTB commercial really had me hooked though. I really loved the episode-arc format from the last season and all the different contractors Hei had to deal with. It’s very nostalgic to see him doing that again and not drinking and being depressed with long hair xP.
On another completely unrelated note, I laughed when Norio was like “Wahhh, my mommy’s dead OM NOM NOM NOM”
The red star is Suou I’m guessing.