Darker than BLACK / First Impressions

Summary:

Unaware of the fact that their enemies are on the same train, Hei gets caught by Repnin, and Suou gets captured by Tanya. Repnin is interested in Hei and tries to recruit him, but Hei turns him down. Not giving up, Repnin goes into how there’s been a rumor of some Contractors in the past few years who have committed suicide due to the power of a certain Doll. He wants that Doll because he hates Contractors, and he would be grateful to Hei if Hei killed Ilya Sokolov since Sokolov had previously killed Repnin’s niece. Hei, however, turns the tables on Repnin by indicting him for not being able to do anything himself, and he stabs Repnin in the hand with a knife before escaping. Elsewhere on the train, Tanya questions why Suou didn’t kill her during their previous encounter, and Suou attributes it to how Hei stopped her. When Suou claims that she’s glad that she didn’t shoot though since they’re friends, Tanya points to how friends can hate each other, and she recounts how she once hated Suou for being too close with Nika.

Their conversation is interrupted when the injured Repnin radios Tanya to tell her to stop the train and leave with Suou. Tanya does exactly this, but Hei pursues and is able to buy enough time for Suou to escape her captor. Hei then finishes off Repnin. Suou meanwhile tries to take refuge in an outdoor pool, but Tanya eventually finds her. What gets Suou’s attention is how Tanya seems to be momentarily affected by Suou splashing water onto her, however Tanya refocuses on her task and goes after Suou again with her power. Suou responds by bringing out her rifle, but her memories of Tanya combined with how Hei didn’t want her to shoot anymore cause her to hesitate. Much to Suou’s shock, Tanya gets shot anyway, and when Hei, July, and Mao arrive on the scene, they think that Suou was the one who fired. Hei even tells her that it’s okay for her to shoot in order to defend herself, but all of this confuses Suou, and she decides to go a different way than Hei. July follows her, bringing along Mao, and Hei makes no attempt to stop her. Unbeknownst to Suou, Tanya’s actual killer was Shion who had been sniping from a nearby building.

Preview

This was certainly an interesting episode, one that started a bit slowly but ended with quite a bit bang. I’m not shocked to see both Repnin and Tanya dead (especially since, after she killed Nika, it was highly unlikely that Tanya would survive to the end of the series), but what was a surprise was the fact that Shion was the one who killed Tanya, and he might have the same power as Suou. It’s noteworthy to me that Shion is even keeping tabs on Suou since I had assumed that he and his father were preoccupied with whatever they’re planning, but this could mean that they need Suou alive for that very plan.

On that topic, there’s a lot mentioned this episode that’s probably important as plot development, however at this point things are still pretty confusing with all that stuff on the memory of the future and with what Misaki was listening to at the end of the episode (I only realized it was Hourai after looking at the credits). The episode did seem to confirm though that Yin has the ability to turn Contractor’s powers against themselves, and I imagine she’ll use that power several more times before this is all over. Anyway, I’m getting very curious about how they’re going to tie this all together in the handful of episodes they have left, particularly since next week’s episode appears to bring back the private detectives Kiko and Gai who I don’t remember being particularly important to the plot of the first series.

50 Comments

  2. Next episode might have more plot than we’d expect. Kiko and Gai are characters that can inadvertently move the plot along, and you’d hope with only 4 episodes left that’s what happens.

    Anon
    Reply

  4. I ended up, after watching this episode, going back and re-watching the entire first series in order to remember stuff. Didn’t really help that much, but that conversation i believe was with the chief near the end. I still dont get how Huang made it into the second series… he died right?

    kwantum0
    Reply

  5. So basically, Hei gets taken “hostage” makes his captor pay the bill for the huge feast he orders, then he kills him? AWESOME! Seeing Hei’s big eater habit return just makes me smile.

    fragbet
    Reply

  13. The memory of the future… is refering to Amber is it ? Since she can turn back time, and therefore would have experienced the future ….. Misaka… didnt directly meet her did she ? I forgot

    Fayt
    Reply

  14. @kenri
    Good eyes – it really does look like Hei finally gets the long awaited haircut

    @shadowblack
    That’s Misaki, right?

    @Alec
    yeah… and crappy humour at that

    It was nice to see Hei still had his large appetite.

    Flare
    Reply

  17. haha since im a nerd, i went to 22:06 and played the video at half speed and the chipmunk voice your hear says something close to kokode uryuko i probably didn’t write it down right but if you understand japanese then im sure you’d be able to figure it out

    maybe it said right here is fine?

    LeftArrow
    Reply

  28. Prediction: i think Amber wrote down what she saw of the future in case she died. Kinda like the Amber diaries. And i think Shion inherited the Amber diaries ie the “memories of the future” alluded to. Amber must be planning something again hehehe. Amber seems to fit the kind of villian who’s into reverse chrono-engineering imho.

    Maybe the Madam has a fragment of Amber’s diaries, which explains where her information comes from.

    I think Amber saw what Yin would become, which was why she treated Yin so specially in the first episode (going out of her way to find her even before Hei, and also to make sure Yin was in Hell’s gate during the final episode in the first season. Yin would be her Plan B in case Hei rejected her, and Plan A failed (which happened).

    dtbfan
    Reply

  29. Hmmm, and another part of supposed Amber’s memoirs might found it’s way into dr Pavlichenko’s hands via teh meteor… right?
    Things seem to start having sense now, and yet are confusing at the same time…
    Hei gulping XXXL lunch was even more fun than his ninja combat skillz… As was Mao’s usual animal antics 😛
    Alas poor Tanya. Might she find her love in the afterlife, if contractors get any.

    ewok
    Reply

  35. No, Shou doesn’t have the same power as Shion. Shou was able to telepathically communicate with Shion while she ran away. We haven’t seen any contractor have 2 powers. The gun is a gun, and we saw that Shion’s father had a gun just like Shion’s power in his house. He could very well buy the same gun as Shion has.

    Sacchi
    Reply

  36. Seriously, they need to stop recycling Suou’s gun sequence. This time it felt totally out of place (if you look at Suou’s face between the two scenes, it didn’t even make sense).

    g0rth0r
    Reply

  37. Maybe this says something about me, but the only thing I was thinking about at the end of this episode was that an anti-tank gun (if the gun is a soviet PTRD like I think, 14.5mm armor-piercing ammo)would just punch a finger-size hole through you without doing too much internal damage. Tanya would be in a world of hurt, but probably not dead and certainly not partially-exploded.

    I should probably stop thinking so hard.

    Thrashy
    Reply

  38. As usual all the songs were fantastic in this episode, excellent mixing. Hei calling out Repin for being a coward, then stabbing him was completely bad-ass. I like that he tried to recruit him, as its only logical. Who wouldn’t want BK201 on their team. Tanya was reclaiming a bit of her humanity right before she was shot. The contractors committing suicide, which Repin mentioned on the train, is something I hope they go into.

    All in all an entertaining episode, but how they’re gonna wrap this up in 4 episodes is beyond me.

    So Very Odd
    Reply

  39. Thrashy, it would probably rather break human torso in 2 – and 100% sure rip away any limb hit. It was designed to knock out tanks! (early WW2 tanks,to be sure, but still)Even with fraction of energy transferred into body it would kill. Ever seen what .50 caliber does to humans? ask Marines…

    ewok
    Reply

  40. this episode rocks… i just confirm Suou and Shion have same power but at last shion can execute the target without help from doll. And as usual Hei fighting skills is Great even though without his contractor power

    666
    Reply

  41. @ewok: Huh. If I’m remembering right, I was told about this by a certifiable gun nut (who went on to become a Marine, actually!). The reasoning was that a hardened anti-armor penetrator won’t mushroom out or shatter on impact with a soft target, and so it’ll pass through a fairly small zone of damage without shedding much kinetic energy. .50 BMG isn’t designed to defeat tank armor, though… I’m trying and failing to find much in the way of good info about this on The Tubes.

    Thrashy
    Reply

  42. i really can’t predict how this is going to end at all 4 episodes left no sign of hei getting his powers back, and an unknown plot like in the 1st season this wasn’t as good as the other ones but it still was a really great amount of plot development in it, i can foresee a season 3 for certain with this one being left inconclusive and i hope it happens

    sigh
    Reply

  44. @Thrashy
    That large a caliber round is rippling through the air, doesn’t matter if its armor penetrating or not since no body armor is rated to protect against that large a round, its shock wave is going to displace a lot of whatever it impacts. Considering Tanya’s only supposed to be 13, the shock wave really should have ripped her in two. The armor penetration issue is at smaller caliber’s; if the target isn’t armored then the bullet is now over penetrating and not breaking up and tumbling inside of the target’s body, which most guerrilla combatants do not have protection. Sure the shock wave will still do damage but not nearly as much as the bullet would do by bouncing around and fragmenting.

    EliteF22
    Reply

  46. I love the amount of food, Hei was piling on. I was going “this is sooo going on your tabs!!” It’s really REALLY good to see him EAT that much! ^o^ But..but.. I’m a bit sad for Tanya. At least, she can now be in peace. Eh, but those detective people are back!? Ahhhhhhhhhh.. Here comes the comedy with the pink haired girl.. I expect to see more Pizza Hut references.

    And yeah.. I wonder how exactly is this arc going to end? I have a feeling they’re going to continue it because it just can’t seem to end like this..? O.o

    tg
    Reply

  50. Have to say, this season continues to impress, and if they somehow manage to tie Amber into whatever the climax is, job well done in my book. It’s a damn shame it’s only 12 (13?) episodes long, but that seems to be increasingly the norm these days for anime. If Amber is indeed involved, even indirectly, it increases the likelihood that girl in the OVA previews was her, which would be great. I really liked her. 🙂

    I sometimes imagine her freezing time at all sort of points to watch events unfold (though I also am a little freaked out at the thought of her freezing a time frame with Hei in it to….you know), and I can’t help but wonder how far exactly into the future she fast-forwarded to (and subsequently rewound). :/

    Now, I’m not one to nitpick usually, as I approach these shows as works of fiction meant for entertainment, but I can’t help but be amused at the very liberal application of oh…time and space as it pertains to people moving between Russia and Japan. In all the time it’s taking Hei to get to Japan, the amount of people going back and forth (Suo’s father…Misaki)….some multiple times…during the same time frame is something I am going to just ignore so I can continue enjoying this show. :p

    Drew
    Reply

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