I’m trying to get my affairs in order so I can crack on with the April season in earnest as it’s looking rather tasty from my corner of the world (more on that another time). So, having finally started to catch up properly on all the shows I started last year and never finished, here’s a couple of very short final thoughts on Darker Than Black and Moyashimon if anyone really cares aside from me.
Not quite sure how I ended up with two screencaps of the same moment, but I suppose these things happen sometimes…
Anyway, Hei convinces Havoc to return to the Gate to try and reawaken some of her memories so she can reveal what happened to his sister. However, the Gate may also trigger the release of her dormant Contractor powers (which relied on sucking the blood of others) and turn her back into a psychotic killer. Hei’s rogue journey attracts the attention of the MI6 agents, and November 11’s actions cause Kirihara great unease over their partnership and how to treat Contractors…
I hope we see November 11 and co. again later in the series; it’s interesting that they avoided attempting to bring in Hei despite his involvement in the case. As is a running theme recently it’s been a while since I watched this so I can’t recall specifics, but I do feel this arc is the strongest one we’ve had so far (the next arc, which I shall blog shortly, was really not my kind of thing at all unfortunately…)
MI6 (yay Brits in anime!) sends in three of its top agents to pick up an ex-Contractor, codenamed Havoc, who has lost her power of vacuum creation and is now working as a prostitute. Kirihara and her team take charge of escorting her to Pandora, the UN’s Contractor-dealing arm; the team are ambushed by Hei, however, who has a hidden past with the vicious Havoc…
DtB continues to surprise me with how well fleshed out its scripts are. I don’t know who’s in charge of writing for the show; I assume Okamura has overall story control as well as directing, as each double episode has had its own scriptwriter so far, but if he is he’s done an incredible job of placing the story in a global context as well as the details behind the Contractors. I wish I had half his imagination.
Anyway, this episode was a particular pleasure to watch not only because of the slightly morally ambiguous Brits (we’re a shifty lot, aren’t we?) but because there was lots of Kirihara in this episode. I know, she’s not really that interesting, but she wears that suit with style dammit!
As Mai’s Moratorium state grows ever harder to control as the seed in her wrist withers away, the Generic Evil Research Group’s goons continue to track her as a bargaining chip with Tatara. Kirihara heads to the National Observatory to try and track Mai and stop her from causing any more destruction, while Hei coaxes the truth out of Tatara and guides them all towards an explosive showdown where Mai’s future status is decided.
All my fears about bi-episodic structure are obviously unfounded, as it’s made quite clear from elements of the narrative that there will still be an overarching continuous storyline of some kind; for one, we now have the mystery of “Hoshimi” in the Observatory tracking the (other?) Contractors, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we see what happens to Mai at some point later on in the series.
Some people have complained about the rather gory content of this episode; although I’m extremely squeamish, I think it works rather well at emphasising the brutality of the Contractors and their powers, especially given how subdued the majority of each episode seems to be. It’s not that I want all my anime to have people’s arms being hacked off or friends being immolated, but it’s better than a flash of light and a gush of blood from off screen if you ask me.
Hei’s “job” leads him into contact with a man named Tahara, the sold survivor of an expedition into Hell’s Gate who has been cultivating a mysterious blue plant since then. His daughter Mai is a Contractor whose powers appear to be linked to the plant as they wax and wane and are unleashed without her being aware of it. However, there are those seeking to pressurise Tahara into working for him, and despite Hei’s protection Mai is their bargaining chip; with her pyrokinetic powers out of control, however, and her increasingly strained relationship with Tatara, what will the outcome be?
Tune in next time, folks!
DtB continues to be an interesting show. For all its visual slickness, currently the main draw of the show for me is unravelling the rather well-thought worldbuilding behind the Contractors and the mechanisms of how their pwoers work (or not, in mai’s case, due to the glowing blue plant seed in her arm). I’m not currently in any rush to find out any more about the characters (not now that it’s been fairly clearly established that Hei’s price for his contract is merely to eat loads!) as they’re interesting enough for it to be revealed all in good time; I will be intrigued to see how they choose to resolve this double episode, though.
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