Oh, the soundtrack for this series rocks. I consider it to be even better than the one from the first season. What I only noticed right now however is that Yoko Kanno didn’t write it this time. Instead, it seems to have been composed by a voice-actor, of all people. It’s the guy who voiced Hamdo in Now and Then, Here and There and Shou Taishi in Saiunkoku Monogatari, among many others. I’m really not sure where he got the idea of composing a soundtrack from, but he did a bloody brilliant job at it.
In any case, this episode yet again showed off this series’ wonderful style of storytelling, which is brutally direct, and also creative and very exciting during the action-scenes, even though the action itself is in no way over the top. In Darker than Black, fights rarely end with everyone retreating with minor wounds. In this series, battles are fought with the intent to kill. Take that, shounen-series!
But seriously though, I didn’t quite think that even Tanya was no exception to this rule. Here I thought that the creators were saving her for the big climax in which Suou manages to settle their differences, despite being contractors… and here this episode just unceremoniously kills them off. Her death wasn’t in vain, though: it was a great opportunity to show that teenaged contractors indeed have bugs inside of them. This series has mentioned it before, and it’s an interesting concept that in the world of contractors, there also still exist contractors that need to grow up. it also fits really well in the development between Hei and Suou, and you can see that the creators spend some time into this.
On top of that, the mystery has also thickened. What the heck was Shion doing there? I this some kind of double red herring? That their father needed Suou the most so he pretended that Shion was the most important one so that she wouldn’t catch suspension? Heh, some father.
Also, why does Misaki have a portrait of a black cat hanging on her wall?
Rating: ** (Excellent)
Well, this time the OST is done by the author of Hellsing TV OST’s author 😉 That is why
ANN’s listing is wrong, I even told one of the mods of it ages back during the first week of DtB 2 sigh…
Ah~ I really liked this episode’s OST. XD,and Hei has once again proved he can be a skilled fighter without his contractor abilities. To throw a fork at a guy’s neck so effortlessly takes skills.
So the twins (Shion and Suou) have the same abilities? The only difference is that Shion doesn’t need a doll or whatsoever to have good aim.
And Suou is acting like a pmsing teenage girl again. Why is she pissed at Hei again? He obviously didn’t want her to feel guilty about Tanya’s death.
I think she was upset because he wouldn’t let her kill Yin but was fine with her killing her friend, Tanya. I think she took it as when he told her not to kill, he was talking about Yin and not trying to keep her innocent like she originally believed.
Oh lawd, the detective and his sidekick are back next ep.
I wasn’t too surprised with Tanya’s death, but more with Shion’s power, which I suspect is being able to mimic the abilities of other contractors nearby or something to that effect. I still wonder how his father could be alive though. A cloned body seems too convenient, unless the professor became a contractor himself and he’s somehow able to make duplicates of himself. XD
Wait who shoot Tanya at first I thought it was Suou but then it show’d her brother with a gun and now im all kinds of confused
I think it was Shion who shot Tanya. Suou stopped and lowered her rifle right before the shot was fired. And why else would they show Shion like that in the end?
Also, the momentum from the shot shows that it can’t have been Suou, because Tanya would have fallen backwards instead of into the pool if Suou had shot her.
I was waiting for you to say something about the animation quality in this episode, it was horrendous. absolutely horrible. i don’t know why they did this but everything looked like shit. from Hei’s face to the fight, it was done utter shitty :/
I thought everything looked amazing visually this episode, and the fight scenes were very fluid. I dunno what your talking about things looking horrible…
The beginning and ending excited me! The Mitaka documents and the memories of a contractor who saw the future- more Amber please?!
Can’t wait for the next episode. btw did anybody notice,it looks like hei’s got shorter hair in the preview. whew,he doesnt drink eats and gets a haircut. Just waiting for the powers.
Still solid at #1 this season for me.. Will definitely rewatch the whole thing when its over
And yes the soundtrack owns
Suou isn’t a real contractor, she’s like Hei. That’s why she didn’t shoot and Shion did (Shion being a contactor). Suou is a normal person who has inherited/been given their abilities through some transaction with their sibling – possibly related to the meteor shard (Hei’s sister originally gave him his lightning powers). She’s not a real contractor hence the internal struggle.
Well, this episode was a lot better than the first seven and now I have faith in DtB again. The eating is back! The food! Oh, god, how I missed the food.
@LK: stop watching your toes and focus on the anime, Suou ISN’T similar to Hei at all. She has her own remuneration and Hei doesn’t, plus it’s been said that her power ‘awakened’, not it was ‘given’. The only mystery here is why Suou’s power stayed dormant all these years.
we havent actually seen suou fold any paper cranes in a long time have we? I dont really think that was ever her renumeration, she just thought she was supposed to have one…
Some of you are forgetting that Shou telepathically talked to Shion when Shion ran away from her house. He can’t have 2 powers, can he? Besides, the gun that Shion uses could be very well bought. And Shou could have even talked telepahtically to July, since I found that when the squirrel found July it was some sort of weird scene with July looking through the glass.
hm..could Shion be the contractor who hold the memories of the future? he was the one who foresaw that the enemies are going to attack them in episode 1.
I’m thinking more that Shion has the ability to replicate anything, probably from memory, and that Suou and their dad are clones.
She was some kind of shapeshifter who ran this cult… Hei was supposed to get in and kill her but when he got to her she was on her deathbed anyways
I think Shion fired the gun but I don’t think it’s an ability. Methinks that Shion was trained by his dad to fire a rifle with that distance, not necessarily because he has an ability to make a gun come out of his god-knows-what-part-of-his-body.
“wasn’t there an old lady in season one who’s remuneration was the opposite of Amber’s by growing older rather than younger? What was her ability again?”
The old lady is an ageshifter. can shift her age at any given time but usually as a young maiden for the sake of her cult.
Oh-! That is true – the soundtrack really does help carry this second season of Darker than Black. I was trying to figure out why I get so caught up with the episodes (more so than the first season).
The story building has been wonderful; although now the two (Hei and Suou) have separated – ah, but let’s not forget about Mao (the flying squirrel) – perhaps we are in for some action. And more tangles in these intrigues.
(ARGH. Episode 9! Do go watch it. **laughs**)