This thread is for those of you with questions about the Darker Than Black anime or manga. There are many questions that don't need a whole thread to discuss them. A simple practical answer straight from the anime or manga without any speculation can solve these conundrums. If someone has such a question about Darker Than Black which can be solved by answering with facts from an official source, then please ask that question here.

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Should I watch season 1 before starting season 2? Or will I be able to follow season 2 with out it?

Watch season 1 first.

That way you don't get too confused and understand the basics of contractors & stuff :p

how is amber able to have feelings for hei even though she is a contractor ?

Contractors are actually quite capable of feeling emotions, but tend to have a mindset where they think in the most logical and rational way possible to benefit themselves. Some of course are cold and almost emotionless while others seem to have real personalities. As for Amber, her feelings for Hei are really quite strong which may have been enough.

She may have also had those feelings for Hei before she became a contractor, as they never did mention how any of the characters really met up with each other. At least, not to my knowledge.

They met in South America, during the war, if my memory serves me correctly. It's almost certain that she was a Contractor before she met Hei. They worked together, and she was obviously attracted to him so much that she eventually worked herself out of existence.

In a way, it's a rational decision to love someone like Hei. You find the strongest, most capable mate to breed successful offspring, and besides, it's nice to have someone like Hei on your side, period.

You can skip season 1.

I hope you don't mean that, though i don't want you giving people the wrong idea here.

You will miss 2-3 points and the debrief on X and Y terms (which will probably never get used again), like Monatorium. I watched S2E1, S2E2 and then the hole of S1, so trust me the very episodic S1 doesn't really make a difference. S2E1 gives more then enough info on all you need to know, and Hei is not Li-kun anymore anyway.

Yeah, maybe we would never see Li kun again, but season one its very important to know Hei, his motivations, and a lot of facts that build him as a character. I think that yes, you can start watching season 2 witout watch season one, but you can miss some important things and you will miss one amazing anime with great characters, music and animation.

Like what? relevent to S2 I mean.You can watch it later...

Why watch it later when someone can watch it now? It takes a week for a new episode to come out while Season 1 is all right there on Funimation's youtube, waiting to be watched ;) It's possible to squeeze it somewhere in there between the wait.

But it's that person's choice to do whatever they want so we should leave it to them to do so. Just trying to be reasonable :]

The people to whom I'm replying are implying its mandatory to watch the first season (I see no reason for that).

Well if you don't watch the first season you won't understand the relationships between the MI6, Japan's intelligence, and the CIA, the background information about contractors, the various powers and prices of the contractors, or even what the main plot of the second season is. It's like saying you can just jump in with the 5th Harry Potter book, technically doable but it's gonna be miserable not knowing ANYTHING.

You shouldn't watch the second season prior to the first. First of all, you may not be up to speed and on par with everything being said, taking some amusement you would've gotten in the show had you watched the first season. And even if one is able to trudge through that, there remains the fact that the second season seems to be taking the show in a different light than the first. By the looks of it, Hei has already been portrayed as the antagonist in the first episode as well as an emotionless contractor in the second. Both of which are not the case.

What gave it away? him saving miss not-target, for apparently no gain?

The question here is "Can you watch this with out watching/finishing the first season?", and in large part is addressed by people who lost interest half way, at the start or didn't like the theme of the first season... can they watch it with out the burden of S1? I say yes... do the problems you mentioned apply to them, nope.
Bear in mind I watched S1 after watching S2E1 and S2E2...
Didn't care. Cared less while watching S1 since it was all friend, enemy, friend again, enemy again etc.
The general HowTO is explained plenty in S2E1, and the hole "brother doesn't feel anything, is going to kill you" makes it hard to ignore/miss those facts. As for contractor bios, I see no reason to care, at this point at least. We have Hei, whos powers are still a mystery so watching S1 won't help you there; everyone else is either not present, has been replaced or is dead, so really what difference does it make.
First time: Red head is hunted by evil organization(s).
After watching S1: Red head is hunted by evil organization(s).
I can't understand your example since I'm not a fan of that book.

Oh, you know...Things like killing Bella and the professor with absolutely no remorse. And season 1 could be useful in answering questions like...Who the heck is Mao? and Why Hei is different from your regular contractor and possibly Are all contractors heartless bastards?. And chances are, that if you lose interest and believe the first season to be a burden, chances are you probably aren't going to like the second season as well.

I don't have those questions (why would I?), and I'm hardly as nitpicky on the things I watch as I'm on the things I write. That said I wouldn't be here arguing if I felt watching S1 following common sense (which you yourself seem to preach) actually helped in this case. Also, Hei and Yin are not the main focus in this one (go watch the opening you skipped) and Mao is dead, not that I care.

The attitude of you people to spoilers and apparent chronological order is hypocritical honestly. You don't like spoilers because its apparently always more fun to watch it or find it out later but recommend everyone goes and watch S1 as a must, even though this one is more of a side story.
You are generalizing, that is very fragile ground you walk. While I did watch S1 now, I sure can do nothing about the hole gossip train that was going on each week when it aired, so your absolute values in your arguments have no meaning to me and never will.

Also, I wouldn't call the first season a burden. It had episodic "Contractor of the week" theme with 3 key episodes thrown in to hint to the ending and some cheap links here and there. You then had the filler arcs with no conclusion - who did fatsinger and poet boy work for in the end? - and cheesy filler characters like the detective and gangster. I would say S1 had potential and did nothing with it; lets face it Hei and co. played more the role of the weird 3rd party rather then the protagonist(s).

Russia. They had said it at the begining.