Darker Than Black [1st season] generic discussion

[Jazzrat]

Originally Posted by Joojoobees

I resemble that remark!

Don't worry, 90% of the men likes women with glasses and i m among those 90% as well

Plus, Misaki is the finer specimen of the meganeko. Reminds me of the OLs i see in cafe during lunch hour.

Yin is for the ponytail lolicons

[lommm]

Originally Posted by orion

The first episode was violent and nicely paced. I like the OP better than the ED song.

Spoiler:

Poor Chiaki is getting set up by Hei and company. Moral of this is not to trust a guy who you meet after you see him fall off a bridge onto a railroad track with a train coming.

She's just too trusting imo.

So they don't have free reign with using their powers? They have a contract to keep. I wonder with who?

Spoiler:

i'm telling you it's just like witch hunter robin. the same limit on their own powers existed in that series as well. and in WHR they turned on their bosses when they found out they were being used.

pony tail loliconism is not bad as long as it stays within anime. lol

[DangerMouse]

I doubt I'm the only one who thinks Yin is nice eye candy until we get to her story so I guess I'm in that boat lol.

Misaki has a really cool and distinctive hair style.

[orion]

Originally Posted by lommm

Spoiler:

i'm telling you it's just like witch hunter robin. the same limit on their own powers existed in that series as well. and in WHR they turned on their bosses when they found out they were being used.

pony tail loliconism is not bad as long as it stays within anime. lol

Spoiler:

I'm hoping that the contract grantor is a neutral entity so that a moral debate ensues since we have "dolls" in this title. These guys prob already know that they re being used. They are contract killers after all. So, it's basically what's in it for them?

I want to see Amber in action.

[DangerMouse]

Originally Posted by orion

I want to see Amber in action.

I'm looking forwards to that.

[WanderingKnight]

Yeah, well, this was bothering me since the 5 minute ad, but...

Spoiler:

Why is Jan's way of "replenishing his power", or whatever, lining up stones?! And if Louie's way of replenishing his power was to break his fingers... then that would've been the first time he used his power...

I hope it gets cleared up in the coming episodes (well, it certainly will).

[wao]

It seems like according to some of the people who went for the real-life preview screening, the producer said that Hei's contract has something to do with astronomical observations. Once again it seems like there's something to do with the stars and such.

Also, apparently Dolls like Yin don't have to make a contract for their powers. But I guess there must be something else they're losing.


Anyway, for anyone who would like to read another short interview with the director that was originally here, here is a loose translation:

Spoiler:

Very loosely translated from ttp://www.presepe.jp/m44/sp/id/fqfANnHR_UY%253D

Slightly interesting bit from the blurb before the actual comments:

"Hei encounters many kinds of people in the story. A female researcher running away from her life, a blind girl, and a middle-aged man who believes only in money after having lost his ability to love. While each of them embraces the darkness in their own hearts, they are nonetheless struggling, and living. Through dealing with all these people, gradually a change starts taking place in Hei as he develops feelings of sympathy for his targets, feelings of guilt, and feelings of distrust towards The Organisation.
Eventually the bonds between Hei and the people around him slowly firm up, forming a loose pseudo-family around him."




Interview with director Tensai Okamura
Accessed April 01 2007

--The title "DARKER THAN BLACK -Kuro no Keiyakusha-", when translated directly means "darker than black" (nb: they're talking about the English), but could you tell us why you decided to give it this title?

Okamura: It somehow ended up that the "Kuro no Keiyakusha" part would be included somehow or another. I actually wanted to have the title to be (Hei's) codename "BK201", but I got told "it's too weak as a title" and so it instead ended up having "DARKER THAN BLACK" which was the idea of Takeda-san from MBS*.
I actually said that "I don't really like having English text and a colour nobody really understands" but the moment I came out with this it turned into "Oh, this is good", so (laughs). I can agree with it (laughs).

*Seiji Takeda, executive producer at MBS (Mainichi Broadcasting Station), behind many MBS anime including SEED, Code Geass, Blood+, FMA, Ayakashi Ayashi etc.



--How did "Darker than Black" come about?

Okamura: I kind of wanted to do a story with modern Tokyo as the setting at least once, and I also thought about doing something with spies in it so this story got created.
More than, say, 007 and Hollywood blockbuster-esque spy battles, I did have this thing about wanting to do realistic spy battles.



--The main character is a spy but his outside appearance is that of a Chinese university student?

Okamura: Rather than a spy, he's more of an assassin. Even as a student the bit about him being Chinese is just an official title, but what nationality or race he really is is a mystery.
As for Hei as a person, I wanted it so that his exterior face is that of a nice young man of good character, someone with that unpolished/rugged feel. The story might be containing many stories where he tricks certain people who've got a secret and are trying to escape with it, and extorts information from these people.
In the process, however, he manages to interact with these people he's cheating and starts wavering with the thought of "Does this guy really deserve to be killed".



--Please tell us about this character "Yin". What relation does she have to Hei?

Okamura: The details of exactly what changes Yin might go through, I'm afraid, can't be released yet. Right now she's a character with no personality, but the stories about her will probably be about how she somehow or another manages to start returning to being human.



--About Iwahara Yuji-san who's doing his first job as original character designer for an anime here, tell us about the charm of his characters.

Okamura: Previously he had drawn this manga for a game called Koudelka (nb: Iwahara did the designs for the original game too), and when I read it for the first time I was left with the impression that this person's drawings are pretty interesting. It's like manga, but the characters can be animated realistically and I thought they were extremely suited as characters for an anime, so I thought someday I'd like to work with him.



--Please tell us your intentions behind making this have a bi-episodic structure.

Okamura: Please think of it as a 1-hour drama spread over two episodes. If you're forced to finish one story in 30 minutes the episode finishes before you're really able to delve into the character, so I made it into a bi-episodic structure. There's hilarious stories and detective tales and so on, so each episode can end up being about completely different things.



--Tell us about Kanno Yoko-san who's in charge of the music.

Okamura: I actually had requested something like folk music from the 70s, but she produced was quite like fusion music. It was pretty awesome how while weaving in romantic tunes and more hard beats with more muddled sort of stuff she managed to really expand the worldview of this anime. I think she brought out this sense of something like "darkness with an element of transparency" really well this time around.



--It appears a lot of time was spent going location-hunting since Tokyo is the backdrop for the anime, so what sort of places did you visit?

Okamura: We ended up in all sorts of places. Episode 1 and 2 spans from Shinjuku to Ookubo (nb: which is in Shinjuku?). Although we needed a bit of courage to photograph the police station (laughs).



--Please tell us what detective shows or films you were influenced by.

Okamura: The movie I've been most interested in recently (?) would have to be Munich*. With regards to "Darker than Black" though, I was influenced by stories from way back to around the 70s, stories of wild youths such as in Kizudarake no Tenshi** and Kogarashi Monjirou***.

*By Steven Spielberg. Only released in Japan on the 4th of February.
**A late-night Japanese TV drama that aired from 1974 to 1975 on NTV. It follows the life of Osamu Kogure and Akira Inui as they rebelled against authorities or solved problems and so on, with a sort of theme each episode.
***Originally a novel by Saho Sasazawa that was adapetd into an action-oriented film in 1972 as well as a TV drama in the same year. It's about Monjirou who roams around after leaving his family at the age of 10.



--Any final message you may have?

Okamura: I think you'll be able to see pretty big-boned* drama unfold here, which is something you don't see very much recently. Also, there's the appealingly evil part of the double-faced Hei as well as the side of him that is worried about it - if you could see it while feeling a bit of empathy for Hei then I would be most pleased!

*He literally says "骨の太い". I don't know whether this euphemism is intended to be translated directly.

As for the other two peoples' powers, I really dunno. I think they're supposed to be bizarre. I guess the problem with the stone-lining thing is that it's very painstaking and can really be very irritating to some people. According to a previous interview I translated here, there's apparently going to be one where they have to eat dandelions or something If I understood correctly, anyway.
I feel awfully sorry for the guy who had to break his fingers....

[issei]

nothing in the first episode completely blew me away, but it was definitely a solid effort, and gave me that witch hunter robin vibe that had me tentatively excited for that series. i see definite potential here in the delivery of a rewarding storyline, and mao is too cool.

Spoiler:

in particular, the contrast between the two sides of hei shows a lot of promise, and even within his foreign exchange student personality, contradiction was used to great effect (both dramatic and humorous): kissing haraguchi/chiaki against that tree to provide cover, then being embarrassed about it, then shaking off getting knocked into a moving train in order to come to the rescue again...he's indefatigable!

[lommm]

I feel awfully sorry for the guy who had to break his fingers....

seriously!! that's one of the most painful bones to break due to all the nerve ending in your fingers!! i imagine if this is popular, gintama will parody it and gintoki will either have to drink strawberry milk or organize his jump collection to recharge....(sorry, just watched the funniest gintama ever so i have silver soul on the brain!)

and did we actually see Hei hit the train? didn't he just go over the bridge? he probably used that nifty hook wire that he had in the first scene and hung from the bridge a la bruce wayne.

EDIT:
@wao: you should be getting paid to do all that translating! seriously! that interview is highly appreciated!

[wao]

Originally Posted by issei

nothing in the first episode completely blew me away, but it was definitely a solid effort, and gave me that witch hunter robin vibe that had me tentatively excited for that series. i see definite potential here in the delivery of a rewarding storyline, and mao is too cool.

Spoiler:

in particular, the contrast between the two sides of hei shows a lot of promise, and even within his foreign exchange student personality, contradiction was used to great effect (both dramatic and humorous): kissing haraguchi/chiaki against that tree to provide cover, then being embarrassed about it, then shaking off getting knocked into a moving train in order to come to the rescue again...he's indefatigable!

I am sooooooo watching this show if only for Hei, and after watching the most recent trailer, Mao.

*mutters at certain conditions at the present moment that disallow the watching of DtB* I want to hear more of Hei's voice and disintegrate into silly goop in front of the computer while I can! Curses.

[issei]

Originally Posted by wao

I am sooooooo watching this show if only for Hei, and after watching the most recent trailer, Mao.

*mutters at certain conditions at the present moment that disallow the watching of DtB* I want to hear more of Hei's voice and disintegrate into silly goop in front of the computer while I can! Curses.

if the opening is any indication, this series is going to be heitastic. good news for fangirls! i can only hope that the actual characterization and plot development live up to their potential.

[wao]

Hahaha, I just watched the first episode and you're quite right. Heitastic it was! He's exactly liek what the seiyuu were describing him as - the type who could make girls go a little silly for him and then he ends up being so mean that it pains us. Man, it was so cool seeing him go all crafty and evil-looking after being so overwhelmingly zomgwtf with Chiaki after the telescope thing. And he's so nice and kind looking and totally the sweet transfer student in front of Misuzu, but when it comes to serious business he's so evil even Mao has to tell him to stop.

As you can see I am getting a major kick out of this. Waha! And I actually like Yin too despite her not getting much play. There's something about that way she looks that is really attractive. That seemingly pensive look and somewhat lonely kind of way she sits.

Count me pleasantly surprised anyway, once I figured from the promo materials that this wasn't going to be all-out stylo-milo coolness ala Bebop, I was ready for a very subdued episode but this episode made me happy aside from that too. I do like how despite the setting and all it doesn't try hard to be uber-cool, and I really love the "normal" parts - things like Yutaka's glib talking with Chiaki in that bar, and most of all when Hei was walking to his apartment. It felt so realistically suburban-like! And his landlady is very amusing, I didn't think she was annoying. Speaking of annoying, even Chiaki herself was a lot less annoying than I had expected her to be.

Anyway, it remains to be seen whether Bones can continue with this level of effort but I'm going to keep watching for now. Even if it's only for Hei! Sheesh, I am so weak, but who cares.


EDIT: Forgot to mention, I liked Kanno's score for this. It wasn't too flashy but it had the right amoutn of coolness and eerieness to make it interesting. And yet we all know there's going to be some awesome stuff to follow - remember that bit from the trailer? Tattara~ tattara~ *whistles*
Last thing - I quite liked the acoustics for this show. Not on the level of Noein perhaps, but I like how they kept it such that the voices and such don't feel detached from the surrounding noises.

[Majek]

Hmm this looks very appealing to me. This i'll surely watch ( hopefully with good subs too )

[Deacon Blues]

Eh, for those that are interested, I'm starting screenshot pages for the series. Most of the episodes should have 175 screencaps to a page. I'll probably write up a summary as time goes on if I get to it, but for now this is how it'll be.

Episode.01 Screenshots

[DangerMouse]

Originally Posted by wao

Spoiler:

--Please tell us about this character "Yin". What relation does she have to Hei? [/B]

Okamura: The details of exactly what changes Yin might go through, I'm afraid, can't be released yet. Right now she's a character with no personality, but the stories about her will probably be about how she somehow or another manages to start returning to being human.



--About Iwahara Yuji-san who's doing his first job as original character designer for an anime here, tell us about the charm of his characters.

Okamura: Previously he had drawn this manga for a game called Koudelka (nb: Iwahara did the designs for the original game too), and when I read it for the first time I was left with the impression that this person's drawings are pretty interesting. It's like manga, but the characters can be animated realistically and I thought they were extremely suited as characters for an anime, so I thought someday I'd like to work with him.



--Please tell us your intentions behind making this have a bi-episodic structure.

Okamura: Please think of it as a 1-hour drama spread over two episodes. If you're forced to finish one story in 30 minutes the episode finishes before you're really able to delve into the character, so I made it into a bi-episodic structure. There's hilarious stories and detective tales and so on, so each episode can end up being about completely different things.

Thank you for the interview.

Ooh, the Yin stuff and how secretive he wants to be about her definitely peaked my interest even more about her. Even without much screen time at all I was already drawn in by her. I love the various colors they've chosen for her design.

Cool, no wonder i like the designs, I didn't realize Iwahara Yuji had worked on Koudelka, I loved everything about that game, especially the art, except the horrible battle system. I agree, they are really well suited designs and adapt really well to Bones' animation.

I am really glad to hear the approach Okamura is taking with the bi-episodic structure, it sounds like he really means to take advantage of it's benefits. I'm glad there will be some hilarious stories spread into this as I'd love to see what these serious characters can do with it. And detective tales should be great given this cast of characters so that should be addictive too.

[wao]

Haha, I just found scans of the Newtype early-release scans (it should only go on sale on the 10th but today's the 7th) It's nearly 5 am and I haven't slept though so I'll upload them later, but it's full of new information!! There's stuff about upcoming characters, and another interview I think, etc. Haven't even read through everything X)

I might have to buy the actual Newtype for one of the scans though, can't read the text quite well. Have to wait ill the 10th for that though.

zzzz

[kma]

odm and shinsensubs subbing tis anime if anyone wanted to know

[WanderingKnight]

Yay! Shinsen-subs! *starts dancing frantically*

[DangerMouse]

Nice, glad to hear it!

[Bearcat]

Forgive me if i simply missed it somewhere in this thread, but is there a release date for the soundtrack in the US or elsewhere?

Thanx.