Darker Than Black - Episode 07 Discussion / Poll

[-Sho-]

Good episode .
July was cute .
Hei probably saw July's hand who touch the window .

[alu546]

In other news, that was a cool finish to the episode.

Suou showed off her slightly sadistic side, I was wondering how long shed continue to impale that woman with shards of glass.

And all three are beginning to understand each other a bit more, the interaction among the three(or 4) is interesting.

[TurquoiseThyme]

This episode gave me alot to think about.

Originally Posted by hei

Dr Pavlichenko fabricated the official document of his family member registration TWICE. It's not revealed when, but I think it implies death and rebirth of either Suou or Shion. However, a question is remaining. From the beginning, we were informed that Dr Pavlichenko can forge human's memory, but how can he have a replica of physical body for himself and Suou/Shion? Is this related to Shion's ability as a contractor? Well...

I agree that Shion's ability as a contractor may well be creating a new body for someone who has died. I am remembering an earlier episode when Shion announced to his father that his renumeration had been paid, he was walking again. Now it appears that he is back to being confined to a weelchair, and his father seems to be alive in a new body. Concidence, I think not .

On a different aspect of the episode. I think that Hei is very intellegent. He regularly meets new contractors, figures out their powers, and uses that knowledge to help him kill them. That's really fast thinking.

When Hei tells Suou that she should "thank July", I think that one Hei knows that observation ghosts exist, two July observes through glass, three the enemy contractor exclamed like he was seeing something when Hei couldn't see anything, therefore Hei knows that July's observation ghost did something to help.

[JackRydden224]

It's ironic how without Hei around Suou did exactly what he didn't want her to do, (almost) killed somebody. I think we can all agree that if Mao didn't stopped her she would have killed that woman. On another Suou note, she looks a lot taller this episode. I thought she was suppose to be the same high as July. Perhaps we'll see her buying a bra a couple of episodes down XD

Hei doesn't seems to affected must without his powers, he can still kill contractors left and right. I suppose taking away his powers is a way to keep him from killing every body he runs into =)

[Miles Teg]

Originally Posted by JackRydden224

Hei doesn't seems to affected must without his powers, he can still kill contractors left and right. I suppose taking away his powers is a way to keep him from killing every body he runs into =)

He was killing contractor left and right before having his power (when he was protecting his sisters)

[hei]

Originally Posted by justdreamin

I don't know if this is revelant but in the Gemini myth one of the twins gives up part of their life so that the other may live. Darker than black seems to be following this myth based on suou and shion's stars, so maybe Shion did infact give up part of his contractor powers so that suou could live after the meteor. The other power of shion could be in making duplicates.

Yes, it seems to be the case for me. In the earlier episodes, it looks confusing because everything was poured at the same time, but it's getting clear in this episode. That is, the Shion-Suou relation comes from the Gemini myth, while the Shion-Yin relation is based on the Izanagi-Izanami myth, I think. (Probably Yin is in a state of suspended animation and they need Shion's ability to revive her. Before this, Yin should have become an important figure.)

Still, one thing makes me feel uneasy. A contractor has a superhuman ability and Pollux in Greek myths is a god, but a devine ability (ie. revival of life) in the DTB world? Well, isn't it too much? Also, I don't know what Shion's remuneration would be in this case.

Originally Posted by RGB

If nothing else, I'll remember that creepy psycho-killer anesthetist for keeping this episode maho shojo free.

It could be that psycho or the writer. I personally doubt we will see the transformation scene again as the episode writer was changed. It seems to me that each writer has their own preferred way to tell a story. Okada Mari, who was in charge of ep 4, 5 and 6, was not my cup of tea, definitely.

[Zwei]

Originally Posted by hei

It could be that psycho or the writer. I personally doubt we will see the transformation scene again as the episode writer was changed. It seems to me that each writer has their own preferred way to tell a story. Okada Mari, who was in charge of ep 4, 5 and 6, was not my cup of tea, definitely.

What? Why does it bother you that much? So just because of the transformation scene, the whole episode should be labeled "bad"?

It's only like 10 seconds, seriously.

I don't know if this episode was written by another person, but personally this was the weakest episode so far. The contractor dying in this episode shouldn't really be a problem, he wasn't that interesting to begin with and we didn't really get to know anything about him at all except some few details. In other words, his death didn't really change anything.

[KaneDragon]

That is a sharp look for Hei. The idea of him swinging around like Batman looking like that breaks my brain a little, though.


Another fan of Suou's underage ass. And she really should dress better for the weather.


Suou is badass. Hell yes glass knife assassin.





HEI'S RAVE MUSIC DEMANDS MORE SACRIFICES!


I hate jellyfish.

[hei]

Originally Posted by Zwei

What? Why does it bother you that much? So just because of the transformation scene, the whole episode should be labeled "bad"?

It's not just because of that. The henshin scene is just one of many. Also, I did not say it's bad, but it's not to my taste. I think it's a huge difference. As for the episode writers, you can find all the relevant information in the ANN site. For the future episodes of S2, I posted it in the spoiler thread.

[-Sho-]

Thoses are jellyfish special made in Japan XD Too BIG !

[Kaoru Chujo]

The biggest thing for me in this episode was in the preview, when we saw Hei with Repnin on the train: there was a huge pile of plates in front of Hei. Perhaps Hei is becoming Hei again. Perhaps some of Pai's powers are going to surface in him?

I enjoyed the ep, because it advanced the story quite a bit: Dr. Pavlichenko and Shion; the reappearance of Repnin; the addition of a criminal syndicate to go with the Japanese agency (agencies?); Misaki possibly remembering Kyouko's warning and not agreeing to cooperate with Genma; the Russians; I was glad to see July being humanized, as Yin was last season; and a nice bit of Suou using weapons other than her gun.

Unlikely: Suou, who couldn't hit Mao/Petya with a snowball, putting four shards of glass into that woman. And yes, how did Hei know that July helped him? Another hint of returning powers?

My own opinion is that Okada Mari seems to be a better writer than this guy. There wasn't much flow. It was somehow mechanical. Too simple for me, this time, although the plot was more complex. To me, the previous "softer" episodes were more serious than this one, since they had what seemed to me more human content. But we all have our own perceptions and preferences.

And the super-powerful contractor lasted half an episode, as was mentioned, but that was not the episode writer, I don't imagine. That has to be the overall director, Okamura Tensai. I also suspect that that he, rather than the episode writer, decides when to put the mahou shoujo scene in (i.e., have Suou use powers).

[Joe_fh]

I don't know why but that episode felt like a complete waste of a whole episode for some reason. Maybe that's because it's going to be only 12 episodes and there a lot of things to cover and we're halfway through already.

Still we leared a couple of new things about Izanami and Izanagi. We also saw Shion and from the way he looked he must have used his power again at some point after he escaped but we still don't know what his power is so that really doesn't help much. I thought it was something connected with revivng as you guys mentioned above but he couldn't have used it on his father since he ran away on foot from there meaning he didn't use his ability at that point. and form the info in the report the body was a day old meaning it was created right before the events in episode one.

About Suou - well the episode showed a couple of important things about her. She still has feelings for people around her and she acts on them, she thinks rationally and logically unlike in the previous episdes and in a complete contrast with the first one she seems to loose herself in her contractor killing nature at times. Also she seems to view doll the way Hei did in episode one -as something more than just tools but she has stornger feelings for them.
The scene with the glass was qutie brutal. Now why didn't she use her power the moment she saw that guy and instead tried to run away. She was near him so she should have figured at least something about his power and while he was talking she could have shot him seing she brutally impailed a woman with pieces of glass just a second ago. Ok that was done due to the fact that they had to move on with the episode so it wasn't really anything one could complain about.

Another thig is that unlike before the FSB now doesn't seem to want to kill Suou. There was also that creepy glasses guy who I might add felt really out of place and his background which hinted he was a serial killer that only killed women didn't really help, not to mention he freeked out when he saw July's observation ghosts. How is he considered a good agent when he killed a person that had nothing to do with what he had to do? Well he died so there's no reason to mention him anymore.

We again saw that dolls do have feeling but they're not vary good at showing them. I think it's clear July is acting on his own free will in joining Hei and Suou.

Mao doesn't really fit in the story for me. He's mostly there to provide us with funny scenes and every now and then say something important but that's it. And what's with him always grabbing strange things - there was the bath scene in episode one and now Suou's skirt. I mean really - fanservice squirrel moments?

From the way things are going and the preview it seems that the FSB now only wants info from Hei and Suou. I think that maybe Section 13 is a organistion of the Syndicate so we might seem everyone trying to bring them down in the end. Of course with that we loose the Tanya vs Suou development which was sure to be very interesting if done right and would be a good point to show the Darker than Black atmosphere - killing one of your best firends and all the doubt, fear and regret that comes with it.

Basically the epiosde wasn't bad at all but it slowed down the progress of the plot since it mostly showed events that have no major impact on future events. And as I said considering it will only be 12 episodes this isn't really a good point.

[Yu Ominae]

Holy hell! Yuji Ueda as the Russian Contractor...

World of seiyus never seizes to amaze me.

[Slick_rick]

I'll have to go against public opinion and say this was the best episode in a while. Much improved over last arc.

They didn't try to do too much and the pacing was well handled. A lot of intrigue and questions raised. It is a perfect setup episode to the coming episodes. The scene where Suou was viciously throwing glass shards into a defenseless women and had to have Mao tell her to stop was very well done. She definitely has a vengeful streak and didn't take kindly to July being stolen. The only down part of this episodes was when the contractor showed up. They tried so hard to show he was some sort of badass but in the end he was pretty weak fodder. They could have done without including him in this episode.

We had a lot of things happened this episodes but unlike previous episodes they didn't try to cover up the lack of things happening with randomness to take attention away from the lack of story to tell. They kept the fetish fanservice down to the minimum, only had to deal with a naked Shota, and had very good characterization of all characters.

I don't know why people are saying this is "just 12 episodes" since I think it's pretty obvious the story can be wrapped up in 2 or 3 episodes if they really wanted to. The last few episodes we filled with loads of stuff that will have much less influence on the actual main plot than this episode which was actually filled with a lot of relevant material to expanding on that plot.

[Cyrus17]

Originally Posted by 17th_warrior

Actually liked that glass throwing.

The only scene in the whole ep. worth watching. Still no blood meh...

Also, I'm truly amazed by BONES decision not to employ Suou firing her rifle scenes. It's kinda crazy. Fire the producer tbh

And what was that car chase thing? What are they thinking? Was feeling kinda surreal watching such hollywoodish scene in anime series...

Anyway, this ep. was the last drop. I'm dropping DtB-2 cause it has nothing to offer me... Shounen / adventure just not my genre I guess. Pity I didn't do it earlier, but was hooked by Suou+rifle combination and didn't know BONES will waste its potential so incompetently (she didn't kill a single person still!).


P.S. DtB-1 was good though. It was seinen, it was smart and stylish, it had good plot and good ending, and I loved the detective duo

P.P.S. I think in eps. 12-13 Suou will do some shooting, so I'm going to watch them

P.P.P.S. Ah, and squirrel + scotch was nice too

[Xacual]

This series seems much like season 1 to me, if season one had been one big story instead of lots of smalls stories ending in a kind of bigger story influenced by some of the smaller ones.

Anyway I liked this episode, it showed that Suou has at least really learned some skills other then just her gun and continued with the fun game of introduce some deadly contractor followed by their death later in the same episode.

[Shirogane]

Originally Posted by Cyrus17

The only scene in the whole ep. worth watching. Still no blood meh...

Hm? At least the one I watched did have blood...

[Yu Ominae]

Yeah. Suo was a good glassslinger. XD

[Gono]

It seemed like the content is this episode was more than the last few, and had far bigger potential, but the writer couldn't pull it off properly. As far as story progression I loved it, but it definitely didn't flow right. There were parts that made me yawn even though they should have been interesting, and the car chase at the end seemed like it was just put in to get some action going before the ep ended.

[jonli]

Originally Posted by Cyrus17

The only scene in the whole ep. worth watching. Still no blood meh...

Also, I'm truly amazed by BONES decision not to employ Suou firing her rifle scenes. It's kinda crazy. Fire the producer tbh

And what was that car chase thing? What are they thinking? Was feeling kinda surreal watching such hollywoodish scene in anime series...

Anyway, this ep. was the last drop. I'm dropping DtB-2 cause it has nothing to offer me... Shounen / adventure just not my genre I guess. Pity I didn't do it earlier, but was hooked by Suou+rifle combination and didn't know BONES will waste its potential so incompetently (she didn't kill a single person still!).


P.S. DtB-1 was good though. It was seinen, it was smart and stylish, it had good plot and good ending, and I loved the detective duo

P.P.S. I think in eps. 12-13 Suou will do some shooting, so I'm going to watch them

P.P.P.S. Ah, and squirrel + scotch was nice too

No blood? There was plenty of blood. That whole glass flinging thing got that poor girl's butt and back all bloody. And you might've missed it since it was so fast, Hei's grappling rope thing tightened so much so soon that it cut off the Russian guy's fingers. That's pretty gruesome.

I agree for 13 episode series, things are moving a bit slow, but it seems like the whole point of Suou's character is to have her retain her humanity while transforming into a contractor. I think the overall message here is the whole "losing emotion =/= not human anymore". So her killing someone would probably be a BIG thing in the story (especially when Hei is beginning to develop sympathy for her character, and doesn't want to corrupt her anymore). They might be saving it for the end or later in the series. Fine by me to be honest, it's not like we don't have enough Hei whooping ass action.