Darker than Black – Ryuusei no Gemini 01 : Stardust

Go, and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me, where all past years are,
Or who cleft the Devil’s foot,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy’s stinging,
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.*

It all starts with a meteor.

and cute twins with hats

They say a falling star means someone has died. In their case, it seems it also means someone is born anew. This is the night Suou’s twin brother becomes a Contractor…

Two years later, Suou lives a fairly normal life in Vladivostok. But what do we have ? MI-6 Contractors hanging out in bars ?

a new one, nice to meet you, Whisky guy

That doesn’t stop our lively girl sneaking pictures of her friends Tanya and Nika during a particularly meaningful and sweet moment, and fail to convey any of its beauty to her now heartless brother.

the enthusiastic approach…

vs. the realistic approach to love

dream is the word

But your world can change overnight. Adorable blushing girls can suddenly become capable of pest control and incapable of emotions.

wow, not so cute and happy anymore

Tanya leaves in an army truck towards her new fate, leaving behind a fairly distraught Suou. Unfortunately, this is only the beginning. Upon coming home, Suou finds herself running away from Special Ops, hearing her brother telepathically, finding her father dead on the floor, and caught up in a Contractor fight.

miss !

April, who was working undercover at Suou and Shion’s dad’s lab, ice-shrapnels an unknown guy. Something seems to be the matter with Shion. He’s the “core of the meteor”, or so Suou heard the guy interrogating her dad say before killing him. What guy ? Adult. Asian. Wearing a mask. Now that rings a bell, doesn’t it, April ?

and if it wasn’t enough, you’d recognize that cable anytime…

uh oh, looks like Yin has not been taking good care of you lately

Another star falls. April is dead. Shion is missing, voluntarily. Suou stands in the snowy woods. So does BK201.

Impressions :

This show has actually made me write another post when I was thinking about leaving this blog to wither quietly away. Darker than Black is one of my favorites, which are the ones that don’t simply fall into the “it’s fun/it’s stupid/it’s got giant robots” categories (I am weak that way, you may have noticed). It just glues me to my screen. It makes me think, sometimes feel, drool over background art or fighting scenes. The first episode did all that at once. So now I wait, and hope.

*John Donne, from the opening of Stardust by Neil Gaiman