Episode 02: “Fallen Meteor…”
SUMMARY: Another flashback (2 years ago): Suou’s father is teaching her how to hunt, but she can’t make herself kill the targeted animal. Later, the professor informs her that a time of tribulation will come upon them soon, and when that happens, she mustn’t hesitate to pull the trigger should the need arises. Shion cheerfully exclaims that Suou shouldn’t worry, because he’ll protect her when that time comes. We hear Suou’s voiceover, noting that was the last time she saw Shion’s true smile. She then proceeds to tell us what we already know, a quick recap that Shion became a contractor that night and lost the freedom to use his legs as his remuneration. Suou swore that she’d protect Shion because she’s his sister. But… she didn’t know that at this very moment in time, when she’s trying to escape contractors who attacked their home, was the beginning of her tribulations.
Back in the present: Hei asks Suou (he mistakes her for Shion) to give him the meteor core fragment. Suou manages to escape by using her camera’s flash to distract Hei. As Hei is about to pursue her, a bada$$ contractor girl armed with a katana suddenly appears and fights him (it looks like her power is to make things sharp? I think she’s using a wooden katana, which she then made all glowy and bladed, well, it’s sharp enough to break Hei’s knife, and she throws glowy things that can cut into stuff). Suou is crouching beside a tree, watching the (awesome) fight. Hei orders Suou to run away and says he’s not her enemy. A confused Suou follows his orders. Hei and katana girl resume fighting, and she has that cool grappling wire thingy too, while Hei reveals his spare knife! As Suou is running away, she encounters a guy in trenchcoat (one of the three people who were eavesdropping on April’s radio frequency last episode) As he’s trying to get close to Suou, Pecha (her amazing defensive pet squirrel xD) comes to her rescue, and she manages to evade him by putting a can on his head. Meanwhile, Upon seeing the Pavlichenko house on fire, Hei and katana girl stop fighting.
While wandering in the woods, Suou spots Shion at a distance through her handy dandy high-end camera, and is surprised to see that he’s able to walk again. She then loses sight of him, though he did appear to have seen Suou too. Apparently, the eavesdropping trio’s name are Shizume (trenchcoat guy), Hazuki (katana girl), and Youko (the other girl). Apparently, Hazuki’s remuneration is to kiss someone. She kisses Shizume right away upon her return to their van. Youko immediately hands her some water (or a tall bottle of mouthwash? Lol~) to gargle with xDD – She then proceeds to kiss Youko to get rid of the “aftertaste” from kissing Shizume xDD Moving on, it looks like the Russian Major Repnin is one of the evil higher-ups this time. Suou tries to seek shelter from her friend Sasha’s house, but she doesn’t recognize Suou anymore. Seems like her memories got wiped (she saw Tanya’s contractor mode last time). Suou has no choice but to run away again. Apparently, Nika’s memory hasn’t been wiped yet. He’s recovering in a hospital bed. He manages to wake up and hear the evil soldiers who are after him and runs away. Nika bumps into a wandering Suou, who embraces him out of relief. Meanwhile, a scarred eye guy (apparently a “Mr. Smith” from the CIA) meets with a blonde woman in a cafe, and asks for assistance, saying “that organization” has made a move in their quest for “Izanagi.”
Nika and Suou manage to find a hiding place (Suou, Nika and Tanya’s “secret base”). Nika wonders what’s going on, as he learned that everyone in class forgot about Tanya and then Suou’s house caught on fire. In another part of town, we see Hei off a snowy area with a CIA guy (a different CIA guy, not the scarred eye guy). Hei says that the professor was already dead when he arrived. The CIA guy notes that they’re looking into who those eavesdropping trio who intervened are and he’ll inform Hei right away once he gets any information on them. The CIA says they hired Hei to deal into these kinds of situation too and that he must obey them, referring to him as “The Black Reaper.” Later, we see the rugged and tired-looking Hei walking around the city. He sees a candid photo of him on the wall. Apparently, Suou made a “wanted” kind of poster bearing Hei’s photo which she managed to take when she flashed her camera at him earlier (poster says that he’s a guy who took advantage of her sister xDD) and to contact her if anyone saw the guy. Well, Hei saw a several of the posters lined up across the walls. At the other end of the wall, Suou realizes that Nika is still hoping to rescue Tanya. We see that there are military spies keeping track of Suou and Nika. In another side of the town, July is still operating and gives Suou’s location to August 7. Hei also manages to find Suou. Suou tries to scare Hei away, saying that she’d spread his photo on the net and has made the arrangements even if he kills her. An unshaken Hei tells her to hand over the meteor core fragment, saying he won’t kill her if she does. Suou says contractors are liars.
Losing his patience, Hei proceeds to frisk Suou for the meteor core fragment, which freaks out Suou because, well, Hei’s frisking her in areas that shouldn’t be frisked. ^^; Hei immediately releases her when she screams, and realizes that she is not Shion. Suou then breaks down in tears and asks Hei why he killed her dad, Bella (April), and asks where Shion is. Hei blankly responds that he’s a contractor and doesn’t even try to defend himself. While Suou is having her emotional outbursts, Hei suddenly remembers Yin. The military then manages to find then, and they ask Suou (who the military thinks is Shion) to come with them. August 7 shows up too, saying that it is he who’ll be taking Suou (he thinks Suou is Shion too). Military then fires bullets at August 7, but he easily blocks them all and sends it their way instead. As Suou tries to run away, the military guys fire at her, but Hei protects her, scoops her up and takes her away. Suou wonders why a contractor like him is trying to save her life now. August 7 pursues the two of them while the military are hindered by a stone-looking contractor (who turns out to be Shizume, the trenchcoat guy of the eavesdropping trio). Suou tells Hei that she thinks she’ll be killed once the people/contractors after her learn that she’s not Shion. Hei agrees that this would be the most rational move the her pursuers would take in this situation.
August 7 then appears and blocks their way, saying that his remuneration is to talk about the secrets behind magic tricks (sounds like a lame and easy payment), but he says its torture for a magician like him to do that but he can use real magic in return. Hei manages to fight him off and run at the same time while carrying Suou. He then tells Suou to run away by herself and proceeds to continue his fight with August 7. Hei manages to stab him, but his knife just goes through August 7 without a scratch. Hazuki (katana girl) is watching the fight from a roof, exclaiming that August 7 is distorting the area around him, so neither guns nor swords will affect him. Ah, but quick-thinking Hei throws his coat towards August 7 then throws his knife after it, managing to catch August 7 off guard. As Hei’s coat falls over August 7’s face, Hei grabs August 7’s head and attacks by holding him down and giving him a dose of electric shock, all the while Hazuki observing everything and admiring Hei’s cleverness. As Hei was about to give the final stab to kill off August 7, Suou gets out of her hiding place (lol, apparently she didn’t run away when she was told to) and yells for Hei to stop. At that moment, Hazuki activates their trap and manages to trap Hei in a forcefield kind of thingy and electrocutes him (Nooooooo! My precious Hei!!! T_T)
The electricity appears to have reacted with the necklace on Suou (the one given to her by Shion). We then see a Yin hallucination (a tearful Yin says “Sayonara, Hei” while he tries to grab her). After the ED song, we see Kirihara looking at the sky through a telescope, observing BK-201’s star… She sees it’s light faltering and then it suddenly fades away, which deeply concerns Kirihara.
~ Drats, episode 2 ends there. >_<
IMPRESSION: The OP ["Tsukiakari no Michishirube" by Stereopony] is very nice and catchy! Although this new OP is pretty good too, I think I would’ve liked a song that’s more in the line of season 1’s OP themes (”Kakusei Heroism…” by Antic Cafe or “Howling” by abingdon boys school). Anyway, we get a different ED sequence this time… last time was just a building/city backdrop, we see the characters this time. I guess it’s safe to say now that you should always wait until the ED song finishes since the episode actually ends after the ED. Yay, Kirihara! She appeared in the OP but not in the ED, but Pecha is there… Oh, I hope they’re not thinking of killing Kirihara off in later episodes too! That would suck. Looks like July will have much of a role in later episodes, but my only shallow basis is that he’s in the ED sequence too.
Damn black cats appearing in the episodes always make me exclaim “Mao!” xD That fight between Hazuki and Hei was AWESOME! Loved the BGM. August 7 and Hazuki’s powers are cool! August 7 and Hei’s fight was friggin’ AWESOME too. That move with the coat, knife throw, and head grab attack by Hei was really clever~! Props to his quick thinking and resourcefulness. It’s also good to know through his own words that Hei wasn’t the one who killed the professor/Suou’s dad. So, if that’s true, then there’s probably some other contractor guy who has a similar ability as him again this time (if I remember it correctly, in episodes 11 & 12 form season 1, Nick can also manipulate electricity). So, it turns out that Nika is still hoping to save Tanya… he’d probably end up dead if Tanya turns out to be heartless, but it seems that this season will also be revolving with their subplot.
Poor Hei. He’s gone through so much crap already. It’s obviously taking a toll on him now. And it’s kinda troubling to see him in such despair. T_T Maybe something’s happened to Yin…. Like she’s been captured or something since Hei seems to be working without her usual assistance in this mission. I’m also not sure if Suou saw the Yin hallucination/memory fragment too when the bolt of electricity reacted with Suou’s necklace. This made me think of season 1′ finale again… Did Yin really manage to escape Hell’s Gate with Hei? We didn’t actually see it per se, did we? Well, I just assumed she did since we saw Hei grab her hand in episode 25 when he was in that black vortex thingy, and we saw him off with her after, and we saw her water-ish form at the end of that episode… Maybe she got trapped in some time-space continuum whatever kind of thing? Hmm. I guess we’ll learn more about her whereabouts sooner or later in upcoming episodes.
I also wonder how the eavesdropping trio figured out where exactly to place those traps… or perhaps they just got lucky? Hmm. I somehow doubt that though. I think maybe the forcefield thingy is, well, to prevent whoever’s trapped in it from using their contractor abilities. Maybe Hei used his power to try and escape it, but unfortunately, it just bounced back and he ended up electrocuting himself T_T It could be that Hei’s power connected with Suou’s necklace and she in turn managed to see a fragment of Hei’s memories/concerns. Maybe it’s the forcefield is a power-sucking thingy or it could nullify someone’s power temporarily.
OK, regarding that part with Kirihara… This is just a guess, but maybe, just maybe… I think BK-201’s star fading away could mean that Hei may have lost his power. I mean, basically, he only became a contractor because of his sister’s power, right? (at least that’s what I understood from season 1’s finale, which I mentioned in a previous post). Oh, and when a contractor dies, the star falls, right? If it fades, then maybe it’s just a (temporary?) loss of contractor ability/power… I think I can vaguely remember something like that in Mai’s episode back in episode 3 of season 1, although I think it was the other way around in that episode since Mai’s star appeared/lit up when her contractor ability manifested. Maybe it works the other way around too… Also, I believe it was mentioned before by Dr. Schroeder in episode 24 of season 1, that the messier code BK-201 was previously assigned to Hei’s sister Bai. Well, Hei’s power came from her after all. Hei has been known as “The Black Reaper” even before he got his powers, right? So that means (and as we saw in season 1 flashbacks) that he’s quite an awesome and bada$$ fighter even without any contractor ability while he was fighting alongside Bai and Amber in South America back then. In short, Hei can still be a darn good fighter even as his human self. Sure, he’d be a bit disadvantaged without the ability to manipulate electricity, but he’d still be highly skilled in hand-to-hand combat. Um, so what I’m trying to say is that even if Hei’s star fades, he’d still exist as Hei in Black Reaper mode but minus the power. Hmm. Hey, just a thought. Anyway, we’d probably learn more about it soon.
Episode 3 preview… Nika will meet Tanya again, but it seems to be a trap.
Season 2 Note: According to wiki, DtB’s season 2 will be comprised of 12 episodes. In addition, there will be 4 OVAs that will be included in the DVDs. The timeline in the OVAs will be set between teh events of season 1 and 2, and will be a side story of Hei and Yin. More details can be found on this page at the official site (it’s in Japanese) and season 2’s wiki page.
:: Character Notes ::
– New characters introduced in this episode (who also managed to stay alive and possibly come back in future episodes):
- Shizume Genma – having the ability to cover his body with construction debris or other material to form an armour. His armored form enhances the power of his punches and protects him from bullets.
- Hazuki Mina – has the ability to turn anything into a bladed weapon, which she can then throw or use as a sword. Her remuneration is to kiss someone.
- Sawashima Youko – usually performs support duties such as driving Hazuki and Shizume around or tapping radio communications.
- August 7 – aka “The Magician” – an MI6 agent who can use “real magic” by having the ability to distort the area around him. His remuneration is to talk about the secrets behind magic tricks, which he says is torture for a magician like him to reveal.
- (read more about the characters in wiki)
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You might also want to check out my other related posts:
- Darker than Black season 2 – ep 03
- Darker than Black season 2 – ep 01
- Darker than Black ep 25 [FINALE]
- Darker than Black – series overview
- Extra: Darker than Black – main cast interview
- Other Darker than Black entries
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