Darker than black: Kuro no Keiyakusha (tv)

Darker than Black: Kuro no Keiyakusha (2007)

Ten years ago - "Hells Gate", a mysterious and chaotic place came into existence unnatural, in Tokyo without any real explanation. At the same time, all the orbs disappeared and got replaced with substitute, false stars.
All of the sudden, some people recognized they hold supernatural powers, from that happening. One power different from another. -  These people came to be known as "contractors".
Every contractor is connected with their own false star, which reacts after their record and action. Contractors is most often identified in that way, through "messier catalog number". As soon as they do something, the government knows about it, not long after. Different nations and organizations use the contractors as spy's or assassins.

Contractors are kept in the dark, from the public. They are marked down as cold hearted murderers, who covers unreasonable and unnecessary human feelings with logic and reason instead.
Their powers is contracted for an expense of their humanity though. They are called contractors for a reason, and thats because they involuntary pays the price every time they use their power.
To recover, some have to eat certain food, smoke copious amounts of cigarettes, or do futile actions, even self-torturing or change their body unnaturally.

Darker than Black's main protagonist is Hei, a contractor who's identity are unknown for some reason. You get to see him play the charming, soft spoken student from China, Li shun sheng. But when he turns to work, he change to be a cold-hearted and ruthless killer, without guilt or regrets called - The black reaper. His messier code is well known by different organizations and the police, but no-one knows exactly who he is.

Genre: Neo-noir, Sci-fi, supernatural, action

Episodes: 25 

Characters:

Yin - A Emotionless "doll". They are called mediums and observe with their soul, through their medium-elements. Yins medium substance are water - so as soon as she is in contact with water, her soul can transfer to different places which contains water. Thats how she keep a watch and co-operate with Hei, Mao and Huang.

Huang - Is a human who works for the "Syndicate" and give the orders from mentioned organization, forward to Hei and Mao. He is like a supervisor, but he don't really have much fate in contractors. 

Mao - A contractor whose power is, to transfer into different animals. He lost his own body, which the reason of evolves throughout the story. He is now inside a black cat, most of the time. But since the cat's brain is not fully capable of containing Mao's human consciousness, he had a server installed in the cat's collar to support it. He also takes pleasure in watching Hei's different reactions.

Misaki Kirihara - Section-chef of the foreign affairs division four, who investigates incidents involving contractors. She is very interested by the messier number BK-201, since she suspects that contractor to be involved in many of the cases. She encounter Hei in his alternate persona "Li", throughout the story.

The character development are really good, for most of the characters. Especially Hei himself and the other main characters in the story. 

Thoughts:

First impression was good from the start. It stuck on the retina and didn't want to let go, until I realized it was a winner. It was placed very quickly, high up on my anime-list.

The story is unforgettable, entertaining and capturing in my opinion at least. The kind of anime you get completely stuck to, and don't want to turn of or end.

One of the best anime-series I've seen so far. The storyline and background are completely in my taste as well, as I always liked supernatural. And the storyline has a unusual and very complex story, with a lot of twist too. You really have to think both once and twice.

- Because who wouldn't like emotionless, cold-hearted assassins, with different supernatural powers? And better yet, with a cool main protagonist in the top and a very profound story you can dig through for hours.

This anime won't ever be boring. There are some episodes in the middle which can feel a bit slow-paced, by contrast to the other episodes. But it always happens something, and you always get to know something new in almost every episode. So you really have to watch them with care.

My eyes were glued to the screen, so I wouldn't miss out on anything important. And I would gladly watch every episode during one night... but sadly, you have to sleep sometimes too.

If you haven't seen Darker than black, then you really should. I would with confidence say, that you won't be regretting seeing it. It is worth every hour.

But it ends so suddenly that my heart flip and get stuck in a painful state. And then the pain went away for a moment, when I happily thought about the second season.

Music:

OP; Abingdon boys school - Howling. Is a fairly good rock tune, which work good with the opening.

ED; Rie Fu - Tsukiakari. Nice tune, like her voice.

After episode fourteen;

OP; An cafe - Kakusei Heroism. A good tune to come in with, at a time like that.

ED; High and Mighty color - Dreams. A calm rock tune with nice melody.

Soundtrack; Yoko Kanno. The music overall, in the anime, fits in well and gives a extra feeling to things.

Animation:
It is kind of special counting in the characters, and the visions/background are beautiful. I like the different angles they pull of, when they "film" it. It is adapted very fitting for the story-line and I like almost everything about it. Creative and nicely done. 

Rating: 97/100

Written and directed: Tensai Okamura

Producer/Studio: Bones