I was pretty late in watching the OVA of Darker Than Black. Well, I knew about it looooong ago but I somehow forgot about it. So when I was searching for anime (to download), something must have gotten into me that prompted me to type “Darker Than Black” in the search bar and what do you know, an OVA!
Alas, the anticipation and excitement that I had for this went poof after watching it. All that was left was… sheer disappointment.
More after the jump.
It started with a narration of what seemed like a story about a masked man who was talking to a cat. It turned out to be an online novel written by Mayu Otsuka (who the hell is she? I didn’t notice her at all in the TV Series. Must be THAT insignificant) who is also an otaku with figurines all over her room.
The story then brought us back to presumably a few days before the beginning of the show. In the 4th Foreign Affairs Department of the Japanese National Police Agency, Saitou and Misaki were looking at a photo of a torn paper with what they speculated as a password of a security deposit box written on it. However, a few numbers were missing. Misaki remarked that the deposit box secured by this password held stolen goods from the Gate.
Out in the playground where Huang, Mao, Hei always met, they were discussing about the stolen goods as well. Huang told Hei that something was buried under a cherry blossom tree and ordered Hei to retrieve it.
Huang also expressed his disapprovals of Yin constant meeting with the Pink Otaku Girl, as he was worried that Yin might accidentally let slip their secrets and identities to the otaku.
And the scene now changed to a pointless cherry-blossom-watching-party that wasted a few minutes of the screen time. Well, Mayu did tell her superior Matsumoto that she wrote novels online and told him to check it out. Matsumoto, out of nowhere, told Mayu about an urban legend where a corpse is buried under a cherry blossom tree. This got her interested and somehow led her to a hill where a cherry blossom tree was planted.
As requested by Huang, Hei and Mao dug out a glass cylinder containing some pink liquid, and a few digits written on it. Suddenly, another contractor appeared and snatched the cylinder away. Hei tried to stop him and in the struggle, the contractor threw the cylinder down the hill before using his ability to teleport away.
The cylinder hit Mayu on her head while she was walking towards the tree. The contractor arrived shortly and tried to kill her because she saw the password written on the glass. Fortunately, Hei came to her rescue and killed the contractor. He put her into unconsciousness by electrocuting her for a brief moment. He also ordered Mao to bring the cylinder back to Huang.
When Mayu woke up, she wasn’t sure if her experience was a dream or a real incident. However, she incorporated her “dream” into the plot of her online story (yes, we’re talking about the story at the beginning of this show). In her story, she wrote down the password she remembered from her “dream”.
Fast forward (as there are too many unnecessary scenes in between), Mao lost the cylinder and this infuriated Huang. Mao repeatedly assured Huang that he would keep searching for it. However, Yin saved his sorry ass by mumbling out the correct password. Of course, it was none other than the Pink Otaku Girl, being a huge fan of Mayu, who told Yin about the story and the password.
Meanwhile, Mayu’s superior Matsumoto, too, found the correct password from Mayu’s online story. However, they were one step later as the goods from the safe deposit box was already taken away by someone else, which was Huang.
Hei found out that he was being tailed as Mayu’s “dream” proved to be a real incident, and Misaki confirmed that the masked man in the story was indeed BK-201, which is Hei’s Messier Code. Hei tracked Mayu down, wanting to kill her off but Misaki appeared just in the nick of time to save her. Saitou too, arrived at the scene after Misaki.
A fight broke out between Hei and the police. Hei, a skillful manipulator of his weapon, the metal wire, strangled Saitou with it. Misaki fired a shot at Hei, but the bullet ricocheted off his bullet resistant overcoat and with astonishing accuracy, hit the metal wire and split it in halves. Due to the high tension of wire, the split end sprang back in Hei’s direction and hit his ceramic mask, shattering it.
Yes, now Misaki finally caught a glimpse of the mysterious BK-201 who she had been tracking. He was none other than the seemingly innocent Li-kun that she knew all along, probably had a crush on him too.
At this point I went like “Oh noes!!! Now she knows the real identity of BK-201!!! But wait a minute, she never found out who he really was in the TV series. This is weird… ‘cos the time line of this OVA is somewhere before the finale of the series where Mao and Huang died. How come ar…”
Just when I was wondering, Mao came rushing into the scene carrying the glass cylinder in his mouth and called out excitedly to Hei that he had finally found it. But a horny female cat came jumping onto him and made him drop the cylinder in fright. The glass broke, giving out some pink fumes and everyone (yes, including the horny cat) except Mao and Hei fainted.
In the end, no one remembered what happened. Huang later revealed that the pink liquid was a sample of a medicine for allergies, however the side effect would be the loss of a few days’ worth of memories.
Thoughts
THIS OVA IS TOTALLY POINTLESS.
What the hell? Misaki finally got to see who BK-201 really was but in the end, the scriptwriter or whoever made her LOSE HER MEMORY?
It would be more interesting IF the story in this OVA was included in the TV series though. Then the scene where his mask shattered would make a very good suspense and probably bring a totally new twist to the series plot. They wouldn’t have to come out with this whole memory-loss crap just so this OVA doesn’t contradict with the plot of the TV series.
Not only that, I was expecting this OVA to explain most, if not all the plot holes in the TV Series. For example how was the Gate created, what’s inside it, how were contractors created and where do they get their powers from, what exactly is the Meteor Fragment, why is the sky above Tokyo fake etc etc. But I was really disappointed…
Geez, wasted my time watching it.
This post is tagged Darker Than Black
This post filed in *Review
6 Comments
About the metal coat, I think Mao made a point about it in the second episode, how it’s magically bulletproof when Hei puts it on. Which is kinda pointless because Hei dodges them most of the time anyways.
Ashlynne: Yes I know it’s bulletproof (as written in my review), but my point was, the material doesn’t look like it could ricochet bullets like THAT as if it was made of metal. Moreover, bulletproof vest does NOT deflect bullet but absorbs and spreads the impact energy causing the bullet to deform.
Uh, time to turn off some logic here. lol
/bangs head on table.
Such a sad thing, a dumb amv when what we really want is maybe a second season or atleast a really good AMV
A second season would be amazing.
There is a second season ne~
Darker than BLACK – Ryuusei no Gemini
the trench coat is bullet proof because of his ability as a contractor. It begins to electromagnetically transfer electricity causing bullets to deflect… it it was made of metal, the rounds would impact, crush, and fall to the ground. I dont think that should be so hard to figure out since Hei conducts electricty as his ability.
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