[ellymate]

Darker than BLACK: Ryuusei no Gemini - 05

Summary:

Madame Oreille seems to know about what happened in Vladivostok, but what Misaki is still mainly interested in is why BK-201’s star disappeared. The answer is that an anti-Contractor weapon was used, and Madame Oreille knows that Misaki saw a similar prototype two years ago. She then directs Misaki to something called the Mitaka documents and reveals that the keyword is Izanami. When Misaki tries to question her further, Madame Oreille suggests that she wish to the small red star to see BK-201. Meanwhile, Suou continues practicing with marksmanship and reveals to Mao that, although she still has to clean and maintain the gun, she automatically gets ammunition every time it appears. For food, she and July go to Norio’s father Lebanon’s place again, and he can tell that she’s a Contractor because his wife had been one too. His wife had left suddenly though when Norio was three years old. Regardless, Lebanon cooks them a meal and also gives Suou a portable cooking stove and a pot to take home.

At around this same time, Hei is on the phone with his employer and learns that his employer wants Suou on a mission. When he returns to the hotel, he hears and sees part of the wall being blown away, and so he rushes upstairs. It turns out that there had been a cockroach in the pot, and Suou’s reaction to it was to use her gun against it. Hei doesn’t slap her for it like she’s expecting though, and Mao later suggests that Suou’s hatred for insects is because of Tanya’s ability and what happened with Nika. Back at her office, having returned from her meeting with Madame Oreille, Misaki learns that her group is getting assigned to help transport some important materials from Sapporo. What gets her attention is that the codename is Izanami, and what’s more, BK-201 has been spotted in Sapporo with children. Later that night, at the hotel, July wakes Hei to tell them that they have visitors, one of whom is a Contractor. Hei decides to use himself as bait so that Suou and July can escape, and he has a brief battle with the female Contractor whose power is to control water before he himself escapes.

Misaki arrives to survey the hotel room and scene of the battle the next day, and she learns that BK-201 is with a girl. Downstairs, just as Misaki and the female Contractor are leaving, Norio shows up and recognizes the female Contractor as his mother. She ignores him though, and their car drives off. Norio goes home to tell his father about it, and while they’re in the middle of this discussion, his mother suddenly shows up and asks to use their oven. By now, Hei has met back up with Suou and decides to have her practice shooting a crane again. With no other choice, Suou goes through with it and finds herself crying afterward. For dinner that night, she collects some weeds, cooks them, and offers the food to Hei as sort of an apology for shooting the hotel wall. It tastes quite bad, but Hei still asks for more. He also tells Suou about their mission, and Suou agrees only after he pays her. It turns out that the goods they are after are the ones being transported by Misaki’s group, and Hei’s plan is to send himself to destroy the convoy before it reaches the harbor. If he isn’t able to, then Suou’s job is to shoot the goods while they’re being transferred.

Things go according to plan at first, and Hei is able to ambush the convoy and board the correct truck. However, that truck then starts moving again while Hei is still in it. Over at the harbor, Suou is keeping watch and remembers a time when her parents took her and Shion to the aquarium. Right as she’s thinking about whales again, a submarines surfaces.

Preview



Unlike last episode which seemed more comedy oriented and the episodes before that which were more action oriented, this episode felt like it was mostly about character development and set-up. Madame Oreille is still a bit of a mysterious character, but we finally learned why Hei’s powers and star disappeared (though as he’s proven numerous times, including in this episode, he’s still quite adept at fighting), and now there are more questions surrounding Izanami and what Misaki saw when she looked into the container. Misaki is getting ever closer to seeing Hei again too, and I imagine it’ll probably happen next episode.

The most exciting part of the episode thus probably ended up being Hei battling Norio’s mother, and that brings me to a related point. I was actually a little surprised to see that Norio and Lebanon are sticking around as characters with their own subplot because I thought they were more throwaway characters. Along those same lines, it’s interesting to see how the story is developed when it doesn’t have to adhere to a two episode mini-arc format that the first series had. Given the rate at which characters have been killed off in this series though, and given what the preview for next week shows, I get the feeling that Norio and/or his mother won’t be around for too much longer.

Reviewed by OMNI

[eaz51]

hmm it was good but weird at the same time seeing hei eat again, poor guy the 1st time in a long time and he’s eating something that almost makes him puke.

The story is in my opinion more interesting then season 1 because its not all just a bunch of mini arch’s but all bundled together (not that it was interesting originally) sticking to a main story i think helps any anime plot. I wouldn’t be surprised if yin was in that container and if not im really curious to see where she is in the story after hei’s comment a few episodes saying he would kill her.

Also im still upset they haven’t tried going to hells gate like in the original with havoc to try and have hei retrieve his powers or something but i am really starting to understand why he was called the black reaper even before he got his powers considering how well he handles himself in a fight, can’t wait to see the next part of this mission in the next episode. But also one last thing, at this point im hoping considering how interested in this that they do not rap the show up at the end of this season and leave room for a season 3 + considering 12 episodes more isn’t enough for this show and i wouldn’t mind waiting another year or 2 it would be worth the wait.