Darker than Black: Ryuusei no Gemini

[purplemo]

Using Suou as a focal point was a great way to start. A very likable character and throwing her right into the mix of things was a great way to start off the series again (though not the best for people jumping in now who don't understand the significance of the falling stars, April, Yin, Hei/BK 201, etc etc as much as they should watching S1). Suou is already a more interesting character than most of the S1 cast and it'll be interesting to see if Hei and her team up or if they end up following solo parallel tracks (the OP seems to point towards the latter).

Vladivostok looks so much more organic and real than Tokyo ever did, adding to the mood and intensity as Suou runs around the city.

[Xennon]

Just watched ep 2. I love the action in this series. I can't think of another show that can rival this. The fights are just so fucking sweet and very fast paced. It sucks because the fight scenes are very short, but at the same time, if they were any longer, they would just be very unnecessary and would probably kill the action part of the show.

[Lenaxia]

*sigh* I'm happy now. Atleast one series this season worth watching (railgun is teetering on the edge since I heard it was another filler ep).

Episode 2 was good. I thought the amount of action in the episode was more than sufficient, you really start to get a feel for the characters and you notice a huge change. Back in S1, contractors were a pretty rare thing, now they've all come out of the woodwork and are everywhere.

I did think the animation is suffering though. Quality and detail wise, definitely as good as before, but go back and rewatch the close quarters fight of Hei and Youko's first fight. When Hei is attacking with his arms, it looks very... flat. They didn't do a good job with depth perception there. It happens a few other times in their fight.

The voice that spoke to Suou when she ran from Hei the first time, did it sound like Mao's voice to anyone? If it was, I'm guessing he is in Pecha's body.

Did anyone else notice both the Magician and Youko had similar powers? And not just that, multiple powers? When both Youko and the Magician took Hei's blade through their body without getting hurt, I can't tell if its the same power or just similar effect. But both of them are able to do that, and Youko can do some weird thing with wood and the Magician can use magic. Though as Youko said, all of what the Magician did was from distorting the space around him.

From the sound of what Youko was saying though, The Magician and her are not on the same side. Looks like we have several factions right now:
-Main Russian military (dead guy squished by rock thing)
-Russian military faction to deal with Contractors (burger eating guy, Tanya)
-CIA (Hei, guy in Egypt)
-MI6 (July, April, November, Magician)
-Unknown faction (Youko, rock-guy-thingy)

I'm enjoying this one quite a bit now. Indeed Suou is pretty interesting, a bit more dynamic than I'm used to in terms of DtB characters, but as purplemo said, it's a good thing, it adds. It's nice to have a proactive, competant character for a lead in atleast one series this winter.

Also have to comment... That's one hellava long .50cal gun she has in the intro... I don't think it'd be practical at all... With a barrel that long, you need to have perforations in it, otherwise as the bullet leaves, the energy required to displace the air inside the barrel will slow it down drastically. Still cool though :)

Hurrah for non-useless leads!

[stingreis]

I agree with purplemo, great start, -Havent watched episode two yet cause I cant find it =( and i can usually find it all... sadly darksoul doesn't have it subbed yet....

I like suou as well, she comes of as a very friendly, and has an "I hope she doesn't die cause she'll make the show more emotional and comedic" feel to her... But yeah it throws a bunch of stuff out very quickly in regards to the older characters

but since most of them are dead... I don't think those who haven't watched season1 would lose anything big... at least not from episode 1

I do recommend anyone watching this go ahead and watch s1 first though as well, why not... new eps of this don't come out that often... Actually, how often do they come out in japan??? anyone know?

either way... my biggest interest now is what did the professor have in mind for shion that made everyone wanna come get him??? so guess I just wait and see.. =)

[Lenaxia]

Actually, on that note, I would highly suggest those who haven't seen S1 to go watch it. Especially after seeing episode 2.

Hei is a completely different person from S1 and you don't really feel the weight of this huge transformation without watching season 1. You also won't fully understand some of his internal struggles without S1 either.

It's not that they're doing a bad job of conveying his situation, they definitely are doing a great job, but the impact is multiplied many fold when you have seen S1.

[stingreis]

hmmm, damn i wanna see ep2 now.... i hope they didn't make him too much of an ass hole in this season, i liked his kind, random soup eating, quiet wayz

[Xennon]

Yeah, but now he is a boozer. Watch ep 2, you will find out.\

As for Suou's rifle, it actually looks a lot like an old Russian PTRS, which was an anti tank rifle used in WW2. Nika even says it can punch through tank armor or something like that. The only thing is, it is way to long to be a PTRS, so i'm guessing the barrel is just modified. Although, now that I think about it, the rifle is longer than an average man, so witha kid holding it, the perspective makes it look massively long, so maybe it is just a PTRS.

And yeah, you could probably just jump straight into this without watching the first season, but you'd be pretty fucking confused, you'd have to read up on it. Plus the first season was great anyway, dunno why you would want to skip it lol.

[samshadow999]

2 eps in already and i'm liking this more than the 1st season. Hoping it is better than S1 in the long run.

Suou is a good character so far, loving Hei's new look and attitude after the events of S1.

Not much else to say really, other than i really can't wait for ep 3.

[PhoenixRider]

I guess I'm not as enthusiastic as you guys when it came to episode 2. I don't exactly like the idea of Suou being the main focus of the season. I think it's a bad idea, but I guess it was because I loved the change the first series brought when there was a completely new plot every other episode. And for me, having Hei as the leading role was better because he's just an overall likable character.

It's only been 2 episodes though, so it might be to early for me to judge.

[purplemo]

Well, in a world of supernatural powers that force people to kiss and eat burgers and pull out their hair, complaining about the rifle's length is a bit . . . ;p

Anime's rift with crazy male compensation anyways. And our little freckle boy needs some outlet given he got so worked up asking a meek little girl out.