is a Japanese anime television series created and directed by Tensai Okamura and animated by studio Bones. Twenty-five episodes were broadcast on MBS, TBS and their affiliated stations from April to September 2007. The series is set in a world where a spatial anomaly identified as "Heaven's Gate" appeared in South America and was followed by "Hell's Gate" in Tokyo, altering the sky and wreaking havoc on the landscapes. People with special abilities labeled as Contractors emerged shortly afterwards. The series follows agent Hei and his comrades in the Syndicate organization, operating in a vastly altered version of contemporary Tokyo to uncover the mysteries of Hell's Gate.
The series was adapted into two manga series, which were serialized in Kadokawa Shoten's Monthly Asuka and Square Enix's Young Gangan, respectively. A sequel to the anime series, Darker than Black: Gemini of the Meteor, was broadcast for twelve episodes from October to December 2009. In the sequel, Hei trains new Contractor Suo Pavlichenko and searches for his former ally Yin. DVDs of the series included original video animations titled Darker than Black: Gaiden exploring Hei and Yin's relationship between the first and second seasons. In North America, Darker than Black was licensed by Funimation.
The series was created by Okamura, who was inspired by ninja and spy stories based on ideas he had after creating Wolf's Rain. In contrast to Wolf's Rain heroic cast, Okamura wanted flawed and violent heroes such as the Contractors. While Okamura penned most of the series' contents, he left freedom to other writers, most notably Shōtarō Suga, who takes over the work of main writer in the second half. Critical response to Darker than Black was generally positive for its handling of Hei and the other Contractors, though some criticized the setting and ending.
Plot
Ten years ago before the events of the series, a spatial anomaly which became known as "Heaven's Gate" appeared in South America. It was followed by the opening of "Hell's Gate" in Tokyo, altering the sky and wreaking havoc on the landscape. At that time, "Contractors", people with special abilities, capable of supernatural feats, emerged. Kept secret from the public, Contractors murder in cold blood and block their emotions with logic and reason. Their abilities are acquired at the cost of their humanity, and their name derives from the requirement to "pay the price" each time their powers are used. Nations and organizations around the world train and use Contractors as spies and assassins, resulting in violent battles for valuable objects and information.
After the 'Heaven's War', the United States loses its position as a superpower to a mysterious organization known as the Syndicate. Darker Than Black follows a Chinese Contractor code-named "Hei" as he undertakes espionage and assassination missions in Tokyo directed by the Syndicate. In his false civilian life, where he is known as a shy student under the alias Li Shenshun, Hei is assisted by Yin, an artificial human known as Doll and Mao, a Contractor trapped in a cat's body and overseen by former police officer Huang. The series has a villain-of-the-week format, with a variety of characters such as a Japanese Public Security Bureau who oversee the activities of dangerous people with supernatural powers.
Early in the series Hei is revealed as a former fighter in the Heaven's War, searching for his missing sister Bai; he believes that a woman known as Amber is responsible for Bai's disappearance after escaping from the Syndicate. Amber leads Evening Primrose, a group of Contractors targeted by the Syndicate who claim they are terrorists. Pandora, another group, investigates Hell's Gate; the Syndicate is using Pandora and its Saturn Ring weapon to attack Hell's Gate and annihilate the Contractors. This creates mayhem as multiple Syndicate agents target Huang who ultimately commits suicide. Hei and Yin meet Amber while Mao escapes from them. Upon meeting Amber, Hei is revealed to be an ordinary human who became able to use Bai's power after his sister placed his body onto his flesh through her powers. When Saturn Ring is activated, all Contractors except Hei are killed. Hei has a vision where he meets Bai and decides to betray the Syndicate. Amber uses her Contract powers to revert time long enough to enable Hei to destroy Saturn Ring, and Hei and Yin escape from the Syndicate.
Production
Darker than Black was first announced in December 2006, and its first trailer was released in March 2007. It was created and directed by Tensai Okamura. Since Darker than Black has an original screenplay, Okamura often considered changing the plot, something impossible with manga adaptations, due to the need for consistency with the source material. Okamura originally wanted the series to be called BK201, a code name, but the anime staff considered it weak and Darker Than Black was suggested by an Mainichi Broadcasting System employee.
The idea for Darker Than Black came to Okamura while he was creating the anime Wolf's Rain, and was based on his handling of protagonists. The main characters in Wolf's Rain are heroic, unlike the violent protagonists in Darker than Black; Okamura wanted the latter's characters to be flawed, in contrast to those in Wolf's Rain. Darker than Black was the first anime series created by Okamura, who said that it took him several years. As a child he read manga about ninjas, spies and superheroes, and was particularly influenced by a Shirato Sampei manga about ninjas which helped young readers learn the art of ninja; "the spirit and the atmosphere of the spy series that rocked my childhood", such as The Fugitive, were other influences on Okamura's series. In particular, Okamura wanted a series of ninja to be centered around modern Tokyo. The handling of the two Gates prominent in the series' world building was inspired by Roadside Picnic, a novel by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky.
Writing The bi-episodic structure is based on the experience when Okamura worked as storyboarder in the anime Cowboy Bebop. They have space to dig more on the new characters of each new arc. The series compositor of the first half is Okamura himself, leaving a lot freedom to the writers. The second half, since this original show needs to be put into an end, it is Shōtarō Suga handling the role as his first time being a series compositor. The writer team consists of Shinsuke Onishi, Yuichi Nomura, Suga, Kurasumi Sunayama, and Okamura himself. Okamura wrote first two episodes as the first arc. He wrote them in advance to start off the series. Ohnishi was Okamura's acquaintance in previous works, the latter describes him: offering interesting script without speaking a word. Ohnishi is the most Darker than Black spiritual writer. Every episode with detective comedy is handled by him which is Okamura's original wish to make a 1980s-like Japanese detective story. His stories usually contains a clear theme structured by a thematic line and a complementary line.
Nomura is the writer that conceived the character of Amber and was credited at being really good at depicting beauty of humanity with cruelty. Nomura wrote multiple episodes focused on relationships as well as the final parts involving Amber, giving her a tragic ending despite the character staying on Hei's side until her death. Sunayama handles all the gang related stories, including the Hong Kong mafia, and Japanese yakuza. In his story, the desires of the characters are extracted and deferred. In his writing, Nomura finds Hei as funny from time to time, as he tries pretending to be innocent and naive as a Chinese international student while his strength as a spy just overflows. Then Suga, the most important writer in the Darker than Black series, handles high concept and main plot related arcs, with Hei on the spotlight.
The Havoc arc first reveals to audience the possibility that Hei is not a Contractor. And then comes the inside-the-Gate episodes is the first time change really takes place for Hei's character arc after meeting a man who shares the same dreams as him. Suga is the one closest to Okamura's worldview, since they kept doing the throw and catch, he asked Okamura about the settings, and helped him extract what and how he wanted to express. With Suga's control of the last few arcs, take the doll selling as example, the stories starts to converge, and the ending is designed by Suga.
Animation Character designer Yūji Iwahara inspired Okamura to work on Darker than Black, based on his work on the video game Koudelka and its manga version. The narrative was inspired by Japanese dramas which divide stories into two consecutive episodes. As a result, every story of Darker than Black takes two episodes to finish. Okamura wanted to give his audience comic and dark stories for variety. Actual locations, including Shinjuku and a police station, were photographed to make the series more realistic. According to Iwahara, Hei was the most difficult character to draw; he struggled for a subtle balance when designing the character. Hei's black eyes were smaller, creating a cold impression, later becoming more expressive. Li, his civilian persona, was originally gentle-looking. Iwahara accepted the offer because he was interested in the project, and wanted to do something different after his previous serialized manga. Although he found the character sheets easy to do, he was daunted by the number of characters he had to create.
The team was tasked with depicting super-powered individuals fighting against a Tokyo backdrop, which was complicated. Okamura found early designs unacceptable; until his image of the characters matched Iwahara's, the pictures were redrawn many times. Iwahara found his work on the anime more challenging than his manga, since he had to keep up with staff requests and had little artistic freedom. Takahiro Komori adapted Iwahara's work for animation, retaining the essence of the original designs and making the animators' work easier; Huang's hat and Yutaka Kouno's and Mayu Ootsuka's clothing were changed. Colour designer Nobuko Mizuta was disappointed because much of the series is set at night and the main characters' clothing is generally dark-coloured, but she gave the guest characters brightly-coloured clothes. Komori said that when he draws female characters, he pays special attention to the line connecting her buttocks and legs. The series' first opening scene has a silhouetted nude woman following Hei, which had to be corrected in subsequent episodes. The artist had mixed emotions about sexualizing female characters but in the end decided to sexualize them to appeal to the audience.
Music
The series' soundtrack was composed by Yoko Kanno in 2007. The series uses four pieces of theme music: two opening themes and two ending themes. "Howling" by Abingdon Boys School was used as the opening theme for the first 14 episodes while "Kakusei Heroism (The Hero Without a "Name")" by An Cafe was used as the second opening theme from episodes 15 onwards. by Rie fu was used as the ending theme for the first 14 episodes while "Dreams" by High and Mighty Color was used as the second ending theme from episodes 15 onwards. The lyrics of "Howling" focus on Hei's characterization with Okamura commenting that parts of it delve into elements the character briefly saw.
The soundtrack has 20 tracks, including the opening and closing themes performed by Abingdon Boys School and Rie fu. Other non-instrumental songs were written by Tim Jensen and performed by Mai Yamane (tracks eight and 10) and James Wendt (tracks 14 and 19). It peaked at number 57 on the Oricon albums chart. Tensai Okamura wanted 1970s-type folk music which would convey the impression of darkness.