Darker than Black: Kuro no Keiyakusha (Darker than Black)

Add to My List

Add to Favorites

Alternative Titles

Synonyms: DTB

Japanese: Darker than BLACK -黒の契約者-

More titles

Information

Type: TV

Episodes: 25

Status: Finished Airing

Aired: Apr 6, 2007 to Sep 28, 2007

Premiered: Spring 2007

Broadcast: Fridays at 01:25 (JST)

Producers: Aniplex, Square Enix, Mainichi Broadcasting System, Movic, Myrica Music

Licensors: Funimation

Studios: Bones

Source: Original

Genres: Action, Mystery, Sci-Fi

Theme: Super Power

Duration: 24 min. per ep.

Rating: R - 17+ (violence & profanity)

Statistics

Score: 8.05¹ (scored by 437,271 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #563²

² based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #166

Members: 946,085

Favorites: 16,736

Available At

Official Site

Resources

AniDB

ANN

Synopsis

It has been 10 years since Heaven's Gate appeared in South America and Hell's Gate appeared in Japan, veiling the once familiar night sky with an oppressive skyscape. Their purposes unknown, these Gates are spaces in which the very laws of physics are ignored. With the appearance of the Gates emerged Contractors, who, in exchange for their humanity, are granted supernatural abilities.

In the Japanese city surrounding Hell’s Gate, Section 4 Chief Misaki Kirihara finds herself at odds with an infamous Contractor codenamed Hei. Called "Black Reaper" in the underground world, Hei, like his associates, undertakes missions for the mysterious and ruthless Syndicate while slowly peeling back the dark layers covering a nefarious plot that threatens the very existence of Contractors.

From the mind of Tensai Okamura comes a sci-fi thriller taking the form of a subtle exposé on a war in which political positions and justice have no sway—a war waged exclusively in the shadows.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Edit

Background

Darker than Black was awarded Best Original Anime of The Year by GoGoplex, a popular magazine for teens. In the 2007 Japan Media Arts Festival, it was one of the jury's recommendations from the category "Animation Division/Long Animation."

On January 21, 2016, it was announced that Funimation Entertainment, the North American distributor for the anime, no longer holds the license for this season.

Edit

Related Anime

Adaptation:	Darker than Black: Kuro no Keiyakusha
Side story:	Darker than Black: Kuro no Keiyakusha - Sakura no Hana no Mankai no Shita
Sequel:	Darker than Black: Kuro no Keiyakusha Gaiden

Matsumoto, Yasunori
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Cook, Justin

Producer

Harp, Clarine

Producer

Maruyama, Hiroo

Producer

Oyabu, Yoshihiro

Producer

Edit

Opening Theme

	1: "Howling" by Abingdon Boys School (eps 1-14)
	2: "Kakusei Heroism ~The Hero without a Name~" by An Cafe (eps 15-23,25)

Edit

Ending Theme

	1: "Tsuki Akari" by Rie Fu (eps 1-14)
	2: "Dreams" by HIGH and MIGHTY COLOR (eps 15-24)

Reviews

Nov 7, 2007

ElectricSlime

Recommended

Darker than Black, what an adventure it has been. Darker than Black takes place in a near future world where two gates appeared, Heaven's Gate and Hell's Gate. The mysterious appearance of these gates brought with them the Contractors. Contractors are people who have entered into a contract with an unknown force and gained a unique power in return. The nature of the contract however requires them to give back each time they use their power. Payment is anything from smoking a cigarette to writing a poem. The main story is told through an omnipotent point of view with the "camera man" being at the ... scene and generally following a certain group of characters, but can focus on other characters as the protagonists for an entire arc. It is a very unique telling of the story and hard to put into words, but that isn't a bad thing.

The animation and art style of Darker than Black are superb. Each character is completely unique and unlike some other shows with several similar looking characters, Darker than Black does an excellent job of giving each character an unique style and a winning personality. The fights of Darker than Black are done very well and are very fluid. Although short at times, it is after all not a shounen series, they are excellent none the less. Some fights are extended and are a real treat for the eyes. Bones, the producers, did an excellent job with the series and I am looking forward to seeing more of their work.

The soundtrack for Darker than Black is up there with my favourites of all time. An excellent mix of various genres of music. At one point it will be a jazz track, then later it will be an orchestra piece or a rock track. Overall the music is really well done and accurately depicts the scene. At some points I found myself with the hair on the back of my neck standing up as the music heated up in preparation of a coming battle. The voice acting is top notch. Hei has two distinct voices: one serious and the other calm or even clumsy sounding. The other main characters: Kirihara, Yin, Huang, and Mao also have top notch performances. Overall the casting and voice acting are very well done.

Each character has their own special traits and have very well written dialogue. Although it is for the most part an Action/Drama type of series, there are often Comedic undertones to help break up the suspense. When Hei is not masquerading as BK201, his codename, he is a very funny and sarcastic individual. Most every character has moments that make you want to laugh, especially Gai, the off the wall private eye, and his partner, the pink haired money hungry Kiko. All in all the characters have a very nice chemistry and it is interesting to see Hei's interactions with the people who are pursuing him. The only thing that is holding back the characters is, with the exception of Hei and Yin, there is very little back story provided for many of the main characters. This is hard to do of course though with an episodic type series.

The series seems episodic as the story is generally told in two episode mini-arcs, with the final arc being three episodes, it never really feels very episodic. Especially toward the end where the main plot runs into each new arc. Although there is a sense of conclusion after each arc, it never really feels like it is of an episodic nature (if that makes any sense at all). I immensely enjoyed Darker than Black and it had a very satisfying conclusion.

Open

Gift

Mar 8, 2015

ZephSilver

Mixed Feelings

•Cool-ass Chinese Batman protagonist in a Gotham-esque neo-noir setting?
Check✔
•A city overrun with nifty characters that have x-men like powers?
Check✔
•Nice mysterious lore with strange in-world concepts?
Check✔
•A clear-cut answer to ANY of these "mysterious" concepts and a sense of finality to our protagonist's existence?
Don't hold your breath.

Darker and Black felt like a show that was onto something worthwhile but ultimately never got around to proving it. The ingredients to make something great was clearly there but by the end, all we got was a show with ambitious ideas that did nothing but let it dwindle away into nothingness. Does that mean it isn't worth the investment? ...

Open

Gift

Apr 3, 2010

Mysteic

Not Recommended

Dark than Black was one of the worst I have seen. The entire show seems to have a created by committee feel to it. Several half decent ideas about characters, story, and development get jumbled together into a incoherent mess.

The story is confusing due to lack of decent explanation for pass events which seem to have a lot to do with the current events. While at first this seemed to be trivial in the first few episode, all of the supporting characters keep bring up the pass like a weapon. Every time you think you have time to enjoy the hear ... and now someone, who will not survive the episode, is all, "Hei, remember back when you had feelings and wasn't such a tool?" Ok Darker than Black, I get it the incident with Heaven's Gate is undisclosed South America is important. Due tell...........oh ok, no one knows WTF happened. Stop bring up stuff you are not going to explain and has no real barring on the events at hand.

They did get around to explain this incident later in the show, but it wasn't that big of a reveal and changed nothing about what was going on now. While it did present Hei with a bit of a moral/social dilemma, he seemed like he had already made his choice on the matter some time before the anime.

So what does the story give you. Hei is an assassin with super powers....that he never really uses and works for an "mysterious organization" with no real name. He is contracted to kill fellow contractors (ha ha, I see what you did there) for no good reason and he is totally cool with that. He is in fact using them as a resource to pay his bills so he can secretly look for his sister....a hobby he barely makes time for.

There is also Huang, his handler who is just around to tell Hei what he is thinking about doing is stupid, then run and hide. He does help with information gathering, but honestly he is just a plot device to explain away how you contact an organization with no name, location, etc.

Yin is the stereotypical mute and cute girl. She can see anyone near water if that water is connected to the water she is usually standing in, washing her hands with, etc. I was waiting for her to be something more than a long range tracking device, but it was not to be. The 1 shot episode about her was also very pointless.

There is a talking cat for some reason.

I would now take the time to rip into the villains, but I just stopped caring at some point. They were all the same "bad guy". Contractor, ex-military from the Heaven's Gate incident, knows nothing important, kills for no reason, dies at the hands of Hei. Repeat with new character design and new social quirk.

Nothing in Dark than Fail had any substance and never went anywhere of interest. You know what was cool about this anime, the music. The opening got me to get the Abingdon Boys School self titled album which was great.

I thought the first episode was great; but then it failed to measure up to its own standards for 25 more episodes. There are real McDonald's signs everywhere (I bet you can't guess who paid for production costs), but I actual think that was kinda cool/funny. Hei, Yin, and Huang all are uninteresting and seem to be incapable of developing as people. No matter what happens in the story, being betrayed, killing people for no reason other than someone said to, murder your own kind, find out your sister is a bitch, nothing seems to phase them. No social growth, no change in character, nothing.

Just get the Abingdon Boys School album and forget you ever heard of this failure. Maybe get a wallpaper or two of Hei in that wicked mask, but that is the limit.

Open

Gift

More stacks

Interest Stacks

Best of the 2000s part 3

by marcosocram2004

50 Entries · 27 Restacks

No Need For The Source, I'm Looking For Something Original

by Theannoy3rd1

50 Entries · 804 Restacks

Hard to Watch

by secoox

15 Entries · 6 Restacks

More recommendations

Recommendations

View All

More news

Recent News

North American Anime & Manga Releases for May

Here are the North American Anime & Manga releases for May 2015 Week 1: May 5th - 11th Anime Releases Astro Boy (2003) Complete Series Denki-gai Collectors'...read more

May 5, 2015 12:04 PM by Snow | Discuss (14 comments)

Second Season of Darker Than Black Confirmed [Updated]

According to Young GanGan no.12, the second season of "Darker than BLACK" was announced. It was prematurely leaked last July. The staff are basically the s...read more

Jun 3, 2009 4:37 AM by dtshyk | Discuss (205 comments)

More discussions

Recent Forum Discussion

Poll: Darker than BLACK Episode 16 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) Zel - Jul 21, 2007	105 replies	by almightybismarck »» Apr 4, 11:46 PM
Poll: Darker than BLACK Episode 15 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) Faust721 - Jul 21, 2007	100 replies	by almightybismarck »» Apr 4, 10:55 PM
Poll: Darker than BLACK Episode 10 Discussion ( 1 2 ) cyruz - Jun 13, 2007	99 replies	by TheMangaManiac »» Mar 11, 4:13 PM
Poll: Darker than BLACK Episode 14 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) tainteddonut - Jul 6, 2007	144 replies	by YankataY »» Dec 10, 2023 11:44 AM
Poll: Darker than BLACK Episode 13 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) tainteddonut - Jul 6, 2007	102 replies	by YankataY »» Dec 10, 2023 11:41 AM

Recent Featured Articles

Top 15 Most Iconic Anime Masks

Masks are worn for a variety of reasons－protection purposes, fashion, to hide one's identity, and so on. This goes for anime characters as well. The mysterious allure of their secret identity is something of true beauty. Let's check out some of the most iconic anime masks in existence!

by Ai_Sakura

904,610 views

Collection Fashion

10 Anime Like Death Note

Death Note was a major hit when it was released back in 2006 and quickly became known for being an intelligent, yet accessible thriller that would be mentioned anytime anime was brought up. In case your hype for the series still hasn't died down, here are 10 similar anime!

by NicWat10

346,389 views

Collection

Darker than Black: Kuro no Keiyakusha

Alternative Titles

Information

Statistics

Available At

Resources

Synopsis

Background

Visit MALxJapan
MALxJapan -More than just anime-

Related Anime

Characters & Voice Actors

Hei

Yin

Mao

Kirihara, Misaki

Huang

Amber

November 11

July

Havoc

Kurasawa, Gai

Staff

Opening Theme

Ending Theme

Reviews

Interest Stacks

Recommendations

Recent News

Recent Forum Discussion

Recent Featured Articles

MoreTop Anime

MoreTop Airing Anime

MoreMost Popular Characters

Darker than Black: Kuro no Keiyakusha

Alternative Titles

Information

Statistics

Available At

Resources

Synopsis

Background

Visit MALxJapan MALxJapan -More than just anime-

Related Anime

Characters & Voice Actors

Staff

Opening Theme

Ending Theme

Reviews

Interest Stacks

Recommendations

Recent News

Recent Forum Discussion

Recent Featured Articles

MoreTop Anime

MoreTop Airing Anime

MoreMost Popular Characters

Visit MALxJapan
MALxJapan -More than just anime-