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.
