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Rating: 9/10

Impressions:

Although the humour is obviously more apparent in this episode, it definitely is not the low-quality, irrelevant-to-plot, not-very-funny episode I had dreaded it to be. It’s still another Darker than Black short story, involving Hei and others, though this time with some random detective as the main character. The young-in-appearance girl isn’t even important, so this episode has definitely satisfied me. The biggest mistake Darker than Black could make would be to try and pull off a stunt that I thought they had did with this episode, and ruin the overall serious themes and general awesomeness of the show.

This episode, as I may have implied before, is quite enjoyable (to my surprise). The detective film clichés were worked somewhat, with the detective in a cowboy hat, smoking (and with no fame). He is anime-ified though, with his not-so-intelligent personality and somewhat perverseness. His secretary, the pink-haired girl, sure is an anime classic, which works quite well in contrasting the detective. Still, I would have preferred if Hei had stayed the main character, and if this episode further develops Hei and gives more of an insight into his past. I guess it’s still a bit too early to rush the release information like that.

I wonder if this series will just be a compilation of short stories, similar to Mushishi, but in two-episode arcs. Although I really liked Mushishi for that, Darker than Black is not a show which should just have a bunch of disjointed mini-arcs that lead to nothing. It has the potential to become something great, and I’m hoping these short stories are there only in the mean time, and will escalate to an excellent climax in the future. However, I can definitely see this showing going in the detective-drama direction, with no connective plot. I certainly hope it doesn’t though.

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