Darker than Black/Characters

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Characters from the anime/manga series Darker than Black. When reading these, bear in mind that pretty much all Contractor characters are also Stoic Tin Men with Conditional Powers and display Lack of Empathy, while Dolls are all True Neutral Emotionless Persons verging on Empty Shells.

The protagonists

A special operations team employed by The Syndicate.

Hei

The Hero (well, for a given level of "hero"), a.k.a. Li Shengshun, a.k.a. Lee Hyeonsik, a.k.a. BK-201, a.k.a. LI-KUN!!! a.k.a. The Black Reaper, a.k.a. Chinese Electric Batman. An agent of The Syndicate, doing their dirty work to retrieve items and information related to Hell's Gate. He works undercover as Nice Guy exchange student "Li Shengshun," taking menial jobs wherever the higher-ups need him, relying on his apparent naivety to avoid suspicion. He has the Contractor ability to manipulate electricity and the most awesome coat in the universe, and is a weapons-grade Chick Magnet to boot.

Has an incredibly Dark and Troubled Past featuring war, betrayal, and the disappearance of his younger sister, and bringing it up is generally a really bad idea and one of the few ways to get a reaction out of him.

Chiaki: You are going to get so fat. Sure, maybe you can get away with it now, but once you hit thirty and your metabolism slows down-- well, if there's any justice in the world...

Yin

A doll assigned to Hei's group. A clairvoyant Emotionless Girl with the ability to project surveillance specters through water, she acts as the group's recon unit.

In the second season, she develops a Super-Powered Evil Side, Izanami, that causes Contractors to turn their powers on themselves and is apparently trying to cause The End of the World as We Know It. She manages to suppress it, but winds up comatose-- and when someone wakes her up, Izanami wakes up with her.

Huang

Hei's "handler," a Syndicate employee who relays his instructions and acts as backup when necessary.

Mao

A body-swapping contractor trapped in a cat's body who helps Hei's group.

Suō Pavlichenko

The second main protagonist, besides Hei, of Season 2, a half-Japanese half-Russian schoolgirl. Her father is a scientist studying ME and her brother is a Contractor; her mother is a photographer who moved to Japan eight years ago. She gets pulled into the plot because of attempts to capture her twin and winds up hanging around Hei. In the third episode, she develops the Contractor ability to summon an anti-tank rifle and wield it easily despite its size.


Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department Public Security Bureau

Misaki Kirihara

The head of the TMPD's PSB Foreign Affair Division, Section 4, which covertly deals with contractor-related crimes and terrorism; she takes a special interest in the cases related to BK-201 that starts to grow into an obsession with time.

Saitou

Kirihara's second-in-command.

Kouno

One of Kirihara's underlings.

Matsumoto

Another Division 4 employee.

Mayu

A member of the task force and closet Big Name Fan.

  • Bunny Ears Lawyer: Likes to read and write erotic fanfiction and can be kind of ditzy, but also shows some competence, figuring out BK-201's identity when the rest of the police force failed miserably.
  • Covert Pervert
  • Cosplay Otaku Girl
  • Fan Girl
  • Female Gaze: Spoofed. Hei's "sexy collarbone" has since become a meme.
  • In Vino Veritas: A minor personality inversion example, becoming more boisterous when she gets drunk at an office party.
  • Loony Fan: Quite possibly even loonier than Kiko.
  • Stalker with a Crush: She stalks Hei for a few days, leading the group to suspect that she's working for someone to try to interfere with their mission.
  • Too Dumb to Fool: Not dumb exactly, but like the other Wrong Genre Savvy characters, she makes some accurate deductions, despite having odd logic and sometimes the wrong conclusion- she figures out that "Li" is the Black Reaper on account of his "sexy collarbone"
  • Wrong Genre Savvy
  • Yaoi Fangirl

Yoshimitsu Horai

Also known as the Director. Kirihara's boss.

Secret Intelligence Service

November 11, AKA Jack Simon

File:Cit Darker than Black British agent code name November.jpg

MI6's top agent, assigned to Japan to investigate Gate-related activity. He has the power to freeze liquids and a rather James Bond-like attitude.

April

A contractor on November 11's team who can create storms at will.

July

The Doll assigned to November 11's team. In the second season, he joins Hei, Suou, and Mao.

August 7

A Contractor introduced in Season 2. He is part of the same team as April and July.

  • Achilles' Heel: He can pretty much do anything as long as he is looking at you and you at him, but Hei throws his longcoat over August's head and electrocutes him while he is powerless.
  • Blessed with Suck: He's a former stage magician and received the power to do real magic, something which would make him the greatest magician ever. Unfortunately, his Remuneration is to give away how magic tricks work, something which hurts his pride as a former magician and takes away any professional benefit he could get from his powers.
  • Disney Death
  • Expy: He has often been compared to Cornelius Alba of Kara no Kyoukai.
  • Hollywood Tactics: If you're effectively immune to ranged attacks and you're up against a ninja known for ingenuity, it would seem like a good idea not to let him get close.
  • Magicians Are Wizards
  • Masaya Matsukaze
  • Nice Hat
  • Reality Warper
  • Stage Magician
  • Superpower Lottery: A real winner, since he pretty much has the power to do anything if someone is looking at him.
  • Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Referred to by some fans as the "New November 11". Actually an aversion though, as his openly psychotic personality is closer to that of Wei in the first series.
  • White-Haired Pretty Boy


Evening Primrose

The Contractor La Résistance with a distinctly Social Darwinist cast- think Magneto

Amber

The founder of Evening Primrose, who used to work for The Syndicate, the CIA, and MI6 and betrayed all of them. She was in South America during Heaven's War, and Hei considers her responsible for what happened at its end.

She can manipulate time, and her remuneration is getting younger.

Amagiri

Amber's second-in-command. He has the very straightforward power of shooting waves of force.

Maki

A contractor working for Amber. His power is to blow up anything he's touched, and he has an enormous crush on Amber.

Brita

A ridiculously sexy contractor working for Amber as a spy. She can teleport anyone she touches.

PANDORA

Eric Nishijima

A high-ranking PANDORA official, he is a Japanese citizen who was born overseas. He plays a background role throughout much of the first series.

Dr. Schroeder

A scientist working at PANDORA's lab at Hell's Gate.

Meena Khandar Swami

A scientist working at the laboratory in the Gate who got her position by making a deal with The Syndicate. Acts as Hei's contact when he infiltrates the place.

"Could you be... upset?"

Nick Hillman

A cheerful scientist Hei meets while undercover at an observatory.


Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications

A group of Japanese agents introduced in Season 2.

Genma Shizume

Part of the team dedicated to hunting down Hei and Suou, a contractor with the ability to turn solid objects into heavy armor. Has a habit of hitting on everyone he encounters.

Mina Hazuki

A contractor with the ability to turn objects into laser katanas. Part of the team hunting Hei and Suou.

Yōko Sawasaki

The group's token human, a scientist who worked under Dr. Schrader.

Spoiler

!Misaki Kirihara

  • See The Japanese Police.

Others

Wei Zhijun

A contractor serving the Chen Long Tang crime family. His power is to blow holes in anything he gets blood on. Later joins Amber's group in order to fight Hei again.

Alice

The heir to the Chen Long Tang family. She was friends with Kirihara as a teenager, and did not react well to her friend's career choice.

Gai Kurasawa

Kurosawa and Kiko

A rather useless private investigator who accidentally stumbles across the edges of Hei's assignments a couple of times.

Kiko

Kurosawa's cheery, excitable secretary, who only works for him because she can watch yaoi at work. She has an over-the-top stalker-crush on "Li."

Havoc AKA Carmine

Quite possibly the most dangerous contractor in existence, she killed hundreds or even thousands in South America- and then something happened that removed her powers and some of her memories but restored her emotions to normal. Now she's wracked with guilt over what she did, leaving her as probably the only case of a Woobie who ate babies in history.

Bertha and Itzhak

Two Contractors working for FSB to capture Yin. Bertha's power allows her to force objects to resonate, usually breaking them, although it can also stop someone's heart; Itzhak can absorb observation ghosts and use them to manipulate and control the minds of dolls.

Harvest

The primary antagonist of the Interquel manga, Shikkoku no Hana. His power is to dissolve matter, and this ability to manipulate the connections between atoms allows him to give normal humans Contractor abilities.

Azusa Tsukimori

A young schoolgirl Hei encounters in Shikkoku no Hana. After being seduced and betrayed by her coach, Daisuke Mioka, she desires to become a Contractor in order to exact revenge. And then she meets Harvest...

After the death of her best friend, his power gives her supernatural leg strength, allowing her to kick people hard enough that they explode or jump twenty feet in the air. But the more she uses it, the larger the black flower attached to her back grows...

Daisuke Mioka

A young coach for a girls' volleyball team in Shikkoku no Hana. Loves teh ladies but goes about it in the most dickish way possible.

Parcel

A contractor of one of PANDORA's many factions working to kill Harvest. Her power is teleportation through use of black portals. Her Doll is a modified cyborg named "Champ."

Shion Pavlichenko

Suo's brother, who was transformed into a Contractor. His power is to produce copies of things and people with one trait changed, and his remuneration paralyzes his legs, putting him in a wheelchair most of the time.

Dr. Pavlichenko

Suo's father and the inventor of a device which can pull memories from people even after they are dead. Later revealed as an early member of The Syndicate.

Madame Oreille

A mysterious character with connections to the CIA who is revealed to have been Hei's employer.

Mr. Smith

A mysterious CIA agent seen interacting with Madame Oreille.

Tanya

Suou's best friend who becomes a Contractor at the start of the second season

Ilya Sokoloff

A Russian Contractor featuring in the second series

Claude / Shichi

A Contractor who features as a major antagonist in the Interquel OVAs.

  • The Bad Guy Wins: Despite being shot and nearly bleeding out, he still manages to slaughter many Contractors that wanted to live in peace and forces Yin into awakening Izanami, creating a worldwide threat that could kill many humans and Contractors and setting up the second season. He still ends up dying due to Izanami, although it is less of a Karmic Death since he seemed to enjoy being killed by Izanami as he knew he had already won.
  • Attractive Bent Gender: His disguise as Amber actually isn't all that different from his true appearance.
  • Bishonen: Looks similar to Amber from the first season. But while Amber was an Anti-Villain, Shichi is just evil.
  • Blond Guys Are Evil: One of the most clear-cut examples in the series.
  • Evil Is Not a Toy: Yes, it's a wonderful idea to let an Eldritch Abomination loose just to see what happens.
  • Fantastic Racism: Reveals he doesn't like humans to intelligence agencies paying him a ton of money for Yin/Izanami...Shichi tosses their money away and manipulates the situation so everyone there will die. Though he didn't see himself dying, probably, but didn't care because he won in the end of the OVA.
  • Johnny Yong Bosch: Working for Funimation again.
  • Manipulative Bastard: His habit of using shape-shifting to trick people into killing their loved ones.
  • Master of Illusion
  • The Social Darwinist: Due to being exploited by humans, he began to wonder why Contractors don't exploit humans...after all Contractors have powers and humans don't.
  • The Sociopath: Seems to have no attachment to others, even killing his partner who he seemed to be friendly with and had no problem killing a lot of Contractors, despite his claims that Contractors are better than humanity and his dream of them ruling humans. Whereas other Contractors have felt some emotion towards others, Shichi's emotions can be summed up as spite against humans.
  • Smug Snake
  • Superpower Lottery: He won. He basically has Aizen's Complete Hypnosis as well as a limited ability to control his victims' bodies, and his remuneration is extremely light.