Darker than Black/Season Two Tropes

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Non-character trope listings for Darker than Black Ryuusei no Gemini.

Tropes that are inherent spoilers should go in the Season Two Spoilers article.

Tropes used in Darker than Black/Season Two Tropes include:


  • Actor Allusion: Arguably with Hei's appearance this season. His voice actor also voices the protagonist of Monster who similarly goes from clean-cut to "sexy hobo".
    • He also has a "smoking is bad for you" exchange with a character very similar to Huang (whose voice actor, incidentally, is also in Monster.)
  • Affably Evil: Genma, though it only covers the fact that he's batshit crazy. He just doesn't feel that he needs to be a jerk.
  • Aliens in Cardiff: Both Vladivostok and Sapporo aren't usually the localities of choice for Urban Fantasy writers.
  • Animal Eye Spy: Tanya.
  • Anti-Villain: Mina Hazuki, mostly.
  • Anything That Moves: Genma makes some creepy comments about Suou being cute, hits on Yoko, but also declares love for Hei. Incidentally, he also talks about wanting to find a woman to hurt him. Genma has some issues.
  • Ascended Extra: Remember July, the little British doll who has a grand total of 15 or so minutes in the first season? He's a main character in here, and Suou's Morality Pet.
  • Back for the Dead: April
  • Bag of Holding: This actually is August 7's ability.
  • Bait and Switch Credits: Hoo boy. The opening barely has any Hei or Yin, and shows a pink haired schoolgirl with her pet squirrel and her and her classmates playing on the beach. The show then relishes in subverting those images. That squirrel is a contractor from last season, and that beach scene? Not happening, what with two of the kids becoming contractors... and a third being killed by one of them.
  • Bait the Dog: Genma originally seems funny and likable. However, over time, it becomes clearer and clearer that the guy is freaking nuts. Similarly, The Team Normal is a seemingly Moe Hot Scientist- until she depowers Hei in an obviously incredibly painful way, treating him like a guinea pig and clearly not caring that she's torturing someone.
  • Beard of Sorrow: Hei starts to develop one at the beginning of Season 2.
  • Bifauxnen: Mina Hazuki. She even has Mitsuki Saiga as a VA.
  • Big Eater: Apart from Hei, the second season introduces a Contractor who must eat hamburgers as remuneration for his powers. He carries around a giant bag full of burgers for this very reason, and is rather reluctant to overuse his powers since he'll get sick.
    • Hei has apparently stopped doing this during the Time Skip, though.
      • As of episode eight, his appetite's back with a vengeance, apparently to compensate for quitting drinking.
  • Bland-Name Product: "Swarowsky".
    • How about "Starboxes"?
  • Bishie Sparkle: Norio, twice. Subverted in that it had no effect on Suou.
  • Mismatched Eyes: Shion's normally bandaged eye is paler than the other and is missing a pupil.
  • Brought Down to Normal: Hei, but remember that he was called "Black Reaper" before he became a Contractor.
  • Bullet Time: Goran dodging April's bullets right until she Brilliant-Pebbled him with frickin' raindrops.
  • But Not Too Foreign: Suou and Shion are half-Russian, half-Japanese.
  • Contrived Clumsiness: One scene shows the depraved Genma having his partner Mina conduct moxibustion on him, which is the "payment" for using his powers. He makes a perverted comment, and Mina, who Does Not Like Men, accidentally-on-purpose burns him.
  • Creepy Child: Shion.
  • Creepy Twins: Madame Oreille hangs around with an extremely creepy pair of Doll twins who even do the alternating-speaking thing.
  • Dead Man Writing: Amber leaves messages behind for Hei during the Interquel period and for Kirihara during this season. In both cases, her goal seems to be preventing The End of the World as We Know It. But then, she could see the future...
  • Dead Star Walking: Given the promos for the second season, it seemed as if April would become a major character. Then Hei shows up and quickly puts an end to that notion.
  • Drill Sergeant Nasty: Hei in Episode 4.
  • Drowning My Sorrows: The year's gap between the two seasons does not appear to have been kind to Hei, if the hip flask is any indication. Or maybe it's just part of the "Sexy Hobo" look he appears to be cultivating. When someone pointed it out, his response was pretty much just, "Shut up."
  • Eagle Land: Part of the mess is due to attempts by the United States to restore their superpower status.
  • Expository Hairstyle Change: Hei, who shows up with long hair and Perma-Stubble to show his downward slide after whatever the hell happened when Yin got turned into Izanami.
  • Eye Scream: When the Fragile Speedster ran through a rain which killed him because of inertia, the last thing he saw was a raindrop. Very, very close to his eye. Thank goodness for the Gory Discretion Shot.
    • Another example shown at the end of the last episode a shot of Genma, presumably dead, but still in "armor mode" with the handle of Mina's sword sticking out of one of his eyes, which is dripping blood. Completely deserved in this case.
  • Fan Nickname:
    • Goran, the FSB agent in Season 2 who gets offed by April within minutes of appearing is affectionately referred to as "Burger-kun" due to his remuneration of eating burgers.
    • Also known as "Russian Burger Flash Running Into Trees", mirroring Hei's "Chinese Electric Batman" and referencing Goran's lack of Required Secondary Powers.
    • Japanese Lesbian Catwoman for Mina Hazuki due to her powers and remuneration of having to kiss men, one which she is not happy with at all.
    • Hobo Hei - Thanks to Wild Hair and Perma-Stubble.
    • It's only on one site, AFAIK, but the anime blog, Random Curiosity calls Kirihara's boss "Mr. Golgo 13" on account of the similar appearance of the characters.
      • In fact, he's an almost perfectt Expy of Duke Togo, and RC isn't alone in noticing it.
  • Flash Step: A rare example which lacked almost all Required Secondary Powers. Count:
    • Lack of super­-stamina ("My muscles gonna hurt tomorrow").
    • Lack of super­-inertia-controlling (he bumped into a tree after a sprint and couldn't change his direction instantly to save his life).
    • About the only one he does have is friction immunity, since he isn't set on fire by the air around him. It's kind of surprising to see a so fragile speedster in a setting full of Reality Warpers.
  • Flying Car: Can be spotted in the background every once in a while, and shows up much more prominently in the last episode.
  • Fork Fencing: When Major Repnin is trying to coerce Hei into working for him, he takes the knife he was carrying. So when our hero finally gets sick of it, he grabs a dull table knife instead and uses it to pin his hand to the table. Ouch.
  • Fragile Speedster: Goran originally seems more of a Lightning Bruiser, being slightly chunky, but then turns out to be more like one of these when he is horribly killed when April makes it rain while he is running.
  • Fun with Subtitles: One fansub chose to replace Hei's request for the meteor shard with "I will let you go if you blow me."
  • Gainaxing
  • Gainax Ending: Even worse than the original, complete with another Instrumentality shout-out. At least before it wasn't too hard to figure out why all the different groups were acting as they did...
  • Glorious Mother Russia: Averted: not only are there no bears on the streets, but the school, class-rooms and lifting the chairs got one Russian troper nostalgic... Background artists even took pains to faithfully reproduce Russian signs and words (with some mistakes, sure, but these are minimal).
    • Also the weapons used are not the usual Kalashnikovs and SVD, but Russian modern special forces weapons. Which are a lot less known, but authentic.
    • The series is generally one of the best-researched in this aspect, as this LJ community might attest.
      • Apparently, the staff took similar pains in researching other locations as well, because there exist similar comparisons with the show and real locations in Tokyo (unfortunately, in Japanese).
      • This troper was able to visit some of those locations while on her exchange program in Japan. Here are her pics. Also, for those who can understand Russian, there's this site (the webmaster of this site has translated some of this troper's notes/comments into Russian; even better, he has pics of the locations in Russia.]]
    • The ending gave us the title translated into Russian, but with some letters mixed up and a few missing. Guess what? The next episode they CORRECTED it. Shown Their Work indeed!
  • Half-Identical Twins: Suou and Shion. Subverted; Suou is an Opposite Gender Clone.
    • Played straight in a flashback, though; as children, Shion and the original Suou were near-identical.
  • A Handful for an Eye: Suou has clearly been learning from Hei.
  • Hannibal Lecture: Hei gives one to Major Repnin, who'd been pursuing him. Repnin threatened to blow up a train if Hei didn't cooperate and admitted that, although he trusted Contractors because they were logical, he hated them because one of his Contractor subordinates killed his niece. He laments that he was forced to work with his niece's murderer and thanks Hei for killing him. Hei then points out that the Contractor was a depraved human before he was a depraved contractor and that if the major was too bound by his logic to avenge his niece himself, he likely didn't have the balls to hold innocent people hostage either. Then he pins Repnin's hand to the table with a table knife.
  • He's Back: It takes a while, but Hei eventually gets back to his normal self. Significantly marked when he turns down alcohol at dinner and exhibits his ludicrous appetite again.
  • History Repeats: The American military launching an operation to occupy what remains of the Greater Tokyo Area.
  • Important Haircut: When Hei gets back to Tokyo, he cuts his hair and finally gets around to shaving to show that he's gotten over his Drowning My Sorrows period.
  • Improbable Aiming Skills: Suou when she goes off to save July from being smuggled out of Hokkaido.
  • I'm Taking Her Home with Me: Kiko's friend, regarding Suou. For the first time ever, Kiko distinguishes anime from real life realizes she's not in that kind of show, and notes that kidnapping people is illegal.
  • Inertia Is a Cruel Mistress: A contractor who appears in the first episode of the second series has the ability to move fast enough to literally dodge bullets, but it seems his burst of super-speed only lets him run in a straight line. For the brief time that we see him, he runs face-first into a tree because he couldn't stop in time, and then April kills him by making it rain while he's activating his ability. The speed that he's going at results in every single raindrop having the effect of a bullet.
  • Instant Armor: Genma's power.
  • Internet Backdraft: There are two main camps. One that says that the second season is awful and should not be even considered, and another that says that it's perfectly fine despite its shortcomings. However both sides will usually agree that the ending was one of the most rushed endings in anime history.
  • Jerkass: In between seasons, Hei has apparently decided not to bother trying to act even remotely civil, though he starts getting better.
  • Just Keep Driving: Hilariously and intentionally.
  • Katanas Are Just Better: Combined with...
    • Laser Blade: Hazuki's Contractor ability is that she can turn anything into a laser blade, and carries around a wooden katana for this purpose.
  • Kick the Dog: Hei has a few such moments as part of his new Jerkass persona.
  • Late Arrival Spoiler: Hei gets Brought Down to Normal Brought Down to Badass, Suou ends up a Contractor, and Mao is alive.
  • Living MacGuffin: Yin. Shion as well... or so it seems.
  • Lolicon: Where to start? Many, many shots of an unclothed junior high girl, Hei's groping act, and most recently, having said girl belly-dance in front of store windows to "train her abdominal muscles." Is that how Hei got so ripped?
    • In Hei's defense, despite his general jackassery in the second season, the groping was accidental, since he thought she was Shion at that point.
    • Also, the belly-dancing thing would've been much creepy... if it hadn't been so random to the point of hilarity.
      • Believe it or not, movements like those are actually a traditional Chinese method of improving your abdominal muscle, posture, and balance.
    • And she has a creepy stalker who's being played as a Dogged Nice Guy despite being at least 5 years older than her. Ew?
  • Magicians Are Wizards: August 7 has an interesting case of this -- he's a former Stage Magician with a price of giving away his trade secrets for the power of real magic (or rather, spatial manipulation power that makes for a good approximation).
  • Manipulative Bastard: Madame Oreille, who's also The Chessmaster, and Shion, who seems to be a little too fond of playing with his "sister's" emotions.
  • Meaningful Name: Could be a coincidence, but do note who shares Suou's surname.
    • Any coincidence is fairly unlikely, because there's a) the fact that while her's is indeed a pretty common Ukrainian surname, its most popular spelling is "Pavlyuchenko", "Pavlichenko" being a somewhat rare variant, which makes an incidental mixup of spelling less likely, and b) the whole sniper motif.
  • Melee a Trois: Where the original had the Japanese government, MI6, PANDORA, The Syndicate, and Evening Primrose, the second season has the Japanese government, the Russian military, the CIA, some of the dregs of The Syndicate, Madame Oreille, and whatever group Shion is affiliated with. And all of them are chasing Suou and, by extension, Hei.
  • Memento MacGuffin: Suou's necklace, which is her only connection to her family and, incidentally, the meteor fragment keeping her memories in place. This leads to the question of how Hei didn't notice it immediately; maybe he was too drunk at the time or something.
  • Mind Screw: If you thought the first season messed with your head, you'd better get out the aspirin for the second.
  • Mood Whiplash: The first episode of the second season is a great example, as about 80% of it is your typical anime high school comedy and then several people are killed, two of them by Hei's hands in a way that makes him appear to be the villain.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Madam Oreille.
  • Never Trust a Trailer: The previews made it seem much Lighter and Softer than the original. The first episode started out that way, but only lasted long enough for the audience to get attached to Suou before watching her life fall apart.
  • Nightmare Fuel Coloring Book: Ilya's remmuneration. He seems to enjoy it far too much.
  • Oh Crap: The only way to describe Hei's expression in Ep.11 when Hazuki shows up when he's trying to find Yin.
  • One Person, One Power
  • One-Scene Wonder: Goran was on screen for maybe five minutes.
  • Only a Flesh Wound: Averted. Someone who gets a force-spear through the leg dies of blood loss a few minutes later despite attempts to stop the bleeding.
  • Pettanko: Suou is flat as a washboard -- even compared to her classmates.
    • And now Kiko is back!
  • Perma-Stubble: Hei appears to have acquired this. It does not detract from his status as resident Mr. Fanservice.
    • Possibly justified by Hei being Asian; as many can attest, growing a beard is hard.
      • Genma, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have a problem with his.
        • Apparently, the Japanese have an easier time growing facial hair than the Chinese do.
  • Psycho Lesbian: Hazuki
  • Real Place Background: As in previous season, the team researches their locations extensively.
  • Required Secondary Powers: Suou carries around that anti-tank rifle like it's made of styrofoam, and even shoots it while standing up. She does have to clean it like a real gun, though.
    • The Fragile Speedster from the first episode, as mentioned several times already is notable for lacking almost every required secondary power for his Flash Step ability. Cannot change direction, has no inherent toughness, and gets killed by raindrops... one wonders what his plan was to kill someone since hitting them would shatter his arm.
  • The Rival: Hazuki is set up as a Japanese Catwoman counterpart to Hei's Chinese Batman, down to using the same sort of snap-hooks on occasion.
    • Tanya to Suou.
  • Rogue Protagonist: Since we currently have no idea who all the different groups are or what happened during the Time Skip, Hei appears to be at first. It turns out that it was Yin who went rogue, although her Face Heel Turn was under the influence of an Eldritch Abomination or... something.
  • Sacrificial Lamb: See Back for the Dead. Subverted with Suou's dad; the one Hei killed was actually a copy.
  • Serial Killer: Ilya Sokolov, neatly established a Complete Monster within a couple of minutes of his introduction.
  • Shipper on Deck: Kind of an odd example, but several of Kirihara's co-workers have concluded that her obsession with capturing Hei is actually a manifestation of her being attracted to him. Arguably, this advances a Hei X Kirihara ship.
  • Ship Sinking: After episode 10, good luck Kirihara shippers. Good Luck.
    • Your Mileage May Vary. It introduces more complications, but that particular ship already pretty much required that both parties have their feet nailed to the floor and their weapons taken away to force them to talk their issues out first.
    • It also makes a lot more sense when you realize why Hei took her down so brutally; Madame Oreille had figured out his secondary Berserk Button and was deliberately playing on his Big Brother Instinct towards the kids he'd been protecting. She said "I wonder how Section 3 will treat them?" knowing that his interactions with them were mostly with Hazuki and Genma (not exactly the best impression) and implying that Misaki had captured Suou and July on orders. So Hei didn't just beat Kirihara up to be a jerk, he was really angry and thought she deserved it.
  • Ship Tease: Hei X Yin is heavily implied for the Time Skip, although it still might be a matter of someone misinterpreting his protectiveness issues.
  • Shotacon: Apparently, little boy Dolls are very popular in-universe. Yeeeesh. And considering what's-her-name had been examining July while he was naked, no, there ISN'T a non-horrifying way to interpret that.
    • Genma, of course.
  • Shout-Out: The stock footage of Suou releasing her gun is remarkably similar to Princess Tutu's transformation sequence. Both have lack of clothing, a single long braid of red hair, similar positions, and a dark background.
    • And the Gainax Ending includes a brief segment showing the teenage protagonist in an ideal world where her family is normal and happy and she doesn't have to worry about anything more extreme than getting to school late. Something tells me the creators like Neon Genesis Evangelion...
    • In an Omake chapter in the Interquel, Tanya mentions Ratatouille as an excuse for why someone with the ability to summon swarms of cockroaches should be allowed to cook. No one else is convinced.
    • The way Kobayashi poses in the end of the series with the custom M16A2 rifle is too reminiscent of Golgo 13.
  • Single-Target Sexuality: Misaki (Heisexual)
  • Small Girl, Big Gun: The second season OP prominently features Suou wielding a WWII PTRD antitank rifle. It's 2 meters long, weighs 18 kilograms, uses 14.5x114 cartridges[1], and has a huge recoil despite the ginormous muzzle brake. The only people who shoot it from the hands in Real Life (there were a couple) looked like Space Marines. Suou gaining the Contractor power to materialize this beast and swing it around without regard to weight or recoil is pretty hilarious. The Rule of Cool is a wonderful thing.
    • Shion apparently used a real one in Episode 8, and the custom variant at that, modified due to him being left-handed. He shoot it prone, though, not from the hip as his sister does.
    • Actually, her wielding a gun of that size is not really unbelievable. Think of, that it's her power as Contractor. Despite the fact, that she is no real Contractor anyway but fused with Bai. As Hei gets depowered, Bai moves to the Meteor Core Suou is wearing, giving her the Contractor powers same as she did to Hei in Season 1. (Explains why Suou keeps being emotional, struggles with the mindset she should have as a Contractor and in the end develops a crush on Hei.) You can see that in the scene, where Section 3 hits Hei with the anti-contractor trap and a stream of light hits the Meteor Core. Plus, the weapon materializes itself not from her chest, but from the necklace. If someone can alter reality on quantum level and create an Anti-tank weapon out of nowhere, adjusting the strenght of its wielder is simple.
  • Space Master: August 7 aka "The Magician" used spatial distortions to become functionally intangible to physical attacks and to access his armoury.
  • Spoiler Opening: Suou is shown carrying and then sniping with a anti-tank sniper rifle. Doesn't help the situation that in the second episode (and the first episode to have an opening, as the premier did not) has the aforementioned BFG in the episode, practically screaming Chekhov's Gun.
  • Stalker with a Crush: Kirihara is trying pretty hard, considering that the target of said stalker-crush is a ninja who's not even in the same country.
  • Stalking Is Love: Norio, who even gets called out by his friends as a Lolicon and still gets portrayed as a Dogged Nice Guy.
  • The Stinger
  • Stockholm Syndrome: Suou is basically stuck with Hei, since she's been unpersoned and has no money. Despite the fact that Hei killed her father and mostly acts like a complete Jerkass, especially at the beginning, his Chick Magnet powers are apparently still active, since by the end of the season she's developed a bit of a Precocious Crush on him.
  • Stupid Evil: Genma's habit of being a total bastard just for the hell of it regularly leads him to do things that are just stupid. For instance, when he was supposed to capture Hei, he thought it would be more fun to armor up and try to kill him instead... but since he used the truck he'd been driving for materials, he wound up stranded when Hei jumped on top of a passing car.
  • Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: April
  • Tagalong Kid: July, even more than in the first season.
  • Take That Me: Kiko's comments about introducing comedic characters into a show just when things are starting to get very serious.
  • This Looks Like a Job For Aquaman: The circumstances behind Aprils defeat of Goran fit this. The conditions were ideal for her, as were her opponent's powers.
  • Time Skip: A year or two between seasons.
  • Too Fast to Stop: See also Inertia Is a Cruel Mistress.
  • Took a Level in Badass: April in Season One was pretty much November 11's sidekick. This season, she actually uses her powers in clever and lethal ways. Hell, she even comes close to taking out Hei by summoning a bolus of water around his head.
  • Took a Level in Jerkass: Hei has developed in an unpleasant direction.
  • Training from Hell: Hei puts Suou through this after she becomes a Contractor.
  • Transformation Sequence: Suou has one when she activates her Contractor ability and summons her Big Freaking Gun. It seems to be happening in real time.
  • Transhuman Treachery: Tanya seems to perfectly encapsulate all of the Fantastic Racism stereotypes about the differences between Contractors and normals.
  • Trippy Finale Syndrome: If you thought the first season was bad, the last episode of Gemini will probably leave you unable to say much beyond "Wut."
  • Twelve-Episode Anime
  • Twin Switch: The twins are constantly being mistaken for each other. Near the end of the first episode, Shion told Suou to wear his clothes, claiming she would stand out less, although this just made the people looking for Shion chase after Suou instead, which could very well have been his plan. It's later revealed that the real Suou died eight years ago, and this one is actually Shion's Opposite Gender Clone, further justifying the confusion.
  • Underestimating Badassery: Genma apparently thinks that Hei is "just a gloomy gigolo" when he's not using his powers. Unfortunately for Genma, Hei earned his nickname "Black Reaper" because of how many Contractors he killed even before he had any powers.
  • Unperson: Suou and presumably Nika
  • Wild Hair: Hei, at the beginning of the season. He keeps it tied back later, and eventually cuts it back to its normal length to show He's Back.
  • Wooden Katanas Are Even Better: ...At least when Mina Hazuki turns them into Laser Blades.
  • Wouldn't Hit a Girl: Along with Wouldn't Hurt a Child, this is averted... a lot... by Hei. When Hei feels like being a Jerkass.... he really, really acts like a Jerkass.
  • Writer on Board: This season's vice is alcoholism, although April repeats November 11's famous anti-smoking lecture in the first episode, for old times' sake.
  • You All Look Familiar: Section 3 commandos, their design based from presumably JGSDF forces in season 1.
  • You Need to Get Laid: All of the suggestions that if Kirihara did, she might be less obsessed with catching Hei.
Back to Darker than Black
  1. ↑ heavy machinegun caliber, 1.5x-2.5x energy of .50 Browning depending on the type
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