Darker Than Black II, Episodes 5 and 6: Gunpowder Smoke Drifting Away, Life Drifting Away and The Smell is Sweet, the Heart is Bitter

My apologies for the ridiculously long post title. I've finally been able to sit down and get all caught up on Darker Than Black II. Since episodes 5 and 6 are where I really fell in love with this anime's first season, I was pretty psyched to watch these two. It didn't quite live up to the awesomeness that was November 11's introduction, but it was throughly entertaining nonetheless.


These episodes still dealt with dark subject matter, of course, but they didn't have the ugliness of the last one. They did a great job giving several characters really humanizing scenes, even ones that I haven't considered to be major players. There was also plenty of intrigue and some callback to the events of last season. Though I've always been a fan of the music on this show, I really need to add how impressed I was with how well it set the mood in these episodes, 5 especially. I wish more animes would use music this well.

They've really set things up for some great episodes here. I hope that the show continues to live up to my high expectations. I also want to remind people once again that there are scenes after the show's credits that they probably won't want to miss, especially the last one.

Rating: 91/100