dooderu's doodles

More things I love about Darker Than Black’s story-telling when it comes to Hei and Yin, because every time I watch these scenes, my heart bursts.

I love how at the end of Episode 12, Hei looks completely lost. But then, he sees Yin’s spirit.

Yin’s spirit coming to him brings Hei back to himself. It’s ultimately what allows him to pull himself together in time to leave the scene. We even see him thanking Yin for this later.

However, that is not the only time Yin is there to bring Hei back to his senses.

In Episode 16, Hei comes face to face with Amber  — the only main player in his past alongside his sister and a woman he may or may not have loved. Yet, what are we shown?

When Hei is about to lash out, Yin instinctively calls out to him  — No!

And Hei immediately reacts. He looks up, surprised, at the sound of her voice  — and it is then that he is frozen in time.

How fitting is it that we have Amber staring right at him  — yet Hei is frozen, looking at Yin?

It’s absolutely fantastic imagery, but what it symbolizes is much bigger than that. Amber essentially represents a way for Hei to go back to all the people he has lost, yet as he faces her, he looks beyond her at the girl who will ultimately represent the choice he makes at the end of the series.

But before we get there, of course, we have this:

(The post is image-heavy and has spoilers for the first season, the manga, the OVAs and the second-season-that-must-not-be-named.)

Over 2,000 likes on this post??? WTF 😭

and "a shy gentle girl whose ultimate dream is to live a simple cottagecore life while wearing ankle-length grandma skirts and cozy pink cardigans"

This scene was special to me because while we could say a lot about Jinshi blushing because he’s startled or MaoMao’s purely clinical concern for his health, I think there’s also an interesting dual perspective going on here.

When MaoMao strips to keep from catching cold she says that she’ll keep her undergarments on cause even though it’s “just a set of skinny ribs” she’d like to conceal what she can. To me, even though it’s a small comment, that came across like she finds herself so unappealing and thin. Switch to when she’s checking Jinshi for fever.

He blushes and looks at her. We then get this image of her from his eyes and it’s not an impression of a young woman who’s frail with skinny ribs, to him she’s beautiful. Slight but pretty. We’re meant to know he’s taken with her. All this is about how the other perceives themselves. MaoMao sees herself as thin from being a working class girl but Jinshi perceives her as lovely. Jinshi sees his beauty as a tool but MaoMao, while acknowledging it, moves past it to the man underneath who needs her care and concern.