Darker Than Black/OVA Tropes

Non-character trope listings for the Darker Than Black OVA.

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

Tropes used in Darker Than Black/OVA Tropes include:

• Avenging the Villain: One of the Siblings in Crime in the second episode tries to kill the person he knows killed his sister and believes killed his brother as well. Amigiri shows up and takes him out before he can do it.
• Big Damn Heroes: The end of the second episode. Two of the villains are down and Hei is passed out from Post Dramatic Stress Disorder (and probably blood loss) when the last one comes in with murder on his mind. Amigiri and some other EPR survivors swoop in to the rescue at the last second.
• Bishonen: Claude.
• Catapult Nightmare: Hei, near the beginning of the first episode.
  • And again in the third.
• Cat Scare: Proving just how much this show loves the trope, "Amber" brushes off the touch of Yin's observation ghost as a reaction to the sound of a nearby cat.
• Ceiling Cling: Hei, of course. Justified in that said ceiling was really just a network of tangled-up pipes, so staying up there wouldn't be that hard.
• Death Glare: If looks could kill, the guy who made a crack about taking advantage of Yin would be a faint smear of ash on the wall. Angry Hei is scary.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: The Dragon Lady Gravity Master in the second OVA has the remuneration of removing clothing. So when she's using her ability to keep Hei pinned to the floor for a while, it makes it look like she's preparing to molest him.
• Dragon Lady: It's official-- in the DtB universe, Chinese People are some sort of master race.
• Dropped a Bridget On Him: On Hei by the fake Amber that is actually a male shapeshifter. Quoth a poster on the Random Curiosity anime site, "It's a trap!"
  • Twice. You'd think after that first time, he would have been a bit more suspicious to see a captive Yin sitting alone and unattended, but no.
• Foregone Conclusion: Given that it's an interquel between the first and second season, it's pretty clear how it will end. Yin's Super-Powered Evil Side will take over, and Hei will become a drunken wreck.
• Gravity Mistress: The unnamed Dragon Lady who very handily took Hei down. Not Yin, though.
• Hope Spot: Yin declared a place they were hiding to be safe and it was starting to look like they could stay there for a while. Then "Amber" showed up.
  • And again in the third one, this time on a broader scale. Amigiri had gathered a bunch of survivors of Evening Primrose and Contractors on the run from the Syndicate in a hidden safehouse community. Hei actually smiled. Naturally, Claude killed pretty much all of them to get to Yin.
• Humanoid Abomination: Izanami. Made worse by the fact that she's basically Yin.
• Idiot Ball: Seriously, Hei. You know you're up against a guy who can create illusions. Why do you keep falling for this?
• Interquel
• Just a Flesh Wound: Apparently a foot-long spar of wood through the shoulder doesn't slow you down once you've managed to pull it out.
  • Hei also stabs himself in the arm to break through a Master of Illusion's hold on his mind. He doesn't even have a bandage in the episode after.
• Living MacGuffin
• Master of Illusion: Claude, or "Amber". His powers also give him control of his victim's body.
• Mind Screw: What the hell is Izanami, anyway? On the plus side, Hei seems to be just as confused about it as we are, and it still manages to clear up a few things in the second season.
• Nightmare Sequence: The first three episodes start with one composed of about half flashback and about half Izanami-related weirdness.
• Not Herself: Yin starts actually talking, saying more in a couple of minutes than she had the entire rest of the show combined and being a bit of a jerk about it. And then it turns out she doesn't remember saying anything...
• One Person, One Power
• Paper Cutting
• Post Dramatic Stress Disorder
• Psychotic Smirk: Izanami. Very creepy.
• Say My Name
• Ship Tease: Bucketloads of Hei/Yin, though it still isn't explicit how much past "Morality Pet" their relationship goes.
• Shout-Out: Potentially; Izanami/Yin bears a striking resemblance to Anti-spiral!Nia from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.
  • Yin also looks like Anya from Code Geass.
• Siblings in Crime: The two burly Chinese twin Contractors and their Dragon Lady sister.
• Smug Snake: Claude, Claude, Claude.
• The Stinger
• Social Darwinist: Claude seems to have come up with Amber's philosophy independently, but without most of the intelligence and sense for the Necessarily Evil.
• Stripperiffic: Quite literally--the Dragon Lady's remuneration is to remove articles of clothing, so she deliberately wears lots of jewelry along with loose dresses that are easy to remove.
• Super-Powered Evil Side: Yin's starts to assert itself here.
• Trauma Conga Line: The ending seems to be intended to try to convince fans still bitter about Hei's second-season characterization that yes, our hero has been through enough crap to change his personality radically. Whether this works is hard to say, but he certainly got enough emotional damage for a lifetime.
• Underestimating Badassery: "The Black Reaper's death is going to have to wait until later." I think we can all guess how that turned out.
• The Worf Effect: Hei had to be saved twice by Yin when he was almost killed by a Master of Illusion and a gravity mistress.
  • Not that he didn't show problems with the latter type before....