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Episode Summary

After a brief shot of a girl standing in water, we’re moved to a city, where a man is running on rooftops. He comes to a stop on a building that police have gathered, and he’s asked to stop. Not only does he not stop, but he turns around and causes one of the police officers to go flying into the air. Then he himself goes flying into the air, and escapes. One of the policemen refers to him as a Contractor while he’s escaping.

He stops on another rooftop some distance away. He sees a black cat run by, and is almost immediately ambushed by a man in black wearing a mask. He makes the man fly away like he did to the cop earlier, but the man is prepared with a grappling hook, which he uses to tether himself to the building and to subdue the Contractor. He asks him questions about a woman and the “stuff”, while getting recon info from a young-looking mysterious girl. What almost sounds like a voice in his head (different voice effect than the girl over the radio) stops him from killing the Contractor, and he leaves. The police show up, and find him seemingly dead from shock anyway.

The police discuss the matter, and the fact that they know nothing about the masked man that was there. It seems as though they are part of a division on the police force that specifically cater to these sorts of cases. They also talk about a missing girl who has studied the effects of Hell’s Gate. A follow-up internal monologue from the female cop conveniently explains that some unknown catastrophic event lead authorities to have built a wall around the city. They call the wall Hell’s Gate.

Meanwhile, a guy with hair that looks suspiciously like the masked man’s hair makes his way to the house of the landlady at the apartment complex that he’s moving into. After being mistaken for a tv repair man and somehow fixing the woman’s LCD tv by smacking the side of it, the guy identifies himself as Lee Shanshun, an exchange student from China. On the way into the apartment, he briefly meets a woman that the landlady introduces as Haraguchi-san. The woman doesn’t say anything, and just walks away looking kind of sad.

The scene switches to a gentleman’s club, and two of the policemen from earlier are talking to two of the girls that work at the club. One of the two girls, who is referred to as Ayame-chan, is Haraguchi from the apartments. After her shift is over, the policemen reveal that they’re there to look for the woman they were talking about earlier. They spot Haraguchi leaving while looking at them suspiciously, and give chase.

Haraguchi runs to a nearby park to try to lose them, and meets up with Lee, who is looking at the stars through a telescope. Lee sees the two cops chasing her, and decides to help her. He drapes his coat around her, holds her against a tree, and kisses her. The cops see them, but can’t tell that the woman is her and move on. Lee then realizes what he just did, and apologizes in an embarrassed manner. They talk briefly about his telescope, and Haraguchi asks why he looks at the stars even though all the ones that can be seen from the city are fake. Lee doesn’t answer. They both realise that they met each other earlier that day, and Haraguchi runs off again after thanking Lee for his help.

Haraguchi runs into an alley, and hides behind a box to let the cops run past again. Obviously they found her again. After the cops run past, someone comes up to her from behind and scares her. He says “It’s Jean,” and that seems to be enough to calm her down. It seems she knows Jean. It also seems they both knew Louis, the contractor from earlier in the episode. They talk about Haraguchi having something that they only refer to as “it”, and that Haraguchi isn’t supposed to tell anyone other than Louis where it is. When she says this, Jean gets angry and tries to drug her, but he gets hit in the back of the head by Lee. Lee grabs her hand and runs away.

They run to a railroad bridge, where Haraguchi tells Lee to leave her and run. He doesn’t, and Jean shows up through a glowing portal in a stone pillar. Haraguchi says something about light from the Russel Effect. Seems she knows a little bit about contractors. Jean attacks Lee, and manages to throw him over the railing just as a train passes by. Thinking that he’s dead, he attacks Haraguchi again, drugging her.

After showing a quick scene with the mystery girl from earlier in the episode, we see Haraguchi waking up in a room. Also in the room is Jean and two other men. They tell her that Louis is dead, and that he was a Contractor. Jean asks about Lee, and she assures him that she just met him that day. She then tries to escape, but there’s an electric lock on the door.

The scene quickly cuts to the mystery girl again, her feet dangling in water. There are ripples around her ankles, as though something’s moving. Back in the room, a drop from the sink into water makes one of the men “feel something.” Just after, the power goes out and the lock on the door shorts out, allowing Haraguchi to escape. The men give chase, but the alley is narrow and they can only go one at a time. A black cat conveniently attacks the first man out, slowing all three of them down. They decide that her escape was not an accident, because of the level of security on the lock. Haraguchi gets away, and meets up with Lee again by chance. Lee smiles at her, seemingly glad that she’s ok. She nearly faints, and Lee catches her. She hugs him, starts to cry, and the ending starts.

Characters

Lee Shashun and Hei

Eurkos: Lee Shanshun seems like a normal person. He’s a little shy, he’s polite, and he likes looking at the stars. Hei is a typical anit-hero type of character. He doesn’t mince words, and isn’t afraid to rough people up in order to get answers. It seems that seeing Contractors makes him angry, and he has to be all but physically restrained to keep from killing Rui. While the show hasn’t come out and say it just yet, I’m all but positive that Lee Shanshun and Hei are the same person. It seemed more than coincidental that he was in the right place at the right time three times in a row while he was helping Haraguchi escape. There are also links to the watcher spirit the Jean mentioned when they heard the water drip, because there was something watching Rui from a bucket of water on the rooftop. There was also the cat on the roof and the cat in the alley. I’m interested to see what his deal is. I wonder why he hates Contractors so much.

Chiaki Shinoda and Ayame Haraguchi

Eurkos: It’s even more obvious to me that these two are the same person. She was the one that suggested that the guys in the club were detectives, which they were. She also was quick to run when they asked her to stop. And then there was the comment about the Russel Effect. She seems to me like someone who would’ve been researching Contractors and Hell’s Gate. I’m interested in knowing what got her from the girl in the picture to the girl she is now, and why she went into hiding. I’m also interested in what information she has. I think that the woman Louis and Hei were talking about in the beginning is her, and I wonder why Hei and Jean both seem to want whatever information she’s got.

Yin

Eurkos: The only thing we know about Yin is that she has something to do with Hei, really. I want to know more about her. I don’t think she’s a normal person, but I dunno if she’s a Contractor or not. I’m sure we’ll find out eventually. She seems to be quiet and subdued. I’d be willing to bet that she will act cold to people other than Hei, if she doesn’t act cold to Hei, too.

Misaki Kirihara

Eurkos: She seems like a strong person. She doesn’t like the fact that they have no information on the person that attacked Louis, and probably likes even less that someone got to him before they could catch him. I’m not as interested in her at this point, but hopefully she and the rest of her department will play more into it later.

Jean

Eurkos: We don’t really know a lot about Jean, except that he’s got some sort of plan for something and that it requires information that Haraguchi knows. It seems that he was keeping the fact that he is a Contractor from Haraguchi, and was only pretending to be her friend until he knew that she wouldn’t willingly tell him what he wants to know. I’m more interested in Hei and Yin at this point, but I’m sure Jean will be important as the series goes on.

Storyline Thoughts

Eurkos: There are a lot of possible ways this series can go, and I like that. This is one of the few shows I’ve watched so far this season where I can’t predict what’s coming. It seems like it’ll have a decent level of mystery, which is something this season is lacking. I’m looking forward to finding out more about the setting, as well as more about the characters. I am very much interested in why the wall is there, and why it made Contractors.

Final Verdict

Eurkos: This one is easily into the 6 episode test. The animation is top-notch, the action scenes are done well, and they did a great job making an atmosphere in my opinion. I’m interested in the story as well, which is a definite plus. I’m looking forward to more.