Gai Kurusawa

“I hate this season. The weather sucks up all the slime and filth in the streets and pours it back down on ya. But then, that’s what this city’s all about. Name’s Gai Kurasawa, private eye. I’ve spent my life in this concrete merry-go-round watching the same crimes play out year after year, like a jukebox with only one, sad song. It’s a city with no one to trust, and no one to love, where cigarette butts are the only ass you get.”
— Gai vents a little

GAI KURUSAWA (formerly Gai Matsukich) quit the Tokya police department to set up his own detective agency, and appears as a recurring character — often used as comic relief — in the popular sci-fi/fantasy anime series Darker Than Black. You can tell he’s a private eye because he drinks and smokes too much, is prone to cynical, world weary wisecracks, sports a fedora and trench coat when he’s outside, and his office has venetian blinds. He even has a young assistant, the mango-obsessed Kiko Kayanuma, to keep an eye on him.

But mostly he’s there to riff on the all the P.I. tropes the writers can think of. And so he uses some pretty peculiar methods of detection, is deathly afraid of cats, has dubious hygiene habits, and is usually struggling financially. Then again, despite being Japan’s “number one detective,” he’s not the star of the show — as I said, he’s just part of the large cast of supporting characters.

The basic premise of Darker Than Black is that ten years ago, a hole in the sky, now known as “Heaven’s Gate,” appeared in South America, shortly followed after by the opening of matching “Hell’s Gate” in Tokyo, screwing up the sky and generally messing up things. Stars disappeared, and were replaced by new ones, while people, referred to as “Contractors,” began to develop assorted special, supernatural powers, and a new superpower, the mysterious Syndicate, assumes control of the world. Only a rogue Chinese contractor codenamed “Hei” stands in their way.

No, I don’t get it either.

But Darker Than Black proved quite popular, appearing in Japanese, English, German and Korean versions. Itwas subsequently adapted into several manga series, and was serialized in Monthly Asuka and in Young Gangan.