text: The idea for Darker Than Black came to Okamura while he was creating the anime Wolf's Rain, and was based on his handling of protagonists. The main characters in Wolf's Rain are heroic, unlike the violent protagonists in Darker than Black; Okamura wanted the latter's characters to be flawed, in contrast to those in Wolf's Rain. Darker than Black was the first anime series created by Okamura, who said that it took him several years. As a child he read mangas about ninjas, spies and superheroes, and was particularly influenced by a Shirato Sampei manga about ninjas which helped young readers learn the art of ninja; "the spirit and the atmosphere of the spy series that rocked my childhood", such as The Fugitive, were other influences on Okamura's series. In particular, Okamura wanted a series of ninja to be centered around modern Tokyo. The handling of the two Gates prominent in the series' world building was inspired by Roadside Picnic, a novel by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky.
  Writing
  The bi-episodic structure is based on the experience when Okamura worked as storyboarder in the anime Cowboy Bebop. They have space to dig more on the new characters of each new arc. The series compositor of the first half is Okamura himself, leaving a lot freedom to the writers. The second half, since this original show needs to be put into an end, it is Shōtarō Suga handling the role as his first time being a series compositor. The writer team consists of Shinsuke Onishi, Yuichi Nomura, Suga, Kurasumi Sunayama, and Okamura himself. Okamura wrote first two episodes as the first arc. He wrote them in advance to start off the series. Ohnishi was Okamura's acquaintance in previous works, the latter describes him: offering interesting script without speaking a word. Ohnishi is the most Darker than Black spiritual writer. Every episode with detective comedy is handled by him which is Okamura's original wish to make a 1980s-like Japanese detective story. His stories usually contains a clear theme structured by a thematic line and a complementary line.